by Cara Black
“Merci.”
In a large windowless room painted white, with fencing-club flags hanging from the walls and white lines painted on the blue floors, helmeted and grille-masked figures parried and thrust, riposte after riposte. A metallic smell hung in the close air. It was like stepping into the eighteenth century, except that each time the sword tip touched an opponent, bright purple bulbs lit up on their vest.
“Mademoiselle?”
Roland Leseur, in a form-fitting grey fencing outfit, helmet hanging from a strap on his arm, stood at the men’s locker-room door, waiting for her. The clashing of swords, the almost balletic steps, the grunting and tang of sweat sent a shiver of unease up her back. “They know not to disturb me here.”
“I’m new, Monsieur,” she said, saying the first thing that jumped into her mind. She held up the file. “May we talk in private, please?” she said.
His brow furrowed in annoyance. “In here.” He checked inside the men’s locker room for people, then closed the door after she entered. “Make this quick, my partner’s waiting.” Leseur stood in the narrow changing-room aisle beside a metal locker, open to reveal his jacket hanging up, a briefcase, keys, wallet, a cell phone. He flipped open his briefcase and took out a pen. “You need something signed? Why didn’t Juliette bring this down herself?”
“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur, but …”
“Please show me what I need to sign.”
“See, not sign,” she said. “This.” She put the Paris Match on a bench and pointed to the splash on Pascal’s death.
Annoyance turned to wariness.
“You lied to find me.” His low voice vibrated with anger. “Why are you here? Tell me who you are before I have you thrown out.”
She stuck her Leduc Detective business card into his gloved hand.
“Forgive me. It was the only way I’d get a moment of your time, and it’s a matter of life and death,” she said, speaking fast. “My father investigated the homicide of Djanka Constantin in 1978. They pulled him off the case, but he never forgot it. Later he was killed in a bomb explosion—murdered to keep him quiet about whatever he had learned about Djanka Constantin.”
He shook his head. “Not my concern, Mademoiselle.”
“Your brother Pascal’s body and Djanka’s were discovered only hours apart,” she said. “Information has come to light that strongly suggests that the two deaths are connected.”
“Stop right there.” He stepped back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do, Monsieur,” she said. “A painful event. I’m sorry to insist, but—”
“My brother took his own life,” he said, his voice wooden. “I’m not interested in all these lies and slander appearing years later. Now if you’ll move aside and let me return to the piste.”
How could she keep him there?
“The memoir and the Libé article, you mean?”
“Damn reporters dredging for scandal. They hired you, didn’t they?” Fear crinkled the crow’s-feet edging his eyes. He shook his head. Was that pain or sorrow on his face?
“I’m a detective, Monsieur.”
“And you had my ear. Now you don’t.”
This wasn’t going well. Scrapes of metal and shouts of en garde came from behind the door.
“My journalist friend says the Libé article’s been pulled. Nobody will ever read it,” she said. “Please just help me understand how your family in the Berry knew the Constantins. Two minutes.”
She read the surprise in his face. “But what does it matter anymore?”
Time for the truth. “There’s a piece of the puzzle no one will give me,” she said. “A piece of information I need to solve my father’s murder.”
“I don’t see a connection, Mademoiselle.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wasting your two minutes,” she said. “But if I don’t look for the piece, I won’t know.” Determined to reach him, she took out a photo of her father. Her favorite, of him leaning over a puzzle. “My father, Jean-Claude Leduc. Think of a crime like a puzzle, he’d say. Gone almost ten years. His death unsolved, murderers never caught. Don’t you wish you could reel time back in and see your brother?”
He studied her card. “It was all in my father’s time. During the war.”
His guard down now, he fiddled with his fencing mask. His father’s time? Something stuck in his memory, she could tell. She had to keep the momentum.
“See, there’s a connection,” she said. “Wasn’t your father a decorated Resistance hero? Did he save the Constantin family, hide them from the Germans in the Berry?”
