Murder in the Bastille (24 page)

It was hard to trawl for information and remain casual. Clothilde had been around before Aimée was born. How could she get her to reveal the truth or to let something slip?

“Clothilde, you’re right. But today so many use cell phones. Mimi said your memory’s sharper than a razor. You see,” she leaned toward where she suspected Clotilde to be. “It’s a bit private. Wouldn’t want the world to know. Or the doctor.”

“My ear’s right here,
cherie,
” she said. “Turn away, Lucas!”

Aimée had to think fast. Faster than she ever had. And make it work.

“Alors,
he invested in a project. But he thinks I owe him money . . .” she said, her voice low. Then she paused for dramatic effect. “Call it an investment, I told him. No guarantees, eh? At first it was a gift, then he called it a loan. I don’t want to bring it all up again if he’s let it pass! But I have to know if he called. Then we’ll settle this. Do you understand, Clothilde?”

“What’s his name?”

Great . . . how could she get out of this now?

“I can’t say, it’s not right, if . . . well you know, he’s not the one or doesn’t . . .”

“But why . . .”

“He called me from here. I remember
Nini peau de chien
in the background.”

A perfumed sigh tinged by garlic wafted toward her.

“No wonder. One comes to mind.”

Say his name, she prayed.

“
Alors,
he’s a bit old for you. Dull, too. But it wouldn’t be him, eh?”

Say it, she wanted to yell.
Say it
.

“Age doesn’t matter.”

Clothilde sighed. “Men continue to surprise me.”

Aimée took a deep drag. Clenched her fist, willing her to talk. “He certainly surprised me.”

“Mathieu uses the phone. Doesn’t believe in cell phones, he tells me. He was here tonight,” she said. “Maybe half an hour ago. Hard to believe it was him.”

Mathieu?

How could it be Mathieu? Yet thinking back, Chantal had told her the
flics
brought him in for questioning. But attacking her and killing Josiane . . . ?

Aimée felt a garlic-scented breath on her face. “But everyone’s taste is different.”

“Well, I thought . . .”

“Now that I think about it, Mathieu’s father,” said Clothilde, “invested in girls. He made everyone turn a blind eye to the women he supplied from our place. In turn, he got favors.”

“Mathieu’s father? Wasn’t he a craftsman?”

“Ask Mimi. The high-ranking SS loved it . . . earthy Parisian girls from Marché d’Aligre. They liked peasant costumes.” Clothilde blew a breath of smoke in the air. “Go figure.”

“But I thought Mathieu’s family were respected
ébénistes
.”

“Eh
chérie
, who was acquiring works of art during the Occupation? ‘Buying’ is a polite term. ‘Appropriating’ says it better. Who better to take a wealthy deportee’s furniture and make money from it?”

Did that have anything to do with the old woman she’d seen coming out of Mathieu’s with the silvery hair?

“Clothilde!”

Voices had risen, singing along with the accordion. Old songs, like her grandmother had played.

“Excuse me, time to close the doors.”

“Lucas, mind helping me back?” asked Aimée.

She heard him gulp his wine.

“We’ll never get out if we don’t leave now.”

“D’accord,
” he agreed.

Out on the street, the only sounds were their footsteps and the click of Lucas’s cane on the rain-dampened cobbles. The music had faded into the night. Rain-freshened air scented the stone-walled street.

“How well do you know Mathieu?”

“Listen, that Clothilde talks a blue streak,” said Lucas. “She wasn’t so clean herself in the war. I heard stories. But people did what they had to. And it’s over.”

“Do you think Mathieu’s hiding something?” she said. “Was he afraid Josiane would find out?”

“Zut!”
he said
.
“We all hide things.”

“I have to talk with Mathieu,” she said. “Take me there.”

“Why would I do that?” he said. “I’m tired. Leave all this alone.”

She felt inside her bag, found the Beretta.

“Here,” she said, taking the cane from him and putting the Beretta in his hand. “Didn’t you want to try this?”

“You’ve got a deal,” said Lucas, his voice changed. “I hope you left the safety on or I’ll cause some serious damage.”

“At least you’ll aim better, with your peripheral vision, than I would,” she said.

“That’s a joke right?”

“But if Mathieu’s forgotten, you can remind him.”

