‘It’s to do with those friends of yours who died, isn’t it?’
Jacquot nodded, leant back against her mixing table, folded his arms. When Claudine had asked about them the previous Sunday, he had told her that they were colleagues, that they had worked on some cases together, and provided no further information. But things were different now. Since he was certain that the murders of Izzy Gilbert, Antoine Berri, Minette, Léo and Marie-Ange were linked, had been carried out by the same people, with a high probability that the motive was revenge for the killing of the Manichella brothers – either Virginie Cabrille on her own account, using some unknown muscle, or members of the Manichella family (they were Corsican, after all), or a third possibility as yet unknown – it was increasingly clear that his own name would be on the killers’ list. And that Claudine and Midou, as his nearest and dearest, were now at risk. He had worked undercover on the Lafour case, been a part of the action in the Golfe du Lion, and had stood beside Claude Peluze at the house in Roucas Blanc when Virginie Cabrille was led way in handcuffs. Since the deaths of Léo and Marie-Ange, this had preyed on his mind – the ‘low mood’ that Claudine was talking about – leaving him silent and uncommunicative, given to prowling round the grounds at odd times, checking that all the doors were locked at night, always keeping an eye open for a dark-coloured VW and on the look-out for anyone watching the property, anxious whenever Claudine and Midou went anywhere without him.
Catching Claudine’s eyes fixed on him over the rim of her coffee mug, Jacquot realised the time had come to explain himself, to let her and Midou know what was going on. And this he did, quietly, soberly, holding up a finger when Claudine tried to interrupt, until he had finished outlining his case – the murders, the links, and the biblical allusions which so clearly pointed at revenge as the motive. It would be interesting to see if, with all the information to hand, she came to the same conclusion. That she and Midou were at risk.
‘So these new murders, these are your “filling stations”?’
He smiled at the reference, remembering what he had told her after Gilbert’s death, and nodded.
‘So how long is it between the murders?’ she asked.
‘About a month, give or take. Time for them to set things up properly. Although they’ve had since the shoot-out last November to plan it all.’
‘And you’re suggesting there’s a possibility they may strike here? At us? Midou and me?’
‘A strong likelihood, in my professional opinion,’ corrected Jacquot. ‘And not just here, in the house. Anywhere.’
‘Well, you’re not sending us off somewhere, on our own, to be out of danger, I can tell you that. We are staying put.’
Jacquot smiled. He had certainly thought about sending them away, somewhere safe, maybe as far away as Midou’s home in the French West Indies. But where was safe? Where was out of reach for such professional, single-minded killers with revenge in their hearts? The answer, he’d concluded, was nowhere. So he’d already decided that Claudine and her daughter were better off staying here, at the millhouse, around Cavaillon, where he could keep an eye on them, life as normal. And he would have argued his case vigorously if Claudine had suggested otherwise. But, of course, she hadn’t.
‘I kind of feel safer in my own backyard,’ she continued. ‘If you know what I mean? Doing the things I normally do. Routine. Of course, it would be better if Midou hadn’t decided to come and stay, but there we are. We can look out for each other.’
And with that she put down the coffee mug, pushed off her stool and picked up her paintbrush and palette.
‘But right now you are wasting my time. And yours. Haven’t you got lunch to cook? Out with you. Out. Out.’
38
GEORGES ROCHET, JACQUOT’S BOSS AT Cavaillon police headquarters, was standing at his office window with a pair of binoculars clamped to his eyes when Jacquot knocked and entered. Rochet didn’t lower the glasses, or turn to greet his visitor.
‘Beautiful, beautiful creature,’ he murmured. ‘Just . . . beautiful. Il n’y a pas de plus belle.’
But Rochet was not talking about a woman, and his binoculars were not aimed at the street. Instead he was focussing on a moving speck in a patch of sky above the Sainte-Jacques ridge.
‘Peregrine falcon – mistress of the skies,’ continued Rochet. ‘Faster than the male . . . fastest creature on earth. Or rather, above it.’
