The First Fingerprint
Page 6
He went back into the salon, sat down for a moment on the sofa-bed, and tried to imagine Christine Autran’s last day. Had she come home before going to the creeks?
“Madame Barbier,” he said. “Could you tell me where Christine Autran parks her car?”
“In a hired garage at the beginning of rue du Progrès. It’s not far, just on the corner by the bank across the road.”
“Thank you, Madame.”
De Palma wrote down his name, work and mobile numbers on his notepad. He delicately tore off the page and handed it to her.
“Madame, if you notice anything strange, please contact me at once. It’s very important, do you understand? Do you know Christine Autran’s phone number?”
The old lady looked at the ceiling, pretending to search her memory.
“Of course. It’s 04 91 47 02 13.”
Then she repeated each number as clearly as possible, her eyes fixed on the policeman’s notepad to check that he was noting down what she was telling him correctly.
De Palma took out his mobile and dialed Christine’s number. After three rings, the answering machine cut in, and the voice of the woman discovered in Sugiton creek filled the empty flat. It was a soft, somewhat hoarse voice. A sensual voice.
“Hello, I’m not at home right now, but you can leave me a message …”
Yvonne Barbier burst into tears.
In the Garage de l’Alliance on rue du Progrès, a fine layer of dust covered Christine Autran’s flame-red Peugeot 306. Jean-Marc Menu, a nervy little character who owned the garage, walked several times round the car, waving his arms.
“She hasn’t used it for over a month. The lady owes me two months’ rent. Soon it’ll be three.”
“The lady’s dead,” de Palma told him.
“She can’t be!”
“Oh yes, she can!”
Menu wiped his oily hands on his overalls. He did not know what to do with himself. Only one thing really interested him: how to get rid of the car as quickly as possible.
“Do you have a spare set of keys, Monsieur Menu?”
“No, never! We never have spares. I never ask for them, it’s not done …”
De Palma glanced inside, using his hand as a shade against the glare of the striplights in the garage.
“Could you open this car?”
Menu looked embarrassed.
“That’s always possible. But I don’t like doing it.”
“Monsieur Menu, I am a police officer! The sooner we search the car, the sooner you’ll be rid of it.”
The owner vanished into his workshop and returned a few moments later with a metal rod.
“We use it when we put cars in the pen,” he said, to explain why he had such an implement.
Menu slid the rod between the window and the rubber of the left door of the 306, pulled hard and opened it.
De Palma inspected the interior carefully, but found nothing except for a maintenance handbook and an unopened box of tissues. The counter read 26,584 km, hardly anything for a car which must have been about four years old. De Palma also noticed a few traces of sand and dried mud on the mat below the driver’s seat, around the wheels and in the boot. It had rained hard in December. Christine must have driven down a track saturated with water. The mud was ochre, with some red pigments.
On the handle of the glove compartment and on the dashboard, he found some fingerprints which were larger than those on the steering wheel. They clearly belonged to a man.
He closed the door again carefully, by pushing on the window with the tip of his index finger.
“We’ll be round to collect it as soon as possible. Probably tomorrow. There shouldn’t be any problems. Will you be here?”
Menu nodded.
“Meanwhile, don’t touch a thing.”
“O.K.”
“The technicians might take your fingerprints … Don’t worry, it’s just to compare them in case …”
The owner asked no more questions, delighted to know that Christine Autran’s car would soon be leaving his garage.
6.
The waitress at the Why Not! was nibbling at a ham sandwich and browsing through La Provence when he arrived in the bar. A little melted butter dripped from the bread, and she discreetly licked her thumb and index finger with their blood-red nails.
“Good morning,” she said without even looking up, her mouth full of fingers.
At that time of day, the Why Not! was empty. He would have preferred there to be a few customers. They would have been something to look at while he was waiting for his appointment.
He dragged the waitress away from her newspaper by ordering a large glass of lemonade and strawberry cordial, with a straw, and went to sit at the table nearest to the window, looking out over the street. From there he would be able to watch the pupils and teachers coming out of Lycée Longchamp.
He waited.
When the waitress brought him his drink, her hips swaying to the rhythm of some cerebral soul, he asked if he could borrow her paper.
“Of course, it’s for the customers, I was just reading the small ads … I’m looking for a flat in the neighborhood. You wouldn’t know of one, by any chance?”
He did not like chatty people, especially when he was about to enjoy a lemonade and strawberry cordial, just as in the very happy days of his childhood, in memory of his father, who always bought him one after their long walks together. Chatty people disturbed his nostalgia, making him feel twitchy.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said as curtly as he could, to cut short the intrusion.
“It’s not easy to find anything around here, it’s getting more and more expensive.”
“Prices are going up in Marseille at the moment.”
She put the paper down on the table.
“It’s yesterday’s. I haven’t had time to go and get today’s yet.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The waitress walked away, waggling her ass to the same rhythm as she had on the way over.
