A Death in Time, page 35
‘True, Flak, but there’s one small and one huge potential problem here. If Gilles Laborde’s account of the break-up conversation was accurate – and I think with what we now know, there’s little reason to doubt it – when he left Samira to attend the meeting with his assistants, she hadn’t given any indication that she was going to wait for him at the place he suggested. Granting that Zoë did park her BMW in or near the builder’s yard, we know that she would have headed back there at some point. So she could have come across Samira sitting waiting there or thereabouts, engaged her in conversation once more, killed her, somehow retraced her initial route back into the Stade and disposed of the body in the water jump. But let’s rewind to the surprise encounter between Zoë and Samira at the far end of the players’ car park. Yes, it’s a dark, out-of-the-way spot but the lane behind them is quite a crowd scene – athletes, coaches, and the ever-watchful Eric Cauvin, knocking around. It’s not a very secure spot to murder someone. So how’s this? Zoë is astride her bike chatting with Samira when she glances at her watch and says, “Goodness, is that the time?” Or perhaps she suddenly notices something is amiss with her bike: “Damn, I’ve got a flat.” Or with her person: “Ouch, I’ve pulled my calf muscle, it feels like.” All of these could lead to her asking Samira to give her a lift back to her car. “It’s parked nearby. My bike folds, it’ll easily go in your boot.” “Certainly,” Samira replies. However inconvenient it may have been, what else could the young woman say?’
‘But, Captain, no one reported seeing a passenger in Samira’s car when she left.’
‘True. This is speculation and then some but the guy I was telling you about – the one from my apartment house who used to enjoy going for runs at night? His girlfriend didn’t enjoy it. She was convinced he would come to no good doing it. So what if Zoë said something on the lines of, “It may sound silly, Samira, but Gilles doesn’t like me going out training at night and as we’ll have to go through the gate, he might see me or someone might tell him they saw me, so is it alright if I sit in the back, bob down, put my tracksuit top over me?” Or something to that effect.’
In need of more lemon love, Bonbon slipped the tin out of his pocket. ‘It’s possible. Perfectly possible. So what’s the huge problem you mentioned?’
‘Samira’s car. Think it through: Zoë dumps the body, gets back to her BMW which is parked in the vicinity of Samira’s Renault. What did she do then? She couldn’t fold that up, stuff it in her boot and drive away. So what on earth became of it? She didn’t have time to drive it anywhere, did she? Unless it’s right there under our noses somewhere.’
Bonbon rose. ‘Let’s go and ask the woman, shall we?’
SIXTY-FOUR
Action at the villa. Grandmother carrying the baby to her car. Departure looking imminent. But something was missing. Something central to the success of the plan. Cassie saw his eyes dart back to the front door. It had been left open.
‘Turn on the engine.’
The thought that Chantal had no concept of what was going to happen turned Cassie’s head into a maelstrom of distress.
‘I… I feel sick.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Feeling sick or not, everything in place or not, it was happening. They watched Chantal fuss over the baby as she strapped her in to the rear seat. Cassie knew that thinking aloud was the last thing she should be doing but she couldn’t help herself.
‘She loves that yellow bonnet.’
‘What?”
‘The bonnet. She loves it. The baby.’
‘What are you talking about, you stupid bitch? That little mewling bag of shit doesn’t love anything.’
Be careful, Cassie. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I meant, they often put it on her. The family and the carers. We need to know things like that. They’re the ones who love—’
‘All you have to worry about is what she does or doesn’t do next,’ he said, spitting out the pronouns as if they were something foul in his mouth.
Chantal hurried back to the door.
Don’t just close it, Cassie said to herself. Please, God.
Chantal disappeared for a moment and returned carrying the buggy, folded for the journey.
‘Good,’ he said and Cassie breathed again.
‘Shall I put my wig on now?’
