'Is this where she was found?' Jacquot asked Clisson, who was unloading a film from his camera. His ginger hair was still slick from his early-morning shower.
Clisson shook his head, bagged the roll of film and fitted a new one into the camera. 'In the chair,' he replied, nodding at a plastic inflatable armchair tethered to the diving board. He closed the back of his camera and an electric motor wound the film on.
'And?'
'Same as the others, you ask me. Drowned, no question. Drugged? Possibly. We'll know later. Sex? This one looks pretty brutal to me. And, like the others, the same pattern of bruising between her shoulder blades and on her upper arms, as though she was held down . . . restrained. Also, she's got a lump on the left temple the size of an egg,' continued Clisson, taking up a position to photograph the victim's feet and legs. His colleagues stopped their work on the body and moved back, giving him room. 'If she wasn't drugged,' continued Clisson, sighting through the lens, 'the chances are she was unconscious the whole time.'
Jacquot looked at the body. He could see a shiny swelling on the side of the head by the hairline, a soft bruising above the elbows and angry red rub marks between her upper thighs. Like the other Waterman victims, there was no jewellery on the body.
'Time of death?' asked Jacquot.
Clisson adjusted the focus and shot off a couple of frames, then moved to another position. 'Eight, nine, maybe as late as ten p.m. At a guess.'
'When did they find her?'
'About an hour ago. The gardener
'You seen Gastal?'
'The fat guy at Aqua-Cité?'
Jacquot smiled. 'That's the one.'
'In the house somewhere. With the husband.'
Jacquot got up from the lounger.
'Looks like your man's moving upmarket,' said Clisson over his shoulder.
'You mean the house?'
'And who owns it.'
'Yes?'
'Family called de Cotigny. Old Marseilles money. Very influential. Big political clout. The husband, Hubert de Cotigny, is head of planning and development at the Prefecture. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in this city without his say-so. And his mother, whoa ... a real political player, grande dame of the old school. When the press get hold of this
'Don't,' said Jacquot. 'I don't want to hear.'
Clisson shrugged and gave him a tiny, satisfied smile as though he was glad it wasn't his job to find out who was responsible.
On Jacquot's way to the house, Chevin called him over. 'B-b-boss, you want to take a look?'
Jacquot changed direction, stepped out onto the lawn.
Pierre Chevin was squatting on his heels, pointing to something on the grass. Jacquot crouched down and took a look. A scuff of red earth showed through the turf.
'And there,' said Chevin, pointing to another. 'L-l-looks like this was where it started.'
Jacquot and Chevin got to their feet.
'You ask me,' said Chevin, turning to point, 'the k-k- killer came up the steps, or more likely from the trees. Maybe hiding out, waiting for the right moment.'
'Anything over there?'
Chevin shook his head.
'Ways in?'
'Walled right round. They all are up around here. Front gate. Electronic. You need a b-b-buzzer to open it. The railings are too narrow to squeeze through, but you could get over the front w-w-wall if you wanted. It's quiet enough round here so no one would see you.'
'Who gets the buzzers?'
'There are three. The maid, husband and victim. K-k- kept in their cars. All accounted for. Deliveries ring in through the intercom. The gate can be opened from the f-f-front door.'
'Any other way in?'
'Garden door down the bottom terrace. Opens on to J-J-Jobar. According to the gardener, it's always locked.'
'Keys?'
'I'll check with Al.'
'Let me know,' said Jacquot and he turned back to the house, wishing he'd drunk a little less of Cesar's brandy.
After looking in on Isabelle in the kitchen, consoling the maid, Jacquot found Gastal in the study with Hubert de Cotigny. Wrapped in a silk Paisley dressing gown - striped pyjama trousers and worn Moroccan slippers showing beneath its hem - de Cotigny was slumped in an armchair, his thin grey hair awry, eyes red and vacant, cheeks drawn and unshaven. Jacquot judged him somewhere in his late fifties, old enough to be the victim's father. Gastal introduced them.
De Cotigny looked up, gave Jacquot a brief nod.
After the formalities of sympathy and condolences to which de Cotigny responded with another brief nod and a tightening of his lips, Gastal brought Jacquot up to speed.
'Monsieur de Cotigny here was out last night, having dinner with his mother in Castellane. He got home round ten-thirty, ten-forty-five.'
'Did you see your wife, Monsieur? When you got home?'
De Cotigny didn't seem to have heard the question.
Jacquot was about to repeat it when de Cotigny shook his head.
'I've told your colleague everything I know, Chief Inspector.'
Jacquot turned to Gastal.
'Apparently Monsieur de Cotigny called the vict— his wife, Madame de Cotigny, round six-thirty last evening, on his way to his mother's. She told him she wasn't feeling too well and was going to bed.'
'She said she'd sleep in the guest room. Asked me not to disturb her,' added de Cotigny.
'She actually said that? Not to disturb her?'
De Cotigny frowned. 'Not exactly. She said . . . she said she would see me in the morning.'
