Jacquot and the Waterman

by Martin O'Brien

  Then nothing, just a passage of time. The sound of a car wheel close by, drumming over cobbles, singing over tarmac. The warm, rubbery smell of the floor mat against her cheek. An absorption with the tangle of wires above her head, their colours, the way they bent and coiled, the little plastic box into which they disappeared. But no anxiety at her predicament, no real concern that her limbs refused to do what she wanted them to do.

  Hey ho, she thought, and sighed contentedly, feeling a bubble of laughter work its way up her chest as the car turned sharply to the left. Or was it the right? Slowed and stopped. The engine died and she lay there in the ticking silence, heard the drivers door open and close and the sound of steps coming round the car. Then the passenger door opened, her dress loosened and she was lifted out.

  The last thing Jilly saw that she could identify with any certainty was the domed roof of Aqua-Cité, the one she'd seen from Anemone's deck the day they arrived in the old port of Marseilles. That, and the salty tang of the sea.

  Part Two

  24

  Aqua-Cité, Marseilles, Wednesday

  I

  t was the constant, comforting sound of bubbles that Gabrielle liked. No silence here in this cool, watery place that smelt of the sea and the damp of buried concrete. Just that gentle bubbling. If the place had been silent, Gabrielle wouldn't have liked it at all. Below ground and all. Dark and shadowy. She'd have been spooked for sure. As it was, the playful sound kept her company, a light-hearted accompaniment to her humming.

  Gabrielle Blanot arrived at her usual time, a little before six, making the journey from her home in Vieille Chapelle on her husband's Solex, letting herself in through one of the two service doors set into the perimeter of Aqua-Cité. In the staff changing rooms, she zipped up her overalls, made some coffee and, after her first cigarette of the day, set off for Block Seven - Reef Feeders and Open Sea - the first of the th ree areas she was responsible for. With only one row of tanks, a dozen in all, Seven was an easy job, an hour at

  most, a good way to start the shift.

  The bubbling sound came to her as she unlocked the service door,

  entered into the cool, concrete bunker and felt for the light switch. Above her a line of neon tubes flickered and blinked on, one after another, casting an icy blue glow over the feeding gallery - a stepped walkway set above the tanks and concealed from the public's side. If Monsieur and Madame thought it was just fish that they were looking at, they'd be in for a surprise. Above and behind the tanks was a real backstage area unseen by visitors, a concrete-walled space fretted with lagged pipes and stained with calcified leaks, where oxygen flow and temperature controls were located, where food supplies and cleaning equipment were stored and where Gabrielle Blanot worked.

  Climbing the ladder to the feeding catwalk she began her slow, methodical progress along the tanks. Gabrielle could have done the job i n her sleep. Some mornings it felt like she did: checking oxygen and temperature levels at each station, measuring the feed into plastic hoppers before tipping it into the tank beneath, and then watching the hungry swirl of colours from the fish before moving on to the next tank. Then the next, until she reached the final tank, the food pellets spraying over the surface of the water like a sudden squall of rain. As she stowed the hopper and closed the food locker there was a slap and splash as one of the inhabitants in the tank below got a little carried away and broke surface.

  Gabrielle smiled. Oscar again. She'd put money on it. The striped bass. The biggest mouth in the tank.

  Making her way back along the catwalk to the ladder, she glanced at her watch. When she finished the next round - Block Six, Trcrpicals - and before she began Five - Crustaceans - there'd be plenty of time to stop for a coffee with her friends Tula and Corinne before the supervisor, Barzé, made an appearance. That Tula, thought Gabrielle, clambering down the ladder at the end of the catwalk - what a girl she was, what a riot. Married with three kids but she still managed to find the time and the energy to put herself about.

