Knock 'Em Dead, page 12
‘That’s him!’
‘Her.’
Christophe shrugged. ‘Her then. The point is, the post has now been firmly offered.’ He produced an almost childlike grin. ‘How good is that?’
‘Does Agnès know about this?’
‘Your boss? No, no. It’s still hush-hush.’ There was something different in Christophe’s expression now. Something sharper. ‘She’s told you. Obviously. Francine, I mean.’
‘When might it start – this new role?’
‘Mid October. So we’ve got just over three months to plan the party. Are you in? What I thought would be great...’
The image on the paper turned to black.
16
‘At last,’ Perand said aloud, as Madame Recolte emerged from the lobby, crossed the street and joined the queue at the bus stop. As if she had been looking out for it, a number 55 arrived almost immediately and Perand waited until she had safely boarded before he returned to her building. As he mounted the stairs, his friend the ginger tom sidled in from the pavement and, as if he too judged it safe to return, followed Perand up to the apartment.
The young man pressed the bell, picturing the old man’s struggle to get out of bed and then the slow, dragging plod to the door.
‘What did you get?’ Recolte said, admitting Perand almost immediately.
‘Whisky.’ He produced his offering, a half-bottle supermarket cheapie. ‘How did you get to the door so fast?’
‘Pushed the boat out with this, haven’t you?’ Rolling his eyes, the old man took the bottle and turned, digging his stick into the lino tiles for leverage. ‘I saw you coming. Binoculars.’ He indicated a compact pair sitting on a table beside his day bed. Next to them, a glass ashtray was a graveyard for stubbed-out Gitanes. ‘Fetch a glass. But you’ll have to wash it up afterwards or she’ll know.’
The cat padded into the kitchen after Perand, meowing insistently.
‘His meat’s in the fridge. Give it to him, will you? It’s in a sandwich bag. Divide it into two and put half back. There’s a bowl under the sink. If it’s not there, it’ll be in the cupboard. It says “cat” on it.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Perand muttered, suspecting that following this unwelcome dose of low-life domesticity, he would have absolutely nothing to show for his visit. But he’d been wrong before and he was certainly in need of a result. He knew he was well behind Flaco in Darac’s assessment of their talents.
Monsieur was sitting up in bed as Perand rejoined him. ‘Wrong glass but never mind. Fill it, will you?’
‘On one condition. Tell me what you saw this lunchtime. In detail. No embellishments. And no requests to re-tile the roof while you think about it.’
Recolte fired up a Gitane, took a deep drag, and then, wearing a look of infinite possibility, gazed into Perand’s eyes.
‘Reach into the bed,’ he said, indicating his mid-section. ‘You won’t be sorry.’
Perand sighed. He’d suspected something but not this. Dog-tired suddenly, he rose. ‘Keep the booze.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘If you want a hand job, get the cat to do it.’
‘ “Get the cat...” Come back here!’
Against his better judgement, Perand paused as, with some difficulty, the old man leaned forward and pulled back the bed cover.
‘There, see!’
Lying next to Recolte’s hip was the holy grail. Gold dust. El Dorado. Potentially, at least.
‘I’ll pour,’ Perand said, returning to the bedside.
‘Best quality video, this. Picture steadier – the lot. Press play.’
The first movie showed a couple of teenagers in bikinis jogging along the Marseille-bound platform toward the rear of an arriving train. Saying nothing, Perand gave the old man his exhausted patience look.
‘What? Got to do something to pass the time, haven’t I?’
‘Is this what you wanted to share with me?’
‘Go to the index page.’
Perand brought up a screen of thumbnail images, a miniature stained-glass window on the theme of scantily-clad girls and trains.
Monsieur took a long gulp of firewater. ‘Play number 63.’
Entertaining little hope of its relevance, Perand located the clip and ran it. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, he took out his phone and called Darac.
‘It’s definitive, Perand?’
‘Watch and see.’
