Babazouk Blues, page 21
‘No.’
‘Tell you what, then. Let’s make it ten.’
29
‘No darling, we’re not going walkies at this time of night. You silly boy! Now lie down. No! Lie down, you bugger!’
It seemed Thierry was in the mood for chasing his little stump of a tail but he finally chased it into his basket.
‘Good boy. Now stop your noise. Shhh! What’s the matter? Is it because you’re worried about me? I bet it is. Don’t. I can handle Marcel. Yes I can.’ She rubbed Thierry’s ears. ‘Look at your little lugs! That’s better. You’re the only one who really loves me, aren’t you, darling? Yes you are.’
It took another ten minutes to settle Thierry but Brigitte didn’t mind. The dog was a godsend at times like this. She went to prepare for bed reflecting that today had been the blackest of her life. How could the world be such a cruel place, she wondered. How?
‘An old lady… Old lady!’
A hot soapy shower is what she needed. After just a few moments, the cubicle’s glass sides were fogged with steam and she began to feel a little better. It was only then that the bathroom door opened.
30
Darac’s day off was about to conclude as it had started: sitting at the desk in his study, working through reports. But there, he imagined, the similarities would end. Taylor Walters-Halberg’s back story was something he’d been looking forward to reading.
He began with the information from London. Taylor hadn’t claimed to be a stellar student but he was surprised to see she had graduated in Art History and French with lower second-class honours, not, he imagined, a typical degree class for someone destined to land a top job. With disarming frankness, she’d claimed that ‘persistence and luck’ had propelled her into the rarefied orbit of Philippe de Lambert and that thereafter, she had benefited from his ‘incredible’ kindness. In a more conventional institution, it seemed unlikely that Taylor would have risen higher than someone with Dr Ivo Selmek’s track record. But the set-up at Villa Rose wasn’t conventional and if she had been over-promoted, who was really to blame?
A quick spin around other areas of Taylor’s recent past revealed no surprises. Everything from her credit rating to her driving record was blemish-free. Widening the net brought in more interesting finds. Records showed that with the exception of Taylor herself, no one bearing the surname Walters-Halberg had entered France within the past five years, yet the impression Darac had was that her parents had visited Villa Rose at least once. Seeking answers, he turned to the information from the USA.
Although shorter on dry detail than its French equivalent would have been, the documentation was systematic and resonant. The question of why no one bearing the name Walters-Halberg had visited Taylor was simply answered. It was not her original surname. And that, it transpired, was the last part simplicity was to play in Taylor’s story. The golden upbringing that Darac had imagined she had enjoyed proved to be precisely that: a product of the imagination.
Piecing her life together from police files and social welfare records was like reading a scenario for a particularly depressing road movie; Darac could almost see the drifting dust, hear the haunting slide guitar soundtrack. Born Taylor Ann Riggs, she had spent her early years being dragged around the trailer parks of the desert states by her unstable, unmarried mother. A former small-town beauty queen, Charlene Riggs was seventeen when she’d had Taylor. Four years of debt and drug dependency later, the loved but neglected little girl was taken away from her. Three months after that, Charlene died, her body bagged up with the rest of the trailer-park trash and destroyed.
The record showed that four-year-old Taylor had been snapped up for adoption within hours of becoming ‘available’. ‘On the market’, it more or less implied. The lucky family were the Mechovs of Monterey, California. Jonathan Mechov, owner of a small lumber business, and wife Luanne were described as a model couple. Taylor’s future seemed set fair, at last.
After an hour’s reading, Darac still hadn’t discovered how Taylor had come up with the Walters-Halberg surname. But examining the Monterey Police Department’s records explained why she had changed it from Mechov. From the age of twelve, she had been sexually abused by her adoptive father on a regular basis. The offences hadn’t come to light until Taylor managed to extricate herself from the family home at the age of sixteen. At that point, Jonathan Mechov himself went on the run, committing a series of offences including the attempted murder of a police officer who was trying to arrest him. Caught and sent for trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in the state penitentiary. Luanne Mechov was sentenced to five years for turning a blind eye to the horrors to which she knew her adoptive daughter had been routinely subjected. Three months after her release, the woman committed suicide. Fin.