  Leaving by a second service door, which led to Block Seven's public area, switching off the lights and locking up behind her, Gabrielle stepped out into the visitor walkway and started up the slope to the block's ground-level entrance. On one side were the tanks she'd just prepped, on the other a twenty-metre-long panel of glass set below the surface of the new open-sea aquarium. Gabrielle hummed as she walked, gazing idly through the glass, the sandy seabed stretching away into a blue-green distance.

  This four-acre open-sea extension to the main aquarium had taken two years to build and though it had only been open a few months had already proved a massive visitor draw. It comprised two long concrete jetties, curving out from the shore, and set with viewing panels beneath the su rface. Where the jetties ended, thirty metres apart, the mouth of the pool was secured with a Mylar steel web whose two-square-centimetre weave was large enough to allow shoals of smaller coastal fish to swim in and out freely, but narrow and strong enough to keep the larger fish in: the fat-lipped potato cod, the Napoleon wrasse, the barracuda and tuna, half a dozen rays, a couple of leather- back turtles and the pack of reef sharks whose white- tipped fins slicing the surface always brought a gasp from the crowd.

  Set around the open-sea pool like a random pattern of stepping stones, a half-dozen man-made islands broke the surface, built up from the sea floor to control storm surge and provide extra viewing possibilities from the bridges that connected them. Between two of these islands there was even a see-through plastic tunnel set thirty feet below the surface near the mouth of the pool, the deepest part of this open-sea feature.

  Gabrielle never tired of this pool. Unlike her tanks, it required no cleaning and the residents no feeding. There was plenty enough food naturally provided to keep the inmates from going short, although Tula had told them that there were plans to introduce a midday feed from one of the bridges, supplying the larger, more aggressive inmates with buckets offish and meat trimmings, creating a real-life feeding frenzy to entertain the crowds.

  The other thing that Gabrielle loved about the pool was the way its residents changed from day to day, always something new to see. Beyond the glass a silvery bank of mackerel flitted here and there, looking for a way out before the reef sharks cornered them, a beady-eyed lobster on the sea floor waved off a curious wrasse with its antennae, a shoal of darting, bobbing sergeant majors patrolled their coral stronghold and there—

  Gabrielle slowed, tried to focus on the new shape, distorted by the curve and density of the glass, suspended beneath the deck of a viewing platform maybe twenty feet ahead. As she came closer she wondered what the open ocean had brought them this time, without thinking about the Mylar net and how something so big . . .

  And then, catching her breath, she stopped in her tracks, felt for the rail to steady herself.

  25

  Jacques Tarrou watched the two men walk towards him across the parking lot. Standing at his office window he'd seen their car pass through the gates and he'd come straight down. When Barzé, the supervisor, called with news of the discovery, Tarrou had phoned them himself, from home, then jumped in his car and driven in. He'd seen the body, had Security put up signs on the feeder road - Aqua-Cité Fermé - and now, here they were.

  Stepping out from the foyer entrance, he held out his hand.

  'Tarrou. I'm Aqua-Cité's director.' The two policemen introduced themselves, showed their badges. Chief Inspectors Jacquot and Gastal.

  'Please, Messieurs . . .' said Tarrou and, indicating that they should follow him, he led them back out into the parking lot and around the side of the administration building. 'It's this way... we can take the short cut,' he continued, over his shoulder, wondering at the pair behind him. Such an unlikely couple. The small, round one with that dreadful tie and pin, and his tall, heavily-built sidekick - the boots, the ponytail, the lightweight suede blouson. Something familiar about the tall one, Tarrou thought; someone he'd seen before. But right then he couldn't think who or where.


  And little wonder. A body ... in his aquarium.

  Tarrou pushed through a wicker door into an open-air service area and from there led them down a damp, dark corridor into Block Seven's feeding station. A line of blue neon tubes hummed in the concrete ceiling. Another door was opened and he ushered them into the public walkway, the open sea held back by a curving sheet of glass.

  'You can see her from here,' he said, leading them to the glass a few steps along the walkway, pointing upwards but keeping his eyes on the fat man's tiepin, then standing aside for them to take a look.

