Impure Blood (24 page)

Voices out in the corridor told him the mid-morning shift was coming on. He could hear the short one clearly. He tried to blank her out. She didn’t matter. She would never ask him if he’d changed his mind about the TV. Not that she was lazy. On the contrary, she was all action. That was the trouble. She had no time to think of extraneous matters.

He heard another voice, sweeter, lighter. But did it belong to his beloved fat one? It didn’t sound quite like her. But they were still outside. It was too early to tell. 21.2 degrees it was. That much was certain.

The bed jolted.

‘Good morning!’ the short one said, out of his line of vision. ‘And how are we today? Let’s look, shall we?’ Riffling of paper. Pen scratches. In a lower voice she said, ‘Heartbeat is faster.’

‘Let me look.’

No! It was the horrible blue-eyed one. She hadn’t been on duty for ages. The horrible blue-eyed one who hardly ever said a word to him. Where was the fat one? Now there was no chance. The Tour was gone. No Nice stage. No Mont Ventoux. No following Contador, race number 21, all the way to Paris. It was back to watching 21.2 degrees all the way to nothingness.

But perhaps there was still a chance. Maybe the fat one would come on at lunchtime.

The short one’s face.

‘Feeling alright today?’

He blinked once.

‘Good. You’re comfortable?’

He blinked once.

‘Heart’s only marginally faster,’ the horrible blue-eyed one said. ‘Everything else looks normal.’

The short one’s face.

‘Have you had a letter from your son today?’

He blinked twice.

‘And no one’s just re-read yesterday’s to you, have they?’

He blinked twice.

Face gone. Dropped voices.

‘It’s not that, then.’

‘It’s a response to something.’

Where was his beloved fat one? He knew she would have asked about the TV.

‘He’s probably excited because you’re back,’ the short one said to the doorway – the horrible blue-eyed one had already left. ‘They all love you.’

The bed jolted as the notes went back into their scabbard.

The short one’s face.

‘Happy to see Josette again, yes?’

He thought about it. He blinked twice.

‘No? Ah – I know, you’re missing Hortense. You like her, don’t you? The large girl?’

He blinked once.

‘Well, she’s moved to another department now. So you’ll just have to make do with us!’

No, no, no. She was the only one. The only one who cared.

A heavy rolling sound. A large black screen. Flickering. Trains at a station. Flickering. A woman reading the news. Flickering. Actors in costume. Moving images, one after the other.

‘I know they don’t start riding for hours but what station is the Tour coverage on? Is this it?’

What? It couldn’t be.

On the screen, a woman stood holding a mike. A banner saying
DÉPART
fluttered across the road above her. He could hardly believe it. This was what he’d been hoping for, praying for…

‘Oh, I didn’t tell you,’ the short one said. ‘He didn’t want the TV after all.’

‘No? I’ve just brought it in here. As if I didn’t have enough…’

‘Perhaps it could go in the day room?’

‘It can’t go in there. It’s all set up so he can watch it lying here. I’ll just put it back.’

A finger jabbed at the case. The screen went blank.

Not just given and then taken away. Put right in front of him and turned on. He wanted to be dead now. It felt as if his whole hellish life had just taken one last lick of flame.

The horrible blue-eyed one’s face.

‘Are you sure you don’t want it, dear?’

Yes I do want it! But just a minute, now. This was important. How should he answer? One blink or two? Would one blink mean ‘Yes, I’m sure I don’t want it’? Or ‘No, I
do
want it’? Should he not blink at all, prompting her to reformulate the question? Too risky. She might just lose patience and take the set away. The horrible blue-eyed one was like that. Two. It should be two blinks. If she understands grammar, two blinks would mean he wasn’t sure.

He blinked twice. Her face looked as blank as the screen. Come on! Be clever enough to understand what I mean.

‘So… you do want it?’

He knew he wasn’t, but he felt he was smiling.

He blinked once.

‘You do want it after all?’

He blinked once.

‘Oh. Okay. That’s alright then.’

The horrible blue-eyed one had come through for him. The screen flickered into life once more. And in his head, so had he.

Darac swivelled up his shades as the Peugeot plunged into the
voie rapide
tunnel.

