Blood Counts

by Martin O'Brien

  ‘You okay, Boss?’ It was Brunet, leaning round the door.

  ‘Me. Yes, of course I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’ and he waved his assistant in.

  ‘So how was Marseilles?’ asked Brunet, grabbing himself a chair – sitting in it properly this time, crossing his legs, leaning an elbow over the chairback.

  ‘The killings are different. The way they’re done. Absolutely no similarity in method and execution. A silenced bullet through the eye, here; a table saw and a hand, there. The murders weeks apart, in different places. If it weren’t for the Dyethelaspurane, I wouldn’t start to credit it. Just not a goer. But there’s something else,’ he continued, and ran Brunet through what he’d just heard from Claude, about Noël Gilbert and Jean Berri both working for the Police Nationale, and both of them being at the shoot-out in Roucas Blanc. The two flics who’d fired the killing shots, putting an end to the Manichella brothers.

  Brunet whistled.

  ‘That’s pretty persuasive, Boss. I mean, that’s definitely worth taking seriously. Someone out for revenge . . .’

  Jacquot nodded.

  ‘Which is why I want you to get all you can on Tomas and Taddeus Manichella, and I mean families and loved ones as much as any police record. Anyone who might bear a grudge as a result of their deaths, and be prepared to play it.’

  ‘What about that woman – Virginie Cabrille?’

  ‘Top of my list.’

  Brunet swung off the chair and headed for the door where he paused and turned, a thoughtful expression on his face.

  ‘Weren’t you at the shoot-out, Boss?’

  That evening, back at the millhouse, Claudine had friends for supper – an English couple called Cayford who had a holiday home near Goult, and two artist friends Gilles and Natalie. After supper, when their guests had gone and Claudine had cried off a last drink on the terrace, pleading tiredness and seeking her bed, Jacquot cleared up the dishes, stacked the machine, then picked up a torch and went outside. He walked around the millhouse, front, sides and back, then stepped out onto the lawns, sweeping the torch beam across the damp grass as though looking for footprints, flashing it through the bushes and trees that bordered the gardens, sending shadows darting away.

  But there was nothing, and as he locked up the house he chuckled to himself.

  Upstairs, in the darkness, he slid softly into bed and turned to Claudine.

  She was almost asleep.

  ‘Did I tell you?’ she murmured. ‘Midou’s coming to stay.’

  26

  MIDOU BÉCARD, CLAUDINE’S DAUGHTER FROM her first marriage, arrived at Marignane airport a week later from Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. Jacquot had supposed that Claudine would do the pick-up alone, but he’d supposed wrong.

  ‘You’ll have to take the morning off,’ she told him the day before her daughter’s arrival. ‘Midou will be most upset if you’re not there to meet her too.’

  Jacquot was surprised, and touched.

  ‘Midou upset? Doesn’t sound like the Midou I know.’

  ‘Then you don’t know much, Monsieur Flic,’ Claudine had replied, and left it at that. There was no argument. He would be there, or else.

  Since taking up with Midou’s mother, and moving into the millhouse three years earlier, Jacquot had come as close to having a family as he could ever remember. Midou might not have been his daughter, but in a short space of time, on her occasional visits home, he had come to . . . well, if not quite love her as a father, then to enjoy her company and be proud of her. That she was so like her mother made it easier, of course; the independence, the wilfulness, the speaking her mind. She might have been just a year or two into her twenties but Midou Bécard knew how to dole it out if she felt in the mood.

  ‘Ah-ha, Daniel, so you got rid of the ’tail at last.’

  That was the first thing she said to him, after bounding out of the arrivals hall at Marignane airport, hugging and kissing her mother and then turning to him with an equally warm embrace. Even after the overnight flight from Pointe-à-Pitre and her connecting flight from Paris, Jacquot could still smell the sea on her.

  ‘I’ve had it woven into a place mat for you to take home,’ he replied, releasing her from his hug. Slim and sinuous, with wide, dark eyes she was like the fishes she studied, he’d often thought. But more beautiful than any fish, and more mouthy. Her mother through and through. And after her time in the tropics her skin glowed like warm honey, her short brownish hair bleached at its flyaway tips from the sun.

