'Out of the city?' continued Gastal.
'Nope. Here the whole time.'
'You know anyone who might have done this?'
Carnot shook his head. Now he knew he was off the hook.
'Like I said, she was always drugging it. Could have put someone out. Pissed someone off.'
'So tell us about the photos,' said Jacquot.
They kept Carnot in the car for an hour, Jacquot beside him, Gastal behind, niggling away at him, probing for more information. But Carnot s story held. He hadn't seen Vicki Monel in more than a year. She was a druggie. Unreliable. The last he heard she was modelling - for an Internet porn site. He'd started her up, he told them, but she'd done a runner, cut him out of the deal. Tant pis, he shrugged; she was a loser.
So they took his address, noted his car registration, told him not to leave town and let him go.
Back at Headquarters, while Gastal chased down the Internet address that Carnot had given them, Jacquot checked Vicki Monel in Records, searching through known felons and missing persons. It didn't take long for him to draw a blank - no sign of her. Next he looked up her name in the city telephone directory. If she was listed, they'd get an address. And with an address, they'd find someone who knew her - a neighbour, friends, family. But she wasn't listed for Marseilles. Which meant an official ex-directory enquiry and all the hullabaloo that would entail. And if they didn't get any joy there, they'd have to go through the same procedure for Toulon, Hyeres. Maybe even Salon-le-Vitry.
Jacquot was getting himself a coffee from the machine on the landing, thinking it could wait till morning, when he heard Gastal's 'Gotcha' in the Squad Room.
Hunched forward, his fat little fingers cupping the mouse, Gastal was glued to the computer's monitor, a slice of red tongue sliding over his lips.
'You find her?' asked Jacquot, leaning over his shoulder.
'Oh yes,' said Gastal, moving aside for Jacquot to see. 'The one in the middle.'
On screen three young women lay side by side on a bed, legs in the air, held apart at the knees, limbs criss-crossing. Given the angle it was impossible to see their faces.
'How do you know?' asked Jacquot.
Gastal tapped the screen, between the middle pair of legs. There, high up on the inside of one thigh, was a small black mark, more bruise than shadow.
'Can you make it any clearer?' asked Jacquot.
Gastal chuckled, dragged a cross-hair from the control strip, squared it over the mark, selected a high zoom and double-clicked. A second later, the screen went fuzzy, then shivered back into focus. Still a little blurred from the magnification, but clear enough for Jacquot to see the three words, even if they were upside down.
'You got a face to go with it?'
Gastal clicked out of the image, back to the three girls on the bed, and then clicked out of that. In an instant another image rolled down over the screen. The bed and wallpaper were identical to the previous set so Jacquot assumed that the three girls - a brunette and two blondes - were also the same. This time the brunette was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs apart, looking straight at the camera while her companions, kneeling beside her, stroked and licked her breasts.
Gastal repeated the procedure with the cross-hair, aiming it between the brunette's legs. The same tattoo materialized on screen. He clicked the mouse again and the original picture returned. He squared an outline around the brunettes head, clicked again and her face filled the screen - lips apart, eyes dreamy, fingers pushing through her hair.
Gastal pointed his fingers like a gun. 'Badaboum.'
21
A little more than an hours drive north of Marseilles,
Max Benedict turned off the Rocsabin road and
lurched down a bumpy track, marking his trail with a plume of swirling, chalky dust. The sun was low in the sky and cast a warm, golden glow across the landscape, pooled with shadows in those hollows where the sun no longer reached. Through his open window Benedict could smell rosemary, pine and wild fennel, and up ahead, across the tipping bonnet, he caught sight of the house flickering beyond the trees - its pantiled roofs and honey-coloured stone walls, its blue-shuttered windows and the spray of golden mimosa that sheltered its big oak door.
Benedict had arrived in Paris that morning, flying north the previous day from Palm Beach to New York's La Guardia airport. Without contacting any of his friends in the city, he'd transferred directly to JFK and made the connection for Air France's last transatlantic service. An obliging stewardess had recognised him and, once they were airborne, invited him into First Class. In Paris, his head feeling tight and woolly from too much airline claret, he'd taxied to the Gare de Lyon and caught the train south to Aix. Three hours later, he'd picked up a rental jeep and driven the thirty kilometres north-west to Cavaillon, then up into the hills of the Luberon, following the signs for St Bedard-le-Chapitre, Chant-le-Neuf and Rocsabin. As the road became narrower, his hangover began to feel more manageable, his shoulders appeared to be loosening and his mood grew less frustrated. As he pulled through the last stand of pines, before dropping down into the gravelled courtyard of his home, Palm Beach suddenly seemed a very long way away.
