'You said "our company". You have partners, then?'
'Just the one,' replied Raissac. 'My brother, Henri. When our father died, we took over the family business. Building supplies, that land of thing. Based in North Africa. Morocco. My brother, who is ten years older, went in first; and I followed later. We did well in the Sixties when tourism opened up. New hotels meant building on a large scale. Supplies, materials, workforce. And local know-how for foreign companies coming in. We made sure we were the best operation in town. Since then,' Raissac spread his hands, 'we have, of course, tried to expand. Import, export, a little shipping, maritime trade . . . We try to cover the board.'
'And your brother lives here in France?' asked Jacquot, his eye caught by the swallows diving at the swimming pool to scoop up beakfuls of water, leaving a pattern of circular ripples across its surface.
Raissac shook his head. 'Venezuela. Caracas. We have other operations there - mining, drilling, natural resources. Another string, you understand . . . Nowadays, "diversification is the key to economic health", as they say.'
'Coming back to your properties . . .' asked Jacquot. 'Do you know any of your tenants personally?'
Baissac shrugged. 'With so many properties, Chief Inspector, it would be extraordinary if I knew every tenant's name,' he said, regretting the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Not for any information he'd disclosed, but for the way he'd said it. Rather pompous, on reflection. The kind of thing Basquet would say. What I mean is, Chief Inspector . . .'
But Jacquot was holding up his hands, deflecting Raissac s attempt to right the situation. 'No, no, of course, I quite understand.' He took another sip of his beer. 'So, then, it's unlikely you'll have heard that one of your tenants, in a block of apartments on Cours Lieutaud, has been found murdered?'
'Mais non, I hadn't heard that.' Raissac put on what he hoped was a suitably concerned expression. 'But then . . .'
'But then it would be dealt with by someone else. In Rabat?'
'Through our legal department there.' Raissac nodded. 'Or the various agents we use. For all purchases, sales and rentals we use local immobiliers. On the spot. They know the markets and we leave things to them. Something like this ... a murder ... If they don't already know about it, they soon will, I'm sure. But it's not something I would get to hear of.'
'And you haven't read about the murder? In the papers? Or seen anything on TV?'
Raissac shook his head. 'Just the business pages,' he replied with an easy smile. 'And sport, of course. Nothing else, I'm afraid. As for TV . . . well, it's for morons, n'est-ce pas? All those game shows . . .'
Raissac caught himself. Again, he'd said too much. The wrong tone. For all he knew this Jacquot watched TV the whole time and just loved game shows. He might not look like it, but you never could tell.
Much to his relief, his guest nodded in agreement and smiled. It didn't look to Raissac like his visitor had taken offence.
'I wonder,' Jacquot began again, 'do the names Grez, Ballarde, Monel or Holford mean anything to you?'
Raissac gave the names some thought. There was only the one he recognised. Monel. Vicki Monel. He shook his head. 'I'm sorry. No, not a single one. Is one of them the girl who was murdered?'
'Actually, they are all murder victims.'
Raissac put on a suitably concerned expression. 'I'm sorry to hear that. Terrible. Terrible.'
Jacquot drained his beer and got to his feet. 'Well, Monsieur, thank you for giving me your time,' he said.
'My pleasure, Chief Inspector,' said Raissac, also standing, a little surprised that this Jacquot should have driven all the way to Cassis for such a short meeting. 'As I said, anything I can do to help.'
They shook hands and Raissac led him back the way they had come.
At Iris car, opening the door and sliding into the driver's seat, Jacquot paused, as though he'd just remembered something.
'One last question, Monsieur . . .'
Raissac held out his hands - anything.
'Do you happen to know a Monsieur Paul Basquet? Of Valadeau et Cie?'
'Of course I know him, Chief Inspector. Not well, of course. Not socially, you understand. But we do have certain business interests in common. The apartment, building supplies, that kind of thing.'
Jacquot nodded, pursed his lips. 'I see. Well, Monsieur. Thank you again, for your time and for the beer.'
Raissac shrugged off the thanks with a wave of his hand and stood back as the car moved off.
But as it disappeared into the trees Raissac felt a gentle unease settle on him. An increasing sense of discomfort. Something was niggling and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something had slipped but, something he hadn't meant to say, or shouldn't have done, maybe. Something small and elusive. He tried to think what it was but couldn't place it.
As he joined the Marseilles road, Jacquot played the meeting with Raissac back in his head. Like Massot had said, the house was something else. Very, very impressive - a couple of hectares by the look of it, with a driveway long enough for a car to reach third gear. No more than a mile or two from the beach at Cassis, and not another house in sight. The place must have cost a fortune.
Then there was the man himself. Raissac. Even if Jacquot hadn't known about Massot's suspicions, or Lamonzie s interest in him, or Doisneau's tip that Raissac had some big drugs thing coming up, he'd still have known that the man was more than he seemed. No amount of amiable hospitality and easy charm could cover the fact that this man smelled bad. He might affect the corporate style, but it didn't work for Jacquot. The flickering eyes, the thin mouth. And that skin, that stain, that wash of pink scarring with its puckered edges. The man looked like bruised fruit.
