The Dying Minutes

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘I was lying this morning,’ she said at last, settling at the table. ‘Just like you, Monsieur Nephew.’

  ‘You lied?’

  ‘You asked about girfriends. Any women?’

  Jacquot nodded.

  ‘There was one. Years ago. And just the once I saw her. I was coming back early from the quay and there they were, coming out of the gate and me about to go in.’

  Jacquot waited, started into his second helping.

  ‘She was younger than him. Quite a lot younger. And beautiful. Curly blonde hair, and not a scrap of make-up. Natural, like. She didn’t need it. He’s got lucky, I thought. One of his charter passengers, she looked like. Going for a bit of rough, you know? But close up, I could see they were tight. The way she looked at him, held his arm. I remember there were little studs in her ears. Diamonds. They sparkled. Never seen anything like them.’

  ‘Did he introduce her? Did you find out her name?’

  She shook her head. ‘Just nodded, smiled, “Bonjour, ça va?” That was it. Didn’t expect no more.’

  ‘And you never saw her again?’

  ‘That was it. Just the once.’

  ‘Did he ever say anything about her? Afterwards?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a word. Like it had never happened. Like it wasn’t important.’

  But it was important, Jacquot knew.

  ‘You said you saw more of him, the last couple of years.’

  ‘A lot more. Pretty much every day. I’d come back from the shops, or pegging out washing, and there he’d be, sitting out on his balcony, reading some book. Sometimes I shouted up at him, “Get your old bones down here for a bite,” you know – or I’d just wave, pass the time of day.’

  ‘And what did he talk about? When he came down. Anything special?’

  ‘The old days, what else? You get to our age and it’s all that’s left, the past.’

  ‘Not if you can make soup like this,’ said Jacquot, putting down his spoon.

  ‘A silver tongue and honey lips. You’ll go far, young man. If you haven’t already. So what’s he done? Why all the interest in old Philo?’

  Jacquot sat back in his chair, felt a warmth and fullness in his belly, and sighed.

  ‘I think our old friend might have been a naughty boy.’

  ‘Those sailor boys, Salette and the rest of them … they’re all naughty boys. That’s what’s so good about them.’

  And the old girl slapped the table and cackled.

  68

  IF THERE WAS one thing that the butler, Jarrive, knew with an absolute certainty, it was that his boss could be a difficult son of a bitch, with a chilling temper and a cold heart. On Polineaux’s seventieth birthday, Jarrive had watched the old man slide a knife into another man’s chest and hold him till the jerking stopped; had seen the lazy way he dispatched a bungling subordinate, pressing his Walther automatic into the man’s eye and pulling the trigger; and how he had used the same Walther to pistol whip a call-girl that his fixer, Didier, had brought in, for glancing at her watch while she fellated him. And on all three occasions he’d been confined to his wheelchair. Patric Polineaux was a dangerous man to cross.

  Ruthless. Cold. Deadly.

  And, it seemed, increasingly frustrated and temperamental. Less able to do what he wanted, when he wanted – as maddened by the restrictions imposed by his disability as he was by the advancing limitations of old age. Most of the time he sat in his wheelchair and looked down at the garden, seeming to dream the hours away, only really settled and alert when he had a cigar between his knuckly fingers and a drink at his elbow. Jarrive knew, for instance, that his boss rarely had any idea what day of the week it was, let alone which month, and on occasion had a way of looking at him as though he couldn’t quite place him. More than thirty years working at Hauts des Pins and he might just as well have knocked on the door that morning, come to sell something. A slow but steady descent.

  It wouldn’t be long now, thought Jarrive, as he stepped out on to the terrace with a fresh jug of water and a plate of biscuits. As usual Polineaux was hunched over the table, its glass top, his rug-covered lap and the tiles around him littered with photos. Since Didier had brought in that case, the old boy had been through its contents a dozen times, laboriously matching notes with photos, sorting everything into a kind of order, getting him to fetch a magnifying glass, or have him read something, or set up the video player.