'And when you got back, after dinner with your mother, the place was locked? Secure?'
'The front gates were open, but that's not unusual. Inside I closed the doors to the terrace and activated the alarm.'
'The front gates and terrace doors were open?'
'My wife was not good with locks, doors. Always leaving them open. She didn't think. Like I said, it wasn't unusual.'
'And did you go out on the terrace, to see if she was there, before you locked up?'
'I didn't think to. It was late. There were no lights on out there. And, anyway, she'd said she was going to bed early. I assumed she was already upstairs. Asleep.'
'And you didn't look in on her? To see if she was all right?'
De Cotigny shook his head. 'I didn't want to disturb her. My wife . . .' He paused for a moment, squeezed his thumb and forefinger into the corner of his eyes.
'Yes, Monsieur?'
De Cotigny sighed, got to his feet. 'My wife is . . . was ... a light sleeper. She would not have appreciated my waking her up.' He walked to the study door. 'And now,
Chief Inspector, if you don't mind, I would like to get dressed.'
'Of course, Monsieur. And . . .'
De Cotigny turned at the door.
'. . . Perhaps you'd be kind enough to show us the room where your wife slept?'
'You mean, where she would have slept?'
'If you wouldn't mind.'
Exchanging looks, Gastal and Jacquot followed de Cotigny from the study. He led them across the hallway to the stairs and started climbing, hand on the rail as though to steady himself, laboriously, like a mountaineer on some demanding summit slope. When he reached the landing, de Cotigny pointed down the corridor.
'Third door down,' he told them, then turned to his own room directly opposite the stairs, closing the door quietly behind him.
For a bedroom that hadn't been slept in the place was a mess. The first thing that Jacquot and Gastal noticed was the bed. The duvet had been thrown to the floor, the bottom sheet was crumpled and the pillows were dented.
'Not the most comfortable way to sleep,' said Gastal, nodding at a lone pillow doubled over and deliberately placed in the middle of the bed. He picked it up, buried his face in it, sniffed deeply. 'Looks like afternoon delight, you ask me.'
'Fun and games all round,' replied Jacquot, nodding at a mirrored square on the dressing table. Its surface was smeared with white, and a length of straw and
a platinum American Express card lay beside it. He bent down, read the name: Suzanne de Cotigny. 'We better get Clisson up here,' he said, going to the window.
Pulling up a blind, Jacquot looked down into the garden. By the pool, the Forensics boys had bagged the body and were lifting it onto a stretcher. Clisson had stepped off the flagstones and was taking some long shots of the pool. Down below, on the far side of the middle terrace, Chevin and Dutoit were diligently working their way through the flower beds. Jacquot tapped on the window, signalled to Clisson.
The Forensics man looked up, saw Jacquot and nodded.
'What do you think?' asked Gastal, sliding open a panelled wardrobe door and peering inside. 'She got herself a bit of cinq à sept?'
Jacquot came back to the bed, tipped one of the pillows, then turned his attention to an ashtray on one of the bedside cabinets. He pushed his finger through the ash, picked out two cigarette ends, turned them in the light.
'Looks that way,' he replied. 'But a lover who wears lipstick.' He held up the stubs. 'Different colours.'
'Dirty cow,' smirked Gastal.
They passed Clisson on the stairs, lugging his box of tricks.
'Third door,' said Jacquot. 'Cigarette ends in the ashtray and hair on the pillow. Coke, too. On the dressing table.'
Clisson nodded and carried on up to the landing, his sterilised Tyvek suit swishing with every step.
Downstairs, Jacquot and Gastal made a tour of the ground floor.
'Some place,' said Gastal, taking it in.
Jacquot nodded. It certainly was. Though the house clearly dated from the turn of the century, probably one of the first to be built in this part of the city, its interior was resolutely modern, the kind of spotless set-up you might see in Elle Decoration or Architectural Digest. While the original cornicing, marble fireplaces and marquetry flooring were still in place, the walls and doorways that had divided and connected the various ground-floor salons had been stripped away, creating an open-plan space painted in soothing pastel colours, filled with gleaming tubular steel furnishings and hung with bold modern artwork, golden slants of morning light spilling through a line of terrace doors running the length of the room. Between two of the doors was an ancient Balinese chest set with a tub of orchids and a telephone.
Gastal stopped by the phone. 'We got ourselves a message.'
Taking a pen from his pocket, he pressed the playback button. The tape rewound with a whirr, then connected.
'You have one caller,' came the recorded message. 'Timed at eighteen seventeen.'
And then: 'Darling, it's me.' There was no mistaking de Cotigny's voice, harassed, a little frantic. 'Just thought I'd call to let you know . . . I'm not at mothers yet, the traffic, you wouldn't believe ... oh hell . . .' There was the sound of a car horn in the background. 'Hold on . . .' said de Cotigny, and then there was a click as Suzie de Cotigny came on the line, her French good but the American accent unmistakable.
'Honey? Honey, you okay? Where are you?'
