Boizot sighed. The afternoon had crept along slowly. Over and over again, Boizot plunged into a deep sleep populated by nonsensical dreams and then rose to the surface of an uncertain reality.
Before lunch, a doctor had come in and explained to him that he had been very lucky: No broken bones, a few simple bruises that were painful but not serious. The concussion, he was reminded, should not be taken lightly.
“We are going to keep you here overnight for observation,” the doctor said. “After that, you can go home, but you should rest.”
He stood up carefully and slowly walked the few steps to the table. He still felt overwhelmed by extreme fatigue and had a terrible urge to smoke.
He had barely dipped his spoon into the bowl of soup when the door opened again.
In walked his parents, looking a bit awkward. Seeing him busy eating, his mother smiled. “It can’t be too bad, then. When the appetite goes, so does everything else! Keep eating, then.”
Behind her, his father quietly closed the door.
Happy to see them, Boizot put down his spoon and got up to kiss them. “How did you find out?”
His mother put her gray suit jacket and pocketbook on a chair. She seemed to have lost weight.
“Your friend Sylvie called us this afternoon,” she said.
“Eat, otherwise your food will get cold,” said his father.
Boizot sat down. During one of those short periods he was awake, he must have asked Sylvie to let his parents know, but he didn’t remember. His mother sat down in front of him, while his father planted himself by the window.
The soup was terrible, but he was too hungry to care. As usual, his mother did not stop talking. “Your father and I thought that you could come recuperate at home. Vernouillet would be a much better place for you to rest than your Paris apartment. What do you think?”
Boizot looked up, smiled, and replied, “Why not?”
“Your friend Sylvie is also welcome, of course.”
He finished his soup and pulled the plate of mashed potatoes closer.
“That’s nice of you, but we don’t live together. We’ve known each other only for a few days.”
“Really?” his mother said.
In that one word, Boizot’s mother conveyed a whole range of emotion: relief that critical information about her son’s love life had not been kept from her; anxiety about whether Sylvie would be yet another one-night stand; and hope that her son might have finally found a long-term companion.
Boizot grimaced and said to his father, “And how have you been all this time?” It had been almost two months since he had seen his parents. He usually arranged to see them on weekends when he had custody of the children.
“I’m doing more and more biking. Twenty miles a day,” his father replied proudly.
It was after eight when his parents finally left and he was able to go smoke a cigarette in a sort of nook reserved for this purpose. The sand-filled basin in the middle of the room was overflowing with cigarette butts. The hospital was clearly doing everything it could to deter smokers from indulging in their vice.
Afterward, Boizot slowly returned to his room. He took out his cell phone and called Magnin. He was probably finishing laying out the front page.
“Magnin here. Talk to me.”
“Hi, Eric, it’s Boizot.”
“Better late than never!” Magnin said simply.
“I’m sorry. I’m calling from the hospital where I was taken this morning after being hit by a driver who obviously was trying to kill me.”
Boizot could easily picture the look on Magnin’s face at that moment: even fleeting emotions were plain for all to see on that giant redhead’s freckled face.
“What are you talking about?”
Boizot told him in a few words what had happened.
“And you’re sure it was on purpose?”
“You bet. I had just enough time to turn around and see the car heading straight at me. It’s a miracle that I walked away with only a few bruises!”
On the other end of the line, Magnin remained silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you think it’s related to Perdiou?”
“I can see no other explanation. Yesterday evening, I went to interview him, and this morning someone slashed my tire so they could get me to stand in the street. It was no accident!”
“Have you spoken to the cops yet?”
“No, not yet. What annoys me is that this afternoon I was supposed to meet with a Palonnier employee—a woman—who allegedly has inside information on how the company works—the company where Perdiou is the chairman.”
In the earpiece, he heard a sort of grunt, then Magnin asked, “What’s your girl’s name?”
“Murelle, Geneviève Murelle.”
“Wait a second. I’m looking at an AFP dispatch right now that says last night, Geneviève Murelle, thirty-two, suffered a fatal fall from the balcony of her apartment on Rue Vasco de Gama in the fifteenth arrondissement. Is that her?”
“Yes, that’s her. Shit! I’m sure it’s connected to what she wanted to tell me.”
“Listen, it looks like things are getting ugly. We need to talk.”
Chapter 30
The daily editorial meeting was already underway in Magnin’s office. Eight department heads were seated around a big oval table. Only Magnin was standing, like a teacher, next to a whiteboard, a large felt-tipped pen in hand.
After describing Boizot’s “accident,” he added, “I want you to pull out all the stops on this. Tomorrow, I want Boizot on the front page. Why? For two reasons: first, because the story sells; second, because by doing so, we’re doing Boizot a favor—the more publicized this is, the more protected he’ll be. OK?”
“OK,” said Benaïssa, the editor of the society section. “How do you see things?”
“I think,” interjected Drichon, “that an interview with Boizot in his hospital bed, with a good photo, would be totally appropriate. Right?” He turned to Magnin.
