Authors: Cara Black
Murder in Clichy (10 page)
“Killer!” the woman screamed.
“Wait a minute,” Aimée said. “I’m trying to help you! You’re Sophie? Thadée’s . . . ?”
Aimée ducked as the woman swung a fist at her, then slipped, her head hitting the tiles with a loud crack. Her body slackened and went limp.
Filled with panic, Aimée listened for the woman’s shallow, irregular breaths. She moaned and struggled against Aimée.
Somehow Aimée dragged her out of the bathroom and propped her against an old counter top. Thuds and noises came from the floor above them, then there was a clatter on the stairway. Her heart skipped. Was someone coming back to finish Sophie off?
NADÈGE PULLED DOWN HER sleeves, took a breath, and entered her father’s mansion facing the Parc Monceau. She had to explain to him about Thadée; she needed his help. She could hear her father’s reply ‘He’s always in trouble . . . like you.’ True. But Thadée was still his brother-in-law, wasn’t he? Her tante Pascale’s ex, it’s true, yet part of the family. And there was a lot more to it.
The uniformed butler stood aside, letting her ascend the marble staircase lined with hanging tapestries. She grabbed the handrail to steady herself. Her spike heels clattered above the noise of the reception; conversations, tinkling of glasses and the strains of a baroque chamber music ensemble.
The usual.
Her petite great-grandmother
,
tottering on her bound feet in their tiny embroidered shoes, had told her when she was small, “You are of the Lang-shun princess blood line. There’s royal blood in your veins.” Right now there was a lot more than that in them.
With Chinese and Vietnamese heritage on her mother Phuong’s side, French on her father’s, Nadège had been termed
l’asiatique
behind her back at school. Her mother had died when she was four. Nadège had been raised by her grandmother, the first in her generation not to have bound feet.
She found her little boy, Michel, asleep in the black lacquer bed,
grand-mère’s
marriage bed. A tart odor of incense surrounded him and the faint, suffused red light from the small altar in the corner gave a blush to his cheeks. Against the wall, a Chinese chest held linens and his tumbled treasures of Legos and wooden blocks.
She planted a kiss on his warm forehead, leaving a fuchsia imprint, then headed next door. Passing through a long parlor, she entered a small, darkened sitting room. 1950s Chinese movies flickered in scratchy black and white on a large screen.
Grand-mère
lay snoring, her thin jet-black hair combed into a bun. Her head rested on a stone pillow.
Nadège saw the Longchamp racing forms, the betting stubs under the chaise. Everything neat and arranged.
Grand-mère
played the horses, winning more often than not. And she liked modern gadgets like the newest cell phone.
For a moment, Nadège wanted to lie down next to
grand-mère
, to nestle in her arms like she had as a small child. But the craving wouldn’t go away. No good wishing it would.
Nadège rooted in her makeup bag. Found her small pipe, rolled the gummy black-brown pellet between her thumb and forefinger, lit the pipe and inhaled. The heavy, sickly sweet smoke hit her lungs. Took her away.
When she came to, she found herself sprawled on the wood floor, her nose running, her sweater ripped, its feathers and beads stuck in the parquetry crevices. The TV screen still flickered. Her
grand-mère’s
eyes were open, watching her.
“No good girl!”
Guilt flooded her. As it always had throughout her childhood.
Her
grand-mère
lapsed into a harsh mixture of Vietnamese interspersed with Chinese.
“I don’t understand when you talk like that,” Nadège said.
“Where is your
hiêú
? Your greeting for your elders?”
Nadège knew she meant filial respect.
“Tiens
,
grand-mère
!”
“Little Michel doesn’t need you around. A bad example,” she said. “Don’t come back.
Méchante
. . . like your
mère
! No good!”
But you raised us
, Nadège wanted to answer. “I’m hungry,” she said, instead.
“Too much food downstairs. Too much drink. Fancy French like your papa.
Gweilo,”
she spat. “You like them.”
As if every person outside her
grand-mère’s
enclave was a white-faced devil.
“Papa won’t talk to me,” she said. “You know that. I need your help,
grand-mère
.”
