by Cara Black
She stopped, gasping, leaning against the earth wall. She was in the cemetery, its mausoleums silhouetted against the now clear sky, with just a thin tissue of cloud skirting the pearly white fingernail of a moon.
How could she find him in this necropolis?
Crunching sounds of broken glass came from her right.
She tripped on tree roots snaking over a gravestone, tried to still her shaking hands, wipe the damp vegetal humus from her face. She made her legs move but had no clue as to where they were taking her.
Center, she told herself. Focus on the sensations surrounding her, as she had done when she’d been blind: sounds, currents of air, the feel of disturbed earth. The jade bangle on her wrist, an opalescent green, glinted in the thin moonlight.
Her thoughts cleared. A stillness came over her. She guided her feet around the uneven graves without tripping. Then she paused.
She sensed him, hovering. She smelled the sweat of his fear. The scent Laure had caught on the scaffolding.
“Yann, I know you’re there,” Aimée said. “Your jogging shoes gave you away.”
A covey of startled night birds erupted, flapping their wings.
“But you’re brilliant, Yann,” she said. “From me, that’s high praise.”
Ahead, an elongated shadow moved through the damp air.
“The bricklayer from the construction site confirmed that the Dumpster’s emptied on Wednesday. It was impossible for it to have spilled over the night you ‘found’ the diagram. But that’s minutiae, a minuscule detail. Maybe your military service was in Corsica.”
“You knew that?”
She hadn’t. Guessed. Like she had about the Dumpster.
“No wonder you spoke Corsican and discovered the arms cache. My father was hired to find the stolen armaments six years ago.”
“You’re like a ghost,” he told her. He stepped into view.
She realized she was covered in white powdery plaster. A ghost, at home here, with all the others.
“Conari got involved. You threatened him, so he went along. Jacques demanded more money, and Zette knew too much.”
“Jacques wanted to pull out, the fool,” Yann said.
The cold metal of an automatic was pressed against her temple. His breath panted in her ear; her arms were grabbed and twisted behind her. He pushed her forward.
Keep him talking. Anything. Hadn’t René said the Ministry required construction firms with Ministry contracts to use systems analysts? “So ingenious. You’d worked on Ministry contracts. Was that how you tapped into Big Ears?”
“Tap into them?” He rolled his eyes. His ponytail hung over his shoulder. His suit jacket was studded with irregular bits of metal. The tang of burnt oil clung to him. “As it turned out, after all my preparation, I didn’t need to. I installed the communications in Solenzara where I worked with those guys. I just shared a bottle of Courvoisier with them and caught up. Easy.”
And simple. That’s how it worked with old comrades in the military. No wonder she’d kept running into dead ends.
“So you listened in on Conari’s line at the DST flat and knew they were monitoring your ‘operation.’”
“Just like the old times.” Yann’s breath frosted and faded into vapor trails over the uneven headstones. “Even then, in Corsica, Jacques gambled. He blackmailed me, until I had no choice.”
“Jacques threatened to inform after he’d discovered the cipher key? The cipher key only you could access. The one thing proving you were involved. So you quieted him for good?”
She heard the trigger pulled back. Where were the flics? Her hands trembled. Get him talking.
“Didn’t it go like that? You realized Petru was working undercover for the DST. You knew they were closing in,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “I got too close, so you threw suspicion onto Lucien.”
He twisted her arms so tight her circulation was cut off. “A little late Wonder Girl.”
Perspiration beaded her upper lip. Had the flics missed Yann’s escape in the confusion?
“Why now? Why move so many guns now?”
“Conari and his construction trucks. A little here, more there, he didn’t care to know as long as he got paid.” Yann’s eyes gleamed. “Amazing how it all comes down to money. No one ever has enough.”
He pressed her down to her knees over a sagging iron-fenced grave. She gasped as the rusted iron bit into her ribs. She forced herself to go on. “But you’re a perfectionist. The snowstorm, the party, luring Jacques up to the roof, knowing he’d bring backup. Everything worked until you got to the skylight. You’d forgotten to arrange for gunshot residue on Laure’s hands.” She panted, the blood rushing to her head. “In your hurry, you put your gun in her hands and fired. Your one mistake.”
“I liked you,” he said, leaning down, his hot breath in her ear. He stroked her cheek with the gun’s cold muzzle. “Didn’t you get it? That night in the café? But I was nothing to you; you weren’t interested. If only . . .”
His words made her skin crawl. “You’re not my type.”
He whacked her with the back of his hand, slamming her against something pointed. A cross? She grabbed at the ground, her hands filled with dirt.
“Give up, Yann, it’s over.”
Then he kicked her and she crumpled onto a flat, smooth slab. Her eyes registered the letters: François Truffaut 1932–1984, carved in granite in front of her nose. Was she going to be shot on the gravestone of Truffaut, the Montmartrois who had immortalized the quartier in his films? Not if she could help it.
“You’re like all the rest!”
“Second mistake.” She kicked, connecting with his thigh, and he yelped. Somehow she got to her feet, then he pulled her down.
“Bitch!”
She swung, throwing dirt in his face. A shot pumped by her ear, deafening her. A burning sensation creased her arm. She rammed into him with all her might and his head landed with a crack on the granite next to her. Scrabbling and raking her fingers through the wet leaves, she found the gun as Yann, stunned, lay beside her, groaning.
She felt a spray of pebbles on her hand, looked up, and saw René. The ringing in her ears hadn’t stopped.
