Cast Iron

Chapter two Paris, October 2011

In all the years that Enzo had been coming to Raffin’s apartment in the Rue de Tournon, someone, somewhere, always seemed to be playing a piano. Scales and exercises, stuttering renditions of Chopin and Beethoven — those tuneless pieces that music teachers inflicted on their hapless pupils. And, in all those years, the pianist had never improved.

Enzo glanced distractedly into the inner courtyard below, the huge chestnut at the far side of it dropping big dried leaves on wet cobbles. But his eyes were drawn by an elegant lady in black whose heels clicked on those same cobbles beneath finely turned ankles, and he wondered if the day would ever come when his interest would not be aroused by an attractive woman. After all, he could see sixty now, looming not far beyond the horizon.

‘Are you listening?’ Raffin’s voice was sharp, admonitory, irritated by Enzo’s distraction.

‘Of course.’ Enzo turned his eyes back to the table, and the papers and photographs that were strewn across it. Raffin’s book was open at the sixth and penultimate murder of the seven cold cases he had written about in Assassins Cachés. He had slid his clenched fist between the pages, breaking the spine to keep it open at the desired place, and Enzo had drawn breath sharply. He hated to break the spine of a book. It seemed to him like vandalism.

‘Lucie Martin was just twenty years old when she went missing,’ Raffin said. He always liked to brief Enzo before the big Scotsman embarked on one of the cases from his book. And, for his part, although he had read Raffin’s book many times, Enzo appreciated the briefing. It gave him access to the background research Raffin had done which never actually made it into the text. And he liked to hear the facts, rather than just read about them. Somehow that helped them stick. Raffin reached for the bottle of Puligny-Montrachet, running now with condensation, and refilled each of their glasses. ‘But that was fourteen years before the discovery of her body. Her disappearance in 1989 was inexplicable. She hadn’t run away. Or, if she had, she had left everything behind — her whole life and all that she owned. And, anyway, why would she? She was the loving daughter of doting parents. Her father, Guillaume, was an appeal court judge, her mother a former nurse. There was absolutely no evidence of foul play, and no one, apparently, with any motive for doing her harm.’

Enzo sipped his wine reflectively. ‘She was still living at home, wasn’t she?’

‘Only at the weekends. During the week, she stayed at a studio apartment in Bordeaux. She had a job in town working for a charity called Rentrée that helped newly released prisoners reintegrate into society.’ Raffin raised a sceptical eyebrow, and an element of sarcasm crept into his voice. ‘Some kind of religious organisation.’

‘And that’s where she met Régis Blanc?’

‘Briefly, yes.’ He was irritated again by the interruption, and Enzo wondered — not for the first time — what it was his daughter saw in him. He was a good-looking young man. Though not quite so young anymore. More than forty now, perhaps. Like Enzo himself, he had aged during their six-year collaboration, and never been the same man again after taking, full in his chest, the bullet that had been meant for Enzo. Vanity was apparent in the careful arrangement of his hair and the cut of his designer clothes. Enzo had never taken to him.

‘Anyway,’ Raffin continued, ‘she had arrived home for the weekend on the Friday night. Her mother went off to visit relatives on the Saturday, and that afternoon she told her father she was going for a walk.’

‘The Martins have quite an estate, don’t they?’

‘About a thousand acres, most of it overlooked by the château at the top of the hill. Well, they call it a château, but really it’s just a very large house, extended to a number of outbuildings. Been in his family for generations. He spent a lot of money restoring it all in the seventies and eighties.’

‘So she went for a walk on the estate.’

‘That’s what she told her father. Only she never returned. When her mother got back that evening, Guillaume Martin was in a state.’

‘But they didn’t call the police immediately?’

‘No. Not until some hours later. Martin knew the police wouldn’t respond until she’d been missing for a certain period of time. She was, after all, an adult. But it was going through her room that night that her parents found the letter from Blanc.’

