'First name?'
'Jean, Jean Carnot,' replied Vrech, making himself comfortable, straightening out his paper. 'You see him around, you know. Young guy. But hard. A real gorille. He used to hire out as a bouncer up Cours Julian way, then moved on. Private security. That sort of thing. And a fixer, too - you want something, he gets it. If the price is right. And he always has a couple of girls working for him. A land of sideline. I guess she was one of them. Very pretty - very, very sexy, you know?'
'Anything else?'
Vrech gave the question some thought. 'I remember, while I was working, she was talking about some photos she'd had done. For the Internet, you know, the porn sites. It sounded like he'd set it all up. She sounded real pleased with them.'
Jacquot reached for the photo, slid it off the counter and into his pocket.
'And if I wanted to find this Carnot? Where would be a good place to start?'
19
Coupchoux paused in the entrance, his body split by sunlight and shadow, the skin on his face and neck still tight with salt spray from the mornings outing with Raissac in Pluto. Dipping his fingers into the holy water and leaving them there longer than he needed to, he gazed ahead, down the aisle to the altar, stone-panelled and plain, and the rose window behind it. Taking his fingers from the water, he brushed them against the edge of the font and dabbed them against his forehead and heart, the cool liquid trickling between his eyes before he wiped it away.
It felt good, that abundance, running off him, scouring a path through the salt. Powerful. Powerful, and God-given.
He put wet fingers to his lips, kissed the knuckles and turned to the left, making for one of the side chapels. When he reached it, the altar of Sainte Matilde, with its plainly draped altar cloth and damask-curtained confessional to one side, he genuflected, crossed himself a second time and slid into one of the four pews reserved for penitents. He was the only one there, though he could hear an earnest whispering from behind the confessional curtain and could see beneath it a pair of thick ankles and wrinkled hose bulging over stout brown shoes. Not long now, he thought to himself, pushing aside the mat and dropping his knees to the stone floor. Closing his eyes, he clasped his hands and lowered his head in prayer.
Of all the churches Coupchoux knew, this was his favourite, this narrow-naved, coolly-stoned basilica a few blocks back from Cassis port. Such an inspiring, restful place, he always thought. Such a glorious, peaceful sanctuary, the bevelled columns rising upwards into a web of simple ribbed vaulting, the stone paving polished and shiny, the still, stale air suffused with the scent of snuffed candles, hot wax and incense. He could sit there for hours, and often did when Raissac had him do something really bad, something that reached down deep and squeezed at his soul.
The problem, Coupchoux knew, was that he was powerless to do anything about it. When Raissac wanted something,. he felt only a bursting compulsion to comply, a pressing, irresistible desire to obey and to please. Except here, his knees burning on the cool stone slabs. Here was the strength to deny his master, here the will to resist temptation. Here was cool faith and fortitude, and always, as he stepped back into the sunshine, a burning determination to change his ways. Redemption. In Coupchoux's line of work, there was nothing like it. The trouble was that his resolve never seemed to last longer than a few days - just until Raissac called, told him what was needed, and it began once more.
With a swirl of musky damask and a rattle of wooden rings the confessional curtain was pulled aside and Coupchoux heard an old woman's shoes tap across the stone flags. Headscarved, bustling into the pew in front of him, she set to work on her rosary.
The moment had come. Getting to his feet, kneecaps aching, Coupchoux stepped from the pew and made for the confessional. Drawing the curtain closed behind him, the panelled space still redolent of the old lady's lavender, he settled himself in the dark. With a dry click the grille slid open. He took a breath, kissed his fingers and began: 'Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned . . .'
20
Jean Carnot had considerable form. Going back a long way.
Sitting at his desk, Jacquot scrolled through the details he'd accessed from Records, starting with Carnot's first arrest at the age of fifteen for car theft, through a litany of drug-related offences, various breaches of the peace, living off immoral earnings until, three years earlier, he'd been picked up for aggravated assault. The victim, Jacquot noted, was a woman. According to the file, Carnot had tied her to a chair, beaten her with a belt and knocked out two of her teeth with the heel of his shoe. In the last seventeen years, since his first arrest, Jean Carnot had spent four of those years behind bars. If the woman he'd assaulted had pressed charges, he'd still be inside. Since then, as far as Jacquot could confirm, Carnot had been clean. But Jacquot knew that meant very little. While he was at it, Jacquot pecked out Doisneau s name on the keyboard and waited for the screen to bring up the information he wanted. Seconds later, his old friend's face flashed onto the screen. In the photo, Doisneau looked tired and washed-out, his hair standing untidily on end. Probably a dawn pick-up, thought Jacquot. Hustled out of his bed and down to Headquarters with no time, save for dressing, to tidy himself up or gather his thoughts.
Jacquot scrolled through Doisneau's sheet. The usual - theft, obstruction, handling stolen goods, assault: a sad chronicle of a life. Like Carnot he'd been inside, his latest stay, as Jacquot had guessed, at Baumettes on the back road to Cassis. A six-year term, reduced to three and work parole.
Jacquot went to the notes on Doisneau s last arrest.
