Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Sunday, 9 A.M.

“PROFESSOR BECQUEREL?”

The pale-faced twenty-something shook his head. He ground his cigarette under his heel in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers laboratory courtyard and stuck the butt in the pocket of his smudged, gray lab coat. “He died in the nursing home. No family. Sad, they said.”

Aimée hoped she hadn’t made a trip to the grande école in the 13th arrondissement for nothing. And so early on a Sunday morning.

“Didn’t he maintain an office?”

“Here we’re all third-year Gadz’Arts,” he said. “There’s no space for old, retired professors, even legends.”

“Whom could I speak with who knew him?”

“Only the laboratory’s open today. Just students.” The young man shrugged. “The school held a memorial for him a few days ago.”

That gave her an idea. “Where do they keep the remembrance book?”

“Quoi?”

She noticed the ink stains on his lapel pocket. A slide rule sticking out of his pants. A textbook geek.

“People who attended the memorial would sign a remembrance book, non?”

He shrugged. “Check with the office.” His wristwatch beeped. “Excusez-moi.”

But the offices were closed. Five minutes of directions from the concierge and a long corridor later, she found her goal. A high-ceilinged foyer led to a musty nineteenth-century salon dominated by the bronze statue of Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who founded the school before the Revolution. Later, at Napoleon’s request, he focused on a trained military-style corps of engineers. Or so the inscription read.

The busts, portraits, and names on the wall spoke of the expertise of the celebrated Gadz’Arts. And the power and prestige. She stood back to note the graduates, from the designer of First World War fighter planes to the engineers of the Suez Canal, and get a sense of Samour’s connections.

Another wall listed more recent graduates. On supervisory boards, heading engineering firms, or captains of industry with firms like Renault. Impressive and all over the map.

Below she found a photo of a hollow-cheeked, bespectacled man with the handwritten Gothic script: Alphonse Becquerel, a pioneer who knew no boundaries in the field of optics and technology.

She opened the slim leather remembrance volume sitting on the podium. Inside were pasted articles from Becquerel’s long engineering and teaching career. Memorials from past students listed by graduating year—all in the stilted Gothic black-ink script. A curious familial feel to the notes, but hadn’t Jean-Luc called it a fraternity, a family?

Yet not Pascal’s name. Odd not to attend the memorial of a man he revered and trusted. She filed that away for later.

Determined to come away with something besides the sneeze building in her nose from the dust, she stuck the remembrance volume in her bag. In the first office she found, she smiled at the cleaning woman. “I’m in a hurry for the professor. Any copier available on this floor?”

The cleaner, a smiling middle-aged woman wearing a head scarf, gestured across the hall. Twenty francs poorer, Aimée left the remembrance memorial and walked out of the Conservatoire with the copied contents in her bag.

The cold gray outside made her think of the approaching gray monochrome of February. A month of beating rain and the highest rate of suicides. Around the corner she passed Le Monde diplomatique, the leftist intello monthly lodged in an old dairy. A remnant of the village the quartier was until the seventies demolition and tower blocks.

But the zinc counter at the café hadn’t changed in years. The milk steamer whooshed, the steam radiator hissed. She hung her coat up on the rack.

“Un express, s’il vous plaît.”

The girl with thick black eyeliner behind the counter put down her Marie Claire magazine and nodded.

From the side alcove the news blared on the télé—World Cup fever for the national team, Les Bleus, overtaking the ongoing five-month-old Princess Di investigation. Then, a brief bulletin concerning the street closures that would clog northeast Paris on Monday, and the hospital workers protest in the morning. What else was new?

No mention of the Pascal Samour homicide.

Aimée studied the remembrance book pages and picked out the name of the one graduate in Pascal’s year. Tristan de Voule of Solas Energie. More approachable, she figured, than the older directors of megaconglomerates. She’d start with him.

The girl served Aimée’s espresso and went back to reading Marie Claire.

After some dialing, she found no Tristan de Voule listed, but directory assistance connected her to Solas Energie.

Then a twenty-four, seven answering service. After being routed through two receptionists, she reached his administrative assistant.

“Monsieur de Voule’s in the field,” said the assistant. “His schedule is booked all week.”

Great. A busy engineer or head honcho working on the weekend. She thought fast.

