The Dying Minutes

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘Ranque? That two-faced greedy little shit?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ replied Didier.

  Polineaux fell silent, tried to work it through. It wasn’t easy grinding dentures; they cut into the gums. But Polineaux didn’t care. He wheeled himself to the terrace balustrade and looked down into the garden.

  ‘But why would Ranque …?’

  ‘Maybe Lombard had something on him. And the stupid fuck couldn’t wait for this … disease to kill him. Maybe Ranque got scared.’

  Polineaux shook his head. ‘And just when I wanted to have a word myself.’

  ‘You were going to talk to Lombard?’

  ‘No, you were. To find out what’s going on. If he knew anything, about the gold. He must have done.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. Didier knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth.

  Polineaux spun round, fast enough to set him rocking in his wheelchair.

  ‘Of course it’s too fucking late, you moron!’ screamed the old man. ‘The fucker’s dead. What do you think I am, stupid or something? For fuck’s sake …’

  Didier took a step back, shaking his head, holding up his hands.

  ‘Pas du tout, pas du tout. Not at all, not at all.’

  He might have been getting on in years, thought Didier, but the old bastard could certainly hand it out when he felt like it. And how. That spitting, screeching voice made the blood freeze.

  Finally, Polineaux spoke again. More softly now, but still a little breathless, his flare of temper reined in.

  ‘Ranque. I want him dealt with. Just for … fucking things up. Tell Léo. He can set it up.’

  47

  ‘WE HAVE A match,’ said Isabelle.

  Jacquot was down in Marseilles for a final examination and sign-off with his doctor at La Timone, and had decided to check out Constance before driving home. Isabelle had dropped by as he was stowing the cover, on the off-chance he was there, she told him, and accepted his invitation aboard. A bottle of rosé was fetched from the fridge, a corkscrew found and glasses poured.

  ‘The smudge on the parking ticket and my ID card,’ she continued, kicking off her shoes, stretching out her bare legs along the seat and hooking her elbow over the side. The sun was settling over the slopes of Le Panier, and a compilation tape was playing softly in the cabin. ‘The same prints. So your guess was right. Monsieur Bernard Suchet.’

  ‘You paid a call?’ asked Jacquot, taking the other locker seat. He raised his glass, sipped the wine, and took in the long brown legs, the fluttering open collar of Isabelle’s blouse. He was pleased she had dropped by. Claudine was having dinner with her best friend, Gilles, telling him all about her stay on Guadeloupe, so there was no huge rush to get home.

  ‘We would if we could,’ said Isabelle.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Monsieur Suchet is missing.’

  ‘Missing, or just taken to his heels?’

  Isabelle shrugged. ‘Could be either. All we know is that Madame Suchet reported him missing after we paid him a visit.’

  ‘Any ransom demand?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘What about Madame? Where was she?’

  ‘Down the coast with their daughter. Saint-Tropez … the family yacht. They came home for a dinner party and Suchet’s a no show. Madame got in touch with the police in Aix, where they live, and they contacted us because this is where he has his head office. It would appear that you and I were probably the last people to see him. He’d arranged a pick-up that evening with his driver at the Mercure but never showed, hasn’t been back to the office and off air ever since. Pas un mot. Not a word.’

  ‘How’s she taking it?’

  ‘The wife? I think she’s worried.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. She’s a toughie. Doesn’t let anything show through. But I’d say the woman’s … distraught inside. Just keeping it all together for her daughter who really has taken it badly. There’s a wedding coming up. If you read the magazines you’d know about it. Prospective son-in-law said to be a fast track Chirac boy. True love. But Suchet must have been thrilled all the same. Same for the mother, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Anything missing from the house in Aix? Clothes? Money? Passport?’

  Isabelle shook her head. ‘Not a thing. Passport and cash in the safe. Suitcases accounted for. No clothes missing.’

  ‘Office?’

  ‘According to his PA, Monique Berthelot, his desk was just as he’d left it. She had strict instructions that his desktop should never be touched. Tidy or in a mess. In this instance, it was tidy.’

