Blood Counts

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘It’s a no-smoking house,’ warned Al, as they made their way up the drive past a swimming pool and tennis court. ‘The son-in-law’s particular about that.’

  ‘Merde,’ said Laganne, who’d stopped en route to buy a fresh pack.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Charlie Serre as they trooped through the open front door. ‘You can’t smoke inside, but there’s a terrace out back which the husband doesn’t mind people using. I remember Claude telling me.’

  ‘What does he do?’ asked Jacquot, taking in the wide sweep of the front hall and staircase, the paintings, the rugs, and the clean, lean, steel furnishings. For the daughter of a Marseilles flic, Laura had certainly done well for herself. There was never any doubt that she was a chip off the old block but, as most of the boys had told Claude over the years, she was a lot better-looking than her old dad.

  ‘Surgeon. Down at Témoine,’ replied Laganne. ‘Probably seen enough lungs to know it’s not a good idea.’

  As they stepped from the hallway into the main salon, it looked as though most of those who had attended the funeral service and interment had also come back to the house. Set on two levels, the distant terrace clearly visible through a far wall of glass, the salon was packed with a shifting tide of black against the terracotta floors, the low murmur of voices not quite animated enough to lend the gathering any sense of frivolity or ease. But Jacquot judged that this mood would not last long. As well as stipulating that all her classic dishes should be served for her send-off, Minette Peluze had clearly made similar arrangements with regard to drinks. She knew who her guests would be, she knew what they drank. And she’d made damn sure it was on tap. Winding through the crowd were a corps of waistcoated waiters bearing trays of whisky, Pernod, wine and champagne. As the squad came into the salon, one of these waiters approached them and his tray emptied rapidly.

  ‘Never understood champagne at a funeral,’ said Charlie Serre. ‘Whisky’s much more like it,’ he added, nodding approvingly at the measure and tipping back his glass. ‘More melancholic . . . more appropriate.’

  ‘And j-j-j-just the kind of shot you’d get from M-M-M-Minette herself,’ remarked Chevin, adding a dash of water to his Pernod, returning the carafe to the tray and nodding his thanks to the waiter. ‘And I think we owe it to our hostess to make this a m-m-m-memorable occasion. F-F-F-Festive even.’

  ‘Now you know why they’ve got the bubbly,’ said Laganne. ‘She means us to have a party.’

  But first there was the duty call, the careful approach to the widower, extending their sympathies and condolences. As he drew closer, Jacquot was stunned to see how much his old friend had aged, how much weight he’d shed. It was maybe six months since they’d last met, up at the Cabrille place on Roucas Blanc where Peluze had run the job. Back then he’d been his usual big-shouldered, lumbering self. Now he was half the size. When he shook Peluze’s hand and hugged him, Jacquot could feel the bones. A couple of weeks since Minette had died and he’d aged a decade.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Daniel, and good of you to come. Minette always had a soft spot for you. Can’t think why.’ Claude and Jacquot gripped each other’s shoulders and Claude smiled sadly, big brown eyes cast down. So much to say, but no need. Best left unspoken. Just a few nods were enough and then, from behind, a hand taking Claude’s arm, turning him. He was needed elsewhere. More well-wishers. More condolences.

  ‘I’ll catch you later,’ he said, nodding to the terrace and mimicking a smoke with two discreetly raised fingers.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said Jacquot and released his friend.

  Thirty minutes later, leaning against the balustrade, shaded by a copse of oak and pine and overlooked by the slopes of the St-Baume Massif, Jacquot was watching Minette’s grandchildren play on a swing when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Claude, fixing a smile on his face as Jacquot turned to greet him.

  ‘Don’t do the sympathy thing or I swear I’ll knock your teeth out,’ were the first words he said.

  ‘I haven’t eaten yet, so I won’t risk it,’ replied Jacquot.

  ‘Good. Because you’d be missing something. Believe it or not, Laura’s a better cook than her mother. I wouldn’t have said that if the old girl were standing next to me, mind . . . but there you are.’

  The smile faltered, so Jacquot took up the slack.