But that wasn't all. There was something else, something of much greater interest. Something that made the journey to Cassis worth the time and the fuel.
'Is one of them the girl who was murdered?' Raissac had asked. This from the man who'd made a point about how he only read the business and sports pages and rarely watched TV.
Yet Jacquot had never once specified gender. 'Tenant' and 'victim' were the words he'd used.
Of course, it wasn't the kind of evidence that Solange Bonnefoy was looking for; a slip of the tongue, an innocent assumption, both possibilities easily explained it away. But right now that slip of the tongue, that assumption - whatever you chose to call it - was good enough for Jacquot.
That, and what might soon prove to be a lie.
For even though Raissac claimed that he knew none of his tenants, Jacquot was convinced he was lying. He was certain Raissac would have known one of the names. Monel. Vicki Monel. And if he knew Vicki, then he probably knew Carnot. Taking another step in the dark, Jacquot decided that friend Raissac might even know about the bathroom cupboard on Cours Lieutaud. And with his fingerprints all over Jacquot s identification card, it wouldn't take long to find out.
As the road climbed up through the Ginestre hills, Jacquot slid in the Coltrane tape that Cesar had given him that morning, let his arm hang out of the window and waited for the music.
55
De Cotigny stood at his front door and watched his mothers car pass through the gates and turn out of sight. The ambulance and police cars were long gone and the two men from the Forensics team who had stayed on to examine Suzie's room had packed their bags and departed at about the same time as his daughter. Apart from Hortense, Hubert de Cotigny was now alone in the house in Roucas Blanc.
The day had begun with a shout that he had registered as part of a dream, but Hortense's lilting scream had brought him fully awake. He'd leapt from his bed, pulled on his dressing gown and was halfway down the stairs when Hortense came running in from the terrace, shoes clacking across the tiles, hands waving. All he could make out was 'Madame . . . Madame . . . Madame'. And then, when Hortense saw him on the stairs: 'Monsieur. Monsieur. Come quick. Madame.'
Outside, wielding the pool-cleaning net, Gilles was trying to coax an inflatable chair to the si
de of the pool.
The first thing Hubert saw was his wife's hand trailing backwards through the water.
It was de Cotigny who made the call to the emergency services, the acid remains of his mother's dinner rising into his mouth.
'An ambulance. My wife . ..' he'd said, and given the address, as though he believed she was still alive, as though there was some slim possibility that she could be revived, when he knew with an absolute certainty that she was past help from anyone. That slim pale hand, fingers dipping in the water; the head lolling; the fall of black hair across her shoulder. That was all it had taken for him to know that his wife was dead.
The first police car arrived with the ambulance. The rest followed soon after. The paramedics hurried through the house, hefting their bags and a tank of oxygen. It took them only a few moments with the body before one of them looked up at him, shaking his head, confirming what de Cotigny already knew.
The two policemen, gently solicitous, encouraged him back inside the house, offered to get him some coffee. A drink? One of them stayed with him, asking, de Cotigny supposed, the lands of questions policemen ask: Who? Where? When? How? This policeman, rather squat and overweight, spoke quietly, took no notes. Just nodded at each answer, pursed his lips. Looking for some nugget of information, de Cotigny realised, at a time of greatest vulnerability. Wasn't that the way they did it?
Then another policeman, a big brute of a man, came in, offered condolences and, in a warm and comforting tone, had asked more questions, seeking clarification, then asked to see the guest room where Suzie had said she'd spend the night. He'd taken them upstairs, pointed them down the hall and gone into his bedroom.
Alone, he called his mother and his daughter. They arrived within minutes of each other.
It was the two of them who took over from there, his daughter dealing with everything downstairs, his mother sitting on the bed beside him, stroking his hand. And he'd gone to sleep. Just like that. His mother stroking his hand.
The house was quiet when de Cotigny woke. His daughter had gone, but his mother remained.
'I'm so sorry, my darling,' she said, though de Cotigny suspected that she wasn't that sorry. His mother was back in his life again, the way she liked it. And the American, as she sometimes referred to Suzie, was gone for good.
Which was why de Cotigny dressed in his office clothes. To get away from his mother.
'But it's past three. Isn't it too late?' she'd remonstrated. And then, thinking of her plans: 'Are you sure you're up to it?' she'd asked, affecting concern.
'There are things I need to do, Maman,' he told her, making her nod understandingly, approvingly. 'I'll call round later. Say seven?'
Which had sealed it.
'Well, if you're sure, dear . . .' And, pleased that he appeared to be taking it so well, she'd acquiesced, got her coat, left him there.For an hour or more after she'd gone, de Cotigny wandered through the house, pausing here and there, touching his wife's belongings, picking up photos of her in their heavy silver frames, trying to get some tangible sense of her as though that would somehow replace what was missing.
