Jacquot and the Waterman

by Martin O'Brien

'My pleasure. Any time. We're here to help.'

  'And on this one we're going to need all the help we can get,' continued Jacquot, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his ID card. "Which reminds me . . .'

  'Yes?' said Clisson, looking at Jacquot suspiciously.

  'The reason I came by,' said Jacquot, holding the card between his fingers as he laid it on Clisson's desk. 'A favour.'

  Clisson peered at the card.

  'I'm looking for a match. Vicki Monel's apartment.'

  'But it's Friday afternoon,' replied Clisson.

  'I appreciate it,' said Jacquot.

  57

  If Jacquot was quietly pleased with developments - Raissac's slip of the tongue, getting his fingerprints on the ID card, the confirmation of pronoprazone in the latest victim's blood and Valéry's discovery of a splinter, for whatever that was worth - there was even better news waiting for him when he got back to police HQ from Clisson's office.

  The atmosphere in the squad room was electric, a bustle of restrained excitement behind the frosted-glass partitions. He could feel it the moment he stepped through the door.

  'We got a match from the flat on Cours Lieutaud,' said Peluze, getting up from his desk and following Jacquot into his office.

  'Whose?' asked Jacquot, pulling off his jacket and slumping behind his desk.

  Peluze gave him a grin. 'Our friend Carnot. Everywhere - handles, shelves, sink, loo flusher - you name it.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Charlie called to say he's checked out Sardé's place. Walk-up in Bailie. A pit, by the sound of it. But sure looks like he's a peeker. Got an expensive photo habit - Nikon camera, telephoto lens, darkroom. And lots of pictures, mostly naked women at home. Swimming pools, bedroom windows. Long-lens stuff. But he hasn't changed his story. He was staking her out and got disturbed. And Charlie believes him.'

  'So do I,' said Jacquot.

  'What do you want to do with him?'

  'He can go.'

  'And Carnot?'

  'Find him. Bring him in,' replied Jacquot.

  Peluze nodded and turned back to the squad room. As he closed the door behind him, Jacquot's phone rang. It was Gastal.

  'I'm in the apartment. Real little love nest.'

  'Tell me.'

  'Top floor on Paradis. The usual layout. Just a small place with the one bedroom. Under the roof. But nicely done. Music, a few books, magazines. But no address book, diary, correspondence. Some clothes, bedlinen, towels and that's it.'

  'Neighbours?'

  'There's three other flats in the building and a pharmacie on the ground floor. Old woman on the second floor, right below, says she sees her now and again, but said she doesn't live there full-time. Didn't know her name.'

  'Callers?''She says she sometimes hears voices from the apartment, steps on the stairs, that kind of thing. But she's never seen anyone. Not her business, she says.' 'She say how long Madame de Cotigny's been there?'

  'Couple of years. Said she couldn't remember for certain.'

  'Any news on the gym? The Renault?'

  'I've got some names. Thought I'd sit here and chase them up.'

  'Call me when you've got something.'

  Jacquot put down the phone. Then picked it up again, and tapped out the harbour master's number.

  There was something on his mind, something he wanted to follow up - maybe another piece in the jigsaw, maybe not - and Salette was the man to help him. After the usual pleasantries, he got to the point.

  58

  Salette had always kept an eye out for Daniel Jacquot, always ready to help. But last thing Friday afternoon and on his way out of the office? That was asking too much, surely? Yet the old harbour master did what Jacquot asked, settling back at his computer keyboard, accessing the information that his godson had requested.

  Jean-Marie Salette had known the Jacquot family way back, long before it was a family. Long before Daniel arrived on the scene, or his mother for that matter.

  Vincent had been first. Daniel's father. Built like a real gorille but with a heart made of butter and a voice like an angel. A real crooner. Should have gone professional was Salette's opinion; he could have made it. Really. Trenet, Rossi, Gabin, he could sing them off the stage any day. In his striped sailor shirt and white ducks, moving round the tables at the old Bateau Bleu off Canebiere, you'd see the girls twitch when he reached deep for 'Chagrin d'Amour', or knelt at their tables for 'Romance de Paris' or 'O Corse, Ile d'Amour'. But you suggested it, and he just smiled that smile of his and shrugged. 'For what?' he'd say. 'I got everything I need right here.'

  And it was true. For six years, from the day he arrived on the mainland, Vincent played the Vieux Port for all it was worth. The girls who fought over him, you just wouldn't believe. A real one for the ladies. That dark Corsican complexion, the fall of hair, the green eyes and that big, beautiful smile of his. Scores wept themselves to sleep when Vincent Jacquot moved on to pastures new.

  Then, out of the blue, this girl turns up. Out of nowhere, living some place over in L'Estaque. Wants to be a painter, Vincent says. Marie-Anne Something, from out of town. A lady - you only had to look at her. Expensive schools. Good family. And that's Vincent - fini. Four months later they're married and Daniel's on the way.