Leseur shrugged. “For years the manouches traveled by our land, on the old routes. My father let them camp at the lake when I was small. They played such music at night; I’ll always remember their horses and painted caravans, the fish we caught.” He stopped himself. “But the old Constantin—we called him the Gypsy King—he relayed Resistance messages to the maquis hiding in the forests.”
“Underground, you mean?”
“They called it the Gypsy mail via forest trails,” he said. “Markers like a broken branch or twisted twig, signs in nature. Who even talks about them now?”
Who even talks about them? Naftali’s words.
“My father worked with the Gypsy King throughout the war. For years after, they’d come in the summer. My father even attended his Gypsy funeral in the sixties. Non, maybe it was in the seventies.”
“So you knew Drina and Djanka as children.”
He paused to think. Something opened up inside him. Memories of a happier time?
“But that’s years ago. My parents sent me away to boarding school.” Leseur leaned against the metal locker.
“Help me understand, then, why the Constantin family shunned Djanka for having your brother’s baby.” Ready with the photo—Djanka, Nicholás and Pascal—she brought it out from the old pages of Paris Match for him to see.
The phone inside his locker vibrated with a long buzz. Leseur ignored it, his face etched with hurt and longing. His lips moved. No sound came out.
“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur, but what did you …?”
“I said, who understands Gypsies?” He didn’t deny that Pascal was Nicu’s father.
“Nicu was murdered yesterday. In broad daylight, by professionals. A hit.”
Leseur stiffened. “I never knew the boy.” After a moment, he said, “They sent me away.”
“What secret stretching back to Djanka and your brother could still be important enough to need covering up and to have caused my father’s murder?”
His phone beeped: a message alert. He averted his eyes.
“Why are you so afraid, Monsieur Leseur? Is someone threatening you?”
His bony, gloved fingers grabbed her arm. “Get out.” He shoved her aside.
She grabbed at the open locker door to stop herself from tripping.
“Is there a problem?” A red-faced man appeared at the locker-room door, pulled off his face mask.
Leseur moved forward, letting go of her arm. She stuck her hand in her bag, rooting through mascara tubes, her phone and mini-packs of baby wipes until she found what she was looking for.
“Zut,” the man said, looking at her, “don’t tell me the press got in here?”
“Press? Non, she told me she’s a …” He caught himself before saying detective. “Ce n’est pas important.”
Aimée took advantage of Leseur’s distraction. Stuck the centime-sized tracker into his wallet fold.
“This woman’s made a mistake,” said Leseur, turning back to Aimée. “She’s leaving.”
She rubbed her arm. Leaned into Leseur’s ear and whispered, “Tell me. Or I’ll make a scene in front of your friend.”
Sweat broke out on his brow. His hand shook. What was he holding back?
But by now her fame had spread throughout the fencing piste, and politicians in tight-fitting gear were crowding through the doorway, eager to expel the stranger in
their midst. When she looked back at Leseur on her way out, a jacket over his fencing outfit, he was clutching his briefcase and speaking into his cell phone. The next moment, he’d disappeared through the far exit. She clicked the button to activate the tracker.
With only fifteen minutes until her appointment with the lawyer, Aimée looked down the tree-lined quai for a taxi.
“Mademoiselle Leduc, this way, s’il vous plaît.”
A suit wearing dark sunglasses stood at the curb by a black Peugeot with tinted windows, the door open and the engine purring.
“There must be a mistake—I haven’t reserved a car,” she said, raising her hand to hail a passing taxi.
“The ministry’s internal security chief has a few questions,” he said. “I’ve been instructed to escort you.”
Pictures of the recent past flickered through her mind: the garden at the clinique, the sliver of light as Drina’s door opened, her sunken eyes, the nurse Aimée spoke to. The locker room and Roland’s pained expression.
“I’m afraid I can’t oblige. I’m late.”
He opened his suit jacket to reveal a badge on his hip.
The skin on her knuckles whitened as she clutched the strap of her Villeroi bag. “Impossible, I’ve got a meeting.” She stepped back, her heel catching in a cobble crack. Tried in vain to pull it out.
