Impure Blood (22 page)

‘Some guy I met had ID photos of the Narc and Cock squads. A full set with names and everything. And a couple of other people who work here. Not you or your little ferrety friend, in case you’re wondering. I would’ve remembered.’

Darac pursed his lips. The story had the ring of truth. But how the hell had anybody gained access to them? Records had never suffered a break-in, as far as he knew. A hacker? Erica had once told him no police file was hack-proof. Another, less technical possibility suggested itself.

‘Who was this guy you met?’

‘Just some piece of meat off the Ajaccio ferry. One-night stand. I came across the shots when I was going through… when he was asleep. I thought they might come in useful so I took photos of them on my phone.’

‘How had he come by them?’

‘You think I asked him? It’s obvious though, isn’t it?’ Manou rubbed his thumb over his fingertips. ‘Someone here took a nice backhander, didn’t he?’

That was probably true, too. An inquiry would have to be launched. On top of everything else.

‘You’ve heard about Florian, I gather.’

‘What about him?’

‘That he’s dead.’

‘Yeah, I heard that. Too bad.’

‘And you didn’t do it?’

‘Pur-lease.’

‘Well, we can go into that in just a little more detail later. The photos you mentioned. Did you show them to Florian?’

‘I didn’t even know Emil then. I met him the month after.’

‘But you showed them to him eventually. Why?’

‘I don’t know. Just a bit of… show and tell, you know. To pass the time.’

‘“If you ever see these guys, pour the stuff away quick.” That the idea?’

‘No.’ Manou was outraged. ‘No way.’

Things were starting to cohere. As Darac had already begun to suspect, it was Armani Tardelli’s appearance on Rue Verbier that had been the catalyst for the prayer-meeting scenario.

‘Who do you think killed Emil?’

‘Dunno.’

‘His older brother, perhaps?’

Manou’s eyebrows became part of his hairline.

‘He had a brother? First I’ve heard of it.’

‘I repeat. Who do you think killed Emil?’

‘I’ve got no idea. And I tell you something else. I don’t care.’

‘You don’t care?’ Darac shook his head. ‘I’ve seen quite a few photos of you two together. You looked close. And unless he got rid of them, there were no photos of anyone else before you.’

‘No. I was the first proper lover he’d had.’ The miniature muscle man looked horribly coy, suddenly. ‘He wasn’t the first to think he was straight before he met me.’

‘So you turned him on to all sorts of new pleasures?’

‘Did I ever. And he was very good to me. Better than anybody else has been.’

‘Really? He didn’t have you move in with him. And although he put a few sticks of cast-off furniture into your place, it’s not the same as setting you up in a nice little love nest, is it?’

‘He was a school teacher, not a fucking millionaire. Anyway, I like L’Ariane.’

‘You like L’Ariane. And you loved Emil. And now you don’t care who killed him.’

Manou shifted uncomfortably, then leaned forward, putting his hands palms together between his knees.

‘That was before… That was before.’

Darac was still sitting back almost horizontally in his chair.

‘Before what?’

‘Before we split. Nothing lasts for ever. It was over. Finito.’

The held-down organ note grew louder.

‘Relationships end for a reason. What was it?’

Manou sat back, crossed his arms and began tapping his foot.

‘I just… got tired of him.’

Darac had Madame Griet’s material to work with. It was time to take it and improvise.

‘Because his timid ways were a liability on the street? How did you work it, Manou? You join in with a bunch of kids skateboarding, playing football – whatever. You’re an overgrown street kid yourself so you fit right in. You gain their confidence easily…’

This was all too fast for Manou. Shaking his head, he began to squirm.

‘…As the game goes on, everybody gets hotter – especially you because you’ve got your eye on one kid in particular. You wait until he’s had enough and decides to go. This is where Florian comes in. You need him to turn up with the GHB water because you don’t want to carry the stuff yourself. You’re much too smart for that…’

‘No. No. It’s not true.’

‘…There’s no sign of the police faces you both know so well, so as you walk off the pitch, you turn to the kid you’ve picked out and say: “Listen, I know that old guy – we can blag a few euros off him, come on.” You and the kid go over to your timid benefactor for a moment…’

‘It’s a fucking lie. It never happened. Ever!’

