‘But how exactly can I be of assistance, mademoiselle? In what appears to be really nothing more than a domestic . . .’ began Gastal, already scenting a new source of information, but playing down his interest.
‘As you may know, Chief Inspector, the family Cabrille is not without its little secrets. Out of respect for Arsène, out of love and loyalty, I have kept my own counsel, turned a blind eye to many of the things I have seen and heard when maybe I should have . . .’ That smile again, soft and scolding. ‘But now, now that Arsène is gone, now that I have been so cruelly used, it is perhaps the time to . . .’
Gastal leaned forward, a thin smile stealing across his lips. Glancing over her shoulder, he spotted Peluze in the squad room talking to Laganne. ‘One of you,’ he called out, ‘some coffee for the mademoiselle . . .’
57
NOW JACQUOT KNEW FOR CERTAIN.
Elodie was there.
In Marseilles.
The hairclip confirmed it.
Or if not Marseilles, then L’Estaque, or Montredon, or Madrague, or any of the city’s outlying fringes, and more than likely near the coast, close to water, waiting to be shipped away.
As he and Marie-Ange dropped down towards the old port in her 2CV, he felt a stir of excitement. Things were really beginning to move now.
‘Did you believe me?’ asked Marie-Ange, as he skirted round Quai des Belges. ‘When I showed you the hairclip?’
‘It helped when Madame Bonnefoy recognised it,’ he said with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m a cop, Marie-Ange. I like proof. We may work on hunches a lot of the time, but somewhere along the line we need something tangible, like a hairclip.’
‘So what are we going to do now?’
‘I’m going to drop you at Fleurs des Quais, and then, with your permission, I’m going to borrow your car.’
‘To do what, exactly?’
‘To pay a call on your friend, the one from last night. Blondie.’
‘And find out what he knows about Scarface?’
‘That’s correct,’ said Jacquot, rattling the 2CV over a set of tramlines and onto a stretch of cobbles that set up a dull, corresponding pain in the back of his head.
‘You’ll let me know what happens? It’s my car, after all.’
Jacquot drew up at the flower shop. ‘I will let you know what happens. I promise.’
‘I finish at six. You can pick me up.’
Caught off guard, he demurred. ‘I can’t say when . . .’
‘Six will be fine. That gives you easily enough time. Or you can’t have the car.’ Before he could do anything, she reached across and slipped the keys from the ignition. ‘There. Now what are you going to do?’ she asked, and gave him a triumphant look.
With a smile, he gave in. ‘Six o’clock then. Or thereabouts.’
‘Six on the dot,’ she said, handing him back the keys. ‘Or I’ll call the cops and report the car stolen.’
With a wave and a crunch of gears, Jacquot pulled out from the kerb, joined the traffic and headed back the way he had come, turning off along Rive Neuve, accelerating past the sloping grey walls of Fort d’Entrecasteaux and out on to the Corniche, feeling good – almost noble – that he’d resisted the impulse to snoop in Marie-Ange’s apartment. He would have felt ashamed now had he done so.
Yet he had to admit the impulse was still there. To find out about her. To understand her. To know her better. Just a few months earlier they had spent some time together, and he tried now to remember what he had learned. It was slim pickings. Back then she had worked for an agency – he couldn’t remember the name – and maybe she still did, moving around the country to work in flower shops or nurseries, filling in for absent staff, or owners who were taking a holiday, or attending court like the Chaberts in St Bédard. She came originally from Alsace, he recalled. Had worked with the police there, in Metz. Murder tricked out as suicide, something along those lines, and she had seen through it. Or rather, pointed the police in the right direction.
As for St Bédard, the part she had played in the investigation had started, he remembered, with letters, anonymous letters that had echoed his own misgivings about the case, from Ile-de-France, from Brittany, from Poitou-Charente – letters from the various garden centres and florists where she’d worked before coming to the Luberon. And that’s where they’d first met, at a murder scene, introducing themselves where blood had been spilt. On that first occasion she had talked to him of orchids and he could recall the easy familiarity with which their full latin names had trickled off her tongue, the guided tour she’d given him in that distant hot-house, and her gentle flirting.
