Essence of Murder, page 32
‘Not sure.’ He pursed his lips. ‘It suits you. And you seemed to transition from Darac to Paul without any difficulty.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘But I might just stick to Astrid for the time being. OK?’
One day, the two poètes-policiers might discuss how Darac, known for his daringly free approach to playing jazz, could be so stodgily resistant to change in other areas of his life.
Astrid smiled. ‘Of course you can.’
‘Good, but listen...’
‘I know. We need to press on. Let me give you a speed-reading version of every move I remember happening in that one-hour period in the yard.’
‘Excellent.’ He ran a hand into his hair and kept it there. ‘Go for it.’
Astrid’s account had barely begun when Darac saw it. Saw at least what could have happened. He needed Astrid to see it, too. ‘Would you just go over that that last part again?’ he said, dragging his hand out of his hair. ‘From where Alan Davies took his leave.’
‘Ri-ight... Alan got up from the bench and on his way out of the yard, ran into Salins/Banda and stopped to chat with him. While they talked about something that seemed to puzzle Banda and amuse Alan, Urquelle took what looked to me at the time – and turned out to be – a diary out of his pocket. Then he took out his pen, and while he finished smoking his fag, started jotting down the figures you showed me – so he could work out how much he would have left from his personal monthly outgoings to offer Banda. Shall I go on?’
‘This is the sequence we need to articulate more precisely if we can, Astrid: ‘Cigarette – diary – pen – jotting – calculation. Run it again through that remarkable mind’s eye of yours.’
‘OK.’ Her brow lowered. ‘Urquelle was already smoking when he took out the diary. He kept the fag in his mouth while he riffled pages. He found the one he wanted. Still with the fag in his mouth, and with the end flaring red occasionally as he took a pull, he took out his pen and wrote down possibly just that first line.’
‘Wrote it down without thinking?’
‘Yes. He knew that amount off by heart – as you would, if it were, say, your regular monthly salary.’
Darac felt his pulse quicken. ‘And the second line he wrote?’
‘He had to really think about it.’
‘When I work something out, I often stick my hand in my hair. It irritates the hell out of some people, I know. Or I stare at the floor. Describe what he did.’
‘He glanced up from the diary, beetle-browed. He stubbed out the fag, and then...’
‘Yes?’
Astrid saw it, too, and she laughed with the joy of it. ‘He tapped the pen against his lip, Paul. Tapped it repeatedly and at one point – why didn’t I think of this before? – he actually put it in his mouth. The cap, I mean, and he put it in the same corner he’d parked his fag.’
‘Yes!’ Reaching for his mobile with one hand, he clasped Astrid’s with the other and as one conjoined entity, they punched the air in triumph. ‘You’ve done it, Astrid. We’re up and running again.’
‘It’s great but if I’d had my wits about me, it would have happened earlier. I saw what he did but I didn’t register it, somehow.’
‘Hey – we were steered along the cigarette and then the drinks paths. It’s a context thing. Without you, we would be nowhere. And now I need my hand back.’
‘Oh, yes.’
He tapped in a number. ‘Path didn’t send us the pen along with the diary – it seemed immaterial to the case – so unless they’ve sent it to the Caserne with the rest of Urquelle’s effects... Deanna? Thanks entirely to Astrid, we know, or we think we know, how Urquelle was poisoned. The timeframe works and everything else fits. She’s here. I’ll put her on.’
‘It was the bastard’s pen,’ she said. ‘The one bearing the inscription celebrating his magnificence as a human being. The pen cap, to be exact. I saw him sucking it, in effect. Like a child sucks a thumb.’
Among a most un-professorial stream of mainly Italian expletives, came the assurance that Urquelle’s effects were still in situ and that the pen would be tested without delay. The call ended with the promise that the test result would come quickly thereafter.
‘I now need to update Granot and the others in the ops room,’ Darac said, getting to his feet. ‘A fully fledged team meeting.’ They headed briskly back across the parvis. ‘Might there be time for one of your signature cameo appearances?’
