Still she looked at him oddly, before shrugging it off and heading out to the hall. ‘Will you wait till Roger gets back?’
Just the mention of his name caused Enzo to quite involuntarily clench his fists. He would never tire of punching that bastard’s duplicitous fucking face!
Dominique said, ‘Actually, we have a rendezvous very shortly. But we’ll come back.’
‘Okay. See you later.’ And Kirsty was gone.
Dominique stood up immediately. Their coffee had gone cold, untouched in their cups. And all her instincts told her that something was very wrong. ‘What is it?’
Enzo turned and strode back into the bedroom, ripping the linen jacket from its hanger. ‘This!’ he hissed. And he could hardly find his voice to speak, his face dark now with anger and hatred.
Dominique looked at him, utterly bewildered. And he fought to control his breathing so that he could explain. Painting a picture for her of that night, high up in the roof of the château, vivid and clear, when Raffin had tried to murder him in cold blood. ‘I’m going to fucking kill him!’
The colour had risen high on her cheeks. But she put a hand on his arm and gripped it tightly. ‘Enzo, you can’t afford to do anything silly. We have the advantage of knowing what he has tried so very hard to stop you from finding out. But he still has Sophie, and we have no idea how any of this ties together. We have to play it smart.’
All Enzo wanted to do was inflict violence on the man who had done this to him. But he knew that Dominique was right, and was glad that she was there to moderate his more intemperate instincts. The quick emotions inherited from his Italian mother, and the even quicker resort to violence and swearing born of a tough Glasgow upbringing.
‘Where is the bloodstained pocket now?’
‘The police have it. Hélène had it run through the DNA database at the time, but of course it came up blank.’
‘Good. So now we need a sample of Raffin’s DNA for comparison and we’ve got him. At least for attempted murder. But I’m pretty sure the rest of it is just going to unravel from there.’
Enzo took a deep breath and nodded, and he turned and marched purposefully into the bathroom. His eyes scanned the sink and the bath, the shower cubicle. Then he opened the mirrored cabinet above the sink. ‘There.’ He reached in and retrieved Raffin’s razor. A triple-bladed head that he detached from its handle. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. ‘More than enough bristle and skin, maybe even some blood, to provide the bastard’s DNA.’ He was getting some of his control back now. He laid it carefully on the rim of the sink, took a fresh razor head from a dispenser in the cabinet, and snapped it on to the handle, replacing the one he had removed. ‘He’ll never know.’
Dominique followed him back to the séjour where he retrieved a small plastic evidence bag from the pocket of his shoulder bag and dropped the razor head into it. She said, ‘If we FedEx that to Cahors tonight, Hélène will get it first thing in the morning. We can do that on our way to meet Franck.’
Enzo frowned. ‘Franck?’
‘The Tracfin guy. And you can call Commissaire Taillard to let her know it’s on its way.’
Chapter thirty-nine
They met Franck at the L’Ecritoire, in the tree-lined Place de la Sorbonne. Smokers, mostly students, sat out of the rain under a red canopy that cast its gloom over the tables and chairs lined up along the pavement outside, yellow light and laughter spilling out into the darkening day. At the far end of the square, floodlit figures atop high columns flanked a clock set into the arch of a tall, stone building that dominated everything else around it. Fountains played in a rectangular water feature, lit along its length by concealed underwater lighting. The whole square resounded to the sound of voices. Student voices, animated by youth and aspiration and unbounded optimism. They made Enzo feel very old and tired.
Franck was a good-looking young man in his mid-thirties. He had a mischievous smile and rich brown hair that fell in luxuriant curls over quizzical eyebrows. He still carried about him the natural confidence of youth, and so seemed not at all out of place among all these students from the university. His black coat hung open and a red scarf dangled from his neck. A scarred leather satchel lay on the chair next to him.
He was waiting for them at a table at the back of the café, and rose to greet Dominique with a warm embrace and a kiss on each cheek. Then he looked at Enzo. ‘Who’s this? Your dad?’
Dominique gave him a dangerous look. ‘This is Enzo Macleod. If you were even remotely in touch with the real world, Franck, I wouldn’t need to make the introduction.’
Franck’s liquid brown eyes opened wide with sudden recognition, and he pumped Enzo’s hand enthusiastically. ‘Monsieur Macleod. What an honour.’ And Enzo wasn’t sure if the younger man was mocking him or not. ‘Sit down. What can I get you to drink?’
They ordered coffee, since they had never got around to drinking the ones that Kirsty had made, and Franck reached across the table to take both of Dominique’s hands in his. To his annoyance, Enzo found a tiny seed of jealousy germinating inside him at such casual and not unfamiliar intimacy. Dominique blushed with embarrassment and avoided his eye.
Franck said, ‘It’s been too long.’
Dominique nodded. ‘It has.’
He gazed into her eyes with unglazed affection. ‘I still miss you.’ He turned a smile of regret in Enzo’s direction and sighed. ‘Life, monsieur, is full of might-have-beens. The moments we missed, or didn’t see until they were gone. Dominique is one of those. The one who got away.’
Dominique took back her hands. ‘Oh, stop it, Franck.’ She risked a glance at Enzo. ‘He was always a fantasist.’
‘A man’s entitled to dream, isn’t he?’ He looked to Enzo for confirmation.
Enzo said, ‘Sometimes the dream is all we’re left with.’ And somehow that stole away all the levity, leaving a moment of awkward silence among them.
Dominique broke it. ‘So? Did you find anything?’
Franck said, ‘I did.’ The smile was gone now, and the twinkle with it. He sat back and looked at them thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know what you two are involved in. And I don’t want to know. In fact, I’m beginning to regret I ever agreed to do this.’
‘You owed me, Franck.’
Franck looked at her. The merest nod of his head and a downward turn of his eyes acknowledged it. ‘I know.’ He examined his hands for a moment, before looking up again. ‘It wasn’t that hard, actually. Money, even the electronic variety, leaves indelible traces wherever it goes. You just have to follow the tracks.’
‘And?’ Dominique could hardly contain her impatience.
Franck sucked in a deep breath, as if stealing himself to reveal some dirty little secret. ‘That little girl’s medical care has been paid for over the last twenty-odd years by money transferring automatically out of a private account in the BNP Paribas.’ Again he paused, before adding reluctantly, ‘A personal account belonging to someone who might conceivably be the next president of France. A certain Jean-Jacques Devez. The Mayor of Paris.’
Chapter forty
They walked for some way in silence in the rain after leaving Franck in the Place de la Sorbonne. They were several streets away before Dominique slipped her arm through Enzo’s and posed the question that had gone unasked in the café. A question that all three of them had assiduously avoided. Franck had been compromised enough as it was. ‘Why would the Mayor of Paris be paying for the medical care of Alice Blanc?’
Enzo shook his head grimly. ‘I don’t know.’ His mind was swimming and filled with the recollection of Charlotte telling him that Devez had begun his political career in Bordeaux. ‘But I do know this. He was an adjoint to the Mayor of Bordeaux at the time Blanc was murdering those prostitutes there.’ He thought some more about that conversation he’d had with Charlotte on the drive to Lannemezan. ‘And Raffin and Devez are old friends. Charlotte told me that Raffin and Marie used to socialise with Devez and his wife.’