A Death in Time, page 36
No confidence now. Panic.
‘What do you mean – against me and my daughter?’
‘Well, Inès did volunteer to type this up, didn’t she?’
‘No! I typed it. Every word!’
‘Every word and space? Look again.’
Zoë’s eyes skated frantically over the page, and the next one and the next one. ‘This is nonsense. Nonsense! You’re trying to trick us. Me, I mean.’
‘At first, Doctor Laborde herself didn’t spot she had used Anglicised punctuation throughout. But when she did, she freely admitted doing so.’ He indicated the recorder. ‘It’s all on there. I’ll play you the relevant sequence.’
‘No!’ In an exact reprise of Inès’s reaction earlier, Zoë slumped on to her elbows, her head in her hands. ‘No, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘As complicated as your plan was, you had complete confidence in your IT skills to make it happen, didn’t you? The last thing you could have imagined is that your brilliant scientist daughter would make a mistake in completing what was a much simpler task. It’s quite a thought that but for a few misplaced punctuation marks, you might well have got away with murder. And seen your husband go down for it.’
‘I… do not wish to comment further.’
‘See if this changes your mind. By your actions, Madame Laborde, you have made your dutiful, loving daughter an accessory to murder. That is a crime for which she will pay…’
‘Stop it! Stop! Alright, it was me and me alone who did it. Inès believed what I told her about… seeing them together. She had no idea what I intended to do. I didn’t, myself, really.’
‘But you did murder Samira Padar and try to incriminate your husband for the crime, did you not, Madame?’
She looked lost and when she spoke, her voice had the enduring sorrow of the ages percolating through every syllable. ‘Oh, yes. You see, she pitied me, Captain. Pitied! Of course, she, the love of his life, she was too good for him. Me? No. I wasn’t good enough. I’d suspected it for a long time but I didn’t know he “despised” and “laughed at” me behind my back. But it was when she referred to me as “poor, poor Madame Zoë.” That was the final straw. I wanted to kill him but I realised he would suffer far more if I killed her. With my background, the rest – making it appear he had done it – that was easy for poor old me to do.’
And the defenceless young woman she had so callously battered to death? What about her suffering? Darac’s blood ran cold. ‘In one sense, there’s nothing poor about you is there, Madame Laborde? As the publishers of Boss Women understood, you are an extremely bright, articulate and successful woman.’
‘If you say so.’
There was no time for delving deeper into the issues. Establishing exactly what happened was the priority. ‘Perhaps you would help us with how you accomplished what you did on the evening. Here’s what we believe…’
Darac recounted the scenario that he, Bonbon and Flaco had put together earlier. ‘Is that largely correct?’
Zoë seemed in a trance now, and when she spoke, her words emerged in a slow monotone stripped of all pain, guilt, blame or accusation.
‘Oh, yes. Except that from where I was hiding, I could actually see Gilles talking to Eric Cauvin at the gate before he drove off. That’s how I knew exactly what time I had to set the hands on Samira’s watch. I chose two minutes before – 10.30. It wasn’t a guess, as you thought. Then I hit it with the rock.’
‘And you did that to make it appear your husband was providing himself with an alibi for the time of her murder.’
‘Uh-huh. And there’s another thing you missed. Yes, I got Samira to give me a lift back to my car but if I’d parked it in the builders’ yard, Gilles would have spotted it when he turned up there later. I didn’t know he was going to set up that rendezvous with Samira beforehand, of course. I was just lucky I’d parked where I did.’
‘Which was where?’ Bonbon said.
‘Oh, further along the lane off it – before it turns into the hidden path back to the Stade.’
‘One final thing,’ Darac went on. ‘When you returned to the lane after dumping Samira’s body in the water jump, you had two vehicles to deal with, didn’t you? We know what you did with yours – you drove it home. What did you do with Samira’s? There wasn’t time to drive it anywhere.’
‘There was, actually. I drove it around the corner on to the street. Fifty metres at the most. Walked back to mine and drove off.’
