Boizot’s heart was racing. “Would it by any chance have been in June?” he asked.
“It’s possible, but I can’t really be positive.”
“That’s no problem, Madame Lemeunier. I think you’ve already helped me enough.”
Paul Vendroux returned to his office late that morning. He felt excited, enthusiastic, the same feeling he always had whenever he thought there was a break in a case. The interview with Elisabeth Plesse had revealed a lot of information. In particular, it had opened new, previously unsuspected avenues: Plesse and Héron had both been at the house in Saint-Géry the eve of Jean-Michel Flaneau’s murder. It wasn’t too much of a leap to think that the former had ordered the killing and the latter had carried it out. And strangely enough, the two men had also been killed on the same day, or rather the same night.
“I want to believe in random chance,” he said a few minutes later, sitting in the office of the division head. “But only up to a certain point. And here, we are clearly past that point, because if you add to these elements the attempt on the journalist Dimitri Boizot’s life last week and the suicide of Deputy Perdiou, in whose house Franck Héron died while attempting a burglary, then you find yourself faced with a group of facts that cannot be the result of mere coincidence.”
The division head, who had the habit of writing down everything that was said to him, finished inking a sheet of paper on which he had drawn a simple triangle with three points. The home in Saint-Géry, the villa in Batz, and the apartment on Avenue Foch were connected by double-headed arrows. He remained silent for a long moment, staring at the drawing, probably hoping to discover a hidden meaning in it. Finally, he looked up with the perpetually burdened face he always wore for his subordinates. “Hmm. That’s pretty amazing. If I understand you correctly, Paul, all you have to do is find the logical connection between these three points and you’ll have the solution.”
“I hope so,” he said.
“Well, go ahead, keep at it, but don’t forget that the official focus of your investigation is the burglary at the Plesses’ place.”
The archive room at L’Actualité had been moved to the basement many years ago. Temporarily, they’d said at the time, but temporarily soon became permanently.
Sitting at an old wooden desk that must have seen better days in a previous century, Boizot opened the bound collection of newspapers from the second quarter of 1993.
Earlier, when he’d left Lemeunier’s office, he had scrutinized his surroundings, but had seen no one. He was starting to wonder if he had not been hit by some reckless driver rather than a would-be murderer.
June 17, 1993, had been a Thursday. The news had revolved around Cambodia and the formation of a government by Norodom Sihanouk. Boizot leafed through the newspaper, but in vain. The next day’s issue also contained nothing. There was a one in a thousand chance of finding something, he knew, but he figured he might as well continue looking. His tenacity was rewarded. In the June 21, 1993, edition, he found what he was looking for without even really knowing it. It wasn’t on the front page. In fact, it was just a few lines buried on page ten among other random news items.
FRENCHMAN KILLED IN ZAIRE was the headline. Boizot read the few lines that comprised the article:
On Sunday, a French national, Frédéric Fréjean, 46, died when he accidentally fell into the Obowé River in Zaire, in the Lehili region. Monsieur Fréjean, a geologist, had been visiting the region for a week while on a prospecting trip conducted on behalf of the Palonnier Group along with two colleagues, Lionel Perdiou and Ernest Lullier, who alerted the authorities. The body of Monsieur Fréjean, who was married with two children, has not been found.
Boizot felt like shouting for joy. Everything suddenly seemed clear: Fréjean had been killed by Perdiou or Lullier, and Gilbert Lemeunier had conducted an autopsy on his corpse a few days later. Obviously, everyone had believed that it was an accident—until Jean-Michel Flaneau, after being hired by Palonnier, discovered the infamous file and made the connection with Perdiou and Lullier.
It’s not much of a stretch in presuming that dear old Jean-Michel wanted to blackmail them, Boizot thought. Obviously, the file was a ticking time bomb for the other two guys, who in the intervening years had become quite powerful.
Boizot threw his head back and, staring at the ceiling, continued to think.