“A pity. I’m calling on behalf of the tribute we’re setting up in Professor Becquerel’s name. He attended the memorial and expressed interest in contributing.”

“I’ll relay the message, Mademoiselle.”

“Of course, but he told me how he looked up to the professor.” She scrambled for something more convincing. “Wanted to do a more personal tribute. But I’ve misplaced his cell phone number.”

Pause.

“Last Wednesday at the memorial here at the Conservatoire,” Aimée continued. “You know how close the Gadz’Arts grow to their mentors.”

“I’m not allowed to give out his number. Company policy.”

No doubt the admin fielded calls for donations all the time.

“I understand.” She had to persist. “But you could take mine. It’s close to his heart, he told me. 06 38 35 15 78. Before tonight, if possible.”

A little sigh. “Bon. I’ll pass on your number, Mademoiselle.”

She stirred her espresso and read. Alphonse Becquerel, a descendent of Henri, the physicist who shared the Nobel Prize with Marie and Pierre Curie. Devoted himself to light and optics, mostly in corporate research labs connected with technology. A pioneer in communications systems.

She got little from this bare-bones description. More emphasis seemed placed on his leadership of student organizations. In his later years he’d taught one high-level class on theories in relative connectivity.

Whatever that meant, she thought. But René would know.

She hit René’s number on her speed dial. Only voice mail. Why didn’t he answer?

She glanced at her Tintin watch. If she hurried she’d make her meeting with Prévost. Her cell phone trilled.

“René, where are you?”

Pause. Grinding metal sounded in the background.

“Excusez-moi, but I thought … I’m calling concerning Professor Becquerel?” said a deep voice. “A mistake …”

Stupid. She hadn’t thought he’d return her call so soon, if at all. Instead of preparing a story to elicit info about Pascal, she’d flubbed it. She’d have to salvage this.

“Pas du tout, Monsieur de Voule,” she said. “Forgive me for not checking my caller ID.”

“I’m not sure I remember you at the Memorial. Did we meet?” he said. Polite, cautious, and smart.

No way around this but to plunge right in. And stretch the truth.

“I worked with Pascal Samour volunteering at the museum.” A little lie.

Scraping noises. A long pause.

“I don’t understand, Mademoiselle.”

“Matter of fact, I still do. But his murder—”

“Murder?” She heard shock in his tone.

“You didn’t know? But as Gadz’Arts, his classmate, I thought …”

A sigh. “It’s complicated. Pascal’s not on the Gadz’Arts list. No wonder he didn’t attend the memorial. But why call me?”

“Now I don’t understand,” she said. “A list?”

A snort. “I’m a crapaud, a toad. Not that I bought into the traditions, just enough to get by. Pascal never did. So he’s unofficial. An HU.”

“Which means?”

Pause.

“The Mentus, upperclassmen, enlisted cadres to prove themselves. If you resisted, you’d be labeled ‘outside the factory,’ hors usinage, HU, like Pascal. Me, I did the minimum, a crapaud, so I made the list.”

“Pascal’s not part of the family, then?” She sipped her espresso, trying to understand.

“That’s one way to put it,” he said. “This lore goes so far back.” He gave a little sigh. “Ritualistic traditions passed on in a mysterious booklet with arcane symbols, mystical directions. We were pressured to wake up before dawn, wear long robes, learn chants.” His tone was embarrassed. Almost apologetic. “Exerting constant pressure on us until our class coalesced into a unit, a cohesive mold.”

Not a system Pascal seemed to have fit into. “Sounds like the military,” she said.

“Cadres were coached to do the dirty work. ‘Killers.’ ”

Her breath caught. “Killers?”

The girl behind the counter peered up from her Marie Claire. Aimée turned away.

“I mean, it was perfect preparation for the cutthroat corporate world. Daring each other to man up, take risks,” he said. “Prove they’re worthy, part of the group. This notion of group loyalty and camaraderie through shared suffering. Ridiculous when you think about it.”

Pause. The clanking and shouting of men came from the background.

“I’m sorry about Pascal,” de Voule said. “He looked up to Becquerel. A mentor, even to HU.”

“Outcasts like Pascal?”

“Look, I’m at a work site with heavy machinery lined up.”

