Death at the Clos du Lac

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Delombre left the Pantin commissariat and made his way through the streets to a small fish and vegetable market behind the railway station. He stopped periodically to check his back trail, conscious that with the falling light it wouldn’t be hard for a follower to stay out of sight. He was pretty sure that Drueault, the search team leader, wouldn’t try to check up on him, but distrust was an ingrained habit he found hard to lose. He distrusted cops most of all.

He cruised the area a couple of times on foot to make sure it was clear, sticking to the shadows, then slipped down a side street bordered on both sides by small businesses and lock-ups. The sound of beaten metal echoed from inside one building, and a man in greasy overalls was clearing up the components of a motorcycle spread on the pavement outside. Delombre walked round him and reached the end of the street, and saw a large furniture van parked up on the pavement near the intersection.

He couldn’t see anybody in the cab. He tried the door. Unlocked. He closed it again and went to the back of the van and opened the rear door. It gave a creak of dry hinges, and a gust of foetid air came out, carrying a smell of overripe fruit and human waste from the bare interior. He stepped up and walked to the far end. The glow of a nearby street light showed signs of a large stain on the floor where something had been spilt, and a blackened banana skin lay curled like a dried leaf against the side wall. The clean-up job had been cursory at the very least, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust, wondering where Levignier got these people. Had they no clue at all? It wouldn’t take much for somebody to call the local cops to have the van moved, and for the evidence inside to signal to even the dimmest trainee officer that a person had been kept captive inside here for some time.

A knuckle-rap on the plywood sheets lining the sides of the van received the dull thud of a filled space in return. At least that had been a job well done; whoever had prepared this space had known what they were doing.

He jumped down and closed the door, then walked back down the street and took a left. This time he was in a narrow residential street with washing airing over balconies and the high-pitched squealing of children at play inside. The few cars here were old and battered, in the way only Paris traffic could make them, and the buildings in need of decoration. Elsewhere a tinny radio was playing a rock number by a French band trying to sound American. Overlaying it all was the steady, muted buzz of people living in close proximity.

He stopped at a door halfway along the street. It opened on to a small tiled foyer. He stepped past a battered racing bicycle and down a narrow hallway lit by a feeble yellow bulb, then walked up a flight of stairs. The air smelt of tabbouleh and cooking oil, and musky dampness.

At the top of the stairs was a small landing. The overhead bulb threw a sickly glow over bare floorboards, the wood scarred and warped. A broken hard-backed chair covered in dust stood in one corner. There were two doors, one either side. One was open, the room beyond empty and bare, the other closed. The silence was intense.

He knocked on the closed door and waited. Tried the handle. It was locked.

He knocked again, muttered drunkenly, ‘Hey, Dede, mon pote. You there?’

No response.

He put his ear to the wood. There were no vibrations, no surreptitious movements. He thought about coming back later, but decided against it. Later was no good; he had too much to do. This needed finishing before he could move on.

He walked across the landing and through the open door, crossing the room and through another door at the rear. A window opened out onto a backyard with a gate sagging off the hinges. Beyond that, an alleyway disappeared into the gloom. He opened the window and peered down. Not much to see, just a square, box-like structure that had probably once housed coal or wood.

He returned to the locked door and put his shoulder against it. He pushed harder, felt it flex. Cheap wood, dried out and ready to pop. He pushed again and simultaneously jerked down on the handle. The door sprang open.

He was in a small, scruffy room furnished with two camp beds, army-style, a single leather armchair leaking stuffing, a radio on the floor, a couple of wooden packing crates and a standard lamp. Dirty cups had been left where they lay, rimmed with dried coffee, one stuffed with cigarette ends. Two empty wine bottles stood like bookends on the window sill, and on the floor beneath them two empty bowls showed the remains of a meal. A pair of underpants hung from the back of the armchair, and a single sock with a hole in the heel lay at the foot of one of the beds.

Kidnapper chic, thought Delombre, and tried not to breathe the foul air. They must have been holed up here all day, and finally broke cover and went out in search of more booze.

A door at the back led to another room, empty of furniture. There was an identical window to the one across the landing, but this one was screwed shut, the heads shiny and new.

The criminal elite: so untrusting.

He returned to the front room and took out a gun, a semi-automatic with an untraceable history, and checked the magazine. Then he reached in his jacket and produced a fat metal tube several centimetres long. He fitted it over the end of the barrel, checked to make sure it was secure, then used the tip of the tube to flick the underpants off the armchair.

The tube was a once-only suppressor, or silencer, made by a former military armourer in Moulineaux, in the south-west of the city. The man had left the French army under a dark cloud for allegedly manufacturing gun parts for collectors on army time. He’d cautioned Delombre that the silencer would take at most four shots before losing its effectiveness. But four was more than he’d need.

He went out and turned off the landing light, then sat down in the armchair to wait.