‘Why are you so surprised?’ Banks asked.
Jean-Claude paused, a shrimp midway between his plate and his mouth. ‘Because she is famous here, Alain. Perhaps not with the general population, though many will certainly have heard of her, but with the police for certain. She was a legend in the squad room. Did she not tell you?’
‘I know something happened here,’ Banks said. ‘Something serious involving a pimp called Darius. But that’s about all I do know.’
Jean-Claude gave him a serious look. ‘Most of the story is classified, you understand. I could not possibly tell you all the names and positions of those involved. There was a scandal. Well, a narrowly averted scandal. Very few people know the details.’
‘But you’re one of them?’
Jean-Claude inclined his head slightly. ‘I had some small involvement. To be perfectly honest, though, even I don’t know the names of the major players. They were important people, that is all I know. Government people.’
Banks tussled with an extremely recalcitrant langoustine. ‘She has a French passport.’
‘Mm. You see, I didn’t know that. Why are you interested?’
Banks told him about Zelda and Ray and the trouble with the Tadićs, Keane, and Hawkins, leaving out the murders and abductions.
Jean-Claude swallowed a mouthful of wine and said, ‘So that’s what became of her. Perhaps she is the sort of woman trouble follows around?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Banks. ‘The Tadićs are from way back in her past. They abducted her outside her orphanage as she was leaving. But this Darius business is more recent.’
‘It was just over three years ago,’ said Jean-Claude. ‘The month of March. I remember it well.’
‘Did you work the case?’
‘There was no case. And I told you, even I don’t know the full details.’
‘But you said you had some involvement. What happened?’
‘Darius was a pimp. Or perhaps that does him an injustice. His girls were all beautiful, high-class, très chic, and très expensive. With a Darius girl, it was strictly dinner at Maxim’s, then back to a suite at the George V, if you know what I mean.’
‘No matter what the price,’ said Banks, ‘the business is the same. I’d say he was a pimp.’
‘You would get no real argument from me. We knew of him, of course. He was born in Algeria and came to Paris in his late twenties. A crook from the start. He very quickly made his way up the ladder through a mixture of brutality and business acumen. His rivals seemed to have a habit of disappearing, and he was not averse to hurting the girls when he thought it necessary to keep them in line.’
‘A nasty piece of work then?’
‘Very nasty.’ Jean-Claude paused to finish the remains of his meal, ending with the last oyster, which he washed down with the Burgundy, then went on. ‘What nobody knew for quite some time was that he had a little blackmail business on the side. You know, the usuaclass="underline" photos, sometimes film, famous or highly placed victims.’
It sounded very much like what Neville Roberts had been doing back on Banks’s home patch. ‘But I thought you French were more permissive than us lot about that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t most Frenchmen have a mistress? Visit prostitutes? I seem to have read only recently about a Frenchman who died while having adulterous sex on a job-related trip, and it was classified as a “workplace accident.” ’
Jean-Claude laughed. ‘So the Frenchman’s workplace is his mistress’s boudoir? Oh, Alain. What have you been reading? Or perhaps it is the films of Vadim, Rohmer, or Truffaut that influence you? Yes, we are to a certain extent more liberal than you English as regards domestic arrangements and matters of the boudoir, but remember this was quite recent, and believe it or not, even France has been stricken by a plague of uber-morality in public life since the old days. #BalanceTonPorc — what you call #MeToo — has made its presence known here. Just look at the trouble with Roman Polanski, for example. That would never have happened a few years ago. The tide is turning. But if only that were all.’
‘There’s more?’
‘Isn’t there always? Dessert?’
Banks patted his stomach. ‘I think I’ve just about got room.’
Jean-Claude caught the waiter’s attention and ordered apple tarte tatins and Calvados for both of them. A couple of elegantly dressed French women took the next table. One of them, mid-forties, perhaps, with short, tousled brown hair, a pale oval face and full lips, wearing a cream blazer over a pale blue blouse, was particularly attractive. After they had adjusted their chairs and disposed of their handbags, she turned slightly and gave Banks a quick smile. Then they began speaking in French so fast that Banks couldn’t follow at all.
‘You were saying there’s more?’ he prompted Jean-Claude.
‘Yes. Darius’s clientele, customers, whatever you called them, were very mixed. They included men highly placed in government, ministers, prominent businessmen, even gangsters, Russian oligarchs... People in possession of closely guarded secrets. Men who, under the right circumstances, might find themselves talking out of turn.’
‘I think I know where you’re going,’ said Banks.
‘You are thinking of your Profumo affair, no doubt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you remember what President de Gaulle said about that?’
‘No.’
‘He said that’s what happens when the English try to behave like the French.’
Banks laughed. ‘But that was back in the Cold War,’ he said. ‘Russian spies and all that.’
‘Well, it is true that the objectives have changed now that the Cold War is over, but the game remains the same. Darius had some highly placed customers, and some of his most beautiful girls were Russian. Trafficked girls, we suspect. Pillow talk is what it is, and money is always a good incentive for loose tongues. Only this time the matter exchanged involved business dealings, stocks and shares and takeovers, rather than weapons and military or political strategy.’
‘And Zelda’s part?’
‘Your Zelda was one of Darius’s favourites. Apparently, she was also very smart and she knew what was going on. And she spoke fluent Russian. Like your Pretty Woman film, one client came into her life and fell in love with her, what you would call a cabinet minister, with special responsibilities involving criminal intelligence and the police in general. My boss. Like your Home Secretary. He wanted her to change, wanted them to go away together. He was going to leave his wife and children for her.’
‘Emile?’ said Banks, remembering Zelda’s journal.
‘Yes. You know this? You know the full story?’
Banks glanced at the woman at the next table. She was in animated conversation with her friend and was paying not the slightest attention to him and Jean-Claude. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just a few fragments. Please go on. I promise not to interrupt again.’
‘When this... Emile... had an idea of what was going on, he devised a scheme. If Nelia could somehow get to Darius’s cache of blackmail material — especially the audio tapes — and either destroy it or hand it over to him, she would become a heroine of the French people. In secret, of course, as all the best heroes and heroines are.’
‘And here’s me thinking they were posthumous.’
‘Cynic. Well, not in this case.’
‘So how did it go wrong?’
‘It didn’t. Not until the end.’ He glanced around to make sure nobody was paying attention. They weren’t. ‘None of this was for public consumption, but according to Nelia’s statement in camera, Darius came in while she was removing the documents from his safe. He saw what she was doing and attacked her, tried to kill her. In the struggle, she managed to grab a knife from the table and stabbed him several times. Then, when he was weakened and incapacitated, she slit his throat, just to make sure he was dead.’