  ‘I heard the basics. Who’s handling the case?’

  ‘Guimpier at the office,’ replied Claude, nodding towards the tall stooping figure of Yves Guimpier, head of operations on rue de l’Evêché. ‘And then there’s Luc and Al on the street . . . the rest working back-up. Couldn’t be in better hands.’

  ‘Any suspects? Leads?’ asked Jacquot, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Nothing. Not a thing. The house was clean. No sign of a break-in, or a burglary interrupted, or a struggle . . . them being caught on the property when she arrived home and panicking. Everything neat as a pin, just the way she liked it.’ As he spoke Claude seemed to relax, the springs unwinding, talking police talk – detail, speculation, conjecture – the familiar team language that skated over any personal involvement. ‘Not that anyone needed to break in,’ he continued. ‘The silly moo left the key in the front door. She did it all the time. I was always telling her . . .’ He took a breath, held it in. ‘Whoever it was – probably a pair of passing chancers – all they had to do was see the key in the lock, and take a look.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘She was having one of her naps. Wakes up, catches them in the act and they panic. Put her down on the sofa, because that’s where she is. Do it with a cushion, because they’re not tooled up. Then scarper quick. Chancers, like I say.’

  ‘And not take anything? Her purse? Jewellery?’

  Claude shook his head and reached for Jacquot’s cigarette. He took a quick drag, handed it back.

  ‘The place was clean. Nothing missing that I could see.’

  Jacquot frowned.

  ‘Seems odd, that’s all.’

  ‘Like I said, they must have panicked, is all. Being surprised, being seen. Someone able to identify them.’

  ‘And it had to be two? A pair of them?’

  ‘Two or more. One on her legs, one for her arms, maybe another with the cushion – who knows?’

  ‘But nothing stolen, you said?’

  ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking . . . The other possibility. Not just passing chancers, but someone watching the house, waiting for her.’

  ‘Like you say it’s a possibility.’

  ‘Who knows, Daniel? I’ve made a lot of enemies. You too. All of us.’

  ‘So you’ll be checking your arrests, grudges . . .’

  ‘Prison releases . . . oui, bien sûr. All that.’

  ‘But nothing yet?’

  Claude shook his head, took a swig of his whisky.

  ‘When the boys I’ve put away come out from Baumettes, all they want to do is keep a low profile in case I come calling. In a blue moon they might think to take a shot at me – but that’s a blue moon. Maybe just a couple of times since I started. As for the wife . . . believe me, they’re not going to try something with the wife.’

  ‘So what’s your theory?’

  ‘Right now, I can’t put any of it together. You know how it is at the start. More questions than a quiz show, and not a single answer. But these things grow, gain momentum. Something will turn up. Someone will make a mistake. And then we’ll have them, eh?’ He might have been talking about an up-coming grudge match between Marseilles’ home football team, Olympique, and long-time rivals Paris St-Germain at the Stade Vélodrome. He cleared his throat. ‘You been having some fun too, I hear?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The Gilbert boy. Police Nationale. Soon as they heard he was in the slot for his wife’s murder, the boys over on Garibaldi went ape.’ Rue Garibaldi was the Marseilles headquarters of the Police Nationale, and PN boys stuck together.

  ‘He was never in the slot,’ said Jacquot, tapping o
ut his cigarette in a Coke can that someone had set up as an ashtray. ‘Clean as a whistle.’

  ‘They heard he was in the slammer.’

  ‘Of sorts. A psychiatric hospital. Under observation. He slit his wrists.’

  ‘Jesus Christ . . .’ Claude shook his head, as though, finally, he couldn’t make sense of the world.

  ‘I saw him at the wedding. He introduced himself. Nice kid.’

  ‘Got it all in front of him, they say. Marked out. And now this.’ Claude looked away, down at his grandchildren. Jacquot could see the man start to weaken again.

  ‘He told me Virginie Cabrille got out. Walked,’ said Jacquot, keeping the conversation moving along. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’

  Claude grunted.

  ‘You and the rest of us. She brought in some snappy Paris lawyer and just . . . brazened it out.’

