‘What about the rest?’
‘It went missing, that’s all I know. Barsin said someone had done a switch and they got there too late. Just the nine bars left.’
‘And the “someone”?’
‘He didn’t say. I got the impression there was the original heist, and then a couple of groups who didn’t know about each other trying to get some for themselves. An inside job. One of them got the gold and the others were left with the crumbs – the nine bars.’
‘And you knew this Barsin was a cop?’
‘Not at first. I thought he was one of the gang.’
‘The boys that pulled the heist on Gineste?’
‘Either them or one of the freelancers. That’s right.’
‘So who was pulling the strings? The original heist. Whose boys?’
‘Lombard said it was Polineaux.’
Duclos nodded to himself, as though he’d suspected this all along.
‘So how did you find out Barsin was a cop?’
‘Lombard again. He warned me not to mess with him. Said to do as I was told, or there’d be trouble. For me. For you.’
‘And your job was to trade the gold?’
‘That’s right. Get the best price. Legit. What they wanted was a spread of dealers. A bit here, a bit there. They were thinking of melting it down – no trace. The story was going to be it was Nazi gold, like unmarked treasure trove. Pulled out of some lake in Austria. Not that the Swiss would have cared.’
‘And you agreed?’
‘I had no choice.’
Duclos frowned. ‘They had something on you?’
‘Lombard did. That’s how it all started.’
‘So what did he have on you?’
‘I was having an affair. He had photos. Said if I didn’t help, he’d send the photos to Clara.’
Duclos gave a grunt. He was leaning against the wall. Salome sat beside him, tongue out, panting. He took a last draw from his cigar and handed the butt to Beni.
‘So what happened then?’
‘He gave me a bar to trade.’
‘Barsin?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And when was this?’
‘A few weeks after the heist. Just before Christmas.’
‘Melted down?’
‘No. Still with all the markings. Banque Nationale d’Algérie. That’s when I knew for sure what it was. The hold-up on Gineste.’
‘And where was the rest of the gold being stored? The other eight bars?’
‘Barsin said that Lombard had it some place safe, that’s all I know.’
‘And Barsin had this one bar for you to trade?’
‘That’s right. A tester, he said. To see how things worked out.’
‘And?’
‘I was to take it to Zurich, to establish value and negotiate a trade.’
‘Jéromes Frères?’
‘And some other traders.’
‘But you didn’t go to Zurich?’
‘Not then. A couple of days after Barsin gave me the bar he was shot. In Marseilles. I read about it in the papers. So I didn’t do anything.’
‘Who shot him? Lombard?’
‘I don’t know. But that’s my guess.’
‘So what happened then?’
‘A few days later Lombard got in touch, told me to go ahead and make the first trade. So I passed on the bar. To Jéromes Frères. Got a price.’
‘And told Lombard?’
‘That’s right. Gave him all the documentation.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘Told me to go ahead. Gave me one bar at a time. A spread.’
‘All nine bars?’
‘Just seven in the end.’
‘What happened to the other two?’
‘Lombard kept them, told me he was going to trade them through someone else.’ This was the first time that Garnolle had lied. The truth was he didn’t know why he’d only been given seven bars and not the nine. Lombard hadn’t said anything. The gold just stopped coming.
The lie seemed to work.
‘So far as you know …’
‘That’s my best guess.’
‘And what did you get out of it, Jean?’
‘Lombard gave me the photos he was going to send to Clara.’
‘Any money?’
‘Just the commission from Jéromes Frères.’
‘Did Lombard know?’
‘Maybe he guessed. Like he knew. But he never said anything.’
‘What was his take?’
‘A million plus, thereabouts.’
‘That’s what you got for the bars? In Switzerland?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And how long did the trading go on for?’
‘Maybe six months.’
‘And without Barsin, Lombard got to keep it all?’
‘Unless there was someone else involved I didn’t know about.’
Duclos seemed to consider this.
