The Woman In The Fifth

The Woman In The Fifth Page 29

by Douglas Kennedy

  My admiration for her had increased sevenfold. But so too had my unease with her cut-and-dried solutions to things: 'You must kill Yanna's husband.'

  No, I must dodge Yanna's husband and somehow hope the police work out who really killed Omar and get my passport back and . . .

  Vanish.

  Because now – after Sezer's threats and Margit's warnings about the inevitable – I knew that I had few choices open to me.

  But I couldn't just disappear right now. Not with my movements being so closely observed, and with my passport in the pocket of Inspector Coutard.

  Say the cops followed me here tonight? How would I explain that one? 'Fess up – 'All right, I do have a job' – and hope whatever they found downstairs wasn't so gruesome that . . . ?

  You can work out that one once they've arrested you. And maybe getting arrested is the safest option going right now.

  But if they arrest you, they can pin everything on you. And they will. Better to tough it out, get the passport returned, and skip town.

  You could buy false documents . . . and be elsewhere tomorrow.

  And be on the run for the rest of my life? And never see my daughter again? And always be looking over my shoulder? And . . .

  You'll never see your daughter again. And you'll always be looking over your shoulder . . . unless you kill Yanna's husband.

  You're talking melodrama. If I flee to the States . . .

  You'll still never rest easy. Get rid of him.

  Shut up.

  You know you can do it.

  Says you. Look what happened when Omar was silenced. His dirty little secret – with which he attempted to blackmail me – was still whispered into the ear of Yanna's husband. So if I kill Yanna's husband, then I also might as well kill Sezer and Mr Tough Guy and Mr Beard . . . since they all could still get me . . . all could want me dead.

  When 6 a.m. came, my brain felt fried. My all-night anxiety had left me feeling as if I had overdosed on Dexedrine or some other form of high-octane speed. As I walked down the stairs to the front door, the entire grubby concrete hallway seemed to blur and take on a certain strange liquidity, as if it could form another shape or dimension around me. I hoisted the bat, holding it against me the way a soldier on inspection might keep his rifle crossed against his chest. At the pâtisserie, the Algerian guy behind the counter gave me a scared look when he saw the weapon.

  'It's just a precaution,' I told him. 'Just self-defence in case they try to get me.'

  'Monsieur, do you want your pains au chocolat, comme d'habitude?' he asked.

  'You see them, you tell them I used to be a pinch hitter on my high-school baseball team, so I really know how to swing one of these—'

  'Monsieur, please. There is no need to . . .'

  That's when I realized I was brandishing the bat and also talking in English.

  'Sorry, sorry,' I said, switching back into French. 'Very overtired. Very . . .'

  'No problem, sir,' he said, handing me the usual bag with the pains au chocolat.

  'Don't know what's wrong. Don't—'

  'Two euros, sir,' he said, still proffering the bag.

  I threw five on the counter and took the bag and headed off.

  'Don't you want the change?'

  'I want sleep.'

  Did I sound spooked, maybe a little insane? Absolutely. But I knew that things would all look a lot better after eight hours of sleep.

  Actually, things wouldn't look better at all.

  I turned the corner into the rue de Paradis. I reached my doorway. I punched in the code and went up to my room. I passed the toilet. It was still sealed off with police tape, forcing me to always use the toilet on the upper floor. I opened my door, leaned the bat against a wall, undressed, climbed beneath the sheets and—

  There was a loud pounding on the door, followed by one uttered word, 'Police!'

  I blinked and looked at the bedside clock: 6.23 a.m. Great. I'd been asleep for maybe ten minutes.

  'Police!'

  More heavy knocking. Part of me wanted to play dumb and hope they'd go away and let me sleep.

  'Police!'

  I was about to say something, but the door burst open and two uniformed officers came charging in. Before I knew it, they'd forced me to put on a pair of pants and a jacket and had handcuffed me and frogmarched me downstairs and into a car that had now pulled up in front.