‘But we combed the area, Madame. Extensively. There’s no sign of her car.’
‘There wouldn’t be. I left the keys in and the driver’s door unlocked, you see. I knew someone around there would have it away. And quickly, too.’
Darac shared a look with Bonbon. Sending out an invitation to the local car thieves to remove the vehicle for her? It was the second simple but ingenious solution to a problem they had encountered in the past 24 hours. And they had been simpletons not to have thought of it.
Darac let out a long breath. ‘And now let’s look in detail at the killing itself.’
SIXTY-NINE
About half-way up rue Malonnière, Granot turned into a cul-de-sac in which he hadn’t set foot since he was a child. Squeezed into its far end was what had once been the home and premises of Jacques Baulois et Frère, cobblers, whose speciality was re-soling and heeling shoes “while-u-wait.” Or if you were in luck, while-u-went home and your mother returned later to pick up the work done.
Although the place appeared to have been uninhabited for some years, he knocked at what used to be the side door to the Baulois’s living quarters and waited. No response. Imagining a gentle push would open it, he tried the door but it was tight in its frame and nothing gave. It was only then that Granot noticed the door’s spring latch lock was a current design and appeared to have been fitted recently. Derelict though it was, the building was more secure than it looked. Someone had been busy. He looked around. No one. Producing a defunct credit card retained for the purpose, a quick waggle in the lock and he was in.
In the light from the open doorway, he caught sight of a contorted cable hanging from the ceiling, a bare bulb dangling on the end of it. He found a switch. The bulb flickered into life, faltered and died. Pity. He closed the door behind him and with the beam from his torch cutting a swathe through the dank-smelling gloom of the ground floor, he picked his way around piles of debris looking for any sign that Terrevaste had been there. There was none.
So far, at least.
In the far corner of the room, a flight of stairs carpeted in a bizarrely exuberant floral pattern led to the upper floor. Broken glass crunching under his boots, Granot moved carefully towards their foot and trained his beam on each rodded tread in turn. They looked secure enough but would they hold his weight? There was only one way to find out. A smell assailed his nostrils at that moment. Sweetish and putrid at the same time, it was a reek like no other. Granot winced. There was a corpse somewhere up there. He knew it. But there was still reason to be hopeful. The body in question may not have been human. A rotting rodent could give off a stench out of all proportion to its size. Listening out for every creak and groan, Granot clamped his hand over his nose and gingerly began the ascent. There were no sounds of crunching now. The stair carpet felt spongy underfoot. Dampened. Soddened even. Blood? Lots of it?
His beam picked out Terrevaste’s shoes first, their laces double knotted for safety. The man was lying on his back, eyes open as if staring intently at the ceiling. Around the ripped open flesh of his neck, a collar of dried blood was crawling with insect life. Granot peered at the wound and for a moment he was high up on Boulevard Blanqui gazing at the breached dam that had been Ludo/Medot’s throat. Map would confirm it in time but Granot had no doubt this was Malraux’s knife work.
He straightened to make the call, tucking the torch under his arm but it slipped and the careening beam picked out Darac. And then Darac with Frankie. Darac with Frankie and Lily. The nounou, Mariette. Noëmi with Lily wearing a yellow bonnet. Chantal and Martin Darac. A baby buggy. The yellow bonnet again. Photographs – the wall behind the corpse was lined with them. Faces. But street scenes, too: the gated entrance to Place Saint-Sépulcre; the twisting ruelles that linked it to rue Neuve and the Babazouk; the street entrance to the Promenade des Arts Car Park. And there was a handwritten sheet. Names. Lily’s carers. Addresses. Phone numbers. A timetable. Granot’s heart was racing. He understood the whole thing. He stabbed a key on his mobile. And prayed he wasn’t too late.
SEVENTY
They were standing among thinly spaced palms planted in pavement. At their backs, lusher greenery stretched in a graceful S-curve towards the shimmering azure of the Baie des Anges. Their attention was on the darkened space across the street. The down ramp into the subterranean gloom of the Promenade des Arts car park seemed to Cassie like the maw of hell.
