That would come to him, he knew. The way to play it.
And if things went wrong, there was always the knife.
46
Suzie de Cotigny watched the beat-up Renault turn out of the drive. A long brown arm snaked up through the sunroof and waved, a farewell beep-beep from the horn, and the next moment the car was gone. Suzie listened as the Renault's engine faded into the silent evening streets of Roucas Blanc, then turned and made her way back to the terrace.
It had been, she supposed, a good afternoon. Certainly everything had gone according to plan. But there'd been something missing, something absent in the encounter, which she hadn't anticipated.
Usually Suzie arranged her solo assignments for the apartment on Paradis but, having Roucas Blanc to herself, she'd told the girl from the gym - Berthe was her name - to come out to the house. It was the first time Suzie had invited someone to visit without Hubert being there to join in, and the idea appealed to her. In his absence, there would be something illicit about the encounter which might add to the thrill, and it would be fun to show the place off. For the de Cotigny residence was certainly something to see. Suzie had worked hard on it: cajoling Hubert's approval as she tore out this and that, persuading him gently for the smaller changes, imploring for the larger, bigger, more ambitious takes, until the makeover was complete. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the tessellated entrance hall, the lofty, panelled salons, the dark Edwardian style of the house modernised, minimalised. Americanised.
Berthe, as expected, had been entranced, twirling around the grand hallway like a ballet dancer, opening all the cupboards in the kitchen, and exclaiming at the salon with its Warhol silk-screens, its cool, designer shades and plump Neime upholsteries. But then, how could she not have been entranced, the little gitana who probably lived in a walk-up in Belsunce or some such place?
Yet none of it had quite . . . worked, or not as Suzie had hoped. The girl from Belsunce - or wherever - might have been in heaven, but Suzie had soon tired of her companion s ooh-la-la-ing enthusiasm. This, she realised, as she lay back on the bed and let her thighs be opened, was not what she wanted. Not this house. Not this life. And certainly not this pert-breasted gypsy whose hands searched her out, too young, too keen to give anything but the most rudimentary, amateurish pleasures. Even though, Suzie conceded, there was a satisfaction of sorts to be had from it.
Coming through the trees at the side of the house, she stepped out onto the terrace. The pool lights were off and, in the evening shade, the water lay greasily still, sucking softly at the overflows. She slipped the wrap from her shoulders, took a deep breath and dived into the water, pulling herself the length of the pool, through its warm thickness, before surfacing in a wash of water that slapped against the edge of the pool and flooded across the flagstones. Flipping onto her back she set her toes against the tiles, bent her knees and pushed away, paddling her feet gently, thigh rubbing smoothly against thigh, water sluicing past her cheeks, bubbling across her lips and streaming down the length of her body. Above her the sky was darkening fast, a few early stars twinkling down and a scent of rain in the air.
Three more hours, maybe. Ten-thirty. Eleven. She had until then, on her own, before Hubert was back.
He'd called while she and Berthe were playing in the bedroom, leaving a message on the answerphone in the salon downstairs. She'd only picked up the guest-room extension when she recognised his voice, not wanting her companion to be privy to anything personal. He still hadn't got to his mother's, he told her. The traffic was affreuse. He . . .
On the other end of the line, she heard a car horn sound angrily. She guessed it was aimed at Hubert - not realising the traffic lights had changed, or getting himself in the wrong lane, or stalling the engine, or not using his indicators. Hubert and cars did not go well together.
Suzie was sure she was right; he sounded flustered when he came back on the line. She listened a moment, then told him that she had a headache, had fallen asleep in the sun and felt dreadful - shushing her companion who'd started to giggle again, instead of concentrating on what she was supposed to be doing, down there between Suzie's legs. 'I'll sleep in the spare room, if you don't mind? But I'll make up for it tomorrow, darling. I promise. Would you like me to wake you?'
