‘Right.’
‘So our next step is clear. We find the guy who handed in the guitar at the Caserne. The guy with the parka. Had time to set anything up yet?’
‘I’ve ordered our CCTV of the Roquebillière and Maréchal Vauban entrances to the Caserne. Plus all the street footage in the area. I’ve sent out a slog squad door to door. I’ve got TV, press and radio on it. That’s it so far.’
‘Tomorrow, we’ll circulate anything we have to guitar shops, electronics places and so on. See if we can trace the provenance of the components.’
‘You watch – someone will complain about our violating the sanctity of the amnesty.’
‘Well they can fuck off. This is a murder investigation now.’
‘At least we know you weren’t the intended victim. It was never stated whose instrument had gone missing.’
Deanna intercepted them at the door to the side room. ‘Hey.’
‘Thank you for being here, Deanna. Listen, uh…’
In one glance, she read his mind. ‘He didn’t suffer. The current across his heart caused a cardiac arrhythmia. He died instantaneously.’
‘May I see him? May I see the body, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘Alone.’
‘He’s through there. Go ahead.’
He took a breath and stepped toward the door.
The doorknob. The light switch. The floor. The walls. The trolley. The sheet. Another breath. And then the face… Darac shuddered. For a full five minutes he stood trying to make sense of it. He couldn’t. It was pointless, he knew, talking to a corpse. But so was just standing and looking. He pulled off a glove and laid his hand on the side of the face. And then rejoined Deanna and Bonbon.
‘Thank you. I guess no one has identified the body yet? Formally.’
‘Not as yet but—’
‘Let’s do it now.’
‘Very well.’
Deanna took a form from her case.
‘There’s no need to go back in. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you recognize Marco Luciano Portami?’
‘Yes. It’s Marco.’
It was then that Darac wept.
52
Agnès Dantier had just slipped on her shoes when the phone rang.
‘Commissaire? Jules Frènes.’
‘Could we make this brief, monsieur? I’m due in the AV suite.’
‘I can assure you that I too am busy, madame.’
‘All the more reason.’
‘Very well. The murder victim, Marco… Portami—’
‘Spit it out,’ she said, tapping her desk pad with a pencil.
‘I think you mean “spell it out”, don’t you? Are you aware of any issues between him and Captain Darac?’
There wasn’t time to count to ten. ‘No.’ On the pad, she began absently spelling out a word of her own. ‘Of course not.’
‘Issues of a disputatious nature.’
‘Do you actually think… In fact, I can answer that question for you. You don’t think.’
‘Darac must be questioned! He may have doctored the guitar himself. Have you thought of that?’
‘Captain Darac was about to play the instrument in question at the Blue Devil club, an occasion on which you and your pal Telonne were present, if you recall. And only didn’t play it when a call to duty intervened.’
‘He could have interfered with the instrument after that.’
One, two, three… ‘And the motive, monsieur?’
‘Darac and Portami may have been deadly enemies for all you know. And you never will know until you question him!’
‘Captain Darac has already made a full statement. He didn’t hand over the guitar to Portami, by the way. It went through several pairs of hands first.’
‘The fact remains—’
Agnès heard a thin snapping sound. The point of her pencil had broken off.
‘Just read my report, Frènes.’
Agnès slammed down the phone. On her pad, the words ‘stupid’ and ‘little arsehole’ were deeply gouged into the paper.
* * *
In the hours that followed, Darac’s grief came in waves; periods of near forgetting alternating with inescapable pain. When it swamped him, the cold shock of it was unbearable: he was investigating the murder of one of his closest friends. A man he’d played alongside for twelve years. A man with whom he’d experienced some of the most fulfilling moments of his life.
It was en route to the AV suite that the latest breaker slammed into him. He rode it as he stopped off at the duty officer’s counter. Behind it, there were three work stations, all of them occupied.
‘Any further eyewitnesses to the handover, Charvet?’
‘Still only the barrier man, so far.’ Charvet’s second-in-command, Béatrice, kept her eyes on her screen as she handed him a clipboard. He slid it across the counter. ‘The page on top.’
