Essence of Murder, page 29
Bonbon stepped forward and smiled. ‘Monsieur Salins?’ he said, maintaining the deception for the benefit of the others. ‘We’d like to borrow you, if we may.’
Chuntering disgruntledly to himself, Banda had no option but to comply. Of course, his fellow class members didn’t know why the police wanted to speak with him but as Flaco watched the watchers, she could almost read the think bubbles hovering above them: “He looks like a killer.” “He must be a person of interest, at least.” “Perhaps he just saw something – he’s always creeping around.” “He did it. I’d put my wine cellar on it.”
Marcia Calon’s particular reaction was exactly as Flaco would have expected and that went for Jérôme’s, too. Thea Petrova seemed not to care one way or another. In itself, showing a lack of interest in the fate of a character like Banda might have seemed unsurprising. But if Astrid was right, and Thea and Urquelle had shared beds all over Europe and beyond, the degree of the woman’s impassivity Flaco found harder to fathom. She looked closer. Was there just a hint of a reaction visible behind Thea’s façade? If there were, Flaco felt, it was a curious one. It was puzzlement.
2.16 PM
Except that it was taped-off and featured a team of white-clad figures, the designated smoking area was exactly as Astrid’s drawings had led Darac to picture it. Before he could check in with Raul Ormans, he needed to sign in and suit up with red zone gatekeeper, Patricia Lebrun.
‘Captain. Thought you were avoiding me.’
‘No, no, no,’ Darac said, exchanging kisses of greeting with the woman he had met on his first day with the Brigade and with whom he had worked virtually every day since.
She proffered her clipboard. ‘Your autograph, please. I know you’re all disappointed if I don’t say that.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t know what to do, otherwise.’
Darac signed, filled in the time and began slipping on a pair of crime scene overalls that were slightly too small. ‘How’s R.O. doing?’
Her eyes swivelled to Astrid’s bench a. ‘I think he may have turned up trumps already.’
Darac’s mobile rang but, balancing on one leg, he was unable to take the call immediately.
‘Just while you sort yourself out,’ Patricia said. ‘Thank God that little Emma Tardelli and the others are alright, huh? We were all devastated when we heard what had happened.’
From extreme pain to extreme joy within the space of about fifteen minutes? Darac had been scarcely able to imagine what Armani and Noëmi had gone through for real earlier and the feeling hit him with renewed force. That, in an entirely positive sense, it was a scenario being played out again in the maternity suite at St. Roch only added to its effect. ‘I know,’ he said, finally able to reach for his phone ‘Unimaginable. Ah, it’s Erica. I’d better take this, Patricia.’
‘Of course.’
The pair air dapped their latexed knuckles and Darac headed slowly towards the action.
‘Erica, what have you got?’
What she had was a breakdown of Gérard Urquelle’s mobile traffic since Wednesday evening. Of brief duration, all four incoming calls were from the head office of Urquelle’s jewellery firm, and five of the six outgoing were to the same number. The sixth was to the city cab company, made that morning. Late on Wednesday afternoon, a text from Vivienne had been received. It read:
Don’t get too drunk tasting all that wine, Géri.
And don’t forget to give my best regards to Astrid Pireque and Elie Tiron. See you Friday evening, V
The reply, sent almost three hours later:
My darling V, I’ll try not to. Get drunk, that is.
And I’ll try to sell a few more pots for you. Not that you need my skills in that department. Very dull crowd here though the place is spectacular as you say, and I’m sure the course itselfwill be stimulating. E.T. duly regarded and sends her best back to you. A.P. yet to be got. I count the hours, Géri
‘Surprisingly warm exchange,’ Erica said. ‘His and Vivienne’s, I mean.’
‘Didn’t sound as if they were at each others’ throats, did it? But if I were going to kill my cheating husband, and I knew someone like you was going to report what I wrote to someone like me, jaunty togetherness is precisely the tone I would adopt.’