She had no place to stay now. Nowhere safe.
“Thadée’s dead.”
Grand-mère
shook her head. “Sad. Sorry. He your uncle by marriage but mix with bad people. Like you. You too
lo fan
, all foreigner,” she said. “Don’t listen nobody. Too much this,” she said, pulling Nadège’s sleeve up.
Only old bluish marks.
Nadège chased the dragon now, inhaling the wispy trail of smoke from a pellet burning on tin foil. Quitting, she was quitting.
“The horses running good,
grand-mère
?”
“Don’t change subject. I try but no good breeding.” She sat up, readjusted the jade hairpiece in her bun. “But I take care, Michel. So smart, that boy.”
Just as she’d raised Nadège. After her mother’s death, Nadège’s papa had shunted her off to these rooms in the back wing.
Grand-mère
kept her own servant, her own entrance, even her own little kitchen filled with the special smells of Saigon. And every Friday night, under the watchful eyes of Victor Hugo and Buddha, both revered as saints by her
grand-mère’s
Cao Dai sect, her mah-jong pals could be found clicking the mah-jong tiles atop the black lacquer table.
“Thadée was killed,” Nadège said. “Shot.”
Grand-mère
shook her head. Was there something else in those sharp eyes?
“Sad, like I say. But bad people, bad business. Bad aura, all
gweilo,
” she said. “He no relation to me, no business of mine.”
Her
grand-mère’s
ringed hand put a fistful of francs in Nadège’s hand. “Go now.”
“Where’s papa?”
But her
grand-mère
had already turned up the volume on the TV set.
Nadège cleaned up her nose, applied more makeup, and found her way through the kitchen. The cooks, busy stuffing squabs, ignored her and the hired servers, with full trays, elbowed her out of the way.
She slipped into the main room and took a glass of kir royal from a waiter. Her former stepmother, a year older than Nadège, whose blonde hair hit her waist, was holding court by one of the Rodin statues.
Nadège made her way to the high-ceilinged glass solarium. Often her father hid in there; he hated this kind of party, just as she did. And there he stood, under the Belle Epoque iron-and-glass framed roof. Her father, black hair graying at the temples, glinting in the candlelight, tapped his cigar ash into the base of a palm tree.
As she moved closer, she saw he was speaking with two men. One wore a blue police uniform. And from the tense look on her father’s face she realized he now knew about Thadée. Nadège edged out of the solarium, through the kitchen, and into the night.
AIMÉE POUNDED ON HER godfather’s door. She saw Morbier’s sleepy-eyed surprise as she half-carried a stumbling Sophie across his doorway.
“
Tiens
, Leduc,” he said, pulling his flannel shirt around him, consulting his worn watch, and sniffing. “It’s late. Don’t bring your drunken friends here, eh . . . especially one who looks like trouble.”
“She needs babysitting and she’s not drunk.”
“Nice of you to extend my hospitality, but I don’t have room for guests. Like I said—”
“Round the clock until I discover who has kidnapped René.”
Startled, Morbier pushed his socialist newspaper aside, kicked his wool
charentaise
slippers away, and spread a blanket on his couch. She laid Sophie down, pulled off the wet, brown boots, and covered her.
Sophie, who’d passed out again in the taxi, blinked, barely conscious. Aimée poured her a glass of water and helped her to sit up and, painfully, drink it.
“Sophie, did you see who attacked you?”
“Where am I?” She rubbed her eyes, sniffed. “Smells like the warehouse.”
Morbier’s housekeeping skills left a lot to be desired, but a warehouse? Then Sophie stiffened.
“I was tied up, hung from. . . .” She stiffened. “You’re kidnapping me!”
“I found you and helped free you,” Aimée said. “This man’s my godfather, he’s a
Commissaire de Police.
Show her your badge, Morbier.”
“
À vôtre service,
mademoiselle, you’re safe here.” He winked, finding his wallet and opening it to show his ID.
“Poor Thadée.” Sophie burst into tears, her shoulders heaving.
