by Alice Quinn
“Presume.”
“What? Yes, presume. That’s what I said.”
If he thought he could get away with playing silly games with me, then he could go right ahead. I watched as his eyes moistened. He was trying to hold back the tears.
“He never loved me,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder whether he actually recognized me as his own son. I look nothing like him.”
“Listen. I know exactly what you mean. He was a strange one, your daddy. He was a bit manic and not always the kindest of men.”
“That would make a wonderful epitaph.”
“Sometimes he was OK, though.”
“Yes, that’s true too.” He looked like he was hurting.
“Come on, you can tell me,” I continued. “You did the old guy in, didn’t you?”
He was startled. “You’re insane! Of course not!”
I don’t know why, but I believed him. I know it’s stupid to trust someone you only met five minutes ago, but . . . I believed him. It was as simple as that. I could tell he wasn’t capable of it.
I felt sorry for him. I remembered that Théodore had said this guy couldn’t tell a lie to save his life. He really must have been a terrible poker player. There was no way he could stand a chance against the cops. If they narrowed in on him, he was maybe in for a rough ride.
I shook off my feelings. I had enough of my own problems to deal with without taking on someone else’s.
“Listen. I have other things I need to be doing,” I said.
“Oh, and what would those things be?”
“I have to get back and take care of my kids, among other stuff, as well as look for a job. And find a Dutch couple. That one’s a long story. I can’t go into it now. And none of this is in any particular order. Here’s some advice: If I were you, I’d stay out of sight. The cops are going to come down on you like a ton of bricks, believe me. You’re the ideal suspect.”
He looked terrified, like a hunted animal. His eyes swept the room before he stared at me intently.
“And what’s your deal here? You’ve broken in. You’re in disguise. There’s something clearly wrong with you. You lied about why you were here. You knew my father in some way. All I have to do is raise the alarm and you’re in serious trouble.”
“I came here because I needed to check something out. You don’t think I know that I’m a suspect too? The difference is I have a hide out.”
“A hide out?” His voice took on a pleading tone. “Take me with you. Please, please, please . . .”
This made me giggle, and I caved without even giving it a second thought. It was an immediate reaction. Maybe because I was in a rush.
“Fine. I’m leaving now. And don’t bring your phone with you. I don’t want the police tracking us because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
He put his cell on the armchair and went to shake my hand again.
“Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Humbert Louis Charles Aimé Jean Dumond de la Pinsonnière.”
“Great. I’m Cricri,” I answered without taking his hand. I marched off with Humbert hot on my heels.
We quickly found ourselves rushing through the streets of the Old Town, stumbling along as fast as we could manage. He’d had just enough time to grab his coat as we left Max’s place. It really was just what I needed: dragging an imbecile with me everywhere I went. Knowing my luck, there was a strong chance I’d be charged with kidnapping on top of murder.
The next thing I needed to deal with was the Dutch couple and my Big Pink.
I started running at what I thought was a slow and steady pace toward the Hôtel de Provence with Humbert skipping behind me, doing his best to keep up.
“Hey! Why are we running so fast?” he panted after just a couple of minutes.
“You should be a lot fitter than this. You people are usually into sports in a big way, aren’t you?”
“We people? Well, I never have been,” he complained, trying to catch his breath. “Unless you count golf as a sport. And I smoke and drink. Oh, who cares? What’s it got to do with you, anyway?”
We were nearly at the hotel by this point, so I didn’t bother answering him. He was being a rudo.
I looked up at the stunning front door of the hotel, and just as I was about to step foot inside, I noticed a taxi pulling away from the curb. I hadn’t seen it at first. I don’t know why, but my intuition started screaming, I bet any money that the Dutch couple is in that cab! It’s Maldonne’s law. Of course it’s them!
I was about to go in and ask at the desk when I remembered what I was wearing. So it turned out I was right to bring Max’s son along for the ride. He was going to prove to be useful.
54
“Hey, come here a sec. Go up to the front desk inside and ask for these people,” I said, holding out the scrap of paper with the Dutch thieves’ details on it. I didn’t even dare pronounce the name—I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to say it. Aloysius van de Maarschalkerweerd.
“Why? What’s this got to do with anything? What’s the plan here? I don’t want to get all caught up in whatever criminal business you’re in, my dear.”
“Fine. You’ll just have to find your own hide out then, won’t you?”
“Is that so? And why shouldn’t I be able to do just that? You don’t think I can manage without you? It’s not all that complicated. I could go back to where I live. I have plenty of friends who could help me out.”
“Do it then. Just make sure the police aren’t waiting for you when you show up.”
He sulked for a couple of seconds and then gave in. I already knew he didn’t have a place to live. I remembered Théodore saying something about his being homeless. So this whole sorry story about him going home was a crock of bull.
“OK, I’ll do it,” he moaned.
I hid around the corner and waited. He looked a bit sorry for himself when he came out a few minutes later and joined me.
“Sorry. I don’t have good news for you, Cricri. The people you’re after have just gone out. They went to a restaurant.”
So it was them.
“Oh shit! Fuck this shit! Fuck it!” I really went for it with my language. There were no kids with me.
