Murder in Clichy (13 page)

Thursday

NADÈGE GATHERED HER VELVET skirt and slid through the hole in the slat fence. She followed the weed-choked rail line to the old train tunnel, now blackened and dark. Moisture oozed from the moss-filled cracks in the stone. Beyond the tunnel lay the thieves’ market in the closed down rail yards.

Brick red, peeling rail cars were hooked up to cylindrical ones labeled liquid petroleum gas. She knew the homeless, the
clochards
who were fond of the bottle, slept in them between the periodic raids by the railway police. And weasels scavenged on the old tracks.

Nadège tried not to grimace as she passed the display of used Prada bags, Vuitton totes, and Christian Louboutin red-soled shoes spread on a blanket.

“Ça va, ma belle?”
said Hortense. Her toothless grin and hollowed out face shocked Nadège. Once a model, Hortense had graced
Elle
magazine covers before the drug ravaged her. “Take your pick. Worn once, most of them.”

Nadège’s stomach cramped and her eyes watered. Withdrawal, never dramatic like in the movies, was more like an aching flu, so bad her bones hurt, laced by nausea and sweating. Now she used the drug just to become “normal,” forget getting high. And she hated it.

“Where’s Mr. Know-it-all?”

But Hortense had nodded out, slumped against the lichen-covered stone tunnel. Nadège passed the young hustlers warming their hands by a fire of burning railroad ties. An aging
clochard
sold cartons of Dunhill cigarettes, and a man stood by a pile of copper pipe with a sign saying “TEN FRANCS EACH.” He rubbed his hands in the cold and shook his head when Nadège asked him if he’d seen her connection. The sky darkened with rain.

Desperate, she asked a thin man taking water from the old rusted faucet, ignoring his leer.

“Looking for candy, eh. Know-it-all’s a no show today.”

Merde!
“
C’est vrai?
” she asked.

“What’s it worth to you?”

His eyes were like brown stones. He smelled of earth and the decay around him.

“Take a hike,” she said.

“Name the time and place.”

Not even in your next life
, she thought.

She hurried over the rail lines. Her hands shook. She needed some courage to meet her father.
Juste un peu
. . . she’d cut back. Would cut back even more, if only she could get through the next hour.

Old covered yards led to abandoned, decayed buildings. Nadège had avoided this area after Thadée cautioned her against the heavy-duty types controlling it.

She climbed a rusted-out staircase. Dampness clung to the graffitied walls pockmarked with age. Inside, water dripped and a terse conversation echoed. She bent down and picked her way over the metal rods, avoided the broken glass and randomly strewn bricks to get closer. “. . .
Flics
can’t find her, how can we?” She recognized two of the men huddled in a group. One had threatened Thadée last week, the one who had a van.

Did they mean
her
?

Her hands shook so much, she couldn’t hold onto the railing. She backed out, step by step. Right into the arm of the leering man from the faucet, his hands still damp
.

“What’s your hurry?”

She pushed his hands away, took off running, and didn’t stop until she’d reached the fence.

SHE RUBBED her nose and tottered into her father’s home-office on her highest heels. Her feet were sore, brutal
mecs
were looking for her, and she had nowhere else to go. The flu-like symptoms of withdrawal slammed hard: every part of her ached, feverish and sweating.

“
Bonjour,
Papa.”

Her father sat by a roaring fire talking on the phone, frowning. Her stepmother’s room had been vacant.

“I told you never to come here,” he said, after finally hanging up.

“But it’s about Thadée—”

“
Oui,
the funeral,” he said, rubbing his tired eyes. “Behave this time. If you make a scene at the church service I’ll have all your contact with Michel cut off.”

She shook her head. “Why won’t you ever listen to me, Papa?”

“Because when I do, it’s what’s running in your veins that talks, not my Nadège.” His eyes moistened. “I blamed Thadée. And now drugs killed him.”

“
Non,
Papa,” she said. “Not drugs. . . .”

“Nadège, wake up,” he said. “Try the clinic. . . .”

She shriveled in fear. He meant St. Anne’s, the psychiatric hospital. The dank looney bin on the site of a medieval convalescent house for those with contagious diseases. The place where he’d committed her mother after she’d been thrown out of the last private clinic.

Her mother had never come out.

