Jacquot and the Waterman (60 page)

Twenty minutes later, at the end of one of his favourite

arias, eyes closed, Benedict's peace was interrupted by the babble of a news bulletin. The usual things - war, famine, corporate greed, political wrangling. Benedict let it all wash over
him,
unwilling to get up from his lounger and find another station, knowing that the music would start again soon enough.

But then the newscasters voice dipped in a way that caught Benedict's attention. Some final piece of significant news had yet to be imparted. Something domestic. Something that mattered. A double tragedy was the handle here, a murder and suicide in Marseilles.

And then, something that made Benedict frown - a name he recognised. But before he could properly access the information, the bulletin was over and the music began again.

Benedict hauled himself from the lounger, walked through to the salon and switched on the TV. Longer than the radio bulletin, the TV news was still going over the latest peace accords in the Middle East. Benedict went through to the kitchen, refilled his glass, then returned to the salon.

When the story came, it occupied Benedict's full attention, the pictures flitting across the screen. When it finished, tiredness and the last of his jet lag suddenly kicked in and he felt drained. He turned off the TV and radio, closed the terrace doors and went up to bed, the sheets crisp, cool and welcoming.

At three o'clock the next morning, nine in the evening New York time, Benedict sat up in his bed, reached for the phone and punched in a number.

When the connection was made, he got straight to the point.

'Tina? It's Max.
Listen …'

ense. Relax.

ense. Relax. Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven . . . . . . ninety-eight. . . . . . ninety-nine . . . Three thousand.

Coupchoux let his fingers ease off the steering wheel, felt the muscles in his arms sing. A gentle, pleasurable ache. A curious weightlessness to his arms as he let go the wheel and wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. He clenched his hands into fists, felt the whitened fingers creak, the blood flow. He straightened his back and flexed his shoulders, stretching the tightness away.

Three thousand. Not bad. He wondered what he should do next: calves, diaphragm or lower back? He had a dozen or more exercises he could do behind the wheel of a car to keep himself occupied - and fit. But Coupchoux also knew that he had to be careful. One time, he'd done too many reps on his upper thighs and when he got out of the car he'd nearly crumpled to the sidewalk. It must have looked funny to anyone passing by, his stumbling around like that, but it made him cross. He'd left it too late to loosen up, and he'd nearly got the hit wrong. It was like he was using someone else's body, his reactions a couple of beats behind his brain. It had been a close call and no mistake.

Lifting his watch to the light, Coupchoux checked the time. Eleven-twenty. He'd been sitting there an hour now, in a line of parked cars along Tamasin. He'd wait another hour if he had to. And an hour after that. However long it took. Raissac had made it clear that the job had to be done tonight, and Coupchoux knew well enough not to disappoint his boss.

Fifty metres ahead, on the other side of the road, was the back entrance to Restaurant Molineux, an arched opening between a travel agent and a
patisserie,
a block of shadow between the lit shop windows. Raissac's fixer, Carnot, had shown him the place Wednesday evening. They'd sat there a half-hour, watched three of the staff come out onto the street, when Carnot nudged him and nodded forward.

A fourth figure, the hit. Pausing cautiously in the shadows like an animal sniffing for predators, he'd looked one way and then the other before stepping out into the light. According to Carnot he lived six blocks along in a basement room off République. He didn't have a car or a bike, and he never took the bus. They'd watched him pass, head down, hands in pockets, keeping close to the shop windows across the street. Fast, steady, anonymous. Coupchoux had turned the wing mirror, adjusted the rear-view mirror. Take your eyes off him a second and he'd be gone.

Coupchoux was the same. Coupchoux could lose you. It was one of his many talents. Sliding through the city, day or night, unseen, silent as a cat. Do the job and disappear, like he'd never been there. He practised, of course. Like the flexing. All the time. You had to keep the edge sharp. Like this afternoon, after dropping those kids back in town, he'd parked the car and paid a call on Galerie Samaritaine. Just coasting - fingers tingling - and saw his chance. A lighter on a velvet presentation square, while the customer pointed out another model and the assistant reached down for it. They'd never even known he was standing there, waiting his turn. They could have been working it together, the customer and him, it was so seamless. Perfect timing. A team hit.

But Coupchoux never worked doubles. Coupchoux only worked by himself. It was a lesson he'd learnt early on.