Following a tip-off - no source credited - officers had raided a garage lock-up in a Toulon suburb and found four kilos of hashish jammed under the front seat of a Renault van and a .45 automatic taped to the steering column. When they arrested Doisneau, the registered owner of the vehicle and the lock-up, he'd denied any knowledge of the drugs or the gun but it hadn't done much good. According to Records he'd been released into parole work only two months earlier.
Fitted up, Doisneau had told him the night before, and the police report seemed to support it. Someone plants the evidence and calls the cops. Raissac? One of his team? It made sense. Doisneau does something stupid and pays the price. And now, three years later, here he is looking to square the account and get out of the firing line down in Spain.
Jacquot tapped out instructions on the keyboard and Carnot returned to the screen.
The two men couldn't have been more different. Doisneau nearly twenty years older, unshaven, bleary-eyed, his face a map of discontent and abuse. And there was Carnot. Over six feet tall, judging by the laddered measure behind his head in the custody picture. Arab blood for certain - black curly hair; smooth, tanned skin over a clenched jaw and high cheekbones; a strong, jutting chin and a bored, mocking stare from eyes black as barbecue coals. The lips were full but impatiently drawn, pushing out thin, bracketing lines into his cheeks. The teeth, Jacquot suspected, would be white and even, gritted, too, under the insolent glare. He was also pretty sure that Carnot could throw out a hell of a smile when he wanted to.
Pushing back his chair, Jacquot swung up his legs and rested his boots on the desk. He crossed his ankles and felt the leather rasp gently. Snakeskin. His favourite pair. Twenty years old and soft as Bonis Air France gloves. Good support for his bad ankle too, even if they did raise a look from Guimpier and the Widow Foraque. Perfect walking shoes as well. Which was why he'd selected them that morning.
He was just about to call up Gastal one floor above, still out to lunch the last time he'd tried, when the door was flung open and Lamonzie marched in, face clenched tight as a walnut, red as an early cherry. Lamonzie was head of Narcotics, senior in rank but a few years younger than Jacquot, and he wasn't happy.
'And just exactly what the fuck do you think you were doing?' he demanded, leaning over Jacquot's desk, his weight supported on splayed pool-player's fingertips.
On reflection 'Where?' was probably not the right thing to say, but Jacquot sa
id it anyway. What the hell? He'd always thought Lamonzie a shifty, jumped-up little rigoriste who behaved like police headquarters was his own personal playground. No one ever knew what Narcotics were up to, which meant that whenever some poor bastard trespassed on a stake-out that Lamonzie had set up and not told anyone about, down came Lamonzie, brandishing his wrinkled red face like an offensive weapon. Which was exactly what this little outburst was all about. Jacquot must have crossed the line without knowing it.
'Where? Where?' Lamonzie lowered his voice, looked around, then glared back at Jacquot with an even greater intensity. 'Rue des Allottes, that's where, Jacquot. Number 65. A certain Alexandre Raissac. Or is it your mother you were calling on?'
'That's right. Allottes.'
'And? And?'
'Just checking out a lead, you know.'
'Just - checking - out - a - lead
Jacquot's patience gave way. 'Look, Lamonzie, give it a rest. You're not the only one around here who's got a job to do. You keep everything buttoned up the way you do, sooner or later someone's bound to cross your patch.'
'And how exactly does Monsieur Raissac figure in these inquiries of yours?'
'Raissac? He doesn't.'
Lamonzie gave him a squinty look.
'Berri. Madame Berri was who I was after. She's a tattoo artist. One of the best, they say.'
'Well, next time you want a heart on your arm make an appointment someplace else. You got that?'
Lamonzie pushed himself away from Jacquot's desk. 'I don't want to see you a hundred metres in any direction. Clear enough for you?' He gave Jacquot another hard little stare and marched out of the office, rattling the glass panel in the door as he pulled it shut behind him.
'Bite,' whispered Jacquot, leaning forward to wipe at his boots where he'd noticed a fleck of Lamonzie's saliva land. Brushing off the leather, he wondered why he hadn't just said that Gastal had had him do it. Finger Gastal. But like it or not, Gastal was on his team, and you didn't do that to one of your own.
Still, taking the blame rankled, and a couple of hours later, sharing a terrace table with Gastal outside the Club Maras, Jacquot decided to have it out with his new partner.
'Lamonzie dropped by,' he said.
'Oh yeah,' replied Gastal.
'And he's not a happy man.'
Gastal nodded, covering a smile as he cracked a stubborn pistachio between his teeth and added the splinters to the pile of shells in front of him.
'So next time,' continued Jacquot, 'have someone else do your dirty work.'
Gastal raised his neck out of his collar, as though squaring up for some verbal. But he let it go.
Which was a pity. They'd only been working together a couple of days but already Jacquot felt an unhealthy compulsion to bury his fist in Gastal's fat little face. A real face-a-claque if ever there was one.
They'd been sitting at Club Maras for more than an hour, Jacquot watching the street and Gastal facing the bar. It was one of the places that Vrech had said was a likely Carnot haunt, a new set-up on a side street back from the Cours Julian. There was a members-only club downstairs, the bar at street level, and a so-so fish restaurant on the terrace above them. It was a long shot, Carnot turning up at the first place they tried, but something told Jacquot that it might be worth a call. A beer-after-work kind of diing, even if your drinking partner was Gastal.