Enzo reached for the photocopy of the letter lying among the papers on the table. He had read it many times, and he cast his eye again over the scrawling, illiterate hand that had striven to convey emotions the man so clearly found difficult to express. He had signed it, simply, Love, R. And something about that suggested to Enzo an unlikely intimacy. It had always troubled him. ‘Of course, they could have had no idea then that Blanc was just about to be revealed as one of France’s most notorious serial killers.’

‘Quite,’ Raffin said. ‘He was arrested on the Monday for the murder of those three prostitutes and within two months had been sentenced to life at the high-security maison centrale at Lannemezan. Lucie had met him first at Rentrée when he was released from Murat some months earlier, just after he’d completed a nine-month stretch for serious assault. The man was a pimp, and well known for his violent temper. Lucie’s father was convinced that he had also killed Lucie. But there was nothing to link him to Lucie in any way, apart from the love letter. And he has always claimed he wrote that when he was drunk and giving vent to an ephemeral infatuation.’

‘But there was no doubt about him having murdered the prostitutes?’

‘None at all. In fact, the defence didn’t even deny it. Just argued that he’d been depressed after the break-up of his marriage and that he’d been under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time.’ Raffin ran a hand back through light brown hair that was greying at the temples, and perhaps thinning just a little on the crown. ‘Hardly a mitigating factor. And, anyway, no one believed that the calculated way in which he had strangled each of those women, and then dumped their bodies, was anything other than the action of a cold-blooded, entirely sober serial murderer.’

Raffin’s mobile phone rang and vibrated on the table. He turned it towards him to see who was calling.

‘I have to take this,’ he said. And he lifted the phone and raised it to his ear as he wandered across the séjour, through double doors and into his study. Enzo heard him say, ‘No, no, it’s alright. Nothing important.’ And then the door closed and his voice became muffled.

At the same moment, Enzo heard the door of the apartment open, and he stood up, turning expectantly toward the hall. He heard the chortle of a child, the creak of a pram, and then Kirsty came in holding baby Alexis in her arms. She was wearing a long black coat, her chestnut hair and a red scarf draped over her shoulders, face pink with exertion and the chill autumn air. She was momentarily surprised to see Enzo, then her face lit up.

‘Papa! What are you doing here?’ Although born and raised in Scotland, she had started adopting the French informal address for her father.

He took three strides towards them. ‘Am I not allowed to drop by and visit my daughter and grandson?’ And he kissed them both, eyes filled with love and affection for the six-month-old baby. The child gazed back at him, and his little round face broke into the broadest of smiles.

‘God!’ Kirsty gasped. ‘Women and babies! They all fall for you, don’t they?’ She caught sight of the mess of papers and photographs scattered across the table, and gave her father a look. ‘And, if I didn’t know better, I might be tempted to think that the real reason for your visit is a briefing session with Roger on the Martin case.’

Enzo grinned. ‘Oh, that... just a pretext.’

She smiled her scepticism. ‘Here. Hold Alexis while I get out of this coat.’ When she had hung it up in the hall, she took Alexis from his grandfather and laid him in a carrycot by the table, then sat down to pour herself a glass from the remains of the bottle Enzo and Raffin had been sharing. ‘Mmmh,’ she said. ‘This is good.’

‘It ought to be. It cost an arm and a leg.’

‘You brought it?’ Kirsty seemed surprised.

‘Have to keep Roger happy.’ And something in his tone took a little of the shine off her pleasure at seeing him. She knew her father didn’t care much for her fiancé. ‘Set a date yet? he said.

She avoided his eye. ‘No, not yet.’ They had been going to marry before the baby was born, but hadn’t, and never explained why. She followed his adoring gaze towards his grandson. ‘Does it ever bother you?’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘What?’

And perhaps she regretted having started down that road. ‘Well, you know... that he’s not your blood.’

His smile was fond, and he reached out to touch her face with the tips of his fingers. ‘He’s your son, Kirsty. How could I ever think of him as anything other than my flesh and blood?’

