Paris Noir: Capital Crime Fiction (25 page)

‘Did Gamier ever join you for a smoke?’ asked Reyer.

‘No, he was a very healthy guy.’

Reyer walked out without a word. Zaraoui had to run to catch up with him. He found him sitting in the car, staring into space.

‘I thought inspiration had struck.’

Inspiration had struck
. Nice, Zaraoui’s turn of phrase.

‘With me, the only things that strike are my fists.’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Blaise…’

‘Made me feel great…’

Zaraoui’s mobile rang, interrupting them. Reyer gathered the lieutenant was talking to his mother about a lost key. Funny, these kids who take personal calls while on duty. Zaraoui ended the call and started to apologise.

‘Actually, yes, inspiration did strike,’ Reyer cut him short. ‘You’re going to call the swimming pool and ask to speak to Beatrice and Natasha. We need to identify the anonymous voice…’

Zaraoui called directory inquiries to obtain the number and did as Reyer had asked. He ended the call and looked embarrassed.

‘Sorry, but I can’t remember. I don’t have a musical ear.’

‘You’re useless, full stop.’

Zaraoui was about to open his mouth but thought better of it. He switched on the ignition and pulled away.

‘We’re going to the café,’ said Reyer.

‘I know.’

The two men let an awkward silence set in. Reyer could feel bad vibes exuding from Zaraoui’s body. Had he finally managed to annoy Mr Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth?

‘You’re angry, Blaise,’ said Zaraoui. ‘But that’s perfectly natural. Basically, to achieve ataraxy, you have to control your emotions. You’re not ready for that, you’re too passionate.’

‘Ataraxy. Shit. Where did you dig that up?’

‘I studied philosophy. But as a guy can’t make a living from philosophy, and I wanted to be in the real world, I joined the police. I put myself in the firing line.’

Reyer nearly pinched himself to make sure an evil spirit hadn’t abducted him to some parallel universe. A North-African philosopher landing in the police force. Who’s on the wrong planet. Shit.

‘But what the fuck are you doing as a cop? Can’t you see the force is bent, the plebs and the people hate us and the politicos keep us on a tight rein. No need to put yourself in the firing line for that. And you can’t make a living as a cop either.’

‘Maybe not, but you can act day to day.’

‘Zaraoui, you don’t believe what you’re saying.’

‘Oh yes I do.’

They parked in front of Café Mirage and exchanged hesitant glances before getting out of the car. Reyer leant on the copper bar. A relic from the 1950s. A TV hummed on a high shelf, giving the latest on the Tour de France. The customers were heatedly predicting the winner. To wind up his partner, Reyer ordered a glass of champagne.

‘Have a drink with me? Just to put yourself in the firing line.’

Zaraoui ignored him and ordered a coffee. Reyer pointed to the barman, signifying that once again he’d leave Zaraoui to do the questioning. The barman hadn’t forgotten his recent tragedy. Four cyclists on the terrace, he serves them four diabolos, one collapses – dead. He brought down the table and the drinks in his fall. People were talking about the quality of the lemonade and the clientele. ‘Could an ill-intentioned person have slipped something nasty into Garnier’s glass.’ The barman didn’t think so. He hadn’t spotted any odd-looking customers. And besides, most people were avidly watching the sports coverage on the TV. Reyer asked him for his ID and made a note of his name and address. He downed his champagne in two gulps and went out to make a call. He ran into Lieutenant Corinne Moutin and asked her to check whether the barman had a record. He spied what he was looking for on the other side of the square.

He walked into the Pluie de Mots bookstore, strode over to the assistant and flashed his ID.

‘I need to check something in a dictionary.’

‘I’d have lent you one even if you hadn’t been a cop,’ replied the assistant with a half smile.

He pointed to a shelf. Reyer opted for the illustrated Larousse and looked up ‘ataraxy’. The definition made him raise one eyebrow, then the other: ‘a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquillity’. He dumped the dictionary on top of a pile of
The Da Vinci Code.
Moutin called as he was walking back across the square.

Zaraoui was leaning against the car bonnet, arms folded, his expression neutral. A state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety, thought Reyer. Then he thought of Marthe’s hands. Her slender fingers covered in silver rings. Reyer had never seen so many rings on such tiny hands. Marthe knew some awesome words too. Words she had no need to control. They did everything she asked, without jumping about all over the place. Reyer got into the car and waited for Zaraoui to slide behind the wheel.