‘I got lost in all those pronouns, Darac, and the concept of you having a husband didn’t help. But I take the point. What about Urquelle’s reply?’
‘That’s more surprising, in a way. If he wasn’t used to being addressed so warmly, it didn’t show. And of course, he couldn’t know that anyone but Vivienne would be likely to read the text.’
‘Interestingly, earlier exchanges between them read more matter of factly. The main topic of conversation appears to have been what time the man was likely to arrive home following his latest work trip.’
‘Which is what you would expect, I suppose. Other numbers? Have you had time to look back at those?’
‘I’ve gone back a couple of months. As far as I can see, no call has been made or received from any of our principals here.’
‘Too much to hope for.’
‘I’m going to look further back, though. You never know.’
‘Excellent, Erica. Share what you’ve learned with the team, will you?’
‘I will but once the passcode had been decrypted, scrolling back through emails and texts is something any 8 year-old kid could do, you realise?’
‘I’ll send out for one but in the meantime, could you stick at it? If anything more technical comes in, I’ll let you have it immediately.’
‘Sure, and that, by the way, was a particularly apt segue. A piece of long-promised kit has just turned up here in the ops room – the live feed camera set-up.’
‘Really? You know, until Agnès mentioned it the other morning, I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘So had Bonbon. And despite my best efforts in the demo, how to use it. Fortunately, Flak’s au fait so she’s handling the transmission end of the Banda interview.’
‘Wise. And at the reception end?’
‘Granot. He’s surprisingly good with tech – even though he’s got hands like hams.’
‘Very true. Good work, Erica, I’ll check in later.’
‘I count the hours.’
Darac rang off just as Raul Ormans called him over to Urquelle’s bench. In his latex-gloved hand was a small cardboard evidence canister containing a crushed cigarette butt.
‘We’ve just removed this insignificant-looking atrocity from the ashtray on Urquelle’s side of the bench. It has to be what remains of the Gauloise gasper Urquelle accepted from Salins-stroke-Banda – it’s the only candidate. In other words, my good friend, what you see before you is the murder weapon.’
‘Great work, R.O.’
‘It’s Astrid’s eagle eyes we have to thank for this. If we only knew in advance when a crime was going to take place, dispatching her to the scene would save us a great deal of head-scratching.’
Darac grinned. ‘Agreed.’
Ormans handed the specimen to an assistant. ‘Our man’s waiting by the front entrance. Tell him to secure it in his pannier and on no account just slip it into his pocket. Hurry.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘Motorcyclists, Darac. Insane, the lot of them. But he’ll be able to slice through the traffic even more speedily-stroke-recklessly than the remarkable Wanda Korneliuk could in her car. I’ve already told Deanna the sample is on its way. Now they know exactly what to look for, the result will be practically instantaneous, she says. Add in the journey time, we should have an answer...’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Just shy of 3 o’clock.’
‘Excellent. Bonbon and Flak are about to interview Banda, R.O. They need to be apprised of your find, too.’
Ormans nodded his large, aristocratic head in the direction of a young woman tapping away on a laptop. ‘Marie-France is doing so as we speak.’
When a murder investigation began to gather momentum, Darac often felt a surge of energy that wasn’t quite like any other. He felt it now. He also felt a sense of unease. Things were going too well, weren’t they? But then he remembered the live feed camera.
‘Think it will work, R.O. ?’ he said, deeming it unnecessary to specify the it in question.
‘Erica trained everyone up. Flak’s there to hold Bonbon’s hand. Of course it will.’
‘And if it had been Bonbon and say, me, instead?’
Ormans thought about it. ‘Just remembered a prior engagement,’ he said, and went to join Marie-France.
2.27 PM
Léo Banda unhooked a card reading please do not make up my room from the doorknob and ushered Bonbon and Flaco into his room.
‘And leave you door side?’ Bonbon said. ‘After you, mate.’
The man shrugged and they followed him in. Bonbon’s expectation that such an unkempt individual was likely to keep his room in a concomitant state of disarray proved not to be the case as he gestured him into a wingback chair sitting in the far corner. The room was immaculately tidy.
