For the last four nights the two women drinking their chocolats in Café-Bar Vernix had followed Monsieur Hervé Montclos from the gallery where he worked to his home in Prado with its underground residents’ car park. Which wasn’t what they wanted, not at all what they were after. The two women who followed him wanted something far more dramatic, something far more visible and telling than a basement parking lot. What they were waiting for was the road outside Madame Bonnefoy’s apartment, where her lover parked when he came calling, so she could see what happened to him.
So she would know.
And that’s what Hervé Montclos had done the previous evening, coming back late from a reception at the Gallery Balon and parking no more than fifty metres uphill from the lawyer’s apartment. With one of the women keeping watch, it had taken but a matter of moments for the other to break into his white Audi estate, connect the wires to the ignition, and fix the small supply of 7-weight Plexi-Lye-40 to the base of the steering column.
Now the two women sat in Café-Bar Vernix and waited, until the older one spotted movement up the slope. From this distance they could see it was a man but until he stopped at the white Audi, they could not be certain it was him.
When he did so, they knew.
And with curious eyes they watched him unlock the driver’s door and slide in.
The blast – a black and orange ball of roiling smoke and fire – sounded from this distance like a dull whumph, but the force of the explosion was enough to make Café-Bar Vernix’s window shudder and the reflections in it quiver and shake. Moments later came a second blast as the Audi’s petrol tank blew and a breeze from the harbour pushed a billowing cloud of black smoke down the street towards the café. It was out of this cloud that twisted pieces of bodywork now rained down onto the street – a crumpled door, a section of the back seat, the hood and hatchback – rattling over the cobbles and pavement and setting off a dozen car alarms.
There was a hungry crackling of flames, and a stunned silence among the booths and at the bar as every head turned to the window. And then a monstrous clanging sound echoed down the street as the Audi’s front axle, its wheels ablaze, crashed down and began a slow flaming descent of the slope, coming to an abrupt halt against the small fountain in the middle of place Méribel.
‘Numéro cinq,’ said the smaller of the two women.
‘Ssshhh!’ said the other, holding up a finger, as the café’s proprietor, staff and patrons crowded past them and out onto the pavement.
The two women followed, pausing for a moment to watch the flames and smoke billowing from the blackened husk of the car, its axle lodged against the fountain and the sweet smell of baking from the boulangerie wiped away by the harsh stench of petrol and burnt rubber.
In the minutes that followed lights flicked on in every building, and the pavements around the place quickly filled with people, woken by the blast, coming out in dressing gowns to see what had happened. In such a crowd, with everyone’s attention focused on rue Carème, it was a simple matter for the two women to slide away unnoticed, just a couple of office workers heading home after a long night shift.
As they came to the corner of Boulevard Clemenceau the first sirens started up.
‘What a way to start the day,’ said the taller of the two women.
‘Quite a wake-up call,’ replied her companion.
41
IF THE KILLERS WERE WATCHING the millhouse, Jacquot knew how important it was to keep to the same routine. If they sensed for a moment that he knew what was going on, what was being planned, then there was a risk they’d put together something else that might be harder to spot or defend against. Things had to stay the same, so that he could draw the killers into the open, flush them out. Right now he had the advantage of knowing what they didn’t know he knew. He was ready, on the alert. All he had to do was go through the motions, as though nothing had changed: leaving for the office in the morning, coming home for lunch now and then, as was his custom, or meeting up with Claudine and Midou in town, and always leaving for home at the same time – early – each evening.
In case one of the killers was watching the house, and another watching police headquarters in Cavaillon – which is how he would have played it – Jacquot held to this pattern as strictly as he could, but had precautions in place. He had equipped the millhouse phone line with an automatic alarm call to police headquarters. If there was anything wrong, all the girls had to do was press zero, whichever phone they were closest to – bedroom, kitchen, salon, bathroom. They didn’t even need to lift the receiver. Of course the killers could cut the lines, but it was still an option . . .
