Jacquot and the Waterman

by Martin O'Brien

  'And you're expecting her back when?'

  Ralph shrugged.

  'Today? Tomorrow?' prompted Jacquot.

  'She said a couple of days, but it could be longer, I guess . . .'

  Then Ralph sat forward, brows knitting. 'There's nothing wrong, is there? I mean . . . Tim? Jilly? Has there been an accident?'

  If Ralph had been a suspect, Jacquot would have played this a while longer. But he wasn't. Couldn't have been. Holford - for Jacquot was now certain that this was who their victim would turn out to be - had been murdered by the same man who'd drowned his last three victims in a lake, a bath and the lowest level of the Palais Longchamp fountains. At exactly the same time that the Anemone and her crew were sailing in the Caribbean or halfway across the Atlantic. There was no way that Ralph, or his brother Tim, could be the killer.

  Jacquot reached into his pocket and pulled out the photo he'd taken from the incident board on his way out of the squad room. He looked at it briefly before handing it over.

  It was a black and white photo. A head shot, taken in the morgue. If the photographer had moved back half a step you'd have seen the scratches between the victim's breasts. The hair was dry, and lighter in colour, the eyes closed. The black and white image, Jacquot had decided, was kinder than colour. The bluish lips, pallid skin and bruised eyes didn't show so strongly.

  Ralph leant forward to take the photo, turned it the right way up and his head just snapped back. If he'd been acting, it was a very convincing response, a masterful performance.

  'Jesus,' he snorted, covering his mouth.

  'I'm very sorry. . .' said Jacquot gently, wondering whether Ralph and Jilly were more than shipmates. Or maybe it was the brother, Tim?

  Ralph shook his head from side to side, eyes squeezing shut. 'Jesus. Jesus. What happened? Where is she?'

  'So you can confirm that this is your crewmate, Jilly Holford?'

  Ralph nodded, unable to drag his eyes from the picture.

  Jacquot waited a few moments before speaking again.

  'I'm afraid there are certain procedures, Monsieur. We'll need a formal identification and we'd be grateful if you could let us have the names of next of kin - if you have that information?'

  Ralph took a series of deep breaths, trying to gather himself. 'I haven't known her long. We met in Grenada. She was working there, in a bar. Her parents are dead. I think they lived near London somewhere. That's all I know, I'm afraid. But tell me. What happened?'

  'Her body was found yesterday morning. Near the Prado beach. It's along the coast from here.'

  Ralph looked confused. 'You mean she drowned?'

  'She was a good swimmer?' asked Jacquot.

  'Like a fish. It's not possible she could have drowned.'

  Jacquot held out his hands as though to suggest he didn't know, to see what else Ralph might come up with.

  'No, no. Not Jilly. There must be a mistake .. .'

  'I'm afraid not, Monsieur Wraxton.'

  Ralph gave Jacquot a long hard look, drawing the only possible conclusion.

  'You mean someone did this? Someone killed her?'

  Jacquot raised his shoulders, spread his hands. 'The evidence suggests

  'Shit. . .' Ralph covered his mouth and nose with his fingers, as though he was about to sneeze. He took another deep breath.

  'Tell me, if you please, did she leave any belongings on board?' asked Jacquot.

  Ralph didn't seem to understand what Jacquot was saying.

  'Is there a suitcase of hers, a bag . . . Could I see where . . . ?'

  'Yes. Yes, of course,' he said, getting to his feet, still holding the photo. 'I'm sorry. Follow me.'

  Jilly's cabin was in the bow of the boat, hot and airless, a low, curving, triangular space filled with a roughly cut wedge of foam mattress whose edges curled up the cabin's sloping sides. There were no sheets, just an unzipped sleeping bag and slipless pillow.

  Ralph leant in through the doorway and opened a cupboard, then stepped aside to let Jacquot pass.