She had to make him understand.

“You’re not listening,” she said, pacing back and forth. “Thadée owed—”

“His dealers,” he interrupted. “What can I do? A scandal will erupt unless I cooperate.”

“Who cares what people think? He’s dead, they killed him.”

His eyes narrowed. “What was the last thing Thadée said to you?”

What did he mean?

“ ‘Meet me at my place.’ Please, Papa.” Why was he so stubborn; she needed a place to stay. Somewhere safe. “So his dealers threatened you,” she said, “and you’re more worried about that than about me?”

The phone rang. She knew he wanted to answer it, yet his eyes caught on her torn shoes. Pain and hurt softened his look.

“Did he ever mention your
grand-père
’s art collection?”

She could never confide in him. Not now.

She slammed the door on her way out.

Thursday

TIGHT DUCT TAPE BIT into René’s ankles, cutting off his circulation. His wrists, tied behind his back, stung. He chewed the kerosene-smelling rag in his mouth. He couldn’t stop panting nervously, his nostrils working hard under his small, flat nose. The cartilage had never developed properly due to the diminished volume of pituitary secretion, a common problem for those of his size. But he doubted these
mecs
would notice.

Every so often the gravel-voiced man kicked him. He heard murmured conversations somewhere. Waiting; they were waiting for someone, or for instructions.

Musky, mildewed odors surrounded him. His nose itched and ran. They’d taken off the burlap bag. Old timbered beams held up the damp wall, part brick, earth, stone, and flaking stucco that he faced: as if someone had once meant to resurface the old cellar and had given up, abandoning piles of cobwebbed bricks and worm-holed planks.

The light from a sputtering kerosene lantern flickered with a low hiss. He watched a trail of black ants mounting a brick by the sweating moisture-laden wall, moving a large crumb. It looked impossible. He watched them to keep his mind sharp, alert. And to avoid dwelling on the ache in his hip.

He could just make out numbers and letters written on the stone: 5/3/1942, Renault factory bombing, and the name Etienne M. He tried to peer closer. More names on the wall in a faded, old-fashioned script. Now he knew, he was in an old bomb shelter, an
abri
, one of 22,000 shelters used during the war.

He remembered his mother’s tales of running to the shelters or sometimes to the Métro. More often she’d gone to underground cellars and caves. Most Allied attacks had focused on outlying train depots and factories that had been taken over by the Germans.

Fat lot of good this information did him; he could be anywhere. If only he could locate his phone, reach it, and call Aimée.

“Get some beer while you’re there,” the gravelly voice said somewhere behind him.

“Where?”

“Next to Bata.”

“No names, shut up!”

Bata . . . the shoe store? René closed his eyes.

“He’s asleep.”

How many Batas were in Paris? They were usually in low-rent
quartiers
. Places like la Goutte d’Or, the African section, or Belleville or Clichy.

They’d left the rags in a wet pile on his raincoat. Even that he could live with. He disliked more the fact that he could see them. A bad omen for kidnap victims. It meant the kidnappers didn’t care if they could be identified; the victim wouldn’t be around long enough to identify them.

Forty-eight hours. Then dismemberment and death.

Thursday

AIMÉE HEARD THE HUM of the fax machine. Apprehensive, she stood up to read the fax. Was it René’s captors, with a meeting place?

“Meet me downstairs at the Musée Henner. Dinard.”

Dinard, the jade expert!

Twenty minutes later she stood in front of Musée Henner, a weathered, sand-colored stone museum that displayed the blue, white and red French flag. Rain pelted the cobbles. She doubted if Dinard had had time to research the jade. But he wanted it.

She needed to string him along, glean information from him. His present interest must stem from the RG’s visit.

Aimée entered and saw a wooden staircase mounting to the upper floors of the eighteenth-century townhouse left to the state by the owner, a mediocre German painter. A fresh-faced young woman at the reception met her.

“You’re here to see the curator?”

Aimée nodded, not knowing what else to do, and followed the young woman’s directions to the bowels of the museum. Too bad; she would have liked to see the view from the top.

The sign on the door read CURATOR. She knocked and Dinard’s assistant, Tessier, opened it. He motioned her inside to a room with a computer on a desk next to piles of papers. Oversized art books filled the bookshelves; a large oval window overlooked the back courtyard

She stayed by the door, prepared to back out. “Where’s Dinard?”