  Ten minutes later, I was in the commissariat de police of the Tenth arrondissement, sitting in front of Inspector Leclerc. My hands were no longer cuffed behind my back. Instead, one of my wrists had been chained to the metal chair where I had been placed . . . and the chair itself bolted to the floor. The two arresting officers had brought me in here, attached me to the chair and left me to my own devices for around twenty minutes. Then Leclerc arrived, carrying my baseball bat in one hand.

  'Good morning, Monsieur Ricks,' he said, sitting down behind his desk. 'I presume you know what this is?'

  'Why am I here?' I asked.

  'Please answer the question.'

  'A baseball bat.'

  'Very good. And I presume you also know that we just found this bat in your chambre.'

  'Can you search somebody's place without a permit?'

  'Answer the question, monsieur. Is this your bat?'

  'I'm answering no questions until I know why I'm here.'

  'You don't know why you're here?' he asked, studying my face with care.

  'No idea.'

  'Do you know a Monsieur Attani?'

  'Never heard of him.'

  'He runs a bar on the rue de Paradis – a bar where you have been seen to drink on several occasions.'

  I tensed. Leclerc noticed this.

  'Do you know his wife, Madame Yanna Attani?'

  I felt a sweat break on my forehead. I said nothing.

  'I take your silence to mean—'

  'I know her,' I said.

  'Then you must also know Monsieur Attani?'

  'We've never been formally introduced.'

  'Even though you were formally introduced to his wife. In fact, word has it that you were intimately acquainted with his wife . . . that Monsieur Attani was made aware of your intimate acquaintance upon his return from Turkey a few days ago, and was heard publicly to say that he was planning to kill you. So . . . were you aware of these threats?'

  I went silent again.

  'We need to know your whereabouts last night.'

  'Why?'

  'Because we have reason to believe that you assaulted Monsieur Attani with this bat.'

  'He was assaulted?'

  'He is currently in hospital, fighting for his life.'

  'Oh, my God . . .'

  'Why are you sounding shocked, when it was clearly you who assaulted him?'

  'I didn't—'

  'You have a motive – he threatened to kill you. Perhaps you were so madly in love with his wife—'

  'I didn't—'

  'And now we have found the weapon used to smash his head in—'

  'His head was smashed in?'

  'He is in intensive care with a crushed cranium, a crushed face and two crushed kneecaps. He is brain-dead and will not survive the day. The assailant was very violent and used a hefty circular object, like a baseball bat.'

  'I swear to you—'

  'Where were you last night?'

  'I only bought the bat to protect myself after Omar was found—'

  'Where were you last night?'

  'If you run forensic tests on the bat, you'll see it's clean.'

  'Where were you last night? And I will not repeat the question again. Answer it or I will call an examining magistrate and have you formally charged with murder.'

  Silence. I could feel the sweat now cascading down my face. I knew there was only one alibi I could give – and that she might hate me for implicating her in all this, but she'd still cover for me.

  'I was at my girlfriend's place,' I said.

  Leclerc pursed his lips. He didn't
like that one bit.

  'Her name?'

  I told him.

  'Address?'

  I gave him that too.

  He picked up the phone. I heard him read out Margit's name and her address in the Fifth. Then he hung up and said, 'We will be keeping you here, pending further inquiries.'

  'I'd like to talk to a lawyer.'

  'But why? If your girlfriend vouches for you, you get to walk out of here.'

  'I'd like to talk to a lawyer.'

  'Do you have a lawyer?'

  'No, but . . .'

  He hit an intercom button on his desk, spoke briefly into it, then stood up.

  'My superior, Inspector Coutard, will, no doubt, be speaking with you before too long.'

  Then he left. A few moments later, two uniformed officers came in. They unshackled me from the chair, recuffed my hands behind my back, then marched me down several flights of stairs, through a maze of corridors. Then we emerged in that holding area in which I had waited for Coutard yesterday. Only this time I wasn't going to be left unshackled on the bench. No, this time I was being placed directly in the cell located next to this bench. I started to protest, saying something like, 'I want to talk to a lawyer,' but one of the cops pulled hard on the cuffs, making certain they dug deep into my skin.