‘What part of “do the wig last” didn’t you understand?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ He tapped the knife blade against her thigh. ‘You will be if when we start the tail, you try to warn her, or crash the car, or jump out, or do anything I’ve told you not to. Because if you do, Carmen, I’ll stick this knife so far up you, you’ll be able to taste it. Got that?’
A whimpering nod was all she could manage. He meant it, she knew.
‘Say yes.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was minute. ‘Yes!’
On the drive, Chantal put the car in gear and pulled slowly out into Avenue Henri Matisse. In her rear-view mirror, the white walls of the Chapelle de Rosaire appeared to melt dreamily away into the haze.
SIXTY-FIVE
Front of house, the city’s forensic pathology facility was a place of carpeted calm, harmoniously blended earth colours and surfaces that were warm to the touch and to the eye. Back stage, a complex of white-tiled spaces were as echoingly reverberant as the tomb, or as senior pathologist Professor Deanna Bianchi was wont to characterise it – a 50’s rock ‘n’ roll record.
Djibril Mpensa had had such a busy couple of days, there had not been a moment to reflect on how unfortunately timed Deanna’s U.S holiday had proved. Culminating in a ten-day stay with her sister Veronica, a fellow nicotine enthusiast and possibly the last living survivor of the species residing in California, the three-week trip had been long-planned, keenly anticipated and, mercifully for Mpensa and his colleagues, due to end today. In short, Map couldn’t wait for Deanna’s return on Monday morning and there would be no mistaking when that moment had arrived. The sound of her signature cough reverberating around the corridors would sound to him sweeter than any dawn chorus.
Out in the field, lab technician Patricia’s principal role was to maintain the integrity of a crime scene, controlling the flow of personnel in and out of the red zone with a cheery smile and an iron grip. In the lab, mid-morning was her time for replenishing, replacing and ordering supplies of everything from crime scene tents and overalls to the smallest paper and plastic specimen bags. It was a process after which coffee time followed as naturally as night follows day. The skill and care Patricia brought to every task she performed had not gone unnoticed. Only she was allowed to operate Deanna’s beloved La Marzocco espresso machine in her absence. It was a privilege she took both seriously and selectively. Of the coffee drinkers, Djibril Mpensa was her favourite and she found him hard at work at his desk.
‘Map? Join me in one?’
‘You wonderful woman. Cappuccino, please.’
‘Biscotto?’
‘Feeling reckless. Make it two.’
‘Cappuccino and biscotti for the young gentleman coming up.’
When Patricia returned with the order, she found Mpensa staring incredulously at his screen.
‘What is it? If you can tell me, that is.’
‘We’ve got a DNA sequencing match on Cragnat’s killer.’
‘From the fingernail evidence?’
‘Yes. Look at that name, Patricia.’ He sat back, questions already lurching around in his head like a storm-tossed raft.
Patricia gasped. ‘And look at that face,’ she said. ‘My God. I can’t believe it.’
SIXTY-SIX
Granot’s hunch that rue de la Malonnière might provide a clue to the whereabouts of Alain Terrevaste had so far yielded nothing of any value.
His mobile rang. Perhaps that would change his luck.
‘Map, good to hear from you.’
‘Listen, we’ve got a DNA ID back on the killer of Ludo/Medot and Cragnat. The man in question is none other than retired ex-CRS beat officer Christian Malraux…’
‘What?’
‘… Latterly Lieutenant Malraux of Marseille and, two or three Brigade postings before that, Lieutenant Intern Malraux with us. As I’m sure I need hardly remind you.’
‘Malraux? Malraux killed those people?’
‘It’s incontrovertible.’
Malraux a killer? Yes, Granot could imagine such a thing without difficulty. But try as he might, he found it hard to insert the man he’d known into the scenario that had begun with Cragnat’s killing of Denise Dubreuil.
‘Be prepared for a second shock. I’ve sent you a recent-ish photo.’
The image came in.
‘Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus. His face looks as if it’s been flayed.’