She felt their way down rue Charenton with the cane. Tap, tap, tap. At the gurgling fountain she remembered and turned right into what she figured was the entrance to the courtyard of Mathieu’s shop. The tall doors were closed. She felt all over with the cane, found the digicode, and hit some buttons.

“Who’s there?” came an irate reply.

“Pardon, I forgot my uncle Mathieu’s digicode. He’s asleep. Please let me in,” she said.

“Write it down next time.”

A loud buzzing came from their right.

She and Lucas pushed the heavy door open.

“How did you know about this entrance through this building?”

“Well, it’s opposite the old part of the Résidence built in the Musketeers’ time. They all connected at one time. Feel the wall’s thickness. Like the Résidence.”

“Saves us from going up to rue Faubourg St. Antoine and entering Cour du Bel Air that way.”

Or through the back of Passage de la Boule Blanche. She wouldn’t do that again.

“Sounds funny to ask this Lucas, but can you see
anything
?” “I didn’t want to admit it, but the little peripheral vision I have crashes at night.”

“Crashes?”

“Grays and shadows are subtle at the best of times. Darkness blacks it all out.”

Pills. She had to take her pills.
Merde!

She found them, swallowed, and tapped her way over the cobbles to the gurgling fountain. She stuck her head under, lapped up the water, welcoming the coldness. The clean mineral taste slid down her throat. It must tap into the old artesian source from the Trogneux fountain across the street.

Late-night starlings twittered in the courtyard. The honeysuckle scent she remembered seemed stronger in the night air. By the time they reached the atelier’s glass door, she’d tripped several times on the worn stones.

She felt the glass. Tapped it lightly. “Mathieu?”

“Door’s open,” said Lucas.

She grabbed Lucas’s elbow, followed him. Followed the strong smells of paint thinner emanating from Mathieu’s atelier.

“Mathieu?”

No answer. From somewhere a Mozart sonata played, low and soothing. A tape, the radio?

She heard Lucas feeling around ahead of her. Wood scraped and was pushed aside. They hadn’t gone far. Then a loud
ouff
as Lucas sat down.

“Look, I don’t feel good prowling in his atelier. He’s probably upstairs asleep. We’re blind, so our sleep patterns are off. Night or day means nothing to us, but to the rest of the world it does.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She tapped with the cane, feeling her way ahead. Sensed the legs of work tables, rectangles of picture frames, hollow panels, the thick metal block of what must be the heater emitting sputtering bursts of warmth. Then the stone wall, thick and damp.

And she heard the gun fall on the floor, skidding over the wood. Her reflex was automatic. “Lucas! Duck and cover your head!”

She ducked down under a thick-legged work table. No shot.

“Lucas?”

No answer. Silence.

Then she heard the door close. The metallic ratchet fell as it locked.

Saturday Night

“THIS CAME FOR YOU, Sergeant Bellan,” said the night duty desk officer. “And these messages.”

All from Aimée Leduc.

Bellan took them, with his espresso, and sat down at the desk. He’d closed the Beast of Bastille file, sent it to the
frigo
. He wanted to throw Aimée’s things in the trash bin to join the cigarette butts, coffee-stained memos, and wilted violets.

But he set Officer Nord’s report down to read first. Then he opened the thick envelope, scanned the morgue log, and read the note Aimée’s partner, René, had written.

He gulped the espresso.

“I need a driver, officer,” he said, stuffing the report in his case.

“No one left in the driving pool tonight, sir,” he was told. “We’re short on officers if you need a backup.”

“No problem, no backup. I’m on special detail. Get me a car.”

Loïc Bellan sped over the pont Notre-Dame, the dark Seine illumined by pinpricks of blue light from the
bateaux-mouches
below. He pulled into the Place Lepine, on the Île de la Cité, where vendors were setting up stalls for the Sunday flower market.

He ran into Hôtel Dieu, flashed his badge, and was pointed in a direction by the sleepy-eyed security guard. Several long hallways and wrong turns later, he found Intensive Care.

“Nurse, I need to speak with a patient in custody, Dragos Iliescu.”

From around the night desk came the beeping of machines, and the sound of a floor waxer in the cavernous hallway. The ancient stone had been sandblasted, giving it a butterscotch hue in the dim lighting.