‘I’m worried by the delightful Madame Peerless,’ Granot said. ‘One word from her and the plan doesn’t work.’

‘She won’t say anything to Manou. She detests him.’

‘She detests everybody, by the look of it. She might mention our visit to him just to spite us.’

‘I don’t think so. Besides, she didn’t see us open his locker. All she saw is that we tried a key in it and it didn’t work.’

‘You’ve got a point.’

Darac’s mobile rang.

‘It’s Deanna,’ he said, glancing at the ID screen. A call from her was always significant. Coming as they emerged into the light at the end of the tunnel made it seem doubly so.

‘We’re listening, Deanna.’

‘I’ve got the low-down on Florian’s COD.’

‘Excellent.’ Darac put the phone on speaker. ‘Go for it.’

‘Florian died as a result of an intramuscular injection into his right bicep—’

‘The same bicep Madame Delage rammed with the trolley? Tell me it wasn’t her.’

‘Will you let me continue?’

‘Continue.’

‘Yes, the same bicep. The injectant was lancuronium mixed with neostigmine. The effect of the latter drug was to substantially delay the onset of the former, a lethal paralytic in the dose administered. Before you ask, I would say the injection was given between twenty to sixty minutes before death occurred.
Fin
.’

‘You are quite brilliant, Deanna. I hope you realise that.’

‘Save it – I’m busy Thursday nights.’

‘I’ll get you to one of our gigs yet. The timing seems to rule out our trolley killer doesn’t it?’

‘Indeed.’

‘How do you think the injection was given?’

‘The needle used was a very fine one so Florian might not have even felt it.’

Darac was already entertaining theories involving poison-tipped umbrellas and the like. He pitched a few of them to Deanna while Granot rang Perand and told him to abandon his questioning of Madame Delage. Once Darac’s call with Deanna had ended, he rang the duty officer, Charvet.

‘We’ve got some significant movement on the Florian case. I think we need a team meeting. Send out a call, will you? Squad room in an hour.’

In the meantime, he had some permissions to obtain from Frènes.

* * *

The mood was upbeat as teams connected to the Florian case began to assemble. Only the boss herself wasn’t there.

‘What’s happened to Agnès D.?’ Armani said, filing into the room alongside Darac and Frankie Lejeune. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’ll bet she was scared you were going to paw her again.’ He turned to Frankie. ‘All over her body, he was.’

Grinning, Granot squeezed between them. Flopping down in the seat next to Darac, he began riffling through a stack of papers.

‘All over her body?’ Frankie turned to Darac. ‘What’s this?’

‘Her feet were aching.’ He downed the industrial-sized espresso he’d brought with him and set down the cup. ‘Feet.’

Hands on hips, Frankie nodded ambiguously.

‘You gave Agnès a foot massage?’

‘Exactly! That’s all it was.’

‘All – uh-huh.’ Her large, pale-green eyes hardened slightly. ‘I worked with you every single day for nearly three years. You never did that for me.’

Armani raised his hands palms upwards.

‘Never did it for me either. And God knows I’ve asked him enough times.’

‘Remember that day up at Saint-Jeannet?’ Frankie was getting into her stride now. ‘“Hell on the rock” they called it afterwards. I would have
killed
for a foot massage at the end of that.’

‘Listen, if either of you wants to make an appointment, see my lovely assistant.’ Darac indicated Granot, who was taking a crafty sniff of his armpits.

Without looking up, the big man nodded approvingly.

‘Roses,’ he said.

Frankie shared a grin with Granot as she went to sit down.

Armani turned back to Darac.

‘Seriously, where is the boss?’

‘Having the morning off, I guess. I’m going to ring her straight after the meeting, though. Give her an update on things.’

Armani draped a crisp, cufflink-sleeved arm around Darac’s polo-shirted shoulder.

‘Just before we get going – the Tour. I’ve been thinking about your lucky number twenty-one sweepstake ticket.’

‘The one that just happens to correspond to red-hot favourite Alfredo Contador.’

‘Al
berto
. That is the one. Seventy-five euros for it. And that’s my final offer.’

‘Sorry. No can do.’

Laughter over by the window. Passing a mobile backwards and forwards over his coppery head, Bonbon was in demonstration mode with Erica Lamarthe.