  ‘But the Lafour girl? The kidnap? The woman didn’t have a leg to stand on.’

  ‘She blamed the brothers . . . the Manichella boys. Said they did it all themselves. That she had no idea what they were up to. Said she was as shocked as anyone when she found out. They’d worked for her father, she said – in the grounds, odd jobs, chauffeurs – and the annexe came with the job. Same with the skipper on her yacht – Miliǵ. The boat might’ve been owned by the Cabrilles, but she claimed she had no idea he was holding the girl. If she’d only known . . . blah, blah, blah. And, of course, there was nothing to tie her in. When some bright spark dug up phone records and pointed out that a call had been made to the yacht on a Cabrille landline, her lawyer promptly informed the Magistrates’ office that no such call had been made by his client, that the number was registered to the brothers’ service apartment and not the main house or lodge.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a note – a ransom demand?’

  ‘Couldn’t stick it to her. Paper, pen, envelope – could have come from anywhere. Hand delivered by a messenger no one’s been able to track down.’

  ‘What about Gastal? What she did to him in that basement of hers. And blood all over her.’

  ‘Consensual sex. According to Mademoiselle, that’s the way he liked it and she’d simply obliged. Apparently it wasn’t the first time he’d visited. As for the blood, well that was just part of their playtime. And, of course, he had a dodgy heart.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Nor did Gastal. But they brought in some Professor of Cardiology from the Institute of Cardiac whatevers who testified that the man could have dropped dead at any time, eating and drinking the way he did. No exercise, unless he had his clothes off. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also hauled in some high-class hooker from Lyon to say he’d paid her for the same kind of treatment while he was stationed there with the DGSE, and that she had obliged. Until, she said, his préférences exotiques became just a little too exotique for her tastes. And that was it, my friend. Out on bail within thirty-six hours, then home custody for a couple of weeks while her lawyer shot down every argument we came up with. No case to answer. Tout fini.’

  Jacquot thought back to that November night, standing in the grounds of the Cabrille estate, a slow drizzle drifting in from the sea, watching with Peluze as she was led away in handcuffs.

  ‘What was it she said? That night, remember? We were standing near the garage. She came over, gave you a look and said . . .’

  ‘“I win”. Yeah, I remember. And turns out she was right.’

  Back in the salon, the blade of a knife was tapped against a glass and a voice was raised:

  ‘Mesdames, Messieurs, à table, s’il vous plaît. À table, à table, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘You hungry?’ asked Claude.

  ‘Couldn’t eat a thing.’

  ‘Me neither. So let’s join the queue before everything goes.’

  15

  THE BOYS FROM THE SQUAD were among the last to leave Laura’s house, and they took Claude with them, back into Marseilles, telling his daughter he’d be fine, they’d look after him. They were lying, of course, and as Jacquot made his way carefully home to Cavaillon the following morning – aching neck, tight squinting eyes, a dozen sharp clamps screwed into his skull – he wondered if Claude was feeling the same, and how the rest of them were coping on rue de l’Evêché. None of them, surely, could have escaped the night’s activities unscathed. Minette Peluze would have been proud of them.

  As far as Jacquot could remember the evening had begun at Bon Mou, a members’ club off rue Paradis, with more beers and whiskies, and from there they had moved to Le Vieux, a restaurant down on the port run by an ex-con who owed some favours. Jacquot couldn’t remember reaching for his wallet once, and hadn’t seen anyone else do it either, until they stumbled out of Le Vieux and he’d spotted Laganne pass their waitress a green Curie – a five-hundred franc note. Just to say thanks, for putting up with their bad behaviour – nothing more than that.

  Afterwards, with the smell of the sea in their nostrils and a bellyful of food to soak up the booze, they’d settled at Paragon, a squad favourite, beyond the Joliette quay. They’d taken a corner table in the back room, squeezing round it, and at some stage in the proceedings, for reasons he couldn’t now recall, Jacquot had mentioned the couple he’d spotted at the cemetery, and how, for a moment, he’d considered checking them out. Something to do with always being on the beat, never being able to leave off being a cop.

