Correction, Marius Teynard realized. Jules Bourdon had left Africa … the embarkation reports from the Dakar airport were tallied once a week.
Teynard wanted to kick the fax machine to bits. And stomp on them. What did all this technological efficiency amount to when Jules Bourdon, that vermin, might already have been in Paris a week.
Monday Night
AIMÉE CAME TO IN THE parked ambulance outside Christian Figeac’s apartment.
“Treatment for smoke inhalation, burns on the palms,” a stocky blue-suited man with a crew cut was saying at her side.
She felt something hard over her mouth and looked about her. It took her a minute to realize she was in an ambulance, inhaling oxygen. Aimée watched as the bag filled, then collapsed, as if it were breathing lungfuls of air. She remembered doing this in an ambulance before, after her father’s death in the terrorist explosion.
She tore off the mask, then clutched at her throat, unable to inhale. The pompier slipped the mask back over her mouth and nose and mimed taking several deep breaths.
“Back with us?” he said, not unkindly. “Bet you never thought being a plumber would be hazardous, eh?”
She looked down. She still wore the Plomberie Delincourt uniform.
She pulled the mask aside. “I’m fine,” she gasped, still short of breath.
“Voilà, take it easy,” he said. “To dissipate the carbon monoxide, you need hi-flow oxygen.”
She let him slip the mask back on and greedily inhaled.
“That’s the way,” he said. He nodded encouragement until she’d inhaled the oxygen for a full five minutes.
“Ça va?”
She nodded and he took the mask off. Her head ached. The last thing she remembered was a whack on it from behind.
“Where’s the concierge?” she asked. The pompier, who wore a badge that read HERVE PICARD pointed across the van. The concierge, a butterfly bandage over his brow, waved at her. He chewed on a baguette sandwich.
“Hungry?”
Tightness gripped her chest, but she nodded.
“We had extras from the canteen,” the pompier said, handing her one wrapped in white waxy paper. “Just take it slow.”
“Merci,” she said. She was now able to breathe without much pain, and she was grateful for something to eat.
“We’ll watch you two tonight,” he said. “Just a precaution.”
“Not necessary,” she said, raising herself up on her elbow. Her shoulder tingled with pain and she winced. But it wasn’t dislocated. She knew the difference. It was her new tattoo, feeling as if it had been ripped raw. But she had no intention of spending the night in the hospital like the concierge. “What’s that?” she asked, looking at the graphite-colored box on the end of her finger.
“This pulsoximeter tells us your red blood cell levels,” he said, checking a ticker-tape type readout. “Your carboxy hemoglobin level was sixty-five percent. You were close to checking out. Permanently.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Just that apartment was affected,” he said.
“Only that apartment?” She sat up more slowly, rewrapped her sandwich, and stuck it in her jacket pocket.
Her chest tightened again.
But something bothered her more. She’d been hit from behind. A big welt on her head throbbed.
“Go slow,” Herve said. “You can claim workman’s comp and disability from your union. I’ll give you some forms. Patients always forget down the road.”
She didn’t want to disregard his advice; his warm blue eyes and wide smile were sincere. But she wanted to run inside the building and check to see if there was anything left.
“Merci. But I need my bag,” she said. “And I’ve got to get home.”
Hervé wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm, inserted a cold stethoscope against it, and pumped. “Can you tell me who you are, what day it is, where we are, and what happened?”
“Aimée Leduc, it’s Monday night in an ambulance in the Sentier, and I was trying to fix a plumbing problem inside the apartment.”
“A and O looks good,” he said. “Awake and orientée but the captain wanted to talk to you when you came round. See how you feel after that.”
She shrugged.
“Meanwhile, let’s get your address.”
Uh oh. If she admitted she was trying to gain entry to the apartment under false pretenses she’d be in trouble. Big trouble.
From outside, she heard raised voices. One was familiar. She recognized Christian Figeac.
“Of course, but I need to speak with the owner, he’s my friend.”
“Bien sûr, but let’s get the paperwork out of the way,” Hervé said with gentle insistence.
By the time Aimée made it out of the ambulance she’d accepted an ice pack for her head, given an address, signed a release form, and agreed to meet Hervé later for coffee. Too bad she had no intention of honoring that commitment.
Only when she reached the courtyard did she appreciate the irony. She’d have given anything to have found documents regarding her mother in the apartment, but doing so would have cost her life.
Uniformed pompiers rushed past her with more hoses, dampening the smoldering walls. A group with hatchets followed. Christian Figeac stood talking with a man who took notes and wore jeans. Either a reporter or an insurance adjuster.
White-faced, with soot smudges on his cheeks and hands, Christian seemed shell-shocked. He wore the same silver synthetic leather jacket, his hair more stringy than before. She couldn’t tell if he recognized her. The man handed him a card.
“Arson?” Aimée asked, joining them.
“Mademoiselle, after investigation the arson squad will inform us,” the man said, snapping his notebook shut. “It’s not what we’d call a typical Sentier fire. Contact me tomorrow, Monsieur Figeac.”
And he was gone.
“You see,” Christian said, turning to her, his gaze hollow. “A curse.”
“Curse?”
“Like the ghosts,” he said.
Stark halogen searchlights set by the fire crew illumined the dripping building foyer. Pompiers ran back and forth, shouting directions and releasing hose pressure.
Ghosts didn’t set fires.
She took him by the elbow to a corner of the wet, dark courtyard. Black puddles reflected the crescent fingernail of a moon.
“Tell me one thing and the answer goes no further,” Aimée whispered, pulling him closer. “Did you set that fire?”
Christian Figeac’s expression didn’t change. “You think I need the money?”
She figured that was a rhetorical question and stayed quiet.
“Money … there’s a lot,” he said, as if talking to himself, twisting his hands together. His dry skin made a raspy sound. “Accounts I never knew about.”
It wouldn’t make sense to burn the place down for the insurance if he had money.
“What did he mean by the typical Sentier fire?”
“In the rag trade,” Christian said, “say the merchant can’t sell last season’s overstock, he has a fire and collects insurance, probably makes a profit, too.”
Of course, this was different. But who could have done it?
“Would Idrissa set the fire?”
“Idrissa? She’s afraid of the spirits, I told you.” He shook her off. Anger sparked in his large eyes.
“I met her,” Aimée said. “She admitted she had worked for your father. But she was hiding something.”
Christian Figeac, clad in his thin jacket, the sleeves damp, shivered in the scant moonlight. He must have come home from jail only to find his father’s apartment burning.