“Sylvie’s murder could make sense if she’d got you by the privates.”
She figured blackmail would give Philippe a motive to murder his ex-mistress.
“Go back and do whatever it is you do.” Philippe scanned the apartments across the canal, he chewed his lip. “Leave your ideas for fantasyland.”
“What if Sylvie felt spurned, maybe hurt and angry?” Aimée continued as if he’d never spoken. She knew she was pushing his buttons; if she tried hard enough he’d reveal something. Sylvie had cared for him and he for her. She stepped closer to him. “So when she finally realizes the affair is over, she blackmails you with pillow talk.”
“That’s not very nice, Aimée,” he said, snapping his fingers. His mood changed. Instead of revealing anything he looked angry.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind her. She turned to see a man, his head shaved, wearing rimless glasses and the distinctive bulges of a bulletproof vest under his dark blue sweater. The man’s eyes, glassy and emotionless, reminded her of a dead fish. His gaze focused on her. She returned his look, hoping he didn’t notice her shiver.
“Meet Claude,” Philippe said.
Claude’s gaze never wavered.
Aimée shifted her boots on the gravel. Her throat tightened. She should have met Philippe on her own terms. Insisted on it.
“Claude pays great attention to detail,” he said. “And he’s turning his attention on you. I wouldn’t want him to find something irregular and close down your business,” he said. His eyes hardened. “Stay out of things you know nothing about.”
Aimée heard the two-way radio squawking from the car. Philippe looked over, his attention taken by a police dispatcher announcing, “Fracas at the sans-papiers hunger strike at Notre-Dame de la Croix.”
“Merde!” he muttered.
“Does Sylvie have something to do with that?” she asked.
She saw shock in Philippe’s eyes. “I’m not the bad guy,” he said.
“Prove it,” she said.
But Philippe had turned, hurrying to the car, Claude behind him. The car sped off, popping gravel before the passenger door had even shut.
She didn’t realize how much Claude’s eyes bothered her until she climbed the humpbacked bridge over Canal Saint Martin, and calmed down enough to think.
If Philippe killed his mistress, pinned the murder on his wife, then tried to cover it up—that made no sense. He would bring disgrace on himself.
Whatever deal Philippe de Froissart had cut, and with whom, had to be dirty. She could smell it.
She thought back to Philippe’s reaction at the car radio announcement of Mustafa Hamid and the AFL. Aimée paused on the metal bridge, above the swirling canal. She remembered seeing Hamid’s hunger strike posters blanketing Belleville. Plastered over walls near Sylvie’s/Eugénie’s apartment. Coincidence or connection, she had to find out. Gaston, she figured, could be a mine of information.
She found the number for Café Tlemcen and called from her cell phone.
“Bonsoir, Gaston,” she said. “Have you got some time for conversation about Mustafa Hamid and the sans-papiers?”
She heard Gaston suck in his breath. The hum of voices filled the background.
“Full house right now,” Gaston said. “Where are you?”
“Canal Saint Martin,” she said.
“Be careful,” he said. “Not a nice place at night.”
The whir of the espresso machine competed with the loud voices speaking guttural Arabic. She heard what sounded like a chair scraping back then hitting the floor.
“Tempers rising, a bit of turmoil here,” he said. “I can’t talk. Come tomorrow. Early.”
Returning home, Aimée crossed Pont Marie, her frosty breath punctuating the night. Her apartment lay dark, no windows lit, no rooms warm or Yves waiting. Face it, she thought, she had been convenient, a pit stop for him coming from Cairo.
Her head down, intent on hurrying to walk Miles Davis before the rain started, she barreled into a figure.
“Pardon!” she said, looking up.
“In a hurry?” Yves said, standing on the quaiside wall opposite her apartment. He brushed her cheek with his fingers, traced her eyes. Below them, the Seine gurgled. “Where were you?” he asked, his coat bundled around him.
Her delight melted. Hadn’t he been to Marseilles and neglected to tell her?
“You don’t want to know,” she said, her mind back on the Canal Saint Martin, Philippe’s threat, and Claude’s dead eyes.
His feet shuffled the wet leaves.
“Someone else, Aimée?”
She wanted to laugh. However, the benefits of keeping a straight face outweighed the truth. There were a lot of other things she wanted to talk about.
“Where have you been, Yves?”
“Editorial meetings,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers. “Lots of dissension, jockeying for position. The usual.”
Her face felt warm. She liked his fingers on her cheek. “Aren’t you getting along with Martine at Le Figaro?.”
He shrugged.
For a moment the streetlight on the quai haloed his head, throwing him into shadow. She couldn’t read his face.
“We’re two different sides of the coin, Aimée,” he said, “but that makes it interesting.”
“You’re undercover again, aren’t you?” Her uneasiness warred with a desire to burrow inside his coat.
He put his finger over her lips. “Let’s say Martine and I agree to disagree.”
“So she wouldn’t like—” she said.
“Work’s over,” he said, tapping his watch. “I already took Miles Davis for his walk. Why don’t we warm up together with this?” He pulled a bottle from a paper bag, then a champagne glass from his overcoat pocket. Slants of light angled across his face. “I only found one glass.”
“We can share,” she said, hooking her arm in his. “A sommelier taught me the secret of popping corks. May I demonstrate?”
“Your talents never cease to amaze me.” He grinned.
They walked down the stone steps to the embankment. Yves spread his coat for them to sit on under the arched bridge. A lone family of ducks swam in silent formation before them, rippling Vs in the smooth water.
“Veuve Cliquot eighty-nine, nice year!” She used her thumbs and with two twists uncorked the champagne.
“To the ducks!” Yves said. He hooked his arm around her shoulder and they drank soldier style, sipping together. The champagne slid down her throat, giggly and velvet. Yves’s body heat warmed her.
As they stared into the water, he told her about Cairo. His face changed recounting a motorcycle trip into the desert on an archaeological dig.
“You like it there, don’t you?” Aimée asked, huddling closer.
“You would too, Aimée,” he said. “The play of light on the dunes, the stillness …” his voice trailed off.
She poured more champagne into their glass.
“I’m not very good at relationships,” she said.
“Makes two of us,” he said. “Let’s drink to that.”
And they did.
She stood up, gripping the bottle. “Last one upstairs—”
“Opens the next bottle,” Yves interrupted, “but first things first.” He leaned against the arch and pulled her close. “I can’t get you out of my mind.”
They kissed for a long time under the bridge. Not even the toot of a barge or an old chchard straggling by disturbed them. They were laughing together as he gave her a piggyback ride all the way up to her apartment. And they spent an even longer time in a hot bath with the next bottle.
Wednesday Evening