Murder on the Champ de Mars

by Cara Black

  “Sure about this, Aimée?”

  “Keep talking, René.”

  René directed her remotely, keeping tabs on Leseur, who maintained a brisk pace.

  “Where did you really get this little toy?”

  “My real-time simulation prototype?”

  “Talking geek again, René? Did some gamer friend with military contacts ask you to alpha-test this?”

  “Not military, non. My Silicon Valley friends.” He pronounced it Zeeleekon Vallée.

  “You got in trouble with them before, René, n’est-ce pas?”

  And had to escape the vallée on a drug plane. But no need to bring that up.

  “Leseur must have jumped into a taxi,” said René, excited now. “He’s passing les Invalides.”

  “I’m on Avenue Rapp.” Tiled Art Nouveau façades flew by.

  “Take a left at Avenue de la Bourdonnais to intercept him at rue de Grenelle.”

  She stretched out her arm to signal a left turn and almost got clipped by a speeding Alfa Romeo. Centimeters from losing her hand to a red bullet with Italian music blaring from the open window.

  Shaken, and feeling more wary of Italians than she had before, she kept to the right.

  “He’s going straight on rue de Grenelle,” René was saying, “passing … non, slow down, it’s hard following on the screen …” A few clicks. “Veer right … it’s a one-way. Make a right on Grenelle which becomes rue Belgrade.” A few moments later René shouted, “He’s stopped at the Champ de Mars! In front of it. Non, beside it.”

  “Make up your mind, René. Tell your cursor to behave.”

  “Make a sharp right on avenue Deschanel and go up to rue Marinoni. It’s a narrow street leading to the Champ de Mars.”

  She caught the green light and zipped right, cutting in front of an approaching camionnette. Its burst of honking made her almost jump out of her skin.

  “Le voilà. I see him getting out of a taxi,” she said. “He’s paying.” She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t find the centime-sized tracker as he riffled through his wallet. Then again, he might mistake it for a coin. “René, he’s going to the front door of …” She pulled over, squinting through her helmet’s visor. “One-four-three rue Marinoni.” A limestone mansion with an Art Nouveau tiled façade, its tall windows framed by iron scrollwork. “Find out who lives here. Could be an embassy, but I don’t see a plaque or flag.”

  Trees blocked much of her view, so she idled the engine and checked the time. Leseur might stay an hour, several hours—who knew?

  “Checking the address out, Aimée. Takes a minute. Call me back.”

  But it was less than a minute before she heard the door open, footsteps on the short rise of stairs and voices. She peered between the trees, catching sight of Roland Leseur and a woman walking past the grilled fence. She couldn’t make out the woman’s face in the darkness, just a shock of white-haired ponytail. The woman held a leash with a trailing Westie following behind.

  At 9 P.M. Leseur had taken a taxi across the quartier to walk a dog with this woman—a friend? Not his sister, because her research had told her he didn’t have one. A liaison? Aimée killed the engine, grabbed a knit cap and thin windbreaker from under the scooter seat, stowed her helmet, the Schiaparelli and pocketed her keys. At least the oversized windbreaker covered the Chanel.

  She’d lost them now. Merde. But with a dog they couldn’t have gotten too far. The Champ de Mars stretched from the Tour Eiffel, with its tourists and pickpockets, down this way, which was a popular family spot in the daytime: there were pony rides and a marionette theater, and tree-lined gravel pathways favored by les joggeurs. At night it was a different story, according to Morbier—a famous rendezvous spot for assignations in the bushes.

  She followed raised voices down the gravel paths of the Champ de Mars, through a stretch of darkness; the only light came from the diffuse radiance of the Tour Eiffel, which was partially obscured by trees. The damp stones crunched and felt cold under the soles of her shoes.

  Finally she spotted Leseur, seated on a bench next to the woman holding the Westie’s leash. She darted behind a tree. Heard them arguing but couldn’t catch the words. Leseur leaned forward, trying to embrace the woman. His lover?

