He pulled up a stool for her in front of another deck of video machines and monitors. He straddled another, turned down the stereo’s volume.
“Why film, if you don’t mind my asking?” Aimée said.
He sat back, reflective. “Because I don’t have the words like you journalists do to express this. He gestured to the wall. “Suffering, injustice.” He shrugged. “I’m bankrupt in that department. I envy you lot, if you must know. So I film, searching for the essence—the look, the gesture, a glimpse into a window that speaks volumes.”
Some underlying pain drove him. She sensed it. And she felt even guiltier for impersonating a journalist.
She put that aside; she had to keep her goal in mind. A woman had been murdered, and Nelie was in hiding. And there was Stella.
He leaned forward, leaving a sandalwood scent in his wake. The warmth in the studio crept up her legs.
“Et alors, just raw footage, haven’t had time to edit it yet. Bear with me until I find the march.” He inserted a cassette into one of the two videotape recorders, hit Rewind, and switched on the monitor. The whir of winding competed with the spattering of rain against the windows. “Anything or anyone specific you’re looking for?” he asked.
A dead woman. Talk about rewinding a ghost. A glimpse of the mother with her baby. Something.
She pulled out the photo she’d taken from Krzysztof’s flat and set it on the smooth aluminum counter. His knuckles clenched so hard they turned white.
“Do you know them?” she asked. “Friends of yours?”
“What happened makes me sick,” he said. “I’ve documented this movement from its inception.”
“Do you know either of these women?”
He nodded. “Demonstrations, sit-ins. . . . I’m sure I’ve seen them.” He pointed. “Oui, her.”
Nelie.
“I’d like to talk with her.”
“Me, too,” he said. “She borrowed my old Super 8. Promised to give it back a few days ago. But I’m still waiting. Why do you want to interview her?”
“Were they both at the demonstration?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I think so. Bedlam, chaos—that’s what I saw.”
“Wasn’t she involved with the roadblock at La Hague?” Aimée hoped this would draw him out.
Silence, except for the rain beating on the skylight.
Keyed up, she said. “I know she’s in trouble. Hiding.”
He studied her, the scent of sandalwood stronger, his teeth just visible between his half-parted lips.
“Journalists protect their sources, right?”
“Always.” At least that’s what Martine had told her.
“I have connections to the network.”
“Network?”
“The network that helps people who have to lie low. Know what I mean? I can help Nelie.”
She was about to tell him about the baby, but something prevented her. She just nodded.
“But you need to keep this confidential; it’s a clandestine highway,” he said. “If you should make contact with Nelie, let me know.”
First she’d have to find her. “Did you see any bottle bombs at the march?” she said.
“In every struggle, there are power shifts within organizations. Right now,” he said, pointing his finger at the photo, “the MondeFocus people think this mec’s a saboteur.”
Krzysztof. That fit with what Brigitte said.
“He planted the bottle bombs, right?” she said.
She figured he’d shown up at the morgue to see for himself if Orla’s body had been the outcome.
“Who knows?” Claude said with a shrug. “I just document and record the moment.”
The videotape clicked to a stop. He hit Play. A rainbow bar code showed on the monitor, then dots of candlelight, dark figures. Blue light from police cars swept the crowd. Faces were blurred. There were shouts. Then a close-up of bushes, leaves, sprays of water. Action too rapid to make sense of. Feet, a leg. Truncheons raised in the air.
“That’s it,” Claude said. “Water damage, I think. Residue and condensation corrode magnetic tape.”
Disappointed, she slumped back. Rain drummed on the roof harder now, the rhythm of the Clash bassist throbbing in juxtaposition.
“Can you slow the tape down?”
He nodded. Ran it again.
“Any way you could enhance this, magnify it, or go frame by frame?”
“Video’s not like film, with twenty-four frames a second.”
“Sorry, but does that mean you can’t isolate images?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said. “Unlike film, video’s written on magnetic tape in interlacing lines of resolution, converted into an electronic signal like a wave written in odd and even stripes on the mag tape. Much faster than film, too, at sixty images per second. So it can’t be isolated without capturing part or half of the preceding or following image as well.”
He hit Pause, then Play, adjusting a jog shuttle dial on the keyboard. “Look, notice the blue flickering, the gray line below?”
She nodded.
“That flickering, twitching effect shows the degradation. Really, it’s showing part of the next image. It is impossible to isolate one movement. See what I mean?”
She did. The blurred tape showed her little. Another dead end.
He sat back, glancing at his watch. “Give me a few hours. I’ll work on the color contrast and saturation, using a processor to boost the sound. I’ll see what I can do.”
A pool of water had dripped from her feet onto the hardwood floor beneath them.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. Again, apologizing. She reached for a rag by the large porcelain sink and mopped it up.
“Any other proof that this Krzysztof sabotaged MondeFocus’s demonstration?” Aimée asked.
“I like him. It’s not my place to say anything.” He paused, hands in the pockets of his torn denims.
Was this some code of honor not to tell on fellow activists?
“Did anything strike you as odd at the vigil? Did Krzysztof seem out of sync?”
He shrugged.
She figured he’d said as much as he would.
He switched off the video camera. Then paused. “It was odd the CRS knew about the bottle bombs but the demonstrators didn’t.”
More than odd. She filed that away for later and tried another angle.
“Would any of the demonstrators know Nelie’s whereabouts?”
“Ask Brigitte.”
She was wasting his time—and hers—now. Better go.
“I’ll call you later to get a copy of the enhanced tape.”
Again, she saw that lost look. Vulnerable, at sea. A maverick bad-boy type looking for a life raft. Her.
“How about a verre?” He gestured to a bottle of Chinon, half full, and pulled out the cork. “Until your clothes dry.” He jerked his thumb toward the window. Water ran from the gutters nonstop.
Thirty minutes until her next appointment if she hurried. His sandalwood scent and dark eyes were appealing. She stepped closer. Then caught herself. She shouldn’t get involved. Couldn’t.
“Merci,” she said, accepting the ballon of rouge. She sipped it. Flowery, notes of juniper, hint of berry. Nice. Expensive. Out of her price range. Like everything else until the check from Regnault cleared.
She sat on the stool.
“You got me thinking, you know, why I do this. Film.” He sat. “Call me a red-diaper baby, my mother did. So proud of it, too. She was steward of the Lyon railway trade union.”
Aimée nodded. Lyon, capital of unions, the staunch labor movement stronghold. She knew the milieu, figured he’d grown up in a working-class socialist household.