Babazouk Blues, page 14
A couple of regulars acknowledged him as he entered but the owner, Sandro, signalled his delight at the return of the native by blanking him even more comprehensively than he used to. Darac ordered what was probably the best pan bagnat in town, paired it with a half-bottle of Banyuls Rosé, and took them to a back corner banquette. If Léo was in the house, he wasn’t showing himself for the moment.
Darac had spent the previous hour with Frènes at the Palais de Justice. The meeting followed its usual pattern, Darac acting as a reluctant vein to the prosecutor’s phlebotomist’s needle. His rationale was simple. The less Frènes knew about a case at the start, the less he was able to hinder the investigation thereafter. It was an approach that irritated the Palais and Darac knew it wouldn’t be tolerated if the results stopped coming.
A chunk of tuna escaped his sandwich, smearing oil over his shirt cuff en route to the floor. Changing his shirt was no problem. It was only a short walk to Place Saint-Sépulcre.
Using a napkin to pick up the mess reminded him of Thierry’s contribution to the case. Had Battail taken the mutt along to Chemin Leuze? Granot had already rung with a report on his second interview. Battail denied everything, including training Thierry to attack on command. ‘Produce anyone who has seen the dog do that,’ he’d said. Darac unscrewed the metal closure on the wine bottle – what was wrong with cork? – and poured himself a glass. He savoured a mouthful, staring into space as he considered why Battail hadn’t even thought of citing his helper Dagger as an alibi. It suggested he was neither a close friend nor someone he could pressure. It made Dagger potentially useful to the investigation: if he had witnessed Marcel performing his party trick with Thierry, there was nothing stopping him spilling the beans about it. The only problem was that, his eponymous tattoo aside, nobody seemed to know anything about the man. Granot concluded the call with an update on Brigitte. He’d released her and dutifully advised her of Darac’s concerns for her safety if she remained at Battail’s place. Later, a local beat officer confirmed that she had returned only long enough to pack a couple of cases and leave.
Darac scanned the café. Still no sign of Léo, there was time to make a call. ‘Patricia? Darac. Listen, has R.O.’s team collated the evidence from the Battail garden search yet?’
‘I’m just about to email it to you.’
‘Anything I need to know?’
‘There were no significant finds.’
‘Shit.’
‘Plenty of that. But not much else.’
‘I was hoping for a hand, a finger, even just a nail.’
At a nearby table, a man gave Darac a stare as he got up to leave.
‘We’ve done a particulate analysis. Nothing.’
‘OK. Thanks for that, Patricia.’
As if she had been waiting for him to finish the call, a bright-eyed, studious-looking woman of about forty slid on to the seat opposite him. Dissolving a cube of sugar into her noisette, she fixed him with a business-like smile.
‘You’re Darac?’
Her manner was assured, the voice refined.
‘Yes?’
‘In that case, you owe me.’
He looked blank.
‘But as Cristelle tells me she’d signed off for the evening, I’ll waive the fee this time.’
‘You’re Léo?’
‘Léonie Salle. Your new bed partner mentioned you wanted to see me.’
‘Sorry for being slow on the uptake but I’ve never met a female pimp before. Do you mind if I finish this?’
‘Go ahead. Pimp? I think of myself more as a mobile madam. A care-in-the-community thing.’
‘That’s original.’
And so was admitting to living off immoral earnings. But as Léo had implied, Darac was hardly in a position to pressure her over it.
‘You’ve already wondered what led a nice girl like Cristelle to sell her pussy for a living. Now you’re struggling to picture someone like me running the cattery.’
‘You do look more like a lecturer in postmodern literature than a sex-industry boss.’
‘How many lecturers in postmodern literature do you know?’
Angeline, for one. But it was a colleague of hers that Léo brought to mind; a cheerfully dismissive soul who had once referred to his love of playing jazz as ‘drastic overcompensation’. For what, he couldn’t remember.
‘Running the cattery. What’s the story there?’
‘That story is none of your business.’