‘I said he’d retired from the force. He was actually invalided out. He has toxic epidermal necrosis which usually proves fatal to the sufferer. And that’s a well-chosen word. It’s a desperate condition.’
‘As is the thought of Malraux being at large. But there’s no time to debate such things now, Map. In fact, there’s no time for anything much at all - we’re stretched all over the place.’
‘Listen, I know you’re leading the effort on the ground to find Terrevaste, so would you like me to call Agnès with this?’
‘If you would. She will get straight on to Marseille, I’m sure. And do a hundred other appropriate things. Including drafting Frankie and Armani in, possibly. Both of them are off today.’
‘And Darac, Granot?’
‘With Bonbon and Flaco, he’s interrogating the Labordes. Mother and daughter.’
‘For a second time? Why?’
‘Don’t know. I guess it’ll be on the Stade W.V. case file log but I haven’t had time to look. Speaking of which, this Malraux ID flash needs adding to the Port Lympia. I’ll do that in a second.
‘I’ll get on to Agnès now.’
‘Map, you’re a brick.’
‘If I’m a brick, the whole wonderful edifice that is Professor Deanna Bianchi will be back with us on Monday. Think of that!’
‘You’ve held things together brilliantly in the meantime, my friend. Out.’
SIXTY-SEVEN
Take the next right at the roundabout,’ Malraux said.
‘But she’s going straight ahead.’ Before recrimination came, Cassie was quick with an explanation. ‘I don’t want to lose them for you.’
Malraux took a deep breath but decided to let it go. And then he realised it would probably be better if the bitch knew more, anyway. Might cut out mistakes later.
‘Just this once, I’ll give you a reason. Now we know she is going straight ahead, we know where she’s going in the end, don’t we? She’s taking the kid back. So we don’t need to follow right behind her. That way we might be seen. And it doesn’t matter who she’s handing it over to in Nice. Whichever one of them it is, the Promenade des Arts car park is where she’s heading. When she comes back up on to the street with the buggy, that’s when you do your thing. And I do my thing. And then the fun really begins. Now shut up and just drive to the city. We’ll get in position well before she gets there.’
‘Thank you. Yes.’
A beep heralded a police message coming in on the radio.
‘Quiet!’
It seemed routine – two vehicles had had a shunt on the D 2085 at La Fumade – but the man listened carefully, anyway. As if it granted her a sort of amnesty from his scrutiny, Cassie began to think. Whatever happens, she couldn’t bear the thought that the baby… No, she couldn’t bear it. As to the parents… And that Mariette, their main nanny... But people got over things, didn’t they? Eventually.
The police message ended and another came in. A burglary. In somewhere called Lauvas. More time for reflection. Cassie had stopped asking herself how she had got herself into this situation. She knew how. Weakness. She had been two years into her role as assistant payroll supervisor for a group of Marseille hotels when an idea to earn some extra money occurred to her. Appreciating that she probably hadn’t been the first person in her position to realise how easy it would be to invent and pay a fake employee, she wondered if the internet would be littered with stories of those who had tried and failed to operate the scheme undetected. She found that it wasn’t. She did however come across one case in which the “payroll purloiner” in question had been caught and sent to prison. How had he come unstuck? It seemed to her that there were three principal reasons: he had made his fake a full-time employee; he had put him on too high a grade; and he had paid him monthly by cheque. Resolving not to make the same blunders, Cassie’s Monsieur Durand was a low-grade part-timer paid by the week in cash. Nevertheless, his earnings built-up over the years and Cassie would probably still be drawing his wage now but for a terrible stroke of luck: the murder of her immediate boss by another employee in the office. But for that completely unrelated act, she would not be in the situation she was in now. Everything had been fine when the investigation began and had she left modest Monsieur Durand in plain sight on the system, no one would have discovered his non-existence. But she panicked and decided to lose him.
