Murder in Pigalle

by Cara Black

  Hurrying down rue Ballu, she punched the Swiss number into her phone. After a series of rings, a recorded message came on: “You have reached Clinique Berzeval. Please call back during business hours from nine A.M. to noon and two P.M. to six P.M.”

  She tried the number from Madame Vasseur’s list that had been labeled M, hoping it was Mélanie’s. The phone rang once. “Message box is full.” If it really was Mélanie’s number, the clinic might have put her in psychiatric lockdown, cutting off her contact with the outside world.

  Both numbers led nowhere fast. Questions—that was all she had.

  A girl had been raped and murdered; Zazie still hadn’t made contact, and there was no trace of her to be found. Aimée wanted to throw something. If she had known Zazie would immediately break her promise not to go investigating, Aimée would have made her do her homework right there in the office where she could keep an eye on her. Talked some sense into her.

  Worry roiled her stomach. Intent on Madame Vasseur’s phone, she’d forgotten to pee.

  AT A CAFÉ downhill on rue Blanche, she made her way to the WC, past the crowd waiting for the quarterfinals on the télé. On France2 a news bulletin flashed:

  Reggae star Jimmy Cliff will perform an open-air concert during the Fête de la Musique in honor of the Jamaica versus Argentina match. In Marseilles, a curfew was announced after violent confrontations between British and Tunisian football fans, provoking an all-country security alert and extra CRS patrols in Paris.

  ALL RESOURCES WERE focused on rioting football fans. What about the little girls being raped? Welcome to World Cup Paris 1998, she thought, disgusted.

  She put a franc down on the counter as a courtesy, since she hadn’t ordered anything. Her wrist was grabbed by an old lady perched on a café stool who was ignoring the blaring télé. The old woman’s red-rimmed eyes bored into Aimée. “You know where rue Blanche’s name came from?”

  Aimée shook her head. Extricated her hand from the woman’s cold and dry, claw-like fingers. Too much to drink, lonely, crazy or all three?

  “The gypsum, as white as my hair,” said the old woman. “The Romans used to cart it down this street from the Montmartre quarries.”

  Aimée had learned that in school. Before the old woman could expound more, she snuck out.

  Outside, she punched in René’s number.

  “René, we’ve got to follow up with a Madame de Langlet, Mélanie’s violin teacher.” She ran down her encounter with Madame Vasseur and gave him the information.

  She heard him sucking in his breath. “I’m afraid things are verging on ugly. There’s trouble here in Pigalle.”

  “Trouble? But I’m near Pigalle.”

  She heard shouting in the background.

  “What’s going on, René?” she asked, uneasy. “Has something happened to Zazie?”

  “Parents taking things into their own hands.”

  “Gone vigilante?” She’d been afraid of this. The flics should have put two and two together much earlier.

  “Seems you inspired the owner of the NeoCancan to stir something up all right. A witch-hunt.”

  “Like I should feel guilty?” she said, walking faster. “Time someone took notice and did something.”

  “More than notice … they’re by Place Saint-Georges, chasing this mec down.”

  She froze in her tracks. “They found the rapist?”

  “Forget it, Aimée,” he said. “The area’s not safe.”

  “The hell it’s not safe. What about Zazie? If this mec’s the one … we’ll find Zazie.”

  She glanced at her Tintin watch. Nine thirty P.M. Ahead, a few slick-haired barkers were enjoining young men to step inside a club. Only a few steps away in a rose-trellised courtyard, she saw children kicking a soccer ball, smelled frying garlic from an open window with lace curtains. The streets buzzed below Pigalle in the hot night.

  “I’m en route.” She clicked off. Three and a half blocks downhill the streets changed, steam-cleaned limestone facades rising above chic Place Saint-Georges, the roundabout featuring a statue of Gavarni and ringed by upscale hôtels particuliers.

  Off to the left, down an unrestored cobbled street, she spotted René. As she approached the corner, she heard shouting. People congregated, a jeering crowd spilling onto the street, and she made out smeared blood on a stone wall.

  René caught her arm. “Don’t go up there, Aimée,” he said. “Not wise to get close.”

  But she had to see.

