Picot turned. ‘How do you know I was talking about Jacques?’
Véronique looked away. Picot was a Great Dane of a man, all strapping power and unpredictable impulse, and she had no intention of taking the thing further. As if reading her lack of interest as a challenge, he moved toward her, grinning. Véronique was not intimidated.
‘A building site is no place for you, darling. Why don’t you go and powder your pretty little arse somewhere else?’ The cabin door opened, bringing the site into the room, momentarily. ‘Or would you like me to do it for you?’
Telonne sat down and began taking off his boots. ‘Do what for her, Walter?’
‘Nothing.’ Picot gave Véronique a final leer before going over to join him. ‘Seen the paper? Man found hanged. Villefranche. Weren’t expecting that when you moved there, were you, Jacques? Must be like living in a fucking morgue.’
‘Véronique?’ Telonne called out, half-potentate, half-toddler in his stockinged feet. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’
Without a moment’s thought, she scanned the cabin for his loafers and went to pick them up. Picot’s face collapsed in gratitude. ‘That’s thoughtful, darling, but I’ve got to go and check out the sewers.’ He grabbed a couple of fat folders and opened the door. ‘Come and see me later.’ Giving them both a grin, he closed the door behind him and headed out on to the site.
‘May I ask why you employ that man?’
‘Yes.’ Telonne slipped on his shoes. ‘You may.’ He stood and ran a comb through his hair. ‘Have you booked our usual room?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’ He stroked the back of her hand with the comb. ‘Isn’t it.’
His mobile rang. ‘It’s that arse-wipe Frènes. I’ll put him on speaker.’
‘Jacques? Jules.’
Telonne smiled into his mobile as if he were on Skype. ‘Jules! Or should I say Jules, Juge de Jazz?’
‘Pah! Listen, I have an answer for you. On the status of waitress Fama Chinwe Ousmane.’
‘Who?’
‘You called her “the bitch”, remember?’ Véronique said. ‘At the jazz club.’
‘Ah yes, of course. What have you got, Jules?’
‘The mademoiselle is a French citizen.’
In the yard, a group of mainly immigrant workers was signing on for their shift. Telonne ran an eye over each and every one of their faces.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘You win some, you lose some.’
49
Cranking up the volume on the Peugeot’s CD player, Darac held his mobile to the speaker for a moment.
‘Recognise that sound, Frankie?’
‘Bit behind in my jazz homework.’
‘We saw him at the Blue Devil. You and I.’
‘That narrows it down. It must be the Israeli guy. The Israeli with the Palestinian point of view.’
A mass of frothy green leaves flounced past Darac’s window. Peering somewhat anxiously through the fronds was a young woman carrying a pot.
‘I never asked what you made of his political stance.’
‘As a Jew? I share it. On the whole.’
On the pavement, the young woman was on a collision course with a black metal waste bin. ‘Just a second, Frankie.’ He opened his door to alert her but a passing jogger beat him to it and struck up a beautiful friendship on the spot. ‘Panic over. Where were we before I got distracted by Gilad?’
‘I was saying that your father is a very foolish man.’
‘At least I won’t have to buy a chicken, now. And cook it au citron.’
‘You don’t always have to be flip, Paul. You can scream or shout or cry. Or all three.’
‘Actually, I am very sad about it.’ He felt his hackles rising all over again. ‘And mad. He didn’t believe me, Frankie. I can’t see much of a way back from that.’
‘I’m sure there will be. Give it time.’
‘And we’ve been closer lately. It’s a shame.’
In his rear-view mirror, Darac saw a bus bound for Résidence des Baumettes draw into the stop and open its doors. A tide of teenagers flooded out. Among them was a figure carrying a shoulder bag bearing the logo of JAMCA, the Young Musicians of the Côte D’Azur. In a sea of largely sullen faces, Freddy’s smiling mien shone out like a beacon.
‘Now that you’re free this evening and I’m off as well, why don’t you come over?’
Darac’s gaze drifted from Freddy like a panning camera. ‘Come over? To… your place? In La Turbie?’
‘It’s the only place I have.’