“Listen to me, Sophie, someone on a motorcycle shot him, then came after me,” Aimée said, leaning closer. “I pulled him into the phone cabinet, where he died in my arms.”
“We were divorced,” Sophie said, wiping her blue eyes with her sleeve. “But we remained friends. I became his partner at the gallery. We were always better at that anyway.”
Sophie’s eyes were pools of hurt. Did she still love Thadée?
“Can you remember what happened?” Morbier asked.
Sophie blinked several times. “They took me to the morgue to see Thadée’s body this morning. It was horrible,” she said, her wide eyes filling with tears again. Her light brown hair was matted to her cheeks.
“Did you talk to him before he was shot, Sophie?”
“I only arrived from London this morning to prepare for the exhibition,” she said, rubbing her head.
“But you must have talked,
non?
”
“He hadn’t even hung all the artwork for the show!”
“Sophie, did he speak about jade?”
She shook her head and winced. “The only time I saw him was in the morgue.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Tonight, after I checked the gallery for the shipment, I turned the light off in the bathroom. Someone grabbed me. Next thing I knew, I was hanging from the overhead water tank.”
“Shall I call a doctor
?
”
“Give me a Doliprane, eh? Let me sleep.”
Aimée reached into her pocket for the aspirin packet she carried. “Here. Do you know who Thadée owed money to? Had he mentioned—?”
“
Merde
. . . aches like a. . . .” Sophie swallowed the pill, leaned back, her eyes closing. “
Une catastrophe.
The gallery exhibition’s supposed to be hung, but nothing. . . .”
“I think he wanted me to give you something. A check?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sophie said, pulling her stained silk blouse around her. “A check for what?”
“Do you know how he came into possession of . . . ?
Sophie yawned. “I don’t know what you’re going on about.” She curled up on her side and within a minute she was snoring.
Morbier shook his head. “I can’t take care of her, Leduc,” he said. “I work, remember. And this trouble’s not my business. My retirement’s around the corner.”
“You always say that,” she said. He was the busiest
commis-saire
on the verge of retirement she knew.
He shrugged and motioned her to a dark wood table by his window overlooking a dilapidated ironmonger’s courtyard in the Bastille district. The dark building’s corners were burnished by the moonlight.
“Marc’s staying with me this weekend,” Morbier said. “I don’t have room for her.”
His grandson Marc stayed with him more and more despite his Algerian grandparents’ frequent requests for visitation rights. They kept insisting Morbier’s choice of a Catholic boarding school was no proper education for a good Muslim.
She pulled out a bottle of
vin du Vaucluse
from her bag, shoved a dirty plate aside, and reached for wine glasses above his cracked porcelain sink.
She needed a drink. He looked like he needed one, too.
“Open this and I’ll tell you about it,” she said, giving him no choice.
“You know how long it takes to get old, Leduc?” he said, pulling out the cork and pouring. “Like this . .
. pfft.
Overnight. You wake up and . . .”
“
Santé,”
she said, clinking her glass against his.
She felt Morbier’s eyes on her. Studying her like the RG had.
“How do you know René’s been kidnapped, Leduc?”
She looked at her watch. “Morbier, it’s six hours since their phone call and I’m no closer to finding what they want.” She took a long sip, sat back on a wooden chair missing one of its three rungs, and told him what had happened.
Morbier shook his head. “A hollow threat.”
How could he say that? “Didn’t you hear about the shooting in the 17th?”
“Not my
quartier
, you know that.” Morbier rolled his eyes.
“Morbier, what should I do?”
“Why ask me? Leave it to the professionals, Leduc.”
“And what are
you
? It stinks, Morbier.” She hid her trembling hands under the table. “I’m scared,” she said, hating to admit it.
Morbier looked away. He never liked dealing with emotions.
“Call the RG man, Regnier,” he said. “Tell him. He seemed to like you so much.”
“Like me?” She shook her head. “Regnier wants the jade. René’s life wouldn’t matter.”
“Do you have a choice? Can you come up with the jade?”
