Knock 'Em Dead, page 19
Granot nodded. ‘As you said at the time, the message Montand left on Paillaud’s phone seemed pretty cap in hand.’
‘And Zep told me something else – that he’d mentioned to Montand he’d just seen Caroline and Paillaud together at La Poche. Ran right past them. Earlier, I asked Montand if he knew whether that meeting had taken place. He denied knowing.’
‘On the face of it, blacker and blacker for Montand.’ Bonbon made a so-so gesture with his hand. ‘But how material are these lies? A lot of innocent people deny things they know look bad for them.’
‘Yes and there are some flat-out incongruities here as well but let’s put those on hold for a moment.’ Darac ran a hand through his hair. ‘The crime itself: Map puts Montand at the scene within the broad time frame of the murder. If the condition of Caroline’s blood was as Zep and Kerthus said it was, and there seems no reason to doubt them, that time frame narrows to a credibility-stretching two minutes.’
‘He passed the footprint test as well, didn’t he?’ Granot said. ‘Or at least didn’t fail it.’
‘True. All in all, we can just about squeeze Montand into that tight time frame. But we need more than that.’
‘Such as finding the new will that disinherits Montand,’ Granot said. ‘Especially if it’s mysteriously found its way up the man’s backside.’
Bonbon gave a rueful nod. ‘Gruesome as it sounds, it’s a pity we can’t strip search him.’
‘I couldn’t go that far, obviously, but I did give him a good patting down – nothing – and managed to examine the contents of his car – ditto.’ He gave Flaco a look. ‘Don’t worry, Flak. I didn’t use my picks.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’ She returned his look. ‘About that.’
Darac pressed on. ‘But let’s say Montand did see a new will. On the question of his secreting it somewhere himself, I think we’ve gone as far as we can for now. As for the possibility that he could have passed it on to an accomplice, he’s hardly likely to have told us about the shadowy figure he claims to have seen lurking among the cypresses if he had.’
Bonbon began drumming his fingertips lightly against his chin. ‘That’s an interesting point in itself. I assumed Montand had come up with the figure as a get-out. “He’s the man you want!” But maybe there was such a person.’
Granot gave it the full Gallic shrug. ‘Maybe Montand didn’t think it through.’
‘Possibly.’ Darac drew down the corners of his mouth. ‘But Zep wondered if he’d seen someone lurking there as well, remember, and just looking at the time frame angle, that person – if he exists – is a far more credible killer than Montand.’
Granot grunted. ‘I haven’t given up on him yet. What if he destroyed it, somehow? Burned it.’ His eye went to the smoke alarm on the ceiling. ‘He could have set light to it outside. Any burnt bits of paper or ashes around?’
‘None detectable but there wouldn’t be, would there?’ Bonbon said. ‘Especially on such a wet night. R.O. checked out all the rubbish, personally. Apart from a few cotton wool pads in a bathroom wastebasket, he found none of any sort.’
‘Wheelie bins? How long would it have taken Montand to open and close a lid en route to next door?’
‘Empty – the recycling was picked up this morning before all this happened.’
‘He didn’t have a lighter or matches on him, anyway,’ Darac said, glancing around. ‘Shredder?’
Bonbon slapped his forehead. ‘Imbecile.’ He lowered his brow. ‘Although now that I think, I haven’t seen one.’
‘It is a small office,’ Flaco said. ‘You’d still think she would have one.’
A search failed to find it.
‘OK.’ Darac steepled his hands as if he were conducting a prayer meeting. ‘Anyone have any further thoughts?’
Granot harrumphed. ‘Only that we’ve got dangerously close to concluding that Montand did exactly as he said he did.’
‘And I haven’t mentioned the biggest incongruity,’ Darac said. ‘In our interview, Caroline expressly stated that Paillaud called the meeting to say goodbye, nothing more.’ Darac gave an almost apologetic shrug. ‘Just maybe, that’s all it was.’
‘Know what I think?’ Bonbon grinned. ‘They’re all in it together – the locals. It’s Murder On The Orient Express all over again.’