  Jacquot fell silent, remembered Suchet stepping out of his building: short, bullish, wrapping that scarf round his thick neck as though he needed it, as though there were a chill in the air.

  And he remembered something else, the image just popping into his head: the van, coming up behind Suchet as he approached the corner of Grignan and Paradis. A black van, dawdling along, then speeding up, going against the traffic lights.

  ‘He’s been taken,’ said Jacquot quietly, certain of it. ‘Out on the street. And you and me? We saw it happen.’

  Isabelle looked at him, frowned. ‘How so?’

  ‘When we were following, remember? He was across the road from us, going up Grignan, heading for Paradis? And there was that black van … slowing for the lights so we couldn’t see him, and then speeding off. And Suchet had vanished. Just gone. We assumed he’d turned the corner into Paradis. We were wrong.’

  ‘So where do you think he was headed, on foot? Some shopping maybe? Something for his wife? For the dinner?’

  ‘Possibly. Or meeting someone?’ Jacquot suggested.

  ‘A pay-off? Maybe he’d received one of Dupont’s envelopes, with a ransom demand. Pay up or I’ll spill the beans about that parking garage, La Caboucelle. And Barsin.’

  ‘Not blackmail. Not Dupont. But maybe someone else. Maybe the same people who called on Dupont. You could always check it with his PA, show her one of those Tyvak envelopes. See if she recognises it.’

  Isabelle shook her head. ‘Done it already. I asked her to look, but she couldn’t find anything.’

  A pair of quarelling gulls swooped overhead and Jacquot watched them wheel away between the masts, marvelling at their agility.

  ‘Dis-moi, you said he had a driver?’

  ‘That’s right. Monique told me he’d asked for his driver to pick him up outside the Mercure. According to the driver, he never showed.’

  ‘The driver didn’t think that strange? A man like Suchet?’

  Over Isabelle’s shoulder, Jacquot spotted Gala coming down the pontoon towards them. When Gala saw he had company she turned on her heel and went back to her own boat. A good girl, thought Jacquot. How many others would have come sniffing, curious to see what was going on?

  ‘Apparently it happens quite often,’ Isabelle was saying. ‘He has the driver go somewhere to pick him up and he doesn’t show. Tant pis. Who cares? He’s just a driver. Let him wait.’

  ‘What time did Suchet want the pick-up?’ Jacquot reached across with the bottle and topped up Isabelle’s glass. He was pleased they’d met up. It was good having her there, the company, and bringing him up to speed. And he realised he was enjoying himself. Being in the loop, but not having to do any of the legwork. Just make a few suggestions, talk things through, maybe gently direct Isabelle’s path of enquiry. It really didn’t get much better than that.

  ‘Eight forty-five,’ said Isabelle, raising her glass in thanks. ‘The driver hung round for an hour then went home.’

  ‘So Suchet leaves the office late afternoon, to go somewhere until, say, eight o’clock. Enough time for him to get to the Mercure from wherever he’s been, whoever he’s been seeing.’

  ‘He could have been having a meeting in the Mercure?’

  ‘Possible, but I doubt it. Not Suchet. The Nice Passédat, yes. Maybe even the Sofi
tel. But not the Mercure. Not his style at all.’

  And then he gave Isabelle a knowing look. She caught it.

  ‘What? What are you saying?’

  Jacquot spread his hands.

  ‘I remember the way he looked at you, that’s all. Maybe he was … hungry.’

  It took her only a second or two to catch on. ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Remember the time. A hard day at the office. He needs to unwind before he goes home. Some afternoon delight. Cinq à sept. Or as near as dammit.’

  ‘A mistress?’

  ‘Or a hooker. He had that look about him, didn’t you think? And for a man like Suchet a mistress could be difficult. A hooker’s a whole lot less trouble.’

  Isabelle gave it some thought. ‘We could go through his address book, see if there’s …’

  Jacquot shook his head, smiled.

