‘Maybe I can help …?’
‘And that’s women, too, chérie. Just that Jacquot. It’s important.’
‘I’ll give him your number, and make sure he calls.’
‘You do that, dearie. Just Jacquot, remember.’
Isabelle put down the phone, gathered up her bag and headed for the door. This time she didn’t bother with the hips. Tough luck, Laganne.
Down in the car park she signed out an unmarked squad car and headed up the ramp, took a left at the barrier, and another left on to avenue Schuman, heading for the harbour. It might be a wasted journey, she thought, but it was worth a try. The call from Madrague gave her an excuse for the visit. But she’d play it cool, everything above board, professional and friendly.
She knew that the next move had to be decisive.
And it had to be his.
Parking the unmarked squad car at the security gate on Quai Rive Neuve – the P sticker in the top left corner of the windscreen would see off any tickets – she tapped in the code that Jacquot had given her and headed down the pontoon towards Constance. As she passed Gala’s boat she waved to the old girl and smiled. Another old biddy after Jacquot, she thought. What was it about him? Young or old, the girls all loved him.
And there he was, in paint-stained shorts and espadrilles, leaning back in his skipper’s chair with his feet on the console, a coffee mug in one hand, a cigarette in the other, just watching the traffic out in the harbour.
Not a care in the world.
A man worth having, she thought.
A man she was going to get. One way or another.
‘Someone wants to talk to you,’ she called out from the pontoon.
Jacquot spun his head round, green eyes settling on her.
‘And who might that be?’ he asked, levering himself off the skipper’s chair and coming over to her. Nice, easy, friendly and, she was pleased to note, no sign of embarrassment or discomfort at her surprise visit.
‘She sounded very glamorous,’ said Isabelle, keeping her tone light. ‘I thought it might be important.’ It was the first time she had seen him bare-chested in four years, and she found it hard to keep her eyes off his body, tight and tanned, bulky and strong in the shoulders. For his age he was still in very good trim.
‘And who …?’
‘She said her name was Clémentine.’
Jacquot frowned. Either he didn’t know the name, or it meant something.
Isabelle took her mobile from her bag, reached over and passed it to him.
He dropped the cigarette into his coffee mug, took her phone, examined it.
‘You use one of these?’
‘It’s the next big thing. Already, and for ever. You had better get used to it, Jacquot. Things change.’ She gave him a smile, nothing more.
He put down his coffee mug on a seat locker and flipped open the phone.
‘Aerial too,’ she said, relieved that her voice was steady. Her mouth was suddenly dry and she could feel the beat of her heart.
He did as he was told, pulling out the tiny black stalk from the top of the phone.
‘And the number?’
‘It’s already primed. Just press “Call”. The green telephone on the top row.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he laughed. ‘I have done this before, you know? But mine’s an older model, still a bit Stone Age.’
She watched him press the button and put the phone to his ear. While he waited for the call to be answered he held out his hand, as though to help her aboard.
She waved the hand away, and stayed where she was. A good move, she thought. Suitably distant.
The call was swift.
‘Bonjour, Clem, c’est Jacquot ici.’
He paused. ‘Maintenant? Oui, s’il te plaît.’
He cut the connection, pushed the aerial into its socket and handed the mobile back to Isabelle. He gave her a long look, as though working something out. It made her feel warm, that look.
‘You got a car?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve got to go to Madrague. You want to give me a lift?’
‘Is it important?’
As far as Isabelle was concerned it didn’t matter one hoot if it was important or not. Any excuse. Just the chance to be with Jacquot was enough for her.
‘Could be,’ he replied. ‘Just give me time to put on a shirt, some jeans, and I’ll be with you.’
‘I’ll be out on the quay,’ she said, turning back along the pontoon. ‘Red Citroën, unmarked.’
79
FOR THE FIRST five minutes the two of them drove in silence, Jacquot wondering what could have possessed him to invite Isabelle along, and Isabelle concentrating on the road, negotiating the traffic up through Catalan and on to Fausse Monnaie before accelerating away on to the Corniche. The sea on their right glittered in the sunshine, a vast bowl of blue flecked with rearing white horses that reached to the chalky headlands of Montredon and Cap Croisette across the bay.
‘So what’s it all about? This Clem lady?’ asked Isabelle, wanting to fill what was beginning to feel like an uncomfortable silence but determined to keep it professional. So far Jacquot had made no mention of their last encounter; indeed, had offered no excuses, or second thoughts, or in any other way dismissed what had happened two nights earlier in Constance’s main cabin.
‘It’s a long story,’ he said, pleased to note that Isabelle had so far failed to bring up that awkward, if arousing confrontation aboard Constance, behaving as though it had never happened. Maybe there’d be no need for him to say anything, he thought, which would be a relief. Maybe she’d had too much to drink, let herself go, and was now embarrassed, even mortified, by her flagrant behaviour. But those were two very big ‘maybes’, he decided. He’d have to see how things panned out.
‘It’s another twelve minutes to Madrague,’ she suggested. ‘Try the shortened version.’
‘It started with my boat, Constance,’ he said.
‘Left to you by an old fisherman.’