Granot’s chops took on a bilious hue. ‘Don’t let’s go there, for God’s sake.’
‘Quite.’ Darac glanced at his watch. ‘So, in the absence of a guillotine, I think the feeling is that we have to release Montand at least for the time being. Several checks are going on and we can always call him back in if we need to. Agreed?’
It was agreed.
‘Back in a second.’
In the dining room, Montand was apoplectic with indignation; Darac’s call of nature had taken over twenty minutes.
‘Thank you, monsieur,’ he said. ‘You may go.’
‘I may go, may I? Well, thank you very much. None of this was necessary. None!’
‘May I remind you not to—’
‘I know all that,’ he said, slipping on his jacket.
‘We’re going to lock down the house shortly, monsieur. So unless...’
Montand got to his feet and, wiping his toilet bowl of a head, bustled his way out of the room.
‘Officer Perand will escort you off the premises.’
Darac returned to the office where Granot and Bonbon welcomed him with looks of modest self-congratulation.
‘I leave the room for thirty seconds,’ Darac said, recognising the signs.
‘How’s this for neat?’ Bonbon slid open a panel on Caroline’s desk top. Beneath it was a built-in shredder head. He slowly swung it to one side, exposing the caddy.
‘Ah,’ Darac said, staring at the contents. ‘I think we’re going to need more coffee.’
27
The manner in which Daniela Wienawska lay sprawled over her mother put Flaco in mind of an orphaned puppy seeking suckle from a field mouse.
‘Daniela?’ Flaco was speaking to her left ear only. ‘You cleaned for Mademoiselle Rosay how many times a week?’
She uttered something that sounded like “wubs”.
‘I know you’re upset but would you sit up, please? I can’t hear what you’re saying.’
Daniela stayed put.
As if the experience of having the life crushed out of her was bringing her closer to God, Sonia Bera was smiling beatifically. ‘Yes, come on darling.’ Her words emerging in an effortful wheeze, she tried to ease her daughter’s sodden head off her chest. ‘Dani?’
In an agony of grief, the young woman righted herself and blew her nose. For the first time, Flaco was able to study her properly. Face: broad and flat as a shield. Eyes: blue, perhaps green – too tear-streaked to tell. Hair: blonde, straight, short. Frame: broad, heavy-boned. Limbs: muscular. Hands: large, capable-looking. Fingernails: short, clear varnish. Feet: large, square. Toenails: short, clear varnish. Clothes: navy, calf-length slacks, white blouse. A gold chain bearing a modest crucifix completed her ensemble. If Daniela were not drowning in tears, Flaco reflected, she would appear to be made of stern stuff, a strong, even tough-looking young woman.
‘Once,’ Daniela said, finally. ‘Once a week. Thursdays, 2 until 4.’
‘And you kept to your schedule yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Caroline let me in.’
‘You don’t have a key?’
‘No.’
‘And that was the last time you visited the house?’
‘Yes.’ Another blow and then, as if a switch had been thrown, she looked vehemently into Flaco’s eyes. ‘She was always lovely to me! Really lovely. And she paid better than my other clients.’
Sonia was still smiling but her eyebrows rose slightly as she tilted her head towards her daughter.
‘Except maminka.’
‘Pardon?’
‘She means me,’ Sonia said. ‘It’s the Czech word for “mama”.
Daniela drew her legs up under her and, wiping her eyes, sank back into the corner of the sofa. Finding no solace there, she sat forward, back, and forward once more, then clambered to her feet. ‘I need the toilet.’
‘Are you alright, darling? Do you need me?’
Already half-way to the door, Daniela shook her head.
‘She’ll be back presently,’ Sonia said, on full beam once more.
‘You’re from The Czech Republic, Madame Bera?’
‘I’m flattered you think I’m so young. I was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia.’ Sonia’s saintly eye was capable of a wicked glint. ‘ “Brno-born, bred and buttered,” as my own maminka used to say. What about you, Officer? Were you born here? In France, I mean.’
‘No. You work on reception at Centre Sicotte but you employ Daniela? As what?’