  The cupboard was hung with wet-weather gear, a quilted jacket, jeans, and cotton trousers. Beneath these, under a pile of dirty clothes - a tangle of T-shirts, sweats, sarongs - Jacquot uncovered a black holdall, pulled it out and took it through into the main cabin, Ralph backing down the passage ahead of him to make room. Placing the holdall on the chart table, Jacquot tugged open the zip and started going through the contents: a wad of clean clothes - T-shirts, shorts, knickers, bras and long wool socks rolled into balls - nothing ironed but everything dry and neatly folded. Jacquot hauled them out and laid them on the galley table, behind which Ralph lay curled up on a strip of cushioned banquette, Jilly's photo face down in front of him.

  Looking back into the holdall, Jacquot tipped it to the light and pushed his arm into the opening. From the bottom of the holdall he retrieved a roll of American dollars secured with a rubber band, a packet of batteries, a sure-shot camera and a pair of sneakers. Placing them beside the clothes, he reached back into the bag and pulled out a pen, some blank postcards and a crumpled bundle of currency-exchange receipts. Jacquot smoothed them out. The latest was dated the end of March, just before the Anemone set sail for Europe.

  The passport that Jacquot was looking for was in a zip-up side pocket. He flipped it open. A bright, freckled face stared out from the photo, hair tied in plaits, braces - a schoolgirl. Jacquot checked the date of issue. Eight years earlier. Her birth-date was registered as 12 September 1973. Place of birth - Windsor. He flicked through the pages. A good half of the passport was filled with various immigration visas: blurred red and black stamps from Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Dominica, Guadeloupe, St Vincent, Jamaica, dating back to the States in September the previous year, ending in early April with a blue hexagonal exit stamp for Antigua. The American visa had been issued in London fourteen months earlier.

  At precisely that moment the yacht seemed to dip and sway and footsteps could be heard coming up the gangway. Someone jumped down into the cockpit and a voice called out:

  'Rafe? You about?'

  A younger, blonder version of Ralph peered through the hatch.

  Ralph looked at Jacquot. 'My brother.'

  Then, turning to the figure stepping down into the galley: 'Tim, this is someone from the French police. It's Jilly...'

  37

  It had not been the best of mornings and Paul Basquet was not in the best of humours. First of all he was well behind schedule. And Basquet hated falling behind schedule. Time was a valuable commodity in any language and not to be lightly squandered.

  It had started first thing that morning. What should have been a brief on-site meeting with his architect had taken twice as long as planned. The proposed development was two kilometres the other side of Marignane airport, twenty hectares of farmland that Basquet had acquired through a subsidiary and planned on turning into a freeze-storage facility for an in-flight catering operation. Two hundred planes, under the banners of twenty-seven airlines, touched down at Marignane every day, a six per cent increase on the previous year with, according to his planners, probably twice that percentage increment in the twelve months to come. Already he'd heard talk of extensions to the airport's runways and terminal buildings. The purchase of that scrubby field of olives and stony soil between Marignanes runways and the Fos-Martigues road would prove a real money-spinner. And if the catering company and freeze-storage facility didn't work out, why, he could always cover the plot with tarmac, turn it into a car park and still make back his original investment many times over.

  It was the first time that Basquet had visited the site in person and he hadn't been prepared for the state of the access road. If he'd known how bad it was going to be, he'd have taken the Cherokee Jeep and left the Porsche at home. Instead, the belly of his beloved Carrera scraped frighteningly over the sun-hardened ruts that made up the approach. By the time he arrived on site his nerves were stretched to snapping, wincing every time a wheel sank into a pothole and his cherished
Porsche made grating, jarring contact with the ground. He'd have got out and walked if it hadn't been so damn far.

  Then, when he finally arrived on site, the man waiting for him was not the man he'd been expecting. Apparently the architect he'd contracted was down with toothache and the colleague he'd sent in his place was woefully under- briefed. Instead of the thirty minutes that his assistant, Genevieve Chantreau, had allowed for, the meeting had taken closer to an hour, with no significant progress made.

