‘They hit me just the once. Here,’ she said, pointing to her nose, as though she needed to. ‘If I’d been wearing my teeth, I swear I’d have swallowed them. Choked to death. As it was, that’s what I did. Played dead, with blood spouting out of my face while they turned the place over. If I’d had floorboards down here, they’d have ripped those up too.’
Jacquot and Isabelle took the seats she indicated at the kitchen table.
‘When was this?’ asked Jacquot.
‘Last night. After dark,’ she replied.
‘Did you report this to the Police?’ asked Isabelle, and immediately felt foolish, cheeks flushing, as both Clem and Jacquot turned to look at her.
‘I called Jacquot, didn’t I?’
‘I mean …’
‘The same two men?’ said Jacquot, sparing Isabelle any further blushes.
‘Different,’ replied Clem, going to a cupboard and pulling out a label-less bottle, fingering up three small glasses from the sink. ‘And three of them this time, one of them un petit Chinois. Real toughs. Worse than the first lot. And they were bad enough.’
Isabelle gave Jacquot a look as the old lady put the glasses on the table and with an oily plop pulled the cork from the bottle.
‘Calva. A gift from Philo. 1927, he told me. Nearly as old as me,’ she added with a cackle as she poured three good shots.
My kind of girl, thought Jacquot fondly, toasting her and tasting the spirit, the scent and flavour of apples that had grown in Normandy more than two decades before he was born hitting with a warm, autumnal intensity.
‘They thought I was dead, you know? “You killed her, Léo,” one of them said. Even bent down to feel for a pulse but couldn’t find one, not with all my fat, and grâce à Dieu for that,’ she said, crossing herself.
‘Léo?’ asked Isabelle.
‘That’s the name I heard,’ Clem replied. ‘Léo, loud and clear. But I don’t know which one it was. Not the chink, c’est certain,’ she said with a grim chuckle.
Jacquot put down his glass and looked across the table at Clem. He sensed a certain discomfort in her, just as he had on his previous visit. He wondered if it was Isabelle being there, or some aftereffect from the blow to her face, but he discounted both. There was something else, something quiet and hesistant about her as though she still hadn’t told them everything she knew.
‘Could you identify them?’ asked Isabelle.
Clem gave her a patient look. ‘They weren’t wearing masks, you know? Didn’t need to. That sort, they don’t care. No one’s going to stand up and say “that’s him”, “that’s him”. Me included. And they know it.’
‘So tell me, Clem, what were they looking for?’ Jacquot asked quietly.
‘Whatever it was, they didn’t find it,’ she said, refilling their glasses, pushing home the Calva cork with a defiant roll of her shoulders.
‘What were they looking for, Clem?’ Jacquot persisted. He knew now, for sure, that there was something she was holding back, felt it deep inside, with a sharp and thrilling certainty, warm like the Calva.
Clem said nothing, chewed her toothless gums. She stared into her glass and then tipped the Calva back, making her chins wobble.
Jacquot knew with that swallow that she’d made up her mind about something. He was right.
‘It was always a joke between Philo and me. He gave it to me a few weeks before he died. He was old then, and ill. He was on the way out, no question.’ She gave a sigh, played with her empty glass. ‘One time I used it as a doorstop and no one noticed. Out there, in the yard. That made him laugh. And back then, towards the end, he didn’t laugh much, le pauvre.’
‘So you hid something?’ asked Isabelle.
The old lady didn’t turn to her, kept her eyes on Jacquot.
‘In the stockpot,’ she said, at last. ‘That’s where I put it when I heard them at the door. And they didn’t find it.’
Jacquot got up from the table and went to the stove, lifted the high-sided saucepan from its ring and lowered it to the floor. It was heavier than it should have been, much heavier. He lifted the lid and looked inside. The fish soup had been replaced by a creamy tripe stew. Rolling up a shirtsleeve he dipped his hand between the cold, puckered folds, parting them, pushing down. And then his fingers brushed against something that shouldn’t have been there. Something heavy and solid, something difficult to get a proper grip on, something that slid from his grasp, slippery from the covering liquid. But finally he drew it, dripping, from the pot and carried it to the sink, turned on the tap and as the water flushed over it, the gold gleamed.
