There was a great deal he could have done, Solange knew, but he clearly hadn’t. Working defence, Davide had a professional loathing for cops; anything he could do to put them down he would. A policeman fingered as a possible murderer? Too good to miss. And if said policeman happened to be a friend of a leading prosecutor then so much the better.
‘Good of you to let me know,’ replied Solange, distantly, as though there was no real interest for her in the issuing of such a warrant. ‘And now, Jean, you really must excuse me,’ she said, and lifting the umbrella away from him she continued up the steps, pleased that he looked a little disappointed by her reaction.
The first thing she did when she reached her chambers, however, was put a call through to Jacquot at Auberge des Vagues. She caught him as he was leaving.
‘Apparently there’s a warrant out for your arrest,’ she told him. ‘It appears you’ve mislaid your gun . . .’
She listened as he explained how he’d been mugged, that it had been taken from him.
‘And I suppose you’re going to ask me to find you another one . . .’
She nodded, ‘I thought as much. I’ll see what I can do. There’s a small Supermart at the corner of place de la Bergasse. Meet me there at midday.’
With that she cut the connection and dialled another number.
‘Chief Inspector Gastal? It’s Madame Bonnefoy at the Palais de Justice. A word, if you please. In my office.’
81
JACQUOT SAW THE 2CV as he left the hostel and started down the street, a salty chill catching his bare neck. He pulled up his collar and headed over to the car. He came round the passenger side, tapped on the window and opened the door. With an arm on the roof, he peered in.
‘I phoned the shop. You weren’t there,’ he said.
‘I called in sick,’ replied Marie-Ange, covering her wariness from the day before behind a mischievous smile, but pleased to hear that he had tried to contact her. ‘Took the day off.’
‘Are you ill?’ As soon as he said it, he knew how stupid it sounded. Of course she wasn’t ill. She wanted to come out to play. And if she wanted to play, she’d have to be available.
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘But I thought you might need a car. Only, the way you drive her, I’m not letting you behind the wheel again. So you see? You’ve got to take me along. Or walk.’
‘Not in this weather, mademoiselle. So thank you,’ he said, dropping down into the passenger seat, folding his legs into the cramped footwell and adding to his sense of discomfort. For, on the walk back from Cine Luxe the night before, after leaving another message on Claudine’s ansaphone, he’d decided to clear up any misunderstanding there might be between him and Marie-Ange. About him not being married. As though there was no one in his life. It was a stupid thing to have said, not fair on the girl or Claudine, and he felt ashamed that it had taken Salette to point it out to him.
As they turned out of Impasse Massalia and headed down to Boulevard Cambrai, he cleared his throat and started on the speech he’d been rehearsing since getting up that morning. ‘Marie-Ange,’ he began. ‘There’s something I need to say, in case there’s been any misunderstanding. It’s just . . . I don’t know if I made it clear or not. You see there is someone . . .’ But he got no further.
‘I understand, don’t worry. It’s not a problem,’ she said briskly, acknowledging that something did, indeed, need to be cleared up, yet surprised by how calmly she took the news, that there was someone in his life, confirming what Agim had told her the night before. ‘But there’s something I have to tell you . . . So where do you want to go?’ she interrupted herself, coming up to the Cambrai turning.
‘Left at the lights and into town,’ Jacquot replied, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders and relief course through him. Honesty was always best, and he felt pleased that he had acquitted himself honourably, if a little tardily. ‘I have a meeting with Solange Bonnefoy at midday. There’s something I need to pick up,’ he added, ‘so why don’t we get ourselves some café-Calvas at Samaritaine. Do you know it? On the corner of . . .’
She shot him a look. Samaritaine was probably one of the city’s best-known cafés.
He caught the look, laughed. ‘Okay. Okay . . . So, tell me. What’s this information you have?’
‘It can wait till Samaritaine, if I don’t get lost,’ she said, and straightening her back she cut her way through the Vieux Port traffic, slotting the Citroën into an empty space off République. Five minutes later, shaking off the rain, they found themselves a corner table, their view of the Quai des Belges and the Vieux Port strangely warped by the plastic window panels in the café’s crumpled, side awnings.
