by L. S. Hilton
‘I do them myself, actually. I’m very good at sewing.’
‘How so? Did you do time, on the mailbags?’
‘Funny. My dad was – is – a tailor. He’s still working, even though he’s in his eighties.’
‘Where?’
‘Where what?’
‘Where did you grow up?’
We were eating a plateau de fruits de mer at the Bar à Huîtres on the Rue de Rennes. Renaud fanned at the dry ice billowing from the plate and swallowed a green-tinged Oleron with shallot vinegar before he answered.
‘Tiny little town, you wouldn’t have heard of it. What we call a hole in the arse of nowhere. La France profonde.’
I peeled a langoustine. ‘So how did you come to do what you do? It’s not the kind of job you can exactly train for. And you know piss about pictures, anyway.’
‘I don’t just do pictures. I told you – I find money that has gone missing. Corporate stuff, mostly, managers who’ve had their hands in the till. I studied business at university, spent a couple of years at an accountancy firm in London.’
‘Ugh.’
‘Exactly. I suppose I fell into this because I wanted to be something else. Like you, Judith.’
‘What makes you think we’re so alike?’ I said it teasingly, fishing for a compliment, I suppose, but he reached through the oyster graveyard and took my hand.
‘Judith. What makes you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘The sex stuff. Julien’s place, the clubs. That.’
I swallowed my last mouthful of zinc and sea mist and stood up. ‘Get the bill and I’ll tell you.’
I didn’t speak as we walked along the boulevard and when we came to the Rue de Sèvres I found a bench, lit a cigarette, took his hand.
‘You’ve seen my mother? I mean, you could see what she’s like?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, well, usual stuff. I was dumped at my grandmother’s half the time. Drink, men in and out. “Uncles” for a week or a month. Apparently it’s classic, these types. They shack up with the mother, weak, vulnerable, needy, so they can go after the daughter. The kind of thing you see in the papers all the time.’
‘Or like Nabokov?’
‘Nothing so stylish. So there was one, he seemed pretty decent at first, he had a job, truck driver, treated my mum OK. But then he started to wait for me after school, offer me a lift home in his big exciting lorry. It was better than the bus, I was always getting beaten up on the bus, and he’d have sweets. Pear drops – you know, boiled sweets. I still can’t face them. And then, well, he’d suggest we took a little drive. We had these blue school uniforms, short pleated skirt, tie and navy gym knickers underneath. He’d ask me to undo my pigtails and push up my skirt. I thought that if I didn’t do what he said he’d leave my mum, and she would blame me, and she’d start on the drink again. So I let him.’
‘God. I’m so, so sorry. You poor thing.’
I buried my face in his chest, and after a moment my shoulders started to tremble. He stroked my hair, dropped a kiss on the edge of my brow.
‘So what happened?’
My face was muffled in the cheap cloth of his jacket. There was something reassuring, now, about the smell of its gathered sweat.
‘I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I took a kitchen knife, one morning, and I-I –’
I collapsed against him, out of control. I couldn’t stifle it any longer. It took him a good couple of minutes to realise I was laughing.
‘Judith!’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Renaud, were you going for it? His filthy work-callused hands on my dainty pre-pubescent thighs? Oh God.’
I wiped the tears from my face and looked at him squarely.
‘Look, my mum is a drunk and I like fucking, OK? I like fucking. End of. Now take me home to bed.’
He tried to smile, but he couldn’t quite manage it. But when we got back to the flat, and I put on my white cotton knickers and we played a game, he liked that. He liked that a whole lot. Later, he worked a finger up my arse and held it to his nose.
‘You smell of oysters. Try?’
I breathed the scent on his hand and it was true.
‘I didn’t know that happened.’
For real, I didn’t. I licked his finger to taste the clean scent of the sea, inside myself.
26
And then it was Richter day. Renaud was withdrawn and tetchy, mooching round the flat, fiddling aimlessly. He was making me anxious, so I suggested a walk. We trailed around the smart shops in St Germain. I said that he would be able to afford some decent gear soon, but he didn’t smile.