‘Voilà,’ said Clémentine. ‘Now you have it.’
84
‘HOW DID YOU know? About the gold?’ asked Isabelle, as they drove back into town, Clémentine’s one-time doorstop wrapped in a Carrefour carrier bag between Jacquot’s espadrilles. The sun was slanting between the buildings as it started its afternoon dip over Marseilles. Columns of light and shade flashed across the Citroën’s windscreen.
‘I didn’t. I was as surprised as you. I just knew she wasn’t telling us everything. That she was holding something back.’
‘She didn’t seem to mind when we took it with us,’ said Isabelle, turning due west out of Fausse Monnaie, the light and shade now replaced by the sun full on, showing up the dust and insect smears and wiper tracks on the windscreen. She eased off the accelerator and snapped down the sun visor.
‘I think she was relieved,’ replied Jacquot, pulling down his own.
‘I’m not so sure I’d be relieved if someone took a gold bar off me. But I’d say it confirms your suspicions about Philo,’ said Isabelle. ‘What I’d like to know is just how much of the gold they got through. Some of it? All of it?’
‘Enough to live a very pleasant life,’ replied Jacquot. ‘And still have a bar to spare nearly thirty years later.’
‘Just the one bar?’
Jacquot chuckled. ‘I don’t think so. Do you?’
‘So where is it?’
‘Well, the place to start looking is probably Roucas Blanc. Les Étagères. Where he and Eddie lived. Maybe he buried it there.’
He thought of Madame Jeanne Vaillant and her fears that her terraces might have to be dug up. She would not be pleased.
And nor would he if the Judiciaire decided to take a closer look at Constance. For Constance had clearly been used for the getaway, transporting the gold to wherever Philo had stashed it. He knew that nothing was hidden on board, but it might prove difficult persuading the authorities of that.
‘I hope you’re not going to send anyone down to rip up my decking,’ said Jacquot as they passed plage Catalan and made their way down to the Vieux Port. Without letting Isabelle know it, he glanced at the dashboard clock. In two hours Claudine and Delphie would be coming aboard.
‘I’ll take your word she’s clean,’ Isabelle replied, pulling into the kerb at the same spot where she’d parked a couple of hours earlier. She kept the engine running. Jacquot realised it was a drop-off. Finding the bar of gold meant an immediate return to police headquarters on rue de l’Évêché for Isabelle, to make her report and get the ball rolling. It was, Jacquot judged, the perfect moment to say what needed to be said.
He pitched his voice low, a caring sort of tone, not wishing to hurt her.
‘Listen. About the other night …’
‘What about it?’ she asked, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear-stick, a smile playing across her lips. Her look was level, in control. There was nothing he could say that could hurt or disappoint her. She knew where this was going. She’d known it since that moment on Constance, pressed up against him, his hand on her breast, his lips on hers.
‘I’m not the one for you,’ he said, trying to construct the right words to explain his situation. ‘It’s not going to happen, Isabelle. Things have changed.’
‘You’re right. They have. But right now I’ve got work to do, so get out of here,’ she said, and leaned across to give him a peck on the ch
eek, touching her foot to the accelerator at the same time to let him know she was anxious to be gone.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ she said, as he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed from the car, wincing at an unexpected jab in his buttock. ‘When I know what’s happening. You might have to come in if you want to keep your decking.’ And by the time he’d closed the door and bent down to say goodbye she was already checking traffic behind her, edging out into the flow with a wave and a toot of the horn.
Neither of them had noticed the dusty blue Renault that had followed them from Madrague and parked across the road, the driver’s window down, a long-lens camera clicking away.
Part Four
85
CLAUDINE AND DELPHIE arrived an hour earlier than planned, but Jacquot had had enough time to get things organised for their arrival. When Isabelle drove away in the unmarked car, he’d checked his wallet and gone straight to the shops. An hour later, he’d struggled back to Constance with a sealed jar of foie gras from Charcuterie Brignolards on rue Cevennes, two bottles of Château Plaisance Meursault and two carrier bags bulging with other essentials – the wrinkled Lucques olives that Delphie loved, a tin of oiled soupions, cold meats, bread, fruit and salad. By the time he’d stored any perishables in the fridge and cool box, tidied up the main cabin and made up the bed in the for’ard cabin for Delphie, the top of his thigh and left buttock had started to ache. It had been a long day, and it still wasn’t over. Swallowing a couple of his prescription painkillers, he’d cracked open a bottle of beer, found his cigarettes and retreated to the wheelhouse where he perched on the skipper’s chair and stretched out his left leg, going through a few of the exercises that the physio had recommended for times such as these.