So, if I assume that Flaneau was blackmailing the other two and that he was murdered, as has now been shown, logic would dictate that Perdiou and Lullier ordered his murder. But what I can’t explain, then, is how Plesse and Héron play into the case—unless Perdiou and Lullier paid them to carry out the dirty work. That’s feasible for Héron, who seems like he was always in need of money and had few scruples about how he came by it, but for Plesse, the situation is less clear.
When he had climbed back up to his office, Censier said to him as he sat down: “Did you just see God? You look dumbstruck.”
“Almost, Patrice, almost. Here’s the thing: my Perdiou case is taking on extraordinary proportions.”
Magnin, when he wanted to chat with his journalists one-on-one, always invited them to a small Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. At one o’clock in the middle of August, the room was practically deserted when Boizot walked in to share a meal with his editor.
“Go ahead, tell me everything!” Magnin said, after ordering a bottle of Chianti.
Without needing to be asked twice, Boizot recounted the details of his interview with Nadine Lemeunier, then from his pocket he pulled out a copy of the brief article from June 21, 1993, that he’d discovered in the archives.
Magnin was so enthralled by the story that he barely touched his wine.
“This is huge! You’ve got the scoop!”
Boizot smiled. Once again, Magnin was getting carried away. It was a great quality in a journalist, but still, he was neglecting important details.
“Hold on,” said Boizot. “There are still some gray areas that need to be clarified: Plesse’s role and the real reason for Perdiou’s suicide, for example. Here’s a guy who lives for eighteen years with a murder on his conscience and seems to take it all in stride, and then one day he goes and does himself in. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. What we should do now is establish a link between Plesse and the Perdiou-Lullier duo.”
“Exactly! I was just thinking of paying the Palonnier offices a visit this afternoon to see if I could ask Ernest Lullier a few questions.”
“A good idea,” he said. “But don’t go there by yourself. You should be careful; take Pascal with you. Besides, we’ll need some photos.”
Boizot detested working with Pascal. The old photographer was a year away from retirement, he did only what he wanted to do, and he hated crime stories.
“Where are we going?” he asked in his hoarse voice as he jumped into the photo service’s company car alongside Boizot. As he drove, he grumbled nonstop about working conditions and the journalists who considered him “just an ordinary driver.” A stoic Boizot suffered in silence.
His time at Palonnier didn’t last very long: the hostess informed him that Monsieur Lullier was on vacation in Martinique until the end of the month.
They returned to the newspaper, Boizot quieter than ever, Pascal nasty as always.
After reporting to Magnin and convincing him that he had better wait a little longer before publishing anything about the case, Boizot was about to leave the newspaper when the phone on his desk rang.
“Monsieur Boizot?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“It’s Raïssa Rzaev from Job-Inter.”
“Ah yes,” Boizot said, wondering what she could want with him.
“We met last week at the agency. You wanted to talk about the burglary. I think I have found something that might interest you, Monsieur Boizot.”
Boizot, who had already put
on his jacket, sat down and glanced at Censier. “Something about your boss?”
“Yes, my boss, and other things, too.”
“Really? And can you tell me these things over the phone?”
“I’d prefer not to, Monsieur Boizot. In fact, I have documents I want to show you.”
Opposite him, Censier continued to strum on his keyboard, but Boizot knew that he was following every word of the conversation. “What kind of documents?”
“Papers and photos.”
“Fine. Would you like me to come by and see you?”
“I think it would be better—”
“At the agency?”
“No, the agency is closed right now. If it’s not too much of a bother, would you mind coming to see me at my place tomorrow morning?”
Boizot agreed to the plan and carefully noted the address. After hanging up, he said to Censier, “Do you know Cosmonaut City in Saint-Denis?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I have a meeting there tomorrow at eleven o’clock, Rue Valentina Tereshkova.”