“Monsieur Dinard asked me to collect the jade pieces,” he informed her, his forehead beaded with perspiration.

She played for time. “Why the fax, and the mystery?”

“He’s had to leave for the hospital for a hypertension screening.”

“No offense, but I’d rather give him the pieces myself,” she said. “My understanding is that he’s investigating their origin and provenance.”

She noted the perspiration on his brow and how he kept smoothing back his brown hair. A nervous habit she remembered from their previous brief meeting at Dinard’s office.

“They’re holding something over you, aren’t they?” Aimée asked.

A flash of anger lit his eyes and she knew. That’s what the RG did. Intimidation, threats of blackmail, wiretaps. Sickening. Regnier was probably overseeing the campaign.

“Look, you’re not my business,” she said. “All I want to know about is the jade.”

“They know about you,” he said, his anger replaced by a cunning look.

“Pleyet and the RG? Tell me something new.”

The phone rang. Was this a signal?

“I have to leave,” he said to her. “I don’t have much time. To do the research properly we need the jade pieces.”

“Like I said, I prefer to give them to Professor Dinard myself. When can I meet him?”

“In Dinard’s position, he can’t be seen dealing with you.”

“So that’s why you wanted to meet here?”

He nodded, turning toward the window. The parquet floor creaked as he shifted his stance.

Aimée said, “I have a question. Since the pieces have such a high value and the art world is so small, Professor Dinard must know the identity of the last owner.”

“We work in a museum.”

“But you deal with collectors,
n’est-ce pas
? You would know those with jade collections.”

“I thought you wanted help, Mademoiselle.”

But not the help he wanted to give her. “Who’s interested in the jade?” she asked.

“Do you have it with you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re a jade expert. You’re just full of hot air and questions.”

From his expression, she’d struck a nerve. He froze.

There was a pause. She heard a clock ticking, saw the shadows in the courtyard. Felt the chill in the room which had no working heater.

“I assist and help curate exhibitions,” Tessier said, his voice lowered. His eyes darted around the room. “But you’re wrong. The study of jade is my passion.”

Unease filled her. “Did Dinard mention the jade to you the other day after I left?”

Tessier shook his head.

“Or his conversation with the RG?”

“I’m not privy to Professor Dinard’s conversations.”

Shadows lengthened from the trees casting a dim light in the room. Tessier wiped his brow.

“Tessier, you’re wasting my time,” she said, heading for the door.

“Wait.” He took a deep breath. “Dinard’s on the way out,” he said. “Museum politics. They offered me his post, but only if I perform like a seal.” He wiped his brow. “My life’s devoted to art. Why should my education and expertise be wasted?”

“I had the collection, then it was stolen. But I still have this.” She held up the jade disk.

Tessier’s eyes widened. He took a magnifying glass from the desk. “May I examine this, please?”

“Tell me about the jade,” she said. “Then I won’t bother you. Tell them anything you want. I’ll leave you in peace.”

His eyes shone. “The first Emperor of China waged war for some jade beads. We call them disks. They symbolize the sky and the earth, hence the round shape. Jade’s more than a stone, it’s an integral part of an ancient system of worship, essential in the ritual propitiation of the gods and in the performance of homage. There’s a cultural parallel with our discipline of philosophy; it had both a political meaning and a practical function.”

He studied the disk, then shrugged. “But I don’t know if this small disk decorated jade astrological figures or belonged to another, older piece,” Tessier said. “The original disks were small. And sacred. It’s so hard to tell.”

“You’re saying these disks could be older than the zodiac animals they were attached to like halos.”

“I’m speculating,” he said. “The original meaning of the Chinese word for “ritual” was “to serve the gods with jade.”

Tessier pulled a small book from his pocket and translated from Chinese:

Shamans, represented by the earliest Chinese character
(wu),
used tools to draw circles superimposed at right angles.
From this we may deduce that shamans monopolized the technology for making circular
bi
disks or beads, and thus had the exclusive power to present sacrifices to the gods and ancestral spirits. The round shape of the
bi
is said to derive from the circular path that the sun follows in the sky. According to accounts from 283 B.C. we know an unblemished
bi
disk was not only worth the price of several cities but that a king would ceremoniously feast for many days upon receiving the disk.