‘I work only part-time at the Centre. Just for something to do, really.’
By ignoring the second part of the question, Sonia had succeeded only in drawing Flaco’s attention to it. That it probably meant nothing did not deter her. ‘You employ Daniela?’
‘As a housekeeper, yes. I have three properties, one a villa over in Saint-Jeannet.’ She sat forward. ‘It makes a wonderful base for a week or two’s holiday. Sleeps four. View of the coast all the way from Cap Ferrat to Cannes and the Esterel.’ She gazed into mid-air as if she could see it before her. ‘So beautiful. If you or perhaps your family back home might be interested, don’t hesitate to ask me for details. Summer is usually fully booked but there are often vacancies in spring and autumn. And the rates are cheaper.’
‘And the other two places?’
‘Oh. Yes. Bed and breakfasts, one in this house as a matter of fact. At the back, there. Just two rooms.’ Sonia hesitated, as if giving further information was something to which she needed to give serious consideration. ‘The other is a B&B cum café, actually. La Poche, next to Saint-Laurent station where that awful incident happened. My son runs it. I think you may have interviewed him, earlier?’
‘No, my colleagues did.’
‘Ah.’
Was that irritation Flaco saw in Sonia’s eyes? A sign she had given away something she needn’t?
‘To be clear, Monsieur Rafal Maso is your son?’
‘Yes.’
Weighing a couple of considerations of her own, Flaco said nothing, It was Sonia’s daughter who worked as a cleaner for Caroline Rosay. And now it turns out her son runs the café in which Rosay met Ambroise Paillaud before he jumped to his death. Connection or coincidence? The family’s surnames exercised her a little, also. Maso, Wienawska, Bera? No two matched and therefore no investigating officer would have thought of connecting them. A five-minute records search, however, would get to the bottom of that one.
Daniela returned and subsided on to the sofa next to her mother.
‘Alright to continue?’ Flaco said.
‘Suppose so.’
‘Was emptying Mademoiselle Rosay’s shredder part of your cleaning duties?’
She slipped her hand into her mother’s and nodded.
‘And you did that yesterday? Answer in words, please.’
Daniela stiffened. ‘I put out all the rubbish. It goes on Thursdays.’
‘And you definitely didn’t visit the house today?’
‘No, I said, I didn’t. Why would I?’
‘To be paid, perhaps? I did casual work as a student. Sometimes people don’t have cash at the time, do they? You have to go back.’
‘Mademoiselle always did have it. Always put in an envelope. And it was always right. Sometimes, a few euros more.’
The big question loomed.
‘You both understand that we need to ask people where they were at the time of Mademoiselle Rosay’s murder?’
Sonia was still beaming at the angels. ‘No, I don’t understand that.’
‘Neither do I.’ Daniela’s words spluttered through tears. ‘Maminka?’ She lay her head on her mother’s skinny knees. ‘Tell her to go. I’m tired.’
‘Tell me where you both were and I’ll leave.’
‘We don’t know when it happened until you tell us, Officer.’
‘Sometime between 6 and 8 o’clock.’
Sonia laid a finger across her daughter’s lips. ‘We were at Sainte Bernadette’s church hall here in Vence. From about 5 until we came home just now. Père Etienne and several parishioners will vouch for us.’
Flaco made a note and stood. ‘Thank you. Why were you there, as a matter of interest?’
‘To take part in our summer concert series. Puits du Sud it’s called. In opposition to, well, you know.’
‘No, what?’
Sonia’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Nuits du Sud, of course – that awful racket that goes on in Place du Grand Jardin every July evening. Give them all headphones, I say – the audience.’
‘I don’t think that would work, madame. So do you sing or play something?’
‘Just help out in general.’
‘Uh-huh. And you, mademoiselle? What do you do?’
Daniela turned over, shutting out the world behind her broad back.
‘She recites. Things like that. Now if you wouldn’t mind, officer?’
Flaco issued the usual reminders and cautions and took her leave.