As a further defence, Jacquot had also taken possession, at a nod from Rochet, of two police-issue Berettas for Claudine and Midou and, after lowering the kitchen blinds one night, he had shown the two women how to use them. He was relieved that neither of them had put up any argument, nor winced or shivered when he told them that the chest was a wiser and an easier target than head or limbs, and whether the shot was high or low or wide the chances were that a 9x19mm Parabellum fired in this area would put down your assailant every time. They’d listened to him carefully and they did what he told them – how to hold the gun with two hands, how to work the safety with their thumbs, and how to aim on the straight rather than bother with the sights. The only problem was where to keep the guns. Since there were no children in the house, they could afford to be a little more daring, but for one reason or another each location was found wanting. Finally they agreed on the salad drawer in the fridge and in the downstairs cloakroom, the two of them promising Jacquot that they’d take one of these guns with them whenever they left the house. And never travel alone.
‘But we are not going to miss the concert because of all this,’ insisted Claudine. ‘Just so long as that’s agreed right now, right here?’ In two weeks Cavaillon was playing host to George Benson, one of Claudine’s favourite musicians, for a one-off outdoor concert between dates in Juan-Les-Pins and Nice, the gig arranged in memory of the father of one of his supporting group who had been born in the Luberon, all ticket receipts to go to a local charity. ‘If I don’t hear George Benson sing “Breezin’” live, those killers of yours will be a soft option, because your life, Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot, will not be worth living.’
‘Agreed,’ said Jacquot, as keen to see Mr Benson as Claudine was. As Cavaillon’s highest-ranking police officer under Georges Rochet – who would more likely prefer an evening’s opera in Orange – there was every chance that Daniel might even get to meet the big man. He’d been joking for weeks that if Claudine behaved herself, he might see if he could arrange an introduction. And, frankly, the risks of attending the concert were minimal. They’d be as safe in a crowd as they were in the millhouse, and he’d be with them the whole time.
One morning, a week after his talk with Rochet, Jacquot was driving into town from the millhouse, keeping an eye out for dark-coloured VW Beetles, when he heard a radio report about an explosion in Marseilles. It had only happened a few hours earlier and there were few details as yet beyond the fact that it appeared to be a car-bomb in a residential street in Endoume and that only one fatality had been reported.
This news item made him remember, in an instant, another bomb in Marseilles, an anarchist bomb tossed from a passing car, the bomb that had killed his mother, and fourteen other people, and changed his life for ever. And with his eyes fixed on the road ahead Jacquot saw again the red print dress she was wearing that last morning of her life, the way its square-cut top framed the red coral necklace his father had given her – to keep her safe – and the canvas bag she carried with painting dungarees and plimsolls packed away inside, the heels of her favourite red shoes clicking on the pavement as they walked together down the slope of Le Panier into town, the kiss on both cheeks when they parted at the school gates.
He’d watched until she was out of sight.
And he never saw her again.
Later, he passed th
e shop where she’d been working, painting a backdrop for one of its window displays, a sheet of wood nailed into place where the glass had blown inwards and cut her down. Strange, he thought, how his mother and Claudine were both artists.
More than forty years later, that final memory of his mother was still piercingly sharp – that particular shade of red in her skirt, the brown skin of her arms, the smell of her hair when she kissed him – just as sharp as the last memory he had of his father, Vincent, lost at sea just months before his mother’s death. A cheery salute from the stern of his trawler, that lopsided grin of his and a long sharp whistle between his fingers that set the seagulls aloft.
As the morning wore on, little more information about the explosion in Marseilles was forthcoming beyond the fact that the victim was called Hervé Montclos, recently appointed curator at the Balon Gallery on rue Grignan. So far the police were at a loss to explain why a museum curator’s car should have been targeted, and were appealing for witnesses – anyone who might have seen anything suspicious in the hours leading up to the explosion. It was a residential street. Had somebody been seen loitering around Montclos’ car?