A tall, gentle man for whom Jacquot had a high regard, Rochet was a widower who loved the opera, good food and birds in pretty much equal measure, timing his holidays for the annual migration at Falsterbö in Sweden, or a twitching trip to some other reserve. He also liked smoking a pipe, a selection of which were held in a rack on his desk, and his office smelt warmly of tobacco.
‘I always think raptors look a little scruffy,’ he continued. ‘But not the peregrine. This one looks like she’s just stepped out of Colette’s on place Lombard. Every feather in place, sleek and beautiful.’
He lowered the glasses, turned and settled his sharp grey eyes on Jacquot.
‘So, Daniel, how’s everything going? What can you tell me that I can pass on to that Fourcade of ours? To keep him off our backs. He really is most persistent.’
Taking the chair that Rochet indicated, Jacquot brought his boss up to speed: the two unidentified women at the wedding in St-Florent; the VW Beetle they might be driving, if the garagiste Lapierre’s identification of a man and a woman amounted to anything; and the links they’d established between the Gilbert case and the other murders.
While he spoke, Rochet, a particular man, wound the binocular straps around the bridge of the glasses, slipped them into their worn leather carrying case and settled behind his desk.
‘The attacks are well-planned and well executed,’ Jacquot continued. ‘Getting in to Le Mas Bleu, knowing the name of the Gilberts’ suite and getting out, job done, leaving not a single trace . . . well, that’s some act. Same with Berri – knowing the lay-out of the Delacroix yard, knowing about the kid’s apprentice piece, how he worked on a Saturday evening. That kind of thing takes time to put together. Minette Peluze as well, following her, waiting for their moment, then striking. And watching Léo Chabran. Taking him out on one of his morning runs.’
‘And you say the likely motive is revenge for this action in Roucas Blanc last November?’
Jacquot nodded.
‘That’s how it looks. The brothers who were shot – Tomas and Taddeus Manichella – worked for Arsène Cabrille, and at the time of the operation, following Cabrille’s death, they were still working for his daughter, Virginie. Or, at least, living on her property.’
‘You have interviewed her?’
‘Yes I have. A real piece of work. She maintains that she had terminated their contract and given them notice, which makes it sound as if she’s hardly going to start looking for ways to revenge their deaths . . .’
‘If she’s telling the truth?’
Jacquot smiled, and nodded.
‘Which is why Bernie Muzon in Marseilles has been keeping an eye on her. Her phones have been tapped, her movements covered, but so far there’s nothing to link her to the murders. She’s alibied-up. I had Brunet check. On holiday in Ibiza when Gilbert’s wife was murdered, in Paris when Minette Peluze was killed, in the Seychelles when Berri died, and on a flight back from a business meeting in Zurich for the killings in Cruis – Léo Chabran and Marie-Ange Buhl. Of course, this doesn’t mean she isn’t directing the action, but it’s pretty near impossible to make anything stick.’
‘What about the brothers’ family? They’re Corsican, right? A long tradition over there of an eye for an eye.’ Rochet gave Jacquot a skewed look; he knew that Jacquot was half-Corsican himself.
‘We’ve had the local boys quietly check out the family. Everything as it should be. Every family member accounted for. And no movements off the island.’
‘So is it over? Are they done, whoever they are, these two women in the VW? Or do you thin
k they’re going to strike again?’
‘Oh, they’ll strike again. Or try. It’s just a matter of who next, and when, and where. And getting there in time to stop it.’
‘Apart from you, who else was involved in this Lafour case? Who else might be on their list?’
Jacquot spread his hands.
‘I can’t think of anyone. No major players.’
Rochet reached for a pipe, slid out a desk drawer for his tobacco and after tapping the pipe against the edge of his desk started loading the bowl.
‘And have you mentioned all this to Claudine?’ he said at last, tamping down the tobacco and setting it alight.
Jacquot said he had and told Rochet just how Claudine had responded.