That first time they’d met she’d been out riding and was wearing jodhpurs, a scent of grass and sun and horse and flowers drifting off her. Not easy to forget. Such a pretty girl, he thought. No, he reconsidered, not pretty, beautiful. Quite simply beautiful. And single too. No ring on her finger. No sign of a man in her life. Nothing male in her apartment, no photos on the fridge or the dressing-table. (It wasn’t snooping to notice such small things, surely?)
For a moment Jacquot felt his age, and a regretful flush of dis -appointment that she was beyond his reach. He was too old, for God’s sake. He could be her father – just. And anyway there was Claudine, who meant more to him than . . . But still, Dieu, he was a man too, he had eyes and a pulse, and Marie-Ange Buhl was one of the most beautiful creatures he had seen, stood close to, touched. He’d even slept in her bed . . .
And, truth to tell, he had to admit he’d never really got her out of his head. Not since St Bédard. The way she’d just left like that – no forwarding address, no contact number. Just . . . gone. Out of his life. He’d felt bad about that. Not cross, just . . . unsettled. And a few months later, here she was again. Back in his life.
By now Jacquot had reached Montredon and was looking for the apartment block where Christophe Petitjean lived, checking the address Solange Bonnefoy had given him. He found the place at last, a sixties housing block, its four balconied floors set on concrete pillars, the space beneath used as a residents’ car park. Since he didn’t have a card to raise the barrier, he had to park two streets away and walk back in the pelting rain.
He checked the bells for one marked ‘Petitjean’ but found only ‘Christophe’. Fourth floor. He didn’t ring, just put his shoulder to the glass entry doors and gave a shove. It had worked before and, with a complaining glassy shriek from the automatic lock, it worked again.
There were six doors on the fourth floor, reached along an open walkway with fine views of the chalky hills rising above Montredon. Another block was currently under construction across a patch of weedy open ground. Just the fenced foundations were in place, but given the slope of the land it was clear the current view would be lost when the building was completed.
Petitjean’s was the last door on the walkway. He answered Jacquot’s knock in T-shirt, shorts and a dressing gown. He looked as though he’d just got up which, given his night-time activities, wasn’t all that surprising. His blue eyes looked weary, his blond hair stood up in tufts, and the only thing that looked bright about him was a sparkling diamond ear stud.
He was just about to ask who the hell his visitor was when Jacquot slammed his fist in the man’s face. Petitjean staggered back and crumpled on to a low sofa, his hands clutching his bleeding broken nose.
58
CHECKING THE WALKWAY AND CLOSING the door behind him, unable to tell whether his knuckles hurt more than his head, Jacquot wasted no time in getting to work. In short order, and with very little opposition, he’d hauled Christophe Petitjean off the sofa and on to a kitchen chair, binding his legs and arms with the man’s dressing gown cord and a couple of belts he found in the single bedroom – a mess of newspapers, coffee mugs, pizza delivery boxes and old clothes strewn about a tumbled, grubby bed. When he was satisfied that his prisoner was secure, Jacquot went behind the breakfast bar, filled the kettle with water and switched it on.
‘You want a coffee, man, all you
gotta do is ask,’ said Petitjean, coming round, tipping back his head and snorting up the blood. He knew he was in trouble, and he knew there wasn’t much he could do about it.
‘It’s not for coffee,’ Jacquot told him, and pulled out a chair for himself, sitting in front of Petitjean. ‘Just think of it as encouragement.’
Petitjean frowned.
‘So let’s start with last night. Bar Dantès. You and your chum.’
‘Bar Dantès?’
There was a click from the kettle in the kitchen.
‘Hey, you know what? That kettle’s fast. The water’s already boiled.’
Petitjean watched Jacquot go to the kitchen and lift the kettle from its base. The water was bubbling, spitting from the spout. Jacquot came back to Petitjean and poured a stream of it on to his bare knee.
‘Merde! What the fuck’re you doin’, man?’ he screamed, trying to buck the chair and himself away from the boiling water.
‘If you don’t answer my questions, I’ll do it higher up.’
‘You a cop? What is this?’
‘Would a cop do this?’ asked Jacquot, and he spilt some more scalding water on to the other knee.