  ‘It suits you, though. You look younger,’ she said. ‘Better watch out, Maman. Or someone’ll snatch him, and he’ll be off.’

  ‘Midou, what a thing to say!’ laughed Claudine, as they left the arrivals hall and headed for the car park, the two women arm in arm, Jacquot bringing up the rear with Midou’s cases.

  They were crossing the car park, Midou and Claudine just a few steps ahead, coming out from between a row of cars, when there was a sudden rush of air as a large black 4x4 with shaded windows shot past them, close enough to snatch away their breath. None of them had heard or seen its approach and none of them had expected any car to be travelling quite so fast in an airport car park. There was no time to do anything, except stand there, the three of them, and watch the car – a Toyota Landcruiser – head for the exit, wheels squealing over the hot tarmac. Coming round behind them, on the Arrivals access road, the driver, a young man, leant out of the window and gave them the finger.

  As he packed away Midou’s cases in the back of their own car, it struck Jacquot that if the Toyota had been a VW with two women in the front seat, the result might have been a little more significant than just a close shave.

  It also made him realise just how easy it would be to target Claudine and, now that Midou was here, her daughter too.

  27

  A RIBCAGE OF SCAFFOLDING HAD been set around the Cabrille mansion in Roucas Blanc, a rustling skin of blue tarpaulin stretched across it to conceal its stuccoed walls. The driveway was filled with builders’ vans and rubbish skips, pallets of wrapped stone tiling, cinched lengths of new timber, and pyramids of sand, cement and gravel which stood beside a pair of bright orange cement mixers. A large generator chugged away on the front lawn, and a snarl of black cabling snaked out from it towards the house. In the morning sunshine the air smelt of hot sand, diesel and warm wood.

  As Jacquot and Muzon climbed the steps to the front door, grit and fallen plaster crunched beneath their feet and water dripped from above. Passing into the gap between the tarpaulin and the walls was like stepping into a giant blue tent filled with the sounds of drills and hammers and scrapers, and the shouts from a workforce climbing like a troop of monkeys through the scaffolding above.

  ‘This’ll cost,’ said Muzon, as they stepped through the gap and into the entrance hall. Though quieter and drier here, there was no less a sense of scurrying activity as workers in yellow hard-hats, boots and bleus, with the holstered tools of their trades slung like gunbelts around their waists, went about their work, the sounds of their voices and labour echoing in the open space.

  ‘I hear she can afford it,’ replied Jacquot, pleased at last to be doing something.

  After his unsettling conversation with Claude Peluze, Jacquot had been forced to wait for this meeting with Virginie Cabrille. When he’d phoned to set a date, he had been informed that Mademoiselle Cabrille was in the Seychelles, that she had been away for a month and wouldn’t be home for another ten days. It gave her a sure-fire alibi for the Berri killing, but it didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t involved in some way or other.

  ‘Help you?’ came a voice from behind them.

  Jacquot and Muzon turned. The man was dressed in working clothes – boots, blue dungarees, a yellow hat and a reflective green waiscoat – but there was hardly a smudge of dirt on him. The foreman or site manager, Jacquot decided.

  Muzon flashed his badge.

  ‘We’re here to see Mademoiselle Cabrille.’

  �
�Down the hall there. Second door on the left last time I saw her. And watch yourselves. She’s not happy.’

  Muzon and Jacquot exchanged a look, thanked the man, and followed his directions. Not that these were altogether necessary. As they made their way down the hall, a woman’s voice cut sharply through the rattle of hammers and the scream of drills.

  ‘They stay as they are, in the manner stipulated and as agreed months ago with your superiors. Compris?’

  When Jacquot and Muzon entered the room, Virginie Cabrille was standing by a window with her back to them, her hands on her hips. She was wearing heeled boots and a blue Levi shirt untucked over white jeans. She was already a tall woman, but the boots gave her an added few centimetres which she was using to add menace to her message, towering over a much smaller figure, a middle-aged man in a tightly buttoned jacket, collar and tie. He carried a clipboard and wore a hard-hat that looked to be a size too small. Someone from the city council, Jacquot guessed. He had that look about him. Not much chin, an icebreaker of a nose and sloping shoulders. The hands gripping the clipboard were small and delicate and his brown leather shoes neatly laced.