“Let me check, I just came on shift,” she said, consulting a computer. He saw the other nurse in the station nudge her, point to a file. A dark blue folder.

“Too late, I’m afraid, Sergeant,” she said. “He passed away.”

Frustrated, Bellan wanted to kick himself. Why hadn’t he come earlier?

“What was the cause of death?”

“The doctors are doing a preliminary now, taking a toxicology screening to determine if it was drugs.”

“Here’s my card. My number’s there. Have the doctor call me the minute he knows.”

If he hadn’t been so stubborn . . . so rigid in the way he thought. Wasn’t that what Marie told him, “Loïc listen to someone else sometime,
then
make up your mind.”

Merde!

All the way in the car, he berated himself. There was only one other way. He parked on the curb of 22, boulevard de la Bastille. He turned off the ignition and sat in the car. The small shop was lighted. A minute later he got out.

“
Bonsoir,
Monsieur Tulles,” he said. “Is Bidi here?”

“We’re just closing up,” smiled Monsieur Tulles. “Bidi! Guess you want to ask him more questions.”

No answer.

“I’m sorry, that boy with those headphones is . . . Bidi!”

Bellan looked down at his feet. Something about this place, Monsieur Tulles, and Bidi made him tongue-tied. He hesitated, swallowed hard.

“Actually, Monsieur Tulles, if you don’t mind, I need Bidi’s help.”

Saturday Night

AIMÉE SHUDDERED AND CALLED out, “Tell me . . . Lucas, are you all right.”

Mozart’s piano music trilled faintly in the atelier’s background.

Had Lucas been knocked out . . . by Mathieu?

“Mathieu . . . who’s that?”

A sound like a deadbolt slipping into place.

“Who’s there?” Her words caught in her throat.

What was going on?

She couldn’t wait to find out, she had to do something. Quickly.

She groped ahead of her along the floor. Felt a sheet of dense, smooth metal. Hard and thick. She figured it was lead.

Something rustled from the far corner.

Her breath caught. She reached her hands out. Felt a shoe . . . no the curved wooden heel of a clog. She kept on. Her fingers came back sticky and metallic smelling. Blood.

Mathieu.

Now she knew why his door was open but he didn’t answer. Her fingers brushed a smooth round dome. His head. Then she froze.

He was bald.

Why hadn’t she thought to ask before. He was
bald
. No need for that shampoo.

Too late. She’d been about to accuse him of attacking her, killing Josiane, but he couldn’t have. So dumb. Why hadn’t she realized? If she had, he might still be alive.

And it all fell into place. The tar smell, the burns on Dragos, the lead, and the odd thing she’d knocked over, then touched. She realized that Morbier had been on a wild goose chase looking all over Paris for the “explosives” when they were here.

Right here.

She felt around Mathieu’s body. Next to the sheet of lead were glass bulbs and beakers. Like the ones René had found. But these had raised letters on them. On the bottom.

The script must be Cyrillic. But she traced an upside down U, then numbers. Her stomach jolted.

The symbol for enriched uranium.

U-235.

Weapons grade enriched uranium.

Probably five or ten gram samples from the size of the beaker. Dangerous enough. More than lethal if enough samples were put together. Enough for a dirty bomb.

And the killer had the perfect cover for customs checks.

Of course he must have been here, unpacking a shipment. They’d interrupted him. She prayed he’d knocked Lucas out, not killed him. All she could do was to try to get him talking. Get him near her.

“I know how you did it,” she said, her voice steady. “Ingenious. And I have to say, I admire your plan. But why?”

The Mozart piano concerto rose in the background.

“You,” he breathed. “You’re the one.”

Her breath caught again as she recognized the voice. Shivers ran down her spine. The uranium . . . where was it? Had she touched it?

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“It’s my business,” said Malraux. “I sell and trade.”

“This isn’t smuggling Fabergé eggs, antique icons, or fake Lee jeans,” she said. “Uranium and radiation kill people. Horribly.”

“Commodities,” he said. “They’re called commodities.”

“So you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“I like that.”

“Oscar Wilde said it first.”

“But you’re wrong,” said Malraux. “I know the price and the value.”

Malraux’s tone, chillingly matter-of-fact, filled her with disgust and fear.

“It’s a business,” he said. “Like any other.”

