‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ she asked, not taking her eyes off the road.
‘Go ahead.’
‘I mean, when you do what you’re doing, working undercover like this, how do you manage it? Or rather, what does your family . . .’ she took a breath, peered ahead as though she had seen something ‘ . . . what does your wife think about it all? Being away from home. The risks. Or don’t you tell her?’ She gave a little chuckle, as though to lighten the mood, and hoped that her questions had come out the right way. Despite her best intentions, she found she needed to know if he was married. Or had a girlfriend. There was no ring on his finger, but then he was working undercover – another man, another history.
Jacquot, looking ahead, was silent for a moment. ‘I am not married,’ he replied. ‘Not yet, at any rate.’ And then, leaning forward, pointing, ‘Here, the next turning to the right. Do you see it? There.’
And that was that. Whether he recognised her questions for what they were, and was using the directions to sidestep her probing, or had not really been listening, she couldn’t say. What she did feel, as she pulled up at the end of the narrow impasse that Jacquot directed her to, pointing out where to park in front of a ten-foot high wall of rock, was that she still didn’t have the whole story. A man like him, he couldn’t be alone, surely? Or maybe he was. He’d just told her he wasn’t married, but what did he mean by ‘not yet’? That he was about to be? Any day now? Or ‘not yet’ as in not at all? She was certain there’d been someone in his life back in St Bédard, but was she there still?
The questions buzzing around in her head stopped the moment Marie-Ange opened her door and stepped from the car, as the scent of the sea flew into her nostrils, filled her head. Sharp, salty, raw and briny. She closed her eyes and drew it in.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Jacquot, coming round the back of the Citroën, past its slanting boot. ‘You’re not . . .?’
‘Having one of my moments? Mais non, je regrette.’ She looked up at him and smiled. ‘It’s just the smell. The sea. It’s so strong, so . . . glorious. Where have you brought me?’
‘Like I said. Somewhere special. And to someone special, too. Over here,’ he said, and putting a hand into the small of her back, exerting the gentlest pressure, he directed her to the right. Five steps on he leant ahead of her, his chest brushing her shoulder, pushed open a slatted gate and waved her through into a narrow stepped passage that cut through the rock. ‘When you get to the end, turn left,’ he said from behind her, ‘but watch your footing. If the waves are high, it can get slippery.’
At the end of the passage, Marie-Ange did as she was told and stepped out on to a broad platform of rock set between the sea and the high buttressed edge of the Corniche maybe fifteen metres above them. Because of the fog, the sound of passing traffic was distant, muted, and the sea, invisible, somewhere below and to her right, did no more than slap and suck and gurgle lazily at the rocks and fill the air with its scent. As far as she could judge, she was in a small cove on the Malmousque Head, somewhere along the rocky shore between Vallon des Auffes and the bay of Fausse Monnaie.
She was about to turn and ask Jacquot, when a rough-sounding voice shouted out: ‘C’est toi, Daniel? Are you here at last?’
75
‘C’EST MOI, SALETTE,’ said Jacquot, stepping past Marie-Ange as a figure loomed out of the fog – not as tall as Jacquot, she could see, as the two men embraced, but powerfully built, filling every centimetre of a thick blue roll-neck sweater, his trousers a stiff and stained cream cotton, leather sandals buckled at the heel and slapping against the stone. He was older, too, this Salette. Much older. Old enough to be Jacquot’s father.
Turning back to her, Jacquot made the introductions and Marie-Ange felt her hand taken in a great warm paw and lifted to the old man’s lips, her knuckles close enough to brush the stubble on his chin.
‘Marie-Ange, Marie-Ange! Even in this poor light, and with these old eyes, I can see that you live up to your name,’ he told her gallantly. ‘Et bienvenue, chère mademoiselle, to the headquarters of La Confrérie des Vieux Pecheurs et Autres Hommes de Gloire,’ he continued, turning his back on Jacquot, sliding his arm round her waist and drawing her forward. ‘We meet here, the Brotherhood, every Sunday, fog or no fog. But when it rains or the sea is high we adjourn to a small boîte back across the Corniche. Otherwise you find us as we are, as it should be for men like us.’
