Murder in Clichy

Thursday

NADÈGE GATHERED HER VELVET skirt and slid through the hole in the slat fence. She followed the weed-choked rail line to the old train tunnel, now blackened and dark. Moisture oozed from the moss-filled cracks in the stone. Beyond the tunnel lay the thieves’ market in the closed down rail yards.

Brick red, peeling rail cars were hooked up to cylindrical ones labeled liquid petroleum gas. She knew the homeless, the clochards who were fond of the bottle, slept in them between the periodic raids by the railway police. And weasels scavenged on the old tracks.

Nadège tried not to grimace as she passed the display of used Prada bags, Vuitton totes, and Christian Louboutin red-soled shoes spread on a blanket.

“Ça va, ma belle?” said Hortense. Her toothless grin and hollowed out face shocked Nadège. Once a model, Hortense had graced Elle magazine covers before the drug ravaged her. “Take your pick. Worn once, most of them.”

Nadège’s stomach cramped and her eyes watered. Withdrawal, never dramatic like in the movies, was more like an aching flu, so bad her bones hurt, laced by nausea and sweating. Now she used the drug just to become “normal,” forget getting high. And she hated it.

“Where’s Mr. Know-it-all?”

But Hortense had nodded out, slumped against the lichen-covered stone tunnel. Nadège passed the young hustlers warming their hands by a fire of burning railroad ties. An aging clochard sold cartons of Dunhill cigarettes, and a man stood by a pile of copper pipe with a sign saying “TEN FRANCS EACH.” He rubbed his hands in the cold and shook his head when Nadège asked him if he’d seen her connection. The sky darkened with rain.

Desperate, she asked a thin man taking water from the old rusted faucet, ignoring his leer.

“Looking for candy, eh. Know-it-all’s a no show today.”

Merde! “C’est vrai?” she asked.

“What’s it worth to you?”

His eyes were like brown stones. He smelled of earth and the decay around him.

“Take a hike,” she said.

“Name the time and place.”

Not even in your next life, she thought.

She hurried over the rail lines. Her hands shook. She needed some courage to meet her father. Juste un peu . . . she’d cut back. Would cut back even more, if only she could get through the next hour.

Old covered yards led to abandoned, decayed buildings. Nadège had avoided this area after Thadée cautioned her against the heavy-duty types controlling it.

She climbed a rusted-out staircase. Dampness clung to the graffitied walls pockmarked with age. Inside, water dripped and a terse conversation echoed. She bent down and picked her way over the metal rods, avoided the broken glass and randomly strewn bricks to get closer. “. . . Flics can’t find her, how can we?” She recognized two of the men huddled in a group. One had threatened Thadée last week, the one who had a van.

Did they mean her?

Her hands shook so much, she couldn’t hold onto the railing. She backed out, step by step. Right into the arm of the leering man from the faucet, his hands still damp.

“What’s your hurry?”

She pushed his hands away, took off running, and didn’t stop until she’d reached the fence.

SHE RUBBED her nose and tottered into her father’s home-office on her highest heels. Her feet were sore, brutal mecs were looking for her, and she had nowhere else to go. The flu-like symptoms of withdrawal slammed hard: every part of her ached, feverish and sweating.

“Bonjour, Papa.”

Her father sat by a roaring fire talking on the phone, frowning. Her stepmother’s room had been vacant.

“I told you never to come here,” he said, after finally hanging up.

“But it’s about Thadée—”

“Oui, the funeral,” he said, rubbing his tired eyes. “Behave this time. If you make a scene at the church service I’ll have all your contact with Michel cut off.”

She shook her head. “Why won’t you ever listen to me, Papa?”

“Because when I do, it’s what’s running in your veins that talks, not my Nadège.” His eyes moistened. “I blamed Thadée. And now drugs killed him.”

“Non, Papa,” she said. “Not drugs. . . .”

“Nadège, wake up,” he said. “Try the clinic. . . .”

She shriveled in fear. He meant St. Anne’s, the psychiatric hospital. The dank looney bin on the site of a medieval convalescent house for those with contagious diseases. The place where he’d committed her mother after she’d been thrown out of the last private clinic.

Her mother had never come out.

She had to make him understand.

“You’re not listening,” she said, pacing back and forth. “Thadée owed—”

“His dealers,” he interrupted. “What can I do? A scandal will erupt unless I cooperate.”

“Who cares what people think? He’s dead, they killed him.”

His eyes narrowed. “What was the last thing Thadée said to you?”

What did he mean?

“ ‘Meet me at my place.’ Please, Papa.” Why was he so stubborn; she needed a place to stay. Somewhere safe. “So his dealers threatened you,” she said, “and you’re more worried about that than about me?”

The phone rang. She knew he wanted to answer it, yet his eyes caught on her torn shoes. Pain and hurt softened his look.

“Did he ever mention your grand-père’s art collection?”

She could never confide in him. Not now.

She slammed the door on her way out.