“Which you will of course reschedule, Mademoiselle.”
Her heel wouldn’t budge. Perspiration broke out on her neck. He bent down and with a practiced flick of his wrist unwedged her heel. Then took her arm. “One doesn’t keep the ministry waiting. Let’s go, shall we?”
“Where?”
“I’m sure you’ll find out.”
Those fencing politicians had tracked her down quickly.
Tuesday, Early Afternoon
FOR THE SECOND time in as many days, René knocked on Madame Rana’s caravan door. In front of the nearby UNESCO building—an ugly modernist hulk, in René’s opinion—rows of daffodils nodded in the breeze. At the Haussmannian limestone apartment building to his right, the concierge watered the red geraniums in her windowsill pots.
Impatient, he knocked again.
“Un moment.”
René paced by old dented Peugeots parked on the street. C’est typique, ça, he thought in disgust. Here in the 7th, people either drove a junk heap or were chauffeured around in company cars. Determined not to show off or invite scrutiny—so revealing of the hypocrites in this sealed world.
Two minutes later, the door opened on a man wearing a pinstriped suit and wraparound sunglasses. He descended the steps and got into a black Audi waiting on the curb. No doubt a ministry official or ambassador—nice to know the fate of the world lay in such hands and in Madame Rana’s crystal ball.
“A palm reading, mon petit?” Today she wore an aqua caftan.
“I brought you a present.”
Madame Rana smiled like a satisfied cat so that her eyeliner curved up at the edges. “Entrez.”
She thought she’d hooked him. But he hadn’t come to have his palm read.
“I’m here for a translation,” he said, sitting down in the boudoir-like trailer. “Do you understand Romany?”
“Romany spoken in Albania, Romania? Or the German, Italian or Spanish dialects?” she asked. “If I don’t know, I know someone who does.”
“How about the dialect the Constantins use?”
“And what will I get for that?”
René opened the Monoprix bag hesitantly.
“You brought me a portable foot massager and spa?” said Madame Rana, smiling at the box. “Like my sister’s. Merci. My cousin’s wife is looking forward to the rice cooker, by the way.”
René set down the notepad bearing Drina’s last Romany words. “It’s written phonetically by someone who didn’t understand what was being said, so I hope it makes sense.”
She sighed and took his palm. Before he could pull it away, she clucked. “Oh, mon petit, you’re having second thoughts about that love potion?”
Then something occurred to him. Did her reading stop at palms? “Can you read this?” he said, tapping the notebook.
“I went to school,” she said, defensive now. “You think I’m a moron, slow-witted?”
The more agitated she became, the more her penciled brow furrowed.
“Django couldn’t read, and look at what amazing music he created,” René said, worried he’d alienated her. “I just need this translated so I can understand.”
After another glance at the notepad, Madame Rana looked up. She checked her Chanel watch. “You don’t want to know what this says, mon petit.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, frustrated. “More? You need more money?”
She pushed the notepad back at him over the purple-draped table. And then the foot-massager-spa box as well.
René doubted much scared Madame Rana, but he saw terror in those made-up eyes. “What’s the matter?” he said. “What does it say?”
“You give power to words when you say them,” she said. “And I will never say them. It’s a curse.” And before he knew it, she’d pushed him out the door with his present.
Tuesday Early Afternoon
“WE’RE INFORMAL HERE, Mademoiselle Leduc; there’s nothing official about it.” A dimpled smile as he handed her his card—Daniel Pons, Chef de Sécurité, Hôtel Matignon. On the tall side, early forties, russet hair parted in the middle. His round face reminded her of a potato. “Off the record. Un café?”
She nodded, stifling her unease. Pons poured from the cafetière into a demitasse cup. At her feet sat a wooden crate, leeks spilling out of it onto the floor. Next to it was a Styrofoam container marked COQUILLAGES DE BRETAGNE—ON ICE.
“Off the record? Is that why we’re sitting in the prime minister’s kitchen?”
