Babazouk Blues, page 26
A TV with a built-in DVD player sat on a shelving unit in the corner of the room. A hint of a dust pattern around the rear and side edges of the shelves suggested they had been well stocked with discs until recently. Now, they were empty. Darac turned on the set, opened the disc drawer and found a DVD-RW in it. He picked up the remote. There were two files on the disc. He selected the first and pressed play.
Tagged 10 December at 14.21, the silent, unedited footage began with razor-sharp shots of a deserted living room; one that was all too familiar. Darac’s heart sank. A title came up, something containing the words Grandma and Jungle. And then, action. Prodded forward by spears, a figure clad in a house coat and slacks stumbled protesting into the frame. Although the two spear carriers were got up as African tribal chiefs complete with face masks, the tall stick-thin one was unmistakably Rama; the other, thick-set one, probably Modibo. The woman was Brigitte Andreani.
In other circumstances, Darac might have laughed. A housewife going about her cleaning surprised by African tribesmen? Complete with spears? And for a woman who had proved herself a gifted actress during questioning, Brigitte’s portrayal of pleading for mercy was risible in the extreme. But there was nothing fake about how she had performed subsequently. As the DVD rolled to its inevitable climax, she seemed to relish every moment of the encounter. He was happy for her. Their masks holding good throughout, he couldn’t tell how the men felt about it.
After the final shot, Darac paused the image and stared at the wall. Never had he felt so unhappy at having a suspicion proved. But far, far worse, he suspected, lay ahead. However sick he felt, he knew he would have to watch the second film on the disc. Trying to forget what Jeanne Mesnel meant to him, his finger hovered over the play button. Finally, he pressed it. The screen blanked out. Nothing. The remote control shot out of his palm like a squeezed bar of soap. His head dropping, he exhaled deeply. Get on with it, he said to himself. Call Ormans.
‘I need forensics over here, R.O.’ He gave the details. ‘Anyone free?’
‘I’ve got a couple you can have.’
‘Soonest, please.’ Next, he called Frènes. ‘We need to find the N’Pata brothers.’
‘Another search? Think of the cost of—’
‘You think of it. No arrest; no tick in the right-hand column.’
Frènes’s protest went on longer than usual but having achieved the result he wanted, Darac next rang the duty officer’s desk at La Trinité. As he waited, the first stereo of the day struck up somewhere along the landing. Bright-toned electric guitars playing repeated clarions over a happily bouncing bass, it was one of the signature sounds of African music. For once, Darac didn’t feel like tapping along.
‘Dutoit.’
‘This is Acting Commissaire Darac of the Brigade Criminelle.’ He gave his ID pin and his location. ‘Forensics are on their way but I need an officer to secure apartment 1207 in the meantime. Soon as possible, please.’
Darac then called Granot and updated him. He concluded with a thought on the damaged door lock. ‘I think that before he escaped, Voska came here perhaps to tip off the N’Patas, brief them on what to do next – whatever. But the boys weren’t in or had already skipped. Voska shoulders the door open and goes to work, checking for anything incriminating. He clears the DVD shelves but doesn’t think of looking in the player itself. Or maybe he was disturbed by someone before he could get to it. Anyway, he winds up leaving key evidence behind.’
‘The evil genius that he is.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I was just going to ring you, actually. I’ve dug up some interesting things on the Mesnels’ trip to New York.’
‘Ah.’ Realising he’d forgotten to relay the information about Alain’s betting coup, Darac gave his knee a slap. ‘Granot—’
‘It’ll only take a second. In the time the Mesnels were together, their taxed earnings were enough to keep them no more than ticking over. And I can’t see a home seamstress earning huge sums on the black, can you? I don’t know what Alain got up to in his spare time but it’s difficult to see how they could have afforded such a trip. Especially considering the quality of hotel they stayed in for a whole month.’
‘A month? Anyway look, I’m really sorry, Granot. With all the… excitement, I forgot to tell you what I learned from Monsieur Cartin.’
He belatedly gave Granot the information.
‘A quintet on the Prix? That’s a one in a million chance.’