It was unbearable. Suzie was gone. And his life seemed suddenly empty, without purpose, stretching ahead. Finally, he went through to the study, poured himself a brandy, drew a cigar from the humidor and sat at his desk. Turning to the bookshelves, he selected a disc from his collection, slid it into the CD player and reached for pen and paper.
In the kitchen, sitting at the table with a third glass of cognac and a cigarette, Hortense decided she was just a little tiddly. Pleasantly so. Philosophically so.
The whole thing was shocking, of course . . . and she was so sorry for dear Monsieur de Cotigny. . . But still. . . Life goes on, n'est-ce pas? You always have to look at the positive side of things. The bright side. And for Hortense, that meant never having to put up with that lazy, good-for-nothing, spoiled young torchon a moment longer.
First of all, it seemed to Hortense, these Americans had no idea how to treat staff. Never a 'please' or a 'thank you', never a moment to yourself without a call from Madame - do this, fetch that. It was good to get the in-house accommodation but there'd been a price to pay. On call twenty-four hours a day, she was, her ladyship no respecter of after-hours and the like. By the time Thursday came round Hortense was always at her wits' end, desperate to get away. Wouldn't dare stay, in case she got hauled in to cook something, clean something, whatever it was Madame fancied.
Hortense was tapping her cigarette against the lip of an ashtray when, somewhere above her, a door slammed shut, which made her jump in her chair, spilling a goodly portion of cognac onto her wrist and the sleeve of her uniform.
Damn police, she thought, wandering around like they owned the place, leaving all the doors wide open.
56
'I didn't think it would take you long to get back to me,' said Clisson grimly, looking up from a pile of paperwork when Jacquot appeared in his office, 'but I didn't anticipate a personal visit.'
'You've lost me,' said Jacquot, taking one of the two chairs set in front of the long oak table that served as Clisson's desk. Making himself comfortable, the first thing he noticed was how cool the room was. On the second floor of a building across the road from police headquarters, Clisson's office might have been on the wrong side of the street to benefit from any direct sunshine, but at least, one block back from the Metro works, the deafening rattle of jackhammers and the steady thump of piledrivers were muted here, the clouds of dust from the earth movers dispersed. Which meant that he was able to keep his windows open, shutters latched at an angle to catch the breeze.
'I left you a message,' continued Clisson, running his fingers through his wiry, ginger thatch. 'Something I thought you'd like to know. Something from Valéry.'
'Pronoprazone?'
Clisson nodded. 'And something else.'
Jacquot's favourite words again. Twice in one day. 'Yes...?'
'A splinter.'
'A splinter?'
'Valéry found a splinter. A wood splinter. In Madame de Cotigny's
Clisson cast around for the right word. For a man who'd seen more than his fair share of broken and abused bodies and recorded the full horror of human violence, Clisson was often surprisingly fastidious when it came to talking about certain things.
'In Madame de Cotigny's . . . ?' prompted Jacquot.
'In her .. . vagina,' sighed Clisson.
'Jesus.' Jacquot's head reeled. He'd been thinking a splinter in her finger, her foot - something small but possibly significant, one of Valéry s little observations. Like the salt crystals in Jilly Holford's hair. But this was altogether different.
'It would appear that Madame de Cotigny was not raped. Not in the usual sense. She was . . .' Clisson paused, trying to decide how best to describe, exactly, precisely, the nature of the assault. 'She was. . . bludgeoned. According to Valéry, it looks like penetration was effected with . . . some kind of blunt wooden instrument.'
'Some kind of blunt wooden instrument?' repeated Jacquot.
Clisson spread his hands. 'It's impossible to say exactly what... a wooden handle of some description, a truncheon, a kitchen pestle . . .''And the other victims?'
Clisson nodded. 'Of course it's too late to re-examine the first two victims - we'd need an exhumation order - and Monel was in the water far too long for any positive confirmation. But it's Valéry's considered opinion that the, uh . . . this method of penetration, the nature of the assault, is certainly consistent with the, uh . . . injuries sustained by the Holford girl. And, so far as he can recall, with the other victims as well.'
'Which explains
'The lack of semen. Spermicide. Lubricant. Quite so.'
This was clearly progress but Jacquot was uncertain how far it would take them. All it did was confirm that the Waterman was a few sous short of a franc. But then, they knew that already.
'What I don't understand—' began Jacquot.
'I know, I know. How come it took
a splinter before he realised—'
'Well, you see my point. A blunt wooden instrument
'All he's prepared to say is that the condition of the victims' vaginas initially suggested intercourse, penetration, albeit of a, uh . . . of an aggressive nature. "A violent, abusive penetration" was the way he described it to me. Let's say, possibly, a man of some, uh . . . proportion. It's perfectly feasible, I'm sure you'd agree. However, it wasn't until Valéry found the splinter that he, uh . . . was able to revise that initial assumption.'
Jacquot got up from his chair.
'Thanks, Clisson. I don't know where this takes us, but it's certainly something.'
Jacquot and the Waterman Page 27