As far as Marie-Ange could make out, still stepping carefully through the gloom, these so-called headquarters comprised nothing more than a number of split-cane panels lashed to four iron girders sticking out from the face of the rock, unused remnants of past road construction, she guessed. The leading edge of this lean-to, makeshift roof was hung with a string of bare low-wattage bulbs, like a poor man’s Christmas decoration, and dimly illuminated beneath it were four foldaway metal tables drawn into a square and set with plastic stacking chairs. As she came in under the cane roof, Marie-Ange could smell the woody scent of burning vine cuttings and made out a griddle set against the rock face, its bed of embers glowing a faint orange against the stone.
‘Mes confrères,’ called Salette, guiding her forward. ‘Allow me to introduce our guest for today, Marie-Ange.’
There was a scraping of chair legs as three men, old fishermen by the look of them, rose just far enough from their seats to let it be known that they understood the niceties, sitting back down with a murmur of, ‘Mam’selle, bonjour, bienvenue.’ Two of them were playing backgammon at a corner of the table-square, a third had obviously been sitting with Salette before they arrived, while a fourth, working at the griddle, turned to wave a greeting. She couldn’t help but wonder how many women ever came here; not many, she would have guessed.
‘That’s Bruno there, by the grill,’ continued Salette. ‘And L’Abbé drinking all my pastis while I’m meeting and greeting, and over there Laurent, the net-maker, and Philo, the scholar. Fishermen all.’ Salette pulled out a chair and waved Marie-Ange into it, pulled out another for himself, but left Jacquot to find his own. ‘We take turns to cook, mam’selle. Today, I regret to inform you, you’ll have to suffer Bruno’s poor offerings. Je m’excuse.’
But as Marie-Ange soon discovered, there was nothing for Salette to regret and nothing for Bruno to be ashamed of. As soon as they were settled, after she’d been poured a tumbler of wine – it was either that or pastis – Bruno waved a square of sail-cloth over the tables, laid out a dish of diced tomatoes and red onions, a basket of toasted bread and a saucer of garlic cloves. Wishing her bon appétit, Salette showed the way, rubbing the toast with the garlic and using it to scoop up the tomatoes and onions. By the time the dish had been wiped clean, Marie-Ange could smell fish grilling, skin sizzling, and the scent of rosemary drifting through the fog. The next instant Bruno was serving them a pair of sardines each.
‘Don’t worry,’ explained Salette. ‘They come in pairs. Any more than two, as Bruno will happily tell you, and the fish go dry and cold. By the time you finish these, the next two will be along, just as fresh and as sharp and as hot as the first. Brought in this morning they were, by our brother, L’Abbé.’
Across the table L’Abbé nodded and smiled, not a tooth in his head. ‘Le plus frais. Rien de mieux.’ None fresher. None better. And he raised his tumbler in a toast.
‘They look delicious,’ she said. ‘And your china. It’s so pretty,’ she continued, running her finger over the faded blue faience. ‘And so clean. Such a shine.’
‘Our very own dishwasher, Marie-Ange. La bonne mer.’ Salette nodded to a square lobster pot dragged up to the griddle and already filling with dirty dishes. ‘Before we go, we put the pot over the side for the sea to do a woman’s work. A week later, it’s as clean as you see it now. And everything as safe as can be.’
‘It doesn’t seem like there’s too much risk of a burglary here,’ she noted, looking around. As far as she could see there were only three ways to reach this hidden place – wit
h a key to the padlocked gate, by boat, or by rope, abseiling down from the Corniche.
Salette laughed. ‘In this city, it pays to take precautions,’ he said. ‘Mais alors, mademoiselle, il faut commencer, or Bruno will be back with the next sardines.’
While she set to on her fish, lifting the fillet from the bone with a crinkling of blistered skin, Salette turned to Jacquot and Marie-Ange quickly realised that this wasn’t just a social visit.
‘So how’s your girl?’ asked Salette. ‘Any news?’
Jacquot, with a mouthful of sardine, shook his head, swallowed and then proceeded to run the old man through the last couple of days – Petitjean, Santarem, Vassin – and explain the current state of play.
‘Just as well she got taken then,’ said Salette. ‘Soon as the strike’s done, sometime this afternoon so they say, the big ships’ll be queuing up to get in and out. And then she really would have been gone for good. You’d never have found her.’