Charvet’s headset beeped. He took the call as Darac read the officer’s statement:
The guitar case was left by a stocky man wearing a hooded parka and a scarf. I couldn’t see his face at all. No other distinguishing features.
On the page below was an alphabetised list of names, initials A to D from the handover day’s work roster. Columns headed ‘Contacted’, ‘Responded’ and ‘ID’ were set out in a table alongside. Ticks, crosses and the letters ‘P’ for personal, ‘T’ for telephone or ‘E’ for email appeared in different handwriting in the relevant squares.
Charvet’s call ended. ‘Pass me the list for a second, Captain? We’ve just got the one so that nothing gets missed.’ Turning a couple of pages, he entered a ‘T’ in the ‘Responded’ column and then put a cross under ‘ID’. He handed the list back.
‘Everyone contacted,’ Darac said, riffling pages. ‘Impressive.’
‘The list again, please,’ Béatrice said, taking it. ‘Email response. Another negative.’
‘What about the various ancillaries and visitors?’
‘Their names are on the list too – back pages. Anyone who was here, or who was coming on or going off site within fifteen minutes of the guitar being left, has been contacted. Most, like your team, have responded already.’
‘How many haven’t?’
‘Just a handful, but it only takes one, Captain. And Lartou does have a sighting on CCTV.’
‘I’m going down there now. It’s not a very positive one, he says. But still…’ He gave Charvet’s counter a conclusive rap. ‘Thanks. Let me know if you get anything.’
Bzzzzzzzut!
‘Hold the door, Paul?’
Agnès threaded her arm through his as they took the steps. ‘Want to talk about him?’
‘Can’t.’ His body felt lifeless against hers, as if the emotions that were weighing him down had physically flattened him. ‘I’m meeting the guys at the club later. That will be enough talk for one night.’
‘It will do you all good. The boy – Freddy? It must be particularly difficult for him.’
‘Some heap of shit turns a beautiful thing into a lethal weapon and now Freddy is sobbing his heart out. He blames himself. And if I know anything about it, he’ll still be blaming himself twenty years down the line.’
Nothing galvanised Darac like his sense of injustice. And nobody knew that better than Agnès. ‘While the real culprit doesn’t feel a scintilla of guilt, you can bet.’
‘I tell you, Agnes, when I—’
‘My arm, Paul?’
Her strategy was working too well. He relaxed his grip. ‘Sorry.’ Then he rumbled her. ‘Skilfully done.’
‘It’s better, isn’t it? Feeling empowered rather than hopeless?’
He put his arm around her shoulder, and he didn’t care who was looking.
* * *
The AV suite was a static-charged room little larger than a walk-in wardrobe. Beneath its bank of screens, Lartou Lartigue was sitting at the console with the air of a projectionist who’d run too many bad m
ovies. Behind him, it was standing room only.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, everyone,’ Agnès said, as she and Darac crammed themselves in. ‘Thank you, Lartou.’
Standing shoulder to shoulder with his teammates, Darac felt a surge of feelings as the screens fizzed into life; the sort of impregnable confidence he felt when the DMQ was playing at its best. And then another wave of despair swept over him.
‘Each is showing the same clip,’ Lartou said. ‘And here he is… the man in the parka.’
Seeing the figure gave Darac a new resolve. ‘Well built,’ he said. ‘Strutting gait even though his head is down. Face shaded by the parka. Scarf around his neck.’
Granot’s eyes bored into the man. ‘Look up, you bastard.’
Lartou shook his large, bald head. ‘He doesn’t. I’ve run the sequence several times.’
‘Zoomed in?’ Frankie said.
‘Yes. His face just turns into a bigger shadow.’
Perand spotted something. ‘Look how he’s carrying the guitar case.’
‘In his left hand? I often do that and I’m right-handed.’
‘Ah.’
They watched the man calmly set down the case, turn around and go back the way he had come.