Jacquot had finished his exercises and his beer and was reaching for his cigarettes when he sensed the sisters’ approach – the hollow thump of their footfalls on the wooden-decking of the pontoon, and the squeaking rise and fall of the hoops on the pilings. When he looked up, the sun, hovering above the rooftops of Le Panier, splashed gold across their faces as they came towards him, rucksacks over their shoulders. Claudine, a few centimetres taller than her sister, raising an arm to wave; Delphie, a few centimetres rounder, pushing back her hairband and holding it down to keep more of her flyaway hair in place. He was pleased to note that both women had dressed sensibly in cotton trousers, plimsolls, one good woollen jumper apiece and whatever they had stowed in their rucksacks. The breeze had increased since he’d stood on the quay at Madrague and his plan for supper and an overnight stay in one of the calanques between Marseilles and Cassis had been shelved. According to the forecast the wind would be gone by the following day. They could go then, for lunch. Something to look forward to.
One by one, the two women came aboard, Claudine first, stepping down to be taken in his arms, Delphie next, giving him a quick hug then turning to take in her accommodation.
‘You never said.’ Her eyes were wide. This was clearly not what she’d been expecting.
‘Never said what?’ asked Jacquot, taking Claudine’s bag, picking up Delphie’s and turning for the wheelhouse and the cabins below.
‘Never said how beautiful she was. I had no idea.’ Delphie was shaking her head, hands on her hips, taking it all in like a trainer sizing up a thoroughbred: the boat, the mooring, the Vieux Port all around them, the seagulls arcing above as the breeze tugged at her hair and snatched at the sleeve of the sweatshirt slung over her shoulder. ‘Forget Paris,’ she continued, breathing it all in. ‘I want to move in. I want to live here. On this boat. For ever.’
Claudine reached for Jacquot’s free hand and pulled herself close to him. ‘Sorry, sister. It’s taken. And so’s the man.’
Below decks, Jacquot showed Delphie to the for’ard cabin. Clean white sheet, sea-blue pillowslips and matching duvet cover neatly tucked into the curving, planked bow space, the hatch propped open to catch the breeze, Isabelle’s wine-stained blouse, which he’d found between mattress and bulkhead, spirited away.
‘Daniel, it’s adorable. Just adorable. I love it. I want it.’
Her smile, her delight, were infectious and Jacquot beamed with pleasure.
‘And all these books,’ Delphie continued. ‘I didn’t realise you were so well-read.’
‘They came with the boat. But I’m making headway. Talking of headway, there’s the head,’ he said, opening the narrow door between the main and for’ard cabins. ‘And a small shower, too, on the other side. Water’s hot if you need it. Come and join us when you’re ready.’
‘Hey, I’m ready now. Open a bottle. Let’s get started.’
Ten minutes later, bags stowed, the first bottle opened, the three of them sat out on the aft deck, chinked glasses, and toasted the setting sun, the two women drawing their jumpers around them as the temperature started to fall and the evening began. Around the harbour the city turned on its lights, the sky darkening through bands of rose and mauve and purple, latticed by the masts and rigging all around them, the earliest stars starting to wink, the façade of the Hôtel de Ville and Fort Saint-Jean across the harbour both floodlit, the neon lights of bars and restaurants turning to a warm night-time glow.
But protected from the breeze by the wheelhouse, they stayed on deck, setting up the trestle table for the foie gras and toast and Meursault. In place of candles, the one thing Jacquot had left off his shopping list, he brought out the two hurricane lamps from the seat locker and hung one from the wheelhouse roof and put the other on the table so that they could see what they were eating. And when every last smear of the foie gras was gone, he served a dish of figs and peaches to sluice away the richness of the liver, followed by a platter of Picodon and Banon goats’ cheeses, aged and hardened into ball-sized discs, but softened by a mellow red from the Bellet vineyards down the coast. And when their supper was finished, Jacquot uncorked the Calva, nowhere near as good as Clémentine’s but up to the job, and poured two tumblers, Claudine happy with the water she’d been drinking since the last of the Meursault was finished.