Feeling exhausted suddenly, Darac decided to shut everything down and call it a day. But he couldn’t just throw a switch to turn off all the what if? questions running through his head. As he did most nights, he picked up his lounge guitar and began strumming through as many chord changes as it would take.
Chang, chang, chang, chang, da-da-da-da… chang, chang…
Neglected, acquired and then abused: that was the beautiful one’s early life and perhaps, Darac conjectured, it threw a different light on her relationship with the Lamberts. Perhaps the drive to ‘worm her way in’ wasn’t the sly attempt to advance herself that Ivo Selmek had suggested. Perhaps she was seeking to expunge the pain of the past by adopting the Lamberts as surrogate parents. Indeed, she had said that Maggie was like a mother to her. Perhaps Taylor had seen Jeanne Mesnel in a similar light.
Chang, chang, chang, chang…
Taylor’s history perhaps also accounted for something Selmek had alluded to in passing: the apparent lack of lovers in her life. Darac had sensed in her a certain antipathy to sex. If that were true, and not just a reflection of his own lack of sexual interest in her, it would hardly be a surprising legacy of what had happened.
Chang, chang, chang, chang…
Darac felt desperately sorry for Taylor Walters-Halberg, fka Taylor Ann Mechov, fka Taylor Ann Riggs. But his compassion was moderated by wariness. ‘Damaged people damage others’ was one of Agnès Dantier’s starkest, truest axioms. Just how damaged was Taylor? He thought back to their lunch. She’d been more than merely evasive about her relationship with the Mechovs; she’d lied about their visiting her at Villa Rose. Yes, she was hardly likely to have come clean about them but she hadn’t just given a false impression, she’d really sold the fiction, smiling happily about events that had never happened. Smiling happily and tugging her pearl earring. Tugging her earring…
Chang, chang, chang, chang…
It was something she often did, he realised, an unconscious mannerism. Was it a tell, something she did when she lied? He thought back through their conversations. He could picture her performing the gesture on several occasions but marrying it to what was being said at the time was difficult. Two instances, though, came back to him. One was when she insisted she had no prior knowledge of the Chemin Leuze house before putting in the offer. The other was over Lambert’s refusal to acquire the Musée Matisse’s Woman at Asilah for the forthcoming exhibition.
Chang, chang, chang, chang…
Countless choruses later, Darac finally ran out of theories that might explain these things. It took more choruses still to dispel thoughts of Gilles Voska.
31
‘Morning, Lieutenant.’
Malraux clamped the phone under his chin as he squirted deodorant into his almost hairless armpits. ‘Albert.’ He already knew why the snitch was calling. ‘What’s new?’
‘Old Brigitte moved back into Battail’s last night.’
‘If the slag gets up to anything, you let me know.’
‘I will. I had him round asking questions – that Darac. Nasty piece of work. And he hasn’t got a clue, like you say. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Over.’
‘If we had more like you we could double the cleared-case figures, Albert. Over and out.’
* * *
Darac was playing over the outro to Miles Davis’s ‘Solea’ when his landline rang.
‘Not interrupting your morning detox, am I?’
‘Just finished, Didier. What’s up?’
‘Favour to ask. I’d do it myself but time, tide and maths students wait for no man.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’ve been trying to email “Lil’ Darlin’” to Sticks so he has a heads-up for tonight’s practice but his mobile must be kaput. I’ve got no way of getting a physical disc to him now. You’ve got the album, I imagine?’
‘Sure and I’m out and about today.’
‘He’ll probably be at the Hotel Grande Scarabée on Promenade des Anglais. Does shifts there with his brother in the kitchen.’
Darac looked at his watch. It was two hours before the evidence from the vault was due at Joinel. He’d planned on visiting Chemin Leuze after breakfast but it could wait. ‘No problem. I’ll take the CD in to him.’
‘Thanks, man. See you tonight.’