“Exactement. Napoléon said an army marches on its stomach. So do the ministries.”
Backroom intrigues weren’t her thing.
Pons pushed the sugar bowl toward her. “Du sucre?”
“Merci,” she said, checking her watch. “I hope this won’t take long. I’m late for an appointment.” She wished to God she’d gotten through to the lawyer. She’d called, frantic, but the line had been busy. Now she was a no-show.
Pons shook his head, an understanding look in his eye. “You’re just here to clarify a few things, you understand.”
She helped herself from the bowl of mixed brown and white cubes. Bipartisan sugar, she thought; it covered both bases—politically correct. In front of her was a chalkboard mounted on a cabinet with the day’s dinner menu. The prime minister’s upcoming five-course meal made her mouth water.
Another man entered, grey haired and slightly stooped.
“My colleague Grévot,” Pons said.
First rule: play dumb. Not difficult. “What’s this about?”
“At the prime minister’s residence at Hôtel Matignon,” said Pons, “we like to stay on top of things.”
“Why am I here?” She wished he’d spit it out. A bad feeling thrummed in her stomach. She thought of the front page of Le Parisien—had they somehow connected Radu Constantin’s protest and the activists who marched here to her?
Pons set several grainy black-and-white photos on the stainless-steel counter. Photos of her running down the side street toward rue Oudinot last night.
Pons thought he could prove something? Blurred printouts taken from CCTV? Something told her to hold back for once, to stay calm and bite her tongue.
“I apologize for the poor quality: it’s from CCTV coverage,” said Pons. “But you know how that is, Mademoiselle, from your line of work. It’s hard to make an identification based only on such photos.”
She focused on what looked like a gravy stain on the wall telephone. “Why are you showing me these photos?”
“Word has reached us that you’re a person of interest, Mademoiselle, who visited a patient in the nearby medical facility on rue Oudinot. And for security reasons—”
&
nbsp; “What security reasons?”
“We’re not at liberty to release that information, Mademoiselle,” said Grévot, leaning forward.
It clicked now. Drina’s abduction from the Laennec, the nurse at the clinique noting her words down … She remembered the monsieur the nurse had mentioned, who was waiting on Drina’s incriminating last words. Was she looking at the monsieur now? What if this went higher up the food chain than she had ever imagined?
She had to get out of here.
“We know you were at the clinique.”
“Moi? Because you saw a blurred figure in the CCTV footage?”
Her father’s rules ran through her head: Don’t manufacture an alibi or you’ll look guilty. Keep them off target, make them tell you what they know. Save an alibi as your last resort.
No one at the clinique knew her real name—she’d given Marie’s card from Hôpital Laennec to Madame Uzes, and had lied to the receptionist at billing, at Dr. Estienne’s clinic and to Drina’s nurse.
She shook her head. “Wrong person, Monsieur.” She stood. “If that’s all?”
Pons and Grévot exchanged glances. The fragrant bouquet garni simmering on the stove made her stomach growl. Hadn’t she just eaten?
“I’m afraid not. We have a witness from the clinique who can identify you, Mademoiselle Leduc.”
The receptionist? Drina’s nurse?
“Back up, Monsieur Pons. A witness to what? A crime?”
“Take a look, s’il vous plaît.” He spread out that day’s Le Parisien. “The clinic suffered a near riot last night. We know because it happens to neighbor the Ministère de l’Outre-Mer.”
The ministry responsible for a few centuries of French colonialism.
“L’Hôtel Matignon was mentioned—”
“I just saw that,” she interrupted. “Now you’re worried about your reputation. Picking me to blame. Why?”
She waited for them to pick up her challenge. Silence. She glanced at her Tintin watch. She’d fight her way out of here, even if she had to start throwing the copper pans and fancy Le Creuset cookware.
“I think that security which deals with the ministries got caught with its pants down for abducting a dying Gypsy woman,” she said, taking her bag. “Her family should press criminal charges against all involved, if they haven’t already.”