“But Josiane found out, didn’t she? Somehow Vincent owed you. In return he let you use his e-mail account.”

She heard him sigh. “That part I’m sorry for,” he said, his voice softening, “I never wanted to hurt her. And if you hadn’t got in the way . . .”

“Me?” As if it were her fault?

“I was trying to talk Josiane out of writing her story. Make her listen to reason. This was the last shipment.”

It was always the last shipment, the last time, the last throw of the dice.

“Years ago, we were lovers,” he said. “But we were married to other people at the time. You know, regret lodged in my heart. Buried deep. Then when we met again after all those years at an Opéra benefit . . . it was like we’d never been apart.”

Startled, Aimée listened. Had he been at least a little in love with Josiane? Had she fallen for him again, then discovered what he’d done? And paid with her life?

“I’m not a killer.”

“So how do you explain Mathieu?”

“He tried to stop me tonight; he’d grown a conscience.”

“Maybe over something else,” she said. “But I don’t believe he knew what you really were doing. You’d planned it all. From someone in your set you heard of the Beast of Bastille’s release.”

“My cousin’s married to his lawyer, Verges.”

Of course.

“So you staged a copycat murder and Vaduz conveniently died before he could deny murdering Josiane. All to conceal the fact that you had the uranium, sheathed in lead, hidden in the drawers of furniture.”

“Mademoiselle, you’ve got something under that messy head of hair after all.”

Now she wanted to punch him. But she had to get close enough first. Stay patient, keep him talking. Keep him talking until she could figure a way out.

She kept feeling around with her hands, away from Mathieu. Poor, sad Mathieu.

“I didn’t understand why Mathieu dealt with you,” she said. “But he had to. You had the sales connections.”

“And now I have the pieta dura. Mathieu tried to keep the real estate developers at bay so he could keep his atelier open,” said Malraux. “It’s over. He fought a losing battle. The smart choice would have been for him to join the winner.”

Her hands touched a large, cold, ceramic jug . . . beaded with chill liquid. Drinking water.

“But it’s so ingenious,” she said. “These antique pieces all have secret compartments, hidden places and false fronts, pillars that pull out. They’re so heavy anyway, adding sheets of lead wouldn’t matter.”

“Please know, that night, when I had you round the neck,” he said. “I couldn’t do it. You’re attractive, you know . . .”

She doubted that he had spared her deliberately. He made her sick.

“Then people came,” he said. “I heard Josiane run towards the atelier.”

The big work table crashed against her. Tools clattered onto the floor. Over Mathieu’s body?

She wondered if the lights were on? Malraux must have covered the windows. The atelier would have shades or wooden shutters. Mozart’s piano étude soared now. He must have turned up the volume . . . easier to kill her that way.

Where was her Beretta?

“I’ve dealt with this scientist for years,” said Malraux, his voice patient now. She heard him moving, hammering things. Shoving things across the floor. “We met when he wanted to sell some of his family icons. Later, his friends’ families’ icons. Then the country’s power shifted. This scientist liked heading a nuclear submarine plant, having a country
dacha
and driving a Lada. But the Soviet Union fell and there was no more gas for the Lada or food on the table. But he still has access to the top grade stuff . . . not orphaned uranium that was lost, stolen or abandoned, or spent nuclear fuel.
He
suggested it to me, he has the contacts here. All I did was arrange for transport. That fool Dragos thought he could double-cross me. Greedy. Look what happened.”

“Dead from radiation sickness.” She shook her head.

“People want my product. Finding buyers presents no problem,” he said. “It’s like in the war. My mother had paintings and art for sale to the highest bidder. Who didn’t? That was, anyone who wanted to survive. The
Oberstampführer
dabbled in art. And in Maman. How else could she have kept the business? While Papa dabbled in everyone and everything. Clothilde was his mistress once.”

Perhaps that was why she’d pointed Aimée at the wrong person.

“Where’s Lucas?”

No answer. She heard rubbing and scraping. Tried to visualize where she was. Not far away from the heater. But were the lights on . . . was he watching her closely? Or was he more attentive to his uranium? Then her hand hit a pole . . . a lamp? It felt hot.

Now she had a plan. She had to keep him talking and get him to touch her.

