The Dying Minutes

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘He’s crazy,’ she screamed, tasting blood on her lip, wiping it away. ‘He’s fucking crazy.’

  ‘There, there,’ said Didier. ‘It’s fine, it’s fine. Everything’s fine now. There, there …’ And he held her to him until the shaking stopped.

  55

  IT WAS CURIOSITY. Nothing more. The cop’s curse, thought Jacquot as he selected three of Philo’s books from the main cabin – a Maigret story by Simenon, a Dumas, and a Balzac – and set off the following morning at a steady amble for rue Céline.

  Just a couple of blocks from the Opera House, rue Céline and its neighbouring thoroughfares were a night-time favourite with ladies of a certain age and straitened means. As soon as the sun had set and the shops on Céline had brought down their shutters, these colourful exotics took up residence in doorways, under streetlights, and on corners – where the trade was always brisker. The area was safe for what they had in mind, and central, and close to their homes in Réformé and Belle de Mai and Breteuil, and a number of short-time, ask-no-questions hotels were close at hand to serve their requirements.

  In daylight there was nothing but the occasional neon hotel sign still flickering above a doorway to suggest these streets might serve another role after dark. Now, at a little after 9 a.m. on a weekday morning, there was a busy hum of activity on Céline: cars sliding carefully between the bollards that marked out pavements in these narrow streets, shoppers with their bags and prams, pigeons pecking and strutting. There was a mixed scent of ripe fruit and coffee, baking bread and the sea, and the morning sun cut along its length like a slice of butter.

  At this time of the morning, the sun had yet to strike Librairie Santal, its awning still rolled, a line of trestle tables set out on the pavement and laden with wooden boxes, each crammed with books, spines to the sky. Jacquot pushed in through the glass door, a bell on a spring announced his arrival, and the smell of ancient leather filled his nostrils. The books on display outside the shop might have been used paperbacks but the shelves inside were lined with books of a different character. Coffee table tomes on art and architecture, travel and fashion, scholarly works on science and history, biography and the classics, all of them second-hand but all in excellent condition. As Jacquot went deeper into the shop the darker the passage way between the bookshelves became, the dustier and more valuable the stock: leather-bound collections, fine gold lettering on scarlet squares, spines ribbed and rubbed, the dusty scent of the centuries.

  At the very back of the shop, sitting at a roll-top desk stuffed with papers, was an overweight gentleman in brown cords, a plain blue shirt and extravagantly dotted bow-tie. With a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles on the point of his nose, he had the look of a university professor, Jacquot thought, and glanced at the jacket on the back of his chair to see if the sleeves had patches. They did. Suede.

  The man looked up at Jacquot, as he would any browser, smiled briefly and went back to the auction catalogue he was reading. When Jacquot failed to move on, the shopkeeper looked back, removed his glasses, put down the catalogue and gave another longer smile.

  ‘M’sieur, bonjour. Can I help you?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Jacquot, and he offered the books he had brought with him, tucked under his arm.

  The bookseller – Santal, Jacquot assumed – reached out a weary hand, took the books, and slipped his glasses back on.

  ‘Ah, Honoré,’ he said, when he came to the Balzac. He riffled through the pages like a card sharp. One of Philo’s bookmarks spun out and landed in his lap. Santal picked it up, glanced at it, then jammed it back in the book. ‘The great realist, n’est-ce pas? Proust? Zola? Flaubert? All of them in de Balzac’s debt.’

  Having thus established his credentials – not just a shopkeeper, but an authority on his stock and subject – Santal put down the book, took off his spectacles again, and looked back at Jacquot.

  ‘So? What can I do for you? You want a price? Ten francs the three.’ He smiled, slipped his spectacles back on.

  An offer made, to be accepted or not.

  Nothing further in this transaction.

  ‘I regret that they’re not for sale,’ Jacquot said, with a sad smile. ‘But I believe they came from your shop … Monsieur Santal?’

  ‘Santal, that’s right. Emile Santal. C’est moi.’ He flicked the cover on each of the three books until he came to the Santal stamp. ‘Ah, yes. At least one of them, it would appear. And the Dumas and Simenon do look familiar.’