* * *
Few people could have been easier to spot in a crowd than Sticks N’Pata but on a preliminary scout around the Hotel Grande Scarabée’s huge kitchen area, Darac saw no sign of him. Nor could he find anyone who admitted to knowing him or his brother. Darac began to feel uneasy.
‘You’re late. And where’s the other one?’
A griddle the size of a sunbed clamped under his arm, Darac’s inquisitor was a large, rudimentary-looking soul.
‘Sorry.’ Darac peered at his ID. ‘Gino. What other one?’
‘The other replacement. Second shift in a row those two fucking brothers have missed. No word. Nothing.’
Darac gave him a conspiratorial look. ‘Shameful.’
‘Too fucking right.’
Gino ran a closer eye over the visitor. ‘Just a minute. You don’t look… Who are you?’
‘Lamanne, room 496. I’m looking for the spa.’
Gino’s expression didn’t change while he thought it through. ‘This is the kitchen.’
‘You should really do something about your reception staff.’
Using the griddle as a pointer, Gino indicated the ceiling. ‘First floor. At the back.’
‘Thanks.’
Darac exhaled deeply as he walked back to his car. The pattern was all too familiar. A man of African origin was suddenly incommunicado; he and his brother had failed to turn up for work without explanation; co-workers were scared to talk. Darac wasted no time in firing up his laptop. Erica was always telling him that no computer file could be trusted 100% but on checking the relevant sites, his growing suspicion that the brothers were illegal immigrants dissipated. To all intents and purposes, Rama N’Pata was what he said he was: a fully fledged French citizen who until last summer had been living in a low-rent apartment block in the banlieues of Nantes with his brother, Modibo. Darac checked the criminal database. No known offences. He checked current arrest listings. Neither N’Pata was on it.
His mobile rang.
‘Didi?’
‘Manage to hook up with Sticks?’
‘He still hasn’t replied to your email, then?’
‘No.’
‘I’m at the hotel. He’s not here either. Bunking off with his brother, by the look of it. I’ve got a L’Ariane address for them. I’ll nip up there later.’
Darac ended the call and set off to Joinel. He’d been ensconced at his desk for no more than a minute when Granot mooched in, carrying a box of assorted viennoiseries.
‘That’s kind of you,’ Darac said, knowing none of it was for him.
‘I need these. Hypoglycaemia’s no fun, you know. Coffee?’
‘Got one. And you’re about as hypoglycaemic as fondant.’
Banter was displacement, the lull before the storm of what promised to be a difficult squad meeting.
‘Briefing room ready?’
‘Everything’s set.’
Darac’s desk phone rang. ‘What?’ His eyes rolled. ‘OK Charvet, thanks.’ He jabbed a button to end the call but kept the phone to his ear. ‘The stuff from the vault’s going to be late.’ He keyed in another number. ‘Frankie, sorry if this screws up your day but we can’t do the squad meeting until two o’clock this afternoon. Is that alright?’
Granot muttered all the way back to his seat with the nearest thing the Koffeemat had to a noisette: a ‘makiato’.
‘OK, see you then.’ He hung up. ‘Hurry up and wait. That’s our lives, Granot.’
‘Have you only just realised that?’
‘So how did your digging go on the Mesnels?’
‘I’m eating. Tell me about Miss America, first.’
Darac recounted everything he had on Taylor.
‘Difficult life,’ Granot said, at length. ‘In terms of establishing some pre-existing connection with the Mesnels or the villa, it’s nothing though, is it?’
‘Not in itself but I have some ideas. And you? Any interesting past owners of the Mesnel villa? Any hidden goldmines?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. And the Mesnels seem the most interesting owners of the house in its history. Mainly because Alain had more jobs than the rest of Beaulieu put together.’
‘That gels with what Madame Corot told me.’
‘But he kept one longer than the others. A Monsieur Dubroqua of the Mairie confirms that Alain worked as an electrician for the maintenance department for four years. He did jobs in half the public buildings in Nice, he says. That’s all I’ve got so far.’
Darac shook his head. ‘Alain Mesnel… That man could have exhibited his photographs in any of the city’s modern galleries. Instead, his work survives not on walls but behind them. And then he gets killed in a car crash.’