‘Depends how long it goes on. I’ve still got the class prize to award; the open discussion to chair – that will be like no other; my concluding summary and pep talk. I’ll be free at 5 for a couple of hours, though.’
‘Excellent.’
They walked through into Reception as a crockery-laden trolley disappeared with a clinking shudder into the service lift.
‘More paperwork?’ Darac said, indicating what appeared to be a whole new mountain range away to their left. ‘Does she ever stop?’
At the desk, Barbara was continuing to work on fast-forward, a task made all the more difficult by the slow-motion call she was having to deal with on the phone.
‘Why not ask the multi-tasker herself?’ Astrid deadpanned. ‘She’s had her coffee. She won’t bite your head off.’
‘I wouldn’t blame her if she did.’
‘And she has other talents, you know. Such as being probably the watcher in the place.’
‘Second best, surely.’
‘I have eyes only in the front of my head.’
‘Ah, one of those, eh?’ He pressed for the lift. ‘Useful.’
‘Have you had coffee, by the way?’
‘Not yet but we’re lavishly equipped up in Salle Milhaud. Two four-spout Gaggias, to be exact. I may never leave this place.’
‘Two four-spouters? Impressive. Right, I’m away around the corner.’
‘Astrid,’ he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. ‘There could still be a very long way to go with this thing but thanks to you, I’m sure we’re on the right road.’ The lift doors opened. ‘Now all we have to do is nail the killer.’ He smiled. ‘See you later.’
Sealing what had been a highly significant meeting with a hopelessly bungled high five, the pair upped the bathos in a flurry of wildly flapping fingers and, chuckling like children, went their separate ways.
3.42 PM
With Deanna confirming that Urquelle’s pen cap had indeed been the carrier of the poison that killed him, the mood in the Salle Milhaud was as high as it was hectic.
‘So what’s this big news, chief?’ Jean-Jacques Lartigue said, returning from a trip to his van. ‘The pen cap with the poison...’
‘ “ Is in the chalice from the palace?” ’ Darac said, unable to resist.
‘What?’
Ormans was already grinning. ‘Wonderful! And what’s the next line? “The vessel with the... something holds the brew that is true.” The Court Jester.’ Picturing the movie, he gazed nostalgically into space. ‘They don’t make them like that anymore.’
‘With all due deference, Messieurs,’ Lartigue said. ‘What on earth are you on about?’
‘Sorry, Lartou – old movie talk. Yes, the pen cap bore the poison. Now let’s get into the how and why of it.’ Unable to have found a convenient balustrade from which to conduct operations, Darac had positioned the Bechstein’s piano stool at one end of the whiteboards.
‘OK, everyone,’ he said, picking up a marker and an eraser. ‘What does Deanna’s news do to our suspects list?’ He got to his feet. ‘The most obvious thing is that whoever did this knew of Urquelle’s oral habits with his pen. Let’s annotate the list.’
Granot shifted his weight on to one elbow, the easier to indulge in a habit of his own: twisting the ends of his moustache. ‘On the face of it,’ he said. ‘It puts Vivienne Urquelle squarely back in the frame. Who would know “good old” Géri’s ways better than her? And who had easier access to his pen?’
Darac reinstated Vivienne’s name on the list but put a large question mark against it. ‘Who? Another candidate is Madame Thea Petrova. Thanks to Erica, we now know for certain that Astrid’s suspicions about her relationship with Urquelle were spot-on. He and Thea had been up close and personal for years. Very close, in fact.’
Erica raised a hand. ‘And I’ve dug up more besides. Nothing conclusive, but it’s of interest.’
‘Excellent, we’ll come on to that.’ Darac underlined Thea’s name. ‘According to Deanna, it might take weeks of testing to determine when poison and pen came together so we can park that line for the moment. But let’s go back to Vivienne,’ he said, and turned to Granot. ‘I see why you said that on the face of it this new breakthrough puts her back in the frame. Yes, she would certainly have known all of her husband’s habits intimately but even scant acquaintances might have noticed him absently putting the pen cap on or between his lips. And, theoretically at least, several people here had access to that pen, Yana Vanier a.k.a. Lydia Félix, the most obvious among them.’