  'Who found her?' asked the one called Jacquot, while his companion walked ahead for a closer look.

  'One of the feeders - Gabrielle Blanot,' replied Tarrou. 'About seven this morning. She's in the staff canteen if you . .

  'Can we see outside?' Jacquot continued, giving him a sympathetic nod.

  'Of course. This way,' said Tarrou, hurrying past the body that floated like some grotesque coffee table, arms and legs hanging down.

  Outside, a salty breeze caught at their hair, their clothes, dashed itself across the surface of the pool. Over Montredon, the morning sun passed behind grey cuttlefish clouds and the water in the pool darkened to a purple chop.

  When they reached the decking above the body the fat policeman, Gastal, went to the rail and peered down. His colleague, Jacquot, held back and turned to Tarrou. If he hadn't been a policeman, Tarrou would have sworn he'd seen him on television. Maybe he had.

  But the man was talking to him.

  '. . . And I'm afraid we'll have to leave the body where it is for our scene-of-crime team. So you'll need to keep those signs up.'

  Tarrou nodded, as though all this fitted in with how he'd read the situation. 'Of course. I understand. When do you suppose . . . ?' he lifted his arms, his shoulders, his eyebrows in one single movement.

  And then, suddenly, like a flash, Tarrou did know who the man was. The ponytail. Ponytail. And it was TV. A long time ago. Rugby. The Five Nations. One of the great tries. Jacquot. Of course. That run - unbelievable. Tarrou felt unaccountably excited.

  'Hey, Danny.'

  It was Jacquot's partner, Gastal, down on his knees and looking between the wood slats at the body below.

  'There's something ... I don't know. . . seems like the body's moving . . .'

  Jacquot walked over, squatted down, took a look.

  Tarrou followed, peering between their shoulders, not certain he wanted to see whatever it was they had found, but drawn somehow to take a look.

  Three feet below them, the body jerked.

  'There . . . see?'

  Jacquot went to the rail and looked over. In the time that it had taken them to come up from the underground viewing gallery, a reef shark had spotted the body and come to investigate. Jacquot watched a blunt grey snout nuzzle the side of the body, the shark's scythe-like tail whipping through the water for purchase.

  'Looks like we're going to have to start without SOC,' he said to Gastal. And, turning to Tarrou: 'Do you have any staff who could lend a hand, Monsieur?'

  If it hadn't been a body that they were retrieving, Jacquot decided, it would have been funny. While Barzé and an assistant tried to get a proper grip on the woman and haul her aboard over the rubbery sides of an inflatable dinghy, another assistant attempted to beat off an increasing number of curious sharks with an oar that was far too short to be wholly effective. Between them, with the added assistance of a considerable chop and swell, the three men kept the boat rocking at an unhealthy tilt until it seemed almost certain that one or another of them was going to take a swim.

  But then, with a final tug and grunt, Barzé and his chum managed to heave the body up and over into the dinghy and headed back to the mooring slip where Jacquot, Gastal and Tarrou were waiting.

  They all helped lift the body from between the plank seating - Gastal's shoes swamped by sea water when the inflatable lifted on a swell and pushed him sideways - and laid the body on its back, on the stone slipway, out of reach of the water. For a silent moment, Barzé, his assistants, Tarrou, Gastal and Jacquot all looked down at the naked body. Then, one by one, they turned away: Tarrou, walking a few steps off to make a call on his mobile, tugging self-consciously on his bow tie; Barzé, going off to look for something to cover the woman; his two assistants, close on his heels, dragging their eyes away from the pert breasts and the tangle of auburn hair between her legs, while Gastal found somewhere to perch so that he could wring the sea water from his socks.

  But Jacquot didn't turn away. Instead he knelt beside the body and let his eyes roam.