‘So are you going to tell me or must I beg?’ asked Jacquot, their knees knocking together as they settled at their table. ‘You have something to tell me? Some information?’
A waiter appeared and Jacquot told him what they wanted. After the waiter was out of earshot, Marie-Ange leant forward. ‘Elodie is alive and in Marseilles, or close by,’ she began.
‘Which we kind of knew . . .’ Jacquot suggested warily.
‘And she is being kept in a strange-shaped room: the walls aren’t straight, there are small windows, and there’s a kind of background sound, a kind of mmmmmmmhhhh.’ She hummed it, just as Agim had done.
‘Which could make it pretty much anywhere in Marseilles, Marie-Ange. Old buildings – and you’ll have noticed we have a few here in the city – mean old walls. Bent, curved, leaning, even falling down, some of them . . . And small windows? Look at any loft, or basement. And as for that hum, well, it sounds very like traffic to me. Or maybe an air-conditioning unit . . .’
‘In November?’ she shot back, clearly put out that he hadn’t responded more positively.
‘Okay, I hear what you’re saying. But listen, I’m not against you here. And if it sounds like I’m shooting it all down, it’s because I have to. It’s what we do. The police. Sometimes we have no choice. There are always . . . interpretations, and we must keep an open mind.’
Jacquot pulled a pack of Gauloises from his pocket, tapped out two of them and offered the pack to Marie-Ange. She took one of the cigarettes and held it, he noticed, like someone who wasn’t really a smoker, at the very end of her fingers.
‘But how exactly do you know all this? The room? The sound? That she’s close by?’ he asked, lighting her cigarette, then his own. ‘A dream?’
‘Let’s just say I know. But I can’t explain.’ She blew out the cigarette smoke with a little puh and held the cigarette high and away from her. Definitely not a smoker, thought Jacquot. ‘I also have a name,’ she continued, ‘though you’ll probably tell me it’s not much to go on.’
‘A name would be good.’
‘This house, wherever it is, has a name. Léonie.’
Before he could say anything, the waiter returned with their coffees and Calvas. When he slipped the till receipt under the ashtray and turned to go, Jacquot held him back, asked for a phone directory.
‘Business or residential?’ the waiter asked.
‘Business,’ Jacquot replied.
‘Bien sûr. Tout de suite, monsieur.’
‘Well?’ said Marie-Ange, sniffing her Calva and sipping it cautiously. ‘What do you think? About the name? It gives us something to work on, don’t you agree?’
‘The name of a person would be better, but it certainly narrows things down,’ he replied.
‘There is also the possibility that Elodie is being held by a woman. A very dangerous woman,’ continued Marie-Ange, recalling Agim Zahiri’s warning the previous night. ‘We should take care.’
Jacquot nodded. ‘In cases like this, it always pays to take precautions. You are hardly a saint if you kidnap a young girl . . . ah, monsieur, merci beaucoup,’ he said, as the waiter returned to their table with a directory. ‘So, “Léonie”. Let’s see what we have.’ He riffled through the pages, found L, ran his finger down a column. ‘Four Léonies listed in Marseilles: Lé
onie Stoves; Léonie Dry Cleaners; Léonie, a corsetière on rue Saint Ferréol; and Léonie Chiens, a dog’s beauty parlour in Endoume. Do you have a pen and some paper?’
She reached into her tote and found what he wanted. Taking the pen and paper from her, he noted down the addresses then flicked on through the directory to M, ran his finger down a page, shook his head. ‘Just the one: Maison Léonie – a fashion outlet in Le Canet.’ He turned back to the beginning of the directory. ‘And under “Casa” . . . nothing.’
Jacquot closed the directory and put it on the table. Pocketing the slip of paper and handing back her pen, he picked up his Calva and smiled encouragingly. ‘So, let’s drink to Léonie, whoever and wherever she is. And then find her.’
82
HESPERIDES. THAT WAS THE NAME of the ship.
Hesperides. Hesperides.