“Exactly! But I want something more; I want to scare the guy who tried to run him over, and whoever hired him, if he was hired. It should be implied that Boizot gave the police information that is likely to lead to his attacker being caught, but you have to be subtle, suggest without confirming anything, OK?”
“I’d like to write it,” Drichon quickly continued. “The story interests me, and I was in touch with Boizot when it broke. I’d like to keep going!”
“OK,” said Magnin.
The Palonnier Group was headquartered in a building from the Haussmann era located behind the Opéra Garnier. A simple brass plate affixed to the side of a heavy carved door identified the corporate headquarters to passersby.
In the pouring rain, Ernest Lullier parked his car in the courtyard and sprinted into the lobby. Without looking at the receptionist, he bolted up the stairs leading to his office on the second floor, taking them four at a time.
In the anteroom, Murelle’s replacement had arrived. She was seated at the desk typing on the keyboard of the computer with feigned intensity. Seeing him enter, she paused and, with a graceless smile that revealed her crooked teeth, greeted him. Lullier, however, wanted nothing to do with her kowtowing. He simply barked, “Call the chief of security; ask him to come see me at once!”
He slammed his office door.
Lullier was furious. He had nevertheless done a good job playing the role of the considerate, attentive boss the day before. Arriving at Palonnier on Tuesday, he had pretended to be surprised by Geneviève Murelle’s absence. “That’s curious, she is always so punctual. Give her a call at home to find out what’s going on,” he’d barked at one of the receptionists.
“I’m getting no answer, Monsieur Lullier,” she had stammered.
He had then insisted on reaching her, feigning one of his fits of rage. “So call her cell phone,�
� he’d screamed.
The poor girl, terrified, had done just that—and had reached a policeman. Surprised and suddenly worried, she had introduced herself. A lieutenant from the third precinct, Avenue du Maine, which covered the fifteenth arrondissement, where Geneviève Murelle lived, had explained to her what had happened without sugarcoating it. The girl had then burst into tears, in such hysterics that Lullier had to calm her down with two slaps.
Now, Lullier heard two quick knocks at his door. “Come in,” he called.
José Léonard quietly entered. He was a massive man in his early forties with a squarish shaved head that seemed to sit directly atop his chest.
He sat down without saying a word.
“Did you see?” Lullier said simply, as he pushed the latest edition of L’Actualité toward him.
The man took the paper. On the front page was a photo of Dimitri Boizot above the fold and the headline WHO WANTED TO KILL OUR REPORTER?
Léonard looked up, his face impassive, and shrugged, saying, “Yeah, and?”
“What do you mean, ‘yeah, and’? Are you fucking kidding me or what? Not only do you miss your target, but now this idiot will be offered police protection with his pathetic accusations!”
Léonard frowned. Obviously, he did not understand where Lullier was going with this.
“Think about it—if you’re capable of doing that! With an article like this, the cops will be rushing to Boizot for explanations. And what’s he going to tell them? Obviously, everything he knows. And after that, we won’t be able to touch a single hair on his head. They already grilled me about Murelle yesterday, our relationship, her personality, the whole thing!”
Léonard, whose growing nervousness was betrayed only by his increasingly frequent blinking, asked, “You afraid he’ll say stuff to the police?”
“Obviously,” said Lullier. “Now, what exactly does he know anyway? He wanted to meet with Murelle to talk about Flaneau. She hesitated, unsure of whether or not to mention her little folders. Well, now she’s free of her qualms, and I’ve put her little folders somewhere safe. What fucking annoys me, however, is that there is no news of the other folder.”
Léonard ran his hand over his right eyebrow, as if trying to measure its thickness. “I told you, boss, you gotta let me go see Plesse’s widow.”
“No way! From now on, you stay put. We’ll see how things evolve.”
“It’s up to you.”
Brigitte Le Guen and Serge Tworkowski huddled in a quiet corner in the Saint-Nazaire courthouse cafeteria. Seated in front of a steaming cup of coffee, the judge listened to the investigator.
“I studied the box of papers from Héron’s home yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t find anything interesting, just bills and old vacation photos. Nada!”
Brigitte Le Guen took a sip of hot coffee and nodded. Tworkowski continued, “However, I’ve just been informed by Clamart police about a half hour ago that the Héron house received a visit last night. A neighbor alerted them. Everything had been thoroughly searched, and whoever did it didn’t bother vacuuming before they left—the house is a wreck.”
Tworkowski stared at the judge, surprised by her lack of interest.
“Well, don’t get too excited. Anyway, it was probably some local youths who thought it was an easy hit, but there wasn’t really anything valuable there.”
“Have the parents been informed?”
“I asked the police in Clamart to take care of it. There is something else I wanted to tell you: someone tried to kill Boizot, the journalist from L’Actualité, yesterday morning.”
This time, he saw Brigitte Le Guen’s bright eyes widen. “Someone tried to kill him?”
“That’s what his paper suggests. Look!” He handed her L’Actualité.