‘Quite.’
‘And it was a pari-mutuel bet, you say – through PMU? A win of that magnitude is checkable.’
Granot’s enthusiasm shone a ray of light into Darac’s gloom. ‘It seems this thing’s finally getting your nose twitching.’
‘Just a bit.’
The call ended, Darac ventured back into Rama’s bedroom. It was clear where the young man’s priorities lay. A mattress rolled up in one corner, a drum set of mixed parentage took up most of the floor space. A poster of drummer Elvin Jones presided over the room. Darac nodded, hearing the connection between Rama’s playing and the rhythmic complexities of the master. On the stool was a score for ‘Milestones’ annotated in Marco’s handwriting. Darac let out a long breath. What was his old friend going to make of Rama’s story on his return?
‘Captain?’
Darac handed the place over to the uniform and went on his way. Stepping into the lift, he didn’t turn around until the doors had closed behind him. He didn’t need another dose of Eat Shit! He’d eaten quite enough shit for one day, already.
* * *
Darac’s mobile rang as he pulled up outside Battail’s place. ‘Go ahead, Bonbon.’
In the middle distance, a Ventimiglia-bound train whirred on to the viaduct. Drawn to its movement, Darac kept his eyes on it as Bonbon began his report.
‘There were six DVDs recovered from Voska’s van, each in a clear plastic sleeve. The first three I examined were unused. The fourth had Heroes of Telemark Documentary written on both the sleeve and the disc. I scanned it just to check. Judging by the state of the sleeve, Voska seems to have watched it a lot.’
‘Why, do you think?’
‘Inspiration? The Heroes were a Norwegian commando unit. World War II. Just a few guys but they wrecked Hitler’s plans to build atom bombs, then outwitted an entire German division sent to catch them.’
Darac’s gaze was still on the train. ‘Probably how Voska sees himself. A hero.’
‘Maybe. The fifth DVD was video footage of Voska performing martial arts moves. Made karate look tame. And then, finally, the sixth one: it was blank except for one or two jagged frames at the start. I didn’t notice them to begin with. It’s less than a second of footage. But if you freeze the image you can just make out it’s Jeanne Mesnel’s lower patio. Complete with hot tub. And, chief, she is standing right there.’
Darac didn’t notice the last carriage of the train disappear from view. ‘Clothed?’
‘Yes.’
He thought back to the items he’d found in her airing cupboard. ‘Wearing?’
‘An everyday sort of outfit. Sweater and a skirt, it looks like.’
‘How does she seem?’
‘Difficult to tell but not obviously nervous or scared.’
‘Is she alone in the frame?’
‘Yes. And get this: the shot is dated and timed. The figures are too jagged to read but they’re working on straightening them. I’ll bet it will come out 2 January at about four o’clock. I’m on my way back now with a copy of the original. They’re going to ring me when they’re sure of what the figures are.’
‘So what you’ve got there is a wiped disc of the whole episode, isn’t it? There’s no way the lab boys could recover the pre-deleted original, is there?’
‘Like a computer hard drive? No. It would be useful to find that though, wouldn’t it?’
‘Voska’s erratic but I’m sure he would’ve put a hammer through it, or whatever.’
‘Or just his hand. The man’s a real hard case, I’m telling you.’
‘We’ll see how hard he is. Anyway, listen, Bonbon: top work as always.’
Darac pushed through Battail’s gate feeling so energised he almost took the thing off its hinges. He knew it wasn’t helpful to feel blind hatred; it skewed judgement. Under Granot’s classification, hate could turn a Category Two into a Category Six on the spot. But Darac couldn’t help it. No number could be put on what he wanted to do to Voska.
The side door was ajar so Darac continued into the back garden. ‘Brigitte?’ No sign of her or the dog. He went back to the door, knocked, waited and then went in. ‘Brigitte?’