‘That’s life.’
Darac stared at the floor. ‘I wonder if he ever did any electrical work at Villa Rose? He painted it, you know.’
‘I doubt an electrician would—’
‘No, I mean he did a painting of Villa Rose. It’s at the Chemin Leuze house.’
‘So? It’s a picturesque spot, isn’t it? Thousands of people paint it.’
‘And he did paint other local spots, to be fair.’
‘There you are.’ Granot stuffed in another pastry. ‘I’m almost frightened to say this, but you had some ideas?’
‘Plenty. Not so many connections, though.’ Darac glanced at his watch. ‘But as we’ve got a breathing space, I’m going to follow up a couple now.’ He swiped his mobile. ‘Lartou? Just checking the Mesnel bequests haven’t been crated up yet?’
‘They’re ready to go, chief, but we won’t be doing it until the morning.’
‘Good. That’s it.’
Granot flicked a crumb-clearing finger through his moustache. ‘What are you after?’
‘I’ve realised I saw something remarkable at the Mesnel villa the morning after the body was discovered. Saw it but didn’t see its significance.’ He got to his feet. ‘I need to look again. Want to come?’
‘No chance. I’ve got a tonne of paperwork to get through. Bonbon’s up in Drap on that knifing. Perand is probably free. Or take Malraux.’
‘I’ll take Perand.’
32
‘What are we looking for?’ Perand said, yawning.
The living room felt more desolate than ever. Darac stood still for a moment. ‘You feel it, Perand? That dead quality?’
‘Well, it’s an old lady’s place, isn’t it?’
Darac gave him a look. ‘She had life, this lady. A full and vibrant life.’
‘OK.’
Darac began flicking through the CD racks. No luck. He turned to the LPs. There it was: Sonny Rollins At the Village Vanguard. He slipped it onto the turntable and lowered the cartridge on to the in-groove. After a spoken introduction, ‘A Night In Tunisia’ lit up the space like bougainvillea tumbling over a wall. It was presumptuous, but once again Darac felt sure Jeanne would have approved.
‘What we are going to do is look through these LPs and cassettes. I’m interested in any that were purchased in the USA.’ He glanced at the Rollins sleeve. A yellowing label read: MELLOW TONE RECORD STORE, E 52ND STREET, NYC. ‘Like this, for example.’
‘Why are we doing this?’
‘All will become clear. I’ll make a start on the LPs. You take the tapes.’
Perand shrugged but got on with it.
Lester Young’s One Night Stand LP bringing the total to seventy-one, it took just over an hour to complete the task. Seventy-one albums, Darac reflected. One for every year of Jeanne Mesnel’s life. All of them had been purchased in New York and three were sprinkled with gold dust: they still had their original hand-written receipts trapped in the sleeves. Made out to a Madame Jan Manelle, a Mrs J Mesnel and a Mister Al Menel care of the Bennington Plaza Hotel, they were date-stamped between 9 and 26 September 1964, only a matter of months before Alain died.
Darac swiped his mobile. ‘Granot? I’m over at the Mesnel villa. I’d like you to drop what you’re doing and…’ He jerked the phone away from his ear. ‘Alright, but this could be important. Remember I said I saw something remarkable here that first morning?’
‘Ye-es?’
‘It was a jazz LP—’
‘Good Lord almighty—’
‘I was too interested in the thing itself to pay proper attention to where it came from. But then I remembered it was New York City and it turns out there are about seventy more like it in the collection.’
‘Mademoiselle Walters-Halberg is American. There are American records in the Mesnel villa. What an incredible connection! No wonder she bought the place on spec!’
‘It’s not the fact that they are American, Granot. It’s the fact that America is a long, long way from Beaulieu-sur-Mer. And it was further away still in 1964. I’ve got receipts to prove the Mesnels themselves bought the LPs there. She was a seamstress. He was a jobbing electrician. Where did they get the money to pay for a trip like that? Imagine how much transatlantic flights cost back then. And they were there for at least two and a half weeks.’ Darac gave Granot the dates of the trip and the hotel address. ‘It doesn’t add up.’