Benedict had spent the last three months in that seaside haven for the rich and famous, attending the trial of one of that city's more illustrious names, a Senator's son accused of aggravated rape and assault. It had been a professional assignment, covering the proceedings for a magazine that specialised in, and was required reading among, those very same rich and famous, particularly when the pampered lives of one of their own went astray and the perpetrators believed themselves beyond the law. Which, in the Palm Beach rape trial, much to Benedict's dissatisfaction, had proved to be the case. After three 'Letters From The Courthouse', published in consecutive issues, the defendant had been acquitted of the charges against him despite a mass of evidence. It had been a sobering, frustrating three months and Max Benedict, veteran crime diarist and roving editor-at-large, reckoned he was due a break. And there was only one place in the world where he could do that. Max Benedict had bought La Ferme Magny eighteen months earlier, a run-down Provençal mas whose occupants - the farmer Magny and his wife - had finally decided that life in town looked altogether more practical and comfortable than life in the country running three sloping hectares of vines. But the place was more of a mess than Benedict had anticipated, and back home in the States he joked to friends that all he had done was buy a view, and was now building a home from which to enjoy it. For more than a year he'd had a team of builders in there, tearing out floors and walls, repointing, replumbing, rewiring . . . re-everything. And then — even more work, more expense - installing a pool, set on a terrace between the house and the vines, facing west through a bordering line of cypresses, its blue depths now slanted with bars of golden sunlight.
It seemed an age since he'd been there and he felt a surge of affection for this ancient farm perched on the side of a valley with the Luberon highlands rising away to the south, as well as a deep and abiding gratitude for his good fortune. Pulling up at the front door he switched off the engine and, over the ticking of the hot metal, listened to the sounds he'd been waiting for. The buzz of crickets, the hum of bees, a distant birdsong, and the creak of a breeze through the pines.
It was the first time that Benedict had been to the house without builders there, the place littered with their rubbish. Now it was finished - everyone gone - and he relished the solitude, the peace, and was surprised by the unexpected sense of ownership he felt. Without switching on any lights, beyond checking to see that the electricity had been connected, Benedict walked through the rooms, their rough stone walls painted white, the tiny windows opened up, and the rotting Magny floorboards replaced with stripped maple and cool marble - everything according to his specifications. And in the centre of every room stood the packing cases he'd sent over from the States, packing cases which over the next few weeks he'd work his way through, unwrapping his possessions, deciding where everything
should go.
By summer's end La Ferme Magny would be home.
22
There was nothing like a plan. Preparation. The attention to detail. If you'd asked, the Waterman would have told you that it was half the fun. The satisfaction of knowing a name, friends and family, home and work, sharing the same bus, browsing through the same shops, deliberately brushing past the object of your affection in the street, sometimes even stopping them to ask directions - gradually drawing the prospective victim closer, closer.
Then, with all the information to hand, selecting the time and the place, confident that everything planned and provided for will be rewarded. Almost as a right. The uncontested prize for your thoroughness and your diligence. The watching, the waiting, the gathering momentum, sometimes spread over weeks at a time, that led, inevitably, to the act itself and that glorious, gratifying consummation.
But then, the Waterman sometimes reflected, preparation wasn't always everything. There were also those unplanned moments when life conspired to provide an unexpected opportunity. Something unforeseen. A moment's weakness, a second's hesitation: that fatal carelessness. A gathering of chance events to be seized upon and taken.
Thinking about it now, the Waterman was hard pressed to say which approach was the more enjoyable, the more satisfying. Preparation or opportunity. It was just like business, the Waterman decided. You either did your homework, or you just struck it lucky. Both, in their different ways, were equally rewarding.
This evening the Waterman had no special plan, no whispering need. In the last three months, there had been two such chance encounters and a third that had taken weeks of preparation before the final strike. Perhaps, tonight, this city by the sea would offer up something else, another opportunity. And either the Waterman would seize it, or let it slip by like a leaf carried along in a stream.
Scoop it up or leave it be.
Yet another pleasure to be savoured.
For there was, the Waterman knew, a certain satisfying contrariness in knowing that you could do something, yet not do it. If you had the discipline, if you could resist and carry it off. For there was little doubt in the Waterman's experience that denial of this magnitude only sharpened the appetite for the next encounter, increased that beguiling sense of edge, gave a certain thirsty need for the next headlong plunge.
And always, close by, wherever the Waterman prowled, the comforting sound of the ocean, or a sense of it pulling at the shore. Its distances and depths. Moods and movement. Its cool, cleansing influence.
Tonight, driving through the city, the Waterman enjoyed a moments buoyant, brimming confidence. It was all so good here, so enlivening. And so easy. So easy that there was always the possibility you might make a mistake. Take your eye off the ball.
And there, the Waterman conceded, was yet another frisson to relish - the possibility of error, something going wrong. That single, unseen snag in the weave, only mitigated by the sheer, head-spinning exultation of the close call, the narrow escape. There had been a few of those, the Waterman would tell you. The breathless, heart-thumping rush of it.
And so, in a spirit of almost reckless abandon, tools of the trade stowed away in the glove compartment, the Waterman cruised the streets once more, hands idly playing the wheel, eyes darting left and right, searching out prey.
23
J
illy Holford had a date.
The cab slowed and she leant forward over the front seat, looking out for the name of the street. Somewhere off the road to Prado, he'd said.
Back from the sea. Away from the boat and away from the brothers, at last.