“No one deals in the art world wearing white gloves.” A snicker. “Only the wealthy own art. The ones with power. They used to say if there were no Jews, there’d be no art collectors.
Alors
, before the war, it was true. In art, one trades with those in power. Let’s face it. You need bread you go to the boulangerie. To pass something down in the family, you go first to the art dealer, then the stockbroker. Nowadays they buy cars, computers, bigger houses—but the best investment, besides diamonds, is art. Look how it endures.”

She shuddered at his tone. He sounded as if he spoke about differences of investment opinion, not weapons grade enriched uranium capable of killing and irradiating a whole chunk of some city.

Lights blipped across her eyes . . . crinkled then waved. She steadied herself against the table.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he said.

“It’s my eyes . . . they make me dizzy.”

“Don’t worry, that won’t matter soon.”

“What are you doing?”

Of course, he’d kill her.

“None of your business.”

She heard him swearing, slamming drawers.

“So Dragos skimmed some uranium off the top?”

She felt the hard rungs of a chair whack her ribs. A cracking, searing pain shot up her side. Then again.

Try to stay upright. Keep him talking, keep his attention away from her.

“But Mathieu’s a craftsman . . .”

“Mathieu’s father participated, too. And his father. Half the art world steals from the other half. Over and over. Skip a generation or two and the original owner steals it back. You think Leonardo da Vinci’s work stays in one family? Look at the Comte de Breuve.”

The water cooler jug was on the stand. Heavy.

“I thought you dealt in art because . . .”

“I’m passionate about it?” he interrupted, his educated formal French gone. “I hate old things. They smell. Ever since I could crawl, we’ve had decaying, musty pieces built or painted by dead people
everywhere
. I’m alive. I don’t want to be chained to the expressions of someone who died four hundred years ago.”

“So it’s all a front?”

“Front? People see what they want to see. The
hôtel partic-ulier
. . . no real choice there. If I sold it, taxes would cost me eighty percent of the profit on the sale of the building.”

She clung to the lamp pole for support. Gasped. Her ribs felt as if they were broken.

“Everything’s protected by historical decree. The furniture goes with the place, I can’t even sell it. The oil paintings are blistered, the lacquered furniture peeling, and I don’t have the money for repairs. It costs next to nothing to stay there if I use it for a gallery/showroom like my parents did. But in my wing, everything comes from Ikea and Conran. Plastic—that hated word—I love it.”

She felt the base of the lamp.

“You know you’re wrong about Vaduz,” he volunteered His footsteps were closer. She heard him grunting and pushing. Something inching along on the floor. And that tar smell.

His shampoo. He couldn’t be much more than an arm’s length away.

“But I knew Vaduz didn’t attack me,” she said.

She lurched against the porcelain water cooler. It cracked and shattered. Water sprayed and flooded over the sloped floor, pooling toward the heater.

“
Salope
. . .you’ve got my tuxedo sopping wet!”

She whammed the lamp full force in the direction of his voice. Her ribs jabbed like knives against her skin. As the glass bulb shattered, she felt him recoil. But she didn’t want that.

She thrust the lamp pole forward, whacking him again, keeping the exposed socket toward him. She felt him trying to get it away. But it connected with something metallic on his wrist. A bracelet? Or his cufflinks? He yelled as the alternating current traveled up his right hand. Shook and tried to get free. She held the pole as long as she could. He went rigid. She heard a faint low buzz, barely audible over the music.

And then water dripped on her and she let go of the pole.

SOMETHING BEEPED. Layers of unconsciousness peeled away, slowly, like veils of fog. She felt around for the phone in her pocket.

“Allô?”

“You’re a Catholic, aren’t you Leduc?” said Bellan.

Echoing sounds came from the background.

Her brain felt fuzzy, her mouth even more. Little twitches of light ran across her eyelids.

“Made my First Communion,” she said.

“
Bon
. . . where would you hide something in a chapel?”

“Under the holy water font.” It was the first thing that came into her mind. “Sometimes they have a donation box in the bottom. But if it’s uranium you’re looking for, there’s some right here. Bodies, too.”

“Where?”

“Mathieu’s atelier. Easy to find. We probably glow in the dark.”

She heard moaning and someone stirring.

“Better hurry, someone’s waking up,” she said. “I wish I could tell you who it is.”