Murder on the Left Bank

by Cara Black

  No time for that now. She had a notebook to find.

  “Merci, Demy.”

  She took the Miss Tyk print off the faded wallpaper, which tore. She rolled up the print. Time to track down the original.

  Dressed in a black wig, glasses, and a crisp nurse’s uniform, complete with white cap, she knocked on the front door.

  “Entrez. It’s open.”

  Careless again.

  Morbier looked up from his wheelchair in the kitchen, motioned toward the ceiling with a disgusted expression. Warning her the house was bugged.

  “It’s time for some outdoor therapy, monsieur.”

  She released the wheelchair’s brakes and rolled him over the stylish hardwood. She handed him a pair of sunglasses and a cloth cap, then pushed him out of the house.

  “Talk about gaining weight, Morbier,” she muttered in his ear.

  “Kidnapping me, Leduc?”

  She was huffing and puffing. Pushing him up the hill was harder work than she had expected. “Your phone’s bugged.”

  Morbier nodded. “My house, too. Where’s Chloé?”

  “Remember telegrams? Melac sent me one this morning. They arrived, but I don’t know where.”

  He put his hand up to ward off questions. “It’s better you don’t know.”

  Better she didn’t know? She bit back a reply.

  “Who’s the Hand’s fixer?”

  “I would have taken care of him if I knew . . .” He left the rest unsaid.

  “Mais alors, you mean he’s a hired assassin,” she said, taking a guess. “Is someone using the dead petty thief Charles Siganne’s persona?”

  “That urban myth?”

  “Dandin, the retired flic with big ears, mentioned someone’s son.”

  “Dandin got snuffed out last night.”

  “I know. Those were his last words.”

  Morbier expelled air. “How in God’s name did you get involved?”

  “I’ll get uninvolved when I find this damn notebook.”

  Morbier scanned the street. Pointed to a corner in the shade of a plane tree. She pushed him under the dappled shadow and set the brake.

  “As a flic, I learned to leave something alone if word came down, keep certain things to myself.”

  Aimée scratched her neck. Wished she’d worn a different black wig. “Why does this sound like the beginning of an excuse?”

  “Leduc, it’s like any job. You have to know whom to trust.”

  “Don’t flics trust each other, have each other’s backs?”

  “You trust your partner. That’s a bond for life. Alors, like any place, it can be a minefield if you don’t know who wields power, who gets things done for you . . .”

  “Politics,” she said, pulled out a Gauloise from Martin’s pack and toyed with it. If ever she needed a smoke it was now. “What are you trying to say, Morbier?”

  “Your papa and I were told to turn a blind eye, ignore a report, put a suspect on the X list to use or turn them later. We weren’t the only ones—the ambitious ones made it up the ladder, got the promotion. You couldn’t ever really leave.”

  She didn’t want to hear this. “Papa tried.” It sounded feeble even to her.

  Morbier’s eyes were distant. Somewhere else. “Your father had one last job; he’d told them that was it. They weren’t going to let him leave. I couldn’t stop them from doing what they did. I was too late. That’s why I couldn’t face you for a long time.”

  Could she believe him?

  “In the past ten years, the Hand’s gone deep, spawned a new generation. They assumed this ancient history got destroyed.”

  Aimée released the hand brake. “I gathered that. Politicians, judges, all the people who’ve had dealings with them, taken bribes, pushed legislation their way—they don’t want it coming out.”

  “An octogenarian’s scribbled notes won’t bring them down.”

  From the get-go, he’d wanted her to give this up. Afraid of what she’d discover about him? Or did he think that even if she found the damn thing it wouldn’t make any difference? Right then she didn’t care. She needed his help.

  “Funny, last night Chopard attempted to hire me to find it.”

  “That old bastard?” She could count on one hand how many times she’d seen Morbier surprised. This was one of them.

  “Chopard suggested Sydney, my own mother, had taken Chloé as a hostage until I complied.”

  “Sydney’s not in his pocket, Leduc.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe that bastard’s still alive.”