Flipping over again, Suzie headed for the side of the pool and hauled herself out, water cascading off her, arms locking at the elbow to bear the weight of her body rising up out of the water. She stood, slicked back her hair with lifting hands and, not bothering with the wrap, walked over to the loungers, picked up cigarettes and lighter. Perching on the footstool, she lit up and took a deep drag, funnelling the smoke from her lips to drift out across the lawn. She watched it till it disappeared then, judging the conditions right, tried some smoke rings.
One. Two. Three.
Perfect. Rolling away into the night like tiny grey lifebelts.
Time. To. Move.
As the last smoke ring coiled and knotted and disappeared Suzie acknowledged the fact, admitted to herself, that she was suddenly fed up. Fed up with the house, and fed up with Marseilles. So provincial, so small-town, so . . . out of the loop. And, increasingly, fed up with Hubert and his snobbish, exasperating family. They pretended they were le tout gratin - the 'toot cretin' as she liked to call it - the upper crust. But they were as narrowly self-interested as any petite bourgeoisie. What really riled her was how Hubert always pandered to them - his mother particularly, the self-centred old crone.
Grasping. Greedy. Self-absorbed.
Suzie blew three more smoke rings.
At first, when she and Hubert met in the States, she'd been awed by him. Twenty years older, he'd seemed so self-assured, so suave and cosmopolitan. So French. The fact that he shared her . . . exquisite tastes, that he understood them and took pleasure in them, only served to increase the attraction, and the wild unpredictability of the affair that followed. By the end of his stay she was his, falling for him like a silver dollar dropped into water.
But somewhere along the line the balance had changed. The more Hubert fell for Suzie, the less she felt for him; the greater his dependence, the greater her independence. Five years on, the glow was fading. He was now fifty-eight. She was thirty-seven. Of course she was fond of him, of course she still loved him, but it was different now. She'd outgrown him, outgrown the house and the city he'd brought her to, and the life they lived. Not to mention the girls, girls like Berthe. Increasingly, their easy, peasant charms had started to run thin. Their manners were appalling, their skin was coarse and their sweat reeked of garlic. Even the lone pleasures of her apartment on rue Paradis had started to pall.
Suzie sucked in a last lungful of smoke and dropped the cigarette into the ice bucket - a swift hiss as it extinguished. She stood and looked across the lawn. Private, no windows bar their own to intrude on her, a conspiracy of pines and high walls, battlements of hibiscus and frangipani and the subtle, sloping contours of the land to protect each residence from its neighbour. Suzie stepped off the stone flags and felt the grass give beneath her feet. It was still warm enough to be naked she decided, the water from the pool almost dry on her skin, just a coil of moisture leaking between her shoulder blades and down her back from the fall of her hair. She raised her hands, leant back and squeezed the water from it, twisting it out.
She wondered what she'd miss, when the time came to move on. Not France, certainly. And increasingly not the French. Not Hubert's interfering mother, nor his spoilt, self-opinionated daughter. If she never set eyes on the two of them again, it wouldn't be too soon for Suzie. As for Hubert, he'd be heartbroken, of course, but tant pis as the French would say. He might plead with her to stay - in vain, of course - but he'd survive, he'd get over it.
But where to go, thought Suzie? Where to move on to? Strolling across the lawn she considered the possibilities, the grass prickling underfoot, not a whisper of breeze to whip away the days sultry, leaden heat. There was the Caribbean, of course, but that was wa
y, way too close to home. North Africa, maybe? Or Spain, perhaps? Or further afield? Bali, Malaysia, the tropics? Somewhere hot. Somewhere exotic. Somewhere her parents would disapprove of. She liked it when they disapproved. Even now.
And then, in the middle of the lawn, Suzie paused, aware of a sound, a movement, at the far edge of the terrace, among the pines.
Her first thought was a cat or dog chasing through the undergrowth. But then there was a voice. Someone calling out. Someone on her side of the boundary wall.