Rochet gave a wry smile, letting the smoke slide from between his lips.
‘Exactly what I would have expected of her. An exceptional woman, Daniel. So you’re going to use her as bait. And she knows it. To try and lure the killers in?’
‘The sooner we can catch them, the sooner all this ends.’
‘So what shall I tell our Monsieur Fourcade?’
‘Tell him there’s a bigger picture. That the Blanchard murder is just a part of something else that’s going on. That . . . for now . . . we must wait.’
Rochet nodded. Sucked on his pipe.
‘Oh, he’ll like that. He really will.’
39
SOLANGE BONNEFOY LAY CURLED AND warm in her bed and listened to her lover move around the darkened room. In a few more moments he would be dressed, ready to leave, and he would come to the bed, lean over and kiss her. He would not tarry. Maybe he would whisper something if he suspected she was awake. If he thought her still asleep, the brush of his lips on her cheek or forehead would suffice.
She had felt him leave her bed an hour before and had opened an eye to see the green digital read-out of her bedside radio flicking to 5.02. Two or three minutes either side of five in the morning and Hervé Montclos, curator of the Balon Gallery in Marseilles, woke without any sound from an alarm and left their bed. Only when he stayed at her apartment on a Friday or Saturday night would the following mornings begin in a different manner.
As she lay there, listening to the fall of the shower – always put on first to cover the sound of the lavatory flush – Solange marvelled at the good fortune that had brought this man into her life. She had met him just six months earlier, at a Christmas dinner party held at a friend’s house. Of all the guests – most of them fellow lawyers and their wives – Hervé was the only one she hadn’t recognised, and as such, she well knew, the man who had been brought to the table to partner her and balance the numbers. As a single woman of a certain age, never married, Solange was used to such arrangements, accepted them with good grace, though always felt a particular elation when her better, closer friends didn’t bother with such a caring, considerate, if clumsy, convention.
Sure enough, within five minutes of her arrival, she was steered towards the man and gently introduced. She was struck first by his eyes which bunched up in a web of wrinkles when he smiled, warm and brown, filled with a bright and sharp intelligence, but also shadowed by a deep sadness. He had just arrived in Marseilles, he told her, from Montpellier, to take over as curator of the Balon Gallery on rue Grignan. Though he had lived so close to Marseilles, he was ashamed to admit that he had never before visited the city.
‘And do you like what you have found?’ she had asked.
‘Now I do,’ he’d replied, more gallantly than flirtatiously she had mistakenly decided.
Hervé Montclos, she later discovered, was also Visiting Professor of Antiquities at Aix University, a fellow of the Académie Française, and the author of more than a dozen scholarly works on the history of Abyssinian sculpture. He was fifty-nine, recently widowed and the father of three daughters all of whom had now flown the coop. Finding himself alone in the sprawling family home outside Montpellier, he had, six months earlier, resigned his position at the city’s celebrated Fabre Museum, sold the house and accepted the curatorship of the Balon.
It was in the Balon Gallery just a few days after that Christmas dinner party, giving Solange a private, after-hours tour of the exhibits, that he had kissed her for the first time, pressing her gently against an Aksumite stone plaque. On the lips, softly; his hand placed just a centimetre or two below the rise of her right breast. She had experienced a certain breathlessness at this unexpected move, which had been interrupted, sadly, by the arrival of a security guard. Two days later they were lovers.
There was no doubt in Solange Bonnefoy’s mind that Hervé was the most important man in her life. The most important man ever. There had never been anyone like him. Not that she had a particularly wide range of experience on which to base such a judgement. There had in fact been few other men in her life, few men to share her bed. She was too tall, she knew; too awkward in her skin to be a natural lover; too intelligent to suffer fools; and, increasingly, too set in her own ways. She also felt a clumsiness in intimacy – always had – as though her tall, gangling frame was somehow not suitably equipped for the delicate manoeuvrings of love-making. Height, shape, intelligence, and now age had determined the course of her love life.