‘…“Here, gimme some of that water, I’m hot,” you say, grabbing it out of his pocket. You pour some over your head. Maybe you feign drinking some. You pass it to the kid…’

Manou got to his feet, the veins in his arms and neck rope-taut.

‘No!’

‘…The kid drinks. I don’t need to tell you what happens next, do I? Did you get to go first or did Florian? Maybe you alternated.’

Just as it seemed Manou might come apart, he found something. Focussing his eyes into the distance, he set his feet shoulder-width apart and began taking even breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

‘This is one weight you can’t lift. The weight of your own guilt.’

The words should have worked like punches, but rehearsing his pre-lift drill had helped Manou. When he sat down, he seemed a degree or two calmer.

‘It’s. Not. Fucking. True.’

‘I repeat. Who do you think killed Florian? A parent of one of your joint victims? Maybe a brother?’

‘I don’t know who killed him. All I know is I never did anything.’

‘You never did anything…’

‘Fuck off! Alright?’

‘We’ve shown a photo of Florian to a lot of people. Our opening question was a very simple one: “Have you ever seen this man?”’ Darac sat forward and opened Madame Griet’s file. ‘Here’s an eyewitness statement by someone who had seen him. Dated and signed. Last Saturday morning at about ten o’clock, this witness saw Florian standing outside La Masarella watching a football game – just as I described earlier.’

Manou began chewing the inside of his mouth.

‘This time though, the routine didn’t go smoothly. Florian got the bottle of water stuck in his jacket.’ Madame Griet could help no further. Darac was on his own. ‘But he got it out eventually, didn’t he? After it was all over, our witness reports… now what’s the exact quote?’ Darac consulted the statement, moving his finger over a line. ‘Yes, here… “I saw the boy walking across the lobby. He looked sick and drowsy. Too much exertion in the sun, I thought. But now, I realise what had really happened. He’d been drugged.” And there’s more.’ To preserve her anonymity, Darac obscured Madame Griet’s name with one hand as he rose and showed the page to Manou. ‘You can’t dispute it. It’s here in black and white – look.’

Manou’s eyes slid across the page like bald tyres on ice. After some moments, Darac withdrew it, sat back and fixed him with a hard, level stare.

‘You raped that boy together and no doubt you raped others. We’ll find them and then you are going down for a long time.’

‘I never did it! I told you, I never used GHB for anything but bodybuilding.’ His voice took on a more urgent, intense tone. ‘Listen – I’ve been no angel since I was fourteen years old. And I like it that way. But I’ve never raped anybody. I’ve never fucked a
kid
. Men are what I go for.’ Tears now. ‘You’ve got to believe me.’

‘So it was just Emil.’

Ears cocked, Granot appeared in the doorway. Darac beckoned him in. There was a look suspects adopted before confessing: a sort of fear-relieving resignation. Sensing that such a moment was coming, neither of them said a word.

Manou dried his eyes with the heels of his hands.

‘Emil…’ The word was dredged up as if from a pit of hatred. ‘Emil was… mad for young boys. “Cherub meat”, he called them. “Moist little morsels.” He had seen videos by the score but that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted the real thing. But he was way too scared to do anything about it. Then he read somewhere about GHB. The answer to a prayer, he called it. Especially as he knew I used the stuff.’ He looked at Darac with a sort of injured pride. ‘He thought I would join in. He was wrong. He thought I would at least give him some of the stuff so he could do it. He was wrong again. So the bastard stole some from me. Mixed my pots up when I wasn’t looking. I never gave him any help. Ever, understand? I’m not… an accessory to anything he did. I told him not to do it or we were finished.’

Darac ran a hand through his hair.

‘So a whiter than white, straight schoolteacher meets you. Two years later, that same man is drugging boys so he can rape them?’

‘Yes! That is exactly it.’

‘Did you ever witness him committing rape?’

‘No. I told you. I didn’t even know he had finally done it until you read out that eyewitness report.’

Granot gave Darac a look. He knew no neighbour had reported anything half so incriminating.

‘What did he say had happened that morning, then?’

‘Nothing, according to him. Once he’d fucked up the pass, he went back into the city, he said. Lying bastard.’

Darac had little doubt that that was what had happened.

‘The
pass
?’ he said. ‘That sounds pro.’