Stepping into the living room brought Voska’s DVD back to him. Spears, for God’s sake. He went into the hall and mounted the stairs. ‘Brigitte, are you there?’ He looked up. The loft hatch in the landing ceiling was open. ‘Brig—’
He heard a yell. A dark shape appeared, filling in his field of vision as it plummeted toward him. He flinched, flattening himself into the angle of the stairs. Too late. He felt booted feet scrape the nape of his neck and then the jumper’s whole bodyweight crashing onto his back. Darac’s lungs lost air like a stomped balloon as the pair jagged down, down, down. Hitting the bottom step, Darac the sled became Darac the doormat as the jumper scrambled to his feet. The final footfall was a brutal blessing, kicking Darac’s lungs open to a scorching inrush of air. Through a blurred curtain of pain, he caught a glimpse of his assailant as the man launched himself through the door and ran. It was Marcel Battail.
Darac was breathing but the pain ripping up his spine was the only thing keeping him from being sucked toward the pulsating light beckoning him from the centre of his vision. Beyond the light was a world made of soft, grey feathers. He heard himself saying: Don’t give in! from a long way away. It didn’t work.
His hands were the first part of him to move after he came round. Then his legs. The world somersaulted a few times as he staggered to his feet. A pneumatic drill was breaking up his skull; he was bruised and sore but he was in one piece.
The staircase kept still long enough for him to mount it one tread at a time. He made the landing. Now the loft ladder. Coordinating his limbs proved difficult at first but he managed it. Grabbing for a hold at the top, he slowly raised his head over the parapet.
Her blood streaking the polythene sheet under her, Brigitte lay with her head jammed up against the water tank. She was naked and her throat had been ripped open. Thierry, her pet, lay dead a few paces away. There was blood on his muzzle.
‘You won’t let anything bad happen to me, will you darling?’ Brigitte had said to him. Darac climbed back down the ladder. And then back down the stairs. When he could descend no further, he sank on to the doorstep and wept.
* * *
Pathology and Forensics managed to carry a surprising amount of gear up into the loft. Darac left them to it, opting to sit on the doorstep. It was an uncomfortable perch and he was obstructing the sole entrance to the house but he needed air. Besides, the concrete between his feet looked interesting. A hand touched his shoulder.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better, thanks, Patricia.’
Better except pain and guilt. That Brigitte had known more about Voska than she’d revealed didn’t staunch it. In persuading her to return to the house, Darac had sent her to her death.
‘Incoming.’
Darac looked to the street. Granot and Flaco were making their way through the rubberneckers toward them. Proffering her clipboard, Patricia intercepted them before they reached the threshold.
‘You in one piece, mate?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Granot’s chops flushed as he bent to slip on a bootee. ‘You don’t look it.’
‘Bit sore. Headache. That’s all.’
‘News. We’ve already got Battail. Well, I say “we”. Malraux got him. Single-handed.’
‘Good.’
Above them, a white-clad figure appeared in the cone of blue-white light blazing through the loft hatch and climbed carefully down the ladder.
‘One small step for man,’ Granot said, missing the mood of the moment.
Dropping to her haunches, Flaco looked into Darac’s eyes. Her concerned face was a thing of such deep seriousness, he could barely return her gaze.
‘What happened, Captain?’
Darac massaged his temples as if manual stimulation were required to retrieve the words he needed. ‘Her… throat was ripped out. The dog is up there. Dead, also.’
Granot nodded. ‘Battail sets the dog on Brigitte. It kills her and then he kills the dog. I knew that trigger-word theory was correct from the beginning. So what was he doing up in the loft? Hiding the bodies until he could move them later?’
As the white-clad figure joined them, Flaco helped Darac to his feet.
‘What have you got, Deanna?’
‘What was that about a trigger word, Granot?’ she said, coughing.
Granot hadn’t quite caught the question. ‘Sorry, Professor?’
‘Trigger word?’
‘Yes, you know: the word Battail used to get the dog to attack on command.’
Deanna looked unimpressed and amused in equal measure. ‘It must have been quite a word to inspire a dog to handle a knife with such skill.’
‘Knife?’