Realising that she was naked, Suzie turned back to the pool for something to cover herself. She picked up her wrap from the flagstones, belted it around her, then retraced her steps across the lawn.
And there, from the darkening shadows at the far edge of the property, where the pines twisted up into the night sky, was a figure, coming towards her.
Berthe? Hortense? Their neighbour, Madame Des- landes? But then she saw trousers. Gilles the gardener? Hubert home early? She peered into the gloom, but couldn't make out any feature, save that the figure was tall.
Taller than Berthe, but about right for Madame Deslandes. Or Gilles. Or even Hubert.
'Who's there?' she called out, noticing for the first time the citrus scent of aftershave. 'Hubert? Is that you, honey?'
The figure approaching across the lawn spoke again, sounding concerned, as though something had happened of which Suzie was unaware, and she knew at once it wasn't Hubert.
'Madame, Madame, are you all right? I thought I saw something
And before Suzie could do anything about it, before she had time to react or defend herself, the figure was leaping at her, toppling her to the ground. And then . . . something hitting the side of her head, stars springing into her eyes, more stars than she remembered in the night sky, spinning through her vision, the breath crushed from her body ... a weight on her chest, her arms and legs pinned down and a prickling of grass on her neck . . .
And up above . . . The sky darkening, the stars still there but blinking out, one by one, fast. . .
Until. . . just an irresistible urge to giggle. To laugh at the . . . And then . . .Nothing
Part Three
47
La Residence Cotigny, Marseilles, Friday
It was early morning when Gilles, the de Cotignys' gardener, arrived for work, the sun still to breach the peaks above Montredon, the white stucco of the house the pale gold of a chamois cloth, its cornered recesses chill and angled with shadow.
He entered the grounds where he always did, at their lowest level, through the garden gate on Allée Jobar, a panel of weathered grey wood set into a boundary wall that rose nearly twelve feet above the pavement, so that only the crowns of the garden palms and pines could be seen from the road.
Closing the gate behind him and pocketing the key, Gilles made his way up to the house, taking the long route around the bottom lawn beside the chip-bark path of the flower beds, then up the steps to the middle terrace. There'd been a blow the night before, down from the mountains, only now heading out to sea, chopping the water in the bay. It had been strong enough to strip away palm fronds and loosen pine cones, which now lay scattered across the grass. They'd need picking up, tidying away.
Halfway across the terrace, Gilles paused, his attention caught by something else on the grass. And nothing brought down by last night's blow.
Damn dogs, he thought, kicking a sun-dried crotte out of his path. It looked like a shrivelled brown finger. Now he looked, he could see half a dozen more that would need shifting before he mowed the lawn. They might be hard on the outside, those crottes, but there was always a soft- centre core to them. And tuhen the blades caught them and spat them out. . . well, the smell was enough. Clung to his trouser legs and all. They weren't even good manure.
Of course, he knew the culprits. Deutsch, the big old German shepherd that belonged to Doctor Crespin along the road, and those three little yapping monsters of Madame Deslandes's. By the look of the crottes this morning, it was the mutts from next door that were to blame. Deutsch always left far more substantial calling cards. If only Madame remembered to close the front gates, it wouldn't have been a problem. He'd mentioned it to the boss a hundred times, but the message had failed to filter down to her. Or, if it had, it didn't seem to make any difference.
Gilles climbed the steps to the top terrace and started off across the lawn, the house rising above him, the pool away to his left, the land banking up to his right, where he was headed, rising gently to a border of pine, oleander and aloe. It was round this side of the house, near the service entry, that Gilles kept his work shed, stored the spades and shovels, rakes and secateurs, all the things he needed to keep the place in order. It was also, in the middle of the day, a cool spot to stop for his lunch and the eau de vie he kept amongst the seed trays. As for the mornings, a nip of calva from a weedkiller bottle was all it took to get him motivated.