Until now. Until Hervé.
‘Are you awake?’ she heard him whisper.
‘Dreaming,’ she whispered back.
She felt him lean down, one hand gently pushing back her hair, lips brushing her cheek.
‘I’ll call you later. Dinner?’
‘Miramar. My treat,’ he replied.
‘Shall I meet you there?’
‘I’ll pick you up at the office.’
Another light kiss, the warm fresh smell of him.
And then he was gone.
The apartment door closing.
With a sigh, now that she was alone, Solange swung herself from their bed and padded through to the bathroom. The room was warm from him, the mirror frosted with condensation, but otherwise there was no sign that the bathroom had been used before her. Everything in its place – no towel on the floor, no rumpled shower mat, no bristles in the sink, the lavatory seat lowered, everything gleaming, untouched. What a find, she thought, wiping a hand through the condensation and smiling at herself.
Taking a gown from the back of the bathroom door she went through to the kitchen and put on some coffee. Three floors below she heard his footsteps clatter down the steps of her apartment building and start up the road to where he had parked his car the night before. She leant forward over the sink, found the right angle and watched him stride away. Slim, tall, a long loping pace, briefcase swinging, one hand holding down his hat against an early morning breeze coming off the harbour. A moment later he was out of sight, and a moment after that she heard his car door slam shut with a hefty clunk. If she stayed where she was, she’d see him drive past. Just one more look. To keep her going till this evening and their dinner at Miramar.
But there was no ‘one more look’.
He did not drive past.
And nor would there be any dinner that night at Miramar.
40
CAFÉ-BAR VERNIX, ON THE corner of boulevard Georges Durand and place Méribel, opened early for the army of office cleaners who, from around four o’clock every morning, Monday to Friday, streamed out of the various government buildings that occupied much of the length of Durand. Made up of hard, blank-faced walls, darkened by the shadows of a double line of plane trees down the centre of the boulevard, the offices behind these walls controlled everything in the city from building permits to road works, from education to health, birth certificates to death certificates. And being government offices they were cleaned every night of the week – floors polished, bins emptied, desks wiped, phones swabbed.
Café-Bar Vernix was a popular haunt for these workers, as much for its coffees and chocolats chauds as its generous tots of cognac and Calva, for those who needed a little something to rev them up after their shift or to help put them to sleep when they got home and th
e sun came up. For the café’s proprietor and his three waiting staff, this was the start of a busy day that didn’t really ease up till early evening. Once the office cleaners had departed, the office workers – les fonctionnaires – arrived, calling in for their morning lattes and espressos and returning at lunchtime for their omelettes frites, spaghettis and salades, all this to a busy soundtrack of clattering plates, shouted orders and the hiss and sputter of the Gaggia, set on the bar like some alien spacecraft issuing orders.
It was here, at a little before five in the morning, that two women found themselves stools in a corner between bar and window and ordered chocolats chauds and warm croissants just delivered from the boulangerie next door – which didn’t open for another hour but took advantage of the café’s custom by off-loading a couple of early trays. Like so many of the women who worked as office cleaners and passed through Café-Bar Vernix, these two had scarves on their heads, wore overalls and trainers, and had official-looking name tags pinned to their chests. And as they sipped their drinks and dunked their croissants, they kept an eye on rue Carème which started on the other side of place Méribel, a gentle slope of nineteenth-century townhouses, four floors high, each façade three windows wide in the classic Marseilles fashion. Once these houses had been the homes of wealthy traders from the docks and go-downs of the Vieux Port and La Joliette, but now, with only one or two exceptions, they had been turned into upper-end apartments, the highest with a view across the rooftops to the old port and Fort St-Jean.
It was in one of these apartments that Madame Bonnefoy, one of Marseilles’ most seasoned and respected examining magistrates, lay in her bed and listened to her lover in the bathroom, getting dressed in the dark of her bedroom. The new man in her life.
Blood Counts Page 16
