Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  Where was her mother?

  Friday Morning

  So many dead ends. She needed to understand what these documents in the lining of her bag meant. Saj and René were both working from home. Time to recruit them to help her get to the bottom of it.

  René answered on the first ring. “We’re caught up, Aimée. You’ve got meetings scheduled into the afternoon.”

  Right. She still had a business to run. Brought back to her usual world, she checked her Moleskine. Three appointments and deals to close.

  “Bon. For now, Saj handles the day to day.” She walked to the Métro, explaining to René that Saj had hit a major firewall delving into the last cargo manifest. “I told him we had too much on our plate, but now I need you to figure out what the cargo might have been.”

  “Worth a shot,” said René.

  She told him about her morning.

  “Impressive,” he said. “The halls of power work in mysterious ways. But if the DGSE has shut up shop and no one is following you anymore, could be a moot point.”

  She hadn’t thought about that. “You mean the operation’s . . . ?”

  “Bungled, cancelled, or done and dusted, Aimée. The DGSE got Hlili, right?”

  She paused before the Métro, rooted in her bag for her pass. “I did my part of the deal and found Hlili. Now they’ve gone silent. Nothing explains where my mother is.”

  Or whether she was even alive. Had someone gotten to her after she’d left that message for Aimée?

  She took a deep breath. “René, I have to know what those docs mean, or meant. Delorme, the power broker at the African secretariat, is interested in them. The DGSE claimed they wanted GBH to influence the coup d’etat without their fingerprints on it. And then there’s the Crocodile, identity still unknown, who was willing to kill for these documents.” She took a few steps down into the Métro. Stopped. An island in the crowd, an endless stream jostling around her. “I can’t rule out that GBH and the DGSE were colluding on something. What if my ‘mission’ was a cover?”

  “Let me ask my source at Air France.”

  Since when did René have a source at Air France? “While you’re at it, can you check out these diplomatic plates?” She gave him the number. “I’m heading to the Prosper meetings right now,” she said, consulting her notebook. “Fax the agenda ahead, okay? I need to impress them.”

  “Done. By the way, Marc from Securadex left several messages for you. I don’t trust him.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Pause. “I think he likes you.”

  Doubtful. What he liked was to come out on top. “What’s he proposing now?”

  “Dinner.”

  She smiled. “Tell him I’ll be in touch.”

  Three meetings back to back. One thankfully over a baguette dripping with melted cheese—a casse-croûte that René called the workers’ fast food. Three contracts signed. Success. But a hollow feeling dogged her as she headed toward the Métro.

  Morbier owed her information—and an explanation. Why hadn’t he answered her calls? As she took out her phone, about to call him again, it rang in her hand.

  An unknown number. The DGSE?

  She debated. Answered.

  “Mademoiselle Leduc?” A woman’s voice. She pronounced the word “mademwazelle,” with a flat intonation. Hard to tell the accent, but it wasn’t French.

  “Who’s this?”

  “You see the café in the square? I’m on the terrace at the back table. Let’s meet.”

  Aimée froze. How foolish to have assumed she’d escaped surveillance. “Why?”

  “About Séverine Lafont.”

  Sydney.

  Friday, 2 p.m.

  Aimée sipped a double espresso next to a woman one would have never noticed in a crowd. She was mouselike in a brown wool coat, matching Monoprix scarf, and worn tan boots. As she introduced herself, Aimée understood why.

  “I’m part of the liaison team at the American embassy,” the woman said.

  CIA. And a horrific American accent with barely passable grammar.

  “You have a name?” Aimée asked.

  “Nancie Clare.”

  “Nice alias.” Aimée didn’t wait for a reply. “Why track me, Nancie?”

  “Nancie’s my real name. I’m from Ohio.”

  Aimée glanced at her Tintin watch. Reached for her bag. “I don’t have time for someone who’s not being straight with me.”

  “I’m telling the truth. Besides liaising for the embassy, my job includes other, more specific responsibilities.”

  “Like following me?”