‘The barman’s clean,’ he said. ‘Moutin just called me.’

Zaraoui headed towards Bastille and rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. He parked in front of the driveway of a furniture shop. Reyer gazed blankly at the window. A guy came out and offered him a sofa at a special discount. Reyer thrust the bust of the Republic under his nose and then followed Zaraoui into the courtyard of the Étoile d’Or. They stepped into a haven of greenery. There was a mass of container plants and also trees planted in the ground, Virginia creeper, clematis, honeysuckle.

‘For a guy with no ambition, he didn’t do too badly,’ remarked Reyer.

Gamier had lived in a two-room ground-floor apartment, probably a renovated workshop. A woman with short, dark hair was sitting on the steps waiting. She looked as if she had her head in the clouds, but soon realised they were policemen.

‘Nothing’s happened to Guillaume, has it?’

It was Zaraoui who broke the bad news. She started to cry. Reyer bit his lip. He hated seeing people cry. He didn’t like seeing them roar with laughter either. Fact was, he didn’t like emotional excesses of any kind, he felt they were viruses with the power to infect you and turn you into a limp rag. In an effort to control himself, he peered through the window into the deceased’s home. Clean, tidy, well furnished, at least if you like pretentious modern furniture. He left Zaraoui to calm the girl down and went to sniff around the courtyard. Nothing ugly there. The din of the traffic was no more than a purr. To think some people could treat themselves to peace and quiet bang in the centre of Paris. Reyer thought fleetingly of his two-room apartment in the crummiest block in rue de Montreuil. Above a supermarket. Ugly but practical. You can’t complain the whole time. He assessed the situation. The girl had stopped blubbing. She was chatting, Zaraoui by her side.

‘Trapezius, infraspinous, masseter, gastrocnemius, semi-tendinous, brachioradialis, sartorius, he knew them all. I was impressed by that. And he was funny too.’

Zaraoui turned to Reyer and explained that the young woman was a masseuse who lived in the same apartment block as Gamier. He pointed to a copper plate half hidden by the Virginia creeper. ‘Clara and Alexandre Lorieux, physiotherapists’.

‘I found out later he’d only begun studying medicine to please his father. Then he dropped out of uni and got a job with Sportitude. But he hadn’t forgotten the names of the muscles, tendons, bones and joints, articulations, the…’

This girl’s going to spill over with words, thought Reyer, swallowing his saliva. And they’re going to infect me. Perhaps I should give her a mammoth slap, start her crying again. Tears aren’t so bad. Luckily. Zaraoui interrupted her verbal diarrhoea.

‘How long had you been his mistress?’

‘Two years. We’d decided to tell my husband. You see, I’ve travelled a lot with Alexandre, from India to Yemen, from Thailand to Mexico, from Burma…’

For pity’s sake, cut it short, girl, because otherwise that mammoth thrashing will be inevitable and the consequences incalculable. Reyer’s eye was drawn to the courtyard entrance. The TV crew had turned up.

‘… from Burkina Faso to Komodo Island. But to be honest, I travelled further with Guillaume just staying put in Paris.’

‘We’re going up,’ commanded Reyer.

They pushed Clara towards the staircase. It was a communal area, but the Lorieux had generously decided to share their travels with their neighbours; the walls of the narrow staircase were plastered with photos of a trip to India. The apartment wasn’t exactly spacious, crammed with potted plants, and the exotic photos continued over the pastel walls. Reyer concluded that Clara’s husband needed to feel he was somewhere else even when he was there. He had probably never heard of ataraxy, he thought, wandering over to the window. The TV crew were pestering a neighbour. The sound engineer was waving his mammoth-hair-covered mic above his head; his hair was tousled as if he’d just got out of bed. Which he probably had. It was all right for some, living in apartments surrounded by greenery and pretty flowers and doing nothing much with their mornings.

Meanwhile, Clara had started wittering on again. Reyer tried to catch Zaraoui’s attention to convey that it would be better to focus on Clara’s voice, rather than listen to her rabbiting. But Zaraoui was absorbed in her gibberish. He didn’t miss a single word as it cascaded out of the physio onto the rug, Reyer watched the words bounce off the walls, windows and ceilings like transparent jelly creatures. Jelly that could go on bouncing ad infinitum with no need of an energy source. Reyer rushed off to find the bathroom to carry out his vital cold-water ablutions and his little breathing routine. He was amazed to find a shrub the size of a man filling almost the entire bathroom, its branches spreading into the tub. He pictured himself on a beach with Marche. She was wearing nothing but a sari and was emerging from the water smiling. The pink fabric embroidered with gold thread hugged every single one of her curves. Reyer heard the entryphone buzzer and went back to the sitting room.