The conversation that followed was exactly as de Cotigny had described it to Gastal. The traffic was dreadful and he still hadn't got to his mother's place. He'd likely be late back. And then Suzie telling him not to rush home; she wasn't feeling too well; she'd sleep in the guest room, wake him in the morning. Then their goodbyes. The connection broken. The last time they'd ever speak to one another.
'Play it again,' said Jacquot.
Gastal rewound the tape, and pressed play.
The voices started again, sharp and clear. Suzie de Cotigny was speaking.
'There. You hear it?'
Gastal turned to him, looked perplexed.
'Again,' said Jacquot. 'After she says not to rush home.'
They played the tape again and Gastal leant forward, straining to hear whatever it was that Jacquot had heard.
And there it was. Unmistakable.
But not the sound of traffic. Not their voices. Something else.
A sniff. A girlish giggle, followed by a shushing sound. You could almost see a hand over the mouthpiece.
Gastal's eyebrows shot up and a smile licked over his lips.
'So. What have we got?'
It was mid-morning, the sun climbing above the rooftops of Roucas Blanc, the trees throwing down a cool, slanting shade. Suzie de Cotigny's body had been taken away by ambulance twenty minutes earlier, Monsieur de Cotigny's mother and daughter had arrived shortly afterwards and Jacquot s squad had left the property and were now gathered by their cars.
Jacquot perched on the bonnet of his Peugeot, boot hooked onto the fender, looking at the faces grouped around him.
Luc Dutoit, Chevin's partner, was the first to speak. 'The gardener, Gilles Therizols, arrived sometime around five this morning,' he told them. 'Found the body about an hour later.'
'He a regular?' asked Jacquot.
'Been working for the family the last eleven years. Yesterday was his day off.'
Jacquot nodded.
'Same with the maid,' said Isabelle Cassier. 'Her day off, too.'
'So whoever did this knew the house would be clear Thursdays,' said Jacquot. 'Or was it just chance?'
'Too much of a coincidence,' said Claude Peluze, who looked like he hadn't had time to shave that morning, his stubble bristling black and shadowy around his jaw.
'So?'
'It was planned,' continued Peluze. 'The Waterman scoped the place
'So you say it's our killer?' asked Jacquot.
'Who else, boss?' said Isabelle. 'The maid says nothing's been taken from the house, just the victim's jewellery - big fat diamond and a gold bracelet.'
Her partner, Bernie, pushing back a wedge of hair from his brow, nodded agreement. 'Naked. Drowned. Then propped in the chair. It's got to be.'
Jacquot didn't comment. Until Valéry, the state pathologist, confirmed pronoprazone, he'd try to keep his options open.
'So, sometime between, say, seven-thirty and ten-thirty latest, Madame de Cotigny gets taken out. Now. The husband . . . Could we be talking a domestic here?'
Gastal, unwrapping a coil of churros from a paper bag but making no effort to offer it around, shook his head.
'He couldn't squash a bug, that one. And, anyway, he's alibied up to his ear hair. Plus the time frame doesn't give him much opportunity
'So not a domestic?'
A shake of heads all round.
'So . . . another Waterman? Second in a week? He's speeding up if it's him.' Jacquot looked around the faces. 'Anything anyone's found that gets us any closer?'
At that moment Etienne Laganne appeared round the corner and joined the group. He was near enough to hear what Jacquot had said and a big smile creased his face.
'Something you'll like, boss,' he said, chewing on a toothpick.
Everyone turned in his direction. Laganne kept them waiting, opening his car door and tossing his notebook onto the driver's seat.
'And . . . ?' asked Jacquot. It was the first time since he'd tracked down Carnot that he'd felt that tiny buzz of excitement, sensed a way forward.
'Guy at the top of the street,' continued Laganne, taking the toothpick from his mouth and flicking it away. 'A doctor. Jules Crespin. Lives alone. Well, seems he was walking his dog yesterday evening, when this car exits the property. Turns out of the drive here, toots a horn and goes right past him.'
'Time? Driver? Make? Number?'
'Round six-forty, six-fifty. Before seven, anyway. An old Renault, he said. Brown. Rust bucket. Engine like a meat grinder. Couldn't say for sure if the driver was a man or a woman.'
'And. . .?'
'He doesn't make the number, but there's a sticker in the rear window. You know the kind ... All he can remember is . . . wait for it. . . Allez-Allez . . .'
'Gym,' said Isabelle, with a whoop.
Jacquot took a deep breath. The gym. He couldn't see how yet, but it was all, somehow, falling into place. Gastal might not have had any luck with Holford, which was no surprise given that they'd established
she'd just arrived in town, but Ballarde, Grez and Monel had all been members. And now, someone visiting the latest victim had the gym's name flagged on the car's rear window. Could the Waterman be someone who worked there, or another member? Another woman? Four confirmed victims and they still hadn't found any trace of semen despite evidence of penetration.
Jacquot and the Waterman Page 23