She raised her hand to catch his and held it for a moment.

He said, ‘Do you ever see Simon?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Her eyes blazed briefly. ‘After the way he broke it to you, deliberately to hurt you... well, as far as I’m concerned, he lost all his rights as my real father. I only have one papa, and that’s you.’

Almost embarrassed, Enzo looked back toward the cot and made some silly baby noises to attract his grandson’s attention. But the boy didn’t respond.

Kirsty said, ‘We think he has a hearing problem.’

Enzo turned concerned eyes towards her.

‘We noticed quite early that sometimes he just didn’t seem to hear things. I mean, if I clap my hands loudly, he’ll turn in response, but quite often when I speak to him, he just doesn’t hear my voice.’

‘Have you had him checked?’

‘Oh, yes, we’ve been to several doctors. None of them can agree on anything except that, while he’s not deaf, he does have a problem. My own doctor’s asked for an appointment for us with a consultant who is reckoned to be the top hearing specialist in France.’

‘That’ll cost a bit.’

She nodded. ‘Unfortunately the doctor is based in Biarritz. So it’s a bit of a trek.’

‘Roger owns property down that way, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, just south of the town. It was his wife’s family home. She inherited it when her parents were drowned in a boating accident. She and Roger couldn’t live there, but she couldn’t bear to sell it. So she turned it into a kind of exclusive chambres d’hôtes, converting it into several apartments, one of which she kept for their own personal use. Obviously, Roger inherited it when Marie was... well, when she died.’

‘Her family were pretty wealthy, weren’t they?’

‘Filthy bloody rich, from all accounts. I mean, they bought this apartment for their daughter. Imagine how much that must have cost. Two hundred metres from the Sénat. One of the most prestigious addresses in Paris. Who knows what it’s worth now?’

‘And I suppose Roger inherited everything from Marie?’ Kirsty didn’t respond. ‘Makes you wonder why he even bothers working.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t have to. He just wants to. Money’s not everything.’

Enzo smiled. ‘Say people who have lots of it.’

But Kirsty didn’t return the smile. ‘Anyway, Alexis and I will stay over at the apartment in the Biarritz house when we go down for the appointment. I’ve never been before.’ She clouded a little. ‘It’s just a shame Roger can’t go with us.’ She pulled a face. ‘Work.’

Enzo frowned. ‘When is it?’

‘Sometime next week. I’m waiting for them to confirm a day and time.’

‘Well, why don’t I go with you? Moral support. I suppose there’ll be more than one bedroom.’

Kirsty’s spirits lifted visibly. ‘Oh, would you, Papa? That would be a great relief. I was kind of dreading going on my own.’

‘Well, Sophie’s planning a birthday party for me in Cahors next week. If the timing works out, we could go down to Biarritz afterwards.’

Kirsty nodded. ‘Yes, I know about the party. Sophie’s been in touch. Trying to get the whole family together, she said.’ She hesitated. ‘She wanted me to ask Charlotte to come, and bring Laurent.’

Enzo stiffened a little. ‘Oh, did she?’

‘But I’m not going to.’ She seemed determined, and Enzo feigned indifference.

‘I don’t blame you.’

‘You should do it.’

He flashed her a look.

‘Papa, Laurent’s your son. And Charlotte... well, I don’t know what she is to you anymore. But you must have done something together to make a baby.’

He made a face at her. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to his daughter about his sex life with Charlotte. And he was rescued from the embarrassment of it by the return of her fiancé.

Raffin emerged from his study with a purpose of step and what, to anyone else, might have seemed like a smile on his face. To Enzo, it was a smirk of self-satisfaction. He barely acknowledged Kirsty, stooping momentarily as he passed to plant a perfunctory kiss on her head, and completely ignoring his son. The bottle of Puligny-Montrachet was in his hand even before he had sunk into his chair, and he refilled his glass. He sat back and raised it to his lips, sipping appreciatively before smiling at father and daughter. ‘That was Jean-Jacques Devez on the phone,’ he said, adding, quite unnecessarily, ‘the Mayor of Paris.’