Delphie took a sip and leaned back in her seat.
‘Now that is what I call a meal,’ she said, as her younger sister got up to clear the table, bent down to kiss Jacquot’s head and left them on deck. ‘What a wonderful gift,’ she continued. ‘And from someone you hardly knew. Claudine told me on the way down. You must have been astonished.’
Jacquot admitted that he had been, but did not tell her how astonishment had turned to a cop’s curiosity and what his enquiries had uncovered, the secrets he had learned about his benefactor.
‘Looks like she’s been in the wars, though,’ said Delphie, letting her eyes settle on the woodwork above the wheel house.
‘How do you mean?’ said Jacquot, turning to look where she was looking.
‘Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say those were bullet holes.’ She pointed at the curve of the wheelhouse roof where the hurricane lamp was hooked up. ‘A couple of holes there, on the left, near the corner, one in the middle and a bigger tear on the right, half-way down. But then I guess a Customs boat tends to get itself into bad company. Goes with the job, I suppose.’
Putting down his glass, Jacquot got to his feet and went to the edging of the roof.
Saw the marks that Delphie had spotted.
Ran his fingers over them.
Small, yellowing holes that years before had been filled with plastic wood and varnished over, a new coat every season. For twenty years or more. He’d covered them himself, just a few weeks earlier and never noticed. Never thought to notice. Maybe it was the play of the light, but now they seemed to scream at him and he was astonished that he’d missed them. Of course, they could have been caused by any number of other things, but Jacquot knew, with a kind of warm satisfied certainty, that Delphie was right. These were bullet holes.
For a moment, standing there on the aft deck, he could hear the crack of gunshots, the zip and whine of bullets, the splintering thunk as they gouged into the wood
work, Philo at the wheel, right here, where he was standing now, Eddie taking cover in the cabin or flat out on the deck, returning fire maybe, the pair of them – and the gold – lumbering out of Madrague on to an inky black sea.
86
RENÉ DUCLOS PUT down the phone and felt his pulse quicken. He’d been asleep when the call came, but answered ‘Oui, c’est moi’ softly, keeping his temper in check, even as he came awake. He knew that no one would dare call him at this time of night unless it was important. Very important. Something he needed to know.
He’d tried to prop himself on an elbow, as he might have done in the old days, but had felt a stab of pain in his shoulder and laid himself back on his pillows, the phone held to his ear. When the call was over, he’d replaced the phone in its cradle, and continued lying there in the darkness, watching the moonlight fall like silver bars through the shutters. The windows in his bedroom were open and from the boundary of his estate he heard the quick bark of a dog, one of the dobermans that patrolled the property. Salome was always flirting with them, brushing past them, pushing her eager snout between their taut back legs. But the dobermans paid no notice, just the cock of an ear and a supercilious look. The performance always amused Duclos.
But now there were more important things to consider than Salome’s lustful advances and the dobermans’ cool disdain. According to Aris, his senior lieutenant, a man and a woman had visited the fisherman’s apartment in Madrague. One of Beni’s boys had called it in. They were driving an unmarked police car, but the watcher couldn’t be certain that they were both cops. The woman had looked the part but her companion was just a little too scruffy. This had been borne out when he’d followed them back to Marseilles. The man had been dropped at the old port and the woman had driven on, more than likely returning to police headquarters.
Apparently the watcher had taken some photographs which were currently being developed, and had reported back to Beni that the man had gone shopping and returned to the quay an hour later. He’d let himself through the security gate and gone to a boat moored out of sight at the very end of a pontoon. Without the security code Beni’s boy had been unable to access the jetty, but when two women went through the gate an hour or so later he’d slipped in after them. He’d let them get ahead of him and then followed them down the pontoon, far enough away not to be noticed, but close enough to see the same man he’d been following come out on deck and greet them.
The Dying Minutes Page 30