The Baron winked at Vidal.
“Lolo,” said the younger officer. “Have you ever seen a man wearing spectacles who looked just like Christine Autran?”
Lolo thought fast, like a good chess player, anticipating his opponent’s next moves, and the questions that his answer might prompt.
“I …”
“Be serious, you know what’ll happen if you don’t tell me what I want to hear … The Commandant is beginning to feel a tad wound up.”
“Listen,” Lolo replied, lisping through his beaten and swollen lips.
“He was … I …”
“Make an effort.”
“All I can tell you is that there was this guy there.”
“Tell me about him …”
“Who is he?”
“Your worst nightmare. If you ever see him again, call me at once. If he gives you enough time, that is.”
“I don’t get it. I haven’t done anything.”
“You must have! Let’s go back to Autran. Did this guy look like her?”
Lolo took a long look at the photo.
“Yes, boss, he definitely looked like her.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know, boss!”
“His name!”
Lolo glanced round at the Baron.
“You can hit me all you want, but I don’t know his name. Once I was with Tête outside her place, and he pointed him out to me.”
Vidal stepped back. The Baron produced a photo of Luccioni from the side pocket of his jacket, like a gambler slamming down an ace. He observed Lolo’s reaction.
“Jesus, it’s poor old Franck. He was a friend. A real buddy.”
“Did he talk to you about Christine?”
“No, not at all. He was a good guy. Really he was. There should be more people like him. At least, that’s what I think.”
The mobster took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the blood from his nose as he peered around.
“Was it Jo who called you?”
Silence.
“Did he want to avenge his son’s death?”
“His son meant everything to him … Jesus, whoever did that ….”
“The same man. The one with the glasses.”
“The fucker. If he comes here, I’ll blow him away. I’ll say it before witnesses. On my mother’s life. If he comes here, he’s a dead man.”
Old Luccioni had put out a contract. The mob were after his son’s killers, and nothing was going to stop them.
The policeman stared at Lolo, who met his gaze. Like a challenge. That was the last time he’d pin him against the wall like that. Lolo had survived all the mob wars. He was no godfather, just a nasty piece of work, a fighter, a nutter with enough balls to hang out with the killers of a magistrate and make Francis Le Blond carry the can. De Palma knew it: tomorrow, Lolo could well end up nose down in the gutter. And tomorrow Lolo would try to kill Le Blond. It was the law of the jungle.
And this law also meant that the police should hold out a hand to him. A favor for a favor.
“Come over here, Lolo. I’ve got something to tell you in private.”
Vidal looked on in disbelief as the mobster held his ear to the Commandant’s mouth. He watched the two men converse but could not hear a word. Then Lolo said out loud:
“Thanks boss. Sorry about just now.”
“No, the apologies are all mine. I get wound up sometimes … It’s because we’re short of staff.”
Lolo placed both hands on the bar and licked the cut on his lower lip.
“At the beginning of July, Franck came here with a package. It contained a large stone with a hand drawn on it. He told me that it was something prehistoric, and it was worth a fortune. I spoke to someone about it, but they weren’t interested. So Franck went off with his package … and we never saw him again.”
“Did he tell you where the stone came from?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Why did you think this had something to do with Autran?”
“I didn’t, it was Jo. He knew her, at least I think he did. She was a friend of his. And now she’s dead too—but this time we really had nothing to do with it. Then we gave up on it all. Afterward, when I read the papers, I saw that she worked in prehistory …”
Lolo sniffed hard and stared at the football cups and pétanque trophies lined up on a shelf at the back of the café.
“Did you see Autran in December?” Vidal asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“What about the guy with the glasses?”
“Tête saw him twice, and I saw him once.”
“When?”
“I don’t know … in the middle of December.”
De Palma put away his photographs and headed toward the door.
“Can you go out the back door, boss? I don’t want anyone to see you.”
“Bye, Lolo,” he replied. “Take care of yourself.”
When they were back in the car, Vidal could not resist asking the Baron:
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing much. You’ll see for yourself in a few days.”
“I’m starting to get fed up with your methods, Michel. You never tell me anything.”
“Don’t piss me off, kid.”
“I’m not a kid, for fuck’s sake. You might be a prestigious commandant, but I still have to remind you that this is no longer the way to do police work!”
“So how are we supposed to do it?”
“I don’t know you any more, Michel. And don’t whisper secrets into a mobster’s ear again, otherwise I’ll …”
“OTHERWISE YOU’LL DO WHAT? … Go to Paulin like a good little lapdog and have me sidelined?”
“Exactly.”
“What are you going to tell him? That I beat up witnesses? That I do deals with them? When you’re up against the mob, that’s the way it goes. You punch, you deal, you threaten. PERIOD.”
Vidal did not reply. The Baron took refuge behind his somber expression. Unreachable. Ten minutes later, he said dully:
“Sometimes the hardest thing is to be really mean.”