Sonia waited until she heard the outer door close. ‘Get up, now, Dani. We need to check on Monsieur Férion.’
28
‘Caroline Rosay’s document inventory from her computer.’ Erica handed it to Darac with an almost ceremonial flourish. ‘And here’s a list of all incoming and outgoing calls made on her mobile.’ A curtain of fine blonde hair escaped the holdback of her ear as she took off her lab coat. Under it was a rugby shirt bearing the numeral 14. ‘Job done.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Shrunk in the wash?’ Bonbon deadpanned, indicating the shirt as Darac ran an eye over the back page of the inventory.
‘Shrunk about ten sizes? No, Bonbon – it’s mine, not Serge’s.’
‘Another great try haul for him this season, wasn’t it? Will he stay with the club, do you think?’
‘As staying with them means staying with me, he’d better.’
Bonbon grinned but then it was down to business. ‘Any new entry for Paillaud, chief?’
‘No wills or documents of any sort added today. Of course, Caroline might have been about to do just that – and perhaps set other balls rolling – when she was killed. But anyway, Granot can now start the cross-check in earnest.’
‘That’s a plus, chief.’
Darac turned to Caroline’s mobile records. None of the numbers Hervé Montand had given them proved to be on either list. ‘If she phoned him, she must have used her landline – those records are still to come in – or someone else’s phone or a payphone.’
‘Don’t forget our good friend, the burner,’ Erica said.
‘Unlikely, but it’s not impossible.’
‘Montand’s own phone records will give us the answer to that one,’ Bonbon said. ‘One way or the other.’
Darac looked for the staggered calls Caroline had made to Martina Sicotte and the Centre’s landline. He found them. No calls were listed in between. ‘So Caroline didn’t ring Vaselle or anyone else from outside La Poche. Another what-if answered in the negative.’ He gave the sheets a rap with the back of his hand. ‘Really useful, Erica. Thanks for hanging on.’
‘You know me and the Caserne.’ Re-anchoring her hair, Erica swept a slender arm around the lab. ‘What was love at first sight has only deepened over time.’
‘Let’s see how you feel about it in a minute,’ Bonbon said.
Erica’s gaze turned to the three evidence cases the men had set down innocently between them.
‘You... wouldn’t be so heartless as to have brought something else for me. Surely?’
‘No,’ Darac said. ‘But in a sense, yes.’
Erica’s pale cheeks flushed the subtlest shade of coral. ‘You arseholes.’
‘Not for now,’ Bonbon said. ‘For later. Obviously.’
‘Oh. Bit sensitive, there. Sorry.’
Darac smiled. ‘Erica, did you enjoy doing jigsaws as a child?’
‘Jigsaws? Are you kidding? I was acing Tetris when I was two.’ A wary look clouded her sky-blue eyes. ‘Why?’
Darac opened one of the cases and carefully lifted out the shredder caddy. ‘This is why.’
Erica stared at the contents. ‘You have got to be joking.’
Darac essayed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘It’s just one document, we believe, and we haven’t disturbed it. It’s lying exactly as it fell. I realise how difficult—’
‘No you don’t. Not remotely.’
‘Erica—’
‘This isn’t just nice long strips of paper any kid on a spectrum could reassemble.’
‘I know. It’s cross-cut and that would make any reconstruction—’
‘It’s confetti, practically. And it’s not even printed. It’s handwritten. On both sides of the paper. Think about that.’
He put his hands on her shoulders and kept them there. ‘Will you? Will you think about it?’
She stared off.
‘Hey,’ he said, gently. ‘Come on.’
She looked back at him. ‘Don’t give me that. I’m not scared of hard work. I’m not difficult. And I’m damned resourceful...’
The men chorused their agreement.
‘But I cannot perform miracles.’
‘R.O. said he couldn’t, earlier. But he nearly always does. And so do you.’
She smiled, sweetly. ‘That’s so nice. And so bullshit.’
‘No it isn’t.’ Darac released her shoulders. ‘Look, I have no way of knowing what this document is. It could be a shopping list. But if it is, why would anyone have shredded it?’