'Isn't that him?' said Gastal, nodding over Jacquot's shoulder.
Jacquot took a pull on his cigarette and reached around to the table behind him for an ashtray. As he did so he glanced up at the bar. Twenty feet away Jean Carnot was slapping one of the waiters on the arm, swaggering over to shake the barman's hand, nods here and there, glancing around the room, taking a stool, looking at his watch. Unmistakable.
'You wanna do it here?' asked Gastal.
Jacquot shook his head, repositioning his chair and stretching out his legs.
Carnot was now in full view at the bar. He looked like he was dressed for a night on the town: clean blue jeans, a cream silk shirt, and a bright green jumper draped over his shoulders. He was swinging a ring of keys in his hands, like a set of worry beads.
'Let's give it a few minutes,' said Jacquot. 'See if anything turns up.'
Nothing did. Carnot finished his beer, swigging elegantly from the bottle, kissed and hugged a couple of the waitresses who didn't look to be enjoying the encounter as much as he did, then made his farewells.
Jacquot had been right about the smile. Pure platinum.
They caught up with him two blocks along as he was getting into his car.
'Jean Carnot?' said Jacquot, bending down to the driver's window. Gastal leant against the rear door as though his weight might somehow stop the car from moving off.
Carnot must have heard those words a hundred times. He knew immediately who they were. He looked up at
Jacquot from under thick black brows. 'And? What of it?'
'I believe you may be able to help us.'
'Oh yeah?' Carnot replied, sliding a key into the ignition and disengaging the gear.
Jacquot slipped the photo from his jacket pocket and passed it to Carnot.
Carnot took it, turned it, looked. Looked closer. Then handed it back.
'And?' It was a good act, given how he hadn't been expecting them, hadn't expected to see the photo.
'Wondered if you'd seen that tattoo before?'
Carnot pushed out his bottom lip, shook his head. 'Couldn't say,' he replied.
Of course Jacquot could have got down to it straight off, said how Vrech had given them his name, how Vrech had confirmed that Jean Carnot had been there when the tattoo was done, how he'd been the one who paid. But Jacquot didn't want to put the Dutchman in a spot, even if he was the most likely source for the information. So he came at it from a different angle.
'We found it on a body.'
Carnot didn't react. 'And?'
'And we think you might know who it is.'
'Like I said . ..'
'You got a moment?' broke in Jacquot. 'Maybe come by the hospital and take a look, make an ID? You know, on the off chance?'
Jacquot hoped Carnot didn't bluff it too far, what with the victim's body being a couple of hours north in a chill drawer in Salon-le-Vitry's morgue.
Carnot took the photo back, gave it another look.
'She dead?'
The girls name was Vicki Monel, Carnot told them. Lived up near St-Charles someplace, in a block by the station. Maybe still there. Hadn't seen her in a year, maybe two, not since the tattoo, anyway.
They were sitting in Carnot s car, its interior filled with the citrus scent of Carnot's aftershave. Carnot was fiddling with the ignition key, flicking the engine off and on. Lighting up the dashboard dials, then killing them, as though he was impatient to be off. It was getting dark and street lights were coming on, quivering and warming into life.
A name, thought Jacquot. Vicki Monel. Another name. Another line of inquiry. Maybe there'd be something more from this one than they'd managed to get on the two previous victims. Something that went somewhere.
'Address? Phone number?'
Carnot shook his head. 'Never went there.'
'How'd you meet her?' asked Gastal from the back seat.
'I don't know. Party somewhere. Don't remember.'
'She a local girl?' asked Jacquot.
'Toulon? Hyeres, maybe,' replied Carnot, as though he couldn't care one way or the other.
'Did she have a job?' Jacquot continued.
Carnot shrugged.
'Is she one of your girls, Jean?' Gastal again, leaning forward between the two front seats.
Sitting beside Carnot, Jacquot saw the jaw tighten. Was this the man who had drowned Vicki Monel, he wondered? And Grez? And Ballarde? Hard to say. Certainly up to it. Strong enough, and mean enough with it.
'Listen . . .' began Carnot, shifting in his seat.
'Come on, Jean,' said Gastal. 'This Vicki Monel's on the slab and you know her. She work
ed for you. One of your girls. Right?'
Carnot came as close to a nod as you could without actually nodding.
'So, she give you a hard time or what? Pocket a bit here and there, think you wouldn't notice?'
'Maybe tie her to a chair, Carnot,' added Jacquot. 'Knock a few teeth out.'
'I swear I don't know what. . . It's got to be a year, more, since I seen her. She was a friend, you know, but it didn't last. Drugs. She was always out of it.'
'Where you been the last few weeks?' asked Gastal.
'Here. There. Around.' Carnot gave them a cocky look.
Jacquot knew the way Carnot's brain was working. They haven't got a thing on me, he was thinking. If they suspected me they'd be doing all this at police headquarters. They just want information.
Jacquot and the Waterman Page 9