Outside the entrance to Plaisance Plus, a First 32 was suspended in midair, its keel in shreds.
“Don’t stand there, lady. Can’t you see it’s dangerous?”
Anne Moracchini took a step backward to avoid being hit in the face by the yacht if the crane operator made a false move, or if there was a violent gust of wind. She produced her tricolor card.
“I’m looking for the owner.”
“You’re from the police! I’m the owner. Step inside.”
This was now the fourth boat-hire business she had visited in the port of Pointe-Rouge. She said a prayer and begged to all the gods of creation that it would be the last. At least there were no others in Pointe-Rouge.
They went through a large store full of rigging and lifeboats. Anne stopped for a moment in front of a bronze ship’s clock. It was just what she wanted for her living room, with Roman numerals and a white enamel dial.
“Come into my office and take a seat. So, what can I do for you?”
“You are …?”
“François Rina.”
“O.K., Monsieur Rina, I want to know if you hired out any boats between November 25 and December 5 last year.”
“It’s nothing serious, is it?” he asked, running his hand through his graying hair.
“Don’t worry, we just need to check out how someone spent their day.”
The boss of Plaisance Plus stood up and opened a cupboard. Moracchini examined him from head to toe. He was wearing Docksides which had been eaten into by sea salt, jeans and a sailor’s pullover which was baggy enough to hide his pot belly. But despite this, he had a certain charm, like an old seadog or a jovial rascal. He reminded her of de Palma.
“Here we are, these are the logbooks for November and December. It’ll only take a couple of seconds—we have very little work in winter.”
He flicked though
the invoices, turning over the blue, yellow and white pages.
“Do you have a name for me?”
“Autran. Christine Autran. Or else Franck Luccioni.”
“O.K.…”
François Rina was doing his best, but he clearly did not appreciate the police coming to his shop.
“Here we are. Christine Autran. December 2. At 10:00 a.m. A Zodiac … Returned at 10:00 a.m. the next day. In perfect condition.”
“How big is the boat?”
“Forty horsepower. A lovely vessel.”
“Was she with someone, or alone?”
“Hang on, if I remember correctly, she was with someone.”
Moracchini took out a photograph of Christine. Rina recognized her at once.
“She was with a man, but he stayed outside. He was tall. Taller than me …”
“Was he wearing glasses?”
“Maybe … But all this was ages ago.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She showed him a photograph of Luccioni.
“No, it wasn’t him. He didn’t look like us. More like a German or something.”
“Whose name was on the license?”
“Christine Autran’s. Do you want a photocopy?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
While Rina busied himself over his photocopier, Moracchini went back to the clock, looked at the price and took a step backward.
“It’s a real ship’s clock, not like the ones they sell to tourists in the old port.”
“And it’s incredibly expensive!”
“I’m afraid so, but it’s watertight and it never goes wrong. Here’s your photocopy. If you’re interested in the clock, I could lower the price.”
“Thanks. But I’ve got another question for you. Were there still two of them when they brought the Zodiac back?”
“No, she was alone. I can be sure because as a joke I asked her if she’d fed her boyfriend to the crabs.”
“And?”
“She told me she’d dropped him off in the creeks because he was sea sick, and he’d gone home on foot.”
“Did they tell you where they were going when they hired the Zodiac?”
“Of course. Anyway, I always ask. They said they were going to spend the day and a night in Riou.”
“Can I see the Zodiac?”
“No problem. But not today. It’s out at sea.”
“I’ll come and see it when it’s back. Please don’t clean it.”
“Since then, we’ve probably cleaned it five or six times.”
“Too bad.”
As Moracchini left François Rina she gave the beautiful ship’s clock a longing look. Twelve hundred francs was really too expensive. She would have to make do with a fake.
25.
The hand was there in front of him, on a tiny desk of white wood. Like a holy relic on an altar. He could not take his eyes off it. The hand was open, its little and ring fingers were bent.
The bedroom was lit only by two candles which trembled at the slightest movement of the air. The shadows of the wardrobe and iron bedstead mingled and merged as the flames moved. Their monstrous shapes rose to the ceiling in a fluid and disturbing dance.
He had neither eaten nor slept for two days. His stomach had ached all day, but now he no longer felt a thing.
Outside, a dark night had fallen. He was naked. Sitting on his heels on the floor, waiting for the vision.
He stared at the hand for a long time, then began to breathe faster and faster, rocking backward and forward. A rhythmic chant came to his lips. Its source and meaning were unknown to him. It was the chant of the ancient shamans.
An hour later, the hand began to shake. An invisible force had possessed it. He had his first vision.
Signs appeared. Long lines at first, then sinuous curves which slithered away like huge snakes. A long tunnel and the light of the afterlife. The spirit world.
He felt the first contractions in his belly. He speeded up his breathing and doubled over. The pain became unbearable. Bitter bile rose to his mouth.
Great Reindeer emerges from the forest and stops. Before him is the great white plain that he must cross. He is old, with long, forked antlers.