‘Nice and big, isn’t it?’ Bonbon said, leaning back against the door. ‘By the look of things, the maid has been in.’
‘On the contrary.’
‘Alright if I sit here, monsieur?’ Flaco indicated the dressing table next to her. Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out the chair and turned it to face him. ‘With the new regulations coming in soon, we’ll be trial videoing the interview.’ She set the camera on the table and angled the viewing screen. ‘You alright with that?’
With his arms folded and his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, Banda appeared not just alright but strangely in control of the situation.
‘Sure,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Just check you’re in vision and everything is working.’ On the back of the camera was a button labelled live link. She pressed it and the light above it turned from solid red to flashing white and then, after only a few moments, to solid green – just as Erica had told Flaco it would. ‘Ye-es... that’s fine. I’ll let you know when we start recording.’
‘Start recording, eh?’ Banda grinned. ‘Recording and transmitting. You’ve got a live camera there. Where are the pictures going back to? Commissariat Foch? Joinel? The dear old Caserne Auvare?’
The locations with which Banda seemed so casually conversant were well out of range. The link was with the ops room which was no more than 30 metres away.
‘Somewhere like that,’ Flaco replied.
‘Water?’ Bonbon said.
‘Never touch the stuff. Could do with a fag but it’ll have to wait.’
‘OK, ready?’
Banda shrugged.
‘Formalise things, will you, Officer?’
It was done and Bonbon got down to the nitty-gritty.
‘Monsieur, on Wednesday of this week, a call centre manager by the name of Laurent Maurice Salins of the Riviera Apartments in Saint-Philippe checked in here at the Villa des Pinales. By today, Friday, that gentleman has morphed into one Léo Patrice Banda of the Boulevard Pierre Sola in Riquier. And he’s a private detective. Quite a rare one, as it turns out because as far as we can determine, Léo has never served as any sort of police officer in France or anywhere else, or as a member of the armed forces. Right so far?’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘How long have you been a P.I.?’
‘Twelve years.’
‘And before?’
‘Guess.’
‘So you’d be able to answer any questions on the subject if it came up in conversation, I’d go for call centre manager. Right again?’
Pressing his lips together, Banda gave a little nod. ‘Absolutely right. I’m going to have to watch it with you, I can see.’
‘Well, that’s enough fun for one day. What are you doing here, monsieur?’
‘ “Monsieur” and the polite vous form, is it? I didn’t mind the “mate” approach, to be honest, but now you’re broadcasting, it’s fair enough, I suppose. Why am I here? I’m on a case. As you are. Tell me what you want to know and I’ll give it to you. But I’d appreciate it if you were quick about it, Lieutenant. I think I’m in the running to win a bottle of Krug back in the Salle.’ He re-crossed his legs. ‘Not that there’s much in the way of competition. My fellow wine buffs don’t know port from starboard, practically.’
Studying the man, Bonbon reflected that physically, Léo Banda looked exactly as Astrid had depicted the creepy, irritating moaner she had encountered as Laurent Salins. Banda’s own character, it was clear, was very different. Bonbon had interviewed hundreds of murder suspects in his time. Many had proved to be guilty and many of them had loudly protested their innocence throughout. A smaller number had quietly feigned it. A smaller number still had feigned both innocence and ignorance of the charges about to be brought against them. Of those, about one in ten had succeeded, at least for a time, in persuading Bonbon that they had no idea they were being questioned as a murder suspect. Banda was one of those. Or at least, it was another prize for which he was in the running.
‘OK,’ Bonbon said. ‘What case are you working on? Who’s your client?’
‘I wouldn’t normally divulge such confidential details but since we’re dealing with murder here, and I’m anxious you won’t arrive at the erroneous conclusion I had something to do with it, I’m going to make an exception.’
Bonbon shared the briefest of looks with Flaco.‘Go on, Monsieur.’
