Jacquot and the Waterman (7 page)

Jilly had asked to get off there, but Ralph sailed on
regardless - Gibraltar made no sense, he said; Marseilles
was the place to be - and when Tim, for obvious reasons,
agreed with his brothers decision she'd barred him from
her cabin and put both brothers out of mind. They were
good guys in their different ways, she liked them both and
didn't want to hurt their feelings, but
. .
.

Now, just a day's sail from Marseilles, Jilly watched the
dolphins play and plunge only inches from her toes. They
were leading her home, she decided, and she felt the
future beckoning, up ahead, across the blue water.

Then, the veiy next moment, the wind veered, the sails
luffed and
Anemone
swung to starboard. The bow crushed
through a wave and a spray of cold sea water dashed up
between her thighs, spattered across her face and
snatched the breath from her body. With a rush of
delighted laughter, Jilly let go of the rail, pushed back her
cropped, salty hair, and raised her face to the sun.

aissac favoured cars that didn't draw attention.

Brown, grey. Anything dark blue or green. And
always unwashed. A skirt of mud, dusty windscreens.
Citroens, Peugeots, a couple of old Renaults, the
beaten-up Toyota off-road that looked like a Nissan. Just
the kind of cars you'd use to get round town without being
noticed, visit a site, call in on a contractor or supplier
without giving the game away. And all of them registered
as company vehicles, Raissac et Freres, kept in half a
dozen lock-ups around Marseilles. Of course there was the
Bentley, tucked away in his garage, but Raissac only used
that for long journeys. To Lyons or Paris. Or along the
coast road into Italy. Anywhere else, it was the anonymous
family saloons that Raissac preferred.

And he always sat in the front. Beside his driver,
Coupchoux. Never in the back seat.

That Monday morning Coupchoux arrived with a seven-
year-old Renault, scarred along the flank, its aerial a wire
coat-hanger, the bodywork around its windows speckled
with rust. As Raissac came down the steps from the house,
unwrapping a toffee bar, he saw the drivers door swing
open and Coupchoux start to get out, shoulders straining
against a black T-shirt, arms and neck layered with muscle.

Raissac waved the toffee, caught the mans eye and
Coupchoux settled back in his seat. Too much weight-
training, thought Raissac, strolling round to the passenger
side, too much attention to the body beautiful. Compensation, he guessed, for the mans weak chin, the dull black
eyes brooding under a bulge of brow, and those ridiculous
baby teeth of his set in wet pink gums. The parts of his
body that Coupchoux couldn't do anything about. At least,
Raissac reflected, the muscle had its uses. Not to mention
his other considerable talents.

"Where to, Monsieur?' asked Coupchoux as they pulled
out of the gates and turned inland, uphill, away from Cassis.
A wooden crucifix, strung by its rosary beads to the rear-
view mirror, swung across the windscreen like a pendulum.

'Marseilles,' said Raissac. 'And get rid of the trinket.'

'Of course, Monsieur,' replied Coupchoux, not needing
to be told what trinket Raissac had in mind. He unwound
the rosary from the mirror and slipped it into his breast
pocket, pressing the beads against his heart. 'Anywhere
particular?'

Raissac finished his toffee, crumpled the wrapping and
tossed it onto the floor. 'The Sofitel,' he replied, trying to
get comfortable. There was just one problem with the cars
he used. Space. He was over six feet tall and it was difficult
knowing what to do with his legs. After a few minutes
squirming in his seat, Raissac found a suitable position,
then leant forward to the dash and realigned the air vents
in his direction. Not that it made much difference. The
air-conditioning was crap too.

The call came as Coupchoux turned left onto the D559,
the old secondary route into Marseilles. Raissac slid the
phone from an inside pocket and flicked it open.

He said nothing, just listened. And then:

'When did she leave Accra?'

He nodded. 'How long till she gets here?'

Another silence.

'And the other young lady? Sylviane?'

Raissac smiled. 'Good,' he said. 'That's right. Sofitel bar
round twelve-thirty.'

There were no adieus. Raissac snapped the mobile shut
and slid it back into his pocket. For a moment or two he
looked ahead, then noticed the trees flashing past them.

'You're going too fast,' he said.

Obediently Coupchoux eased his foot off the gas and
Raissac felt their speed drop. No point getting pulled over,
he thought, and settled down as best he could for the trip
into town.

So far it was all good news. According to Carnot, the
ship was on its way - four, maybe five days out - and the
people they needed were in place. All of it down to
Carnot, his man in Marseilles. Carnot and one of those
tidy little breaks that come along when you least expect
them, a slant of sunshine from a cloudy sky, usually some
juicy weakness that laid their victims wide open, made
Raissac's life so much easier. Over and over again, hundreds of them, just asking to get hit. Sometimes it was the
sex thing, or greed, or debt, or love, or hate. Emotions let
loose. Life spinning out of control, isolating them from the
herd. Leaving them vulnerable.

Whatever the reason, it always boiled down to stupidity;pure and simple. And weakness. Raissac had a nose for
weakness. More effective than the barrel of a gun pressed
to the side of the head. Like the building inspector who
liked a flutter on the horses with other people's money. Or
the union boys with their big bellies and their Corsican
weekends who made sure his work-gangs were solid. Or
the Customs boys in Toulon who got to take their family
holidays in Martinique, and the new one here in Marseilles that Carnot had set up, a married man playing with
boys. Even the cops. You could even get to them. And
once you had one of them . . . well, then you were well
ahead of the game. Like that cop in Toulon, or the other
one in La Ciotat. All it took was a little time, a little
patience, a little perseverance. Like his old
Maman
used to
say, misquoting Richelieu: 'human frailty is only a matter
of time.'

And now de Cotigny
-
of all people. The man himself.
Raissac couldn't believe his good fortune. And all thanks
to Carnot. A single chance encounter, and an interesting
set of coincidences. First there was the American woman,
de Cotigny's wife, coming on to their girl at the gym and
Vicki, knowing money when she saw it, going along with
it. The wife first, and then with the husband. And Raissac
wouldn't have known a thing about it if Carnot hadn't
gone round to Vicki's one evening and seen the two of
them on the stairs, coming down from her apartment.
According to Carnot, he'd heard their footfalls on the
landing above and had had time to stop at a door on the
floor below and fiddle at the lock with his keys, as though
he lived there, until they'd passed. The husband and wife.
Carnot had recognised the man immediately - de Cotigny,
Hubert de Cotigny. Head of Marseilles town planning. A
very important gentleman. And paying a call on Vicki, the
only apartment they could have been visiting.