Her head hurt. Her brief period of sight with no depth perception, the resulting lack of balance had disoriented her. But she gathered her bag, thinking back to the layout she’d seen. Unease lingered in her mind. She didn’t want to ask Mathieu for help.
All she could think of was that awful choking. No air. Having to walk there alone, again. Her hands went to the dressing still on her neck, covered by a scarf.
“Excuse me, Mathieu,” she said. “My partner’s waiting.”
Mathieu guided her to the door. She refused his offer of further help. She stretched her hands out, felt the cold stone, and took small steps, guiding herself along the wall.
The passage felt much warmer than on the night she’d been here. Noises of trucks, the chirp of someone’s cell phone, and the smell of espresso came from somewhere on her left.
Something gnawed at her. Stuck in the back of her mind. But what was it? Immersed in the fear and frustration of blindness, had she missed details . . . important ones?
Now it all came back: the dankness from the lichen-encrusted pipes, the dark sky pocked with stars, the cell phone call’s background noise, the tarlike smell of the attacker.
She felt sick . . . had it been Mathieu? Had he thought she was Josiane?
“René?” she said, hearing the familiar Citroen engine.
“Door’s open.”
She smelled the leather upholstery he’d oiled and polished. And what smelled like fresh rubber latex.
“Put these gloves on and feel this.” She felt René thrust latex gloves in her lap, then what felt like a glass tube.
The car shuddered as he took off down the street.
“Wait . . .” She wanted a cigarette. And for the fireworks to subside in her head. Her pills. She’d forgotten to take them. She found the pill bottle inside her pocket, uncapped it, and popped two pills. Dry.
“Let’s stop. I need water and a pharmacy.” As the Citroën sped down cobbled streets, Aimée was glad for the smooth suspension.
René pulled up at the curb. “Here’s a pharmacy. Let me . . .”
“I’ll manage,” she said, feeling her way on the sidewalk. “How many steps to the door?”
But the doors opened automatically. Pharmacy smells and warm air enveloped her. Now if only she could find the tar shampoo. The one the attacker smelled of. She took small steps and listened for voices.
“May I help you, mademoiselle?” said an older woman.
“Water, please,” she said. She smelled floral bouquet soap. “Am I near the shampoo?”
“Keep going, end of the aisle, on your right.”
Aimée felt slick plastic bottles, smooth boxes, and more perfumed smells. Not what she looked for.
“Madame, what about the medicinal shampoos?”
“Here’s your water,” the woman said, grasping Aimée’s hand, putting a cold bottle in it. “Right here. Which one would you like?”
She craned her neck forward, sniffing the boxes. Both rows. And then she smelled it. “This one. What’s it called?”
“Aaah, super-antipelliculaire shampoo. This one really fights dandruff. Tar-based. It’s the most effective.”
“Merci, madame.” She paid for the water and shampoo and edged her way back to René’s car.
“What was all that about?” asked René.
“Whoever attacked me has dandruff,” she said. “And uses this shampoo.”
“Him and thousands of others,” said René.
“It’s a start,” she said. “How often does it say to shampoo?”
“Once a week, but for increased effectiveness, every three days,” said René.
“Then he’s about due if he’s conscientious.”
She dialed Morbier’s line.
“Commissaire Morbier’s attending a refresher training course in Créteil,” said the receptionist.
So he’d gone. What about that explosives case he’d mentioned? He’d always said he was too old a dog to learn new tricks.
Didn’t he care? Deep down she’d thought maybe he’d . . . what? Give up his caseload and devote himself to her? That wasn’t Morbier.
Morbier always struggled with his emotions. Even when her father died. He’d avoided seeing her in the burn hospital after the explosion.
And though she wasn’t surprised, it had hurt.
What more could she do?
She wanted to avoid faxing their information about Vaduz to Bellan. Too many prying eyes in the Commissariat. Maybe he wasn’t back yet from Brittany? Lieutenant Nord had promised he’d call her.
Right now she had to concentrate on what René wanted to show her.
“Why don’t we check Dragos’s bag?”
René parked at tree-lined Place Trousseau. Aimée rolled down the window of his Citroen. A police siren reverberated in the distance; the gushing of water and the noise of plastic rakes scraping over the stone sounded in the background.
She inhaled the soft, autumn air tinged by dampness. Sounds of crackling leaves and a dog’s faint bark reminded her of why she loved this time of year.
“What does the bag look like, René?”
“Dirty natural canvas, D.I. stitched on the inside of the flap,” he said. “Long strap. You know, the ones people drape around themselves on motorcycles.”
Common and available everywhere. She pulled the latex gloves on, finger by finger, an arduous process. It reminded her of when she was little and her grandfather insisted she put her winter mittens on by herself. Never mind that she couldn’t see where her fingers were going.
“Tell me what you see,” she said.
“Better yet,” said René. “Open your hands.”
“No guessing games.”
Too late. Again she felt a long, glass-hard tube. Then another. “Feels like a beaker. From a laboratory. Any markings?”
“Just worn red lines indicating measurements.”
She smelled a cloth exuding stale sweat.
“Can you describe this?”
“That’s a bandanna, here’s some used Métro tickets, a stick of cassis chewing gum,” said René, “a roll of black masking tape and a flyer for the Chapel of the hôpital Quinze-Vingts.”
“Does the flyer have a map?”
“Non, but isn’t the Chapel on the right of the hospital as you enter?”
Now she remembered. She’d seen it, rushing by in the rain, parallel with the disused Opéra exit. The Chapel was tall, medieval-walled. In the centime-sized courtyard before the Chapel, large blue doors led to rue Charenton. A shortcut to Vincent’s office.
But the doors had been locked. So, in the pouring rain, she had kept on to the hôpital entrance, the remnant of the Black Musketeers’ barracks, surmounted by a surveillance camera.
Her thoughts spun. So easy for someone, if they had a key, to avoid the main portal. Or to jimmy the lock mechanism and avoid the surveillance camera.
“Why would Dragos have this flyer? You wouldn’t suppose a thug for hire and dope seller would be religious.”
“Says here one of the first French cardinals has a crypt there,” he said. “The holy water font was commissioned by the nuns of the Abbaye Royale de Saint-Antoine.”
The scratch of the streetcleaner’s broom receded in the background. She heard the whirr of the small, green pooper-scooper truck, and exclamations from the pedestrians it dodged on the pavement.
“Could Dragos have killed Josiane? But the man who called spoke without an accent, and he knew her. I’m sure of it,” she said. The thoughts spun faster and faster. “If Dragos is newly arrived he’d have a Romanian accent. And the field’s specialized. Hired thugs, muscle men, aren’t hit men, right? We’ve been through this before.”
“If you say so,” said René. “But the Chapel’s right there. Dragos could have gone into it on his lunch hour. No, wait, it says here it’s only open one Thursday a month for services.”