‘An old, wealthy fisherman,’ Jacquot continued.
‘I didn’t know fishermen got to be wealthy.’
‘Normally they don’t, but this one did.’
And as Isabelle followed the curve of the Corniche flyover, Jacquot told her how his curiosity had been aroused by this extraordinary bequest, his desire to find out a little bit more about his fairy godfather, and how he had followed the trail from a bookshop near the Opéra, to a mansion in Roucas Blanc and a museum in Aix, from a prestigious legal practice in Avignon to a women’s refuge in Belsunce and an Art Deco cinema in Nice.
What he’d found out along the way and pieced together.
And what he’d come up with.
His … theory.
‘Back in the early-seventies,’ Jacquot continued, ‘my old fisherman fell in love with another man’s wife …’
‘Not this Clem?’
Jacquot chuckled. ‘Not Clem, no.’
‘A rich man’s wife?’
‘A rich man’s wife.’
‘And they ran away together?’
‘Correct.’
‘And the lady’s name?’
‘Eddie. Edina Polineaux.’
Isabelle was silent for a moment.
‘The Polineaux? “Old Legless”?’
‘The same.’
‘And that’s who the money came from?’
‘Yes. And no. Some of it. To start them off. But not all of it. You see, we’re talking about a very, very large amount of money here. What they took. Far more than they could ever have spent. Far more than you or I …’
‘Come on, Jacquot, spit it out. What are you talking about?’
‘I think my old fisherman and Polineaux’s wife might have had something to do with the Col de la Gineste heist. Before your time, I know, but …’
‘1972. Three security trucks hijacked, a ton of gold in each. Two of the loads recovered, but one missing. Have I got the right heist?’ She shot him a look, eyebrow
arched, then changed down gears to pull out past a lumbering tourist coach.
Jacquot chuckled. ‘You have the right heist.’
‘And you think your fisherman and his girlfriend were involved. That they took this missing gold?’
‘That’s what I think. It’s the only possible explanation.’
‘So where does Madrague come into it?’
‘That’s where the third security truck was found, four or five hours after the heist. Short of its cargo. Seventy-five bars. With a body on the quayside. And Madrague’s where Philo lived until he died a couple of months back.’
‘And Edina? What’s happened to her?’
‘She was the first to go. Two years ago. Shortly after she died, Philo sold the house and contents in Roucas Blanc and came back to Madrague full-time. As far as I can establish, the proceeds of the house sale and the contents were distributed among a number of beneficiaries; deserving causes, that sort of thing.’
‘And the gold? What happened to the gold? They couldn’t have got through it all.’
‘Maybe they did. Who knows?’
‘Or maybe they had to split it. Share it out with accomplices.’
Jacquot shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It was just the two of them.’
‘And you reckon there’s still some left?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Buried somewhere?’
‘Or stored somewhere safe. Somewhere no one can find it.’
Isabelle was silent for a moment, then glanced across at him. ‘Jacquot, you really do know how to show a girl a good time.’
‘Just the average kind of boat-owner’s day. Life afloat.’
Up ahead the road curved past a red-clay football field and dropped down into Madrague.
‘So, where do you want me to go?’ asked Isabelle.
‘Second turning on the right. Rue Tibido. Down at the end, wherever you can park.’
80
SITTING AT THE same café table that Jacquot had used for his own surveillance, a young man in a zippered nylon blouson and jeans put down his newspaper and watched a red Citroën cruise down rue Tibido. He was tired and he was bored and his back-up was late. For the last few days, he and three other colleagues had kept a twenty-four-hour watch on the wooden gate a few steps down from rue Pélanne. Most of the time they spent in their cars, always parked on the shaded side of the street during the day, and far away from any streetlight at night. Since sitting too long at the café might have aroused suspicions, the watchers had limited themselves to just a couple of hours per shift. The rest of the time it was the car, or a stroll up and down the street. Just so long as the gate was always in sight.
At first there’d been little activity beyond visits from La Poste and a couple of trips out and back for the old lady, to the local shop on the quay judging by the carrier bags she struggled back with. But the night before three heavies had paid a call, stayed an hour and then come back out. His friend, who’d been on watch, had called it in, and they’d all been told that if the boys came back – or if anyone of interest happened to drop by – then they should report it pronto and follow up. But the heavies hadn’t returned – and nor had anyone else – and the young man in the blouson didn’t really expect them to.
Idly, not expecting anything of interest, he watched the Citroën reverse into a parking space on the opposite side of the street, no different from the other four cars that had come down this street in the last two hours, no reason at all to suggest its occupants might be about to push through that old gate.
And they didn’t. Instead they set off down Tibido towards the harbour. The woman in black trousers – a looker; the man in jeans – older and rougher looking. Maybe going for lunch at Chez Aldo or Au Bord de L’Eau, the young man guessed. But he was wrong. They kept straight on and disappeared round the corner and on to the quay.
Out of sight, out of mind, he decided, and settled back to his newspaper.