  Nancie Clare looked around. “I haven’t been the only one.”

  “Still?”

  A small shake of the head, which made the tip of her thin brown ponytail quiver. “I’m sorry. But this year’s Prosper conference list showed you’d be attending a seminar.” She gestured to the Haussmann building across the square. “It’s right on the website. So I took advantage.”

  Great. This trained spy had found Aimée with a simple Internet search. She had to remind René to stop posting her name on those seminar lists.

  “You seem young for this job,” Aimée said, balling up her sugar wrapper.

  “I’m thirty-two, but I look about twenty-four right?” she said, matter-of-fact. “A student type. It’s why I’m assigned these kinds of jobs.”

  Did she mean surveillance and tracking targets? She certainly blended in.

  “Fascinating,” Aimée said. “But what does that have to do with Sévérine Lafont?”

  “Lafont is an occasional field agent for us,” Nancie Clare said, drinking her mint tea. “She recently reached out.”

  Aimée almost choked on her espresso. Somehow managed to swallow. Attempted a bored look. “Et alors?”

  “Lafont requested funds authorization to procure an asset. After approval, with the bank deposit processed, she went dark.”

  “What’s it to me?”

  “Séverine Lafont’s in the French medical system. She receives mail at your place of business.”

  Was that all they knew? She doubted it. She’d gone from military intelligence to the African secretariat and now was talking to the CIA—all in a day. But feeding the CIA tidbits did seem like her mother’s style. Maybe this meant Sydney wasn’t the big player she’d allowed Aimée to believe she was. Just did the occasional job to keep her hand in and stay safe.

  Was the new Portuguese concierge in on this, too?

  “You said this Séverine Lafont’s an occasional field agent,” Aimée said. “What does that mean? A freelancer?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “That I need to contact her. I’d like your help. Do you know how to reach her?”

  Aimée could play this game, too. She’d stay as close to the truth as possible. Keep it simple.

  “I wish I did.” True. “Yesterday was the first I heard about this, when I picked up mail addressed to her from my building concierge. It bothered me.” Also true. “There’s a scam using legal addresses to obtain false residence permits, so I worried.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Never met a Séverine Lafont.” True, under that name. “Don’t know why she’d use my work address.” Aimée downed the rest of her espresso. “You could have just telephoned the office. Way easier than tracking me.”

  “But we’re not the only ones interested in her, or in your connection to her.”

  “You’re mistaken about a connection. Whatever fraud this woman’s perpetrating—”

  “It’s not fraud. It’s saving someone’s life.”

  But Genelle was dead.

  “What do you mean?” Aimée asked.

  Nancie took a Chap Stick from her bag. Ran it over her lips. Clear. Too ba
d, this woman needed some color. “We can only operate assuming Lafont’s at risk,” she said. “Or . . . that it’s too late.”

  Fear sparked up and snaked through Aimée’s veins. “What can I do?”

  For the first time, Nancie smiled. “Check your mail; keep your eyes open.” She slid a card across the café table. Stood. “Keep in touch.”

  Couldn’t these spooks be a little more original? At least with their wording?

  Queasiness rose in Aimée’s stomach as Nancie Clare evaporated into the crowd entering the Métro. Aimée ordered a Badoit. Sat back, closing her eyes. She pictured herself lying in her darkened bedroom, Chloé’s gurgles coming from the salon, where Sydney Leduc delighted her granddaughter with finger puppets. Melac cooking in the kitchen. That sliver of a dream of what it might be like—to be a family.

  Aimée thought of her grandfather, who had spent so much time with her when she was a child. If only he were there beside her, in that café. In her head, she heard his voice on his lecture tapes. The man had written the damn undercover manual they all quoted from. He’d worked with the old African hand, Delorme, the diplomatic fixer. What would her grandfather tell her to do?

  By the time she’d drunk her Badoit and paid, and her stomach had settled, she’d figured it out.

  Friday, 3 p.m.