‘Gaining and granting access usually goes with shagging someone,’ Perand said.
‘Except that she didn’t have sex with him until he had already absorbed the fatal dose.’ He eyeballed the young man. ‘Pay attention, will you? I was thinking more of the fact that the two of them paired up in every session of Zoë Hamada’s perfume-making course, sat together at dinner, et cetera, and so the pen would have been easily to hand.’
In an attempt to claim co-ownership of the thought, Perand nodded, sagely. ‘That, too, yes.’
‘If we look at how Yana/Lydia might have obtained the poison used to kill Urquelle...’ Darac turned to the board. Under the general heading means was the sub-heading potential sources of acrylamide. It bore just two names: Vivienne Urquelle and Ralf Bassette. ‘What do we see?’ He gave Flaco a look. ‘Flak?’
‘That Yana would most likely get it from Vivienne via Banda, or directly from Vivienne herself if she was in on the badger game part of it from the start.’
‘Exactly, and that leads us back to the whole problem with Vivienne as a suspect. Bonbon? You’re the only one here to have questioned Vivienne, Banda and had a private word with Yana – talk us through it.’ Remembering that the man’s Catalan accent had been known to flummox those unaccustomed to hearing it, he grinned: ‘In French, ideally. For the sake of our newer friends.’
By way of a response, Bonbon uttered a few words in an even more exotic tongue. ‘That was Occitan for “I’ll give it my best shot and spare you the sardana that goes with it.” ’
‘Thank God.’ Granot huffed. ‘Whatever the sardana is.’
‘A folk dance, you heathen.’
‘The prosecution rests.’
‘So – Vivienne,’ Bonbon said, pressing on. ‘I’ve checked out Banda’s story and was able to verify the salient parts of it. Badly wanting to divorce Urquelle, Vivienne had previously hired several other P.I’s to get the goods on him but they didn’t come through for her. Banda, though, did succeed and so it seems she would have at last been able to divorce the prick on legs that was Gérard Urquelle – a divorce, remember, that would have proved financially painful for him, an easing of all sorts of pain for her. Now, unless hiring Banda was a smokescreen, it just doesn’t make sense to have had her husband killed into the bargain, does it? For a number of reasons, Flak and I didn’t buy that possibility even before I sneaked in a word with Yana Vanier. Afterwards, I still don’t buy it. ’
‘Neither do I,’ Darac said, rubbing out the question mark he had set against Vivienne’s name. ‘So barring a significant development on this strand, and there could be one down the line, I propose we remove Vivienne from our list of suspects. Any counter arguments?’ He scanned the room. ‘No? Right.’
He did the needful and then set a question mark against another entry.
‘In many ways, Elie Tiron has a stronger claim to suspect status than Vivienne. On the question of access to Urquelle’s pen, bear in mind that Elie has access to keys that open every door in this place, including Urquelle’s bedroom. As to motive, we have chapter and verse on why Elie loathed Urquelle, and she freely admits to still doing so, incidentally.’
Erica’s wispy eyebrows rose in sympathy. ‘She’s not alone there.’
‘Indeed. As it happens, Astrid isn’t the only one who believes Elie had no knowledge of the true story of the so-called eyewitness to the jewellery store shootings, Denis Marut. I believe it also. But anyway, what we may believe about Elie becomes somewhat academic once we’ve removed Vivienne from the list of suspects, doesn’t it?’ He indicated the two names listed under the means heading. ‘Her potential supplier of the poison no longer a suspect, that only leaves the genial paper magnate from Strasbourg Ralf Bassette, with whom, like Banda and Yana, Elie apparently had no prior connection.’
‘That we know of,’ Granot said. ‘I know time is really tight but we must be... Well, you get my point.’