  Salette had his own boat back then and Vincent, fresh off the island, had signed up as crew, and stayed that way till the end. A good worker and knew the water like he knew the streets of Le Panier, where he and Daniel's mother shacked up together. Top floor, Moulins, next house along from Foraque, the cobbler, where Dan lived right now, above the old shop. Done it up, of course. Different. But the Widow Foraque was still there. Keeping an eye on him, too.

  Just like they'd always done, she and Salette and a few others, since the time it all went wrong. First there's Vincent out on the boat and some freak summer storm catches them, the only day Salette ever missed. Never came home. Then it's the bomb. Blows the mother to Kingdom Come. Both parents gone in as many months, with the boy Daniel just in his teens, starting to run a bit wild but a good lad. Sharp like his father, tough and determined; but gentle too, like his mother. And suddenly left on his own, bundled off to the orphanage at Borel as quick as that. Gone, never a word. According to the authorities, the boy's grandfather turned up and took him on. Out Avignon way. Aix-en-Provence, wasn't it? A new life. A better life. But Marseilles was in the boy's blood, sure enough, and it wasn't long before he was back where he belonged.

  Just look at him now, thought Salette, printing out the information he'd been asked for, then closing down the computer with a sigh of pleasure. A cop. Who'd have thought it? But, of course, being a Jacquot he'd turned out the best flic on the beat.

  As promised, Salette reached for the phone and put a call through to police headquarters. While the number connected, he pulled off his glasses and sorted through the printout, humming those old songs.

  When Jacquot answered he didn't waste any time.

  59

  'Putting an old man to work like that. And at six o'clock on a Friday evening, too.'

  Jacquot listened to the patter. It was Salette reporting back.

  'So you want to hear it?' came the harbour master's voice, gruff and put-upon.

  'That would be a help,' replied Jacquot. 'If you've still got the energy.' On the other end of the line, he heard the rustling of paper and the old man clearing his throat.

  'Basquet Maritime's fleet consists of six ships,' began Salette. 'Mostly transatlantic, West Africa coast, all good routes and profitable if the passage is fast. . . Current status. One in port for refit. Three en route for Venezuela and two coming home.'

  'And they are?' asked Jacquot. 'The ones coming home?'

  'Balon, just left Cape Town, should be back by the end of the month,' replied Salette.

  'And the other?' 'Vessel called Aurore. Out of Venezuela. Bound for Accra and home. Expected this weekend.'

  'What's she carrying?'

  Jacquot could hear Salette leafin
g through his notes. At last the place was found, the voice came through. 'Mixed cargo of rubber, kaolin and sugar cane from its three South American ports of call. Offloaded the sugar in Accra and took on timber, cocoa and groundnuts.'

  'Whose cargo?' asked Jacquot.

  'Half a dozen importers,' replied Salette. 'Basquet Maritime's just the shipper.'

  'Names?'

  Salette read through the list.

  'Thanks,' said Jacquot, and before Salette had a chance to make further complaints at such inhuman treatment on a Friday evening, he'd hung up. Which was when Chevin swung into the room.

  'You'll never b-b-believe it.'

  'What?' said Jacquot.

  'Luc just called in. De Cotigny. He's shot himself.'

  'You're kidding me.'

  'Not me, boss. And he left a n-n-note.'

  It was a replay of the morning save for the position of the bodies. Madame de Cotigny propped up in an inflatable chair in the swimming pool. Her husband flung back by the force of a single bullet, awkwardly folded between his upturned chair and the bookshelves behind his desk, his eyes wide, as though surprised at seeing his knees so close. The gun he'd used lay beside him on the floor, the burn-ringed hole the bullet had made an inch below his hairline no bigger than an old, dark sou. Luc Dutoit had been waiting for Jacquot on the steps of the house and led him through to the study. Dutoit lived out past Prado and was on his way home, he told Jacquot, when he heard the emergency call go through Dispatch. He'd recognised the address and got there within minutes.

  The maid, Hortense Lagarde, said she heard the shot, thought it was a door slamming, so came upstairs,' reported Dutoit, nodding towards the sound of her wailing in the kitchen.

  'Was this how she found him?' asked Jacquot, squatting down beside the body.

  'Exactly. Nothing's been moved,' replied Dutoit, perching on the edge of the desk.

  'And the note?' asked Jacquot, getting to his feet.

  'There, boss. On the desk.'

  Jacquot turned and reached for it, a single sheet of thick cream vellum lying between an empty brandy glass and a half-smoked Cohiba resting in a crystal ashtray. Two lines. Signed and dated. A spatter of blood was traced across it like a flick of red ink but the words were easily legible.

  In case you were wondering, the note read, I did not kill my wife.

  Jacquot replaced the note and looked round. On a shelf behind the desk, the lights of a CD player glittered a luminous green. Jacquot leaned across the body and pushed the play button. Seconds later a Baroque adagio rose mournfully from a pair of speakers set among the books on a higher shelf.

  Jacquot and Dutoit looked at each other. The cognac, the cigar, the music - it wasn't difficult to imagine the scene that had played out here an hour earlier.

  'It looks like he didn't want her to see,' said Dutoit, drawing Jacquot's attention to half a dozen silver-framed photos around the room - on the desk, on the bookshelves, on a small occasional table behind the door - all of them laid face down.