  Basquet then made the mistake of letting the architect's deputy, who did have a four-wheel drive, leave the site first, so that his return journey along the access road was conducted in a billowing cloud of dust. By the time he nursed the Porsche back onto the main road the windscreen was covered in a fine, chalky gauze and he was well behind schedule, which meant that he'd have to postpone his quarterly meeting with Valadeau s finance director and trustees.

  Not that the meeting was in any way important. Basquet just wanted to get it over with as soon as he possibly could. All the usual cautious, corporate guff about unfamiliar investments, possible shortfalls and the threat of being too highly leveraged. He knew their line by heart: Savonnerie Valadeau was overextending itself, they'd warn him; it was time to sell off some of the associated companies that Basquet had set up since the old man's death. (Lake hell he would.) They were soap people, the trustees would argue, not market speculators, property developers, construction engineers or maritime traders. Their business was the manufacture and retailing of soap, and soap's increasingly profitable derivatives - shower and bath gels, shampoos, bath oils - all this from a bunch of tedious family lawyers and accountants whom his father-in-law had put in place as board members to represent his interests. That old bastard had never trusted him an inch, but at least the most recent shake-up Basquet had orchestrated at Valadeau had seen them relegated to non-executive positions.

  After they'd said their piece and looked pleased with themselves, and concerned at the same time (bastards, the lot of them), Basquet would then make his usual plea for the need to diversify in an increasingly competitive market.

  The point he was always trying to get across to these cons was this: if he wasn't worried, why should they be? This was a family business, after all, and he wanted the business to stay that way for his sons. And his sons' sons. Why would he jeopardise their future? It was surely in everyone's long-term interests for Valadeau et Cie to provide the family with a corporate future worth investing in, and the best way to do that was to make Valadeau bigger and stronger. Which meant that relying solely on the manufacture of fancy bubble baths, pretty packaging and miscellaneous bathroom sundries was no longer a realistic option.

  At which there'd be the usual dark mutterings and whispered disapproval from the other side of the boardroom table, under the brooding portraits of past Valadeau patriarchs, until the meeting ground to an end with no real agreement reached. It was the same every time. The only thing it achieved was to make the trustees feel that they were remaining faithful to the letter of their trusteeship while still enjoying the increased fruits of their dividends. And waste more time when he, Basquet, had more important matters to attend to.

  Like the calanques project. His latest baby. According to Raissac at Tuesday's offshore meeting, the whole thing was as good as a done deal, and everything nicely at arm's length. Untraceable. Nothing to tie him in. All Basquet Maritime, registered in Senegal, had had to do was have one of its tankers call in at Maracaibo twice a year, pick up a cargo of kaolin and sail it back to Marseilles, the first consignment due in port any day now. Much to Basquet's relief. Their ship, Aurore, had been held up a nerve- racking extra day in Accra, but according to his agents she'd finally put to sea, coming north at a good clip.

  As he eased off the rutted farm track and made the smoother surface of the main Fos-Martigues road, Basquet put his foot down and felt the Porsche surge forward. He began to feel a little cheerier. This was what it was all about. Having the power, on tap, and knowing how to use it. All he had to do was press down with his foot, like so, and the engine responded. Without delay or hesitation, and no family trustees poking their fucking noses in.

  It was what Basquet so loved about Raissac. The way he waved aside problems, uncertainties. Nothing seemed to faze him. Now, Raissac liked to say. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. But now, slapping his hands together like a hypnotist bringing you out of a trance. It was the kind of talk Basquet liked to hear - fighting talk.

  They really were two of a kind, Basquet decided. They shared the same background, knew what hard graft was all about and had learnt early on that business was as much about luck as legwork. The other thing that Basquet liked about Raissac was the fact that he always delivered - effectively, discreetly. He did what he said he was going to do, and no half measures.