  “He was until this morning,” she said. “The notebook bothered the Hand enough that they tortured a teenage boy to death to get it and then killed his girlfriend when she had no information. Then they made an abduction attempt on Chloé.” She handed him the print. “Unroll it. We’re looking for the original somewhere on rue des Cinq Diamants.”

  “So we’re on an art walk to look at the same graffiti I used to nail kids for spraying on the walls?”

  “C’est ça.”

  “Why? How will this connect to the notebook?”

  “Go with the program, Morbier. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  En route, puffing up the rue du Moulin des Prés, which stretched down to la Petite Ceinture, she caught him up on her meeting with the vampire Chopard.

  “But you knew Chopard, non?” she said.

  “By reputation. Met him once; that was enough.”

  She breathed hard as she pushed the wheelchair up the steep cobbled streets of the quartier of Butte-aux-Cailles, where street art decorated walls, nooks, and unsuspecting crannies. On the low wall opposite the hotel, she saw it—the Miss Tyk graffiti of a busty Parisienne, a life-sized spray-painted figure surrounded by hanging plants. The ingenious artwork even incorporated the ventilation grate.

  She remembered seeing this from the hotel room where Marcus had died.

  “Et alors, now what?” Morbier asked.

  “Imagine you’re eighteen years old and your girlfriend is waiting under the duvet in that hotel room.” She pointed at the hotel on Cinq Diamants. “You want to get under that duvet, but first you’ve got a hot potato to hide.” She realized they weren’t alone—a dark-complected bearded man was standing at the corner, an orange scarf knotted around his neck. “There’s a mec watching us.”

  To her surprise, Morbier waved. “Ahmed, you lying raccoon, you said you’d visit me.”

  One of Morbier’s old friends or informants?

  “As Allah is my witness, I tried, but your battle-ax of a nurse shooed me away.” Ahmed smiled. “Who is this beautiful mademoiselle?”

  “Got any mint tea on the boil?” Morbier asked.

  “Bien sûr,” he said.

  A moment later they were in the back of Ahmed’s small shop by a heater with an enamel pot of water boiling on top.

  “You like my sister-in-law’s manicure?” said Ahmed, pointing to Aimée’s lacquered nails.

  Aimée blinked.

  He laughed at her expression as he poured mint tea into tiny gold filigree glasses. “In our quartier, everyone knows everything. We watch out for each other. Help our neighbors.”

  Then maybe he could help with Miss Tyk.

  “Ahmed’s grandfather ran this shop and the hotel before the war,” said Morbier, growing voluble over the sweet mint tea. “The family still does.” He turned to Ahmed. “He’s still working, your grand-père?”

  “Retired like you.”

  “Types like us never retire; we just fade away.”

  Fat chance.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Ahmed.

  “A hiding place close to Miss Tyk,” Aimée said. “Somewhere you could stash something on the fly.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? But we’ll need a screwdriver.”


  Aimée pulled a miniscrewdriver from her Swiss Army knife.

  “Who carries a screwdriver besides a handyman?”

  “Moi.”

  Morbier watched the street as Aimée and Ahmed crossed to the graffitied wall. Aimée unscrewed the metal grate covering the stilettos on Miss Tyk’s creation. Searched inside the small duct space.

  Nothing.

  “Do you know specifically what you are seeking?” asked Ahmed.

  Aimée shook her head. “Not exactly. A notebook, a sheaf of papers, a journal. Something that would fit in a backpack easily.”

  “Ah, if that’s what you’re looking for . . .” He reached up and felt behind a rectangular planter. Nothing.

  He motioned for the screwdriver and started unscrewing a plaque next to the planter . . . which fell off onto the pavement. He reached inside and pulled.

  Handed her a plastic Monoprix bag containing a notebook bound up with twine.

  Friday Morning

  Two figures stood in the bronze morning light in front of the mausoleum in Cimetière de Gentilly. Their conversation was nearly inaudible over the constant traffic from the Périphérique, the highway ringing Paris built on the site of the nineteenth-century defensive wall.