‘Don’t answer, it’s the TV people,’ Zaraoui told Clara.

The girl had finished jabbering. Reyer said to himself that a woman so desperate to talk was capable of making anonymous phone calls. It would be right up her street. He went over to the entryphone.

‘If you don’t confess, I’m going to answer it!’ he barked. ‘The TV lot will rake over every aspect of your life. Then you can say goodbye to your business, you’ll have to practise elsewhere. Bye-bye green oasis in the middle of Paris.’

‘But I didn’t kill Guillaume. I loved him!’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean the anonymous phone call. If that dishevelled-looking guy has just given your name to the muck-rakers, it’s because he knew you were sleeping with Gamier. The whole building probably knows. And your physio husband too.’

Flashes of inspiration were a lot more interesting than the aftermath, so Reyer let Zaraoui add the finishing touches. He searched the bar, found a bottle of rum and took a few swigs from the bottle. He spotted the telephone, dialled Marthe’s number and listened to the message on her answering machine, so professional but so electrifying. This shrink would have no chance in the anonymous phone call business; there was no mistaking her siren voice. He hung up, wiped his damp hand on his shirt and pricked up his ears. Zaraoui was painstakingly preparing the ground. Clara had seen Gamier collapse on the café terrace. For the simple reason that she’d been nearby. Gamier had told her he’d be taking a break at Café Mirage during the morning. He liked playing that kind of game. Arranging to meet her in places he went to with his mates. Exchanging secret looks. She’d been sitting on the terrace, she’d seen him raise his glass to his lips and collapse before he’d even drunk a drop.

‘Why do you think it’s murder?’ asked Zaraoui.

‘This morning, Guillaume took his bike out of the garage and left it in the courtyard for a minute while he popped back upstairs to phone me. He always took his water bottle filled with an energy drink.’

‘Phone you, why?’

‘Just to tell me he loved me…’

That set off the waterworks again. Clara wept, sobbed. Reyer let her cry, then asked, between hiccups, where the husband was. ‘I don’t know.’

‘The water bottle on the bike. Where’s the bike?’

‘Probably at the station,’ replied Zaraoui. ‘Garnier’s friends parked it in the corridor with theirs. You don’t leave expensive machines like that out on the street.’

Reyer called the station. They kept him hanging on. A duty officer said he’d find out about the bike. And informed him it had gone. Reyer asked to speak to his chief. The chief passed the matter on to his team. The chief’s secretary eventually remembered a tall, thin, fair-haired man. He’d calmly walked out with the bike, it hadn’t occurred to her that he might be stealing it. The description matched that of Alexandre Lorieux. Reyer took another swig of rum and reflected on the situation. The number of cyclists in Paris was at its peak during the Tour de France. Might as well try to find a minuscule needle in a colossal haystack. He watched the muck-rakers through the window. They’d let the dishevelled guy go and were hassling another guy. A tall, fair-haired man, the beanpole type, standing beside a bicycle. Looking distraught. Reyer raced down the stairs, bottle of rum in hand. He wielded it like a sabre to threaten the journalists, then sent it flying over the ancient cobblestones. The cameraman filmed him. The sound engineer swung his mammoth-hair device in his direction. Reyer gave the journalist a pithecanthropine clout, grabbed Clara’s husband’s arm and marched him up the stairs, pronto. The physio wouldn’t let go of the bike. Getting up the stairs was a struggle.

Lorieux admitted he’d poisoned Gamier with a shrub brought back from India which was flourishing in his bathroom. It was a magic tree that killed and left no trace. Thousands of Indian wives had found that out to their cost when their husbands had tired of them.

That evening, Reyer hammered on a familiar door in the Canal Saint-Martin district. She opened the door, calm, smiling, wearing a simple tight-fitting T-shirt and a ridiculous little pair of trousers which were too short. He explained that he’d solved a case in a matter of hours but his chief had suspended him all the same for assaulting a bunch of journalists. He needed an emergency consultation. He knew it was 9.46 p.m., but anxiety was quick to spread over ravaged terrain.