‘Yes, we know who he is, Roger,’ Kirsty said. ‘The question is, what was he after?’ And Enzo got the immediate impression that his daughter was not altogether fond of the Mayor of Paris. Raffin seemed oblivious.

‘It looks like he’s almost certain to win the UMP nomination for next year’s presidential election.’

Enzo knew that Raffin, and presumably now Kirsty, saw Devez socially. A friendship between the Raffins and the Devez family that dated back to when the young politician was just embarking on his meteoric rise to political stardom. Marie, apparently, had been friends with Devez’s wife from some private school they had both attended.

Kirsty said, ‘The papers have been predicting that for months.’

Raffin sipped a little more of his Chardonnay. ‘Yes, but I think he must have had the nod from the powers that be. There’s to be an announcement within the next two weeks. And when it’s made public, he wants me to be his press secretary.’

Neither Kirsty nor Enzo knew quite how to respond. If he accepted, and Devez were to become president, it would put Raffin at the very heart of power and influence in France. And there was no doubt that his family, along with Enzo’s mission to solve the cold cases in his book, would take second or even third place.

‘And?’ Kirsty said.

But Raffin just shrugged, as if it were a matter of indifference to him. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

Enzo said, ‘Well, I hope it’s a decision you’ll take in consultation with Kirsty. After all, it’s going to affect you both.’

‘Of course!’ Raffin flicked Enzo a look of irritation, and everything about his tone said, It’s none of your damn business! He pulled his open book towards him. ‘Now, where were we?’

‘The lack of any real link between Blanc and Lucie,’ Enzo prompted him.

‘Ah, yes...’ Raffin sifted through some of the papers in front of him until he found what he was looking for. ‘But here’s the strange thing.’ He ran fingertips over a colour photograph of the spot in the lake bed where Lucie’s skeleton had been found. ‘The girl’s body would have been reduced to bones very quickly, all flesh and soft tissue almost certainly eaten by the fish in the lake. Apparently there are carp, roach, rudd and catfish in those waters. They would have made pretty short work of her. Her skeleton would have disintegrated quite early on, and you would expect there to be some missing pieces. Not least those three tiny bones that make up the U-shaped hyoid in the neck. At twenty, they would not yet have fused into one single piece. We are usually thirty-five or older before that happens. The likelihood of recovering them after fourteen years in the water would have been very remote. Only, for some reason, her killer had tied a blue bin bag over her head, and the hyoid bones were caught up in the plastic.’

He pulled another photograph towards him. The three pieces of the hyoid bone were laid out separately on a sheet of grey paper. The main body of it at the base of the U, and the two horns on either side. One of the horns was broken. Raffin stabbed at it with his forefinger.

‘This one was fractured.’ He dropped the photograph back on the table. ‘Blanc’s modus operandi was strangulation. So violent that the hyoid bones were separated in all three victims, and actually broken in one. So it would appear that Lucie Martin was murdered in exactly the same fashion.’

Kirsty said, ‘So why wasn’t Blanc charged with her murder as well?’

Raffin sat back and quaffed more wine. ‘Because there was no evidence at all to connect him to it.’

‘Apart from the letter,’ Enzo said.

‘Apart from the letter,’ Raffin conceded. ‘But he was nowhere near Duras or the Martin family estate the day she went missing. He had a cast-iron alibi. And he was arrested for the other killings within thirty-six hours of her disappearance. The authorities never took the idea very seriously.’ He washed the Puligny-Montrachet around his gums, and drew it back over his tongue with an intake of air through pursed lips. ‘So what do you think, Enzo?’

Enzo sighed. ‘I think, of all the cases we’ve addressed so far, we’ve never had quite as little as this to go on.’