He went straight to the local news page, at the top of which was a large headline:
BRUTAL MURDER IN THE COUNTRYSIDE AROUND AIX
AIX-EN-PROVENCE. Last Sunday, the body of a woman was found by a hunter, not far from Puyricard, on the road to Cadenet. The victim—Hélène Weill, aged 43, living in Aix—was presumably taken there to be brutally murdered with a knife. The exact circumstances of the murder are still unknown but police sources have confirmed that it must have taken place about ten days ago, just before Christmas.
The public prosecutor has entrusted the investigation to the gendarmerie …
He read the article avidly to the end, then threw the paper on to the table in fury. They had not published a photo of Hélène, and there was no mention of the hand that had been left by the body. Maybe the gendarmes had hushed up that point. Never mind. The article had obviously been copied from an Agence France-Presse dispatch.
The clock said 11:30. The pupils of Lycée Longchamp were starting to come out: from their look and the way they were pushing each other around, he assumed they must be sixteen-year-olds. He paid and went out into the street.
The goddess was demanding another sacrifice: Julia Chevallier, an English teacher at Lycée Longchamp. He stood outside the gates, among some parents who still checked up on the comings and goings of their kids. He felt his entire body tingle. He closed his eyes for an instant to stop his memories from haunting him at a time like this.
All of a sudden he saw Julia at the top of the steps. She was tall, slim, and she looked as fragile as ever. She had hardly changed at all.
She spoke for a while with a chubby fellow with a pointed beard—presumably a French or history teacher—then left him and started walking down rue Jean-De-Bernardy. He let her turn the corner into boulevard National, then almost at a run he covered the hundred meters that separated them.
When he reached the boulevard, he spotted her inside her Mercedes A-Class, working away at her steering whee
l in an attempt to turn out of a tight parking space between two plane trees. He quickly went back to his motorbike and followed her.
She drove up boulevard de la Libération, which was heavily congested because it was lunchtime. He had to ride around several blocks to avoid remaining stationary among the cars—a motorcyclist who does not zigzag through a traffic jam looks decidedly conspicuous.
In avenue de Saint-Barnabé, the congestion eased. He noticed that Julia was a fast and nervy driver. She even ran a red light outside the engineering school. After that, he followed her from a distance of two hundred meters.
He watched as, to his amazement, she turned into chemin du Vallon, just by Saint-Julien church. Driving past her front door, he noted it was number 36. He quickly drove round the block again and went home.
His plan had to be ready within a fortnight: if not, the new moon would be imminent and he might run out of time. The goddess could not wait any longer.
First task: reconnaissance of the area. Julia’s house was surrounded by high walls topped with shards of broken glass. It would be difficult to break in without being spotted, especially as her street was so narrow. It would be a stupid risk and should be avoided.
He laid out a map of the neighborhood on his metal bed and studied it closely. Behind Julia’s house there was an old canal which wound past several gardens. He followed its course with his finger, and stopped when it turned into a dotted line: the canal ran through a tunnel before re-emerging on the far side of the cemetery.
In a sudden, feverish state he was filled with joy; the base of his neck tingled and sweat pearled his forehead. The hunt, his sole purpose in life, was about to begin again.
His plan was taking shape: he would go along the canal as far as Julia’s house and break in from the back. But first he had to find out more.
And so he watched Julia for a few days, but without risking going back to the lycée.
She lived alone, the goddess had made no mistake about that. He never saw her go home with a man or another woman. She did not have a guard dog, and she never went out in the evening. The canal could be reached easily over a low wall at the far end of the cemetery.
7.
The girl waiting on the second floor of headquarters, in the corridor outside the offices of the murder squad, did not even look twenty-five years old. A few rebellious curls of blond hair tumbled over her pretty face and half hid her emerald stare. From time to time she blew aside her locks out of the corner of her mouth, the movement of her lower jaw making her fleshy lips twist like a real Lolita.
She had told the officer in reception that she wanted to see Commandant de Palma in person. She claimed that she had some important revelations for him. So she had been escorted to the offices of the murder squad and left there to wait. The wait could well be a long one.
As she stood in the harsh brightness of the “guaranteed daylight” striplights she watched the comings and goings of members of the squad as they emerged from one office to go into another for no apparent reason.
At about 10:00, de Palma burst into the corridor and saw this platinum doll twisting her feet at every angle to get a better look at her monumental platform heels. She was obviously losing her patience.
“Are you waiting for someone, young lady?”
He sensed that she knew him.
“Yes, I want to speak to Monsieur de Palma.”
“You’re speaking to him. Come with me.”
This unexpected meeting did not suit de Palma at all. He had been planning to use the last morning of the week to go over initial findings in the murder of Christine Autran.
Capitaine Anne Moracchini opened the office door, put her head inside and gestured at him.
“Hi, Michel.”
“Good morning, Anne. You haven’t seen Maxime, by any chance?”
“He’s at criminal records.”
“Tell him there’s no hurry. I’ve got someone else to deal with.”