‘Okay, okay. Jesus Christ! All right. Bar Dantès . . . I was there. Meeting up with a friend.’
‘And the friend’s name?’ Jacquot poured another stream of boiling water between the man’s feet, letting it spatter and steam off the lino floor.
‘Xavier something. That’s all I know. Xavier . . . He works for Murat.’
‘Murat?’
‘Murat Santarem. Lives up on Bandole, with his old mother.’
‘And what did you sell this Xavier?’
‘Drugs, of course. Drugs.’
‘What kind of drugs?’
‘Hey, man, just drugs, you know? Some hash, some coke . . .’
‘In a carrier bag?’ Jacquot shook his head and smiled, reaching out to angle more water on to the inside of Petitjean’s thigh.
‘Okay, okay. Some other stuff, too. Zopamyn. Promazyl. A few boxes.’
‘And they are?’
‘Tranqs, downers. Strong stuff. Benzodiazepines. Bennies, you know? Prescription stuff.’
‘And what do they do?’ asked Jacquot, already with a pretty good idea what they’d be used for.
‘Hey, man, they put you out. Like a light.’
Jacquot felt a beat of excitement. He was closing in. He knew it.
‘And what would our friend Xavier want with something like that – and in that quantity?’
‘Hey, I supply. I don’t ask questions.’
‘He a regular customer, this Xavier?’
‘Now and then, this and that.’
‘You know where he hangs out?’
Petitjean squirmed against his bindings. Jacquot raised the kettle.
‘One time I delivered to a place in the Fifth. Rue Artemis?’
‘And what about this Murat? He a customer too?’
Petitjean nodded. ‘Every month or so, the same stuff. Bit of blow now and then. Xavier usually does the pick-up.’
‘So the drugs are for Murat?’
‘Yeah . . . maybe. I dunno.’
‘You got a number for Murat? Up on Bandole.’
‘Shit, I sell drugs, man. I don’t read meters, you know what I’m sayin’?’
‘Describe him.’
‘Tall, good-looking guy. Arab, right? Mid thirties. Black curly hair. Great smile, you know?’
‘You got a phone number for them?’
Petitjean shook his head. ‘Like I say, I’m a dealer. They phone me. I deliver. C’est tout.’
Jacquot nodded, pushed back the chair and took the kettle back to the galley kitchen. ‘You got any of those drugs here – the Zopamyn and Promazyl? The hash. Maybe some coke?’
Petitjean seemed to perk up, as though he sensed a sale. ‘In the bedroom, under the bedside rug. There’s a loose board.’
Five minutes later Jacquot was back in the kitchen with two supermarket carrier bags packed with an assortment of pills, hash, grass and what appeared to be wraps of cocaine.
He emptied out the bags of coke and grass on the floor around Petitjean, stacked the pillboxes in a pyramid on the breakfast counter, then picked up the phone and dialled a number.
‘What you doin’, man?’
‘Calling some friends,’ he replied. And then: ‘Police Nationale? I just found a load of drugs. Everything. A huge amount. And a dealer to go with them. He’s in a pretty bad way, I’m afraid . . .’
‘Oh, man,’ wailed Petitjean, as Jacquot gave them the address and put the phone down. ‘Oh, what you go and do something like that for?’
‘To save a young girl, you little piece of shit!’ And before he could even think about what he was doing Jacquot swung at Petitjean a second time, sinking his fist into the man’s cheek, loosening teeth with a satisfying crunch and sending him tipping backwards in his chair.
Working undercover certainly had its advantages, he thought as he closed the door behind him.
59
THE TALL POINTED RAILINGS IN the wrought-iron gates of the Cabrille mansion in Roucas Blanc were bound with swatches of black and purple silk, the lowest branches of the lime trees that lined the drive were hung with black and purple pennants dripping tearfully in the rain, and the sills of each window of the stuccoed villa from which Arsène Cabrille had run his empire were similarly embellished. On each panel of the double front doors was an oval wreath of black-sprayed laurel collaring the tightly packed heads of a hundred white rosebuds, and standing in the driveway was a glass-sided hearse, its etched-glass sides spattered with raindrops, four purple-plumed black stallions whickering and pawing at the gravel.
