Maestra (32 page)

‘As we agreed.’

We went through the same routine we had followed in the nasty pizzeria, except this time I didn’t have to make the switch. Quite the little businesswoman, I had become. My phone rang, right on time.

‘I’m sorry, I have to take this. I’ll just step outside –’

I didn’t even see his arm move before it clamped on my wrist. He shook his head. I nodded, fluttered my fingers acquiescently.

‘
Allô
?’ I hoped he couldn’t detect the tremor in my voice.

‘Leave now.’

Moncada was still holding my arm. I took a step backwards; we might have been jiving.

‘Yes, of course. Could I call you back? In a couple of minutes?’ I hung up.

‘Sorry.’ He relaxed his grip, but held my eyes a few seconds longer.

‘
Niente
.’

He turned back to the bed to gather the picture, and in the few seconds his back was turned, Renaud was in the room, shoving me roughly to one side, his hands arcing over Moncada’s bent head with the flourish of a magician dashing off his cloak. Moncada was the taller man but Renaud brought his knee up between his legs and Moncada dropped forward, his right hand scrabbling under his jacket while his left pulled at his neck. I didn’t understand what I was seeing until Moncada twisted, throwing his weight against Renaud. As they gyrated clumsily, I noticed something I’d half-registered when we were in bed, but never thought about. Renaud might have been flabby, but he was incredibly strong. Abstractedly, I observed the thick muscle across his suddenly powerful shoulders bulking out under the loose jacket, a sense of the definition of the triceps beneath, as he strained to hold Moncada in front of him. The room was full of both men’s stertorous breathing, but far above it I heard an ambulance siren, a dreamy counterpoint, as I glimpsed the white cord around Moncada’s throat, some sort of short metal vice which Renaud was twisting beneath his ear, Renaud’s face purpling so that for a moment I thought it was Moncada who was hurting him and nearly threw myself at them, but then, looking up, saw Moncada slowly folding against Renaud’s knees. Renaud’s elbows raised in a Cossack dance. Moncada’s eyeballs reddened, his gaping lips swelled and then, as I understood, time began again, and I watched until it was over. The third time I’d watched someone die.

For a while, the only sound in the room was Renaud’s panting. I couldn’t speak. He bent over, clutching his knees like a sprinter after a race, exhaled slowly a couple of times. Then he knelt over the body and began to go through his pockets, removing a Vuitton wallet, a passport. I gasped when I saw the gun holstered at Moncada’s waist.

‘Put the things in your handbag. Quickly, all of it. Take the computer, too. Take the picture. Do it.’

I obeyed mutely. Stuffed the laptop and the papers into my bag, zipped the flat carrying-case. Renaud was stuffing the thing back into his pocket. When I found my voice it came out high-pitched like a wind-up doll.

‘Renaud!’ I coughed, breathed, hissed. ‘Renaud. This is crazy. I don’t understand.’

‘The police will be here in ten minutes. Do as I say, I’ll explain later.’

‘But, fingerprints?’ There was the beginning of an hysterical scream in my question.

‘I told you, it’s taken care of. Move!’

My bag was overflowing; I couldn’t fasten it. I took off my scarf and did my best to hide the contents.

‘Take the picture. Go. Take a cab to the flat, I’ll be there soon. Go.’

‘He-he had a briefcase.’ I pointed. My body was a stream; I couldn’t seem to find any purchase on the floor.

‘Take that too. Now. Get. The. Fuck. Out.’

27

Waiting again. The sofa and my
escritoire
were wrapped in plastic sheeting, so I sat on the floor amongst the packing cases, my back to the wall. I drew my knees under my chin and closed my eyes. Some bit of my brain was reflecting that watching a murder was oddly more shocking than committing it. I didn’t even feel like smoking. Again, the buzz of the street door, again the weight of his tread on the stairs. I lifted my head wearily; my eyes felt as though they should be black, desolate as a shark’s. It was only when Renaud turned on the light that I realised I had been sitting in the dark. He looked jaunty, though perhaps that’s normal for someone who’s just strangled a notorious Mafioso.

‘This had better be good.’

He came and sat beside me, put an arm around me. I didn’t shake him off – I can’t bear those female theatrics.

‘I’m sorry, Judith. It was the only way. It was him or me.’

‘But your client. How are you supposed to get the money for his wretched Rothko now?’