17
‘Your glutes certainly needed work,’ Jodie said, her oiled hands moulding and releasing the muscle in time with ‘Girl From Ipanema’.
Caroline Rosay’s words surfaced in a soporific whisper. ‘So I’m a tight arse, am I?’
Jodie laughed. ‘Pass.’
‘Blame Tina. She had me sprinting all round the court, earlier. Punishing me for complaining she was late.’
‘Just your shoulders now. A little more gloop...’ Jodie favoured a blend of sandalwood and jasmine over an almond oil base. ‘Here we go... Wow, your deltoids!’
‘Yes, I’m proud of them.’
‘I meant they’re like bricks.’
‘Can’t blame Tina for that. The only shots I hit were my own serves.’
‘Relax now... Relax... Listen to the music while I get to grips with this.’
‘ “Get to grips....” That’s good.’
‘Shhhh.’
The tune swayed like breeze-blown palms as Jodie slowly loosened Caroline’s shoulders. It took four further songs to complete the task to her satisfaction. ‘Alright, we’re done.’ Jodie gave Caroline’s right buttock a slap and drew the towel back over it. ‘I went five minutes over but I’ll overlook it.’
Fully awake now, Caroline turned on to her side and flicked the towel at Jodie’s retreating bottom.
‘Missed! Ah-hah.’
‘Can’t hit anything today!’ She lay back on the table, making a pillow of her interlocked hands as Jodie went to the wash basin. ‘So what’s with this fat flic?’
‘Lieutenant Granot? He’s a sweetie. Got to lose a lot of weight or he’s going to lose his job. I said I’d help him.’
‘You are so... soft.’
‘Good job one of us is.’
‘I’m not hard, just business-like. With most people. Most of the time.’
Jodie gave her a look as she picked up a hand towel. ‘And how are you feeling now?’
‘As loose as... what did your old tutor used to say? “Loose as a five-franc hooker.” ’
Jodie grinned, tilting the crescent moon scar on her cheek. ‘It’s really stayed with you, that one, hasn’t it? Seriously, how do you feel?’
‘The best I have all day, that is for sure.’
Fastening her ponytail, Jodie went across to her and, resting her weight against the edge of the table, gently took Caroline’s hand. ‘It has been strange today. With one thing and another.’
‘For you too?’ Caroline kissed Jodie’s fingers one by one. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘First, my insulin stung like crazy this morning.’
‘No, no, no.’ Extra kisses. ‘Why?’
‘Thermostat on the fridge having a funny five. It’s been replaced today. Or should have.’
‘Supposing it wasn’t?’
‘You’ve got supplies. And so has the surgery.’
‘Alright. Then what? Whatever it is, I’ll make it better.’
‘I had Mayor Almighty Montand on the table this morning. Then afterwards I saw him having some sort of contretemps with Arnaud.’
No more kissing. ‘Zep?’ Caroline’s grey eyes sharpened a little. ‘What were they arguing about?’
‘I couldn’t hear but Montand was bitching about me to him, I suspect.’
‘Why?’
‘Two possibilities. One, he took exception to me belittling La Crague. Though how can you belittle what’s little already?’
‘Because to him, La Crague isn’t little. It’s Paris, London and New York all rolled into one. The second?’
Jodie hesitated a moment. ‘I wondered if he somehow knows about us.’
‘Of course he doesn’t.’ Caroline lifted her shoulders then sinking back, let out a long, slow breath. ‘But suppose he does? It’s not illegal.’
‘Not very professional to touch up one’s clients on the job, though, is it?’ She mimicked Montand’s patrician voice. ‘ “Are you running a surgery or a massage parlour, Zep?” ’
Caroline closed her eyes. ‘I made the first move and it was in this very spot, not at the surgery or at the Centre.’ She sighed languorously. ‘How could he know, anyway?’
‘Don’t you live next door to the worst voyeur in France? And the biggest gossip.’
‘Yes, Kerthus is a shitty little microbe. But he’s never seen anything.’
‘No? How many times has he turned up at your door unannounced?’