Guillermo Ribero had never seen anything like it. Here was death as drama and spectacle, grief on a grand scale: something he had only seen on television before – the funerals of De Gaulle, Princess Diana. As he climbed the steps to the pillared portico, past a group of frock-coated undertakers in sashed top-hats sheltering from the rain, and stepped through the front doors, Guillermo wished he’d thought to put on a dark suit rather than the tan leather jacket he was wearing. He hadn’t expected such a send-off for that old cutthroat Cabrille, and had limited his mourning dress to a black armband and thin black tie.
The summons to Maison Cabrille had come a little before midday. Guillermo had been at his quayside office, going through arrangements with Citron and the skipper of the Hesperides. It now looked certain that the strike would be over by Sunday and Citron reported that the Chamant quay, where their freighter was moored, had been set for unloading first thing Monday morning. Dope off, girls on. All being well the ship and her new cargo would sail Monday night, or Tuesday morning at the latest. Within a month Guillermo’s bank account would be bulging again, but right now there was a lot to be done, and not much time to do it. But when had it ever been any different in Marseilles, or in his line of work?
The most pressing of his problems was Murat Santarem. Despite a dozen phone calls there had been no answer. If he couldn’t finalise arrangements for an exchange, the deal was off and Murat could sing. Guillermo would leave it a few months, then find someone else to provide the goods.
When the phone rang on his desk Guillermo had expected to hear Murat’s voice, finally returning his calls. Instead it was one of the Cabrille boys – Tomas, Taddeus, one or the other – to let him know that Virginie Cabrille wanted to see him.
For a second or two Guillermo had felt a frisson of dread. He might never have met the lady, but he knew as well as anyone what La Mam’selle was capable of; when it came to handing it out, rumour had it that the Corsicans were school kids in comparison. But following that initial chill there came, too, a sense that he was safe. If they’d wanted him killed, it would have happened here in his office, or on his way home, or in his bed. Not at Maison Cabrille where he was asked to present himself that afternoon, to talk about the family fleet and future cargoes. A new boss was always trouble, of course, bu
t as the time for the meeting drew near Guillermo had persuaded himself that things would continue as they always had done. In the four years he’d been handling the Marseilles end of the Cabrilles’ trading fleet, there’d never been a single set-back in the smooth running of the operation. Hundreds of millions of francs worth of A-list merchandise passing through his port, his offices, and never so much as a sniff or a whisper from Customs or Gendarmerie.
Guillermo had met the old man on just two occasions – a gallery opening on rue Grignan and a race meeting at Parc Borély – a sly cadaverous-looking bastard if ever there was one, with flinty pirate’s eyes, sunken cheeks and scalpel-cut lips. But this was the first time he’d been summoned to the house. As one of the Corsican brothers crossed the hallway to greet him and show him through to the main salon, Guillermo straightened his tie and rolled his shoulders. Double doors were opened and the Corsican ushered him through into an Empire-style salon.
A fire had been lit in the marble hearth and the room smelt of resin and woodsmoke. Virginie Cabrille stood beside the fire, taller than he’d expected, dressed in a black trouser suit, her short black hair parted to one side like a choirboy’s. Her hand, when she offered it to him, felt strong and cold.
‘It is kind of you to come,’ she said, sliding her arm through his and leading him to a pair of high-backed battened chesterfields. She took one, he the other. Through the window and across a terrace Guillermo could see white waves crashing silently against the stony shores of Château d’If and the Frioul Islands.
‘I am only sorry that it is in such sorrowful circumstances, madem -oiselle,’ replied Guillermo, taking in the old oak panelling, the damask drapes, a dusty pink Persian rug that revealed only a narrow border of floorboards, and a large ormolu desk set beneath a group of Corsican landscapes. The old man’s study, for sure, the style and furnishings too old and weighty for the slim young woman sitting opposite him.
As he made himself comfortable, Guillermo felt an unexpected surge of confidence. Suddenly at ease, with an increasing sense that this was more than just a planning meeting, he suspected there were surprises in store for him. Promotion, perhaps. His record surely spoke for itself, and now the new boss was recognising his past efforts and rewarding them. He was right.
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