  ‘Who’s this mec in the white T-shirt?’ asked Polineaux, without looking up as Jarrive came towards him. ‘The little fella with the big smile. Looks like a sailor.’ Polineaux was holding out a colour photo, drawing it close to his eyes, pushing it away, trying to get a focus on one part of it.

  ‘I believe the names are on the back, Monsieur Patric.’

  Polineaux flipped the photo over, peered at the name.

  Emanetti.

  ‘Who the hell’s this Emanetti? Never heard of him.’

  ‘If I may, Monsieur Patric?’ Jarrive put down the jug and plate and took the photo, looked at it.

  Seven people, standing on a quay. Five men and two women. Summer clothes. Bare feet. They were either going on a cruise or coming back from one. A gay, excited bunch. There was a wicker basket at their feet. Towels under their arms. Hats, sunglasses. Some of the faces were shadowed, hard to make out. Jarrive turned the photo to check the names.

  ‘It looks like a trip out to the islands, or along the coast. It’s difficult to tell,’ he said. ‘That’s Monsieur Ballantine with his foot on the hamper; that old friend of yours, Hugo; and Hugo’s son, Philippe, who got shot in the casino, remember? I seem to recall that the lady with the dark hair was Philippe’s girlfriend. Then there’s Monsieur Pierre who looked after things for you in Antibes …’

  ‘Run down, wasn’t he?’ interrupted Polineaux.

  ‘In Paris, that’s right.’

  ‘Never knew if it was a hit or an accident. Bouf. So who else?’

  ‘Then there’s your wife, Edina, with the hat there, waving at the camera, and that Emanetti character, on the far right, standing a little apart, looking across at her. I seem to recall he was in one of the videos,’ Jarrive continued. ‘One of the SuperEight transfers. But he doesn’t appear to be a part of the group. Just hanging round the edges. Maybe he skippered the boat.’

  Polineaux’s eyes narrowed, and something grim and cold and terrifying stirred in his guts.

  ‘Show me the video. Fetch it. Now!’

  69

  TWO DAYS AFTER his trip to Madrague Jacquot drove to the railway station in Cavaillon to pick up Claudine’s sister. Five years older, not as pretty, a journalist with Le Monde in Paris, Delphie was the woman who, four years earlier, had steered him towards her little sister. For which act, Jacquot would be eternally grateful. Indeed, he was as excited as Claudine at the prospect of having Delphie come to stay. When Jacquot saw her step from the carriage he hurried over, hardly aware any longer of the gentle complaint from his hip.

  They embraced, exchanged the usual pleasantries (‘You smell of the sea and sun cream, it’s not fair,’ was the first thing she said as he released her from his hug), and then Delphie sent him back into the carriage to drag out three large suitcases from the baggage racks.

  ‘How did you get them on in Paris?’ he asked, hauling out the last case, the gentle complaint from his hip a little more insistent now.

  ‘A kind man, just like you, helped me. Unfortunately he got off in Valence. So there you are. Now, go and fetch a trolley, there’s a good boy.’

  There was no need for Jacquot to ask why Delphie had arrived with three large suitcases, in addition to her own bags. Claudine had explained everything. Big sister was coming down with baby clothes, everything that she and her quite wealthy husband had bought from some of the finest boutiques in Paris for their own two children. Since neither Claudine nor Jacquot had wanted to know the twins’ sex, Delphie had had no option but to bring down everything, both her son’s and her daughter’s cast-offs. To
cover the bases. The trip had been agreed a week earlier, but in the last few days it had still not been decided whether Delphie should drive, or fly, or take the train, given the large amount of clothes she was threatening to bring. She had finally decided on the train, and voilà, she had arrived. Everything in one piece.