‘Any thoughts?’ asked Jacquot, nodding his thanks to Bruno as the old boy shuffled two more silvery-brown sardines on to his plate.
‘All I can promise is that me and the boys will keep an eye out. L’Abbé lives out at L’Estaque, Bruno at Montredon, Philo at Pointe Rouge and Laurent at Madrague. They know what’s going on. Not much’ll get past us. But I’m afraid that’s it. Ask a few questions, keep an eye out. There’s not much else we can do,’ admitted Salette.
The last of the sardines were brought to the table, and Bruno sat down to join them. He was a big man, like Salette, but bald as a boule with a tanned scalp and sun-scorched eyes.
‘You said there were two men in black, that right?’ he asked.
‘That’s it,’ replied Jacquot. ‘In and out. Shot the mother. Then dropped this Vassin – two to the head.’
‘And no casings, you said? No shells?’
Jacquot shook his head. ‘Nothing. Close enough, and heavy enough calibre, to go clean through.’
‘Professionals, got to be,’ said Salette.
Bruno reached for some bread, smeared it across Salette’s plate. ‘No shortage of those around,’ he said, chewing and swallowing. ‘Not in this town.’
‘That’s the problem,’ said Jacquot. ‘Where to go next.’
‘If it’s professionals,’ continued Bruno, ‘and the girl’s still here in Marseilles, I’d guess it’d have to be one of the families. The Milieu.’
‘Milieu?’ asked Marie-Ange, sitting back from her empty plate. ‘You mean gangsters? Underworld?’
‘Forget Borsalino and Jean-Paul Belmondo, mam’selle,’ said Bruno, turning to her and reaching out his hand to grasp her arm and shake it affectionately. ‘When it comes to Les Familles, you have to think hotels and new developments, construction contracts, tailored suits and boardroom tables. City council too. Nowadays it’s all legit. Or tries to be.’
‘There are five or six, at least, who could handle this kind of thing,’ said Salette.
‘Rachette, Ballantine, the Polineaux, Cabrille,’ said Bruno, ticking the names off his fingers. ‘You hear the old man died, by the way? Cabrille. Big do up at Saint Pierre this morning, putting him to bed. All of them there, like as not.’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Jacquot, trying to recall what he knew of the Cabrille family. ‘What’ll happen now? A carve up?’
This time it was Philo, the scholar, who chipped in. ‘Not if his daughter’s got anything to do with it. Bright and shiny, clean as a whistle, but just as nasty as her father so I’ve heard. I’d guess the other families will keep their distance. For now. See what happens.’
‘Maybe I’ll take a snoop around,’ said Jacquot. ‘Until there’s a ransom demand, there’s not much more I can do.’
‘Not a bad idea,’ said Salette, getting to his feet and gathering up the plates, holding up his hand when Marie-Ange made to help. ‘Now that Bruno has done his worst, Marie-Ange, it’s time for the cheese, which I can vouch for, on account of my supplying it.’
While he gathered up the plates, walked to the edge of the platform and flung the bones into the sea, Jacquot leaned forward.
‘Good lunch?’
‘I think it was the most beautiful, the most wonderful meal I’ve ever eaten,’ she whispered. ‘The tomatoes, the fish, the fog, the sound and the smell of the sea – so close . . . Just magical.’
‘And the company, of course,’ said Jacquot.
‘That too. They’re all so lovely, so kind. It’s just . . .’ She frowned, suddenly looking anxious. ‘It’s just, I feel guilty somehow. Us here, and Elodie still missing. With those killers. I mean, shouldn’t we be doing something?’
Jacquot shrugged, poured them some more wine. ‘There’s nothing much we can do right now. All we have are two men who took Elodie from rue Artemis. We don’t know who they are, where they’ve come from or where they’ve gone. Maybe they work for one of the families, maybe not. But for the moment Elodie is safe. That’s how it works in cases like this. And in my experience that’s how it will stay until a ransom demand is made. Tomorrow probably. That’s when it’ll start again.’
Later, when the wheel of cheese that Salette had supplied was reduced to rind and crumbs and straw packing, the long mournful hoot of a ship’s foghorn rolled over them from somewhere along the coast, down around the docks. It held for five long seconds and ended in two short blasts.
