Speak Softly My Love (28 page)

A lot
could happen in thirty seconds when people were desperate and the
jig was up.

***

They had
been very patient.

With the
chase most definitely on, Gilles as senior member of the unit had
taken the simple precaution, once Didier’s (the real one
presumably) location was firmly nailed down, of dispatching a pair
of plain-clothes officers to shadow him. Once their shadows called
in and confirmed that they had him under proper surveillance,
Gilles had given the boys the go-ahead for the
operation.

If
Didier ran or went to ground in a major city, they might have one
hell of a time catching up again. In order to avoid arousing his
suspicions, they couldn’t even freeze his bank accounts. In what
was very odd, phone taps to all three households indicated he
wasn’t calling them and they weren’t calling or trying to call him.
It might be hard for a wife or spouse to locate him on impulse. One
would think he would call home once in a while, and let them know
where he was, and how he was doing.

Their
monitoring of the lines at Gaston e Cie had recorded several long
and involved business conversations that left little doubt they
were dealing with the real Didier.

That was
an interesting moment.

Days had
passed and the tensions mounted.

Now it
was different.

With
regular updates from their officers calling in from stations on the
way, it was clear that Didier was finally heading home for Paris.
He could still branch off at almost any point along the way, almost
up to the last minute. The wine-producing regions of France were
diverse and scattered all over. It was only when he got up in the
morning, left his hotel, took a cab, made his way to the station
and bought a ticket for Paris, that’s when they knew for certain he
was really coming.

More
than anything they wanted Didier to come home. The timing and
execution of their warrants was predicated upon the fact that
Didier’s train came in at approximately ten-forty-two a.m. from
points south and west.

Once he
bought that final ticket, his fate was more or less determined. One
of their field officers called in hurriedly. Their quarry had
actually boarded and one of them was on the train with him. As soon
as the second shadow hung up, there would be two of them on the
train with Didier…

They
were coming home.

Any
change in plans, even one unexpected move on his part, and his
shadows would grab him and slap the cuffs on him without
hesitation. They would grab him and drag him in by the scruff of
the neck if that’s what it took.

Lucinde
let them in without a problem and quickly stood aside as they went
to work.

“
What is this all
about,
gentlemen?” Her dignity was tragic, her
countenance stern, although her lips trembled.

Gilles
looked her in the eye.

“
I may have a few questions for you. In the meantime, please
sit down on the end of the couch and don’t move,
Madame.”

Her face
white with suppressed emotions, the lady had turned and did exactly
what she was told. The redoubtable Jeannine stood there, arms
crossed, keeping an eye on her.

***

In
Molsheim, Detective Etienne Hubert stood looking around the room.
They were accompanied by a detective and a sergeant from the local
detachment. They would of course receive all due credit in any
subsequent news conferences. Inspector Descamps hadn’t stinted them
a bit of manpower. The thought that their detachment would share in
any glory probably didn’t enter into it—not too much,
anyways.

The air
in Zoe’s flat was stale but relatively odorless. Her houseplants
were definitely getting dry when he pulled off a glove and stuck a
finger into the soil. It was very quiet and all the windows were
tightly shut. There were no pets. She had a little milk in the
fridge. When Hubert smelled it, it was sour. There were perishable
items, looking pretty limp by now, and the potatoes when he found
them were spotted and beginning to smell.

He
wandered the place in his cotton gloves as the technical guys,
local people, went about dusting for prints.

He
raised his voice.

“
Look for anything masculine. Anyplace where a guest,
especially male, might have touched.”

He
thought about it. Fingerprints were the most damning evidence. The
bathroom, the bedroom…which side would the woman sleep
on?

She
would shove further in from the side they got in on, and that would
put the male beside the bedside table and the telephone.

“
Check the alarm clock and the telephone.”

The
fridge, maybe. Not the stove. She had a little bar alcove at one
end of the salon, mostly for show thought Hubert.

Someone
knocked at the door and the men inside Zoe’s apartment froze for a
second as if stricken by the most abject guilt. With a look at
Firmin, Hubert went to the door.

It was
Ada Bellerose.

“
Can I help you?”

Her face
was flaming.

“
You! You bastards. What’s going on in there?”

Hubert
shrugged.

A
uniformed sergeant appeared at his shoulder.

“
There is no need for alarm. Other than that, you can read
about it in the papers, Mademoiselle.”

Gently,
ever so gently, Hubert shut the door in the young lady’s
face.

“
Sir?”

A little
thrill ran through Detective Hubert.

“
Yes?”

“
I think we’ve got something.”

Following the voice, he went into the bathroom, a small but
attractive little room up under the back eaves.

“
What have you got for me?”

“
It looks like a man’s shaving kit.”

Hubert
grinned.

He gave
the sergeant a look.

“
Okay, men. We’re looking for fingerprints, strands of hair,
dead whiskers in the brush, and fibres from the man’s coat. Mud
from his shoes. Male personal hygiene items, cigarettes, pipes, a
gross of condoms, you name it. Leave no stone unturned.”

“
What about the rug?” The grinning young gendarme, crowding in
for a look, had a point, thought Hubert.

“
Pull it up when we’re done and look for money—stuff like
that. Right?” He gave the sergeant a quick look.

The
grizzled veteran nodded.

“
You heard the man.”