Bonbon was tapping his chin, a sign that something was gnawing at him. And then he stopped. ‘Cool, isn’t he, when you consider he came to the Caserne of all places to leave the guitar? He could have left it far more safely elsewhere. Alright, he’s wearing a parka with the hood up but it tells us something, doesn’t it? He doesn’t know what he’s carrying.’
On the screens, the faceless man went through the routine all over again.
Darac nodded. ‘Yes, he’s not returning just a stolen item, is he? What he’s got there is a ticking time bomb and he doesn’t realise it.’
‘Indeed,’ Agnès said. ‘Parka Man may prove to be the bomb maker, as it were, but I agree, the odds are that he’s just an errand boy. We still need to find him, of course. Any further sequences, Lartou?’
‘Two more.’ He pressed a second button. ‘This is the corner of Fornero Menei and Antoine Albin, as you can see. Timed ninety seconds before the other sequence. Still no identifiable face.’
‘He’s walked down Menei by the look of it,’ Granot said. ‘Where’s he parked? Outside the sports hall?’
Frankie had a different thought. ‘If he has parked. He may live around here. Or have taken a bus. The other sequence?’
‘The return journey – same set-up. Back view. It goes on for some time, this clip. I let it run in case he suddenly appears in a vehicle coming down the road. He doesn’t.’
They watched it anyway.
‘Dead end. Anything from the slog squad, Bonbon?’
‘Nothing as yet, chief.’
Darac exchanged a little eyebrow semaphore with Agnès. ‘Okay, I think we’ll continue in the squad room. Thanks, Lartou.’
The session may have been over, but for Darac, the night shift was only just beginning.
53
The story had made the morning edition.
‘What the fuck were you playing at?’ Picot slapped it against Jacques Telonne’s chest. ‘Sending me off to the pigs with a fucking murder weapon in my hand? Eh? You arsehole!’
‘I didn’t know what the little bitch had done!’ Telonne was shaking, every part of him pulsing, twitching. ‘Look at what I’ve given her.’ He turned slowly on the spot, looking in awe at the perfect little palace he had built. ‘Everything top of the range. Everything!’ Suddenly aware of the paper at his feet, he kicked it apart, the pages falling sedately around him like snow in a paperweight globe. ‘The little bitch!’
‘What about me? After everything I’ve done for this fucking family, the police are going to be looking for me now. Me! For doing nothing!’
Framed in the window behind them, a Porsche appeared at the top of the drive. His face a mask of pained astonishment, Telonne grabbed Picot’s jacket collar.
‘Why does she hate me? Why does she want to stop me?’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t have this any more. I am not going to let her ruin everything I’ve worked for.’
Picot thrust his forearms up, breaking the hold. ‘Listen! If the police start investigating me, you are going down. Got that? You!’
Telonne looked childlike, suddenly. ‘But I haven’t done anything.’
The sound of grinding gravel drew their eyes to the window. Elise got out of the Porsche and bent to retrieve a collection of ribboned boxes from the back seat.
‘Laure is deranged, Picot. A danger to me and to others. She ought to be put away somewhere. Somewhere she can be cured.’
A door opened behind them. Wearing a thigh-length T-shirt, Laure padded barefoot into the room. The men looked at each other. Had she overheard? A page bearing Marco’s story stuck to her foot as she crossed nonchalantly in front of them and opened the fridge.
‘Still here, Papa?’ She kicked off the page as she scavenged the shelves for breakfast. ‘How lovely.’
Elise paraded in. ‘What’s the paper doing strewn everywhere?’ Her face coloured as she saw Picot. ‘Walter.’
‘Madame.’
He helped her collect up the pages.
‘Laure – get some clothes on, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Been up all night. Going back to bed. You can come with me if you like, Walter.’
‘I do apologise for her,’ Elise said to him, purposefully following the girl into the hall. ‘Laure!’
Fit to explode, Telonne went to push past Picot but he grabbed his arm. ‘Let her go,’ he said, as raised voices turned to shouts and doors slammed. ‘You’re right, Jacques. Laure ought to be put somewhere. Somewhere for good.’ His eyes bored into him. ‘And you know someone who’ll do it, don’t you?’