  A rhythmic crunch, crunch on the gravel path and the bouncing beams of a jogger’s headlamp made her duck into the bushes. Leseur was angry; he was shouting now, although she couldn’t make out the words. Through the parted leaves, as the passing jogger’s beam flashed over the scene, she recognized the 1978 Paris Match Leseur was brandishing at the woman from the photo of the younger Johnny Hallyday on the cover. The same edition she’d found in her grandfather’s collection the night before. The Paris Match with the photo spread on his brother Pascal’s funeral.

  She hit René’s number on her phone. “Found out who lives at that address yet?” she whispered. “René?”

  “Attends, Aimée, my connection’s slowed,” he said. “Why the whispering?”

  “I’m on the Champ de Mars, trailing them. Leseur’s arguing with the woman who came out of the house with her dog. Who is she?”

  All of a sudden, the woman threw the Paris Match down on the bench. She stood up. For the first time, Aimée caught her face in the dim light; tears glistened on her prominent cheekbones. Then she pulled at the dog’s leash and hurried away.

  Leseur sat, his shoulders sagging, dejected. Should she accost him? But what did she have to say to him? All she had now were theories.

  “I’d say it’s Françoise Delavigne, widow of the former ambassador to Venezuela. She has recently put one-four-three rue Marinoni on the market,” said René. “The Delavigne family seems to have plenty of other property—including a flat in London where she’s been living with her daughter since her husband’s death. Let’s see, that was about six months ago.” René sucked in his breath. “That help?”

  “She treated Leseur like a spurned lover,” said Aimée. “There’s more to this. Some connection to Pascal Leseur.” Otherwise why would he have flashed the Paris Match featuring his brother’s funeral in her face?

  “Hmmm. Gerard Delavigne, her dead husband, graduated from École Nationale d’Administration, previously served in the ministry at quai d’Orsay,” said René.

  Think. How could that be connected?

  “I taped the Paris Match spread to the timeline. Can you check the funeral photos for Gerard Delavigne?”

  “Hold on, Aimée.” A pause as she heard René crank down his chair. The scrape as he pulled the step stool to the wall. Why did she always forget that things that were simple for her were difficult for him? “I’m looking at the Paris Match funeral photos … Et voilà, a G. Delavigne is listed as a pallbearer. Her husband?”

  “I’d better ask her,” she said, backing out of the bushes to the path. “Keep monitoring Leseur’s tracker in case he leaves. Merci, René.”

  She clicked off, took out her earphones. Hurrying, she kept her head down and reached the next tree-canopied allée. On the winding path toward the dark outline of the marionette theater, the Westie sniffed and watered the bushes. How should she play this?

  “Excusez-moi, Madame Delavigne.”

  The woman gave a sharp turn on the gravel. Her scraped-back bright white hair revealed a makeup-free, tear-streaked face. Her cheekbones were sharp, her skin completely unlined except for some faint traces of smile lines. A classic beauty. Her lips quivered.

  “Who are you? Non, I know. You’re from sécurité. Never give up, do you?”

  “Did my windbreaker give me away?” Aimée said the first thing that came into her head. There was an orange Sécurité logo on the collar; she’d appropriated the windbreaker from a security job she’d done several years ago. At least it gave her an intro.

  “You’ve probably been listening to everything we’ve said,” Françoise said. “After all these years, can’t you just leave me in peace?”

  “Désolée, Madame Delavigne, but—”

  “Yo
u’re all the same,” she interrupted. “Whatever branch or unit. Can’t you just stop hounding Roland? We deserve some privacy.”

  So there was history here. An intimacy. The woman already resented her, so she might as well jump right in. Test her hunch that this was somehow connected to the tell-all memoir Martine had told her about.

  “The blackmail threat’s real, Madame Delavigne.”

  “Blackmail?” Her voice carried under the branches. “Roland’s naïve, a fool sometimes. Leave him alone. His brother was the manipulator, not him. Why bring this all up again, so many years later?”

  Françoise Delavigne pulled a tissue from her pocket, blew her nose. Wiped her eyes. The excitable unattended Westie rooted in the bushes.

  “Not for me to say, Madame.” Aimée racked her brain for how to steer the woman toward Pascal Leseur’s death. “But his brother …?”