‘Moncada knew who I was. He was looking for me. He was prepared to kill; you saw the gun.’

‘But he had no idea you were in Paris.’

‘Exactly. As I said, it was a matter of time. Which of us found the other first. You don’t need to worry about the police. I have my friend at the
préfecture
, remember?’

I didn’t smile.

‘I tipped him off,’ he continued. ‘They know what Moncada was into, they’ll see he was armed and they’ll clear it up. You did them a favour, think of it that way.’

‘And your client?’

‘I’ll be in touch with Moncada’s associates. They’ll see this as the warning it is. I’ll get my money.’

‘Hurray for you.’

‘Don’t be like that. Look.’

He took a folded brown envelope from inside his jacket and passed it to me. I had it in my hand before I remembered it would have been sitting next to the garotte. There was the photo from the Métro at Saint-Michel in a spanking new passport, a driving licence, even a
carte de séjour
.

‘Leanne? That’s low, Renaud.’

‘A twenty-seven-year-old Englishwoman, recently deceased? It seemed too good to pass up. Anyway, it’ll remind you to keep your nose clean.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘The
préfecture
contacted your consulate. A poor young lady who had been attacked and robbed, recovering now in hospital. Her parents anxious to take her home. You skip through as her. It’s clean.’

‘Pretty impressive contact you’ve got there. The
gendarmes
seem remarkably accommodating.’

‘It’s a quid pro quo.’

I gave him a long look.

‘Don’t feel bad.’

‘I do feel fucking bad. Do I look like a Leanne to you?’

We sat there for a while, both our heads resting against the wall. After a while I asked him, ‘So the Rothko, what was it anyway? I mean, which picture?’

‘Dunno. I mean, they’re all the same, aren’t they? Big, reddish, squares, I think.’

If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that talking yourself into low expectations never works. You tell yourself to expect nothing, but when you get it, you still feel a tiny bit of irrational disappointment. I’d wanted to give him one more chance. I really had. He could have told me the truth and given me a head start, at least. I let my cheek fall against his shoulder.

‘So,’ I said. ‘Job done.’

‘
Oui
. I brought something. In the bag by the door.’ I hauled it towards me.

‘Cristal. My favourite. I’ll open it.’ In unison, our four eyes swivelled to my own bag on the floor, lying next to Moncada’s briefcase and a million-pound painting. In it his things, the gun.

‘No, I’ll open it,’ Renaud said quickly.

He caught my eye and we laughed, a real laugh, complicit.

‘How about I hold the bottle and you get the glasses? They’re in one of those boxes.’

I stood up so he could see me. ‘Look. No sudden moves.’

A tiny, anamorphic moment. Slanted another way, we were doubled for a second, he and I, and I saw how things could have been. I went over to the window. God, I was going to miss this flat, I was going to miss the night sky over Paris.

‘Can’t find them.’

‘Maybe in the other one? You’ll have to peel the tape off.’

Still holding the bottle aloft in my right hand, I flicked the catch on the hidden drawer at the back of my writing desk. The silencer was already fitted to the barrel of the Glock 26.

‘Here they are.’

Renaud stood with a coupe in either hand. He just had time to look surprised before I pulled the trigger.

*

According to
Women Serial Killers of America
, the 26 is the ideal lady’s gun. In the same way that crimes in the movies can only be solved by a detective on suspension, the silencer is much misrepresented. The only one that really works is the Ruger Mark II, but it’s over a foot long and weighs a kilo, not exactly handbag-friendly. And then there’s the trade-off. The quieter the shot the less powerful the round that can be used, the less powerful the round the shorter distance the bullet travels and the less damage it causes. The Glock is half the weight of the Ruger, and apparently a sexy little number, if you like that sort of thing. It’s amazing what you can fit into a hollowed-out catalogue if you try hard enough. A supersonic bullet has a loud crack that no silencer will do much about; a subsonic, on the other hand, is quiet but the shot has to be to the head, otherwise there’s no guarantee the target will go down. Dave’s army contacts had kindly provided me with six subsonic bullets in a Wispa wrapper, and since the nearest I’d ever got to a gun outside Southport funfair was hauling Rupert’s Berettas to his Range Rover on a Friday afternoon, Dave had also enclosed a postcard of Boucher’s
Madame de Pompadour
with ‘5 metres’ written on the back. Luckily my drawing room wasn’t particularly large.