Aimée gasped. Was this disk such a rare ancient ritual object?

She pulled out the creased page from the auction catalogue and looked closer at the photo illustration. She hadn’t been able to understand why a Vietnamese emperor would have entrusted the jade figures to the Cao Dai for safekeeping. She’d assumed the emperor would only have Buddhist objects. But how clever it would have been to disguise the ancient disks by using them as part of later figurines—using one treasure to mask a much more valuable one.

Footsteps on the creaking wood came from the hallway.

“You still haven’t explained why Dinard’s being so secretive,” she said. “Why did the RG visit him?”

“They’re not CNN, they don’t broadcast continuous updates,” he said. “I don’t know.”

The footsteps stopped. Fear shone in his eyes and he put a finger to his lips. What was he afraid of?

She went to the peephole in the massive door and peered out. All she could see in the dim hall was the spherical body of a dark suited man.

“He’s shadowed me from the museum,” he said.

“Is he from the RG?”

“Who knows?”

If she left now she’d be recognized. It would be better to have Tessier owe her. Or think he did.

She opened the oval window and set a chair under it. “You’ve seen this disk, now find out who the jade belonged to, Tessier, and who would want to steal it,” she said. “Otherwise, your new job’s in jeopardy. Call me from a public phone, later.”

She swung her leg over the windowsill and climbed outside into the chill air.

AIMÉE PUNCHED in Leduc Detective’s number on her cell phone and listened for messages. One. The reception wavered and cut out as she passed the high voltage lines by the railway.

“I thought we might have a late lunch.”

Guy? Had he reconsidered and forgiven her? But his voice sounded different.

“Place des Ternes. I’m in the bistro across from Villa Nouvelle.” She recognized him now. It was de Lussigny, from the Olf meeting. “I know you were going to call me, but I hoped you could fit it in today. Forgive me for not confirming with you beforehand.”

Merde!
She should have checked her messages earlier. Olf was a big account. She looked at her Tintin watch, and called the bistro.

“Please tell Monsieur de Lussigny that I’m en route for our lunch appointment,” she said.

Aimée hailed a taxi and jumped in behind the driver. “Count on a nice tip if I make my lunch date.”

He grinned, ground into first gear, and took off.

She tried René’s number. Again no answer. Why hadn’t the kidnappers called back? What was happening to René? If only she knew what to do. But what else could she do but wait?

In the taxi mirror, she slicked down her spiky hair with gel, reapplied mascara, and touched up her traffic-stopping red lipstick. She pinched her cheeks for color, dotted them with lipstick, and rubbed it in. Thank God she wore a black leather skirt and silk top underneath her sweater. She pulled out a gray silk scarf, knotted it several times and looped it around her shoulders, then found a hip-hugging thin silver chain belt in the bottom of her bag and hooked it on.

Seven minutes later and thirty francs poorer, she was seated in a dark wood-paneled bistro amidst gleaming mirrors, vases of flowers, and the hum of discreet conversation.

De Lussigny, in a black suit, his hair carelessly brushed back, looked younger than she remembered.
Soigné
, with an effortless air. The small bistro was understated yet the attentive waiters who hovered made her self-conscious. People like nearby resident Jeanne Moreau and cabinet ministers ate here.

“Smells wonderful,” she said.

“And with a wonderful wine list from Languedoc,” he told her. He ordered for them both and requested a demi-bottle from the reserve cellar.

“First, let me apologize again for not helping you when the minister put you on the spot, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

“Please call me Aimée,” she said.

Better watch out, she told herself, lest she run off at the mouth. A man with his corporate power didn’t need to wine and dine her. What was the real purpose of this lunch?

The wine arrived. He sipped and complimented the sommelier who poured the dark red liquid into Aimée’s glass. A Cabernet, full-bodied, tart and a bit pebbly. Nice.

“I realize, after checking with your other accounts, that this Olf project is routine for you,” he said. “Of course, it didn’t hurt for the board to hear it, too.”

“I understood you were testing our firm.”

She placed the napkin on her lap, took a piece of bread from the basket and tore off the crust. “Forgive my directness, but I get the feeling this meeting concerns something else, Monsieur . . .”