She'd left them moored in the Vieux Port, said it was a family thing, told them she was meeting her sister in Nxmes. Which was nowhere near the truth. She didn't even have a sister. It was just a story she'd spun to put them off the scent, to get away from them, to find herself some breathing space.
Because she knew that she wasn't going back that night, nor the next if she could manage it.
Grudgingly they'd let her go, passing up the knapsack - her 'stay-over bag' - with only her make-up inside, her toothbrush, some clean knickers and that dress she'd bought in Grenada the day before they set sail. The one with the full skirt, tight top and low front, the squared shoulders and the swirl of colours, the one she'd never worn outside the privacy of her cabin. As soon as she saw Marseilles looming above them as Anemone sailed into harbour, she'd known that dress was a Marseilles dress.
Even before she set eyes on him.
Jean. Jean. Jean. She hadn't been able to get the name out of her head.
She was going to fuck him, as simple as that.
And he knew it too. From the moment he levelled those dark eyes on her, they'd both known it. But she didn't give any sign, not in front of Ralph and Tim, the three of them celebrating their arrival in Marseilles in that tiny Rive Neuve bar, the first one they found as they staggered off the boat, first landfall since San Miguel.
He'd been sitting on a stool at the end of the bar. Caught her eye. Smiled when the brothers weren't looking. Seemed to know. . . Then he was gone, simply not there any more, and she'd been shocked, disappointed. Until the barman, delivering yet another round of beers to their table, discreetly passed her the card - the name, Jean, and a telephone number.
Result.
Jilly had called a couple of times before she got through. His voice was just as she'd imagined it. Black as molasses, smooth, a laughing kind of voice to match that smile. Of course, he assured her, of course he remembered her, so pleased she'd called, they must meet.
She'd changed into the Grenada dress in the Ladies' restroom at Cafe Samaritaine, applied her first make-up in weeks with an uncertain hand and stowed the knapsack in a left-luggage locker at Gare St-Charles. And now they were meeting. A little bar he knew. Back from the Corniche, he'd told her. They could have a drink. Maybe some dinner ...
Except, she seemed to have got his directions wrong. Halfway down the Prado beach the cab driver said he must have missed the place and, circling the statue of David at the Prado rondpoint, he worked his way back along the strip and up onto the Corniche road. It was getting late and the sun hovered thickly over the distant ridges of the Frioul Islands.
Anxiously Jilly rubbed her hands together, still rough and sticky with salt. The first thing she'd done when they got their berth was find a pharmacie, some skin lotion, moisturiser, something to soften the hard ridges and salty lines that calloused her hands. But it didn't seem to have worked.
"Voila, M'mselle. La-haut!' said the driver and, swinging off the Corniche, he pulled up by a steep flight of steps almost hidden between a tabac and a launderette. On the wall of the launderette was a sign, the name of the bar they'd been looking for, a fist with a finger tilted upwards.
An hour later Jilly finished her second beer and looked at her watch. She couldn't believe he could have done this to her. She'd been stood up. The bastard wasn't going to show.
She beckoned over the waiter, asked for the bill and settled up.It was dark by the time she got outside, which maybe explained why everything seemed so different. She stood on the pavement, looking up and down the street, trying to get her bearings. Everything was suddenly unfamiliar - the road, the houses, the shopfronts. She tried to remember the direction she'd come from, the steps from the Corniche, which way the cab had been headed. But she couldn't be certain. The darkness had changed everything.
Deciding to go left, Jilly set off along the street, glancing in shop windows, grateful for her reflection walking alongside and keeping her company. By the time she realised her mistake, she'd gone so far that she decided to carry on. Just so long as she kept heading downhill, she reasoned, she'd reach the Corniche and find herself another cab. She was wondering how she'd explain to the brothers her return from Nîmes so soon, when she heard a car coming up behind her, a cab.
And, truth be told, she really did think it was a cab, the low-gear prowling sound of it as though the driver was on
the lookout for a fare. Squinting through the darkness at the approaching vehicle, Jilly tentatively raised an arm to flag it down - even if she couldn't actually see a cab light - and felt a jolt of relief as it pulled in ahead of her, the passenger door opening, the driver leaning across the passenger seat, face in shadow.
Of course she should have known better, just assuming it was a cab and the driver a cabbie, but she'd been at sea so long. She'd lost her land legs, her experience of city streets. And she was tired of walking, not knowing where she was.
'You want where?' asked a gruff voice and she bent closer to the cab's warm interior, tried to say 'Vieux Port' again, embarrassed by her poor French, and then felt a hand grab the front of her dress, fingers reaching for a grip inside the bodice and pulling her down. And her not resisting because, stupidly, she didn't want the dress to rip. Then that sharp prick in the neck, like a wasp sting, that she tried to brush away. Only her arm suddenly wouldn't operate the way she wanted it to, just like the rest of her body, which was now being bundled into the passenger footwell, wedged under the dash, the car door slamming shut, the dress pulled tight, so she knew it had caught in the door, dammit. . .
Jacquot and the Waterman Page 10