Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Wednesday Afternoon

KRZYSZTOF SENSED THE presence of the plainclothes flic leaning against the scuffed wainscoting of the engineering lecture hall before he recognized him. He’d noticed the man shifting from one foot to the other in his fresh white Nikes. It was the same flic who had showed him Orla’s body in the morgue. He turned on his heel, suppressed a shudder, and merged with a laughing group of Sorbonne students heading out of the hall.

Brigitte had turned him in. And the flics had lost no time in tracing him here. He had to move fast, to get away. He broke from the group by the reception desk, eased down a passage toward a sign saying ÉLECTRICITÉ BUREAU, and opened the door. Inside, he balled up his sweatshirt jacket, pulled a brown ribbed sweater from his backpack, and put it on. Then he studied the diagram on the wall that showed the exits from the building in case of fire.

Growing up under the Communists in Warsaw, where apartment blocks had been filled with informers and nightly ESKEK—secret police—visits were the rule had honed his senses. Some things one never forgot. His thoughts went back to the unfamiliar faces on the street; men sitting and smoking in their telltale Trabant sedans; the day his father was taken to Bialoleka, the political prison. All gulags were hell, but the Soviets had taken particular delight in torturing his father, an intellectual of aristocratic lineage.

His uncle never wanted to hear about real Warsaw life, which had been governed by the kartki—coupons. Standing in line for gas, sugar, and clothes, his mother had used her maiden name. A title had meant nothing without a kartki. Or bony towarowe, dollar bonds printed by the government and exchanged for goods only in special stores. Reality had been quite unlike the romantic vision of prewar Warsaw his uncle nurtured.

The physics lab lay at the south end of the building; a nearby fire exit to rue Descartes was indicated in small red letters. Perfect. He avoided the electrical panel with its green lights and levers, opened another metal door, and found himself in a peeling brown stucco tunnel breathing warm, fetid air tinged with dry rot. Safe for a moment, he began to feel his anger mounting, overcoming the hurt and shame. After his uncle’s accusations, the long hours of work, his commitment to MondeFocus, now he’d been accused of betraying the cause. He’d been disgraced and would likely be expelled as well, when all he’d done in reality was skip his engineering exam to organize the vigil! And Brigitte, whom he’d regarded as a mentor, had informed on him to the flics. His life was ruined. He had no hope of finishing his studies and obtaining a degree. Now he was being hunted, condemned to hiding.

And despite everything, the Ministry would sign the agreement with Alstrom tonight. If he didn’t do something, they’d win.

Perspiration dampened his sweater by the time he found the physics lab. Empty. Lab classes were over for the day. The last rays of weak light reflected off the slanted slate roofs opposite. The hour of dusk, entre chien et loup, when a dog and a wolf were indistinguishable, as the saying went. He set his backpack down. Above him, arched ceilings were frescoed with portraits of the forebears of physics and science: Pasteur, Curie, Fourier. By the old stained porcelain sinks, beakers and test tubes had been rinsed and left to dry on the drain board. He stared at the liter bottles and vials of chemicals and reactive agents.

Bottle bombs? He snorted, kicking the cabinet. How primitive. On the Internet, recipes for destruction written by fourteen-year-olds were more sophisticated! They involved remote ignition triggered by cell phones, and the explosions packed far more punch. He could rig something twenty times more effective if he had a mind to.

But he’d been caught on video, probably laughing and singing, carrying the backpack with bottle bombs.

Not only ruined, he faced prison like his father. Except that his father, finally recognized for his work after the overturn of the Soviet regime, lay under a gravestone in Warsaw’s Powazki Cemetery.

He took stock of the chemicals on the shelf, the solutions packed in the drawers. If a candlelit vigil against the oil-company negotiations had ended with Gaelle in the hospital after a beating, MondeFocus labeling him a saboteur, and now the flics hunting him, then what had peaceful means accomplished?

The heavy hand always worked . . . in Warsaw and here, too. Didn’t they say the end justified the means? And now he had nothing to lose.