‘Yes, of course it is. Uh, will—?’
‘Christophe is out of town. Rome. But I think we need to talk, Paul. Just talk.’
‘Just talk. Absolutely.’ Darac refocussed. Freddy was still chatting with his schoolfriends. ‘And it has to be away from the Caserne, doesn’t it?’
‘Definitely. I’ll cook something.’
‘We’ll talk and eat.’
‘Preferably not at the same time.’
‘Eight o’clock, Frankie?’
‘Aim for that and we’ll see how we go.’
‘Well… see you later,’ Darac said, imaginatively, and got out of the car.
‘Freddy!’
‘Oh, sorry, Captain, I didn’t see you. I thought you were coming up to the apartment?’
They shook hands.
‘Running a bit behind.’
‘Shame. Mama wants to meet you.’ The grin widened. ‘I told her it wasn’t worth it but—’
Darac feigned a punch.
‘Are you sure you can’t come up? I burned a couple of discs – JAMCA rehearsal stuff from Salle Pou.’
Darac’s eyebrows rose.
‘Salle Poulenc? That where you guys rehearse?’
‘Cool, huh? Marco got us the funding in the first place; then he insisted that only the Salle was good enough for us.’
Darac laughed. ‘That’s Marco, alright. I’m looking forward to hearing your stuff. But next time?’
‘I could email it to you.’
‘Perfect.’ He gave his address. ‘Come here a second.’ He stepped around to the rear of the car. ‘I lose track of all Marco’s projects but when you guys next get together at the Salle…’
‘We’re meeting tonight. Do you want me to pass something on to him?’
Darac opened the boot. ‘No. I want to pass something on to you.’ He took out the SG case and handed it to Freddy. ‘Providing you promise not to leave it lying around anywhere, you can keep it for as long as you like.’
The boy’s jaw dropped. ‘But—’
‘Just enjoy it.’ Darac got back into his car. ‘And maybe I’ll come over and we can work on a couple of things sometime, huh? See you.’
Leaving Freddy standing like a cardboard cut-out, Darac drove away, reflecting that handing over the SG was the second positive thing to have happened in the day. But then, quite out of the blue, another one happened almost immediately. As he joined a long queue of traffic held at a red light on François Grosso, a motorcycle rolled past him and threaded its way toward the stop line. The back of the rider’s navy-blue helmet bore two initials in white. A.L., it looked like. Close. Close enough.
Darac assessed the road conditions: dual carriageway, surface wet. Not ideal. Traffic: heavy. A useful thing, potentially. Or it might have been if the vehicle he was tailing was another car. He radioed Mobile Control, gave his position and outlined what he wanted. As the lights changed, he crept forward.
‘I’ll set the link up, Captain. Sirens?’
‘No sirens. No lights. I don’t want the rider spooked or it might be me that winds up chasing him and I’m no Wanda Korneliuk.’
‘They’ll start hooking up with you in a minute. Out.’
The lights changed back to red. The blue helmet was about twenty-five metres ahead. Nothing was moving. What was his best chance here? Twenty-five short metres… He switched off his engine, snatched the key and threw open the door. His shoes kicking up spray, he ran a
s fast as he could along the pavement. The traffic alongside began to move. Cars trapped in the lane behind his car blared their horns. He kept running. The motorcycle crept forward. The traffic speeded up and went away from him.
‘Shit!’
He ran back to his car. He received a warm welcome.
‘Yeah? You go fuck yourself! I’m going, I’m going! Jesus…’ He got in and powered forward but traffic in the adjacent lane was already filtering across in front of him. He slammed on his brakes, almost rear-ending a VW Dormobile. Now he couldn’t see the helmet at all. He hit the horn, pointlessly. ‘Control – where is everybody? I’m stuck in traffic.’
‘We’ve got relay problems to you, Captain. But I’ve got several units homing in. They know what they’re looking for.’
‘Bikes among them?’
‘Two.’
‘Good – they’re the best hope. Keep me posted.’
‘Affirmative. Out.’