I wove through the packing cases and put two more bullets in Renaud’s head point blank, just to be sure. The silencer made a pretty loud whooshing suck, but even with the windows closed all I could hear outside was the concierge’s blessed, eternal
telenovela
. And in cities, at least in good neighbourhoods, people don’t hear shots. Or rather, they hear them, and think ‘That’s funny. Sounded like a gun’, and go back to watching
Britain’s Got Talent
. I opened the Cristal and took a spluttering swig out of the neck of the bottle. It was a bit warm. I put it in the fridge, which was splattered with Renaud’s brains, like an angry Pollock.

There was a knock at the door.

‘
Mademoiselle? Tout se passe bien
?’

Fuck. The downstairs neighbour. Fucking Left Bank intellectuals, why couldn’t they be watching telly? He was a lawyer, I’d seen from the mailbox, older guy, maybe widowed. We’d exchanged greetings in the courtyard. I retrieved the bottle, took it with me towards the door, opened it a crack and inserted myself onto the landing.

‘Just a minute.’

‘
Bonsoir, mademoiselle
. Is everything alright? I heard a noise –’

I waved the bottle gaily. ‘Just a little celebration. I’m moving out, you see.’

He wore glasses and a green cashmere cardigan over a workshirt and tie. In his left hand was a napkin. Quite the gent, using a napkin even when dining alone.

‘I’m sorry if we disturbed you.’ I had my hand behind my back, clutching the door handle to keep it from swinging wide. ‘Would you care to join us?’

‘Thank you, but I was in the middle of dinner. If you’re sure that everything’s fine?’

‘Quite fine. I do apologise.’

Part of me felt like asking him in, just for the hell of it. Well, it felt sexy.

‘
Alors, bonsoir, mademoiselle.
’

‘
Bonsoir, monsieur.
’

Renaud might have looked at me reproachfully as I propped myself against the door and sucked down a gasper, but he didn’t have a face left. I dropped the fag end into the fizz, then I found the packing case labelled ‘Cuisine’ and searched for the Japanese cleaver and a small toolkit I’d bought in the Arab convenience store. I took the plastic sheeting off the sofa, spread it on the floor and rolled the body onto it, removing the phone and wallet from the pocket of the ghastly jacket. Before I pulled on my gloves I gave a bit of thought to a musical accompaniment. Mozart again, the
Requiem
this time. Cheap shot, but then he’d been prepared to land me with ‘Leanne’ for the foreseeable. I dimmed the lights and found a candle under the sink for atmosphere. Then I set to work.

*

After her revolutionary
Judith Slaying Holofernes
, Artemisia Gentileschi left Rome for Florence, where she painted a more conventional version of the subject.
Giuditta con la sua ancella
–
Judith with her Maid
– hangs in the Pitti Palace. Initially, there’s nothing violent about it. It’s a picture of two women tidying up. The maid is in the foreground, her back to the viewer, her yellow dress protected by an apron, her hair twisted in a practical rag. Her mistress is in profile behind the maid’s extended left arm, looking behind her to see if they are being followed, hoping they can get the job done in time. Her hair is carefully arranged, her dark, velvet-like dress richly brocaded. Over her shoulder she carries a sword; beneath its hilt the eye is drawn to the basket crooked in the maid’s arm. Which contains Holofernes’ head, bundled in muslin like a Christmas pudding. The women are poised in a moment of deadly tension, but the picture sings their silence. They are anxious but unhurried, pausing deliberately to see if they are being pursued before getting down to what they have to do. There is weight in the painting, the drag of the heavy sword hilt on Judith’s shoulder, the solidity of the severed head in the basket supported on the maid’s hip. This, for them, is the next thing.

Using the plastic sheeting for leverage, I dragged the body over the parquet to the bathroom. My shoulders and the muscles of my abdomen strained and I had to pause several times, but I got it in there. I’d always liked the luxury of a walk-in shower. I stripped to my knickers, bundled my jeans and sweater into the tub, then went back and filled the kitchen sink. I gave the whole place a good squirt of Monsieur Propre and started to swab it down, wringing the cloth until it turned from crimson to pinkish grey, running more and more hot water. The waste trap filled with viscous lumps. I gathered a wincing handful and flushed them down the lavatory. When the drawing room was clean I swilled water and bleach along the floor to the bathroom, everything immaculate for the next tenant.