‘And all that time … not once, not one single time, did you think of mentioning this to me. That you knew about the gold. That Polineaux was behind the heist. And that you’d been brought in to trade.’
‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. I can see that now. But like I said, it was just seven bars.’
‘And you expect me to believe that? Good old Jean just brought in at the last moment by some dockie shit and a bent cop. To get rid of a few measly gold bars.’
‘That’s the truth. That’s how it was.’
Garnolle felt a sudden, desperate twist of fear. So far the interrogation had gone without Duclos’ thugs doing him any harm, but something had changed; there was a sense now of things coming to a head.
And a chilling realisation that Duclos had not believed a word he had said.
‘So let’s go over it one more time,’ said Duclos quietly, sliding another cigar from his breast pocket and biting off the tip, spitting it on to the floor. ‘And this time, your old friend Beni here is going to try to help you remember …’
50
IT WAS FOUR days before Jacquot spoke to Isabelle again. Every day he expected to hear from her. An update. Testing a theory on him. Asking for an opinion. But she didn’t call. Of course it was good to have the time to spend with Claudine, and catch up on work around the millhouse, but he missed that sense of being a part of something – beyond the millhouse.
In a couple of months his convalescence would come to an end and he would begin that morning drive into town, sitting at his desk overlooking the railed garden of Église Saint-Jean, and giving his assistant, Brunet, a hard time. As the days passed it was something he started to look forward to, and as he worked in the garden, or tended his plants in the vegetable patch, or got to grips with an argumentative boiler in preparation for winter, Jacquot found himself wondering what was going on down south, not a hundred kilometres away in Marseilles.
In the end he phoned Isabelle, just a friendly call, and left a message.
Twenty minutes later Claudine came on to the terrace from her studio, called out to him. A Chief Inspector Cassier on the phone.
When Jacquot came into the kitchen, Claudine was back in her studio. She was pinning up a series of holiday photos on her cork-board – what looked like dozens of studies of island vegetation – that she would soon start sketching, before turning the sketches into canvases. He pulled out a kitchen chair and picked up the phone.
‘I hadn’t heard from you … I thought I’d call, see how the Dupont case was …’
‘Busy,’ said Isabelle.
‘That’s good,’ replied Jacquot, recognising the excited lilt to her voice. ‘Busy’ was department shorthand for ‘developments’ and rue de l’Évêché loved developments. An investigation lived and breathed on developments. Without them everything slowed, tempers frayed and, on occasions, heads rolled.
‘We’ve found Suchet.’
‘Found’ was another emotive word. It meant, usually, that a body was involved, rather than someone alive who had been tracked dow
n and apprehended.
‘Where? When?’
‘Last week. In the Esterel. You wouldn’t believe it. And there’s more.’
‘What? Tell me.’
‘It’ll cost.’
‘Cost what?’
‘Lunch. On you. Or dinner, on Constance.’
‘I’m coming down Saturday. If I leave early enough we could meet for lunch?’
‘If it’s Saturday it’ll have to be an early supper,’ she replied. ‘I’m on call most of the day.’
‘Come over when you finish. I’ll be there.’
When he put the phone down Claudine came out of her studio, pulled open a kitchen drawer and rummaged around for another box of drawing pins.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, finding the pins and closing the drawer. ‘I’m six months pregnant and you’re having an affair.’
‘Just the one. And only weekends,’ he replied. ‘The rest of the week I’m yours.’
She came over, pressed her swollen belly against his shoulder and then leaned down to kiss the top of his head.
‘Is this the one you had while I was away? Or another one?’ she said, sliding her fingers through his hair.
‘A new one.’ He felt her tug his hair, playfully. But only just.
‘And I suppose you expect me to let you slink off every time your lady friend calls?’
‘I told you, it’s just an affair. What’s the harm?’
‘Tell me she has the face … and the body … of a wrestler.’
‘A retired wrestler. Put out to seed.’
‘That’s all right then. You can go. And I suppose you’ll want to stay over?’
