Her hands trembled. Could she face the truth? Did she really want to know? Deep down the little girl in her longed for her mother to walk around the corner. The hope never died. She’d never move on.
She slid open the cardboard matchbox. A slip of cigarette paper with writing on it.
Café des Puys 10 p.m.
Nothing else. Disappointment filled her.
Out on the slick, wet pavement, she found her scooter parked and locked by a bare-branched plane tree. She glanced at the fuel meter. Full.
She quivered inside. Any of these passersby—the woman pushing a stroller, the middle-aged couple with a Westie on a leash—could be surveilling her. Any or all of them.
If she didn’t push those thoughts down and jump back on the train, she’d get nowhere fast.
The method of Pascal’s murder troubled her. The way he’d been wrapped in plastic, his hands bound behind him on the palette. The murderer had been sending a message, but what, and to whom?
The charcoal clouds trembled and the sky opened. Frustrated, she pushed her scooter under a glass marquee and watched the rain. After a call to the commissariat for the case number, she rang the Institut Médico-Légal’s number and hit the laboratory extension. Two rings. A clearing of a throat, water running in the background. “Oui?”
“Serge, s’il vous plaît.”
“Try Monday.”
“Maybe you can help me,” she said.
“We’re short-staffed.”
She needed answers. And now.
She clicked her phone. “That’s my other line. Look, this won’t take long. It’s concerning the autopsy results for a male, late twenties.” She paused, rustled her checkbook near the receiver. “A Pascal Samour.”
“Who’s this?”
Rain splashed on her boots. “I’m Prévost’s admin assistant, from the commissariat in the third,” she said. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I’ll check the paperwork, but it’s somewhere in the request,” she said. “The priority request for Samour’s autopsy results this morning.”
“Like I’ve had time to write the report?” he said. “I’m subbing for the interim assistant.”
At least he’d performed the autopsy. As interim staff, he wouldn’t know all the procedures. Or she hoped he wouldn’t.
“Mais alors, you should have said so.” She gave a short laugh, looked at the report number she’d written on her palm. “It’s case number 6A87. Just shoot the prelim over. Serge does it all the time.”
Pause.
“Prelim without pathology?” he said. “No analysis of nail scrapings, stomach contents? That’s all I’ve got.”
“That will do for now.” She let out a sigh. “Or read the results and I’ll type in the prelim. Add the path later.”
“Call back. Give me ten minutes,” he said.
And search for the nonexistent request?
She recognized the low thumping of hydraulic-pump pressure hoses washing down the autopsy tables, the dissecting tools, the tiled floor. Once, during her brief year in premed, her class spent a morning at the morgue. That’s when she’d met Serge.
“Prévost’s on my back screaming priority,” she said. “I’d like to mention how helpful you’re being. What’s your name?”
“Carton, but …” Pause. “Un moment.”
She prayed he’d find it. And before Prévost got wind of this. She shivered in her wet boots under the glass awning.
Carton cleared his throat. “Considering the snow, the temperature, the conditions, we put time of death at one to two hours before discovery.”
So he put time of death between seven and eight P.M.
“Does that take into account the plastic wrapping? Wouldn’t that keep in the body temperature?”
“Plastic?” Carton said. “I’m working from a cadaver, you understand. And given that this death occurred outside in the snow, the body would cool faster than the usual degree and a half, two degrees per hour. Let’s see, it says leg flesh was gnawed. There’s a note that says ‘rat meat.’ ”
She cringed.
“Cause of death asphyxiation,” he continued. “Apart from the ligature marks on his wrists, no abrasions or contusions were present.”
Unease flickered through her. She hadn’t seen the ligature marks. All she remembered were the eyes. “So you’re saying …?”
“I’m saying nothing,” Carton said. “The burns take longer.”
She grabbed her scooter’s handlebars. “Burns?”
“Traces on his right index and middle finger. Not fresh, hard to tell,” he said. “The tissue after microscopic examination will indicate the age of the injuries, the healing time. We never commit until the pathology report. Even then this looks cut-and-dry.”
Cut-and-dry? Samour was wrapped in plastic.
“Take it up with Serge. You got the prelim results. What you wanted, non?”
Not what she wanted at all.
Saturday, 7 P.M.
RENÉ SMOOTHED MEIZI’S black hair on the pillow. Her soft breaths of sleep ruffled the duvet. He could watch her for hours.
She shivered in her sleep, a cry catching in her throat. A bad dream? He stroked her flushed cheek until her shoulders relaxed and she turned over.
At peace.
He straightened the duvet, tucked it under her chin. To keep her warm. Safe.
He wrote her a note. Call me at the office when you wake up. Stay here and order anything you want. Bises, René
René dressed and checked the window. The usual early-evening hum—buses, pedestrians, the lingerie shops open late. He surveyed the street, for a watcher at the corner, for Tso or one of his men.
Only shoppers, resto-goers catching the bus or hurrying to the Métro. A waiter wearing a long white apron stood on the pavement under an awning smoking a cigarette.
Satisfied Meizi was safe, he leaned down, inhaled her warm, sleepy scent. Kissed her. She stirred slightly, a smile on her face.
René hung a Do Not Disturb sign from the hotel room door handle, put ten francs on the room service tray with their dirty dishes, and padded down the hall.
Saturday, 7:30 P.M.
SOMETHING NIGGLED AT Aimée. She still hadn’t pinned it down by the time she turned her key in Leduc Detective’s door. Her stomach growled. The couscous felt like a long time ago.
René sat sipping an espresso at his desk, his expression distant. Saj shot her a knowing look. Winked.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” René said. “I want to get back to Meizi.”
“So you two talked …?” She let her words trail off.
A little smile appeared on his face. “You could say that.”
She pulled out the book she’d taken from Samour’s office and thumbed to the chapter he’d bookmarked. Medieval glassmaking guilds. She set it down and lifted a fresh demitasse of espresso from their machine.
“Meizi’s safe for now.” René’s brow furrowed. “But we’re not immigration. Aimée, unless you know a higher-up and can pull strings, I don’t know how to protect her.”
The only string she could pull was Morbier’s. The wrong one. And he didn’t answer the phone.
With Meizi safe in the hotel, she had some time to figure out what to do. Fleshing out the plan to keep Tso at bay would have to wait. Right now she needed to concentrate on Samour.
“There are complications, René.” She plopped a sugar cube in her cup, stirred, and took a sip. “Samour worked for the DST, died a patriot.”
“So now he’s a patriot?” René sputtered, spilling espresso on his tie.