‘Client – Madame Vivienne Urquelle. Case – how can I put this?’ He pinched the end of his bulbous nose three times in quick succession. ‘Trying to get the goods on good old hubby Géri so she could divorce him without penalty.’
‘By what means?’
‘The usual. Logging the comings and goings in his room. Concentrating on the comings, if you catch me.’
‘And that is all Madame Urquelle wanted from you?’
Banda’s brow lowered, flattening the crazy paving-like creases on his forehead. ‘Yes? What else would she...’ The penny dropped. ‘Ah.’
Bonbon decided to let him think about it for a moment. ‘Been on my feet quite a bit today.’ He eased his weight off the door. ‘Sit on the end of your bed if I may.’ He did so. ‘Not in shot, am I, Officer Flaco?’
‘No, Lieutenant.’
‘Excellent.’ When he looked back at Banda, the man’s rolled neck was glistening with sweat. Promising, Bonbon thought to himself. ‘Let me take you back to last night, monsieur. The smoking area.’
‘Listen, before that, I want to show you something on my mobile. It’s important.’
Feeling his Sig Sauer automatic nestling snugly against his chest, Bonbon smiled. ‘OK.’
Banda stood, and with some difficulty, extracted the device from the hip pocket of his too-tight trousers. ‘Make a note of the passcode, if you like.’ He gave it and Flaco duly took it down. ‘This contains all my personal and work stuff. I’ll find my contract with Vivienne.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Madame Urquelle, I mean. I took a photo of it.’ He found it and handed Bonbon the phone. ‘See?’
The contract, for “services rendered,” was signed by both parties and contained a number of disclaimers and other clauses. One that caught Bonbon’s eye was that should the Banda agency have been unable to supply the evidence necessary to prove adultery on the part of husband Gérard Urquelle, the agreed fee was to be considered unearned and repaid to the client.
‘Yes, I see she hired you as you stated,’ Bonbon said, relaxing Banda a little. ‘But this in no way implies that she didn’t also hire you to kill him, does it? It could be a smokescreen.’ Bonbon’s eyes twinkled. ‘Odd that “taking out a contract” on someone has come to mean what it has, isn’t it? It’s the one agreement for which there never is a written contract.’
‘I assure you, I was hired to catch the shit with his pants down. That’s all.’
‘I know the guy had form in that respect but how did you know you would get what you wanted?’
Banda pursed his lips, nodded a few times, then took a deep breath before answering. ‘I... took along a little insurance. Go to my email inbox. Top left on the lock screen.’
‘I’ve got the same phone. Hang on.’
‘You’ll see several messages from a Yana Vanier, including some sent in the last hour.’
‘Yana Vanier...’ Bonbon found them. ‘And she is?’
‘Better known to you as Lydia Félix. See the one sent at about a quarter past one, this morning?’
‘I see it.’
‘Read it and play the attachment. Just a minute or two, maybe, because it’s 63 minutes long, unedited, and sparing your blushes, it’s sound only. Forward it to yourself, to HQ, your boss – wherever you like.’
Although neither Bonbon nor Flaco had heard the voices of the have-a-go hero and his supposed conquest for the night, there were sufficient name checks and other clues in the five-minute sample Bonbon played to leave little doubt. Astrid, for one, would be able to ID the voices with certainty later. Then Bonbon read Yana/Lydia’s accompanying email. It strengthened Banda’s story.
‘We will have to question Yana formally now, you realise? Not just take a statement from her.’
‘Of course. She won’t object, I’m sure.’ He sat forward intently. ‘If you look in my photo folder, the last two shots are Yana entering Urquelle’s bedroom, time tagged at 11.53 Wednesday night. Note that her blouse buttons at the back and that all of them are fastened. The next one shows her coming out tagged at 0.55 and the top two buttons are undone. Just having snaps of her going in and out of the room at that time of night with the buttons shtick would be enough to get Madame U her way in the divorce court, believe me. Let alone all the grunt action she recorded.’