“Pascal confided his project to Becquerel,” she said quickly. “But I think it links to the contract we’re working on for his department. Can you think how Becquerel would have been involved?”

“Beats me, Mademoiselle,” de Voule said. “The professor looked toward the future. He was a visionary. Foresaw computing systems, communication networks, fiber optics years ago.”

She grabbed her brown lip liner and wrote “communications networks, fiber optics” on a serviette.

“One more thing. His friend Jean-Luc Narzac, a fellow classmate, you know him, of course?”

Pause.

“Narzac? Haven’t seen him in several years.” De Voule’s tone had changed. “The team’s waiting for me, Mademoiselle.”

He’d shut down.

“May I just ask what you do, what your company does?”

“Solar energy.” Pause. “I tried to recruit Samour, a brilliant research analyst and engineer. But he never cared for an office, four walls.”

“He liked them rounded, Monsieur,” she said. “He lived in a tower, did you know that?”

“I’m sorry.” Another pause. “But I can see him living in a tower, now that you say that. A visionary much in the mold of Becquerel. Both seeing the roots of tomorrow in the science of the past. I can picture him living in a fourteenth-century tower.”

Now she was alert. “Fourteenth century?”

“Samour was obsessed with the fourteenth century,” de Voule said. “It was his passion, studying arts and sciences from that period. According to him, no one’s ever invented anything new since then. Was going to set out and prove it, or so he said when I offered him a job. It’s my company, I told him, you could make your own hours. But he followed his own path.”

“His great-aunt said the same thing,” Aimée said. “Becquerel knew what he was working on, but with his death …” She paused. “Did Pascal have enemies?”

Her phone clicked. Another call. She ignored it.

“Look, it’s terrible. But I don’t know. Sorry if I’m not helpful.” She sensed there was more he wanted to say.

“Au contraire, you’ve told me a lot. If there’s anything else that comes up for you, you’ve got my contact number.”

She slapped five francs on the counter and listened to the message. Mademoiselle Samoukashian, and she sounded afraid.

AT THE APARTMENT door, Mademoiselle Samoukashian took one look at Aimée’s raised Swiss Army knife and stepped back. “Overreacting, Mademoielle?”

“You sounded worried, you stressed urgency,” Aimée said. “Has something happened?”

“In the kitchen,” she said, “but put that away first.”

Aimée slipped the knife in her purse. A high, warbled bleeping, like birdsong, came from the high-end laptop.

An e-mail received.

Mademoiselle Samoukashian blinked and sat down. “That’s from Pascal.” She pointed to the screen. “His e-mail signal. I’ve gotten two of them today.”

“You’re sure?” Aimée asked, startled.

She nodded.

Pascal kept busy for a man on the slab at the morgue. A coldness spread in her stomach. “And you didn’t open them?”

“I wanted to show you.”

Seating herself on the stool, Aimée stared at the address: Pascal@wanadoo.fr.

There was an attachment. A virus, a sick joke? Or had someone hacked his account already? She’d view the message before deleting it.

If something has happened to me, give this to Becquerel. He can lead you in the right direction.

But Becquerel was dead.

“I just asked one of Pascal’s Gadz’Arts classmates about Becquerel.”

“And?”

“Nothing.” Aimée pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll need to confer with my partner.”

Mademoiselle Samoukashian nodded, her gaze glued to the screen.

René answered on the first ring.

“Any idea how Pascal could e-mail his great-aunt with an attachment a moment ago?”

Pause. “He had a dead man switch on his computer account,” René said. “Common practice for nerds to store secrets in encrypted files. Each time you log in, it resets the clock. But if you don’t log in within a certain period of time, it sends an e-mail. Then deletes files, if he programmed it that way. No telling how long ago he set this up.”

“So he could have programmed this a week ago, two weeks ago?”

She heard the clicking of keys in the background

“Shoot it to me right now with the attachment. Hurry.”

She typed in René’s address. Hit FORWARD and said a little prayer. “Done.”

René sucked in his breath. “Let me find a program to figure this out.”

“How long, René?”

“An hour, a day. Call you back.” He clicked off.

Aimée looked up. “I have to go.”

“You’ll find who murdered Pascal?” The old woman’s voice quavered.

Determined now, she nodded. “Count on it, Mademoiselle Samoukashian.”