Manou gave him a look that would have played to the rear stalls at the opera.

‘I know words for stuff you wouldn’t believe but it doesn’t mean I do them.’

Granot caught Darac’s eye. He nodded, putting him in.

‘Where were you when all this was happening?’

Manou seemed happier with life, suddenly.

‘I’m so glad you came in, big boy. I was waiting for
him
to ask me that. I wasn’t at the apartments last Saturday morning. Not at the time you said. You can check.’

‘We will. Check with whom?’

‘I worked from eight to eight in the evening at Peerless.’

‘Driving a cab? By no means a perfect alibi.’

‘That’s where I’ve got you, again. From eight until two, I was in the squawk box.’

‘What’s that – some sort of club?’

‘Are you listening to me? I was working. The squawk box is what we call the booth at the back of the office. I was taking walk-ins, answering calls, organising the drivers. Six hours straight, I did that.’

Darac picked up the baton.

‘Point by point through your questioning, you’ve denied anything that might incriminate you until we’ve shown it was pointless to persist. And all through, you have been at pains to dissociate yourself from Florian. You even maintained you hadn’t seen him for months at the beginning. Remember?’

‘I would still be denying it now if somebody hadn’t seen him and the kid last Saturday. What do you expect? I knew you would think we were in it together. And what with him being a teacher and everything, I knew you’d think it was me who’d tried to talk
him
into it. Especially as I had the GHB.’

‘We’ve only got your word for it that you didn’t. Florian’s dead. You know you can say what you like about him.’

‘But I wouldn’t do. You’d catch me out. Being such clever boys.’

The air conditioner suddenly made a sound like a labouring helicopter. Darac reached back and slapped it with a practised hand. It whined for a moment, then resumed level flight.

‘And so-ooo butch.’ Manou was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Yowzer.’

‘Records show you took a phone call from Florian last thing on Thursday evening,’ Darac continued. ‘Recount the conversation.’

‘Can I have a coffee? That’s not what he said. I just want one.’

‘Answer the question.’

Manou sighed extravagantly, a performance that made Granot squirm. Manou the hard man, he could tolerate. Manou the queen, he couldn’t. ‘I’m not anti-gay,’ he’d once said to Darac. ‘But camp makes me really grit my teeth.’ He was feeling that way now.

‘Am I getting under your skin, darling?’ Manou was enjoying himself more and more. ‘Good, because I dreamt you got under mine last night.’ He rolled his tongue around his lips. ‘You weren’t very caring, you naughty boy.’

Granot’s teeth were gritted practically to stumps. But he knew better than to rise to the bait.

‘Just answer the question.’

Another deep sigh.

‘We-ell… because of the way things were going, I told Emil it was all over between us. He told me not to be so silly.
Him
tell
me
that! He said he wouldn’t involve me in any of it so all I had to do was turn a blind eye. I promised I would never shop him but it didn’t change anything. It was over. Then he said, no, we were meant for each other and he would buy me a nice present to prove it. I said he could buy all the presents he liked, it wouldn’t make a difference. I put the phone down, saying I was never going to speak to him again. And I was as good as my word. If you’ve got records, you’ll know he rang me yesterday about noon – right? I was in at home, working out. When I saw whose number it was, I didn’t bother answering.’ He smiled triumphantly. ‘But you know that already, don’t you?’

‘We don’t know you were at home when you got that call, do we?’ Granot said. ‘You could have been standing right next to Florian.’

‘But I fucking wasn’t. Alright?’

‘In that Thursday-night call, did Florian mention what plans he had for the day after? What he intended to do?’

‘No. I’m getting bored with you, Fattie.’ He turned to Darac. ‘Where’s that coffee? You’ve got a machine there.’

It was time to put the squeeze on.

‘Let’s go back to the previous Saturday morning,’ Darac said. ‘If Florian had succeeded in drugging that boy, where would he have taken him?’

Manou sat upright.

‘What’s this? You told me he
did
succeed. That eyewitness saw the kid…’

‘We don’t know all the facts. Maybe the boy did have heat stroke, after all. I repeat the question. Where would he have taken him? Your apartment?’

Pinball.

‘Might have.’

‘So how was he going to get in? You were out and no key to your place was found on Florian or among his effects.’