Giving in to Jodie’s persistence, Caroline opened her eyes and sat up. ‘It’s the shared access. Makes it too easy.’
‘No excuse. Remember that time he called out Doctor Zep?’
Caroline laughed. ‘Jodie – he calls him out every couple of months.’
‘I’m thinking about the time the poor man rushed here to find our deathbed hero wasn’t even in bed. He’d...’ She adopted the man’s precious mien. ‘... “slipped outside for a breath of restorative air.” ’ Colour flushed her taut cheeks. ‘He was standing there with his nose pressed to your kitchen window. Remember?’
Caroline ran her finger over Jodie’s scar, a silvery-white moon in an angry sky. ‘Tell me how you did this,’ she said, feeling a charge as she pictured the fearless little 14 year-old working the balance beam, a blur of flick-flacks, pirouettes and somersaults. And then her final move, the one she failed to land.
‘You know how I did it.’ She took her finger away. ‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘Alright, alright... Yes, Kerthus was watching me. Watching me in the highly controversial act of dressing a salad.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘The point is that I threatened him with a trespass suit if he ever did it again. He hasn’t.’
‘As far as you know.’
‘Even if he were to do it again, I have these great new pieces of kit to counter him. Blinds, they’re called.’ She took Jodie’s hand. ‘And they’re closed, now, aren’t they?’ Her words merged with the lilt of the music. ‘Not so much as the tightest little opening.’
As Astrud Gilberto faded away into the sunset, a look of deep longing passed between the two women. They could have got into things there and then but allowing the conversation to build a little more, they knew, would only heighten the moment of release when it came. ‘I know what to put on next,’ Jodie said, padding across to the CD player.
‘You know, Montand and Zep were probably discussing something completely different.’
‘I hope so. And what about your day, Caro? Ambroise Paillaud!’
‘Extraordinary.’ Accompanied by a hybrid mix of instruments, a Latin voice stole sensuously into the room. ‘Ah, Céu. I adore her.’
‘I never saw Paillaud, you know. Not once. He never came to the Centre or the surgery when I was there. I was saddened to hear what happened, though.’
‘You’ll be the only one. Never has anyone’s death been cheered so roundly.’
‘Because of his bequest to the commune?’
‘Precisely because of it.’
Jodie brushed her fingers along Caroline’s flank as she rejoined her at the table. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘What I make of it is that it’s a miracle the good citizens of La Crague have let Paillaud live this long.’
Jodie’s healing hands managed something of which they were scarcely capable. They stopped moving. ‘You mean... someone killed him?’
‘No, he probably did it himself.’ Caroline decided she had waited long enough, after all. ‘Let’s stop talking.’
18
Police driver Wanda Korneliuk glanced at her rear-view mirror and smiled quietly to herself. The man being ushered into the back seat had the mien of a caged attack dog. She enjoyed a challenge. ‘Evening, monsieur.’
‘Drive on.’
As the courtesy light faded, a bell chimed dully.
‘Seat belt?’
‘You’re not going to crash, are you?’
‘Who knows?’
The chiming continued. The car didn’t move. Exhaling loudly, Guy Vaselle grabbed the belt.
‘I’m taking you to your car, I understand.’
‘You understand right. La Crague. The Place.’
‘Which Place?’
‘The only one there fucking well is.’
Wanda pulled smoothly away and filtered into traffic meandering torpidly along Route de Turin. Five minutes later, they had advanced no more than a hundred metres.
‘Jesus. Can’t you go any faster?’
Wanda drifted gently to a halt and pulled on the handbrake. ‘I can, yes.’
Thrusting out his chin, Vaselle muttered a comment on the dubious ancestry of all police officers.
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that?’
Vaselle grunted.
A scooter slaloming its way through the jam buzzed up behind them and squirted into the gap on their near side.
‘Wrong call,’ Wanda said, as the rider skidded hard to a stop. She rolled the passenger window and leaned across. ‘When I move, you stay there.’