There was space on the pavement next to him. He checked in his mirrors. No pedestrians. What would Wanda do now? She certainly wouldn’t strike out on foot. He looked over his shoulder. Still no pedestrians. And none ahead. He bounced the car over the kerb and throttled forward. He overtook the Dormobile; a car; another; several cars. But then pedestrians, a loose group of them, wandered out of a shop ahead. He braked hard, alarming them, but that was the only harm done. The plan had worked – he caught sight of the helmet. The rider still seemed oblivious of what was playing out behind.
A space opened up on the road. Darac bumped down into it and started making stealthier progress. After a few judicious moves, just one vehicle, a panel van, separated him from the target. There was an intersection ahead. More traffic lights and they were changing to red. The helmet beat them and turned right into a side street. The van stopped in front of Darac. He was blocked.
But there was a chance. The lead vehicle in the adjacent lane went through the lights on red. The car behind it was some way back. Darac jagged out behind the Fiat and floored the pedal into the gap. On the damp surface, he overshot into the middle of the intersection, facing the wrong way. Now was the perfect time to execute a handbrake turn. Picturing Wanda’s lesson at the Caserne, he went for it.
50
Cradling a mint tea, Frankie drew her legs up underneath her and settled back into the sofa. ‘And then you stalled?’
‘Brilliantly. Pure textbook.’ Darac took a sip of cognac. ‘Meanwhile, the motorcyclist got away. Control didn’t even spot him let alone catch him. But Lartou is pretty sure CCTV will come to the rescue for once.’
‘You’d think there was enough street coverage. In the city.’
‘A make on the plate is all we need.’ He set down his glass on the coffee table. Made of bits of driftwood, it was one of many unusual pieces in the room. ‘It’s nice here. Different.’
‘Living with a designer has its plus points.’
‘What’s Christophe working on at the moment?’
‘A new take on the intrauterine device.’
Darac gave the coffee table a second look.
‘It’s a transferable skill,’ she said. ‘I hope.’
He laughed, and took another sip of cognac. ‘It was a delicious supper, Frankie.’
‘Thank you.’ Setting her full lips into a modest pout, she blew a cooling draft of air across her tea. ‘You know, I never dreamed that one day I’d turn into this domestic—’
‘Goddess?’
She gave him a look. ‘Are we still on message here? This is just talk, remember?’
‘It’s an expression,’ he protested. ‘Like… wage slave or left-wing intellectual.’
‘I’m being oversensitive. It’s the situation.’
‘I think so. Anyway, you’ve turned into this domestic…?’
‘“Nut job” probably says it. For instance, yesterday I caught myself saying: “I love my little béchamel pan.”’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘Fancy it, yes. But “love”?’
Darac’s smile was the first to fade. ‘Let’s have that talk, Frankie.’
‘Yes.’ She set down her cup, her gaze falling on a framed photo of her and Christophe at some glitzy function. She kept her eyes on it. ‘You and I are mature adults, Paul. And French mature adults at that, supposedly.’
‘Supposedly? I’m as French as they come. Both sides.’
‘Yes? I’ve got all sorts of non-blue blood in me. Egyptian. Greek. Even some English.’
‘I never realised. And that all adds up to?’
‘I can’t be unfaithful to Christophe.’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘That’s my intention, anyway. Will you help me keep to it?’
Looking into Frankie’s soft green eyes didn’t make it any easier. ‘If you want that. Yes, I will.’
‘Thank you.’
A huge wave of sadness broke over him. So that was it. There would be no deepening of their relationship. He’d missed his chance. Missed it some years ago, the blind idiot that he was. ‘Could you ever envisage a time when your relationship with Christophe might mean less to you than it does now?’
It took a moment for Frankie to gather herself. ‘You know, in a way, entering into a full-on affair with you seems less of a betrayal of Christophe than acknowledging that things aren’t perhaps as they could be with him. So I don’t quite know how to answer.’
‘I understand.’
‘Except to say… let’s wait and see what happens over time. No one can predict—’
Darac’s mobile rang.
‘Yes, ruin my big scene, why don’t you?’ Frankie’s attempt to lighten the mood lacked conviction. ‘Did I ever tell you I was Jewish?’
