“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.