Death on the Marais

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Rocco walked back into the house after saying goodbye to Claude and was greeted by the phone ringing. He sat down to take the call, then noticed the Resistance photo lying on the floor.

‘Lucas? Hello… are you there?’ It was Viviane.

‘Yes. Sorry — I was just checking something.’ He bent and picked up the photo, and looked around the room, the hairs on his neck rising. Everything looked normal, untouched, as he had left it… yet he was certain he’d wedged the snap under the phone directory.

‘You wanted to speak to Sophie Richert,’ Viviane continued, ‘in number 10… across the hall from that young Berbier woman.’

‘I did?’ Rocco had to stop and think, separating in his mind the murder of Nathalie Berbier from the attempted murder of Didier Marthe. He’d found in the past that working cases in tandem like this caused moments of confusion, but never quite the way it was just now. Perhaps because these two had occurred in the same small corner of France, rather than in unconnected streets in the capital, often as distinct as foreign countries in appearance, atmosphere and population. ‘I do, you’re right.’

‘Well, you’d better hurry. She’s on her way to America for several months. She wasn’t keen on being involved, but Nathalie was a friend and I said she could trust you. She’ll be at the airport this evening at six. Can you meet her there?’

He looked at his watch. The airport meant Orly, on the other side of Paris. It would be a bastard of a drive but he could make it — just — as long as there were no delays. There was no guarantee that the young woman would have anything useful to add to his meagre stock of information on the background of Nathalie Berbier, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to her — especially as she seemed to be instigating it herself. In any case, once she was in the States, she might just as well be in another world and beyond his reach.

‘Tell her I’ll meet her in the bar near check-in,’ he told Viviane. He remembered the small bar, usually crowded and smoke filled, the final watering hole for nervous flyers and, in his experience, criminals fleeing overseas one step ahead of the law. It wasn’t the ideal place to conduct a murder interview, but it was the only familiar spot he could think of at short notice. ‘Thanks. I owe you.’

He dropped the phone back on the stand and changed his muddied clothes for clean slacks and a dark shirt. As he grabbed his coat ready to head out to the car, his attention was drawn to the French window looking out over the rear garden.

A corner of the net curtain was jammed in the frame.

Orly Airport was a busy rush of travellers, meeters and greeters when Rocco dumped his car in a convenient slot and hurried into the main terminal building. It was just on six o’clock.

He entered the bar across from check-in. The atmosphere was as he recalled, heavy with smoke and chatter, the floor around the tables littered with luggage. A young woman was sitting by herself in one corner, glancing at her watch. She wore a short, red dress printed in an interlocking triangular pattern, and knee-high white boots which Rocco thought might be plastic. He assumed she was what young fashion workers thought of as stylish and cutting-edge. As he got close, he saw she was studiously ignoring the attentions of two men at the next table who were trying inelegantly to chat her up. Neither had luggage or looked remotely like travellers and he pegged them as professional airport lizards, trawling for an easy mark.

‘Miss Richert?’ He smiled at her and saw her react with a mixture of wariness and relief. ‘Lucas Rocco.’ He didn’t want to use his title unless absolutely necessary.

One of the two men leant over and said loudly, ‘Hey — granddad. Try your own age range, why don’t you?’

Rocco turned and looked down at the men, then nodded his head towards the exit. If he was right about who and what they were, they would read the signs and move on. It took a moment or two, but they finally got the message, stood up and walked away without looking back.

‘That was neat,’ Sophie murmured. He wasn’t sure if it was meant as a compliment until she added, ‘The times I’ve wished I was with a guy who could do that.’

‘It doesn’t always work,’ he said with a smile. ‘Sometimes I have to start throwing furniture. Can I get you a drink?’

‘If you want. Whisky.’ She had the lazy confidence of someone older, although he guessed she was no more than twenty-five. Maybe that was what going to America did for you: gave you years beyond your years. He couldn’t recall what he’d been like at twenty-five, only that he’d probably been full of vim and holding a gun, which lends confidence of a different kind.

He caught the eye of a waiter and ordered two whiskies, then sat down across from her with a view of the concourse where the two men had gone. He didn’t usually drink while working, but since he was — technically, at least in terms of time — off duty, he decided to relax the rule.