  She reached Yvon Triquet’s mother on the sixth attempt as she ticked her way through the Triquets listed in les pages blanches.

  “Yvon, mais oui, my son’s at his atelier. Not here. Do you need his number?”

  “So kind of you,” she said, writing down Madame Triquet’s address instead. “Excuse my call.”

  Aimée hung up before the woman could ask why she hadn’t looked the number up herself in the phone book.

  She caught the number 29 bus toward Saint-Mandé. En route she got a call from Martine, who’d taken over for Babette. “Chloé’s une petite ange. Out like a light after the park.” Aimée heard the flick of a lighter. An inhale. “So what happened with the military?”

  “He referred me to Delorme at le secrétariat de l’Afrique.”

  “Delorme, de Gaulle’s former right hand—that old spider?”

  Aimée gave her the play by play.

  “I’m impressed. Branches of two ministries and approached by a foreign intelligence service, and it’s what? Not even apéro hour.”

  And she’d signed three contracts.

  “It’s serious, Martine,” she said, trying to keep the irritation from her voice. “The DGSE, or whoever they were, pulled up stakes. It’s like they never existed.”

  “Deep ops, Aimée.”

  “Sounds like a movie.”

  “The dark layer. Unofficial. The ones who do wet work.”

  “Great. That makes me feel better.” Aimée clutched the rail as the bus juddered to a stop. “Please ask your friend on the Afrique desk about anything going on on the Côte d’Ivoire border with Liberia.”

  “If you’ll come for dinner with Gianni’s cousin tomorrow. And bring prosecco.”

  Martine, the eternal matchmaker.

  Aimée hadn’t heard a peep from Benoît since their recent sleepover.

  “I’ll get back to you, Martine. Talk to your contact.”

  Getting off the jerky bus, she walked under the old metal bridge of the Petite Ceinture. The rails had been abandoned to weeds, graffiti artists, and the occasional vegetable garden. Up a sloping side street stood Villa du Bel-Air, a curious cobbled lane overlooking the neglected line. A plaque, circa 1895, proclaimed these were residences for young ladies.

  Madame Triquet’s half-timbered, Norman-style house was on the corner of Sentier des Merisiers and, tall with pointy gables, could have come out of a medieval fairy tale. Aimée’s shoulders brushed the passage walls on both sides. This had to be the narrowest path in the city, a remnant of Saint-Mandé village before Paris had swallowed most of it.

  Snapping sounds, the crackle of a fire, and the smell of burning leaves came from the open door in the wall of number 18.

  “Bonjour, Madame Triquet?”

  A lithe woman raked crinkling cinnamon leaves into piles in a large walled garden. She wore a pink-and-red wool cap, blue rubber boots, and a fleece vest. A cell phone on an embroidered lanyard thumped on her chest. Her cheeks were flushed, and she gave Aimée an inquisitive look.

  “You can leave the package on the doorstep,” Madame Triquet said. “I’ll sign . . .”

  She thought Aimée was there to deliver something. Should she go along with it?

  Too late—Madame Triquet had noticed Aimée had nothing in her arms. “Who are you?”

  She wondered that, too, sometimes.

  “I believe you know Séverine Lafont,” Aimée said.

  It was a shot in the dark. Yet Yvon Triquet had pointed out Aimée’s resemblance to Lafont, a friend of his mother. Now, with the CIA on her heels, Aimée was even more afraid of what danger her mother was in.

  If she was even still alive.

  “I might.” Madame Triquet scooped up an armful of leaves and dumped them on an already burning pile. A whoosh and crackling as licks of flames shot up. “Didn’t you call looking for my son, Yvon?”

  Aimée nodded. Of course—the woman recognized her voice. “Desolée, but I needed to speak with you in person.”

  “So speak.” Madame Triquet continued raking leaves.

  “It’s important, madame. In private, please.”

  Madame Triquet gathered up another pile of leaves and tossed them on the fire. Wiped off her hands. “We’ll talk inside.”