81
‘THIS IS WHERE it happened,’ said Jacquot, coming out on to the quayside at the end of rue Tibido. Without any buildings to protect them, a gusty breeze tugged and snatched at their hair and clothes and fretted the sea into dashing white caps that crashed and slapped against the breakwater. The waves were not large enough to breach the wall but the glittering white wash they threw up filled the air with a warm, salty breath. Across the bay, through a dusty blue haze, lay the city they had just left and, beyond it, the low, grey bulk of the Sausset highlands.
‘This is where they found the truck?’ asked Isabelle, pushing the licks of black hair from her face.
‘Reversed up to those bollards,’ said Jacquot, gesturing to their left, his white T-shirt, she noticed, pressed tight by the breeze against his body. ‘As close as they could get to the quay. Doors open, gold gone. I arrived about ten in the morning. Barsin was already here, the first on the scene following reports of gunshots. They’d moved the body by the time I got here, but the blood hadn’t been hosed off.’ He pointed to a patch of ground midway between the bollards and the quay. ‘All that was left was the empty truck and the waistcoats they’d used to carry the gold. Three waistcoats in all, counting the one on the body. Three pouches in each. For three bars. Say, twenty or so trips between them. They’d planned it well, with time to get those waistcoats made.’
‘And they got away in a boat?’
Jacquot nodded. ‘That’s how it looked. You could see the path their feet had made, weighed down, back and forth from truck to slipway, and over there we found a mooring rope still tied to one of the quay rings. A clean cut to one end. When they left, they left in a hurry.’
‘On Constance?’
‘That’s what I think.’
‘Quite a history, your little boat.’
‘If that’s how it happened. If it was Constance.’
With the wind whipping about them, Jacquot and Isabelle walked along the quay, past the line of fishing skiffs, to the low wall at its end.
‘From here, they could have gone anywhere,’ said Jacquot. ‘Out to the islands, to Cassis, back to Marseilles, L’Estaque. Anywhere. On Constance a full tank’ll get you four hundred kilometres, maybe a little less with the load they were carrying. But still a good, safe distance. And at night, no moon, you wouldn’t have seen a thing by the time they got past the breakwater. Impossible to follow. Free and clear.’
They turned and walked back to Tibido in silence, both of them in the blustery, late summer sunshine thinking of that distant chill November night twenty-seven years before, the sound of whispers and running feet and panting breath.
‘They had some nerve,’ said Isabelle.
‘Oh yes,’ said Jacquot. ‘Nerve, and luck.’
And each other, he thought. The pair of them watching the harbour lights diminish as they lumbered out to sea, heavy in the water, starting out on a new life together.
Half-way up Tibido Jacquot pulled the key from his pocket and stooped to unlock the wooden gate.
Had it been worth it? he wondered, pushing the gate open and stepping aside for Isabelle to pass through.
The risk. The danger.
Capture by the cops.
Or a bullet in the back of the head from a vengeful Polineaux.
Or, best case, the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.
Twenty-seven years on the run.
Probably, he thought, following Isabelle through the gate and closing it behind him.
But only because they got away with it.
To live rich and happy, for the rest of their lives, each with the person they loved.
As pay-offs go, not a bad return.
82
THE WATCHER WAS thinking about ordering another coffee, or maybe a beer, when he spotted the same man and woman coming back up the street, heading for their car. But they passed it without stopping, walked on until they reached the gate where the man bent down to unlock it and then pushed it open, the two of them stepping through and closing it after them.
The watcher felt a tightness in his gut, an involuntary straightening of the back. After the long wait, something was happening.
In no apparent hurry, he left some coins on the table and strolled across the street, pausing at the Citroën to light a cigarette. As he cupped his hands and flicked the wheel on his lighter, he checked it out. Bodywork a little dented round the wheel arches, a few scrapes and scratches, and a fine dust over the red paintwork. The back seat was empty, but its footwells were littered with fast-food packaging and discarded Styrofoam coffee cups. In the front there were some maps in the driver’s door pocket, and a coiled wire plugged into the cigarette lighter. The wire disappeared under the front passenger seat. The watcher knew what would be on the end of it. A domed flashing light with a sucker or a magnet to clamp on to the roof. To confirm it, he checked the windscreen, top left corner. No doubt about it.
Five minutes later he was back in the café and making a call from the pay-phone just inside the door, with the wooden gate still in view.
‘Beni, it’s me. There’s a couple of people just gone in. Man and a woman. Cops.’ He listened for a moment. ‘Of course, I’m sure. Unmarked car … Got a “P”. Top left windscreen, that’s right … Okay, I got that. Yeah, I’ll get back to you soon as I know.’
Having completed the call, the watcher went to the bar, ordered himself a salami baguette to go and returned to his car.
83
CLÉMENTINE HAD MADE every effort to clean up her cramped, ground-floor apartment in Madrague: two broken kitchen chairs dumped outside her front door, the smashed doorstep flower pots swept into tidy piles, the surviving furniture put back in place, rugs straightened, and the rope of tied herbs and saucissons restrung above the range. But if she’d managed to get her home back in order, there wasn’t much that she could do about the cut across the bridge of her nose, and two swollen, yellowing black eyes.
The Dying Minutes Page 29