When I asked him what was the matter, he said that he was just nervous about the meeting.
‘You’re not the one who’s going to be sleeping with the fishes,’ I pointed out.
‘Judith, shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What do you mean? I’m doing what you want, aren’t I? You’re the one who says there’s no risk. For you, at least.’
‘You always have to think you know everything. That you can get by just by knowing stuff, like they taught at your snobby university.’
‘Sorry,’ I answered humbly. I might have added that it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently, but there wasn’t the time for a philosophical discussion. His face softened, he put an arm round my shoulder.
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you,’ he reassured me. I could have pointed out that we wouldn’t have got this far if consequences had been an issue for me, but it didn’t seem like the time to mention that, either. I sensed that trying to calm me down was making him feel better, so I asked if Moncada really wouldn’t care about Cameron’s fate.
‘Look. Cosa Nostra distributes information on a need-to-know basis. It’s safer if an operative carries out orders by communicating only with those directly above or below him in the chain of command.’
‘So Moncada will just get on with the job?’
‘Exactly. And his job is to acquire pictures with dirty money and sell them on so that money is clean.’
‘I guess death is just an occupational hazard?’
He kissed me softly on the mouth. ‘Yes, you might say that, chérie.’
*
I had arranged to see Moncada outside the Flore at seven. I got there a little early in case I had to wait for one of the always-crowded tables outside. I was astonished, looking back, at how incredibly naive – amateur, in Renaud’s words – I had been when I had gone to him with the Stubbs. For all the suspicions aroused by my research in the hotel in Rome, I’d still been possessed of the confidence of ignorance. Now I knew for sure what Moncada was, I knew that he would be watching me, alert to the potential of a trap. Before, it hadn’t occurred to me to fear him; now, despite the calmness I had affected to Renaud, I was terrified. I told myself that business was business, that even if Moncada knew I had been involved in Cameron’s erasure, my product was still good. But if he thought I was dicking him about? Severed limbs and stabbing was for the boys; they probably had something especially Byzantine for women.
I had dressed casually: flats, a black sweater, a Chloé pea coat, jeans, a silk scarf, a new Miu Miu tote bag containing my computer, my freshly printed Gentileschi business cards and the paperwork for the Richter. I set my phone on the table where he would be able to see that I wasn’t touching it, ordered a Kir Royal and flicked through a copy of Elle. Moncada was late. I couldn’t stop glancing at my watch as I tried to concentrate on yet another piece advising me on how to shift those last stubborn five kilos. The only time I’d ever wanted to lose weight, I’d simply stopped eating for a week. That seemed to work fine. Seven thirty. Where was he? Why didn’t Elle have an article on why women spend half their lives waiting for men? Even with the heaters, I was getting cold. I was lighting yet another cigarette when I saw him crossing St Germain in front of Brasserie Lipp. I only recognised him by the huge sunglasses, absurd for evening. He pulled o
ut the chair opposite me, set down a black leather briefcase and leaned forward, brushing awkwardly at my cheek, close enough for me to smell his Vetiver cologne.
‘Buona sera.’
‘Buona sera.’
The waiter appeared. I ordered another Kir and Moncada accepted a gin and tonic. I talked doggedly about the weather until the glasses were set down. Sometimes it’s an advantage to be English.
‘So, you have it?’
I looked down at the creamy quilted leather of my bag. ‘Not here, obviously. At my hotel, very close by. Everything as we discussed?’
‘Certo.’
He left a few notes on the waiter’s saucer and we set off for the Place de l’Odéon. Renaud had booked a room, cash in advance, in a pretty pink hotel on the square, the doorway surrounded by fairy lights. It looked enchanting in the dusk. I’d somehow forgotten it was nearly Christmas. The lift was uncomfortably small, and it didn’t help that much of it was occupied by the unacknowledged bulk of Cameron Fitzpatrick’s ghost. Moncada clearly wasn’t a chatty sort, but I felt obliged to keep up a flow of remarks, bright exclamations about the architecture show at Trocadéro and the refurbishment of the Palais de Tokyo.