Chapter 38
It was nearly eleven thirty when Boizot finally found Rue Valentina Tereshkova. Even under a timid sun playing hide-and-seek with the clouds, the Cosmonaut City looked drab. He found a parking place for his old Renault at the foot of the building where Raïssa Rzaev lived.
He felt under the weather that morning. The night before, Sylvie had joined him at his place and they had spent the night together, but he had slept poorly due to stomach cramps, which were growing increasingly painful as the day wore on.
He got out of the car, shot a disgusted look at the dirty walls, and entered a deserted lobby. On the telephone, Raïssa Rzaev had told him that she lived on the fourth floor. Of course, the elevator was broken; Boizot gathered his courage and began to climb the stairs.
By the time he rang the doorbell to the apartment, his lungs were on fire.
Raïssa opened the door after the first ring. Dressed in a tracksuit that gave her all the beauty of a bag of potatoes, she opened her eyes wide upon discovering him on her doormat.
“Hello!” Boizot said in the most lighthearted way possible.
“Hello,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you anymore!”
“I got a little lost before finding the street,” he said sheepishly. “And I can’t afford a GPS.”
She didn’t answer but stood aside to let him enter.
The apartment was tiny but impeccably tidy and meticulously clean.
“So you have something interesting for me,” Boizot said as he stepped inside a room that clearly served as both living room and dining room.
“Yes—I mean, I think so, but sit down. Would you like something to drink?”
“Do you have whiskey?”
“I think I must still have a little left.”
She went to the kitchen, and Boizot heard the sound of ice cubes tinkling against glass. “With ice?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
When she returned, she sat down in front of him and looked at him strangely, a mixture of malice and mockery. Boizot put his glass down on the coffee table, a little disturbed.
“So,” he said.
“You want to see the documents?”
Boizot picked up his glass and took a sip. “I would, yes.”
She gave him a big smile and without saying a word got up to fetch a box of files from the corner of the room. She put the box down on the coffee table, then opened it. Boizot leaned over and saw that the box was filled with gray envelopes stacked one on top of the other.
“Take one and open it—you’ll see!”
On the box was a single word, handwritten in large capital letters: GAONDO. Boizot reached for an envelope, opened it, and pulled out a dozen typed sheets and some photos.
On the first page, he immediately recognized Palonnier’s logo and read, “Inspection Report filed by Jean-Michel Flaneau.” It was dated November 18, 2005, and the location—Gaondo in Lehili—was noted. He skimmed the pages and quickly noted essential phrases: There is no doubt that there has never been any research activity here . . . The testimony from the villagers is consistent . . . At no time was any exploration work undertaken in Gaondo or nearby. The pictures all showed a typical African village without the slightest trace of industrial activity.
Boizot looked up and his eyes met Raïssa’s. “Interesting, right?” she said.
“How did you get these documents?”
On Raïssa’s fat, greasy face, there wasn’t the slightest trace of naiveté. There wasn’t the slightest trace of kindness either, Boizot noted, suddenly feeling a sort of vague fear. The fat woman stared at him, like a wild beast gauging its prey.
From the other apartments in the building, Boizot heard reassuring sounds: the shouts of a mother who wasn’t being obeyed, music playing in another apartment, a chair being dragged across the floor. He took a deep breath.
“I got them from my boss. Like a lot of people, he always took me for a big fat idiot incapable of deception. But some big fat idiots can also be very shrewd.”
She got up, pulled another folder from the bottom of the box, and handed it to Boizot. “Look at this one.”
He opened it and immediately realized that he was sitting face-to-face with Dr. Gilbert Lemeunier’s autopsy report. He had no doubt it was the original, too.
At that precise moment, Boizot felt dizzy and had to cling to the arm of the chair so as not to lose his balance. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he had the impression that the room was spinning. Raïssa watched him, smiling, and then he heard her ask him, “Are you OK?”
Her words were the last he heard as he closed his eyes and lost consciousness.