Salette glanced at his watch. ‘Four o’clock. Just when they said. The strike over.’ Pushing himself away from the table, he got to his feet. ‘And lunch, too, mes amis. Now it is time for us old men to lower the lobster pot and get quickly to our firesides and a warm armchair before the chill sets in.’ He shivered with a ‘Brrrr’, and said: ‘Breeze is getting up, and cold too. Soon get rid of this fog . . .’
And so they said their goodbyes, Bruno lowering the stacked lobster pot into the sea, L’Abbé, Philo and Laurent folding the tables and stacking the chairs, and Salette seeing Marie-Ange and Jacquot safely back to the cut in the rock. As she went ahead, Salette caught Jacquot’s arm and held him back, drew close.
‘You be careful, boy,’ he said with a wrinkled, stubbly grin, ‘and I’m not talking kidnap and bad guys.’ With a pincer-like fix of finger and thumb he squeezed Jacquot’s arm. ‘Une vraie ange, n’est-ce-pas? Just remember, you already have an angel of your own.’
76
MAYBE IT WAS THE BREEZE that Salette had sensed, or maybe it was the chill that stole across the city that late Sunday afternoon. Whatever the reason, the fog had thinned considerably by the time Marie-Ange and Jacquot climbed back into the 2CV and headed through the lanes of Malmousque and up on to the Corniche.
‘Where to now?’ she asked, glancing across at Jacquot. He was looking through the side window, elbow pushing up the flap-up pane of glass.
‘If you could drop me in town, anywhere near the top of rue Grignan, that would be great.’
‘Rue Grignan?’ she repeated, waiting for a gap in the traffic, then turning left.
‘That’s right,’ replied Jacquot, too quickly. ‘Madame Bonnefoy . . . She has an office on Cours Pierre Puget, near the Palais de Justice.’
Marie-Ange knew at once that he was lying, and didn’t need any special powers to tell her so. She felt cross, and let down. The warmth had suddenly gone from him. There you are, she thought, you’re out of the loop already. What was it he’d said, just the previous evening? The game changes. How right he was.
With the fog clearing and Sunday evening traffic light it didn’t take long to reach town, but neither of them spoke, the rough whine of the Citroën’s ancient engine and the rattling of its loose exhaust filling the silence between them.
‘How’s that?’ she said, pulling up at the corner of Grignan but not bothering with the handbrake. She knew she wouldn’t be there long. The footbrake would do.
‘C’est parfait, merci bien.’
‘Thank you for lunch. I enjoyed it.’
‘And so did I,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Salette.’
Jacquot frowned, shook his head. ‘Not Elodie, no. Just something about the Families. To be careful.’ He reached for the handle, swung the door open. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he said.
‘You’d better,’ she replied, and gave him a smile that was hard to hold.
With a tug and a heave he was out of the car, slamming the door closed and bending down to wave at her through the window. She let off the footbrake and started down the hill to the Vieux Port, the shivering shape of him growing smaller in the rear-view mirror. She looked ahead. A light rain had started up and tapped against her windscreen. He’ll get wet, she thought, switching on her wipers. Serve him right.
But if Jacquot had imagined she was going home – not that he’d thought to ask what she might be doing – he was badly mistaken. She still had an ace up her sleeve, and realised that if she wanted to keep in with him then now was the time to play it. At the bottom of rue Fort, she checked her watch. It was getting dark and there were still drifting shreds of fog about, but it wasn’t far to go, and it wasn’t too late, even for a Sunday. With a glance in the mirror, to make sure he wasn’t still there, wasn’t still watching, she indicated left, turned on to Rive Neuve and headed back towards the Corniche. Ten minutes later she turned left up Avenue du Prado at the statue of David and sailed through all the lights along that broad, straight boulevard, one set after another, as if they recognised the car, as if they knew she was coming, and where she was going.
As she crossed Boulevard Michelet and headed east out of the city, Marie-Ange had a feeling they probably did.
77
SOLANGE BONNEFOY DID INDEED HAVE an office on Cours Pierre Puget, one street up from rue Grignan, its rear windows overlooking the long pool of the Palais de Justice. But Jacquot did not have a meeting with her that Sunday evening. As he watched the 2CV freewheel down the slope towards the port and cough into gear, Salette’s final words rang in his head like a clarion call.
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