‘My preliminary analysis is this: while Madame Andreani was taking a hot, steamy shower, the killer stole unseen into the bathroom and laid a polythene sheet on its tiled floor. After slitting her throat, he wrapped her body in the sheet and carried the parcel up into the loft, a remarkable feat of strength. There, using a second sheet in the manner of the first, he united the pet dog he’d killed on entering the house with its owner. But first, he manually worked the dog’s jaws around the wound, trying to disguise what had actually happened. Unsuccessfully.’
Darac nodded, sending an eddy of pain around his skull. ‘The murder was committed in the shower, Deanna?’
‘I know it looks clean. But there’s clean and there’s luminol clean, isn’t there? It’s where it happened.’
Granot wasn’t giving up on his trigger-word theory just yet. ‘Because of the sheet, the victim left no bloodstains between the bathroom and the loft. But how did the killer himself manage to not drop or smear any of her blood anywhere?’
‘That’s not too difficult. Flaco?’
The young woman’s concentration scowl didn’t last long. ‘Perhaps the killer took his clothes off before he entered the bathroom. He stabbed her, laid her out on the sheet, then used the shower to wash off the blood before he went on.’
‘That alright for you, Granot?’
He gave a conceding grunt.
‘A knife attack in a shower,’ Darac said, staring into space. ‘Remember Battail’s tattoos, Granot? One of them was “Psycho”.’
‘So it was. It doesn’t give us anything, though. Except to confirm Battail’s a shithead.’
‘Agreed. But here’s a question: why would he bother disguising the attack?’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘What’s your estimate of the time of death, Deanna?’
‘At this stage, I’d say somewhere between 8 pm Sunday and 4 am Monday. If you held a gun at my head, I’d say a couple of hours either side of midnight.’
Darac looked up. ‘What?’
Granot was equally nonplussed. ‘You’re saying the small hours of Monday morning? Are you sure, Professor?’
Deanna’s features were of a sparrow-like delicacy. Her withering stare was not.
‘Yes,’ Granot said. ‘Of course you are.’
Darac exhaled deeply. ‘This is the second murder Battail’s been brought in for he hasn’t committed.’
Granot turned to Deanna.
‘It’s a matter of record that Battail’s custody was extended until Monday afternoon.’
‘I see.’
Darac saw a second implication. ‘Which shows that whoever killed Brigitte and tried to frame Battail for it didn’t know that.’ He ran through a list of candidates in his head. ‘No, it doesn’t really help us.’
Flaco moved things on. ‘Do you know what kind of knife was used, Professor?’
‘Usually, one can deduce little about the weapon used in a throat slitting. Drawing the long edge of a blade across flesh…’ she mimed the action ‘…produces an incised wound and not a stab wound as such. Consequently, it’s not usually possible to determine either the width or length of the blade. Another factor is that slicing through the flesh around the throat tends not to break bits off, unlike thrusting a blade into, say, the ribcage; so there’s almost never a piece left behind that we can later match with the weapon.’
‘If the blade edge was serrated or damaged, might that show in an incised wound?’
The question made Deanna smile. ‘It might.’
Modibo N’Pata looked capable of slitting someone’s throat, Darac thought to himself. But Brigitte’s? A woman he’d had sex with? And why kill her, anyway?
‘What can you tell us about the perpetrator, Deanna?’ he said, feeling more on track.
‘First, there’s a wide bruise between the T7 and T8 vertebrae on the woman’s spine. Made by the killer’s knee, I’d say, to assist in forcing the head back. That, coupled with the precision of both the start and finish points of the incision, and the clean continuity of the cut itself, convinces me that the killer is a professional. Someone used to slitting throats, at least. And from the topography of the wound, it’s clear they are left-handed.’
Darac recalled the N’Patas’ Negresco photo. In it, Modibo was wearing his knock-off Rolex on the left wrist; not conclusive but it was an indication that like Rama, the man was probably right-handed. But Darac knew who wasn’t. Anger began to well up in him.
‘It’s Voska,’ he said. ‘One: he’s an ex-commando, highly trained in the use of combat knives and such. Two: Brigitte told us Battail had taught the dog to attack on command and shown the trick to Voska. Three: he’s left-handed.’