  The decor inside the medieval fairy house didn’t disappoint. The dark wood paneling was hung with carved statues, gourd bowls, paintings showing different views of the port at Abidjan. There were African rugs and colorful throw blankets everywhere. Madame Triquet shook her long, frizzy but lustrous grey-flecked hair free from her cap. A middle-aged hippie in her own commune.

  She sat down cross-legged on a woven sisal mat. Indicated for Aimée to do the same. She was makeup-free, with clear hazel eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a ruddy complexion—a striking older woman comfortable with herself. Not the type to worry about expression lines or crow’s-feet.

  “How do you know Séverine?” Aimée asked.

  “Guests first,” she said.

  Aimée took a breath. “She’s my . . . We’re related.”

  “Funny, she never talked about any family.”

  That stung. “Yvon said I looked like a friend of yours, so I thought . . .”

  “Turn your head.” Aimée did. “Now to the light.” Madame Triquet nodded. “I see a resemblance.”

  “She’s disappeared. I think she’s in danger.”

  “Your hands, the way you clench your knuckles—it so reminds me of her.”

  Startled, Aimée looked at her knuckles. White with nerves.

  “When did you last see her?” Aimée asked.

  “Ah, a few weeks ago, maybe? I’ve known Séverine since Abidjan.” Madame Triquet stood and contemplated a picture on the wall. Took it down and showed Aimée—Sydney, six or seven years younger, looked back.

  Aimée sucked in a sharp breath. “How did you two meet?”

  Madame Triquet sighed. Sat back down. “Years ago, when Yvon was in school here, my husband worked in training overseas managerial staff at EDF. We lived near Place de la Nation, a wonderful place not far from here. This was my parents’ house. Anyway, my husband took a post in Côte d’Ivoire. I loved it there. Still do. We met at a friend’s birthday party. Séverine’s so committed.”

  “In what way?”

  “She joined our foundation for educating children working on the cacao plantations . . . made it a priority. She worked in export, traveled all the time, but still found time to raise funds for the foundation. Then our post ended, and we returned.” Another sigh. “Yv
on had been accepted into an art restoration program here and left Abidjan much earlier. My daughter has missed all the good friends she made. They still come to visit.”

  Madame Triquet paused, as if tiredness had caught up with her. Her eyes wandered.

  “You were saying . . .” Aimée prodded.

  “My husband passed two years ago, and I moved here. Thank God Yvon found his path, learned his métier. I couldn’t be happier for him. Now, Florence, his wife—maintenant, dealing with her is another bowl of pistou, as they say.”

  Aimée had no trouble imagining that.

  “Getting back to Séverine . . .” she said.

  “Recently, we reconnected in Paris. Exhibitions, walks, you know. She came for lunch. That was the day Germaine, my daughter’s best friend, was visiting, too. Such a talented girl.”

  “GermaineTillion?”

  “You know everyone, it seems.” Madame Triquet pulled out an album and flipped to a picture of her daughter and Germaine, laughing on a beach of endless white sand.

  Go on, Aimée wanted to say, excited to hear the story. But she stopped herself. The woman must not have heard the news.

  “Germaine was in a state. Fired up about something, but scared.”

  Aimée leaned forward. “How do you mean?”

  “She’s gotten political. I’ve never seen her like that. She played tapes of her friend Gérard’s speeches. I remembered him from their student days, and now he’s leading a peaceful change movement in Côte d’Ivoire.”

  “You remembered him from when your husband trained the EDF managerial staff here?”

  “Maybe so,” she said, thinking. Seemed confused for a moment. “But he would have been much younger, non? Anyway, he’s full of passion, one who can lead the young, the old; speak to the uneducated and the elite . . . He’s got a gift. Germaine’s convinced his party will win.”

  A price placed on his head by rivals? Was that why suspicion had gotten the better of him the night before? Aimée kept her thoughts about him to herself.

  “What did Germaine want to do?” Aimée asked.

  “Germaine kept saying it wasn’t safe; she didn’t want to put us in danger. Séverine offered to help her.”