‘Here we are!’ I chirped when we arrived at the fourth floor. Moncada let me pass through the door first, but immediately ducked behind me to look in the bathroom, then another glance both ways along the narrow hallway before he was satisfied. I had the Richter laid out on the bed, in the same style of cheap art-student case Cameron had used for the Stubbs. I placed the paperwork next to it and took a seat in the room’s only chair, a white Eames-y number.
‘Would you like a drink? Some water?’
‘No, grazie.’
He worked his way methodically through the certification before turning his attention to the picture, making a show of studying the provenances thoroughly. I wondered if he liked Richter, if anyone did, really.
‘All in order?’
‘Yes. You seem to be a good businesswoman, signorina.’
‘As are you, Signor Moncada. I see that the Stubbs fetched an impressive price in Beijing.’
‘The Stubbs, yes. So unfortunate, what happened to your poor colleague.’
‘Dreadful. A dreadful shock.’
For a moment I was reminded of the scene in my hotel room at the lake, with da Silva. I mustn’t overdo the concern.
‘Still, perhaps we might do business again?’
‘Si. Vediamo.’
While he collected the papers and re-zipped the case I reached into my bag and while I took out my laptop and set it up on the desk I pressed send on the text I had prepared.
‘So.’ I handed over a plain sheet of paper with the passcodes written in biro. ‘As we agreed, one point eight euro?’
‘As we agreed.’
We went through the same routine we had followed in the nasty pizzeria, except this time I didn’t have to make the switch. Quite the little businesswoman, I had become. My phone rang, right on time.
‘I’m sorry, I have to take this. I’ll just step outside –’
I didn’t even see his arm move before it clamped on my wrist. He shook his head. I nodded, fluttered my fingers acquiescently.
‘Allô?’ I hoped he couldn’t detect the tremor in my voice.
‘Leave now.’
Moncada was still holding my arm. I took a step backwards; we might have been jiving.
‘Yes, of course. Could I call you back? In a couple of minutes?’ I hung up.
‘Sorry.’ He relaxed his grip, but held my eyes a few seconds longer.
‘Niente.’
He turned back to the bed to gather the picture, and in the few seconds his back was turned, Renaud was in the room, shoving me roughly to one side, his hands arcing over Moncada’s bent head with the flourish of a magician dashing off his cloak. Moncada was the taller man but Renaud brought his knee up between his legs and Moncada dropped forward, his right hand scrabbling under his jacket while his left pulled at his neck. I didn’t understand what I was seeing until Moncada twisted, throwing his weight against Renaud. As they gyrated clumsily, I noticed something I’d half-registered when we were in bed, but never thought about. Renaud might have been flabby, but he was incredibly strong. Abstractedly, I observed the thick muscle across his suddenly powerful shoulders bulking out under the loose jacket, a sense of the definition of the triceps beneath, as he strained to hold Moncada in front of him. The room was full of both men’s stertorous breathing, but far above it I heard an ambulance siren, a dreamy counterpoint, as I glimpsed the white cord around Moncada’s throat, some sort of short metal vice which Renaud was twisting beneath his ear, Renaud’s face purpling so that for a moment I thought it was Moncada who was hurting him and nearly threw myself at them, but then, looking up, saw Moncada slowly folding against Renaud’s knees. Renaud’s elbows raised in a Cossack dance. Moncada’s eyeballs reddened, his gaping lips swelled and then, as I understood, time began again, and I watched until it was over. The third time I’d watched someone die.
For a while, the only sound in the room was Renaud’s panting. I couldn’t speak. He bent over, clutching his knees like a sprinter after a race, exhaled slowly a couple of times. Then he knelt over the body and began to go through his pockets, removing a Vuitton wallet, a passport. I gasped when I saw the gun holstered at Moncada’s waist.