  ‘I wondered if you remembered the man who bought them?’

  Santal gave Jacquot a look, over his spectacles, and chuckled.

  ‘I may not get much custom, Monsieur, but enough, I assure you, not to be able to remember everyone who walks through that door.’ He nodded past the crowded bookshelves, to the front of the shop.

  ‘His name was Philo. His friends called him The Scholar.’

  Santal started shaking his head.

  ‘An old man, about so high …’ Jacquot continued, holding a hand level with his upper arm. Wondering why he was bothering with this charade. This was going nowhere. And then he remembered the name that Salette had mentioned. ‘Perhaps you might recall his proper name. Emanetti. Niko Emanetti.’

  ‘Ahhh, Monsieur Niko,’ said Santal, with the same warm familiar affection that he’d shown just a few moments earlier for Honoré de Balzac. ‘Mais oui, bien sûr. Of course. Of course. You should have said. So how is he? How is he?’

  And that was the moment Santal’s expression changed, a bright smile of recognition reduced to a sudden frown, his eyes fixing on Jacquot.

  ‘He’s all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘I regret, Monsieur, that Monsieur Emanetti has passed away.’

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said Santal, the breath almost snatched from him. ‘Mais c’est affreux. Affreux. Quelle tristesse.’

  Jacquot was surprised to see how badly, how genuinely, Santal had been affected by the news.

  So not just any old customer, then.

  ‘Is there a funeral?’ he asked. ‘I must go. Il faut respecter …’

  ‘Again I regret … He was buried some weeks ago. At sea. Only close family.’

  ‘At sea? Monsieur Emanetti?’

  ‘Alors, he was a sailor after all.’

  ‘A sailor? Then it must have been a shipping line he owned.’ Santal chuckled again, deep and throaty. Then he frowned, gave Jacquot a long look. ‘And you? You are family. His son, perhaps?’

  Jacquot shook his head. ‘I was … left his books.’

  Santal held the look a moment longer. ‘Then you are a lucky man, Monsieur. It is a truly wonderful collection.’

  Now it was Jacquot’s turn to frown – still pondering the ‘shipping line’ comment – and thought of the books on Constance. They were well kept, and they represented a wide range of writers and subjects. But apart from a few volumes, like the ones he had brought with him, they were mostly paperbacks. Nothing he had seen was of any obvious worth.

  ‘You have spoken to Joubert, of course,’ continued Santal.

  ‘Joubert?’

  ‘Philippe Joubert. Senior curator at the Musée Bibliothèque in Aix. The bulk of Monsieur Emanetti’s collection is kept there, but only on loan, I understand. They could be taken back very easily, although Joubert would have something to say about it, I can assure you.’

  ‘You said “the bulk” of the collection?’

  ‘The good stuff. The jewels. The rest, call it the second division – the folios, the prints – well, I assume, Monsieur, that they are at his home.’ He looked at Jacquot as though Jacquot should know that.

  ‘In Madrague?’

  ‘Madrague? Non, non, non. In Roucas Blanc.’

  ‘Ah, the Roucas property,’ said Jacquot, nodding but trying hard to keep up.

  ‘Les Étagères. Rue Savry. A sense of humour, Monsieur Niko. Always cracking a joke.’

  Les Étagères. Shelves, thought Jacquot.

  ‘I went there once,’ continued
Santal, fondly now. ‘To deliver an order.’

  ‘You supplied his collection?’

  ‘Sometimes, if I found something of interest. If I knew he was looking for something.’ Santal frowned. He had realised he didn’t know who he was talking to. ‘And you are, Monsieur …?’

  ‘Jacquot. Daniel Jacquot. Niko was my uncle.’

  Santal’s eyes narrowed. Either he recognised the name, thought Jacquot, or he’d smelled the possibility of making some more money.

  ‘Did you know Niko long?’ asked Jacquot, lying casually, sensing he’d get more from this man if he continued to present himself as a family member and not a police officer. He was pleased to see that the reference to his ‘uncle’ had worked its magic.