“What do you think?” he asked when she had finished reading.
“This is disturbing,” she said, “but we should keep our wits about us. There is no evidence that it wasn’t just a simple hit and run, and even if it was attempted murder, nothing says that it’s related to our case, right?”
“Absolutely, your honor. However, I am convinced that this reporter knows more than he is willing to tell us. So if you’d allow me to, I’d like to question him again, but this time in Paris. While I’m there, I’ll examine the Héron house for myself.”
He thought he detected a glimmer of kindness in her eyes. Le Guen smiled and said, “No problem, captain. That way, I can pad out my investigation report.”
Things had been slow at Job-Inter since the beginning of the week. Vacation was imminent, starting with a holiday weekend on August fifteenth. At her desk, Raïssa Rzaev took the opportunity to get her files in order. But her mind was on other things, and she could not really concentrate on her work.
“Hey, Raïssa, did you see this?” Cyril Achery said suddenly.
She turned to her colleague. He showed her the newspaper, saying, “That’s the journalist who came to see you the day before yesterday, right?”
“What happened to him?” interjected Marina. She had been busy reading a gossip magazine for the past hour and had finally had enough. She jumped up and grabbed the newspaper. “They tried to kill him!” she exclaimed, and she quickly turned the pages to find the article.
Raïssa felt her heart pounding in her chest. If someone had tried to eliminate this Dimitri Boizot, then the theory that she had been cultivating in her head for the last two days was valid. It was not a reassuring thought.
She looked at Cyril and asked, “Does the article explain why?”
“No! There are only a few lines of information and the rest is filler.”
Raïssa nodded and returned to her work. Marina gave the newspaper back to Cyril, saying, “I’m sure it’s related to his visit. There have been some strange things going on for some time now.”
And she disappeared behind the door marked PRIVATE. It’s amazing how much time that girl can spend in the bathroom, Raïssa thought.
Boizot took a deep breath as soon as he was outside the hospital. The time he’d spent in his room there had seemed like an eternity. He quickly lit a cigarette and said to Sylvie, “Guess what, this is my first one of the day!”
“Uh, yeah, you’ve certainly been forced to cut back,” she said, smiling.
Tenon was only a five-minute walk from his place. They made the trip arm in arm. Thanks to the sedatives they had administered, Boizot’s pain was only a vague, diffuse feeling, but as he prepared to cross the street, Boizot could not help but be apprehensive, and he found himself looking twice before daring to step off the sidewalk.
Sylvie seemed to respect his silence.
“What do you think of Drichon?” he asked out of the blue.
“Not much, really. I thought he was nice, and he seemed to know what he was doing. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’ve always considered the guy to be an ambitious upstart. I’ve never been able to stand him, but today I found him almost likeable. Funny, right?”
Sylvie made a face to show that she did not follow.
Boizot said, “He looked embarrassed trying to explain to me that the interview was for my own good.”
“I don’t think he’s wrong. An article couldn’t hurt.”
When they arrived at the entrance to his building, Sylvie pointed out his car and said, “You go upstairs. Meanwhile, I’m going to change the tire.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Do you know how?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “Come on now. What are you worried about?” She looked at him strangely. “You don’t think that whoever tried to run you over is still in the street watching you, do you? Come on, don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful, I promise!”
She kissed him softly on the lips and pushed him toward the door. “Go pack your things to go to your parents’ house. It’ll save time!”
“Come on, get to work!” he said to himself. But just as he was about to put a large duffel bag on his bed, he heard the intercom ring. Thinking it was Sylvie, he did not even pick up and merely pressed the button to open the door. Then he returned to his bedroom and began to cram his clothes into the bag. This time, he was interrupted by two quick knocks at the door.
Without thinking, he opened it and found himself face-to-face with a stranger.
For a second, he was overcome by panic and tried to close the door, but the man in front of him quickly pulled out a badge. “Monsieur Boizot? Kevin Larrieux. I’m a lieutenant with the police, and I’m investigating the death of Geneviève Murelle.”
Boizot soon regained his composure and quickly sized up his visitor. Barely thirty, he had spiky hair, a suede sports jacket that clashed with the multicolored shirt underneath, and faded jeans. Of course he was a cop. Boizot smiled and said, “Excuse me, I’m a little nervous right now. Come in!”
He invited the young detective to sit on the couch and automatically asked, “Can I offer you something?”
“No, no, that’s fine. In fact, Monsieur Boizot, it’s just a routine investigation. The circumstances surrounding Madame Murelle’s death seem very clear. She swallowed a bunch of pills and a healthy dose of alcohol before jumping out the window of her apartment, but when we examined her cell phone, we discovered that she had called the same number twice before her death. The first time at eleven o’clock, the second time around four thirty. The number she called was yours. That’s why I’ve come to listen to what you have to say.”
So it was Geneviève Murelle who had called the other night.
Mortal Ambitions (A Dimitri Boizot Investigation Book 1) Page 17