  'Shut up,' he said as his colleague unlocked the cell door. I was shoved inside. I was ordered to lie face down on the concrete bed located in one corner of this tiny cell. The bed had a bare dirty mattress, a pillow that was a blotchy canvas of dried blood and snot, a thin dirty blanket. I did as requested. The cop uncuffed me, while also informing me that if I did anything stupid – like taking a swing at him – his colleague had his cosh in his hand and would think nothing of beating me senseless.

  'A taste of your own medicine, after what you did to your lover's husband.'

  'I promise you I'll behave.'

  'Smart boy,' he said, removing the cuffs, then added, 'You can get up from that bed once we have left the cell and the door has been closed. Understood?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  After the cell door closed behind him, however, I didn't get up. Rather, I gripped the thin mattress and buried my head against the filthy pillow, thinking, I'm dead.

  I reached down for the blanket. I pulled it over me. The only good thing about not yet having slept was that, finding myself in a horizontal position, exhaustion overtook me and I was vanished from this terrible world in moments.

  And then a voice said, 'Get up.'

  The voice came from a metal slit in the cell door. I glanced at my wrist and remembered they had earlier taken my watch off me, along with my belt and shoelaces. I felt stiff all over and grubby and parched.

  'What time is it, please?'

  'Five twenty.'

  I had been asleep all day.

  'Get up,' the voice said again. 'Inspector Coutard wants to see you.'

  'Can I use the toilet first?' I asked, pointing to the stainlesssteel commode next to the bed.

  'Make it fast.'

  After I finished peeing, the officer opened the cell and cuffed my hands behind my back and started leading me back up through the maze of corridors we'd traveled earlier that morning. Coutard was seated behind his desk when we entered. A lit cigarette was in his mouth. He was reading a file and looked up at me over his half-moon glasses.

  'You can uncuff him,' he told the officer. When this was done, Coutard motioned for me to sit in the metal chair facing his desk. The cop was about to recuff me to the chair, but Coutard said, 'No need.' Then looking at me again, he added, 'You look like you could use a coffee.'

  'That would be nice.'

  He motioned to the cop who disappeared into the corridor. Then he returned to studying the file, deliberately ignoring me for the moment. The cop returned with a small white plastic cup and handed it to me. It was hot to the touch, but I still downed it in one go.

  'Thank you,' I said to both the cop and the inspector. Coutard put down his file. He now faced me square on.

  'Inspector Leclerc informed me that you said you spent last evening at the apartment of a woman friend . . . a Madame Margit Kadar, resident of 13 rue Linné, Fifth arrondissement. Is that correct?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Naturally, we investigated this. We sent several of our men to Madame Kadar's apartment. And I regret to inform you that we discovered that Madame Kadar is dead.'

  The news was like a mule kick to the stomach.

  'That can't be true,' I finally said.

  'It is, I am afraid, completely true,' he said.

  I put my head in my hands. Not Margit. Please, not Margit.

  'What happened?'

  'Madame Kadar killed herself.'

  'What?' I whispered.

  'Madame Kadar took her own life.'

  'But I saw her yesterday. When did this happen?'

  Coutard stared right at me. And said, 'Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980.'

  Seventeen

  'WHAT DID YOU just say?' I asked.

  'Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980,' Coutard said.

  'Very funny.'

  'It is not at all funny. Suicide never is.'

  'You expect me to believe—?'

  'Monsieur, the question should be rephrased: "You expect me to believe that you spent yesterday evening at the apartment of a woman who has been dead for twenty-six years?"'

  'What proof do you have that she died in 1980?'

  'I ask the questions here, monsieur. You tell me you were at her apartment last night.'

  'Yes,' I said, deciding fast that, under the circumstances, it was better to maintain the lie than to backpedal.

  'How long have you been involved with Madame Kadar?'

  'Several months.'

  'You met her where?'

  I explained about Lorraine L'Herbert's salon. Coutard noted this on a pad and asked for her address.

  'And you've regularly seen Madame Kadar since that first meeting?'

  'Twice a week.'

  'And you were "intimate" with her?'

 

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