The name she couldn’t remember, the name her policeman friend had been so keen to learn. Mademoiselle Carinthe Cousteaux was pushing through the glass doors of Galerie Duchamp on rue Saint Ferréol when the name just came to her. Out of the blue. There she was, planning how to spend the ten thousand francs she had taken from Arsène Cabrille’s wallet in the minutes before the paramedics arrived, when the name just popped into her head.
The moment her shopping was finished, she decided, the moment she’d done spoiling herself with a couple of new outfits and maybe a few hours in the Galerie’s new treatment spa – a massage, pedicure, manicure, facial – she’d call that sweet little policeman and let him know. And maybe, if he behaved himself, she might lower her price. Then again, he might be so pleased that she had finally remembered the ship’s name, he’d decide that the full amount was now a reasonable investment. And didn’t the gendarmerie pay informers? Surely she’d heard or read that somewhere. And didn’t they sometimes, in really important cases, provide a new identity, a new life? Perhaps, if she was smart, she might have them set her up in Nice or Menton, a small villa on the coast, or up in the hills where it was cooler, to entertain her gentleman callers.
But Mademoiselle Carinthe Cousteaux was not alone on her shopping expedition. From the moment she’d left the Sofitel hotel in a city cab, a slim wiry individual known to those who hired him as Le Stylet, the Blade, had been following her. No one knew his real name, but everyone in the business knew his speciality.
Mademoiselle Cousteaux’s first stop was the Parfumerie counter where she spoke with an assistant, finally settling on some L’Occitane bath essence, body lotion and a small bottle of her favourite perfume, Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue. She paid in cash, Le Stylet noticed, and then she moved on, stopping here and there to admire this, to finger that, to speak with the counter staff – a woman of means, idly passing the time as others worked.
And every step of the way Le Stylet shadowed her, coming close enough to smell the tester scent that she’d sprayed on her wrists in Parfumerie, dropping back far enough to take in the easy, luscious swing of her hips as she walked down the aisles.
But it wasn’t any appreciation for a fine figure of a woman that drew his interest. What he needed to know was the height and the weight of her, and the possible dampening, deflecting thickness of the fur coat she wore. And, when the moment arrived, where best to aim his attack. How many blows. And how she might fall after contact. He didn’t want to trip over her, or be held up, or have her turn and grab him for support. He had to do it, and be out of there. Strike fast, strike lethally, and disappear. That’s how Le Stylet worked. And that’s what clients like Virginie Cabrille paid him for.
By now, the aisles of Galerie Duchamp had started to fill with mid-morning shoppers. Which was what Le Stylet had been waiting for. A crowd. The killer’s friend. Not just women, but men, too. Which was also good. He didn’t want to be the only man around when the moment came.
Quietly, he closed once more on his target, idly twisting his left wrist and forearm, as though shaking loose a tight watch strap. But he wasn’t wearing a watch. Instead, buckled to the inside of his forearm, was a thin leather holster, spring-activated, containing the single steely tool of his trade. He’d seen it first in the film Marathon Man, and its action had intrigued him. A perfect weapon. So discreet. So . . . effective. As he twisted his wrist, he felt the blade slide out of its housing, slip into the palm of his hand and lock into place, its braided T-bar handle fitting snugly into his fist. With his arm at his side and the crowds around him, it was simply not possible to see the fourteen-centimetre carbon-steel stiletto gripped between his index and middle fingers.
And there she was, just a few metres ahead, talking with yet another sales assistant who was laying out a number of scarves on the counter and keen to conclude a sale. But her customer would have none of it. With a shake of her head Carinthe Cousteaux moved on, towards the escalator leading to the first-floor fashion department.
Trying to do what he had to do on a moving staircase was not, Le Stylet knew, an option. He’d be trapped, nowhere to fade away. He had either to reach his target before she stepped on to the escal -ator or follow her up to the next floor which, he knew from earlier scouting, was not as crowded as the ground-floor area.
He had to reach her before she put her hand on the rail, in the crowd of people waiting to step on to the escalator. He drew closer, closer, part of the scrum of shoppers, until he was right behind her, close enough to feel the warmth of her, the brush of her fur coat against his knuckles.
This was it. The perfect moment. The perfect spot.