  ‘A good twenty years now,’ replied Santal, not even needing to think about it. ‘Without question, my longest, my most loyal and best customer.’

  ‘Do you remember when he last visited?’

  ‘Maybe six months ago. The start of summer. I had found him a near perfect sixteenth-century first edition of Cristoforo da Messisbugo’s Banchetti, composizioni di vivande e apparecchio generale. He had been searching a long time for it.’

  ‘Did he buy it?’

  ‘A Messisbugo? Mais oui. An edition like that? In that condition? It was an opportunity not to be missed.’

  ‘A cookery book, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘But for some, like Monsieur Niko, the cookery book.’ Santal paused. ‘You are a collector yourself, Monsieur Jacquot?’

  ‘I take an interest, certainly, though my uncle was the expert.’

  ‘Well, Monsieur Jacquot,’ Santal continued, somehow managing not to rub his hands together at the sudden and pleasant prospect of resupplying or selling the collection on the estate’s behalf, and taking his commission, ‘if there is anything that Librairie Santal can do to help, in terms of looking out interesting items …?’ He tapped the catalogue on his desk. ‘Or if any sale must be effected …?’

  ‘Then I will certainly be in touch,’ Jacquot replied, anxious now to be gone.

  To Les Étagères, in rue Savry, Roucas Blanc.

  At the earliest opportunity.

  It was then that he remembered the other reason he had called.

  ‘Ah, I had almost forgotten,’ he began. ‘In those other two books – the Dumas and Simenon – there’s an ex-libris label and another stamp.’

  Santal flicked open the covers, read the names, then handed the books back.

  ‘Lycée Simon? Long gone. Over in Belle de Mai. I cleared it myself.’

  ‘And Edina?’

  Santal gave a grunt, lowered his head and peered at Jacquot over his spectacles. ‘You didn’t know Edina?’

  A trap sprung. A nimble sidestep required. All he could assume was that whoever Edina was, she was no more.

  ‘I didn’t know she collected books, too,’ said Jacquot, hoping for the best. The deception seemed to work.

  Santal tapped the book with Edina’s name inside, nodded with an indulgent enthusiasm.

  ‘She loved her Simenons, did Madame. The policiers, the whodunits. Jules Maigret was her favourite, but no surprise in that. The master, hein? No one comes close. Not even now.’ Santal sighed. ‘But that is as far as it went. Really, she was very patient with Monsieur Niko and his esoteric, expensive tastes.’

  And with that, not wishing to risk another careless question about Edina, Jacquot took his leave, putting the three books from Constance under his arm, and shaking Santal’s hand.

  He would find out what he wanted to know soon enough.

  And if he didn’t, he could always have Isabelle call back in a professional capacity.

  56

  IF JACQUOT HAD expected Les Étagères to live up to its name, the house lined with bookshelves, he was sorely mistaken. There was not a book to be seen.

  Les Étagères was one of only three properties on rue Savry, a narrow, tree-shaded impasse in the prestigious Roucas Blanc district of Marseilles. Occupying a series of wooded ridges between the city centre and the beaches of Prado this sixth arrondissement is quiet, secluded and thickly planted with cypress, palm and spreading pine, the homes within it high-walled and gated, only their upper floors and tiled gables visible from the street. Security cameras top the gates of most of these properties, but Les Étagères boasted no such adornment, its wrought-iron gates set between stone pillars and left invitingly open to the road.

  The house was not the grandest that Jacquot had visited in Roucas Blanc – the old Cabrille mansion just a few blocks away probably took that prize – but Les Étagères was still a valuable slice of real estate built on the coastal side of a hill, with tantalising views of the islands beyond the Corniche road. Judging by its low, rounded stone balconies and its metal-framed windows Jacquot decided the house had probably been built in the early thirties, an Art Deco seaside villa for a wealthy Marseillais businessman. Large spikey aloes lined the drive and forecourt where Jacquot parked, and the half-dozen front steps were wide enough to accommodate a pair of glazed terracotta pots on each, tumbling with sweet smelling purple georgettes.

  Jacquot had rung the doorbell, had picked up the buzz somewhere inside the house, and was waiting for the door to open when he heard a voice behind him.