‘Did I ever tell you I’m wildly—’ He’d forgotten their pact already. ‘I’d better take this.’
Clocking the caller’s ID, he put the phone on speaker.
‘Chief?’
‘I’ll save you the trouble, Bonbon. From a wonderfully sharp CCTV image, Lartou read the registration of the motorcycle, and the rider in question is already in custody, spilling the beans about his or her ongoing relationship with Pierre Delmas.’
‘No, they’re still checking through the footage.’ Bonbon’s voice was slab-flat. ‘I’m calling about something else. We’ve got a homicide.’
‘He doesn’t sound himself,’ Frankie whispered.
‘I was thinking Jean Aureuil mightn’t be the last.’
‘It has nothing to do with the Delmas case.’
Still no give in the voice. Darac shared a concerned look with Frankie.
‘What’s all this about, Bonbon?’
‘Mate… I’m calling from Salle Poulenc.’
51
The stage was littered with abandoned instruments. Lying dismantled on an opened-out sheet was a cherry-red Gibson SG, its bridge and pick-ups bearing a thin crust of char. Hovering over it was the unusually solemn figure of Raul Ormans. Darac and Frankie suited up and went over to him.
‘We’ve just seen Bonbon, R.O.,’ he said, relieved to be getting on with it, finding some succour in the procedure. Nevertheless, shards of ice turned in his stomach as he studied the murder weapon. ‘But talk me through it, technically. Assume I know nothing.’
‘Alright… An electric guitar is basically a passive device deploying electro-magnetic transducers. These things.’ He pointed to the pick-ups. ‘Their job is to turn the physical vibrations of the strings into electrical energy. That energy passes through wires via the jack socket to an amplifier. We’re talking current at minute forces – microvolts only. If everything in the chain is properly earthed, a plugged-in electric guitar is a very safe piece of tech. The first thing the killer did was to bypass the guitar’s own earth wire.’
‘I got as far as plugging it into an amp, myself. There was no loud hum. No hum at all, in fact.’
‘I’ll come to that.’ Ormans pointed to a row of components arranged on a poly-bag. ‘After de-earthing it, the killer packed all these capacitors and other bits
into the various cavities and routing paths in the instrument.’
Darac’s gaze was steady. His voice was even. ‘And that racked the voltage up to a lethal level?’
‘It did, but on its own high voltage isn’t the killer. Think of a Taser kicking fifty thousand volts into someone and doing them no real harm. It’s not so much the speed of the current, it’s how much of it there is – the amperage – that’s the crucial element.’ He picked up a couple of rogue components. ‘That’s where things like this come in. As you say, there should have been a hum on plug-in. But everything was wired to the volume controls. As soon as they were turned up, a high-amperage, high-voltage, unearthed current was generated.’
‘Right.’
Frankie’s hand went to her forehead. ‘My God, Paul. One turn of that control and—’
‘Is this the work of a genius, R.O.?’ Darac needed to move the thing on. ‘Or just an everyday hobbyist?’
‘Nearer the former. The business with the volume controls is just plain evil, though. A loud hum is an alert, isn’t it? They didn’t want to give the victim a chance.’
‘Prints, R.O.?’ Darac said, acknowledging Bonbon as he rejoined them.
‘No prints on the components. Several on the instrument. Including yours, of course. I’ve got people working on them.’
Darac laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, my old friend.’
Darac turned to Bonbon. ‘Is it possible to hold the body?’
‘It’s still here. But, chief, I really don’t think…’ Shaking his head, he took a breath. No words emerging on the exhalation, he gave Frankie a look.
‘Paul? Bonbon’s right.’
‘It’s alright, Frankie.’
‘I’ll stay here.’
Bonbon led the way. ‘He’s in one of the anterooms. And it’s Deanna attending, by the way. She swapped her shift when she heard.’
Darac nodded. ‘Flak and Perand?’
‘They’re getting on well, considering they’re talking to people made of tears.’
‘What are the witnesses saying?’
‘They were setting all the instruments out, he picked up the guitar… and then it happened as R.O. said. Most of them saw it. And they’re all saying the same thing.’
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