‘If this were a cheap movie, I might say, “I could make it my business.”’ She gave him a disappointed look. ‘Yes, alright. But I would like answers to some questions. If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Well, since you ask so nicely… First, it’s important you understand that mine is a strictly boutique operation. Cristelle and my other three girls are not streetwalkers turning fifty tricks a day. They’re specialists, selective. When they choose to work, they have time actually to enjoy it. And they do enjoy it, Captain.’ She smiled. ‘As you partly know.’
Darac ignored the point. ‘Her grandmother’s house in Beaulieu. You know it’s no longer going to Cristelle?’
‘Yes, she told me the old cow had sold it en viager.’
‘And there’s nothing for her in the will.’
‘Apparently not. So much for our ironclad inheritance laws.’
Darac had imagined asking these questions of some male sociopath; the kind of slimeball who might very well kill an old woman for being ‘cheated’ out of what he thought was coming to him. Léonie Salle was in a different league altogether.
‘Cristelle has told me where she was last Saturday. Officers are interviewing the clients in question as we speak.’
‘She gave names?’ Léo’s eyes hardened to flint. ‘She really shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Now you sound like a pimp.’
‘Oh, there’ll be no recriminations, don’t worry. Although a thorough tongue-lashing is called for.’ She raised one eyebrow and smiled. ‘Don’t you think?’
Her act – for that, he was sure, was what it was – reminded him of Cristelle. He was already wishing she would drop it. ‘I have to ask what you were doing last Saturday.’
‘From about 8 am until well into the evening, I was digging up Roman potsherds in Fréjus. We use lights now.’
She had dropped it, alright. Darac knew of a sex-club owner who restored vintage cars; but archaeology? ‘You… were on a dig?’
‘What should madams do in their spare time? Design bondage gear? Make dildos?’ She took a sip of her noisette. ‘Do you know what garum is, Captain?’
‘No.’
‘It’s fish paste – a staple of the Roman world. You know what an amphora is?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Fréjus site is particularly rich in garum amphorae. None whole, unfortunately.’
‘The site manager—’
‘Site director.’
‘The site director will verify you were there between those hours?’
‘I’ll ask her. “Were you there, Léo?” “Yes, I was.”’
Darac let out an involuntary breath. ‘It gets better. So I take it several people could vouch for you.’
‘At least ten.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He thought about it for a second. ‘Just out of interest, this dig: where did the funding come from?’
‘Ah.’ She gave an approving nod. ‘You’re more astute than I thought. Funding? Very difficult to come by these days.’
‘And it’s been like that for how long?’
‘In other words, when did I start up my lucrative little side line?’ She pursed her lips while she thought about it. ‘Alright, you’ve earned an answer. Two years ago.’
After the meeting, Darac went home to change, wondering how a woman like Léonie Salle had had the balls to carve out an entrepreneurial niche in the sex industry, albeit a small one. He enjoyed the symmetry of it, though: using profits from the oldest profession to fund the finding of antiquities.
He swiped his mobile and keyed in the Head of Vice’s new number at the commissariat. A silk-soft voice answered.
‘Paul, how’s it going?’
‘It’s going, Frankie, that’s the main thing. You?’
‘So-so.’
‘Listen, I’ve got some information to give and a favour to ask.’
He knew favours were no problem. Before her move to Vice, he and Frankie had worked side by side for three years. It had been a perfect partnership.
‘If you’re shouting up next Thursday at the Blue Devil, I’m busy. Sorry.’
‘It’s not about the gig.’ For a second, the musician in Darac got the better of the policeman. ‘But you should give the DMQ another try, you know. You and Christophe.’
‘I’ve tried, Lord knows.’
‘Ah, well… Listen, you’re au fait with the Jeanne Mesnel case?’
‘To an extent.’
‘In working on it, I’ve come across a little…’ Léo Salle’s term seemed appropriate enough. ‘…boutique sex operation.’ He told her about it. ‘Two years she’s been at it.’