  The tall man held yellow chrysanthemums, the de rigueur bouquet for the dead. A depressing place, Éric thought, desolate, abandoned houses of the dead, the stones weathered and worn. Here and there, a tomb displayed a photo on enamel, a face long forgotten and the grave unkempt. The bust of the famous Zouave soldier glowed dully from atop his grave.

  Desolate, Éric thought, but peaceful, apart from the hideous, never-ending traffic. Downhill the eyesore high-rises poked up from near Place d’Italie. The land in between was scarred by derelict warehouses, manufacturers, and rail yards spreading from Gare d’Austerlitz. A no-go zone until the recent renovation projects.

  “You know what to do,” said the man holding the flowers. “You need to shut her up.”

  “Too late,” said Éric. “Everything’s spun out of control. You were supposed to scare Marcus. Not hurt him. Not kill him.” Éric’s throat caught. If only the kid had answered his phone. Éric had called him as soon as Léo had left the office; he’d tried to tell Marcus to bring the notebook back. Telling him to deliver the notebook was only supposed to have been for show so the old man would buzz off and Éric could make the handoff.

  “You know what they say about the best-laid plans . . .”

  “You botched it with the poor girl, who knew nothing.” Pause. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m out.”

  The other man kneeled and set the chrysanthemums in front of the mausoleum. Bowed his head.

  “You say that like you have a choice. You don’t, Éric. You tried to get out of your commitments once. Didn’t work out well, did it?”

  Éric had pulled out last year, lived clean until his divorce and debts crippled him.

  “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do,” said Éric.

  The tall man stood and smiled. “Unless you’d like to stay here.”

  “I’m your attorney,” Éric said with more bravado than he felt. “You can’t threaten me.” Not in broad daylight with a hearse and funeral not far off. He wouldn’t dare.

  “I think I just did.” He brushed the chalky dirt off his knees. “Your Normandy farmhouse, the pied-à-terre in London, those expensive gaming gadgets, your ex-wife’s Yves Saint Laurent account, and her alimony,” he said. “We pay that price for your cooperation. Do you want it all to go away?”

  Éric’s shoulders tightened. “The judge in the Brussels case refused to cooperate. So I offered him what you suggested.”

  “And were persuasive, I’m sure.”

  “Alors, I told him the consequences, but . . .”

  The hearse was pulling away. The mourners were gone. Éric couldn’t stop the shaking of his hand. But he was safe. They needed him too much.

  A sigh. “Now you’re a loose end.”

  Éric stepped back. “Loose end? There’s only so much the judge can cover up within legal parameters.”

  Éric gasped when the blow came, at the sharpness tearing his insides. His eyes watered. This couldn’t be happening. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. His lung was collapsing as blood filled his chest cavity. Pain radiated up his chest; he couldn’t breathe; the gravestones before him clouded and spun.

  Once the grilled door of the mausoleum was locked again, Éric’s body inside, the fixer rearranged the chrysanthemums. Glanced at his vibrating phone. “Only one more loose end to take care of.”

  Friday, Late Morning

  Aimée perched on the wobbly stool by the old printing press in the cellar of Ahmed’s shop. Ahmed had told her that in this very cellar the Resistance had printed clandestine tracts encouraging sabotage against the Germans. Judging by the look of the press, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the story was true, but then, a lot of places grew Resistance history over the years.

  Regardless, it was an ideal location to pore over and interpret the old accountant’s notebook. No one but a few old-timers knew of the existence of the cellar, accessible only by a ramp in the shop’s backyard and with only a peach tabby the wiser.

  The twine knotted around the old-fashioned blue notebook yielded, and Aimée donned latex gloves to turn the pages. Pasted with stiff yellowed glue to the inside cover was a black-and-white photo of a group of gaunt young men in ragged French army uniforms behind barbed wire. Over a hole in the ground by the ice-frosted fence was a sign: flucht verboten; next to it, a smiling Wehrmacht Kommandant held a basket of spoons.

