“What’s that to you?” Mado scowled.
“They’re after me, too! And it’s my job.”
“Who hired you?”
Sirens blared from in front of the house.
Merde . . . Mado had called the flics!
No time to explain to them. She doubted they’d listen to her. For the second time one of the Baret sisters was blaming her. That’s all Commissaire Ronsard needed to put her in garde à vue.
“You’re as stubborn as your sister, Mado,” Aimée said. “I have to find out about Thadée. They won’t give up, and she’s next.”
Mado said, biting her lip, “An old man was asking questions. A pain in the derrière. I told him to get lost. Like I want you to.”
Old man . . . Gassot?
“What did he look like?”
“Gray hair,” Mado said. “With a wooden leg.”
Gassot!
“You’re in cahoots with him, aren’t you?”
“When you realize I want to help Sophie, let me know.”
Aimée kicked the back door open and ran. The small yard, enclosed by a rusted wire fence, was filled with wet leaves and tufts of crabgrass. The Portuguese cleaning lady next door was shaking out a carpet and beating it with a stick. A vacuum cleaner roared behind her.
Aimée waved. “I’m locked out,” she said and mimicked trying to turn a key.
But the cleaning lady bent over and whacked harder. She wore headphones and was beating in a rhythm. Aimée pulled an old wheelbarrow over to the fence, gathered her leather coat, and climbed over, ripping her stockings. The spindle-branched thorn bushes offered little protection from observation as she ran behind them. Sirens wailed from the small lane.
Beyond lay the schoolyard containing a climbing structure and a sand box. Perspiration beaded her lip despite the cold air. The flics would talk to Mado and, any second, they would come after her. At the next fence, she shoved old clay flower pots together, stepped on them, and heaved herself over. She landed on a tricycle, the handlebars bruising the arm that had needed stitches, but cushioning her fall. And then she stumbled into the sandbox.
“That’s mine,” said a serious-faced child wearing ladybug rainboots. “It’s not your turn.”
“Sorry, of course,” she stood, brushing the sand off her coat and scanning the playground. “Go ahead, take your turn.”
“Big people aren’t supposed to ride tricycles,” the child said. “I’m telling the teacher.”
Aimée didn’t like the flash of blue uniforms she glimpsed through the fence. She thought fast.
“I made a mistake, I’m here to pick up my daughter,” she said.
“You’re in the wrong place. Parents wait over there,” the little girl said.
“Of course, you’re right.”
Aimée edged toward the throng of teachers and laughing students lining up at the school gate.
“What are you doing here?” said a teacher with a clipboard. “You must wait outside, it’s the law. Who let you in?”
“Forgive me, but I had to run to le cabinet, Madame,” she said, patting her stomach. Aimée wiped the perspiration from her brow. “It’s morning sickness, but with this second one it happens all day long.”
The teacher’s eyes softened as Aimée joined the waiting parents on the curb. Aimée melted into the crowd, careful to avoid the police cars.
Thursday
RENÉ SQUIRMED ON THE dirt floor and thumped his feet. The dank chill, and the diffused light from the kerosene lantern, reminded him of the ancient cave in the Loire Valley he and his mother had camped in one August holiday. With its thick walls it stayed cool despite the heat of summer. But he hadn’t had his ankles taped up then.
“Time for pipi?” asked the gravel-voiced man.
He nodded and tried to talk but the tape over his mouth garbled his voice.
“Water?”
He nodded harder. The mec came into view, blocking the pile of bricks, and the ants still pushing their crumb. He had to get out of here.
“Let’s see, it’s been a while,” said the mec.
A while . . . more like six hours!
The mec was wearing denim overalls, snakeskin boots and his brown hair was pulled back in a stringy ponytail. He slit the duct tape binding René’s ankles with a knife and pulled René to his feet. Were they going to kill him?
“Little guys like you have an interesting sex life, eh?”
René snorted.
“What’s that?” he grinned. “Oh I forgot, you can’t speak.”
René’s cheeks burned with a searing pain as the mec ripped the duct tape off his mouth. He groaned.
“Quiet!”
“Sick. I’m going to be sick,” René whispered, his voice hoarse.
“Watch the boots,” the mec said, pushing René toward a rusted iron bucket by a pile of old newspapers. “Over there.”
René gagged. “I’m dizzy,” he gasped, heaving. “Help me.”
“Hold the wall,” said the mec, a look of disgust on his face.
“Can’t.” He gagged, spitting near the man’s boots.
“Not on the boots, dwarf, or I kick you with them.”
René heard the slow rip of duct tape and felt his wrists being freed. Numbed, tingly, but free. He leaned on the wall for support, pushed off and shot out his left leg, kicking the surprised mec in the kidney. The man doubled over. René’s next powerful straight kick landed under the mec’s chin and whipped his head back.
If his hip hadn’t throbbed so much he’d have broken the mec’s fourth and fifth rib, too. Still, he would need a hospital visit.
René flexed his short, swollen fingers, grabbed the duct tape and wound it around the mec’s mouth, hands, and feet. Then, huffing, he pulled the limp body behind the high cobwebbed pile of bricks.
Phone, where was his phone? Not on the dirt floor where there were only men’s magazines and a small notebook. He grabbed the notebook with his numbed fingers and stuck it in his pocket. He took the kerosene lantern, the fumes making his nose itch, and searched the moaning mec’s pockets. Only a pack of Gitanes. His fingers didn’t obey well, but he ran them over the packed dirt, back and forth. And near the corner they found his cell phone. With his thumb he turned it on as he stumbled toward the stairs. He punched in Aimée’s number.
He heard several clicks, then ringing. But there were footsteps on the stairs. Merde!
“I’m underground in an abri near a Bata shoe store,” he whispered and clicked the phone to silent mode.
“Hey, the beer’s cold,” said the second of his captors. “Wake up! Where are you?”
René ducked behind a rotting wood chair and felt something long, like a pole. He grabbed the end, slid it across the third to bottom step, and raised it. The chair blocked his view but he heard the whoosh of air and a loud ouf! as the man tripped and fell. Bottles crashed, spraying beer. There was a smell of malt everywhere.
Stunned, the heavy-set red-haired man sprawled on the dirt floor. René reached for his thick neck, pinched the carotid artery, and gave it a twist. The man’s head sagged. René shone the lantern on him, took the roll of duct tape, and covered his mouth with tape.
Sweat dripped between René’s shoulderblades. After binding those thick wrists he had run out of tape. He undid the man’s belt, shifting and moving the inert body until it finally came free of the man’s waist. Then he looped the belt and knotted it several times around the man’s ankles.