  ‘Monsieur? Bonjour.’

  Jacquot turned. The woman was in her late thirties, he guessed, slim and gently tanned, with a tumble of blonde hair bound in a cream bandeau. In her Capri pants and man’s shirt, its tails knotted at her waist, a basket of fruit on her arm, she looked almost Nordic.

  Coming back down the steps, Jacquot reached out a hand and introduced himself as Chief Inspector Jacquot of the Judiciaire. He was technically off his beat and he hoped she didn’t ask for more detail. She didn’t.

  ‘And I am Madame Jeanne Vaillant,’ she said, hardly glancing at the badge that he showed. ‘So how can I be of assistance, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘I am trying to locate a Monsieur Niko Emanetti,’ Jacquot began, wanting to limit the detail, to see what she might know. ‘I understood that he lives here.’

  ‘Not any more. He moved out two years ago, when my husband … my ex-husband … made an offer on the property. Somewhere to hide me away, it turned out. Though I didn’t know it at the time.’ She gave a small, brittle laugh, but her eyes twinkled.

  ‘Two years ago, you say? The house was on the market?’

  ‘Around here, nothing reaches the market, Chief Inspector. You have to know the right people. People like my ex. Please … I was just about to have coffee. Will you join me?’

  Before Claudine, Jacquot would have recognised the look that Madame Jeanne Vaillant gave him then, and would have either acted on it or not. The gentle smile, the tilt of an eyebrow, the flicker on her lips – a whisper of promise so subtly delivered that it hardly registered as she brushed past him, indicating that he should follow her.

  Catching a faint trail of Chanel, he followed her into the house, across a tiled hallway, into a salon carpeted in frayed and worn kelims, and through a pair of arched french windows on to a wide balustraded terrace. From front door to terrace there was not a shelf or a book to be seen.

  ‘You make that sound ominous … knowing the right people,’ Jacquot said, as she showed him to a table, put down her basket and wiped a sleeve across her forehead. A maid appeared with a china pot of coffee, as though Jacquot had been expected. But there was only the one cup. A second was asked for and swiftly brought. Making himself comfortable Jacquot took in the view, the slope of the land, the terraced lawns, the cypresses that marked out the property and the sparkling blue sea that glittered distantly between their spear-tip points.

  ‘Ominous? You’re right. It is,’ said Madame Vaillant, pouring him coffee, beautifully manicured fingertips holding down the lid of the pot. ‘But that’s how it works. Someone knocks on the door, sees that you’re old, and persuades you that a smaller apartment on Prado might be a more sensible alternative, and just think of the capital released
… Nine times out of ten you are sent on your way, but all it takes around here is one hit. And my husband is one of the best when it comes to sliding his foot into a door. All along the coast. From here to Menton. He has his own company. Basle et Cie, with a head office in Zurich. Apparently Basle is a more comforting name than Zurich – less threatening, less intimidating.’

  Jacquot admitted that he didn’t know the name, though he could easily imagine the kind of man she was describing and the type of operation he ran. Claudine’s second husband had been like that. A property speculator, he called himself. Swindler would have been a more fitting description.

  ‘And that is what he did with Monsieur Emanetti?’

  ‘It just so happened that he wanted to sell. Had been thinking of getting in touch with a local immobilier.’

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘Oh yes. A dear old man. A widower. His wife had died and he lived here alone. Such a big place.’

  ‘As your husband would have pointed out, no doubt?’

  Jeanne Vaillant smiled. ‘Ex-husband, remember. And yes, more than likely,’ she admitted. She glanced at Jacquot’s shoes. ‘You look as if you’ve been fishing, Chief Inspector.’

  He looked at his Docksiders and caught the glitter of fish scales.

  ‘You’d make a good detective,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she replied, tucking a stray blonde curl back beneath the bandeau. ‘I was never really cut out for work, if you know what I mean?’

  He smiled, considered the woman sitting across the table. No, you probably weren’t, he thought. But he guessed that whatever Jeanne Vaillant had done to end up in a house like this, she had probably done it extremely well.

  ‘You said his wife had died?’