  She’d planned to scan each page using the portable scanner Ahmed had lent her and then, only then, read it.

  But Léo’s confession, in small, concise handwriting in blue ink, intrigued her. What debt had he owed this Pierre? How did he rationalize the lifelong promise?

  Frostbite and black toes landed me next to Pierre in the stalag’s infirmary—if you could call it that—a few cots, Red Cross blankets, and dried mud sealing the window cracks against the howling sleet. Stale bread and turnips if we were lucky. All I ever thought about was Marie, mon cœur, and, if the war ever ended, how I’d put a ring on her finger. C’est fou, when I look back, but it was my idea to dig below Pierre’s cot—to tunnel out and escape beyond the barbed wire. Eight of us dug for weeks with spoons, the only things we had. We had to be so careful. The Germans counted the spoons each night.

  This was early in 1945, and the Soviets were approaching, but we didn’t know that. I miscalculated—such an idiot. Our tunnel fell half a meter short of the fence—me, good with numbers, all my fault. The camp Kommandant knew Pierre was the stooge, demanded to know who was involved. Pierre said it was his idea, he’d put all of us up to it. Suspecting, the Kommandant chose me to make an example of—told me to run, so he could shoot me escaping, in accordance with the Geneva conventions. That’s when Pierre insisted on taking the blame. L’amour trumped everything, he said; I must survive to go home to Marie. Demanded to be shot in my place. And he would have been the next morning but for the Soviet tanks. In the morning, the Wehrmacht were gone, only us POWs in the snow.

  Pierre would have died to save me. I owed him my life. In Paris some years later, he asked me for a favor—to hide dirty money. That’s how it started. Every so often he’d re-appear, like a bad centime, and ask a favor, then another. It made me sick, but he’d remind me of the stalag, that I’d come home to my Marie because of him. So true.

  I’ve kept on paying for the rest of my life. Ma chère Marie knew nothing. She was innocent. An angel to put up with me. I felt too ashamed to tell her. I used to think Pierre changed after the war, but then I realized the war had changed him. Changed me. Changed all of us. After Pierre passed, my debt was paid. In full. Here are the records I made of the illegal transactions I and others made. I am guilty. So are these people
. I only hope it’s not too late for what I hid in guilt and shame to bring about a form of justice. I will find my justice in the next life, and I take full responsibility for all my actions. Léo Solomon

  Sad and horrific. She’d seen her grandfather’s reluctance to speak of the war and “dark times,” heard his nightmares. That generation had survived. At a cost.

  “I’ve hooked up the scanner,” said Morbier. “Ready?”

  The columned entries dated from 1950. Forty-nine years of entries. Léo Solomon’s accounting system was methodical, with entries cross-referenced by name.

  Later, she’d read and decipher this later. For now, compartmentalize. They needed to scan this whole thing and get it to la Proc.

  But this was a payment log alone. There was no documentation to back it up. No invoices, check stubs—the proof was missing. Where in God’s name was it?

  For an hour and a half, she scanned entries. In the meantime, Morbier downloaded the scanned images onto his laptop, made backups.

  Done. Finally she let herself look for her father’s name, her heart trembling, her pulse speeding. Took a deep breath. Would this prove his guilt?

  Leduc, Jean-Claude. Entries with amounts in 1974, 1978, 1981. The last entry was from November 11, 1989, the day he died in the bomb explosion in Place Vendôme. Ten thousand francs in the payee column but a zero in the recd column.

  “Voilà,” Morbier said. “I told you, Leduc. It’s only old Léo’s word, and half these people have kicked the bucket. You need tangible evidence to take anyone to court, any ordinary person, never mind ministers and police préfets.”

  Léo, the accountant, had known this. Had to have.

  Then it hit her. Of course. “Léo’s clever. It’s a two-parter.”

  “Quoi?” Morbier rolled his wheelchair over.

  “You don’t keep your PIN number and bank card together, do you?” She tied the notebook back up with the old twine. Knotted it. “The proof’s ready and waiting, Morbier.”