Firmin
gave Sergeant Paquet a wink, receiving a blank look in return.
Hubert was so wound up, it was like the poor guy just couldn’t
stand still.

***

Didier Godeffroy, every inch the picture of the perfect
businessman,
la parfait
négociant,
stepped off
the train into the shrill babble of the platform crowd, and was
immediately confronted.

A
perfect cliff of a man in big shoes, grey trousers and a long black
raincoat stepped directly in front of him. A wide-brimmed fedora
shadowed his eyes from the hot glare above. A sturdy woman with a
face like a potato was at his side. Her hair was in a tight bun and
her cap hung half sideways, pinned on a precarious angle. Their
eyes bored into his as others crowded him from behind.

“
Didier Godeffroy?”

“
Yes?”

The
woman held up a shiny official badge while the man-ape stood there
watching his reaction carefully, arms held loosely at his
sides.

“
There’s not going to be any trouble here, is there sir?” The
deep rumbling voice matched the man.

“
No, no, of course not.” Didier stared in apparent confusion
at the badge. “Who are you people? What is this about,
please?”

The lady
officer spoke.

“
If you would come with us, sir, we would just like to ask you
a few questions.”

People eddied and swirled around the three, Didier with his
baggage at his feet and the other two oblivious to all around them.
Their focus was entirely on
him.

His eyes
flickered left and right. He became aware that he was under
scrutiny from certain other rather cold-looking ladies and
gentlemen. They stood off to each side, cold in the sense of being
watchful, motionless and emotionless, rather than from the
temperature. He tore his eyes away.

“
Where are we going?”

“
Leave the bags, sir. Please, sir, just turn around and put
your hands on your head.”

Didier’s
jaws dropped as the big officer spoke and the female stepped
slightly off to one side, pulling her coat back and it was obvious
that she had her hand on the butt of a weapon.

“
Whoa.” He gulped. “Okay, okay—no problem.”

He raised his hands, nice and slow and then he was quickly
spun around by the clamp of a hand on his collar bone area. An iron
grip took hold of his right wrist as the emotions ran through him.
For a moment there it looked like, it sure
felt
like, he would bolt. The steel
ring snapped on his wrist.

He sagged at the knees and then fought for composure, his
posture straightening in spite of all odds. He took a long, hard
breath, his darting, shocked eyes seeking
something
above the level of their
heads.

“
Ah…”

“
Keep that left hand up there.” The lady was the total
professional.

There
was the momentary gleam of a wedding ring.

He gave
her the look of a frightened rabbit confronted by the fox. His eyes
were everywhere, the heart-rate shooting skywards and the adrenalin
making his knees knock.

His body
gave one massive twitch, but he remained in some semblance of
control over himself.

The
opportunity passed, and he never would have made it
anyway.

There
was nowhere to run. There were trains before and behind his narrow
platform. All avenues were blocked by officers in bulky shoes,
ill-fitting trousers, and shapeless jackets and coats. The cuff was
on his right wrist. His left wrist was seized and brought
down.

His hand
was yanked into position and then he was secured.

“
Who do you people think you are—”

“
Look on the bright side, Monsieur Godeffroy. You won’t have
to carry your own bags. You won’t even have to tip us.”

The lady
gendarme waved off a porter as he came along, recognizing Monsieur
Godeffroy perhaps and not seeing that there was some action here he
might not want to be involved in.

It all
clicked in and he sought their hard eyes in confirmation—he knew
cops when he saw them. The old fellow, all dressed in blue and with
the regulation cap, stood there gaping, hands clasping the handle
of the cart. Another impatient traveler plucked at his elbow and
dragged him rather unwillingly off. Clouds of steam and gaggles of
tired travelers straggled past in the light breeze.

“
I want to speak to my lawyer.”

“
You’ll have all the time in the world, sir.”

The big
male gendarme leaned across in front of the prisoner, turned his
head and gave Jeannine a quick and admiring glance.

The
arresting officers, taking an elbow each, his arms cuffed behind
him, frog-marched an ashen-faced Didier Godeffroy down the
platform, through the concourse and out into the bright, marvelous
autumn day.

It
really was perfect weather for September.

***

With one
prisoner in custody, the woman calling herself Monique and the one
calling herself Lucinde had been ordered not to leave town. They
were under non-stop surveillance by teams of officers working in
shifts.

On their
own, Hubert and Tailler never would have been able to pull it off,
but with Maintenon and Inspectors Delorme and David pulling for
them, they had gotten all the resources they needed.

Monsieur
Godeffroy had been allowed to call his lawyer. He had been booked
and processed and was sitting in a holding cell.

Their
teams in Lyon and Molsheim had, essentially, twenty-four hours to
get the goods and return to Paris, although the public prosecutor
was good for one twenty-four hour extension. After that, they would
have to go to the judge and show cause for holding Monsieur
Godeffroy any longer.

The team
from Molsheim having returned triumphant, Maintenon had pulled more
strings.

They had
taken over the biggest conference room they could find, luckily on
their own floor this time. All the desks and tables had been pushed
together in two lines, tables in one, all about the same height,
and the desks in the other line. Each subject and each aspect of
the case got their own big table as detectives wandered up and
down, organizing everything they had. Tailler had a big blackboard
with a time-line on it, and references to railway schedules,
salient events, eye-witness reports and ticket stubs seized so
far…it was all coming together beautifully.