‘Listen—’
‘Stay there.’
In the back seat, Vaselle used the exchange to take a closer look at his chauffeuse. ‘Ever shag on duty?’ he said, as the window whirred up.
‘My boyfriend. But only when he hasn’t got a bareknuckle fight coming up.’
Vaselle leaned slowly forward, the seatbelt giving with the movement. ‘Ever shag a suspect?’
Wanda considered whether to keep the thing going. Why not? It was a slow night. ‘That would depend on what the suspect was suspected of. Lifting an old lady’s purse wouldn’t cut it.’
‘Murder. That hot enough for you?’
Wanda released the handbrake. Checking the scooter was staying put, she rolled into the narrowing space. ‘That might work for me but as I’m taking you home, I’m guessing you didn’t do it.’
‘Too fucking right, I didn’t. But for an old cripple with a movie camera, I’d still be back in that hole.’ He thrust out his chin. ‘I’ll find that old boy. Take him a case of Bollinger or something. I tell you, I should never have been picked up in the first place. Never!’
‘Well, as you’re innocent, I can’t oblige. Sorry.’
‘I’ll make it worth your while.’ He took out his wallet and leafed through it as casually as if he were ordering a round of drinks. ‘How does a hundred sound?’
Wanda gave the accelerator a jab, jerking him back into his seat. ‘Sit still and shut up or we’re going back to the Caserne.’
The man was seething but he was savvy enough to do as he was told. Nothing more was said for the duration of the journey. Checking her rear-view mirror as she pulled into the tiny main square of La Crague, Wanda’s eyes stayed on Vaselle for a moment. She saw something she had never seen to the same extent in a supposedly innocent man. She saw hate.
‘Now you can fuck off,’ he said, slamming the rear door as hard as he could.
‘Yes, you’d like that,’ she said, under her breath, as she watched him march away. ‘And that is why it’s not going to happen.’
19
A couple of hundred metres from their nearest neighbours down the hill, the two properties hunkered down in an uneasy alliance. As emphatic as exclamation marks, cypresses airily flanked Caroline Rosay’s front and side gardens; on the left, her next-door neighbour, the voyeur Brice Kerthus, preferred the greater privacy afforded by a two-metre high wall. Neither boundary offered a serious deterrent to intruders: the properties shared a drive giving on to Avenue Montand, the road that wound sinuously above La Crague.
It was a practised routine. Jodie tipped the treatment table on to one side, retracted the legs, locked its on-board castors in position and folded it in half. As Caroline held open the front door, Jodie marched the table to her car like a porter pushing a sack barrow.
The performance wasn’t over yet. The sound of crunching gravel was the signal for Kerthus’s living room curtain to twitch. As rain began to fall, Jodie could feel his eyes studying her as she lifted the tailgate of her VW estate. She stowed the table, and then, exchanging a friendly but not overly familiar wave with Caroline, got in behind the wheel, turned into the avenue and pulled out of sight.
Some fifteen minutes later, a bike appeared out of the murk, its brake blocks making a sound like a honking goose as it swept on to the drive. Shifting his rucksack on to one shoulder, the rider dismounted and headed for the protection of the left-hand porch. As if triggered by a motion sensor, the front door opened.
‘Hasn’t it turned horrible?’ Kerthus said, waddling awkwardly to one side. ‘Thank you so much for coming. I’ve been having such a terrible...’
With all the dispatch of a Venus fly trap, the door closed behind Doctor Arnaud Zep.
20
Decamped from Jardin Albert, musos outnumbered fans at The Blue Devil by two to one. On stage, veteran pianist James Clarence was tinkling his way through ‘Stardust’, a number he had assured Darac brought “sure-fire ass”.
‘Still has a gorgeous touch, no?’ Didier said, at length. ‘But the girls aren’t exactly draping themselves over the piano, are they? Poor old bugger.’
‘Maybe if his false teeth hadn’t fallen out?’ Dave Blackstock said, peering into the crowd. ‘Where are our beers?’
