“Then yes.”
“Excellent, I'll choose.” She hummed quietly as she picked out two pizzas for them to share, and when the waiter arrived, ordered them and a carafe of red wine. They sat in silence for a while, watching the evening parade. The café across the street filled and emptied rhythmically, just as theirs did, as office workers dodged traffic on the narrow but busy street, fresh baguettes sticking out of backpacks and shoulder bags. Many of those who passed the café peered into it with a look that said, I'd be there, too, if I had time.
“Oh, Hugo,” Claudia said. “I completely forgot to tell you.” She paused as the waiter arrived with their pizzas. It took some rearranging, but he managed to find space on the little table for them, and for the plates and wine. When he left she continued. “I can't believe I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” he said.
“The river police pulled a body from the water today. A bouquiniste.”
“Really?” A knot formed in his stomach, but if it was Max she wouldn't be telling him like this. “Who? What happened?”
“Right now they're treating it as an accident. They say she's pretty well known as a drinker, so she probably had a few too many trying to stay warm, took a turn by the water's edge, and fell in.”
“She?” Hugo felt the knot tighten. “An alcoholic?”
“Yes,” Claudia said. “And wearing a lot of very heavy wool clothing, so once she fell in it would have been hard for her to stay afloat, let alone climb out. Very sad.”
Hugo sat back. “Do you know her name?” he asked quietly.
“No.” She shook her head. “They told me but I can't remember, sorry.”
“Was it Francoise Benoit?”
“Yes, that's it,” Claudia said, surprised. “You know her?”
“Yes,” said Hugo. “I sure did.”
She was the first one to be honest with me, he wanted to say. She was the only one who cared enough about Max to speak up and send me in the right direction. He recalled Benoit's mottled face, watery eyes, and too-sweet breath. She may not have been healthy, may not even have been long for the world, but this wasn't supposed to happen, Hugo thought. And with a stab of regret he realized that if, somehow, Max was still alive, when he found out about Francoise Benoit's death the old man would be devastated.
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning, Hugo woke early. He checked through his packed bag one last time and waited for his taxi to the Montparnasse rail station. He'd arranged the cab the previous night, after dinner, at the same time as he called one to take Claudia home.
They had, finally, talked about their situation, such as it was. She'd been surprised, and then curious, about Hugo's lack of resentment toward her father. He'd explained as best he could that a life chasing bad guys had taught him that there were, in reality, very few of them in this world. Mostly, he told her, good people did things that could be classed as good, bad, and everything in between. On the scale of possibilities, her father had done nothing but try to protect his daughter. And while she'd lied to him about her “humble origins,” it was a harmless lie and one that lay in reason. The simple truth, one that he didn't articulate over coffee, was that he wasn't looking to get married and was keeping his expectations in check. She was surprised and pleased by his graciousness, or so she said, and he knew that when they parted the air was clear. She climbed into her cab just before eleven, but before she left they shared a hug of genuine warmth and, he sensed, a certain amount of relief. He knew they could have gone back to his apartment, but he also knew that tonight was a new beginning. And no need to hurry.
As promised, Tom wasn't home when he got in. Hugo called and told him about the morning's taxi, said not to worry if he couldn't make it in time. And when Hugo's taxi arrived, just after seven, there was no sign of, or word from, Tom.
On the ride to the station he studied the two pages Emma had prepared for him. Cecilia Josephine Roget lived in a small village called Bielle, about twenty miles south of the city of Pau in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of France. It was Basque country, in the lea of the Pyrénées mountains and not far from the Spanish border.
Years ago, Hugo had spent two weeks in the region studying the antiterrorist techniques of the French and Spanish police, who had waged a quiet but bloody war with the Basque separatist group ETA since the late 1960s. He remembered it as some of the most beautiful countryside he'd ever seen, underdeveloped and with huge swathes of it protected by the French government as parkland. Few foreign tourists knew about it and fewer still took the time to visit. As a capitaine in the provincial police had told him, the British preferred the sun and sand of the Riviera, the Americans fell for the cultivated cuteness of Provence, and the Japanese rarely made it out of Paris.
A motorcycle raced past the cab window, startling him, and he put the papers down, unable to concentrate. The news about Francoise Benoit had shaken him more than he would have predicted. Death had simply been off his radar screen for too long and its reappearance like this had been a nasty reminder of the black side of his profession…and an even more unpleasant reminder of what may have happened to Max.
Claudia had been open to the idea that Benoit's death was more than an accident but told Hugo what he already knew: the detectives investigating the drowning had to follow the evidence, not supposition. Hugo himself tried to see both sides; he'd smelled her early morning breath, had seen the heavy clothing that she wore. And would someone really commit murder in broad daylight in the middle of Paris? Unfortunately, he knew they would. A quick shove while under another one of the bridges, the water low so she'd be invisible from the walkway alongside it. And how long for her to slip under? Seconds, Hugo knew. Just seconds.
The cab let him out in front of Montparnasse station and Hugo battled against the flow of traffic, making his way to the arrivals and departures board to find his platform. A taped, hollow-sounding security announcement echoed around him and every few seconds train numbers and destinations clicked on to and off of the board with a tchk-tchk-tchk. His train sat waiting at platform 3, giving him thirty minutes to get his ticket and board. But like most experienced travelers, he knew to buy his breakfast and lunch for the five-hour trip at one of the station's cafés — the coffee was decent enough in the dining car, but too many times Hugo had paid the railway premium for sandwiches that were rubbery in look, feel, and taste.
Hugo's first-class ticket gave him space in a compartment that turned out to be empty. As the train left the dense suburbs and picked up speed, the muffled chatter of the wheels beneath him blanketed the compartment in its own white noise, the occasional whump of a passing train and bleat of a whistle barely registering. Its gentle rock and the lure of a new novel — full of prewar subterfuge — quickly veiled the outside world. He sank deeper into his book and was transported to 1937 to witness the bravery of an English bookseller in Berlin as she foiled the Nazis by producing counterfeit passports for fleeing Jews. Time and the countryside passed by unnoticed.
The drive from the Pau train station to Bielle was, as Hugo knew it would be, a delight. He'd rented a car for two days but told the agent he might keep it longer. “It's winter,” the man said, “keep it as long as you like.”
Hugo drove out of the station with the windows down and the heater on full. Clumps of snow lined the roadway but the pavement itself was clear and dry. He'd not realized how stuffy the train had been until he'd stepped outside to get the car, and he'd not yet had his fill of the dry, cold air.
He drove slowly, but the curved roads soon brought him through Jurançon and into Gan. Once through the little town, he hit a straight stretch of road lined with plane trees and bordered by open land and the occasional farmhouse. Eventually his nose began to freeze, and he closed the window most of the way, leaving just an inch at the top for the air to stream in and ruffle the top of his head.