The hunters are downwind. Great Reindeer has not smelled them. In the morning, they picked up the tracks of a cave lynx going down toward the cliffs at the edge of the great plain. It augured well.
Great Reindeer raises his nose. The icy cold is making his nostrils steam. The wait will be long. The north wind bites into their faces. Despite their fur gloves, their fingers are going numb around their lances.
A shrill cry. The Eagles hovers above the hunters.
He breathed deeply to ease the pain and closed his eyes. The first convulsion. He opened his eyes. Everything had gone hazy. Forms were now dancing around him. The hand had vanished. The second convulsion.
Great Reindeer has smelled the hunters. Calmly, he goes back into the forest, as though drawing them into a trap. The hunters crawl slowly through the snow and encircle him.
Lying on the floor in the fetus position, he massaged his belly to soothe the stabbing pain.
The hand detached itself from the stone and rose into the room, high, even higher, until it touched the dark sky and the stars. He forced his eyes open and the hand made a sign, with three of its fingers bent over.
The first lance hits Great Reindeer in the side, and the second lands in his neck. The hunters move forward into the open. Great Reindeer doesn’t move. He watches them draw near and grunts. The old man is holding an ax and, in a deep, rhythmic voice, he chants the sacred song.
The fingers of the hand are bent over, leaving just one phalange in view and the thumb extended.
Great Reindeer kneels in the snow. His life slowly flows from his wounds. The old man approaches and with his ax hits him sharply on the nape of his neck, at the root of his antlers. Great Reindeer slumps down.
The convulsions were shaking him more violently. White, acidic saliva was dribbling from between his clenched teeth. He writhed like a wounded animal to expel the pain.
Great Reindeer has vanished, engulfed by the silence. A young woman lies there instead. Her long hair is as dark as a raven’s wings and her burning eyes are open, lifeless, looking at the snowy sky.
He screamed. The vision faded.
In the distance, he could hear children playing.
26.
“This case is really getting to me. I thought there was another man in her life, and that it was obviously him who’d strangled her. Now she comes back alone without the guy. So what the hell were they doing in Sugiton at night, in a Zodiac? Making fish soup?”
The Baron was fuming. He had had high hopes for the boat investigation, and now one door had closed while another had opened. Moracchini went to the window and pressed her nose to the glass.
“I’ve no idea what they were doing there at night,” she mumbled wearily.
“And to cap it all we’ve got Luccioni acting as a fence for Cro-Magnon artworks. I’m completely lost!”
“So are we, Michel,” Moracchini sighed.
“Vidal, do you remember what Palestro said?”
“Yes,” he said frostily. “He followed her on November 30.”
“And he saw Christine set off in hiking clothes, without her car.”
“Which means?” Vidal asked.
“It means she was going to Sugiton! Where do you think she was going, to church? But there’s one thing which doesn’t hang together.”
“What’s that?” Moracchini asked from the window.
“First, if what Palestro says is true, why didn’t he follow her all the way? It’s absurd. She’s dressed in hiking clothes, she takes a tram—why didn’t he guess that she was heading for Le Guen’s Cave? By car he could have got there first. Secondly, I’m still wondering what she was doing there at night. See what I mean?”
“We should bring him in.”
“You’re right, Vidal. But we can’t just
hold him on suspicion.”
“Why not?” Moracchini asked, turning away from the window.
“That’s not the way I like to work,” de Palma murmured.
“O.K., Michel. But your professor is going to have to tell us everything he knows.”
“Go and bring him in. Today, after his afternoon lecture. I think he finishes at about 3:00 p.m. Find him and bring him here, but softly does it. If he puts up any resistance, then press the point. This business has to be clarified. I’ll call Barbieri to get his agreement. Have you seen Paulin today?”
“No, not yet,” replied Moracchini, as she picked up her jacket. “Right, while you two go to Aix, I’ll try to see Sylvie Maurel. We could use her insight this afternoon.”
Sylvie Maurel was tidying away her things and was about to go out to lunch when de Palma burst into the laboratory at Fort Saint-Jean. The bells of Les Accoules chimed twelve, soon followed by the angelus.
She glared at him.
“I have to say, Michel, I didn’t at all appreciate being questioned in the police station by that little brat. It was atrocious!”
“He was doing his job, Sylvie.”
“That boy is a real pain … Why weren’t you there?”
“I …”
De Palma did not want to admit that he had intentionally avoided the formal questioning so as to preserve the atmosphere of trust which had been created.
“Are you here to question me?”
“No … Well, yes.”
“So out with it, let’s get this over with,” said Sylvie, throwing her bag on the table.
“I don’t want to question you, but rather to ask your opinion.”
Sylvie sat down. She was wearing a miniskirt and black tights. As she crossed her legs, she caught the policeman looking at her.
“I have no idea what Christine went to Sugiton creek for. Is it possible to do research there, or something like that?”
The First Fingerprint Page 24