  “Pascal? Pah. Just like your bosses on the quai d’Orsay.” Françoise Delavigne had assumed Aimée worked for the ministry’s internal surveillance team. Not the first time she’d encountered a member of that team, judging by her reaction. “Clutching at power, backstabbing, manipulating.” She’d warmed up, breathing fire now. “Roland’s brother excelled at that. That’s what did him in. Not our—”

  “Affair?” Aimée interrupted. “Or was it Djanka Constantin’s murder?” Held her breath—she’d either hit the truth or gone off in left field.

  “Our affair, of which you’ve evidently been informed, ended long ago.”

  But she hadn’t denied the link to Djanka’s murder.

  “Pascal Leseur fathered Djanka Constantin’s child.”

  “Et alors?”

  “Pascal’s and Djanka’s bodies were discovered within hours of each other.” Now she tried her hunch. “So at Roland’s insistence, the flics were pulled off the investigation, and now twenty years later he’s being blackmailed over the cover-up.”

  “Cover-up? I don’t doubt it,” she said, matter-of-fact. “But not on Roland’s end. Roland can’t admit Pascal kept secrets, dirt on his colleagues at the ministry. Suicide, murder?” Shook her head. “I don’t know. A tragedy. That’s what my husband always said.”

  She thought again. A staged suicide as René had suggested? She thought of René’s theory. That would have been a convenient way to dispose of a backstabber like Pascal, as Françoise seemed to think of him. And Drina knew too much, so her father …

  “In case you think any of this has anything to do with me or Roland, you’re way off course,” Françoise was saying. “Leave him alone. My husband never gave a fig that Roland I were lovers. Gerard’s mistresses were numerous … enfin, until the Parkinson’s really took hold.” Françoise shook her head. “Not news to your bosses. Postings in foreign countries were a good cover for his indiscretions, and for a slow-developing disease. Your people were always so good about getting us out of the way. Which was what this has been really about, hasn’t it?”

  Aimée didn’t know what to say. Just nodded.

  “Your bosses would have done anything to keep my husband quiet.” She jerked at the leash. “Well, it’s all over now. Gerard’s dead and whatever he knew went with him. Tell your boss I don’t care, let the papers and publishers print what they want. It’s twenty years ago. I’m just a forty-seven-year-old grandmother who’s living in London to help my daugher get treatment.”

  “But Madame, you and I know the powers that be—then and now—have a lot to lose. Especially whoever was involved in the cover-up.”

  “Exactement, Mademoiselle. You came here to give me a warning, n’est-ce pas? Tell them it’s received loud and clear, and not to count on me giving a damn.”

  No wonder this savvy Françoise spoke with such candor. She’d been navigating these waters for a long time. She gave Aimée a sideways look. “You look intelligent. But I’m a terrible judge of character. I picked the wrong man to leave.” She paused. “Think about where you work. Your paycheck comes from men afraid to lose power, driven by fear. Like Versailles—nothing has changed in two hundred years. They’re all vengeful backbiters.”

  “You mean appointed officials,” Aimée said, angling for names. “Like who?”

  “Men afraid of a Gypsy taboo,” Françoise said. “Would you believe, grown men terrified by hocus-pocus?”

  The Westie barked. Before Aimée could ask more, it had dragged Françoise around the hedgerow and into the path of a jogger. Françoise stumbled and swerved, just avoiding a collision.

  Barking louder now, the Westie pawed the dirt by a clump of bushes. “What’s the matter, Filou?”

  Aimée took out her penlight. Shone it on the undergrowth.

  The dog yelped and pawed in the bushes behind the reach of her beam. “Filou, if that’s a squirrel …”

  Aimée saw a lanyard hanging from the dog’s mouth.

  “Mon Dieu!” Françoise pulled Filou’s leash. “Leave it alone, Filou. There’s homeless people sleeping here.”

  Her phone vibrated. René.

  “I have to take this call, Madame,” she said, taking a few steps away on the path. “Where’s Roland Leseur gone?” she asked René, lowering her voice.

  “You tell me, Aimée. I think he discovered the tracker.”

  Her neck tingled. “Why?”

  “No movement.”

  “Tell me the last tracker location, René.”