Malraux had an entirely different view of the situation. Since realising his dream required everything to go like clockwork, he kept running over the plan. It was the most he had had to say to Cassie since he had arrested her in Marseille just over 18 months ago. With having to keep up appearances for passers-by, it made him seem almost normal.
‘So, Madame Tardelli – you’re about to meet Darac’s stepmother at last.’
‘Yes.’
‘Picture it. Get it clear in your head. She’ll come off the Avenue St-Jean Baptiste on our left there and keep to the far lane before turning down left again into the car park.’
‘Supposing she sees us as she drives up? She only needs to glance to the right.’
‘She won’t. She’ll be concentrating on making the turn down to the left. It’s tight. Needs attention.’
‘Supposing—’
His peeling face hardened. ‘Shut up!’ His condition meant that people tended to stare at “that poor man.” An approaching couple was doing so now. He gave Cassie a smile. ‘No supposing, alright, bitch? Do as I tell you or I’ll cut you like the others.’ His gaze slid to the junction with the avenue. ‘She’s here.’
Her knees turning to jelly, Cassie didn’t look.
‘She’s slowing … She’s doing as I said… Not looking over here… She’s made the turn down. She’s… in. Right. I’ll go over it one last time. We cross the Traverse. We go around the corner into Boulevard Risso and there, we wait. Let’s do that now.’
As nauseous as she felt, Cassie wanted more than anything she had wanted in her 36 years of life to kick off her high heels and run for it.
‘And remember, Carmen. If you get this right, you’ll live. If you don’t, you won’t.’
Yes, she wanted to run but even if she could, she daren’t. Her only chance was to go through with at least the first part of it.
‘Got that?’
‘Hm.’
Somehow, Cassie managed to make it to the waiting point without stumbling or throwing up. The achievement gave her little solace and in case she was in danger of forgetting the mortal danger in which she had put herself, a black panel van bearing the crest of the coroners’ office was parked at the kerb alongside. Applied to someone else’s situation, it might have been funny.
‘In about five minutes, the stepmother will show up on foot. The kid will be bundled up in the buggy. We approach. Me one step behind. Now – what’s your line?’
‘Uh…’ She couldn’t remember it. ‘It’s…’
‘Come on! It’s just a few words!’
‘Sorry. I’m no Dédé. I’m nervous.’
‘It would have to be you who looks the spit of Tardelli’s wife. Jesus!’
‘Please. I’ll think of it. Just give me a moment. Yes, yes! I’ve got it.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘First, I smile and say, “Oh hello, Chantal. Fancy bumping into you.” She knows all about Noëmi Tardelli and has no doubt seen photos of her so she’ll probably say something in reply there.’
‘Like?’
‘Like, “It’s Noëmi, isn’t it? Frankie has told me loads about you. Lovely to meet you after so long.” ’
‘Better. This is better. What else might she do?’
‘Hug and kiss me. She’s a very warm person.’
‘And that would be ideal for me but if she doesn’t say or do anything, what do you say and do next?’
‘I offer my hand, introduce myself as Frankie’s friend Noëmi and say I’ve been meaning to call her.’
‘Yes, exactly. Was that so hard?’
Along the boulevard, a squad car whooped in the distance. Somewhere in the direction of the Caserne Auvare. Malraux heard it, Cassie noticed. But it didn’t seem to worry him. Perhaps he could tell it was going in the opposite direction.
‘Here she comes. Buggy and all. Baby still asleep by the look of it. You know what to do.’
Don’t think about the baby Cassie told herself. But she couldn’t help it. That little yellow-bonneted thing touched what was left of her heart. Had Malraux sensed she was weakening? Staring coldly into her eyes, he pulled back his jacket to reveal the knife.
The squad car whooped again. Louder. And was that a second vehicle?
Chantal was almost on top of them. Malraux loudly cleared his throat.
‘Uh… Cassie spluttered. ‘Hello.’