  She was tall and trim and well-muscled, the skin deeply tanned, right down to the toes, save for a white bikini- bottom triangle that showed the freckles the tan covered everywhere else. She looked to be in her early twenties, much the same age as the other victims. The eyes were closed but Jacquot guessed they'd be blue. A cap of red hair, not long enough to reach her shoulders, was slicked to her cheeks and neck.

  He picked up an arm, felt the dead, cold weight of it, the limb loose, elbow still bending, hand drooping from the wrist. A strong hand, Jacquot decided, turning it in his own, workmanlike, square and squat, the palm deeply lined, fingers stubby and nails short but not bitten, a white band on the little finger and wrist where she'd worn a ring and watch. But no bruises anywhere. Just three parallel scratches between her breasts - someone with long nails? - and an angry graze down the length of her left shin, red and fresh, as though she'd stumbled or been dragged over some sharp edge.

  He put down the arm, straightened the fingers. Their fourth victim. No doubt about it. Within the next twenty-four hours Pathology would confirm pronoprazone in the blood and signs of sexual abuse. Jacquot was certain of it.

  He got to his feet just as Barzé returned with a blanket.

  By the time they left Aqua-Cité an hour later, having questioned Gabrielle Blanot in the staff canteen - a pale face, trembling cigarette between her fingers and an ashtray full of butts by her elbow - and asked Tarrou for a printout of employee names and addresses, the scene-of- crime boys had arrived and set up camp.

  There were four of them, three togged up in white boots and zippered Tyvek jumpsuits, the fourth pulling on a wetsuit and scuba harness. Before starting work, one of them began shooting off a roll of film, treading lightly around the corpse, careful not to disturb anything. Even in daylight, Jacquot noticed, the man was using a flash. Jacquot would see those same photos later that day, or the next, fanned out on his desk, then pinned up on a cork board in the squad room next to his office. He'd see them every day until they ceased to shock, or until the case was closed, the killer found. Big, glossy prints that missed nothing.

  Jacquot walked over to Clisson, the senior forensics man. He was short, robust and businesslike, with a shock of ginger hair that shivered in the breeze. The two men shook hands. Like his colleagues, Clisson wore latex gloves snapped over his sleeves; his hand felt smooth, dry and powdery. And oddly warm.

  'Well?' said Clisson, looking down at the body as though inspecting a hole in the road. 'What do you think? Number three?' Clisson had been in charge of the Grez and Ballarde recoveries but knew nothing of the body pulled out of the lake at Salon-le-Vitry.

  'Looks pretty like it.'

  'I'll get you an initial report as soon as I can,' said Clisson. 'Later today. Tomorrow, maybe. As for Valéry, I can't say.'

  'Tell me something I don't know,' replied Jacquot. Valéry was the state pathologist, a man who liked to take his time whether the Police Judiciaire liked it or not. Sometimes it was worth the wait - tiny things that could make a case.

  'Maybe this time we'll have more luck,' said Clisson. 'You never know.'

  Jacquot nodded and left them to it. From here on in, he knew, it was nothing but grind - straightforward scene-of- crime forensic procedure. Hours bent over the body, here and at the morgue, searching the dinghy, the sandy floor of the pool, the jetties, the grounds, taking photographs, lifting prints. B
ut with Clisson in charge, Jacquot knew that it would be a thorough job. The man would miss nothing, and he'd have that report on Jacquot s desk when he said he would. While the trail was still warm. Later would come the more complete pathologist's findings - when he'd find out about the pronoprazone, the confirmation of sexual abuse.

  For now Jacquot had seen all he needed to see. There was nothing more for him here.

  He gave Gastal the nod and they headed back to the car.

  'So you reckon it's your man again?' asked Gastal.

  'Has to be,' replied Jacquot.

  'Could be an accident. Drowned some place and washed in here. Suicide, even.'

  Jacquot got into the car and started it up. Gastal dropped in beside him, pulling at his trouser legs to make himself comfortable, pushing up off the seat and juggling his balls into place.