  ‘The property is protected, Mademoiselle,’ the man replied, trying to sound reasonable, but determined not to give ground. ‘There are some things that cannot be changed, and what you have done with these windows goes far beyond . . .’

  ‘It goes far beyond nothing, Monsieur. And the job is done. You are simply wasting my time. Speak to Niot in Planning. He gave me his assurance . . .’

  Pausing in the doorway, Muzon gave a little cough. Virginie Cabrille spun round, as if here was someone else daring to spoil her day, and gave them a brisk once-over.

  The last time Jacquot had seen her she’d been wearing light blue Capri slacks, a dark blue twin-set and penny loafers. She had also been covered in blood – her sleeves, trousers, throat and cheeks. This time she looked a great deal more presentable, though no less defiant: short black glossy hair with a straight parting, a long, patrician nose and small slanting eyes as hard and as black as door-nails. Her face and arms and the unbuttoned front of her shirt showed a deep tan.

  ‘And you are?’ she asked.

  ‘Chief Inspector Muzon, Mademoiselle, and my colleague Chief Inspector Jacquot,’ said Muzon. ‘An appointment was made.’

  The hard look softened and a patient smile stitched itself across her lips.

  ‘Mais bien sûr . . .’ She came forward, shook their hands, a strong, confident grip, then she turned back to the man from the council. ‘Speak to Niot. And sort it out,’ she told him. The last four words were spoken in short, sharp jabs, and in capital letters – And. Sort. It. Out. – so there could be no confusion, no mistake. With a nervous bob in her direction and a passing grateful nod to Jacquot and Muzon for saving him any further tongue-lashing, the man scuttled past them.

  ‘Tedious, tedious, tedious,’ she sighed. ‘Such petty little rules.’

  ‘Planning permission can be a minefield,’ agreed Muzon, looking around. Even in its current distressed state – bare plaster, dusty floorboards, and a high ceiling where cracks had opened wide enough to show a criss-crossing of lathes – it was a beautifully appointed room, a classic Empire salon. Through a set of open french windows and a gap in the blue tarpaulin, the distant sea glittered like diamonds spilled around the rocky shores of the Frioul islands. ‘Especially in a house like this.’

  ‘Times change, Chief Inspector. What suits one age does not necessarily suit another, n’est-ce-pas? And if it hadn’t been for my father, this wonderful old house would have been left to rot years ago. Pouf! Fallen down. Lost for ever. One minute no one cares about houses like this – happy to let them go. The next you can’t hang a picture without some job’s worth fonctionnaire taking measurements. Like that weaselly little bureaucrat, telling me that these new windows are seven centimetres too wide. Seven centimetres.’ She held up a little finger. ‘When the plans – and measurements – were approved months ago.’ She dropped her hand. ‘But I am sure you are not here to hear about my problems with the town council?’ she said, eyes moving to Jacquot. A frown settled across her brow. ‘Your face seems very familiar, Chief Inspector . . .’

  ‘Jacquot,’ he replied, supplying the name.

  ‘Jacquot? Jacquot? Have we met before, Chief Inspector . . .’

  ‘Yes, we have, very briefly.’

  She appeared to give it some thought, as if trying to place the when and the where, though Jacquot suspected she remembered quite clearly, knew exactly who he was.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t quite . . .’

  ‘At your garage, Mademoiselle. In November.’

  The frown was replaced by a smile, a wide smile of recognition, as though she was completely unperturbed by remembering the circumstances surrounding that first encounter.

  ‘Ah, now I have you. Of course. Such a terrible night. Mais, alors . . .’ She spread her hands. ‘What can I say?’ She gave them both a forgiving smile. ‘Mistakes can be made, I suppose.’

  There was a knock on the door behind them. The foreman, taking off his hard-hat, asked if she could spare a moment, he needed to talk to her. Virginie Cabrille excused herself and went over to him. It was clear he wanted to get his men into the room to start work. She came back to them.