His expression changed. He got a fit of giggles. “I do have a little good news, actually. I know where they went. It’s a wonderful little Italian restaurant on the harbor at Vieux Port.”
“But that’s right by the sea! We’re miles away! We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll come back here and see them then. And you’ll come with me.”
I had it up to the neck with it all. It seemed like I’d spent half my life chasing my Big Pink. My usual philosophy was not to force things. Don’t push the elements out of kilter. Everything was telling me not to pursue this diamond, but at the same time, it had become an obsession. On constant replay in my brain were the thoughts Don’t go down for murder and My Big Pink will get me out of this nightmare.
We slowly dragged our asses back to Gaston’s castle and climbed over the gates. Humbert was just going with it. He didn’t seem surprised by anything. I felt that taking this loon to my hide out wasn’t the wisest choice, but I couldn’t help myself. I was having slight second thoughts, but it was as if I’d been sent on a mission by Saint Expeditus himself. The “Save All the Innocents Suspected of Murdering Max” mission. There were three of us already. We could have started a cult.
We entered through the kitchen patio doors and went through to the living room, where we found Lani watching over the twins who were sound asleep on the sofa. The whole house was sparkling clean, and the smell of furniture polish was overwhelming. She’d made herself a cup of tea, and her face lit up when she spotted me. She gave me one of her smiles. A great welcome. But when she noticed Humbert behind me, her expression changed, and a shadow of anxiety crossed her face. Humbert looked around the room. He was so blasé about everything.
“So is this it?” he asked. “What about her? Who’s she?”
; “She’s your father’s maid. She discovered the body just before me and—”
“Before you? What do you mean ‘before you’? You still haven’t told me who you are!”
“Come on. We need to organize ourselves. Let’s have a cup of tea and get sorted. Go and fetch some cups or something.”
He left the room. Great! This one did as he was told! He’d just scored some major brownie points. He hadn’t seemed surprised about being asked to do something. In fact, he hadn’t been surprised about much. He hadn’t complained about not knowing where the cups were. He simply strolled out to the kitchen and brought back two mugs, which he set on the table next to Lani’s teacup.
Lani glanced at him. She seemed satisfied and threw him one of her usual grins. In return, he looked equally satisfied that he’d pleased her in some way.
As I poured the tea from the pot Lani had prepared, I went over some of the main points.
“I’m glad you’re here. You can translate for me. Because . . . Well, Lani kind of speaks funny. She speaks English to me, but I don’t really understand her. So it’s all a little complicated.”
He smiled at her and asked her a question in English. She glowed. Hey now! This was a good start. I liked Humbert. He was a supernice guy and maybe not the perv I thought he was.
“Hey!” I said. “You two need to listen carefully. Especially you, Humbert. This is the situation: On my second day of work at your father’s, where I was paid to keep him company, I found him dead in his office. He’d been murdered. The police think I did it, because I didn’t have an alibi and my prints were all over the place.”
“You touched—”
“Yes, I know. Let’s move on, please. Lani—this one here, the maid—might also be suspected by the police, because she actually found the body before me. She didn’t say anything to the cops because she was so scared. In fact, she hid in the basement. Nobody even knows she was there that morning. But the police haven’t managed to get ahold of her yet. So she could be a suspect.”
Humbert gave Lani a perplexed but indulgent grin. Apparently all was forgiven as far as he was concerned.
“Ahem! Let me continue. I overheard a weird conversation between Mademoiselle Kessler and someone. I’m not sure who—she was on the phone. It was all very hush-hush. I never liked that broad. She reminds me of that Cruella woman in that dog film. Anyway, yesterday I noticed that a small painting was missing from one of the walls in Max’s office. I’m mixing everything up a little here, but you’re following me, right?”
I sensed Humbert was feeling tense. I carried on without delving deeper into what could have happened to the painting. What if Humbert took it? Maybe it was an act of defiance against his father—his way of getting revenge. But the question remained: How did he do it if he wasn’t even at the house the day his father died?
“So today I went to check if the painting really was missing, or whether I’d imagined it. And that’s where we met and how you ended up here with us. And now here we all are.”
“Yes. Here we all are. I don’t really know where we are. The only thing that’s somewhat clearer is I now know who you are.”
“And what about the inheritance?” I continued. “What do you know about that? Have you seen the notary?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle. Do you want me to write you a report? My brother Théodore has the lot. All the deeds, all the shares. The house on the coast, the house in Geneva, the apartment in London, the villa in Marbella. My sister Ariane can keep the apartment she uses in Paris. She’ll have to pay maintenance costs for it, though.”
“What about you and the others?”
“A grand total of nothing.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Of course it’s legal. All my father’s money was based in London. All his businesses have their headquarters in London. His French house was even bought from a London agency. It means that none of his money fell under French law. In France, you can’t legally disinherit your children. But the law doesn’t apply to us. There’s only one sister living in France. She’s the only one of us with French nationality. I know it all sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple. Believe me. I get nothing. Zero. It’s exactly the same for the others.”