‘Put the things in your handbag. Quickly, all of it. Take the computer, too. Take the picture. Do it.’
I obeyed mutely. Stuffed the laptop and the papers into my bag, zipped the flat carrying-case. Renaud was stuffing the thing back into his pocket. When I found my voice it came out high-pitched like a wind-up doll.
‘Renaud!’ I coughed, breathed, hissed. ‘Renaud. This is crazy. I don’t understand.’
‘The police will be here in ten minutes. Do as I say, I’ll explain later.’
‘But, fingerprints?’ There was the beginning of an hysterical scream in my question.
‘I told you, it’s taken care of. Move!’
My bag was overflowing; I couldn’t fasten it. I took off my scarf and did my best to hide the contents.
‘Take the picture. Go. Take a cab to the flat, I’ll be there soon. Go.’
‘He-he had a briefcase.’ I pointed. My body was a stream; I couldn’t seem to find any purchase on the floor.
‘Take that too. Now. Get. The. Fuck. Out.’
27
Waiting again. The sofa and my escritoire were wrapped in plastic sheeting, so I sat on the floor amongst the packing cases, my back to the wall. I drew my knees under my chin and closed my eyes. Some bit of my brain was reflecting that watching a murder was oddly more shocking than committing it. I didn’t even feel like smoking. Again, the buzz of the street door, again the weight of his tread on the stairs. I lifted my head wearily; my eyes felt as though they should be black, desolate as a shark’s. It was only when Renaud turned on the light that I realised I had been sitting in the dark. He looked jaunty, though perhaps that’s normal for someone who’s just strangled a notorious Mafioso.
‘This had better be good.’
He came and sat beside me, put an arm around me. I didn’t shake him off – I can’t bear those female theatrics.
‘I’m sorry, Judith. It was the only way. It was him or me.’
‘But your client. How are you supposed to get the money for his wretched Rothko now?’
‘Moncada knew who I was. He was looking for me. He was prepared to kill; you saw the gun.’
‘But he had no idea you were in Paris.’
‘Exactly. As I said, it was a matter of time. Which of us found the other first. You don’t need to worry about the police. I have my friend at the préfecture, remember?’
I didn’t smile.
‘I tipped him off,’ he continued. ‘They know what Moncada was into, they’ll see he was armed and they’ll clear it up. You did them a favour, think of it that way.’
‘And your client?’
‘I�
�ll be in touch with Moncada’s associates. They’ll see this as the warning it is. I’ll get my money.’
‘Hurray for you.’
‘Don’t be like that. Look.’
He took a folded brown envelope from inside his jacket and passed it to me. I had it in my hand before I remembered it would have been sitting next to the garotte. There was the photo from the Métro at Saint-Michel in a spanking new passport, a driving licence, even a carte de séjour.
‘Leanne? That’s low, Renaud.’
‘A twenty-seven-year-old Englishwoman, recently deceased? It seemed too good to pass up. Anyway, it’ll remind you to keep your nose clean.’
‘How did you do it?’
‘The préfecture contacted your consulate. A poor young lady who had been attacked and robbed, recovering now in hospital. Her parents anxious to take her home. You skip through as her. It’s clean.’
‘Pretty impressive contact you’ve got there. The gendarmes seem remarkably accommodating.’
‘It’s a quid pro quo.’
I gave him a long look.
‘Don’t feel bad.’
‘I do feel fucking bad. Do I look like a Leanne to you?’
We sat there for a while, both our heads resting against the wall. After a while I asked him, ‘So the Rothko, what was it anyway? I mean, which picture?’
‘Dunno. I mean, they’re all the same, aren’t they? Big, reddish, squares, I think.’
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that talking yourself into low expectations never works. You tell yourself to expect nothing, but when you get it, you still feel a tiny bit of irrational disappointment. I’d wanted to give him one more chance. I really had. He could have told me the truth and given me a head start, at least. I let my cheek fall against his shoulder.