  He was also a chancer, no doubt about it. You only had to look at him to know that somewhere along the line he'd probably been up to no good. The scarred, cratered face, those hard, dangerous black eyes, and that startling splash of claret across the side of his cheek and jaw. A tache de vin, they called it, like a spill of blood, its livid, ruby fingers reaching to the bridge of Raissac s nose and deep into his collar.

  But the man was kosher; he was what he said he was. Basquet had checked. Alexandre Majoub Raissac. Joint Chairman of Raissac et Frères. A private construction company forty years in business, with interests in Switzerland, Sicily, North Africa, West Africa and, most recently, Venezuela. Mining, drilling, mineral-resource development, tourism even. Raissac's interests were almost as varied as Basquet's own. But his net worth, according to the records that Basquet had managed to dig up, was clear and unleveraged, and substantially higher than Valadeau's. The man ran a tight ship and though he'd probably bent a few rules getting there, he was unquestionably a player. A player whom Basquet was delighted to have on his side.

  Their first meeting, Basquet reflected, had been a piece of outrageously good fortune. The way it sometimes goes. The right place, the right time - and the right man. A couple of years earlier, in the middle of an ambitious residential redevelopment programme that Basquet had undertaken in the centre of Marseilles, he'd hit a problem with his construction teams. Suddenly the unions were giving him a hard time - overtime quotas, on-site insurance, working conditions - and every day the delay was costing him money. Basquet's problems were twofold. He didn't have any further funds to renegotiate with the unions, even if he'd wanted to, and the more he delayed the more likely it was that agreed deadlines would be exceeded and penalty notices invoked. All this at a time when the Valadeau family trustees had had more power than they did right now.

  When in steps this Alexandre Raissac. An introduction from Fouhety, one of Basquet's suppliers in whom he'd confided, trying to extend credit terms to cover the workforce hold-up.

  'Leave it to me,' Raissac had said breezily when Basquet explained the problem, admitting how badly overextended he was. And the following week everything returned to normal, the construction crews back at work. A month later, thanks to Raissac, the development was completed in time and on budget.

  For which small service, all Monsieur Raissac wanted was a top-floor apartment in one of the redeveloped properties. As simple as that. He even showed Basquet how to do it without cutting his margins. Masterful.

  A few months later Basquet got in touch with Raissac for a second time, when he was negotiating building costs on a two-hundred-unit housing project in Valmont. As Basquet had hoped, a word from Raissac and the initial supply estimates that had caused him such a headache were re-presented in far more favourable terms.

  And the price? A Bentley Arnage. Purchased in Brussels and driven south. Small change for such big returns.

  But what really sold the man to Basquet was that Raissac never followed up on these 'arrangements', never called him back with a favour to ask. Once Raissac had received his agreed 'fee', there was no sense of obligation, of something owing. The matter was at an end. A one-off. What
Basquet also liked was the fact that the two men only ever did business when Basquet sought him out, when Basquet needed something. Never the other way round.

  Like the calanques deal. Did Raissac's sphere of influence, Basquet had asked after his plans for the development had been dumped for a third time, extend as far as planning permits?

  At which Raissac had questioned him closely on what this planning permission might be in relation to, before assuring him that, in his experience, no planning permis was too difficult to acquire — so long as you knew the right people. He'd said it with that glint in his eyes, that careless, dismissive wave of the hand, and Basquet had known better than to inquire further. The less he knew, the safer he was. But he'd given Raissac the nod and, by the sound of it, Raissac had as good as guaranteed that next time Basquet's proposals were presented to the planning authorities, the chances were that he would find his way clear.

  Which was the one time Raissac did take that extra step. How, he had asked, did Basquet plan to finance this ambitious development? Such an undertaking would surely run into hundreds of millions of francs. If Basquet hadn't yet arranged his finances, perhaps he, Raissac, could be of some assistance?