  Why? Charlie Serre had asked. What about them?

  And Jacquot had told him about the investigation in Cavaillon – the murder of Gilbert’s wife, the wedding pictures, more than three hundred people identified and all, save two, accounted for. Two people. In black. One tall, one short. Just like the ones at Minette’s funeral.

  ‘Men or women?’ asked Serre.

  Jacquot shook his head. ‘We can’t be sure.’

  ‘Then maybe you should have,’ suggested Serre with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Checked ’em out, I mean.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Where did you say you saw them again?’

  ‘Just inside the front gate, top path, at the edge of the trees.’

  Serre had taken a moment to work out the exact position. ‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing for free,’ he’d said. ‘They wouldn’t have been there to visit their old dad.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘How come?’ Serre began to chuckle. ‘Because up there, it’s a plague pit – that’s how come. A common grave. A few hundred people buried there, back in seventeen hundred and something. No names, just a small plaque. But, hey, maybe the pair of ’em were tourists, historians, lovers looking for a bit of privacy amongst the crypts. And then two hundred of us pile in . . . you know what I’m saying?’

  And as Jacquot turned off the autoroute and rattled over the reedy, gravelled bed of the Durance into the dusty, glaring outskirts of Cavaillon – which made him squint even harder – he wished now that he had checked them out. Were they two women, two men, or a man and a woman? He’d never know now. Nor would he know how they might have reacted, as they saw him approach. Would they have made a run for it? Or would they have stayed to answer his questions, provide plausible reasons for their presence there? A couple of history scholars, like Serre had said, checking out the plague pit. Or tourists. Or lovers – however unlikely. Five minutes, that’s all it would have taken. Nobody would have missed him. But he hadn’t, and though he could see no reasonable cause to have done it, he was still irritated with himself.

  He should have.

  He should have gone. Should have taken a closer look.

  And he certainly would have done if he’d known it was a plague pit up there, and they couldn’t have been visiting family graves. Standing in a perfect position to watch Minette’s funeral, shading their eyes against the sun the better to see. Just like the two at the Blanchard wedding all those weeks before.

  But were they the same people? It seemed so unlikely.

  And what could possibly link the two events?

  The wedding of a cou
ntry girl to a Marseilles flic, and the funeral of the middle-aged wife of a Homicide officer on rue de l’Evêché.

  Two cops, that’s all. A gendarme and a Chief Inspector. And their murdered wives . . .

  But two murders so different in style.

  One, an expertly executed shooting; the other a clumsy smothering.

  One clearly planned; the other most likely a burglary gone horribly wrong.

  It was way out there . . .

  But still . . .

  16

  AFTER BUYING HIMSELF A BLISTER pack of Ibuprofen at the pharmacie on Cours Bournissac and washing down a couple of pills with a sweet cappuccino and Calva at Fin de Siècle on Place du Clos, Jacquot headed for police headquarters and his corner office overlooking the railed lawn of Église St-Jean.

  Brunet was waiting for him, followed him into his office, and laid down a file on the desk. If he noticed Jacquot’s pained, squinting expression he gave no sign of it.

  ‘All you need to know about Dyethelaspurane. Or rather, where you can get hold of it.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Jacquot, pulling off his black jacket and tie from the day before. Across the road a flight of pigeons took off with a rattle of wings from the slatted belfry of the church.

  ‘Pretty much everywhere there’s a hospital pharmacy. You need a prescription and most supplies are directed in-house – for surgical procedures, sedation. What you can’t do is buy it over the counter.’

  ‘So we’re looking at someone who maybe works in hospitals . . .’

  ‘Or knows someone who does.’

  What Jacquot had been hoping for was a tighter, more limited source for the drug, something easier to follow through – just a few hospitals, a few outlets. But it wasn’t to be.

  ‘Worth following up?’ asked Brunet.

  ‘Let’s just flag it for now – maybe revisit down the road if Forensics identify the same drug at another crime scene. And maybe check back the last twelve months . . . see if there’s anything on file.’