‘My God, she’s been careful. If the boys who run most of the pay and lay action around here had got a sniff of it, they would have muscled in. And I do mean muscled. There would have been no warnings: her business and all its assets would have defaulted to them on the spot. And that would have included your friend Cristelle.’
‘Frankie, she’s not my friend.’
‘Is she not?’
Darac gave her the story from the beginning.
‘Whoa, whoa. Let me get this straight. The murder victim, Madame Mesnel, was the star of the poster you love? Your muse, I think you called her, once.’
‘That’s right. Amazing, isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely. But, oh, you need to go carefully here, Paul. With Cristelle, I mean. There’s an element of fantasy in most relationships at the start, true? But this one?’
Darac ran a hand through his hair. ‘Frankie, there is no relationship.’
‘If you say so.’
He needed to move on. ‘What do you think of Léo Salle’s chances of keeping her business a secret?’
‘Well, you’ve just blown it, haven’t you?’
‘Here’s the favour: I’d like you to keep this under your hat. At least for now.’
‘Let sleeping pros lie?’
‘Well if Cristelle and Salle are to be believed, there’s no huge criminality here. The thing runs on very discreet lines. There’s no real touting or pimping going on; there’s no culture of coercion or punishment of the girls; and they assure me that none of them is in it to feed a drug habit.’
‘No assurance needed. People in desperate need make desperate mistakes and that would have delivered the operation into the hands of the boys quicker than anything.’
‘Right. So what about it, Frankie? Will you turn a blind eye?’
‘Yes. After all, in two years, I haven’t heard anything about it until now. But if you do find out that things aren’t quite as buttercups and roses as they seem, it’ll be open season on Madame Potsherds. Clear?’
‘Thanks, Frankie. And by the way…?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you really doing something on Thursday evening?’
‘You know me too well.’
The call over, Darac picked up his lounge guitar and began strumming chords to nothing in particular. Chang, chang, chang, chang… Jeanne Mesnel the poster girl came strutting into his head. The superb confidence; the life in those eyes; the lips blowing smoke; the interaction with the band. Cristelle’s verbal portrait of her grandmother had been aggressively critical. Was it accurate? Would it change anything for him if it were?
Darac’s phone rang. It was the duty officer at Joinel.
‘I have Madame Anne Corot on the line for you, Captain.’
‘Really?’ Uncanny. ‘Thanks, Béatrice… Madame Corot? Paul Darac. I imagine Théoule is warmer than Montreal. You found your sister well?’
‘Quite well,’ she said, as if it were natural that the minutiae of her life were constantly in the thoughts of others. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve obviously heard the news. It must have come as a shock to you.’
‘You can’t imagine, Captain. Jeanne and I were friends for twenty-five years.’
‘I would like to come and see you, if I may. Today, if possible.’
‘Certainly. Do you tango, Captain?’
‘Uh, not as such. Or at all, in fact.’
‘Then you’d better get over here shortly. I intend going to my lesson later and we usually go on to make an evening of it.’
‘I admire your spirit, madame. I’ll drive over immediately.’
‘I don’t feel like going out at all, to be honest, but Jeanne would have been disappointed in me if I didn’t go. I can’t let her down.’
Tango lessons in her seventies? Darac could imagine Jeanne Mesnel having a friend like Anne Corot. The thought made him smile as he set off for Théoule-sur-Mer, a quiet little resort just beyond Cannes. He was keenly looking forward to the meeting. Apart from its relevance to the case, he was going to interview someone who had known Jeanne Mesnel intimately and would want to talk about her. If Madame Corot couldn’t answer questions about his jazz muse, nobody could.
22
With its graffiti-daubed landings hung with washing, the N’Patas’ home apartment block in Nice’s northern quarter of L’Ariane wouldn’t have looked out of place in the outer banlieues of Paris; the kind of building in which some of Malraux’s former mates in the riot police would have enjoyed being let loose.
In a corner apartment on the building’s twelfth floor, Modibo N’Pata was still wearing the commis chef’s duds he’d had on since 6 am. At least he was working in his own kitchen now. The fish stew he was preparing was going to feature a less than perfect red snapper he’d brought from the hotel. A line chef had told him to reserve the choicer parts for the bouillabaisse pan but Modibo had ignored the demand. For such a big man, he had a deft touch with a knife.