  Several members of the crowd were kicking a man crumpled on the pavement beneath the flashlight glare provided by others. Blood streamed from his shaved head onto the cobbled gutter. His clothing was torn. “Filthy pedophile,” said a woman and spat on him. “Gutter’s too good for you.”

  “That’s a lynch mob,” Aimée said, shivering. “We’ve got to stop them.”

  “I tried. Long past the point where we can help now.”

  The mob’s elongated silhouettes bounced off the stone wall, the beating a horrific shadow play. Sirens wailed up the street.

  “Time we take the law into our hands since the police haven’t,” a man shouted, lifting up a wallet. “He’s got pictures of little girls here, thinks he’s going to do it again.”

  Someone else yelled, “The animal raped my neighbor’s daughter. Killed her.” More dull thuds as people kicked the moaning figure.

  It was medieval. All they lacked were torches and rope. The sweat dried cold under her arms.

  “Call the flics, René,” she said.

  “Zut, I have, Aimée. Let’s go.”

  But she moved forward, shouldering her way through the crowd with René following, trying to tug her back. Somehow she had to make them stop. To reason with them. “We need him to talk,” she shouted into the crowd. “To tell where he’s taken another girl. You’ll get your justice.”

  “Fat chance,” a woman said.

  She heard a sickening crunch as the heel of a boot landed on the man’s bleeding, cracked head.

  “Stop, don’t you understand? He has to talk,” she said. “A girl’s life is at stake.”

  The man’s body spasmed in the gutter. Sirens wailed closer.

  “Merde, the flics,” someone said. The crowd scattered. A hush fell. The only sound was the water trickling into the gutter and pooling with blood.

  Aimée stepped back in horror. René pulled her arm. “Come on, Aimée.”

  “But I think they … we’ve got to get him help.”

  “Too late. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “But if he knows … knew where Zazie is … there might be something …”

  René grabbed her. “Listen to me. Village justice, mob violence—call it what you want, but you can’t be implicated, understand? That won’t help Zazie.”

  It made sense. The discarded wallet lay by the streetlamp, wallet-sized photos of little girls spilling out.

  “See, Aimée, he’s a pedophile. But it’s not our business.”

  She used her sleeve to pick up the soggy pictures and turned them over. Tessa aged seven, Tessa aged nine, Tessa at confirmation … A horrible taste filled her mouth. “René, look.” She pulled out his carte d’identité: Nico Destael. “He’s from Lille, a merchant seaman.”

  René grabbed the wallet from her with his handkerchief, rubbed it off just in case, and threw it back on the ground. Sirens echoed in the canyons formed by the dense Haussmann buildings. He dragged her around the corner and pushed her into the Citroën, switched on the ignition and ground into first.

  Terse messages erupted on the police scanner. “Alert …”

  She felt numb. Useless. It was all her fault.

  “I’m not condoning mob mentality, Aimée, but they dispensed their own justice,” said René, checking his rearview mirror. “Now let them deal with it. He attacked their children. It’s their battle.”

  That didn’t make it right—especially if they had picked the wrong man. She felt sick to her stomach.


  Sweat beaded René’s brow. He pulled his Glock from his pocket and opened the glove compartment.

  Aimée gasped. “René, tell me you weren’t going to use that.”

  “Didn’t have to,” he said.

  “What happened tonight?” she asked. “Where did that mob come from?”

  “They held a candlelight vigil in front of Sylvaine’s. Things got out of hand.” His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “He raped and killed a twelve-year-old girl. Put yourself in the parents’ place. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if you had to.”

  She had a little life stirring inside her. Part of her wondered what she would do to protect it. And it scared her.

  “First I’d find out where Zazie is. Then … I don’t know.”

  But guilt invaded her. It had already been a powder-keg situation, and she’d lit the fuse, fanned the flame by showing the FotoFit around, pointing out the man to the NeoCancan owner. Doubt gnawed in the back of her mind.

  “René, those pictures …”

  “You’re saying what, Aimée?”

  “What if they were his daughters?”

  “That’s up to the investigating team.”

  “But what if he’s not the rapist?” she said. “What if Zazie was wrong?”