54
Darac woke in a pool of sunlight. And with a colossal hangover. For one glorious moment, he forgot all the reasons why, and then one by one, they came back to him. Dragging a pillow on to his forehead took care of the light. Dealing with the rest of it was not going to be so easy.
At least today would see the end of Carnival. At nine o’clock in the evening, crowds would gather for the final three events: the illusionistic burning of the hillside around Château Park; the immolation of the king; and a grand firework display. The immolation was a maritime affair, the royal barge being towed into position off the Promenade des Anglais. Enthroned on a bonfire invisible under his full-length robes, the king would go up in smoke and, as rockets exploded overhead, that would be that for another year.
Darac patted around on the bedside table for his mobile and somehow managed to avoid knocking it on to the floor. Jettisoning the pillow, he rang the duty office’s number.
‘Charvet?’
‘It’s Bé, Captain.’
Seeking the shady side of the bed, he crabbed slowly sideways. ‘Bé. Any developments overnight?’
‘We would have called if there had been anything important.’
‘I thought I heard Agnès telling you not to.’
Silence. The young woman was arrow straight. Not to say unimaginative.
‘Bé – it’s fine. So nothing?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘I’ll be in shortly.’
A cool shower and an hors catégorie-sized espresso worked wonders. By the time he got to his desk, he was still as depressed as hell but at least he’d lost the jackhammer in his skull. He thought about calling his father. He wondered if he had thought about calling him. He decided to leave it for the day.
Erica appeared in the doorway. ‘Hello.’
There was usually something of the silky exuberance of an Afghan hound in the way Erica pranced into a room, but not this morning. She was carrying the morning edition.
‘I’m so sorry.’ They shared greeting kisses. She sat down opposite him. ‘Are you alright?’
‘So-so.’
Shamefaced was another unfamiliar look for her.
‘I… said some un
pleasant things about Marco at the parade. I wish I hadn’t, now.’
Darac managed a grin. ‘No, no – you were spot-on. Marco was a very… human being.’
‘Have you seen the paper, though?’ She held it up. ‘I had no idea he was such a renowned teacher. Dedicated. Respected. There are some glowing tributes to him.’
‘I’m sure there are. He really… cared.’ No. Not now. He took a deep breath, lowering his head. ‘Uh… Listen…’
Erica stood. The sight of a strong man fighting back tears was something she couldn’t handle. ‘I’ll go. This isn’t the time. I’m sorry. I’ll see you later.’
Darac didn’t look up. Suddenly, he felt that too many people had got away from him in his life. A phone rang, an outside line. He composed himself.
‘Darac.’
‘It’s Jacques Telonne, Paul – if I may?’
‘You may not. What can I do for you, monsieur?’
‘I’ve seen the morning paper.’ Telonne’s voice stiffened. ‘And I felt the need…’
Darac held the phone away from his ear.
‘…of your loss. Marco Portami was a tireless educator…’
Darac waited until the noise stopped. ‘I repeat. What can I do for you?’
‘It is more what I can do for you. Having been there at the start of this whole guitar business, and at the jazz club with my family, I feel a responsibility to help in any way I can. I am proposing to come in—’
‘The time for cheap publicity stunts is over, Telonne. Goodbye.’
He hung up.
‘Chief!’
Lartou was standing in the doorway, holding up an enlarged, time-tagged photo.
Darac sat forward. The shot was a three-quarter rear view of a motorcycle negotiating a rain-washed street. Riding it was a figure wearing a crash hat bearing a familiar set of initials.
‘Have we…?’
Lartou shuffled out a second photo: a blown-up shot of the bike’s registration plate.
‘And last but not least.’
Brandishing a printed form, Lartou came in and set it down on the desk. News of the breakthrough spreading along the corridor, Bonbon led a posse in behind him. Darac began to feel some energy return as he read the bike owner’s name and address. Shaking his head in irritation, he held up the form to the others.
Box of Bones (A Captain Darac Novel 3) Page 27