He reached down and helped her up, then took rope from his pocket and bound Yann’s hands.
“Thanks, partner,” she said, clutching her bleeding arm and the gun.
He dusted off his jacket, eyeing her outfit, plastered with mud and wet leaves. “A new look?”
“Eh? Look at me when you talk until I can hear again.”
“Fashionista all the way.” René rolled his eyes. “You said you wanted the flics to wrap this up.”
She sagged against a tree, saw a blue uniform rounding the gravestone. “About time.”
Saturday Afternoon
THE DARK, HYPNOTIC PULSE vibrated from the stage, which was washed by red-, orange-, and pink-hued lights. Lucien’s song, layered with hip-hop and the rippling chords of his cetera, took Aimée to a faraway place swept by the southern sirocco. Even on painkillers, the music thrilled her, evoking the maquis-scented air, the flapping of silver-scaled fish caught in nets, and a sun-drenched granite island. Under a dull black ceiling, Lucien’s music transported his audience.
Applause. People milling, and then Aimée grew aware of Lucien’s hand—large, warm, and on her shoulder. She tried not to wince.
“You have a gift,” she said, looking up into his deep-set eyes.
“Can I show you something?”
She nodded.
They left the Conservatoire National de Paris and climbed the hilly streets. Beside a glass-fronted building, an old workshop, Lucien pulled aside the wire fence.
“Make it good, musician.”
“Go ahead. I know the owner,” he said.
She crossed the weeds and picked a path through the brush, thankful for her leather pants. A deserted terrace with many round tables met her eyes. “It’s a restaurant.”
“How about a one-of-a
-kind view?”
He led her to the back and unlocked a door with a long black key. She followed him up the musty winding stairs. He opened a creaking window. The view took her breath away. The wooden arms of a windmill framed a sea of zinc-covered roofs and chimney pots stretching below. They stood in the windmill of the Moulin de la Galette.
“It’s still a village here,” she said. “Untamed by Paris.”
“I’ve been invited to the World Music Festival in London,” Lucien told her.
“Congratulations! Wonderful for you.” She glanced at her Tintin watch. “Before you go, I have a view to show you.”
HER LEGS touched Lucien’s under the sheets. His warmth enveloped her. She sighed and nudged him. In answer, he wrapped his arms around her, kissed her neck, and continued what they’d been doing.
Some time later, she blinked her eyes open. Miles Davis nestled, spooned between her and Lucien. Weak winter light shone on Lucien’s cracked leather jacket hanging over the door of her armoire. The train ticket to London stuck out of its pocket. His denims were on the floor. His cetera case was silhouetted against the window overlooking the Seine.
“Hey, musician,” she said, peering at the clock on the dresser. “I’m late.”
In answer, he pulled the pillow over his head.
She stood up, slipped on her black leather pants, eased her bandaged arm into the sleeves of her turtleneck, and stepped into her boots.
SHE FOUND Morbier in the hospital at Laure’s bedside, a lopsided grin on his face.
“Nice of you to show up, Leduc,” he said. “I gave Laure the rundown, but I’m sure you’ll spice it up with the details.”
She kissed Laure on both cheeks. Yellow bruises, a sign of healing, framed Laure’s temples.
“Without your help, Laure, the flics couldn’t have caught him.”
“Bibiche . . .” Aimée could make out that much; the rest came out garbled. Laure tapped furiously on the computer keyboard.
Morbier read out loud: “I’ve been reinstated, Jacques cleared. Get me a new speech therapist, this one’s slow and stupid!”
Aimée smiled, then turned away. Half an hour later, she walked arm in arm with Morbier over the tiled floor. They paused at the glass windows overlooking the dry fountain in the courtyard. A coating of ice sparkled the basin’s lip.
“You won’t tell her, Leduc,” Morbier said.
“Is that a question or a statement?”
He sighed. “A little of both.”
“Ludovic Jubert told me you made a pact in the police academy. A one-for-all, all-for-one kind of thing. Right?”
Morbier averted his eyes and shifted his worn brown shoes.
“So Papa didn’t inform on Rousseau despite his corruption, bound by that promise. Neither did you or Jubert. After Papa died . . . ,” she paused, taking a deep breath, “Rousseau’s report said Papa took the bribes and knew of the arms shipment. It was easier that way, so you two kept your mouths shut as long as Rousseau agreed to retire.”
Morbier stood still. So still she could hear the gurney’s rubber wheels gliding on the floor, the muted sobs of a woman rocking on the bench, covering her face in her hands.
“Life and death hold secrets, Leduc,” he said. “Some are best kept.”
Her papa was clean. She knew, they all knew. Except Laure. But she wouldn’t tell her. Couldn’t.
Out on the quay, they paused, the lighted facade of the Hôtel de Ville before them, Notre Dame illuminated on their right. All in her backyard.
She smoothed down the tweed lapel of Morbier’s jacket and stared at the slow-moving Seine. Pinpricks of ice glinted on the iron rungs once used to anchor barges. And at this moment, in the lingering shadows of dusk, with the whine of sirens in the distance, a child’s laughter from a passing stroller, and the Seine lapping below her, she felt at ease with her ghosts. For now.
“Hungry?” she asked.
FB2 document info
Document ID: d5bff5a4-5662-4e9f-aa99-39afa90bb258
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 29.11.2012
Created using: calibre 0.9.7, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Cara Black
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