When he came to, he tried to open his eyes, but the light was too bright, the pain too excruciating. He felt like his head was caught in a vise, and there was a foul taste in his mouth, as if he had swallowed a colony of bugs.
“It looks like he’ll pull through,” said a woman’s voice.
Just then, Boizot hiccuped and felt suddenly nauseous.
“Oh, no! He is not throwing up,” said Raïssa’s easily identifiable voice. “Go find a bowl.”
He was lying on hard floor made of concrete or something like it. He heard quick footsteps, somebody coming up the stairs, and then a door slamming. He wanted to move, but realized that his hands were shackled, as were his ankles.
What the hell is going on?
He wanted to speak, but he could not articulate even a single word. He made another effort to open his eyes very slowly. There was a lamp trained directly on his face that prevented him from distinguishing his surroundings. He closed his eyes. Another door slammed, he heard footsteps on the stairs, and then a silhouette leaned toward him and placed a large plastic basin next to him.
“There we go,” said Raïssa. “Now he won’t get anything dirty.”
Boizot felt someone approach and stand between him and the lamp.
He opened his eyes and saw Raïssa leaning over him, her round face a few inches from his. Was he caught in a nightmare? “Our little sleepyhead is waking up, eh?” said Raïssa mischievously.
She stroked his cheek tenderly before slapping him across the face. The impact reverberated deep in his brain.
It was not a bad dream, he realized. He was dealing with someone dangerous. His heart began to race.
“Listen, I don’t have much time to lose,” Raïssa said. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the relationship between Charles Plesse and Palonnier.”
And she dealt him another slap.
Boizot tried hard to wrap his fuzzy thoughts around the situation, but he could not understand. Where was he? Why was that fat woman interrogating him? Who was the second woman? He knew he’d heard another voice in the room. “I, uh,�
�� he stammered. He was having trouble collecting his thoughts and even more trouble forming words. He felt drunk. He tried to breathe deeply, but with his head resting against a wall, half-reclining, the task was not easy.
“Why?” he managed to say simply.
“That’s my business. Now hurry up. I’m losing my patience!”
Boizot sighed and, with an almost superhuman effort, said that he had discovered that Jean-Michel Flaneau had been blackmailing Ernest Lullier and that he had remained in touch with his former high school classmate, Charles Plesse.
“That’s all I know. I don’t know anything else.”
As he spoke, Boizot felt his wits starting to return.
The fat woman stood up and addressed another woman, whom Boizot still hadn’t seen. “What do you say?”
“I thought it’d be something along those lines.”
He listened intently, but this voice was unfamiliar to him. He slowly turned his head, realized that he appeared to be lying on the floor of what looked like a basement, and at the same time discovered the identity of the woman Raïssa was talking with.
She was a tall, slender woman with short hair and an athletic appearance. Boizot had never seen her before, and yet she looked familiar. “Could you tell me what’s going on?” Boizot said to Raïssa.
She turned back to him, seemingly annoyed. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to ask any questions. But since I’m a kind soul, I’ll answer one for you. First, let me introduce you to Madame Plesse, who helped me transport you here. We’re at her country house in Val d’Oise. There are no neighbors nearby, so scream all you want; nobody will hear you.”
Boizot couldn’t shake the impression that he was imagining all of it: this implacable creature was a far cry from the fat, dull woman he had spoken with a few days earlier at the temp agency in Saint-Cloud.
He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.
“I needed your expertise to confirm the importance of the documents Monsieur Plesse entrusted to me several months ago. Now, thanks to you, I know that I have in my possession a real treasure, and since I am generous, I wanted Madame Plesse to enjoy it, too. With the funds we extract from Palonnier—especially from brave Monsieur Lullier, who had Monsieur Plesse murdered to get the documents back, without knowing that I was the one who had them—we’ll be able to keep the business going.”
Mortal Ambitions (A Dimitri Boizot Investigation Book 1) Page 22