‘There are some things I need to do.’
‘So long as it’s just Constance you need to do them to,’ she said. And with a final, deliberate bump of her belly against his shoulder, as though to remind him of his new obligations, Claudine returned to the studio with her box of pins.
51
JACQUOT ARRIVED IN the Vieux Port and boarded Constance for the first time in a week. It was good to be back, and he spent the afternoon finishing off a few odd jobs left over from his last visit before heading off to the stores for some supplies. An hour after getting back on board he spotted Isabelle coming down the pontoon. She waved and he waved back. She had clearly been home. Her hair was wet from a shower and she’d changed from her work clothes into jeans and a loose white T-shirt, a long grey belted cardigan, feet bare and deckshoes in her hands. He helped her aboard and as she stepped down on to the aft deck she came close enough for him to catch the familiar musky scent he knew so well.
No wrestler this, thought Jacquot, and somewhere a small alarm started to ring. He remembered the look Claudine had given him when he’d set off that morning, and the teasing smile that had accompanied it. ‘Take care,’ was the last thing she’d said. He hoped he wouldn’t have to … or rather, he knew he wouldn’t have to. There was nothing more in store than an easy supper with an old friend – albeit a one-time lover – and colleague. A catch-up chat. It was, after all, four years since they’d split up, gone their separate ways. Nor had he forgotten that it hadn’t been him who had ended it. It was Isabelle who’d thrown in her cards, called it quits. There was no unfinished business here, he was certain of it.
‘Whoosh, what a day!’ she said, dropping her tote on the deck and loosening the belt of her cardigan. She unclipped the holster and gun from her belt and stowed them out of sight in the wheelhouse. It was as if she was coming home after a hard day in the office, Jacquot thought. He couldn’t help but smile.
‘What?’ she asked, with a smile of her own, taking a glass of wine from him and her favourite seat looking out over the water at the square tower of Fort Saint-Jean.
‘You look at home. It’s nice to see that you like it so much.’
‘What’s not to like?’ she replied, sweeping a hand towards the forest of silvery masts, the blue sea and sky and the rising heights of Le Panier across the harbour. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Mmmmhhh, délicieux …’
But Jacquot was keen to hear about the investigation, to be brought up to speed.
‘So,’ he began. ‘Suchet.’
‘Dead,’ she replied, getting down to business. ‘Just his underpants and a bullet in the back of the head. And knee. And ankle. Dumped in a sinkhole in the Esterel. Twenty metres down. Up above Miramar on the Cap Roux.’
‘A sinkhole?’
‘Like a mineshaft. Or well. But natural. Something to do with lava flows millions of years ago, Clisson said.’
‘That’s the kind of thing Clisson would know.’
‘And he wasn’t alone. Suchet, I mean.’
Jacquot gave her a puzzled look.
‘A couple of dogs, cats, a fox, some rabbits … and eleven other corpses in varying states of decomposition. Three of them women, but all eleven known names, associated with the Milieu. It’s like a gangland dumping ground up there. Step on someone’s toes and it’s sinkhole city.’
‘How do you known they’re all names?’
‘There was a stack of personal information with the bodies: wallets, credit cards, driving licences, you name it – as if whoever dumped them didn’t care about identification, what was in their pockets, or didn’t imagine they’d ever be found. There’s so much to get through that Clisson’s called in help from Aix and Avignon.’ She took another sip of her wine. ‘And whoever’s doing the dumping must have been doing it for years. Right at the bottom, the last body brought up had a pair of tickets for the Olympique Coupe de France final in 1969.’
‘So whoever he was,’ said Jacquot, ‘he wasn’t dumped there by a football supporter.’
Isabelle frowned.
‘An Olympique fan would never have let those tickets go,’ Jacquot explained with a wink. ‘Worth their weight in gold.’