Then, in the very same shop, not thirty seconds later, with the lighter feeling heavy in his pocket, an open bag, up ahead, swinging on an arm. A tricky steal but too tempting to resist. The gentle acceleration, brushing alongside in the crowd of shoppers at the door, fingers like darts, a single, fleeting dip. And into his own pocket a long, leather purse stuffed with the woman's cards and cash. Later he'd slid out the notes and dumped the purse. Which was a pity. He'd like to have kept it, for the leather had her scent on it, warm, lingering, intimate. But the cash made up for it, a little under three thousand francs. For five seconds' initiative. Now that's what he called work.

Coupchoux could have stolen the guitar strings too, neatly coiled in their see-through packet on a rack in Sacha's Music Store. But he didn't. He paid cash, waited for the assistant to bag it, give him his change, and then left. Never once looked up, never gave the assistant a glance at his face. Practice, that's what it was. Every day, in every way, you got better and better.

Of course, he couldn't help but feel guilty. He always did. Thieving like that, and the killing. But Coupchoux knew how to ease the pain, and five minutes after leaving Sacha's he slid through the felt-backed doors of the Basilica Grandes Carmes. Not as clean and lean as the church in Cassis, and not as dark as the Reformes at the top of Canebière, but it was still a peaceful, comforting space. Dipping his fingers into the holy water, he made his way down the aisle and took a seat. It was too early for confession, so he knelt forward in the pew and began his litany of prayers, pleadings and promises.

Afterwards he'd gone home to prepare, and at a little after ten he'd found this parking space on Tamasin, one of the guitar strings he'd bought at Sacha's lying on the passenger seat beside him.

It had taken him an hour to get it right, winding the tape around the ends of the nickel-wrapped E-string, doubling them over, thickening them up, then reversing the tape for a grip. Satisfied with his handiwork, he'd gone through the motions in front of the mirror, stripped to his shorts, watching his pectorals flicker beneath the skin as he raised the wire, crossed his hands, right over left, and looped. Slow at first, then speeding up as he got the rhythm. Fifty, sixty times, working the stiffness out of the springy coil, conditioning his limbs to the movement. For the job he had in mind, the crossover was essential. If you looped the wire, you could pull straight out, left and right, keep the victim on his feet. If you didn't do the loop, you had to pull back and down, which meant you could lose your balance, your hit could twist free, turn, come at you. But looped, there was nothing they could do. Fifteen seconds and they go limp. Thirty and its over. But only if you used the E-string, Coupchoux had learnt, the thick one. The other strings were just too fine, with a tendency to cut, and that could be messy.

The lights in the shop window beside him blinked out, but Coupchoux didn't take his eyes off the entrance to Molineux's backyard. Five of the crew had already come out, but they'd all turned left. Doisneau would go right, up avenue Tamasin, heading back home. Like he always did.

He should have known better, thought Coupchoux. Break the pattern. Pattern was never good.

And then, there he was, stepping out from the archway and turning, head down, hands in pockets. Almost a lope. Passing Coupchoux and making for the steps down to Republique, where lights were few and doorways deep and shadowy.

Reaching for the wire, Coupchoux wrapped it around his fist and slid out of the car, his eyes never once leaving his quarry.

Saturday

J
acquot had slept in the same sheets all week. Boni might have taken everything that belonged to her, but she'd left her scent, intoxicatingly close on the pillow. It was the first thing that Jacquot recognised when he woke on Saturday morning, staying still a while, breathing her in. Like he'd done at exactly the same time the week before, her head right there beside him. The spread of hair, the sprinkle of freckles between her shoulder blades, the sheet draped over a hip. The soft rise of her breath.

That was the moment when Jacquot decided he'd try his best to make it up. He didn't think it was for him to do, but that wasn't the point. She was unhappy about something and he needed to know what. Getting dressed, quietly so as not to disturb her, he'd made up his mind to give it one more go, tomorrow, when he got back from his trip to Salon-le-Vitry. They'd talk it through. Sort things out. It would be all right, she'd see.

Now, all that was left was the smell of her, and a dull, deep pain that had squeezed at his heart all week. Always right there if he let his defences drop for a moment. Like Nocibe's shop window on St-Ferreol. Something stupid like that was all it took.

Jacquot rolled over and tried to get comfortable again, away from the scent of her. But it drifted back. Sinuous, sweet, breathing life into memory, begging for attention.

There was only one thing for it. Naked, Jacquot slid from the bed and pulled the pillows from their slips, hauled off the sheets until the mattress was bared, its buttoned depressions wadded with lint. Then he scooped up the pile and took it through to the kitchen, dropping it in a heap in front of an already loaded washing machine. He was contemplating the dubious pleasures of emptying it, hanging up the clothes to dry somewhere, to make room for the bedlinen, when the phone rang.