  Monday, 10 P.M.

  COLD AIR DIDN’T keep the sweat from trickling down Zacharié’s spine in the vaulted stone cellar where his team had rendezvoused. The cellar was a former foundry nestled underneath rue Condorcet’s wrought-iron shop, a purveyor of cast-iron plaques cast made from sixteenth-century Versailles molds. Firebacks and wrought-iron railing samples were piled by remnants of the old smelter. No one would ever think they had planned a heist down here.

  “C’est normal. Changing the plan ups the price,” said Jules, matter-of-fact. “So I’m offering to increase your take twenty-five percent.”

  Not that Zacharié was here for the money—not anymore. Jules had threatened Marie-Jo; Zacharié had no choice but to cooperate until he could figure out how to extricate himself. His plan was to try to demonstrate the crew’s expertise to Jules firsthand—he still hoped to take himself out of the operation.

  “Ten thousand spreads the butter. Up front,” said Dervier.

  Dervier’s three-man team—Tandou, the digger; Ramu, the locksmith; and Gilou, the trust-fund bobo who sidelined in explosifs—nodded. They were the best at what they did. Zacharié knew; he’d gone to school with them—la classe de crime, they’d joked. This Pigalle quartier, where the affluent lived amongst blue collars and émigrés roughed the edges, hadn’t changed since they were kids—apart from the flocks of trendy bobos moving in and upscaling rue des Martyrs. The now aging ancien régime generation still rented out their upper-floor chambres de bonnes to the poor, only now the latter didn’t work as servants, they just slaved to pay rent.

  Jules took an envelope from his suit jacket. “Bon, show me your plan. Here’s a deposit.”

  Gilou counted the bills with his manicured fingers. He looked up with a smile and nodded to Dervier.

  “Alors, it’s a simple in and out,” Dervier said and pulled a map down from the wall. Zacharié tried not to wince at Dervier’s lisp or the spittle on his chin that accompanied it. But then outlining the break-in plan with a split tongue couldn’t be easy.

  “Can you explain how you’ll navigate this segment here?” Jules pointed to the underground sewer on the map tacked to the wall.

  Tandou, the big-shouldered mec, frowned. “I’ve got it covered.”

  These professionals hated dilettantes who contracted a job then questioned their expertise. Zacharié shot a warning look at Jules.

  “Making a fuss over a simple question?” Jules said.

  Why couldn’t Jules leave it alone?

  “The segments that appear blocked,” said Dervier, “connect Gare Saint-Lazare via the old Banque de France rail tracks. Once they were used for transporting bullion, but they’ve gone unused since the war. They’re forgotten shunting tracks.”

  “A fascinating historical detail, but how …?”

  “All you need to know,” Dervier said, “is that my boys and I can navigate your several-block radius underground—in and out—in under twelve minutes.”

  Jules nodded. “Impressive.”

  “Now all I need you to tell me is how much weight we’re transporting. Not ballpark—specific to a kilo, more or less.”

  Ten minutes later, Zacharié stood upstairs with Jules in the old shop, which was hotter than a furnace. He’d made nice with Jules, introduced the team—obvious professionals—and outlined the heist plan. Hadn’t Jules said he was impressed?

  Time to stand up and get out of this. Now.

  “You’re in good hands, Jules. Now time for me to bow out. I can’t draw attention to myself. It’s too dangerous, with my parole officer sniffing around. Look, the team’s professional, the best there is. Consider your favor repaid, Jules.”

  “Repaid?” Jules shook his head. “You’ve just begun to repay me, Zacharié. Remember our deal? These thugs provide the window dressing. It’s your expertise that makes this work.”

  “Count me out, Jules,” he said. “My daughter’s important, and I can’t—”

  “Let your parole officer get a sniff of this?” Jules sighed. His voice lowered. “But he’ll get a big sniff if you don’t. A letter from a new witness, a phone call from that old employer, and you can kiss parole adieu.”

  “But you can’t … you wouldn’t. That implicates you, too.”

  “You were inside too long, Zacharié.” He gave a snort. “A little magic took care of that. I’m clean.”