It wasn’t until that evening when Jacquot was back at the millhouse, watching the TV news that he suddenly spotted a familiar face in the report on that morning’s explosion: Solange Bonnefoy, one of the city’s most renowned examining magistrates. She was being escorted by gendarmes into Police Nationale headquarters on Garibaldi. At first he assumed she had been brought in to direct the investigation. But he was wrong. According to the news reporter, Hervé Montclos and Solange Bonnefoy had lived together. At approximately 5.55 that morning he had left her apartment, walked to his car, unlocked it and climbed in. As he switched on the engine, the car had exploded.
Jacquot’s blood went cold and a shiver stole across his shoulders.
Solange Bonnefoy.
Who had asked Jacquot to track down her kidnapped niece, Elodie Lafour.
Who had sanctioned the raid on Roucas Blanc.
And who had pursued Virginie Cabrille so unrelentingly in the days after her arrest.
Another name that Jacquot hadn’t considered as a target, another name he had never thought to link to the current investigation.
42
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, IN HIS office at police headquarters, Jacquot put a call through to Solange Bonnefoy’s chambers on Cours Pierre Puget in Marseilles. He had her home number but felt that, in the circumstances, her office would be the best place to call; less intrusive, it would give her space until she decided to do something about it. As he’d expected Madame Bonnefoy was not at her desk, but would he care to leave his name or a message? he was asked.
‘Just say Daniel called,’ Jacquot told her assistant. That’s all he needed to say. So that she knew he was there if she needed him, if she needed to talk.
He hadn’t expected a prompt reply and he didn’t get one. It was two days before Solange Bonnefoy phoned him back.
‘It was good of you to call, Daniel.’
There was no need for her to say who it was. When he heard her voice, he shooed Brunet from his office, and closed the door to the squad room.
‘I am so very sorry, Solange. You must be . . .’
‘Devastated? Or strong? Which camp are you in, Daniel? So far callers are falling into one or other category.’ He heard her try a chuckle, but she couldn’t quite carry it off.
Jacquot smiled. ‘The devastated camp.’
‘And you’re right. That’s what I am. Completely and utterly. And I really don’t want to hear that “strong” rubbish. I’ll leave being strong for some other time. Right now I’m just plain . . . devastated.’
Jacquot waited a beat before he continued, heard her blow her nose on the other end of the line. ‘I didn’t know you . . .’
The nose was wiped, the tissue wadded into her sleeve. He had seen her do it so many times – most effectively in her prosecutor’s robes in court – that he could see it now, as though she were there in his office, or he in her chambers.
‘We kept it quiet,’ she replied, her voice thickening. ‘And it was early days. And there were his children to consider. Blah, blah . . . You know how it is.’
There was a long, weary pause, broken by fresh sniffs. The nose was blown again. It didn’t take much for Jacquot to add to the tissue and sleeve image her long face drawn and puffy, her grand prow of a nose reddened by the attention, and her grey hair usually so wavy and bouyant now likely lank and lifeless.
The killers had done what they had set out to do, thought Jacquot.
They had taken one life and ruined another.
A true, horrible and bitter revenge.
‘You know what? The thing I regret the most?’ she said at last.
‘Dis-moi,’ replied Jacquot, with a soft, slow kindness.
‘That morning, the last time I saw him, I pretended to be . . . not quite awake. Just mumbled something about dinner. So when he left, all I got was just the sense of his lips against my cheek.’ She sighed. ‘If only I hadn’t pretended sleep . . . if only I’d let him know, he would have kissed me properly, with love. The right kind of kiss for a last kiss, don’t you think?’
Jacquot let her think about that for a moment. There was no need for words from him and he pictured her at the end of the line, remembering that lost moment.
And then she was back, with another grim little chuckle.
‘You know, what I can’t get over is the irony of it,’ she continued. ‘Here am I, a symbol of law and order and justice, and where do I live? Just a few doors down from one of the city’s most notorious parrains. Can you believe that? Some gangland boss with more blood on his hands than wrinkles. Apparently he keeps a mistress there. That’s what the police have told me, and according to them that’s how come my man was blown to bits. Mistaken identity. A gallery curator and a gangland boss. Would you credit it? And I’ve just found out they drive different cars. How could it be mistaken identity? Tell me that.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Jacquot.