‘Thank you for agreeing to speak to me, Miss Richert. How much time do you have?’

She checked her watch, an expensive gold timepiece, and shrugged with near condescension. ‘Less than thirty minutes. How can I help?’

He paused while the waiter served their drinks, then said, ‘You know what happened to Nathalie?’ He decided to cut straight to the chase: there was neither time nor reason to be circumspect.

She nodded and sipped her whisky. ‘She drowned in some river. I still can’t believe it. She was such… fun. It’s horrible.’ She shivered and tossed her head. ‘I’m glad I’m going away. Is that unkind, wanting to put it all behind me?’

‘No. It’s normal. How well did you know her?’

‘Pretty well, actually. We were friends, I suppose.’

‘So you moved in the same circles.’

‘You mean did I know her other friends?’ Sophie was quick to catch on and her reply was cautious. ‘We had a lot of the same friends and acquaintances here in town, but we didn’t live in each other’s pockets.’ She toyed with the glass and Rocco guessed she really didn’t like whisky, that ordering it had been for show… or because of nerves.

He beckoned the waiter over and asked him to bring a glass of white wine. The man nodded and wheeled away, returning moments later with the order. He shifted the other whisky to Rocco’s side of the table.

Sophie eyed Rocco for a moment, then shrugged and took a sip of the wine. ‘That’s better. Thanks. What were we talking about?’

‘I need to know who Nathalie mixed with,’ he replied curtly, aware of time ticking away. ‘Not her “town” pals; not her beauty stylist or favourite pastry chef, or who cut her toenails. But who might have taken her away to a weekend party in the country with a bunch of strangers so she could end up dead. Like that.’

She frowned at his abrupt tone. ‘Is this her father’s thing?’ she queried defiantly. ‘Trying to make out it was something it wasn’t?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Well, it was a silly accident, wasn’t it? Nathalie got pissed and fell into some water. Or is the great Bayer-Berbier saying it’s something else? Are you under his orders? He’s got a lot of influence with the cops, everybody knows that.’ She took a slug of wine and glared at him, then looked away in contempt.

Rocco felt like slapping her. Could young people really be so arrogant in the face of death? He hadn’t seen any news reports, so had no way of knowing what Sophie might have read or heard about Nathalie’s demise. Whatever it was, Berbier pere had probably put out a carefully sanitised version of events, avoiding any mention of drugs or violence. As if in their world, being merely drunk and dead was so much better than any other kind.

‘Actually,’ he said softly, projecting the words so that there was no possible misunderstanding, no way she could continue to treat the matter so coolly, ‘Nathalie was murdered.’

He waited for the realisation to sink in; for the ‘M’ word to be analysed and understood in whatever narrow, selective thesaurus her world permitted. When it finally hit home, it was signalled by a large tear rolling down her cheek.

‘That was unkind,’ she whispered. And suddenly the defiant, arrogant light was gone, leaving behind a young woman facing up to the harsh reality of loss.

He nodded. ‘You’re right, it was. I’m sorry. But I need you to know what happened because I’m trying to find out who was responsible for your friend’s death. And I only have…’ he looked dramatically at his watch ‘… twenty minutes of your valuable time left.’ It was rough but he was suddenly tired of having to tiptoe through the tank traps of convention and etiquette.

‘How would I know who could do that?’ she protested, her voice suddenly shrill as if finally tapping into a source of anger. ‘God, I didn’t know she’d been… you know. She loved life, for Christ’s sake. She was fun to be with, and how anyone could hurt her I don’t know! I don’t know any of that shit!’

Rocco allowed her to vent. He was aware of heads turning their way, and saw the bar manager approaching like a large missile, twisting impressive shoulders and hips skilfully between the tables and chairs. Rocco waited until he was almost upon them, then whipped out his badge and waved him away without a word. The man turned and went back to the bar.

Rocco leant across the table, giving her one last chance to help. ‘Listen, I want you to start talking about who your friend knew, who else I can talk to. Because I really want to find out who killed her. For instance, who or what is Tomas Broute?’

It meant something, he could see that. It was evident in her face, in the way her eyes flickered at his mention of the name.

Yet she shrugged and glanced at her watch as if it meant nothing. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’ve never heard of him.’ She leant forward to pick up her bag, unwilling to look at him.