  ‘Those are not the kind of numbers you write down, Isabelle. You know them by heart.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And you’d know?’

  He spread his hands. ‘Call it a man thing.’

  ‘A dirty old man thing, if you ask me.’

  ‘Talking of which … any news on our priest?’

  ‘Nothing significant. All we’ve got is Saint-Ignace church, off Kléber. He was there for a couple of years, back in the eighties. But we can’t identify any of his … companions. And even if we did …’

  And so it had gone, that unplanned evening on Constance, the two of them chatting about the investigation, going over the possibilities, Isabelle telling Jacquot about her visit to Les Baumettes and her interview with Lombard, what he’d said about Suchet and Dupont.

  When the first bottle of wine was finished Jacquot opened a second, prepared a tray of bread and pâté and olives which they ate on deck, watching the sky turn through orange to purple, until the stars started to twinkle above the sulphurous glow of the streetlights.

  After clearing away the dishes and tidying the cabin, Jacquot came topside with his jacket over his shoulder.

  Isabelle felt a twist of disappointment.

  ‘I’d love to stay and open another bottle, but I have to be getting back,’ he said, turning to lock the wheelhouse hatch. ‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

  ‘No, no. That’s fine,’ replied Isabelle, picking up her own jacket, slipping on her shoes and reaching for her bag. ‘I can walk it from here. And I do have my friend.’ She tapped her holster.

  ‘You live close by?’ he asked, stowing the seat cushions.

  ‘Le Panier. A ten-minute walk.’

  ‘I used to have a place up there. Rent it out now.’

  ‘I know.’ She gave him a look. ‘I helped you move, remember?’

  ‘Mais, bien sûr. Of course you did,’ he replied, a little shocked that he had forgotten. How Isabelle had helped him move out of the apartment, out of Marseilles after the Waterman case, and up to Cavaillon. To another life. And another woman.

  Up on the quayside, Jacquot reached for his car keys. The traffic was loud here and they had to draw close to hear each other speak.

  ‘It was fun,’ said Isabelle. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I enjoyed it too. Like being back at work. In the thick of it again, without any of the hassle. And thanks for keeping me in the loop,’ he said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheeks. She held his elbow as she returned the kisses, then stepped back.

  ‘À la prochaine,’ she said. ‘Until the next time.’

  ‘Oui. À la prochaine,’ he replied.

  48

  JEAN GARNOLLE KNEW that he was going to die.

  What he didn’t know was when or how, his one real fear the level and extent of the pain that he would experience in the minutes or hours or days leading up to that sweet release. René Duclos was not the forgiving type and Garnolle wondered just how much, and for how long, his old friend would make him suffer before that obliging bullet in the head.

  Garnolle knew why they had come for him.

  Twenty-seven years may have passed but he knew why he was there, in his socks and underpants, wrists bound, roped to a hook in the ceiling. The only thing he had ever done that he shouldn’t have. The one single action in his life that had, in the intervening years, turned dreams into nightmares.

  Just a small job.

  Call it a favour.

  A one-off. No one need ever know.

  Had it been worth it, he wondered now? As he hung there, alone in the darkness, he decided it had not, and he knew that now he was going to pay very dearly for that little indiscretion. And knew, too, with an absolute certainty, that he would never see daylight again.

  He’d known it the moment they bundled him into the boot of the Mercedes. And if, for a moment, he’d doubted it, the three short, sharp shots – pop, pop-pop – that he’d heard from the boot’s swaying darkness left no room for doubt. There was no mistaking that sound. They had killed Clara. Right there, in the street where they’d lived for more than twenty years, just a few metres from their front door. And if they were prepared to kill her on the street, there was no doubt that he was facing the same prospect. At least her death had been quick. He hoped he was as fortunate.

  It must have been well past midnight when they arrived back in Toulon, and as soon as the boys opened the boot he’d smelled that sharp, familiar scent from the Pesquiers salt pans across the bay, and had seen through the trees the columned stucco façade of the Duclos mansion. But this time he’d been taken to the basement rather than the summerhouse annexe where his old office had been, stripped, strung up and left alone in the darkness.