There was a silence at the end of the line as Solange Bonnefoy absorbed those tight, short words. And their message.
‘I’m sorry to say it was very much deliberate,’ he continued.
Finally, she spoke. ‘What are you saying, Daniel? What do you know?’ Her words were icily direct, unwavering. It was the way she sometimes spoke in court, or in her chambers when the two of them were reviewing evidence – a warning that she should not be toyed with.
‘Maybe we should meet,’ said Jacquot.
‘Where and when?’
43
‘IT’S THE SIXTH MURDER OF its kind, all of them linked, in the last four months. Someone’s got a list of names, and yours was on it.’
Jacquot and Solange Bonnefoy were sitting under a trellis twined with honeysuckle in the back garden of a small family-run brasserie in the centre of St-Calme. It was two days after their phone call and their lunch had given Solange an opportunity to get out of town, get some fresh air. It also meant that Jacquot hadn’t needed to stray too far from Cavaillon. As for the lunch – a starter, plat du jour, dessert, coffee, at 200 francs tout compris – both of them had professed a lack of appetite when they greeted each other in the bar but when the food arrived had found themselves tucking in with an unexpected gusto.
‘So why didn’t they blow me up?’ asked Solange, spearing a grilled artichoke heart from their dish of hors d’oeuvres.
‘That’s the point,’ Jacquot explained. ‘To make it harder. To make the revenge sweeter, stronger.’
‘Daniel, are you talking about someone trying to settle a score? There’d be a queue round the block. I gave up worrying about that my first year in practice. It just doesn’t happen. And remember what Juvenal said: “Revenge is the pleasure of a tiny mind”, and tiny minds don’t think up things like this.’
She popped the heart into her mouth and chewed, rolling reddened eyes at the taste.
‘You know who to
ld me that line, by the way?’ she continued.
Jacquot shook his head, went for a thin slice of country sausage.
‘Mademoiselle Virginie Cabrille, while I was trying to tie her in with that blackmail letter she swore she never sent to my esteemed brother-in-law. “Revenge is the pleasure of a tiny mind”, she told me. “And mine, Madame Bonnefoy, is not a tiny mind.” How do you like that?’ Solange pushed away her plate and reached for her glass.
Jacquot could see that for this short moment Solange had left her sorrow behind, that she was enjoying herself, and he let her go on.
‘I checked it later. She’d got it wrong. Or maybe she’d got it right – and just wanted me to know. You know what the whole quote is? Something like . . . “It’s always a tiny mind that takes pleasure in revenge. You can deduce it without further evidence than this, that no one delights more in revenge than a woman.” What about that? Of course a man wrote it, but still . . .’ And then Solange paused, thought about what she’d just said. ‘Are you telling me that all this has something to do with Virginie Cabrille? The shoot-out in Roucas Blanc?’
Jacquot waited for their table to be cleared and the main course – a simply grilled loup with buttery sauce and nuggety new potatoes – to be served. ‘Given the victims, that’s the only case it can be tied in with,’ he said, after the waitress had wished them both bon appétit and left them to it. ‘But I have not a shred of evidence beyond the circumstantial. Not the kind of evidence, you can be sure, that I would feel comfortable presenting in your chambers, or in a court of law. In fact,’ he continued, starting in on his sea bass, dipping it into the sauce, ‘everything points to her not being involved. Categorically not involved, never less than a hundred kilometres from any crime scene. We’ve bugged her phone lines, we’ve got her under surveillance twenty-four / seven. But there’s nothing we can pin on her. And all the time she’s behaving as though she’s trying to put distance between herself and her father, like he may have been one of the city’s most lethal godfathers but she has no intention of following in his footsteps. According to the boys on rue de l’Evêché, she’s sold off his merchant fleet and used the money to fund three more medical facilities – paediatric clinics in Paris, Lyons and Grenoble; and one insider said she’s cut ties with the other families, surrendering some of her father’s interests into their care. For a price, I’m sure. It’s like she means to go straight. Everything she’s done since she was released from the tender care of State authorities last November has been whiter than white.’
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