‘OK.’

She seemed surprised. ‘I can go?’

He shook his head. ‘No. In fact,’ he stood up and planted himself squarely in her way, bending and putting his face within inches of hers, ‘if you don’t help me right now, I’ll stop you getting on the plane. I’ll also inform the American immigration authorities that you are an undesirable, and that you’re helping with my enquiries into the brutal murder of a young girl. Do you have any idea how long it will be before you might be allowed into the States after that? Try years — ten if you’re lucky, more likely fifteen. The Yanks have strangely harsh views about importing potential foreign criminals, believe it or not.’

Sophie’s mouth fell open with a gasp. ‘You can’t do that! My father works for the Finance Ministry-’

‘No shit. You try pissing higher than me again and I’ll get a couple of uniformed cops in here to haul you out in cuffs. It won’t be pretty and I doubt Daddy will be impressed with you dragging his name through the news.’

She sank down slowly back onto her seat, her stunned expression betraying the realisation that Rocco wasn’t playing.

‘What do you want to know? I don’t know what I can tell you.’

Rocco sat and pushed the wine glass towards her. She took a sip, her face ashen.

‘Tomas Broute,’ he repeated. ‘You recognised the name.’

‘No.’ She shuddered. ‘Yes. At least, I’ve never met him. He’s just a name Nathalie mentioned a couple of times… someone on the phone.’

‘What was the connection between them?’

‘Broute arranges things for people. He’s a middleman.’

Rocco felt his gut tighten. ‘Things? What kind of things?’

‘Events. Parties. Weekends.’ Sophie looked sick. ‘He was a creep. She hated him.’

‘She said that?’

‘She didn’t need to. I saw her face whenever she was talking to him.’

‘What sort of parties?’

‘Drinking, talk — music, mostly, stuff like that.’

‘And when it wasn’t mostly stuff like that?’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t you guess? You’re a cop.’ She ducked her head and looked as if she were about to throw up.

‘Did you go to them — the non-talk ones?’

‘No! Never, I promise. It all sounded so… sordid. Nathalie was promised money if she went along and helped things go with a swing. She thought it sounded fun. I thought it would be full of rich old men looking for young girls to screw.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘Because I knew another girl who went to one and she said it was exactly like that.’ She waved a hand. ‘And please don’t ask me who that was — she died of pneumonia in a clinic in Grasse two weeks ago.’

Rocco let it drop: if he had to pursue that one, it would be easy enough to do so later.

‘You said Nathalie was promised money. Why would she need it — her father’s rich?’

‘Her father’s a pig. So are his friends.’

In the background an announcement called for flights to New York. Sophie didn’t react.

‘Did you know Nathalie was pregnant?’

Her big eyes settled on him. She nodded. ‘She started puking in the mornings; it was pretty obvious. When I asked her she didn’t deny it. She was terrified it would become public.’

‘Did she tell you who the father was?’

Another tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed at it angrily. ‘She said she didn’t know. She didn’t have a regular boyfriend — not like that.’

So, more than one possibility. Rocco wasn’t surprised. ‘No boyfriend you knew of, you mean?’

‘No. We were close enough by then. If she got pregnant, it wasn’t a boy.’ The way she said ‘boy’ implied innocence, civility — a whole world away from any other kind. She finished her drink and pushed the glass away. ‘She talked about getting rid of it, but she wouldn’t have dared tell her father and didn’t have any of her own money.’

An abortion. That would take a lot of money, doing it properly. Before and after the event. But was she desperate enough to go to these parties to earn cash for a stay in a clinic? Maybe so. Suddenly he began to see a possible motive for a young woman’s murder. If she had approached the child’s father — at least, the possible father — for help, the man might have seen a scandal coming and reacted with fatal consequences. It made sense and wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

‘How many of these parties did she attend?’

‘Four or five, I think. The first about three months ago, then every few weeks after that. Not many. She hated them in the end… but I don’t think she had much choice.’ Sophie stared into the distance, twisting her fingers together. Rocco finally let her go and watched her drag her way across the concourse, all ego and arrogance deflated like a burst tyre. He almost felt sorry for her.

It was going to be a long flight to New York.