  Jacquot got on well with Delphie. She was just as fiery and feisty and flippant as her little sister, often even more so, and Jacquot relished the challenge the two of them presented. A man had to have his wits about him when the two Eddé sisters were on form, and that evening the dinner table was the usual battlefield: Chirac’s rumoured light touch with government finances; the neo-Gaullist leader Sarkozy’s political future after a poor showing in that summer’s European elections (‘But he’ll be President one day,’ declared Delphie, ‘just you wait and see’); the end of the franc and the coming of the euro; the scandalous affair between a presidential advisor and a high-class call girl; not to mention all the latest books and films (‘Enough Hollywood. Enough, enough, enough!’ Delphie again.) As they worked their way through Claudine’s signature blanquette de veau no subject was off-limits and blood, as usual, was spilled, their other dinner guests either brave enough to join in the fray, or content to sit back and watch the bloodletting. It was a loud and raucous evening and it ended late.

  But sorting baby clothes was not on Jacquot’s agenda. Normally he’d have been at his office in Cavaillon, or lying in the hammock, or doing some odd job round the house. But now that he had Constance, Jacquot had swiftly identified an opportunity to spend some more time in Marseilles without leaving Claudine on her own, not to mention the opportunity to further pursue his enquiries into the activities of Niko Emanetti and Edina … whoever she was.

  A quick phone call to the lawyer, Cluzot, in Avignon, had provided two possible leads, and it was these that Jacquot was keen to follow up as he prepared to drive south the following afternoon, head still a little thick from the night before, promising to have Constance comfortably appointed for when the two sisters arrived for an overnight visit later in the week. Enough time, they had decided, to catch up on all their news and gossip, to have a few long lubricated lunches and, at some point or another, to sort through the caseloads of clothes.

  ‘Foie gras. Don’t forget I like foie gras,’ Delphie had called after him as he turned the car and headed out of the drive. ‘And a good Meursault to wash it down.’

  ‘And make sure the sheets are clean,’ added Claudine who, with Delphie’s encouragement, had teased him unmercifully about the lover he had taken during her holiday in Guadeloupe, and whom he secretly entertained on Constance.

  But Jacquot didn’t go to the old port in Marseilles. Instead, an hour after leaving the millhouse, he was parking on rue Clermond in Belsunce, where, according to Maître Cluzot, he would find what he was looking for.

  70

  POLINEAUX SAT IN the small loggia beside the swimming pool and watched the dragonflies skim and hover over its surface. Delon had wheeled him out after lunch, set him in the shade and left him with the alarm to use if he needed anything. Both Jarrive and Delon knew that their boss preferred his own company, and could become fractious if they hung around. So there the old man sat, letting his eyes drift from the pool to the gardens, a sweep of lawn edged with Aleppo pine and cypress, and back to the house, its elegant Belle Époque lines cut against a sky as blue as the sapphires they’d found in Dupont’s case.

  And as he surveyed his estate, his thoughts, inevitably, began to wander back to the time he had spent here with Eddie.

  She’d still be alive, thought Polineaux. Somewhere. Wherever she was. In her fifties now, getting on like all of them, but still a beauty. He was sure of it. She wouldn’t have lost her figure, her looks. Just … older. Elegant, quiet … And sexy. She’d still be a sexy woman, he was certain. Under the surface. That look in her eye. Wrinkles didn’t conceal that kind of truth.

  But all those years ago she had walked out of the front door and never come back.

  Vanished. Gone. No trace.

  And for what? Just the lightest slap to her cheek, the mildest threat.

  You had to keep these women in order or they’d run roughshod all over you. That’s what his father had told him, his friends too, and that’s what he’d always done. Cristina, Eddie … it didn’t matter. Let ’em know who was boss. Right from the start.

  So when he saw her jump into the Jaguar and spray gravel from its tyres as she accelerated down the drive, he had given it no thought. She would be back. Just as she always came back, sorry or still defiant. Sometimes defiant enough to earn another slap, or a push, or a kick, or whatever other small humiliation he might dream up.

  Whether she returned because she somehow enjoyed the power he exercised over her and was aroused by his harsh treatment, or simply because he kept a tight rein on her spending money, he never really knew, never really cared. What he had known that long ago day, was that sooner or later she would be back. And given that it was her birthday in just a few days, he’d guessed it would be sooner.

  Her thirtieth. She would never miss that.

  But she did.