‘Yes and all this might change but for the time being, I propose we discount Elie Tiron as a suspect. Any counters?’ He scanned the room. ‘None? Fine.’
He pressed the eraser into service once more. ‘Now we come on to the only suspect who also features on each of the motive, opportunity and means lists – Ralf Bassette, himself. Now...’
Darac’s ringing mobile slowed his flow but it wasn’t until he checked the caller’s ID that it stemmed it altogether.
‘Astrid?’
‘I’m in Elie’s office,’ she said, her voice scarcely more than a breath. ‘You’d better come.’
She rang off before he could reply.
‘OK, something has happened down in Elie Tiron’s office.’ He gave Erica a look. ‘Will our new live camera work back to here from there?’
‘It should.’
‘Bring it. The rest of you stay here. And stay tuned.’
3.53 PM
Having called for backup before abandoning his station at the rear entrance, young Officer Emil Balaise had taken charge of the situation in Elie’s office.
‘No one has been in here since Barbara called you over?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘Has anyone tried to come in?’
‘No. It’s been quiet as the... It’s been quiet.’
‘Thank you. Stay here for the moment. Erica – you OK over there in the corner?’
‘Yes, the link’s established with the ops room and I’m filming.’
‘Excellent.’
Sending out a signal of her own – one that said she didn’t want to advance any further – Astrid was standing with her back against the door. Darac caught her eye and smiled.
‘You all right?’ he said, well aware that she wasn’t.
‘I’m fine, Paul,’ she said, her voice flat as if all the life had been hammered out of it.
‘The door behind you locked?’
‘Uh-huh. Let’s just get on with it.’
Turning to Barbara, Darac reflected that she looked out of place sitting down; especially as she was sitting behind Elie’s desk. In all other respects, it seemed it was business as usual for her.
‘Barbara, talk me through what happened.’
‘Certainly. You recall when you were here earlier that I mentioned needing to come in at some point to forage for some items of stationery?’
‘Yes.’
‘I got delayed by one thing and another and... Well, anyway, I was finally free so in I came and started gathering things up.’ On the desk in front of her was a tray containing a varied collection of sundries. ‘Happily, Clarice had left things in good order so it only took a minute or two but then thanks to the damned computers, I realised I also needed to check some paper records from one of the filing cabinets over where your colleague is standing. It was locked, Captain. All the keys live in here.’ She indicated a drawer bridging the knee space between the desk’s twin pedestals. ‘So I sat down and opened it. Shall I?’
‘Just wait a second, please.’ Darac gave Erica a look and she moved in closer. ‘Go ahead.’
Barbara opened the drawer and for a moment, Darac couldn’t understand what he was seeing. And not just because of the untidy mess it presented.
‘Did you touch it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I closed the drawer, went to the door and called out to the officer here who came running. Then, while he was organising someone to fill in for him, I called Mademoiselle Pireque about my discovery.’
‘That all correlates, Emil?’
‘Yes, Captain. The timings, everything.’
‘Astrid?’
‘Yes.’
‘When will Elie be back from her late lunch, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe? I don’t know.’
‘OK, Emil,’ Darac said, scrolling screens on his mobile. ‘You may leave but I’ve got a tricky brief for you.’
The young man looked as if he relished the prospect. ‘Yes?’
‘We’re going to close the door after you but leave it unlocked so that when Madame Tiron returns from lunch, she will just walk in. By then, Barbara will be back in Reception so everything will appear as normal. With the exception of one particular person, if anyone else comes to this door in the meantime, dissuade them from entering but without raising a warning flag. Are you with me?’
‘We usually stay stone-faced – what the boss calls “saying nothing as loudly as you can.” If we’re in a good mood, “keep back” and “move along” is about as chummy as we get. But I’ll think of something. Who is the exception, Captain?’
‘This man.’ Darac showed him his phone. ‘His name is Raul Ormans and he’s our chief forensic examiner.’
‘Check.’
‘Now this is most important. Share nothing you have seen or heard in this room with your boss or colleagues. Right?’