“OK. I understand. So your pretty-boy brother Théodore is the only one who could possibly benefit from the death of your father? And your sister in Paris, of course. But maybe one of your other brothers or sisters killed him because they didn’t know anything about the French legal system and assumed they’d inherit? Or maybe they did it out of revenge because they understood perfectly well that they wouldn’t get anything. It actually is complicated.”
“Yes. Inheritance is certainly a powerful motive, but honestly, out of all of us in the family, Théodore is probably the only one who doesn’t actually need money.”
“Really? Damn it! There’s something I’m not getting here. You’ve all been raised well and went to private school, I imagine. Why is it that you don’t all have incredible careers?”
“Well, there’s an easy answer to that. I can’t work, Mademoiselle. It’s as simple as that. Work isn’t for me, and with all my father’s money, I’ve never needed to lift a finger. So as far as work goes, I don’t know a thing about it. I didn’t pursue any studies either. However, I do have a wide range of skills: poker, of course, but also tennis, golf, skiing, riding, bridge . . . I spent some time in the art world with my father, but all that buying and selling at auctions tired me out after a while. Then there was all the hunting down pieces of art that had been hidden by the Nazis. Gosh, all that nonsense was rather annoying. Sometimes we’d come across a forgery, and that was always quite fun, but in the end, even that . . .”
He was so depressing! The way he droned on and on and his lack of enthusiasm would have forced even Mary Poppins to start swallowing down the happy pills! This guy was so pitiful, he’d put us all on a total downer.
55
I tried to pull myself together.
“Are you not ashamed of yourself?” I said. “Just look at Lani! She can’t speak French, she’s thousands of miles away from home, and she’s scared out of her mind by the cops. She hasn’t seen her kids in ten years. She’s been exploited by your family. And look at her! She’s still in a good mood! Top form! So you know what you can do? You can take that miserable grimace off your sulky face and smile like Lani does. That’s the very least you can do.”
“Ha! You can talk! Look at yourself! You’re always complaining! A real moaning Minnie. And you’re always telling everyone what to do!”
“Not true!”
“It’s perfectly true. In fact, it’s all you’ve been doing since the minute I met you. So excuse me, Sergeant Major Miss Bossy Pants, you’re in no position to be giving me lessons on how to act.”
“Honestly, you are so much like your brother, except that he’s very polite and you can tell he’s been raised properly and decently. He has way more charm than you.”
I think I’d pushed things too far with that last remark. His face went splotchy and he clenched his jaw.
“What? What did I say? It’s totally true what I just said.”
He took a deep breath. “Oh, I don’t know why I’m even pretending to be surprised or offended. You have a little crush on him, don’t you? I’m used to it, don’t worry.”
Lani said something to him in English, and he stared at her for a few moments before roaring with laughter.
“No!” I shouted. “I don’t like your brother like that! And I’m not bossy either!”
“Of course you’re not!” He was clearly trying to get my goat. I think it was supposed to make me laugh.
He picked up a book lying on a small table, and his face transformed as he became fully absorbed in his reading. After a few minutes he glanced up and asked, “You don’t mind if I read awhile, do you? I didn’t expect to find a book like this at your place.”
“Well, for starters, this isn’t my place. And secondly, who the
hell do you think you are? Do you think I’m dumb?”
“Kind of, yes.”
He was reading a book of poetry written by my Gaston. I decided not to tell him that he was actually staying at the author’s house. He didn’t deserve to know. Tough luck for him. He should have been a bit nicer to me.
It was so typical that out of the two brothers, I’d ended up hanging out with the useless one. I did have a crush on the other one. That was something he had been right about.
I flashed an irritated face for around twenty-five seconds, then stood up to clear the table. I went to the kitchen. I needed everything to be clean and free of clutter if I was to think properly.
This business with the Dutch people was a real pain in the ass. How come they’d just turned up and bought my necklace like that? Was it really just a coincidence? Everyone knows that Amsterdam and Antwerp are the diamond centers of the world. So it was hard to imagine that Amsterdam—ians? I’d have to go on the Internet and find out what people from Amsterdam were called. It was insane how you could find out just about anything on the Internet! What the hell did we do before it? Anyway, it was hard to imagine that someone from Amsterdam would accidentally bump into this incredible diamond and just happen to go and buy it.
Come off it! OK, I know I’m a paranoid wreck! Sometimes I let my imagination run away to oddball extremes, but this time I felt pretty sure of my intuition. The Amsterdam peeps had been tracking me and my Big Pink for a while. I just knew it! They were going to take it back to Amsterdam because that was the best place to sell the damn thing. Or maybe they’d give it back to the original owner and get a reward? And what about me? It had been my necklace for over a year. It was out of the question that I was going to let someone else get all the dough for it. If the thing was going to be handed in, it would be me who did it.
Flash! Lightbulb moment again. I had the solution.
I was in deep shit at the moment, and my diamond was on its way to Amsterdam, so there was no point hanging around here! I had to go there! Kill one bird with two stones! Two stones with one bird? Two birds with one stone! I could lie low until Borelli found whoever had really done the old guy in, then come home all innocent, and more importantly, a millionaire!