In his bedroom, Rama was making music on cymbals damped with pieces of cardboard and drum heads covered with practice pads. He was playing along with ‘Milestones’, one of the numbers Didier Musso had told him to work on for the next band practice.
He’d spent all day at the beck and call of the shift manager and the various chefs at the same hotel in which Modibo worked, the huge Grande Scarabée on Promenade des Anglais. Once again, he’d done his best to honour his mother’s observation, ‘no menial task demeans’, by lugging and scrubbing with smiling good grace. But here, behind the drums, he had no need for homilies designed to preserve self-esteem, or perhaps to get more work out of him. Here, Rama N’Pata was king. Every component of the elaborate pattern of beats he was playing was articulated perfectly. He couldn’t wait to play the piece on Marco’s top-of-the-range kit at the Blue Devil.
Thursday night’s gig had been the highlight of his life. He’d got on well with the band and, musically, it had gone better than he could’ve dreamed. He’d been especially intrigued by Darac. His playing was freer than the others, almost loose at times. But the way he’d shaped a couple of solos had been thrilling. To Rama’s ears, the band had really missed the guitar after Darac had had to leave the stand. And then the others had told him what the man did for a living. It had sent a shiver down his spine.
A poster of drum god Elvin Jones presided over Rama’s bedroom. CD racks and a single bed roll was all the furniture it contained. His kit was a rudimentary set-up but it still meant the door into the living room would open only half way. As Rama manufactured an end-stopping cadence over the fade-out to the Miles number, the door opened a crack. Modibo put his big head into the space, releasing a waft of sweet and savoury scents into the room. ‘Dinner is served,’ he said with mock hauteur.
The cooking smells hadn’t lied: the meal was a triumph. At their small formica-topped kitchen table, Rama was the first to finish his plate.
‘Any left?’ he said, licking his fingers. ‘Monsieur Clay says I need to eat more.’
‘More?’ Modibo wiped his mouth. ‘Tell him you eat enough for two people now. And who is this Monsieur Clay?’
‘The owner of the Blue Devil. He’s from New York. Really cool guy.’
Modibo used a spoon to transfer a couple of heaps off his own plate on to Rama’s.
‘No, I can’t,’ the boy said. The token protest didn’t last long. ‘Oh, that’s good! The meeting with Dagger is midnight, right? Pick me up at the club. I’ll wait outside.’
Modibo got to his feet. ‘I’m going alone.’
‘No way. If it gets dangerous, you’ll need me.’
Modibo laughed and gave Rama’s biceps a squeeze. ‘Oh yes, he’ll be scared of you!’
Rama jerked his arm away. ‘I’m coming. What do we do if Dagger doesn’t deliver what he promised?’
‘He’d better deliver,’ Modibo said.
23
Arriving in Théoule to the sublime lilt of Django’s Nuages, Darac parked in a street of small villas painted in the burnt orange tones of the surrounding Esterel mountains.
Every centimetre of wall space in Anne Corot’s place appeared to be lined with books. She was an impressive-looking old lady, wide-set cheekbones and frank, hazel eyes lending her an intelligent beauty. She and Jeanne Mesnel must have cut a dash together.
Giving her even an edited version of what he knew of her friend’s death proved a difficult experience for them both but, after her tears had dried, Madame Corot rallied sufficiently to provide coffee and cognac. Refusing help, she soon returned with a couple of Moka pot espressos and a bottle of Couzin VSOP. They toasted ‘my dear Jeanne’ and sat in silence for some moments.
‘So,’ Darac said, taking another sip of the Couzin. ‘The tango?’
‘My resolve to go has waned since we spoke, Captain. Jeanne would be so cross.’
‘I’m sure not. You’ve always enjoyed dancing?’
‘No, not really. I do it mainly for the exercise and for the social aspect.’
‘But you shared Madame Mesnel’s love of jazz?’