  Three days later there was still no sign of her and with gritted teeth and a snarl of irritation, he’d had to cancel the caterers and the guests and suffer their silent pleasure at his discomfort.

  For which the bitch would pay.

  The very next day he’d sent out some of his boys to track her down but they’d come back with nothing. He called his bank to check her account and found that she had taken everything, a little over twenty thousand francs left from her monthly allowance. She wasn’t going to get very far on that.

  But then he remembered that she had the car. The car. A 1954 Jaguar XK120M roadster.

  She wouldn’t dare, he thought.

  Not the Jaguar.

  His wedding present to her. Worth a small fortune.

  But she had. She’d sold it.

  And he was the one who found it.

  Three weeks later on the front lot of a classic car dealer in Antibes.

  He’d been on his way to a meeting in Marseilles with Lombard when he’d driven right past it. He’d had his driver pull over and had stormed into the showroom. That car’s mine, he’d shouted at the manager, waving at the Jaguar in the lot.

  But of course it wasn’t.

  When he’d given Eddie the car as a wedding present, he’d had the registration papers changed to her name – a thoughtful touch at the time, but in retrospect a foolish thing to have done. And it was these same papers that the man had produced from a desk drawer, proving his ownership of the vehicle, along with details of the purchase – a ridiculously small amount compared to the two hundred thousand francs the man was now asking for his Jaguar.

  So Polineaux had bought the car, then and there, without haggling. He’d taken the keys and had his driver follow him to the top most Corniche road where he had once driven with Eddie. And there, on a corner of Avenue des Diables, a thousand metres above Cap Ferrat, he had got out of the car, released the handbrake and let the Jaguar slide over the edge. A hundred metre drop before the rocks below crumpled that streamlined body into a tangled mess of metal, the petrol tank exploding a few seconds after the car came to a stop, wedged between two pines.

  When he drove on to Marseilles, his anger was cold and deadly.

  She would die, he decided – just as he might decide that he needed a new suit or a pair of shoes – for daring to leave him, for humiliating him, for selling the car, and for being the reason he’d had to destroy it.

  But it never happened. He never got the chance.

  She had simply vanished, and the weeks had turned into months, and the months into years. And now all he had was the memory of her. As clear and undimmed as ever.

  A swallow skimmed the pool and left a wake where its beak had dipped into the water. Polineaux watched it go and as it darted between the Aleppos a sudden thought occurred to him, an awful, icy, gut-numbing thought.
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  The gold! The gold …

  Had she been involved?

  Had she somehow hijacked his plans and taken the gold in that third truck? The one driven by that retard, the slow one with the quick hands and the heavy foot, as Polineaux had always joked. The one whose body the cops had found on that quayside in Madrague.

  She’d certainly have known about the plan, the heist. In the months before she left he’d held all kinds of meetings setting it up. And if she really had had that bastard retard on the inside then there was no telling what she could have done.

  With the money to set it all up.

  The price of a Jaguar.

  The money to buy the boat that the gold had been loaded on to, speeding away under cover of darkness.

  It was then, as he tried to reason it all out in his head, that he saw Jarrive come from the house, cross the sloping lawn, and walk around the pool towards him. He was carrying a telephone and extension lead.

  ‘A call for you, Monsieur Patric,’ the butler said, plugging in the phone and putting it on the table in front of him. He felt the old man’s eyes flickering over him, narrowed with venom. Before he could say anything, Jarrive continued, ‘A Monsieur Duclos on the line. I thought you might want to take the call.’

  71

  THE REFUGE WAS in an old soap factory, a high-walled compound in a part of town where Jacquot knew it was wise to keep a low profile after dark. When he’d worked homicide for the Marseilles Judiciaire this neighbourhood had been a regular night-time stop – small-time gang stuff, drug busts, the odd body. It wasn’t much better in daylight, a scrubby, unloved, down-at-heel grid of streets and alleys where the few shops that there were had bars on their windows and roll-down metal screens at night. There were weeds sprouting between the paving slabs, torn posters and lurid graffiti on any flat surface, and wheel-less cars abandoned on brick supports.