  Jacquot picked up the nearest, a black and white snap of de Cotignys wife leaning on ski poles, a line of peaks behind her, then put it back as he had found it.

  'Thanks, Luc. I'd say we're done here.'

  'You want me to hang around? Till the medics get here?'

  Jacquot cocked an ear, shook his head. 'Sounds like they've just arrived.'

  On his way back to town, Jacquot phoned Peluze to see how they were getting on with Carnot, whether they'd brought him in, whether he should call by?

  'Nothing yet,' reported Peluze. 'He's not at his apartment so we're checking known haunts. I'll call as soon as we've got him.'

  Jacquot hung up but seconds later his mobile bleeped again.

  It was Jouannay, working late.

  The print you gave Clisson? On your ID card?' Clisson's assistant began.

  'Yes. And? Any matches with the apartment on Cours Lieutaud?'

  'Not a thing,' replied Jouannay. 'Matched against thirty- seven retrieves but not a glimmer. Either the guy wore gloves or he was never there.'

  'Thanks,' said Jacquot, running a light and turning for home.

  It was time for something to eat and an early night.

  60

  Despite his jet lag - and his general weariness after three months' courtroom duty in Palm Beach - Max Benedict had not been idle. In the last two days at La Ferme Magny he'd unpacked more than a dozen cases - paintings, rugs, linen, his books - filled the kitchen cupboards with china and the fridge with supplies from the shops in nearby Rocsabin and St Bédard-le-Chapitre, stocked the wine racks in the cellar beneath his terrace and, that very afternoon, bought himself a flat-screen TV and Sony hi-fi at a warehouse on the outskirts of Cavaillon. It was only when he returned home that he discovered, with a jolt of irritation, that neither the TV nor the hi-fi came with plugs. Which had meant another trip to Rocsabin. Finally he managed to get them connected. But since he had no idea which packing case contained his collection of CDs, he tuned the radio for a classics station, poured himself a glass of champagne and settled himself on the terrace to watch the sun slide behind the distant slopes.

  Twenty minutes later, at the end of one of his favourite

  arias, eyes closed, Benedict's peace was interrupted by the babble of a news bulletin. The usual things - war, famine, corporate greed, political wrangling. Benedict let it all wash over him, unwilling to get up from his lounger and find another station, knowing that the music would start again soon enough.

  But then the newscasters voice dipped in a way that caught Benedict's attention. Some final piece of significant news had yet to be imparted. Something domestic. Something that mattered. A double tragedy was the handle here, a murder and suicide in Marseilles.

  And then, something that made Benedict frown - a name he recognised. But before he could properly access the information, the bulletin was over and the music began again.

  Benedict hauled himself from the lounger, walked through to the salon and switched on the TV. Longer than the radio bulletin, the TV news was still going over the latest peace accords in the Middle East. Benedict went through to the kitchen, refilled his glass, then returned to the salon.

  When the story came, it occupied Benedict's full attention, the pictures flitting across the screen. When it finished, tiredness and the last of his jet lag suddenly kicked in and he felt drained. He turned off the TV and radio, closed the terrace doors and went up to bed, the sheets crisp, cool and welcoming.

  At three o'clock the next morning, nine in the evening New York time, Benedict sat up in his bed, reached for the phone and punched in a number.

  When the connection was made, he got straight to the point.

  'Tina? It's Max. Listen …'

  61

  T

  ense. Relax.

  T

  ense. Relax. Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven . . . . . . ninety-eight. . . . . . ninety-nine . . . Three thousand.

  Coupchoux let his fingers ease off the steering wheel, felt the muscles in his arms sing. A gentle, pleasurable ache. A curious weightlessness to his arms as he let go the wheel and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. He clenched his hands into fists, felt the whitened fingers creak, the blood flow. He straightened his back and flexed his shoulders, stretching the tightness away.

  Three thousand. Not bad. He wondered what he should do next: calves, diaphragm or lower back? He had a dozen or more exercises he could do behind the wheel of a car to keep himself occupied - and fit. But Coupchoux also knew that he had to be careful. One time, he'd done too many reps on his upper thighs and when he got out of the car he'd nearly crumpled to the sidewalk. It must have looked funny to anyone passing by, his stumbling around like that, but it made him cross. He'd left it too late to loosen up, and he'd nearly got the hit wrong. It was like he was using someone else's body, his reactions a couple of beats behind his brain. It had been a close call and no mistake.

  Lifting his watch to the light, Coup
choux checked the time. Eleven-twenty. He'd been sitting there an hour now, in a line of parked cars along Tamasin. He'd wait another hour if he had to. And an hour after that. However long it took. Raissac had made it clear that the job had to be done tonight, and Coupchoux knew well enough not to disappoint his boss.

  Fifty metres ahead, on the other side of the road, was the back entrance to Restaurant Molineux, an arched opening between a travel agent and a patisserie, a block of shadow between the lit shop windows. Raissac's fixer, Carnot, had shown him the place Wednesday evening. They'd sat there a half-hour, watched three of the staff come out onto the street, when Carnot nudged him and nodded forward.