Anne Moracchini glared at the blond, who was staring at the floor, then looked quizzically at De Palma.
“It’s nothing.”
“See you later, Michel.”
Anne Moracchini slammed the door, leaving behind a strong scent of musk perfume and apple shampoo.
De Palma gave a huge yawn. No amount of black coffee would ever drive away that biting fatigue which no longer left him. The young blond was getting impatient. De Palma pretended to tidy up the paperwork piled up on his desk and gave her a long blank look.
“And you are Madame …?”
“Bérengère Luccioni.”
The name Luccioni chimed in Michel’s weary memory.
“So you’re Franck’s sister, Jo Luccioni’s daughter?”
“Yes,” she said shyly, pouting her fleshy lips which were faintly colored with brown lipstick.
Jo Luccioni had been a serious hood. He ran a smack factory at the back of a bakery, and used the shop to launder his earnings. De Palma had not known his son Franck; only that he had been found dead in Sugiton creek.
“So what do you do for a living, Bérengère Luccioni?”
“I work for my father, at the bakery on boulevard Piot, in Pointe-Rouge. I sell the bread and the cakes.”
Bérengère was pretty, but vulgar: too made-up, too blond, her skirt was too short and her accent too pronounced. Too everything! She kept fiddling with her caramel fingers, sliding a silver ring up and down the middle finger of her left hand. This kid looked every inch the wife, sister and daughter of a gangland boss; her particular physique was shaped by a life with the mob, which de Palma knew only too well. She was a real doll.
“Do you still make cream buns?”
“Only on Sunday mornings … why?”
“I love cream buns, that’s why. Especially your father’s ones. I’ll come and buy some one of these days. How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty in ten days.”
“So, you’re twenty-nine …” he said, attempting a gallant smile.
“That’s right.”
De Palma pretended to flick through a bulky file, lingered over some unimportant reports, went back a few pages, then opened another folder. Bérengère watched him, chewing her gum, making small, wet sucking noises and clicking her teeth together. He let the silence drag on. Bérengère slowly uncrossed her legs. The gentle rustle of Lycra woke him from his torpor.
“Why have you come to see me? I thought my colleague, Lieutenant Vidal, had already interviewed you. Do you have anything new?”
“Yes. It’s just that … well, in July, before my brother was killed, I kept seeing this motorbike outside of the shop. Then I went on holiday to my grandparents’ place in Corsica, and that’s where I heard about my brother … When your colleague questioned me, I’d forgotten about it, but then the other day I remembered that a man came into the shop once to buy bread and croissants. He parked his motorbike on the pavement. Then he asked me about my brother … where he was, what he was doing. That’s all.”
“Mademoiselle Luccioni, there are thousands of men around here who could go and buy croissants on their motorbikes.”
“Sure, but this one wasn’t like the others.”
“Why not?”
“Because his motorbike looked like one in this picture in the papers …”
“A Kawasaki Zephyr 1100! Do you know how many Kawasaki Zephyr 1100s there are in Marseille?”
“O.K. … But it was the first time one stopped at the bakery at 6:00 in the morning, just when we were opening. If he was a friend of my brother’s, he’d have known that he was hardly ever at the bakery. Especially not at 6:00 in the morning! And his motorbike was red, just like in the papers. Plus he kept his helmet on, like he didn’t want to be recognized. He just had the visor up. He had little blue eyes and bushy eyebrows.”
What was Bérengère Luccioni doing there, telling him about a red motorbike she’d seen in the papers? Gangland members never came to the police just by chance. It might cost them too much.
“Do you remember which day this happened?”
“That’s hard to say. I think it was sometime the week before I went to Corsica, but the exact day … Maybe it will come back to me. I went to buy my tickets on the 24th, and I took the boat on the 26th … And it was before then, maybe July 20 or 21.”
“A week before you left!”
“Yes, around then, I’m sure of it.”
De Palma took a long look at the young woman. She was more relaxed now, and becoming prettier and prettier. There was another rustle of Lycra.
“Mademoiselle Luccioni, thank you for this information. I think it’s of the highest importance. Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll go over the whole thing again from the beginning, O.K.?”
He jotted down her story in his exercise book. When he came to the date of the event, he wrote the 20th because she remembered then that it had been her father’s birthday. He asked her for a detailed description of her mysterious customer.
“He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He must have been about one meter eighty tall. With broad shoulders. And blue eyes. He seemed very calm … I dunno! He spoke with a strong accent.”
“I’ll be straight with you, Bérengère. There’s no official investigation into your brother’s death. The state prosecutor refused to take up the case. Franck was no angel—you saw him in prison often enough to know that! And you know too that he drowned in a diving accident. The forensic surgeon was sure of this. I realize that this is very hard for you, but that’s the way it is. You have to trust us on that score.”
Bérengère looked down. She probably knew far more about her brother than she was letting on, but she was not going to give anything away. Not there, in any case. Maybe later. Time would tell …