He looked at the sky, closed his eyes, took a final breath.
And then he jumped.
An office cleaner, heading home after finishing her night shift in the offices of a large insurance broker, heard a muffled cry, loud enough to draw her eye across the street, in time to see something blur past the lower windows of a Marais townhouse and smack hard into the pavement.
She found a public phone and called the police, stayed until they arrived.
‘I knew at once what it was,’ she told the officer. ‘But I didn’t go to look.’
104
Marseilles
AT A LITTLE AFTER MIDDAY, Jacquot came down the stairs at Auberge des Vagues.
It had been a long morning, a long night too. After a guided tour of Maison Cabrille with Peluze, he’d called in at Solange Bonnefoy’s apartment where Estelle Lafour gathered her resolve to thank him, without breaking down, for finding her daughter. He then crossed town to the Témoin hospital where Léo Chabran was now conscious, watched over by a solicitous Marie-Ange.
After his brief few minutes at Chabran’s bedside – all that Marie-Ange would allow – she’d come down in the lift with him, walked him to the hospital entrance.
‘Till we meet again, Chief Inspector,’ she’d said.
‘A la prochaine,’ replied Jacquot, not altogether sure how to respond, how to end it. He’d held out his hand which she ignored, leaning forward to kiss him, on each cheek, close to the mouth. She smelled of roses. Sweet and rich. There was a gentle, knowing look in her eyes as she drew back, a look he hadn’t quite been able to fathom, and a few minutes later he found himself outside the hospital, thinking to himself that Chabran was indeed a very fortunate man, and that he, Jacquot, was just a little bit . . . disconcerted.
Which made him think of Claudine.
Back in the hospital reception area, he’d ducked into a phone booth and dialled her number, his eyes settling on Marie-Ange as she waited for the lift back to Chabran’s floor.
‘Oui? Allo?’
The lift doors opened, Marie-Ange stepped inside and turned. She didn’t see him. The doors closed.
‘It’s me, Daniel.’
He’d heard the catch of her breath and then the sudden muffled sound of crying, tears spilling out.
‘You bastard, you bastard, how could you?’ she sniffed, when she managed to catch her breath. ‘I’ve been so worried . . . I thought . . .’
And he’d calmed her, and told her how sorry he was, that it would never happen again.
There’d been a long silence after he said that.
Her voice, when it came, was tiny. ‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘You promised before.’
‘This time I mean it.’
‘Are you coming home?’
‘I’m coming home.’
Back at the hostel, he’d stripped his dormitory bed, stuffed his few belongings into his duffel bag and lugged it down the three flights of stairs to reception. He was coming round the last landing when he heard the phone on the reception desk start ringing. It didn’t take long for Madame Boileau to pounce on it.
‘Auberge des Vagues,’ he heard her say. ‘Oui, oui, il est ici. Ne quittez pas, monsieur, il arrive maintenant.’
As he came down the last stairs, Madame Boileau beckoned him over.
‘Téléphone, Monsieur Muller,’ she said, holding out the phone to him. He came to the desk and took it from her with a nod of thanks and a smile.
‘Oui? Muller here.’
‘It’s Yionnedes, at Poseidon.’
The voice and the names were unfamiliar. Jacquot frowned, trying to place them.
‘The shipping agent, on Chamant. You remember?’
‘Ah, mais oui.’ Jacquot smiled again.
‘It’s just we have a place for you. Second-Mate. Marseilles to Salvador. Bahia. MS Carabella, carrying motor parts. She leaves tomorrow from the Mirabe Basin. If you are still interested?’
Jacquot looked at the rain hammering down in the street outside and thought of Bahia. South America. Palm trees and blue skies and warm golden sand between his toes, rum cocktails and grilled fish on the beach . . . He had always wanted to go there. And now so close.
‘Monsieur Muller? Are you still there?’
Jacquot shook away the blue skies and looked back at the rain, remembered what was waiting for him in the Luberon.
‘A day too late, monsieur,’ he said with a sigh. ‘A day too late.’
Confession Page 35