“I don’t trust Regnier and the RG as far as I can spit. They were responsible for papa. . . .The ministry never acknowledged our involvement or their responsibility. Papa had a dishonorable record until I made them clean it up. And it took two years. They still won’t acknowledge it was their mission. You think I’d believe them?”
No flowers at the funeral, but a bill for her father’s autopsy.
“Leduc, you don’t do that kind of work anymore, remember? If anything happened to René, could you live with that?”
His words stung. She’d never forgive herself if René was hurt.
But what he really meant was that she wasn’t up to it. The damage to her optic nerve made her useless. A liability.
“I worked all through my hospital stay,” she said. “I don’t intend to stop now. The medication and meditation control it.”
At least she hoped so.
“Hostage negotiation’s a fine art,” he said. “How did they find you, and trace René?”
“They must have followed me,” she said.
Weariness had settled in her cold, damp legs. She noticed Morbier’s thinning salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper now. When he was tired, his jowls sagged, reminding her of a basset hound.
Morbier poured them each another glass.
“What if you were the target, Leduc? Victim of a setup?”
Her chest tightened. “I wondered about that, too,” she said. “But why, Morbier? Then there’s the
flic
I saw with the RG. He was involved in the Place Vendôme surveillance.”
Morbier raised his hands to ward off her words. “Not this again. Get a life, Leduc.”
“When the secret service or their lackeys are involved, everything stinks.”
Morbier pulled out a box of cigarillos and another of wooden kitchen matches from near his black phone. A relic, with a rotary dial. He scratched one of the matches and lit up a Montecristo.
“I thought you quit,” she said.
“These little cigarillos from Havana?” he said, tossing the empty yellow box into the trash. “They don’t count.”
Like hell they didn’t.
And what she wouldn’t give for one right now! She leaned over the table wishing she didn’t want a puff so much. Wasn’t that stop smoking patch working anymore? She rolled down her jeans waist.
Merde!
The patch was gone. She pulled out one from her bag, unpeeled it, and stuck it on her hip.
“Like one, Morbier?”
“After I finish this coffin nail,” he said, taking a deep drag.
“Plant a word, I need to see the file on Thadée Baret. The kidnapper said forty-eight hours, Morbier,” she said. “Look into it, please.”
Morbier shook his head.
”After all, what’s a godfather with an ear at Brigade Criminelle for?”
“That’s rich, Leduc. I’m only there one day a week,” he said, rubbing his jaw.
“It’s for René. Morbier, please,” she said. “I swear I won’t ask for any more help.”
“You’ll deal with the RG?”
She looked down. Noticed the peeling brown linoleum, his thin ankles and worn brown wool slippers, like those her grandfather used to wear.
“Consider it,” Morbier said. “Otherwise I won’t stick my neck out. And I’m not even promising that. Lots of the old boys have retired.”
She nodded.
“How do I know you mean it, Leduc?”
“You want a pinky promise?” she said, remembering when she was ten years old and making a pinky promise put the world in order. Too bad it didn’t do that anymore.
“What about her?” Morbier gestured to the sleeping Sophie.
“
Just one night.”
She held up the jade disk. It glowed with a pear-hued translucence in the dim light of Morbier’s galley kitchen.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, Leduc?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m going to find out
.
Meanwhile, I’ll sleep on your floor and monitor Sophie to make sure she doesn’t have a concussion.”
Morbier went to bed. She tucked the blanket around Sophie’s shoulders and tried René’s number again. Three rings and then a click.
“
Allô . . . allô?”
She heard breathing. Her pulse raced.
“René!”
“The dwarf’s tied up at the moment. . . .” She heard snickering.
“Please meet me. I have what. . . .”
In the background, she heard scuffling. The sounds of splintering wood.
“Not now,” a voice said.
Then a cry. René’s cry. And the line went dead.
Nervous, she tried Léo.
“
Allô,
Léo?” she said. “Could you locate it?”
“In five seconds?” Léo said, her voice sleepy. “The Northeastern sector antenna responded; he’s in Paris. Keep him on longer next time.”
“Merci,
” Aimée said, pacing the worn wood floor.