The first hour was always the best, early enough to be on his own, trundling the wheelbarrow back down to the bottom terrace, dropping off tools as he went: shears and canvas sheet on the top terrace for clipping back the bougainvillaea on the balustrade; a rake and shovel on the middle terrace where he'd seen the dog crap; his secateurs and a trug by the climbing roses; and a hoe by the fruit beds on the bottom terrace. Anyone walked round the garden and they'd think he was the hardest worker in the world - four jobs on the go at once. But they'd be lucky if he finished one.
It was around six, while wheeling a lightly loaded barrow of palm fronds and pine cones to the compost heap beyond the pool, that Gilles saw her first. Or rather her outline, and the jet-black hair, through the back of the see-through inflatable pool chair she liked to use - high enough out of the water to keep her books and magazines dry, and easily manoeuvrable when the sun got too hot and she needed the shade. What surprised the gardener was the fact she should be up and about so early.
But there she was. Madame. And yet, as he steered his barrow along the edge of the terrace so as not to disturb her, Gilles was aware of something not quite right, his eyes seeking her out almost against his will. And it wasn't just the possibility she was topless. Great tits, Christ.. . Something else altogether. But no, not her tits. Something in the way she sat in the chair; she looked. . . uncomfortable. Slumped.
As he drew parallel, maybe ten metres from the edge of the pool, Gilles slowed his pace and peered cautiously in her direction. She seemed to be asleep, head lolling, an arm slung out, fingers trailing in the water. He lowered the barrow handles, ready to stoop and pick something up if she sensed him there arid turned in his direction.
Which she proceeded to do, a whisper of breeze moving the chair and bringing her round to face him, head tilted, eyes fixed on him, as though su rprised that there should be anyone there that early.
And very pale, it seemed to Gilles. Madame always had such a good colour. But not this morning. As pale as the stucco on the house that rose above them.
It was only when he stepped onto the flagstones edging the pool that Gilles saw what was wrong.
48
Whose mobile?' It was Cesar's voice, calling from the kitchen. And then, after checking his and Sid's: 'Daniel, it's yours.'
Jacquot roused himself. Squinted at his watch. Six- thirty. Jesus. His head ached. The brandy. The joint Cesar had rolled after Sydne had gone to bed. He looked around, tried to get his bearings. A tented room, painted furniture and terracotta colours. A Moroccan feel. Sid and Cesar's spare room. The smell of patchouli and coffee percolating.
He tried to remember where his jacket was, his mobile. Out in the hall. Bleating away.
It was Gastal, chewing on something. 'We got us another one.'
The address Gastal had given him was in Roucas Blanc, at the end of a cul-de-sac off Avenue des Roches. Jacquot had to use a street map to find it, hidden away in a fold of hills closer to Prado Plage than the Vieux Port. Exclusive territory. When he saw the squad cars, the Forensics van, and an ambulance all drawn up in a semicircl
e under a stand of pines at the end of the lane, jacquot knew that he'd arrived.
They were all there. Peluze and Grenier, Chevin and Dutoit, Laganne, Serre, Muzon and Isabelle Cassier, each marking out their own area of inquiry: Peluze and Grenier with Gilles, the gardener, working him through the discovery of the body, the last few days . . . anything suspicious? Isabelle Cassier sitting in the kitchen with a tearful Hortense; Chevin and Dutoit sweeping the gardens; and Laganne, Serre and Muzon, according to Dutoit, waking the neighbours, asking questions, getting statements.
Jacquot went straight for the victim, settling himself on a lounger at the side of the pool where three of Clisson's men worked on the body, laid out on the flagstones in a shadowing puddle of water. Crouched around it like worker ants attending a queen, gloved and zippered, they combed through her hair, secured her hands in plastic bags, moved her head from side to side, opened her mouth, peered into ears and nostrils. Three more, on hands and knees, scoured the surrounding flagstones.
Jacquot and the Waterman Page 22