Isabelle gave him a look. ‘If you say so, but it hardly narrows the field …’
‘So who found the body?’ asked Jacquot, reaching for his cigarettes. ‘Up there, it’s wild country.’ He lit one, drew in the smoke and then let it out in a long plume.
‘A couple of hikers doing the Chemin d’Esterel. Dutch. It was their second day out from Fréjus and they’d camped on the ridge above the sinkhole. Around midnight, they were woken by a car coming up the slope. One of them, the husband, left their tent to see what was happening and looked over the edge. And there were these two guys hauling a body up the track. He watched the whole thing, till they got to the sinkhole directly beneath him when he couldn’t see what was going on.’
‘At night? How could he see at all?’
‘Whoever it was had left the car headlights on, so they could see what they were doing.’
‘And?’
‘The following morning the hikers went down to Miramar and reported it. What they’d seen. After that …’
‘He get a vehicle registration? The husband?’
Isabelle shook her head.
‘Too far away. But close enough, apparently, for the killers to hear him. A rock dislodged from the ridge. One of the men heard it, stopped, flashed the torch around. For a minute or so the husband thought he was done for.’
‘But he lived to tell the tale.’
‘He did indeed. Except it took a while for the local boys to get a handle on it and organise themselves. To get up there, take a look, bring in someone to rope down into the sinkhole. The usual thing. The first body, Suchet’s, was hauled out two days later. Which was when they discovered the others.’
‘Time to have another word with Lombard, I’d say. See if he knows anything about sinkholes in the Esterel.’
‘If I could, I would. Monsieur Pierre-Louis Lombard is dead.’
‘Natural causes? Didn’t you say he had AIDs?’
‘That’s how it was recorded. But when I heard about it, I asked Clisson to have a quick look at the body.’
‘And Clisson told you to take a ticket and get in line?’
Isabelle flashed Jacq
uot a coy smile. ‘No, he did not. As a matter of fact he was most helpful. He didn’t have time to cut, he said, but he offered to do a quick once-over. It took him about ten minutes. Not natural causes. Smothered was his opinion. Not conclusive, of course. A more thorough examination … blah, blah, blah. But judging by the broken blood vessels in the eyes and bite marks on Lombard’s tongue and the inside of his lips …’
‘Anyone in the frame?’
‘As soon as I heard, I called Jules Ranque, the assistant warden at Les Baumettes, to find out more. Apparently Lombard wasn’t the only patient in the ward. He was alone when I visited, but another prisoner had been sent up to isolation soon after. You’ll know him. A man called Castel. “S” wing. Category One abuser.’
‘Castel? Oh, yes, I remember him,’ grunted Jacquot.
An image leaped into his mind. The first time he’d seen Castel, after a three-month manhunt: in the back of his butcher’s shop in La Bouilladisse; his latest victim bent over a wood-block chopping table; ankles and wrists tied to its legs; an assortment of butchery tools to hand. One of the reasons Castel got away with the killings for so long was doing the deed in his butcher’s shop. Blood and guts easy to conceal there. The victim, a seventeen-year-old Arab boy, had not survived Castel’s loving attentions. At his trial, Castel’s lawyer had pleaded insanity but the defence had fallen on deaf ears. Castel had gone down full-term with no parole. He would never leave Les Baumettes.
‘What was he doing in the isolation ward? What was wrong with him?’ asked Jacquot.
‘Interesting you should ask,’ replied Isabelle. ‘According to the prison doctor, Castel had complained of intestinal pain. He’d soiled his bed. Diarrhoea. It was enough for Ranque to order him to isolation despite the doctor’s reservations.’
‘Reservations?’
‘Apparently a spell in the hospital wing was considered something of a holiday for loners, the boys on “S” wing.’
‘You spoke to the prison doctor?’ he asked.
‘After speaking to Ranque … just routine, to double check. The doctor agreed with Ranque that there’s nothing worse than a gastric infection raging through a prison, but he hadn’t been altogether convinced by the symptoms presented.’
The Dying Minutes Page 18