  “Champ de Mars. Hasn’t moved for at least seven, maybe nine minutes. Leseur must have wised up, found the tracker and ditched it. There’s another expensive piece of tech down the drain …”

  She’d have hell to pay if she didn’t recover René’s pricey toy. Up ahead by the bushes near the bench where Françoise had argued with Leseur, Filou was barking nonstop, dragging Françoise on the leash behind him.

  “Filou’s gone crazy,” Françoise said as Aimée caught up, the phone still to her ear. “I don’t know what’s the matter.” She pulled the dog’s leash hard, commanded him to heel.

  But there was Roland Leseur, sitting on the bench just where Françoise had left him. Determined to get what more she could out of him, she hurried ahead.

  “Monsieur Leseur?”

  No answer. Then she noticed the way his head slumped on his neck.

  “Can you hear me, Monsieur?” In the rising mist tinged by the yellow-orange glow of the Tour Eiffel, she shone her penlight. Blood pooled on the gravel by his shoe. She gasped. Stepped back. Then she stepped closer again and felt for a pulse. None. Her throat caught. His wrist was still warm.

  “Deactivate the tracker, René. Now.”

  “Doing it as we speak. That was an expensive move, Aimée.”

  “Go call SAMU from the pay phone down in the café,” she said. “Tell them to respond to an incident on the fifth bench up from the corner of rue Marinoni.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “Roland Leseur’s not on the move after all, and he never will be again.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead.” She looked down at his chest. The dripping red slit blossoming on his shirt. “A shiv in the ribs.”

  Like Nicu. A scream behind her, then a frantic voice shouting. “Roland?”

  “Call me a taxi for the corner of rue Marinoni and Avenue de la Bourdonnais.” She thought again. “No, make it corner of rue Saint-Dominique and Avenue de la Bourdonnais. Quick, René.” She clicked off. “Don’t look, Françoise. We need to get out of here.”

  “Roland … Non, non.” Françoise burst into sobs.

  “Don’t touch him.” Aimée pulled Françoise away, grabbed the leash and pulled the frantic dog away from the corpse. “Let’s go. Quickly, move.”

  “But we can’t leave him like that.”

  “The ambulance and the flics are en route.”

  Françoise struggled and broke away.

  Aimée caught up with her and wrapped her arms around the flailing woman. “They’re here somewhere. I don’t know how many or who. But we have to get away. Get to safety. Do you und
erstand?”

  “But my house is right here, my daughter’s waiting at home. The dog.”

  Didn’t the woman understand the danger?

  “You’re all going to a hotel. With the dog. Just do what I say.”

  Aimée dragged her by the arm and across the entry to the marionette theater.

  Françoise let herself be led, finally. She was breathless and weeping, but she was no longer hysterical. “It was true,” she said as Aimée guided her, one arm tight around her shoulders. “Someone’s been trying to kill him.”

  Aimée’s gut clenched. This sobbing woman shaking under her arm, the barking dog and a siren screeching closer didn’t help.

  “Please, can you make it to the corner? There’s a taxi waiting.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “You can’t. We’ll call your daughter. They’re watching.”

  “My daughter’s deaf.” Françoise wiped her tear-stained face. “They won’t be watching the servants’ entrance. It’s round the back.”

  Françoise fumbled in her trench coat pocket and pulled out a key ring. Tried repeatedly to insert the large old-fashioned key in a metal door of the back gate. The jangling keys were frying Aimée’s nerves.

  “Here, let me.”

  On the second try, the key turned. Aimée pushed and the door scraped open. Wet leaves lined the garden’s rear service path. Once inside the house’s service entrance, she followed Françoise up a musty wooden staircase. Françoise opened the door to a dark pantry, and Aimée wiped her boots and stepped inside behind her. Filou ran to a water bowl and slurped.

  They passed through the kitchen and entered a tapestry-lined dining room. Wooden crates and half-filled cardboard boxes gave the room a forlorn feel.

  “I’m packing up the house. In the midst of moving everything—”

  “Keep the lights off,” Aimée interrupted. She immediately wished she’d phrased it more gently. The woman was in shock. “Désolée, but you don’t have much time. Do you have your passport?”

  “But my daughter—”

  “Does she have one?”

  “Why should I involve my daughter?”

  “Diplomatic passports would be even better. Do you both carry them?”