  ‘It appears my site manager is keen to get on in here. Perhaps we should adjourn somewhere a little more . . . private.’

  28

  WITH A SIGN THAT THEY should follow her, Virginie Cabrille led Jacquot and Muzon through the french windows, stepped between the sheets of blue tarpaulin and led them out onto a wide stone-flagged terrace.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ she said, breathing deeply. ‘Away from all that plaster and dust.’ There wasn’t a speck on her, but she brushed down the front of her blue denim shirt, leaning forward to dust off her trousers. It was impossible not to see the swell of her cleavage and the loose sway of her breasts.

  She looked up quickly and smiled, as if catching them out.

  ‘So, Chief Inspectors,’ she said, leaning against the balustrade. Behind her a distant container ship passed beyond the Marseilles roads and out into the open ocean. ‘What can I do for you this time?’

  With a nod from Muzon, Jacquot started in.

  ‘I wanted to ask about the two men employed by you who . . .’

  ‘Employed by my father,’ Virginie Cabrille quickly corrected him. ‘Taddeus and Tomas Manichella. They were brothers, and they worked for my father, not for me.’ It was a swift rebuke, a clear warning that he should get his facts straight, that she was not to be taken lightly. But she accompanied the reprimand with a pleasant smile.

  ‘But they were still resident . . .’

  ‘They lived on the property, that is correct. But after my father died, I gave them notice. Three months to move out of the garage annexe. Like a lot of things to do with my father, there was change needed. And it wasn’t just a matter of interior decoration,’ she added, waving at the house behind them. ‘I make no apology for my father, Messieurs. He was old school, set in his ways. And those ways were not necessarily . . . what one might expect or admire in a parent. Now that he is gone, things are very different.’ Again, the bright accommodating smile, flashed from Jacquot to Muzon and back to Jacquot.

  ‘I believe the Manichella brothers were with the Cabrille family for some years . . .’ he persisted.

  ‘For as long as I can remember.’

  ‘So surely it must have been difficult to let them go?’

  ‘Yes, it was. But these things happen. And my father had made generous provision for them in his will. It was not as if they were being cast out into the street. I believe they were thinking of returning to Corsica, buying some land there. They were Corsican, you know.’

  Jacquot did know. He had read the file which Brunet had put together. Born in Tassafaduca, in the highlands beyond Corte. A wild and distant place. Mother and father still living, two sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and ne
phews by the score. He’d already put in a request for the island’s authorities to check out the family, a visit from the local gendarmerie to make sure they were all accounted for.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why Taddeus and Tomas Manichella should have reacted so violently that night, when the police came calling?’

  Virginie Cabrille smiled.

  ‘No, I can’t. Although my attorney discovered that the first policemen to enter the premises were in plain clothes, did not knock or show credentials.’

  ‘I am sure they would have made themselves known, shouted out “Police”,’ said Muzon.

  ‘Perhaps they did. Who can say? We only have your word for it.’ Another glittering smile. ‘Maybe Taddeus and Tomas would have a different perspective, a different version of events.’

  ‘Did you know that they carried guns? Guns which, by the way, were not registered with the authorities?’ This from Jacquot.

  ‘No, I did not. I never saw any guns . . . ever. Although, as I said earlier, my father was often in a position where protection would certainly have been a consideration.’

  ‘And why might that have been?’ asked Jacquot, knowing full well that Arsène Cabrille, Virginie’s father, had been one of the city’s most notorious gangland leaders, unlikely to go anywhere without a couple of heavies like the Manichella boys to watch his back.

  ‘He was an old man, Chief Inspector. And wealthy. And in a city like Marseilles those two qualities might easily have been taken for . . . let’s say, vulnerability. But with Taddeus and Tomas to keep him company . . . well, such a thing ceased to be a possibility. They had been in the army, I believe. They knew a thing or two. Maybe those guns were from their army days?’

  Jacquot nodded, took this in.

  ‘And can you think of any reason why someone would want to avenge their deaths?’