She had never thought of police officers as pigs but if they were, it was the runt of the litter who noticed the discrepancy and, keeping it to himself, worked out how much Cassie had stolen from the company over the years. She had been in Malraux’s pocket ever since.
It made her sick to think how easily he’d manipulated her from the off. Dédé had been easier still. She would do anything for a fix. But Cassie? A thousand times, she had tried to work out how to free herself. But even if she could, what could she do then? He had all her documents and money. She couldn’t go anywhere. It was as if she was tethered to him by an invisible chain. When she had fallen under his “protection,” it had been the threat of prison that had stopped her from trying to slip that chain. He knew she couldn’t stand the thought of it. That was his first hold on her. ‘Alright, but what do you want me to do in return?’ she had asked him. He didn’t know then. He just knew she might be useful to him at some stage. ‘Wait and see,’ he’d replied, and kept her in limbo for almost a year before the opportunity he had been waiting for presented itself. He outlined his plan, with it putting a second hold on her and Cassie’s fate was sealed. ‘There’s no going back now,’ he’d said to her. ‘We’re not just talking prison. I’m warning you on pain of death not to even think of crossing me. And that death, I promise you, would be very, very painful, Carmen.’
But supposing she hadn’t agreed to go along with his initial offer? What would her sentence have been as a first offender? The “payroll purloiner” had been given three years and, as a model prisoner, had been released after two. For her own more modest felony, she might have served no more than a year and a half, yet she’d still baulked at the thought of it. To avoid eighteen piddling months inside, you’ve got yourself up to your neck in this living hell? Cassie, you shithead! Over the past days, she had chickened out of many opportunities to give herself up. There was the cop in the pharmacy, for instance. Or she could have walked into Commissariat Foch, the Caserne Auvare – any number of houses of correction. Yes, given herself up and shopped the man into the bargain. But he knew she wouldn’t.
‘May I ask one more thing?’
‘Shut the fuck up and drive.’
SIXTY-EIGHT
Inès Laborde had earlier challenged Darac to picture her mother callously slaying a defenceless young woman and a good half-hour into questioning Madame Zoë Laborde – convinced though he and Bonbon were of her guilt – he was indeed struggling to visualise her committing such a spectacularly brutal act. In contrast, the story of her almost tragicomic expedition to see with her own eyes her husband and his lover together, a tale of increasing disorientation, humiliation and physical injury – that he could picture easily.
Darac gave Bonbon a look. It was time to play their killer card.
‘You love your daughter, Madame?’
The question clearly threw her. ‘Of course I do, Captain.’
‘And her love for you is just as obvious. As is her antipathy toward your husband.’
‘Can there be any surprise at that? He has never loved her. In fact, he is incapable of loving anyone. Poor Samira would have found that out in time.’
She was well rehearsed, alright. Or was it as simple as that? In criminology circles, it had been known for some time that murderers in Zoë’s position sometimes came actually to believe in their innocence.
‘You know, Madame, I think you understood early on that the very implausibility of the story you were going to tell about what you did on the evening Samira was killed would give it an odd kind of strength.’
Zoë’s colour was up but she still looked confident. ‘What are you talking about?’
Bonbon set down the incriminating typescript in front of her.
‘Before we go any further, perhaps you should examine this document. You’ll recognise it as a transcript of your chapter for the book Boss Women.’
Zoë shrugged. ‘Alright.’ She read the opening paragraph. ‘And?’
‘You don’t recognise your daughter’s hand in it?’
‘No. I wrote it.’
‘You conceived it, certainly. But Doctor Laborde actually did the typing. And she did so as part of your plan to murder Samira Padar and incriminate your husband as her killer.’
Zoë blanched. ‘Really, I understand how overworked you people are, Captain but you’re overlooking all the evidence.’
‘I’m afraid not, Madame. Indeed, I’m certain further evidence will come to support the charge of premeditated murder we are going to bring against you and your daughter. Haematological evidence, especially.’