In less than three seconds Le Stylet slid the blade into the small of her back, feeling the steel scrape past the spine. And then it was out, his hand now darting to left and right to plunge the dagger into her sides, a few soft centimetres above the ledge of her hips.
Carinthe Cousteaux felt little more than a bump when Le Stylet’s blade went into her back, as though another shopper had jostled her, was pushing up behind her. There were two more bumps, followed by a sharp swift pain like a pinching in the small of her back, and she was about to turn to remonstrate with whoever it was pushing up against her so rudely and impatiently, when she felt her legs go cold and numb.
She was no longer able to feel them, or her arms.
Just the cold, the numbness.
But the momentum of the crowd carried her on towards the escalator, until it was her turn to step on to the metal tread and reach for the moving handrail. Pressed forward by the crowd behind her, but unable to move her legs or arms, she did neither. With no one to support her, she simply fell forward, slumping on to the steel risers.
The last thing she saw was the stitched seams in the heels of the shoes of a woman on the step above her, and the last thing she heard was someone behind her calling out, ‘Madame, madame, are you okay?’
And someone else saying, ‘I think she’s had a heart attack.’
And then a third voice: ‘Someone, help! Stop the escalator!’
But no one could find the emergency button and thirty seconds later Madamoiselle Carinthe Cousteaux arrived on the first floor as a bundle of fur and bags, the hem of her coat trapped in the side of the moving escalator, a stream of blood pulsing down her legs and dripping on to the steel stairs.
By the time the escalator was finally brought to a stop and she’d been pried loose, Le Stylet was ducking out of the rain into a café on the corner of rue Saint Ferréol and rue Vacon.
Job done.
83
AFTER LEAVING CAFÉ SAMARITAINE Jacquot asked Marie-Ange to drive back towards the docks. Before they started on their list of Léonies, he explained, there was just one last matter he needed to follow up. The name had come to him that morning, he said. Señor Guillermo Ribero. Ribero Agence Maritime on the Chamant wharf. He had met him the previous week, Jacquot told Marie-Ange. And there was something about him . . . He’d feel better after he’d followed it up. Either something would come of it or he could cross Ribero off his list.
A tattered rain-weighted banner still hung from a couple of cranes, but the brazier
was no longer in place at the Chamant dock gates when they pulled in, just a black ring of soot and charcoal to mark where it had stood. Not even the rain had yet managed to clear it away. Stopping at the gate, Jacquot showed his sailor’s log and union card and was waved through.
A few minutes later, Marie-Ange parked in a space outside the shipping offices and Jacquot was out of the car, running through a fresh gusting rain to the end of the block. As he drew closer he could see that Ribero’s blue Seat was not parked outside and that the office was still in darkness.
After trying the lock and peering through the window, he went next door to the Lebanese shipping agent he’d also called on the week before. The wobbling chins, the shirtsleeve suspenders and the greasy black hair curling over the man’s collar were just as they had been, but the agent gave no sign that he remembered Jacquot.
‘If they’se not open for businesses, they’se not open, m’sieur,’ said the agent.
‘When did you last see Monsieur Ribero?’ Jacquot asked.
‘He was in, maybe Saturday. Then again . . .’ the man rubbed his chin ‘. . . maybe not.’
It was clear to Jacquot that he wasn’t going to get any kind of useful answers but he persevered.
‘Does he often close up like this? On a Monday morning? Strike officially over?’ Jacquot asked, wondering whether a roll of notes might loosen the man’s tongue – not that he had any money to offer.
‘Who can say? I do not lives here.’ The Arab shrugged; it was not his concern. And then he smiled, a long, low smile, his eyes hooding over. ‘But he is young man, eh? Not like you and me. Maybe he has girlfriend or boyfriend who keep him warm in bed.’ The man chuckled, and his chins trembled. ‘He pretty boy. You see him too, you understand.’ He gave Jacquot a knowing look. ‘Me? I say boyfriend. He in bed with boyfriend, I say. Maybe back today, maybe not. Maybe boyfriend not want him to leave.’ The phone on his desk started ringing and he reached for it. ‘And now, m’sieur . . .’
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