‘See, my hair is so charged, it affects the signal. Look at the meter.’

‘It’s a hot spot in the room, you idiot.’

‘Oh.’ He slipped the phone into his shirt pocket. ‘You won’t believe this but you’re the only one who hasn’t fallen for it.’

‘I do believe it.’

As Darac called Bonbon over, Armani gave it one last try.

‘Be reasonable, okay? Seventy-five is a top offer.’

‘It is. But I’ve already been offered eighty.’

Granot finally found the papers he was looking for.

‘
Voilà
,’ he said, brandishing them with a flourish.

Armani shot him a filthy look as he went to join his Narco colleagues. He had no doubt Granot was the rival bidder. And the idea hadn’t even been his.

Darac took Bonbon to one side.

‘Anything useful from Marie Lacroix?’

‘Plenty.’

‘Good. I’ll open on Manou, go to Deanna, and then hand over to you, okay?’

‘Fine. Been out to buy paint yet?’

Darac gave a little shake of the head.

‘Granot thinks Angeline and I should call it a day.’

Bonbon’s eyebrows made a bid for the wire.

‘I love Granot like…’ He thought about it. ‘…somebody else’s brother. But he is to relationship advice what a sledgehammer is to a nut.’

‘Probably so.’

‘Decorate the apartment – I’m telling you.’

‘Okay but we’ll do this first, shall we?’

The buzz in the room subsided as Darac called the meeting to order.

‘Okay – there are a number of developments, so let’s get on with it. As we know, the Florian investigation has two possibly connected points of focus: one – Emil Florian’s murder by person or persons unknown; two – the probability he was involved in drug-assisted rapes. Granot and I visited Manou Esquebel’s workplace earlier. There, we found a key identical to the one Florian was trying to jettison at the time of his death – a key Esquebel was most anxious we didn’t go looking for.’

‘“There’s a place for us,”’ Armani sang, in a passable Basque accent.

‘Exactly. There’s an apartment somewhere, isn’t there? Or probably just a room that Esquebel shared with Florian for purposes we can guess. This morning, Esquebel told us that it was Florian who was the degenerate rapist and that he, Esquebel, was guilty only by association. He says he tried to persuade Florian not to go ahead with his newfound hobby and ended the relationship when he refused. We need to find the room they shared. When we do, their true activities will be clearer.’

‘So what are we going to do, chief – sweat the bastard?’ Narco Lieutenant Thierry Martinet had a face like a club hammer and a manner to go with it. ‘Esquebel will sing, given the right persuasion.’

‘Or he might not,’ Bonbon said.

‘We’ve got a better idea,’ said Darac. We’re going to release him and let him take us to the place.’

Almost asleep at his desk, young Max Perand finally sat up.

‘Follow him? It’ll have to be at some distance, won’t it?’ The smile was more of a sneer. ‘One way or another, he knows what most of us look like.’

‘I’ve already approached Cauteret at Foch. He’s giving me a good tail guy. But in the event he loses him, or if Manou Esquebel gets on to him, I want a backup. Erica – could you fit a GPS transmitter into Esquebel’s mobile?’

‘I could, but there’s one in it already. There’s one in every modern mobile.’

‘One that transmits whether the phone is on or not, I mean.’

‘Ah.’

As if the relevant calculations were written in the heavens, Erica tilted her gaze upwards.

‘Ten euros says she can,’ Armani said to the room. There were no bets.

Forehead scrunched, lips pursed, Erica nodded slowly as the solution seemed to come to her. And then she tossed the mask aside.

‘Just did that for effect. Of course I can. And hide it so he won’t be able to find it.’

Darac smiled for the first time that day. And then he felt guilty, as if escaping his cell of sadness for a moment constituted some sort of betrayal.

‘Catch,’ he said, shaping to toss her the phone.

‘I’d rather not have to repair the thing first.’

Darac handed it to Granot who passed it on.

‘We’ll probably be releasing Esquebel tomorrow evening, so how long do you think it will take you? I already have the warrant from Frènes, by the way.’

‘How long? No interruptions – four hours. Reality – twice as long. I can get straight on it.’

‘Excellent. And how precise can you make it?’