Chantal beamed. ‘Noëmi! At last we meet!’ She let go of the buggy’s handle grip and while kisses of greeting were exchanged, Malraux shoved the women aside, wheeled the buggy quickly towards the black van’s side-loading door and slid it back.
Noises off. Drawing his knife, Malraux held the blade centimetres over the sleeping bundle as he frantically scanned the street.
A voice from his right: ‘Put the knife down,’ Darac said. ‘This gun is loaded.’
Granot, directly in front: ‘You may remember I’m a crack shot, Malraux. Drop it.’
Frankie from the left: ‘I don’t want to shoot you, Christian. But I will unless you set down the knife and step away.’
Behind them, a tide of blue uniforms flooding on to the boulevard began sealing off the crime scene as if they had been rehearsing the move for months. Darac stared hard at Malraux. Some of that flayed look was his condition, wasn’t it? But he could see the man was rattled, astonished even, that his plan had failed so quickly. How could it? How could we all have been here, ready, waiting? You left all the evidence behind, you idiot. That’s how. Not for the first time, Darac thanked his lucky stars for Granot’s instincts and know-how.
‘Know this,’ Malraux called out. ‘I have nothing to lose. Nothing! Six months to live is all I have. Shoot me if you want to. But if you do, I’ll rip this little flower you care so much about to pieces before I even start bleeding out. So back off and then she’s going to come for a little ride with me. Back off!’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Darac said, moving almost imperceptibly towards him. ‘There’s no way out.’
‘Stay where you are. I’m warning you.’
‘Listen to him, please!’ Cassie shouted. ‘He’ll kill her! He’s mad!’
‘If I am mad, it’s your mother who did it to me, Darac. She climbed out of her grave. Did you know that? I saw her. She knew I’d tried to kill you and would have done if that bitch Flaco hadn’t turned up. Your fucking mother cursed me, Darac. That’s why my skin went like this. Falling off in clumps. She put a curse on me!’
While Malraux had directed his words exclusively at Darac, Frankie and Granot had moved closer in.
Darac was a poor shot. But proximity to the target was a great leveller. ‘You are clearly deranged, Malraux. You need help but to get it, you must give yourself up. So I’m going to give you one last chance.’
‘No. I’m giving you one last chance.’
‘Five seconds to put down your weapon, Malraux. Starting from now. Five…
The man stood rock still.
‘Four…’
He began blinking repeatedly.
‘Three…’
Still no move to set down the knife.
‘Two…’
Drawing screams first from Cassie, Malraux thrust the knife into the buggy’s plump heart and, slashing wildly, proceeded to destroy its contents.
No shots rang out. But a baby’s cry was heard and her mother holstered her weapon to go and tend to her.
The joy that surged through Frankie at holding her daughter in her arms once more was almost too much to bear. It took some time but finally, some coherent thoughts came. ‘Thank you so much, Mariette,’ she said, just about keeping it together. ‘I am sorry for the loss of the doll.’
Mariette smiled. ‘She wasn’t family. Lily will need a new bonnet, though.’ She squeezed her foot. ‘Won’t you, darling?’
‘I’ll ask Patricia. I’ll think she’ll knit her a new one.’
‘Chantal’s here, Frankie.’
She turned. ‘It’s… not usually like this. Honestly. You alright?’
‘I need a stiff drink. I can tell you that.’
‘You shall have one. You played your part brilliantly, by the way.’
‘We’ve got Officer Flaco there to thank for that. She briefed me superbly. Quite a surprise to find her and Mariette standing by Martin’s space like that. But it all worked out, thank God.’
Flaco was in the process of taking into custody one Carmen Luisa Portet a.k.a. Noëmi Two.
‘Just a second, Yvonne. I’d like a word with her.’
‘Captain.’
‘We’ve met before, Carmen.’
‘Cassie, please. Only he called me that. He and my mother.’
‘By the chocolatier on Gubernatis it was, last Friday. Though it seems much longer ago.’