  It was difficult to tell how long he had been there. An hour? Less? More? His arms and shoulders had started to ache, that was for sure, and his wrists to chafe. But then he was in his sixties. This was not something he was used to. And though it was warm and close in that darkened room he had started to shiver – the expectation of confrontation, the chill of fear.

  Knowing his life was as good as over.

  Just a last few hours to go.

  If he was lucky.

  He’d already decided that he would answer every question he was asked, that he would volunteer as much information as possible, as quickly and as accurately as he could, leaving nothing out, to avoid any unwanted physical encouragement. He’d also decided that if he didn’t know the answer to a question he would make up some credible answer. You didn’t say ‘I don’t know’ to René Duclos.

  Some time later, maybe another thirty minutes, Garnolle heard footsteps come down the passage. The rubbery squeak of trainers, the clip of leather soles. The door opened and the two men who’d brought him here came in. The taller of the pair, Garnolle remembered, was called Beni, but the other one he didn’t recognise. The one he didn’t know, the shorter of the two, the one who had shot Clara, switched on an overhead light, and Beni, a wad of gum in his mouth, came over and checked his bindings. Then, from the hallway, came a familiar sound, the scampering click of tiny paws.

  Salome, the dog.

  Which meant that Duclos would not be far behind.

  Garnolle took a deep breath, and tried to control the shivering. It didn’t work.

  Salome came in first, darted around the room, poked her snout into every corner, then found what she was looking for and squatted down to pee. She seemed excited to be there. She had finished her business and was sniffing around his feet when Duclos finally appeared.

  There had been no sound of footsteps, no sense of his approach. Suddenly he was just there. In the doorway, pausing before entering, as though unfamiliar with the lay-out of the room.

  The dog went to him, pranced around him, then came back into the room. Duclos followed. As he stepped into the light Garnolle could see that he was dressed in evening clothes, a silk scarf round his neck, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding a half-smoked cigar. His thin grey hair was slicked back, his eyes bright and sharp, but the face was creased and heavy with wrink
les, the neck stretched and scrawny, the fingers clamping hold of the cigar gnarled and claw-like.

  There was no greeting. No sound save the scrape-scrape of a match, a soft flaring and a lazy puff-puff-puff as Duclos drew on the stub, its ashy tip glowing into life, smoke coiling around his head and drifting upwards.

  When he was satisfied the cigar was properly alight, Duclos pocketed the matches and, for the first time since entering the room, he flicked his eyes at Garnolle, as though he had just noticed him.

  ‘So tell me about Jéromes Frères,’ he began, without any preamble. ‘You know the ones, Jean. Those gold dealers in Zurich.’

  49

  ‘IT WAS BARSIN. The cop. He was the one set it all up.’

  ‘In Marseilles, you said?’

  ‘That’s right. And that low-life Lombard. He was in on it too. The one they call The Seahorse. A real player on the docks.’

  ‘I know all about Lombard,’ said Duclos quietly. ‘But it was this Barsin, the cop, who brought you in?’

  ‘That’s right. Like I told you, I didn’t know him, I’d never seen him before.’

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘He’d heard about my connections, he said. In Switzerland. Seemed to know what I’d done for you.’

  ‘He knew about me?’

  ‘That’s how it sounded.’

  ‘Who from? How did he know about me?’

  ‘Lombard, I think. Lombard seemed to know everything about everyone.’

  ‘So this cop, Barsin, came to you and asked about selling gold bars?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How many gold bars?’

  ‘Nine. He said they had nine to get rid of.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Barsin and Lombard, I suppose.’

  ‘You knew where the gold came from?’

  ‘Of course. It had been in the papers. The hold-up. I’d read about it. One truck missing. Seventy-five bars. Ten, twelve million, give or take.’

  ‘And he said they had nine? Just nine bars?’

  ‘That’s right. Just the nine. I told you.’