  Magic? More like bribery and corruption. His stock-in-trade.

  Zacharié cursed the day he’d weakened. The day he’d acted like an imbecile and gotten involved with Jules again in a moment of greed. But the man was so convincing. Zacharié had gotten caught, and now he owed Jules for his parole. Maybe Jules had planned this all along. Got him sprung for this job, which was just a front for the real nugget. Jules’s take from this heist sounded more than big.

  “Of course you love your daughter,” Jules said. “Now prove it.”

  Monday, 9:30 P.M.

  RENÉ IDLED THE Citroën on Avenue Trudaine under the double row of lime trees. The quiet oasis from the red lights of Place Pigalle a few blocks away was threaded by an island row of greenery. They listened to the police scanner buzzing with static.

  Hot, humid air filled the car. “We left just in time,” René said, taking off his linen jacket.

  “Au contraire.” She wiped her brow and rooted in the back seat for a bottle of water.

  “You think if we’d found the rapist first … what? He’d talk?”

  “Un peu difficile to talk now, with a broken jaw and skull fractures, eh? René, that’s assuming he’s the one.”

  “He matches the FotoFit, Aimée.”

  “For now, stick to what we know—from his papers, this mec’s a merchant seaman from Lille. Was he stationed in Paris when the attacks took place?”

  “The flics will find out if he’s on shore leave, leading a secret life in Paris, why he gets off on attacking little girls. Who the hell knows, Aimée?”

  René turned up the police scanner volume. Disjointed voices, static.

  “We can’t sit on our behinds until he talks,” she said, pushing her doubts aside. “We’ve got to find Zazie.”

  “Any more ideas?”

  “Mélanie’s in a Swiss clinic, traumatized and not talking. But her teacher, Madame de Langlet, is nearby on Square d’Orléans.”

  “It’s late, Aimée,” said René.

  “And she’s a night person, according to Mélanie’s—”

  “Clueless mother, from your description?” René interrupted. He gestured to the public phone cabin, getting rarer to find these days. “Better to call first.”

  She didn’t agree—time was of the essence, and in person worked best. But he’d lumbered out of the car onto t
he cobbles. He was unable to reach the phone, but in the glare of the car headlight she watched him thumb through one of the directories hanging on a chain. Not for the first time it saddened her to think of all the daily obstacles he faced with his short legs. She saw him punch a number into his cell phone.

  A moment later he rejoined her and hit the defroster button.

  “Madame de Langlet isn’t answering at her atelier de musique. Sounds ancient, from her answering machine. I left her a message.” René pointed to the map showing Place Gustave Toudouze, a block from where the beating took place. “Looks like this might be the Wallace fountain in Zazie’s photo.” René put the photo up on the dashboard. “And there’s the kiosk and that tree. So let’s say he’s at the café, watches Sylvaine, I don’t know, and follows her.”

  Aimée wiped her forehead. “But Sylvaine wouldn’t come this way from the lycée. She’d go home down rue Turgot.”

  René shrugged. “Since when does any kid go right home after school?”

  “You’re right, she’d gone to a music lesson.”

  “And he sees her en route home but say she’s met Zazie and …”

  Aimée’s phone trilled, and she glanced at the number. Her heart leapt. “René, it’s her.”

  She hit answer. “Zazie! Zazie, are you all right?”

  “Mademoiselle Aimée Leduc?” said a woman’s voice.

  “Oui.” Her throat caught. “Where’s Zazie?”

  “We need you to answer some questions.”

  A cold chill crept up her neck.

  “Who’s this?”

  “You’re familiar with the Commissariat on rue de Parme?” But the voice wasn’t asking a question. “We’ll expect you within ten minutes.”

  “Has something happened to Zazie?”

  “There’s a patrol car in the area,” the voice continued. “Off Avenue Trudaine. If you would prefer us to escort you.”

  AIMÉE’S HEART WAS thumping so loud she thought the drunk snoring on the Commissariat bench would wake up. Why hadn’t the flics told her anything? She sat in the Commissariat on rue de Parme, a former townhouse behind Gare Saint-Lazare, where the streets were named for European cities: Bucharest, Moscow, St. Petersburg.