“Will you guarantee that Laure Rousseau’s suspension will be lifted and she’ll be cleared of all charges?”
“Under the law, in Internal Affairs investigations, officers charged with a crime remain suspended until the hearing officer reaches a decision.”
They would do nothing for Laure.
“You can’t ignore the witness who saw figures on the roof, the three flashes, the high-tin GSR content.”
“Duly noted, Mademoiselle,” Jubert said. “Of course, by using my name you prioritized a test—a fancy, expensive one, I believe—but I will authorize it after the fact, given your cooperation.”
Aimée stared at Edith Mésard with her perfectly applied makeup, a hint of blush, not too much.
“That’s all you can say?”
Edith Mésard returned her stare, reaching for her overcoat. “I will see justice done, Mademoiselle. Count on it. My record speaks for me. It’s why I serve.”
Edith Mésard clutched her Lancel briefcase. “I believe, in the Sentier case, our dealings proved that?”
In that case, Mésard had gotten parole for Stefan, an old German radical who’d known Aimée’s mother.
“Now, do I need to charge you with infractions of the code and a serious misdemeanor? Under the Security Services Protective Act, a consultant under contract in an ongoing investigation is exempt from prosecution.” She paused, clipping her cell phone to her side pocket. “But you tell me.”
Mésard was good. Still, she’d revealed how much they needed Aimée. Needed her like the country needed butter if Mésard was willing to invoke the Security Services Protective Act on her behalf.
Could she work with people who had links to the surveillance that had killed her father? Once she got involved with them, there would be no walking out. On the other hand, connections meant everything, and the closer she edged to the secret world, the more opportunities existed to find out about her father’s contract with the RG, and why he had died.
And maybe it would explain why Jacques was killed, too.
Doing business with the devil she knew seemed better than doing it with the one she couldn’t identify. And it was the only way she’d get Laure off. She nodded.
“Good,” Edith Mésard said, as if it was all in a busy morning’s work. “Monsieur Jubert will give you the details.”
Her heels clicked across the floor and the door shut behind her with a whoosh of cold air.
“Sit down, Mademoiselle,” Ludovic Jubert said. “I know you’re quick so this won’t take long.”
She sat down in the wingback chair, crossed her legs, and prayed she could do this.
“Before we start I need to know about the report,” she said.
“Report, Mademoiselle?” Jubert raised a thick white eyebrow.
She pulled out the photo of the four of them—Morbier, Georges Rousseau, her father, and Jubert—on the steps by Zette’s place and set it on the windowsill. The snow was still falling outside, like scattered feathers.
“Aaah, I had a flat stomach then,” Jubert said.
“I think you know what I want,” she said.
“I am clueless, Mademoiselle. Mind if I smoke?” he asked, as if they were in a café instead of La Proc’s office.
She pulled a Nicorette patch from her bag, then threw it back in. “Not if you offer me one.”
He handed her a pack of filtered Murati Ambassador, a Swiss brand. She took one and he lit it with a silver lighter. She inhaled, and the smooth kick slid to the back of her throat.
“Now try not to think of this as the dentist’s chair, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Enjoy this little guilty pleasure and let’s get started.”
“You’ll have my full cooperation,” she said, leaning back and savoring the Murati. “But first I need to know if you, or all of you, and my father were involved with a gambling scam in Montmartre. One Georges Rousseau took credit for stopping it though it’s still going on in Zette’s bar. And all over the quartier, I imagine.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? This secret?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Tell me and it will go no further than this room.”
His gray eyes flickered as he weighed his answer.
“Corruption’s a serious charge,” he said.
“I don’t believe Papa was involved in a cover-up of corruption. I think you were and saddled him with your crime. You stigmatized the rest of his life.”
“Your mother did that, Mademoiselle,” Ludovic Jubert said without missing a beat. “She tainted his career prospects.”
Her American mother who had left them and joined a group of radicals in the seventies. “That’s your opinion.” She took a drag to cover the jolt Jubert’s words had given her.
“Jean-Claude paid for that many times over,” he said, looking out the window. “A good flic. He had a nose, as they say, for the odor of crime. No getting past that. And I see you do, too.” He sighed. “Georges Rousseau liked the odor. He didn’t mind running informers and giving them too much leeway.”
“Are you saying Georges Rousseau was the corrupt one? He died a decorated—”
“And valorous commissaire,” Ludovic Jubert interrupted.
“We had to cover for him. He’d compromised too much in Montmartre.”
Was that what Morbier was hiding? Why did Laure think it was Aimée’s father who was implicated?
“Some of Rousseau’s informers played by the rules,” Jubert continued. “Still do. We turn a blind eye to their little operations and they reciprocate with information on more serious matters. Matters affecting national security. All flics depend on informers; we wouldn’t get far without insider information.” He ground out his cigarette, impatient. “But you know this. You know how the system operates.”
She’d been raised on it. Her father hated it and left to join her grandfather at Leduc Detective. One doesn’t touch pitch, he’d said, without being blackened.
“Then you’re saying Georges Rousseau took bribes and became corrupt,” she said, “but was decorated and promoted because his network of informers was needed? Then why does Laure believe my father was corrupt and the proof’s in a report?”
“Use your imagination,” he said.
“You’re implying Laure’s father fingered mine, shifted his own guilt onto my father?”
“Close.”
“Where’s the police file?”
“The RG deep-froze most of them.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Mademoiselle, it’s in your interest to do so.” He stood. “Still the little firebrand, I see,” he said. “Daddy’s little girl. Your father wanted a boy, you know.”
Bastard! That stung. How would he know?
She clutched the edge of the chair, white knuckled. She wouldn’t let him see how his words had rocked her. She recalled Laure’s mumblings and Morbier’s comments scrawled on the newspaper.
“This all ties to the investigation of Corsican Separatists six years ago, doesn’t it? The question of where they were getting arms. That’s the secret report. My father worked on it, didn’t he? With you?”
Ludovic Jubert stabbed out his cigarette and nodded.
“Your father always said you were sharp,” he said.
“Did this involve the explosion in Place Vendôme that killed him?”
“Not at all. It is as I told you. Let’s move to the present, shall we?” He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a file.
“We believe this man’s running a Separatist network in Montmartre. We count on you to find him.”
He handed it to her. “Look inside. He’s a Corsican terrorist, a member of the Armata Corsa, responsible for bomb threats to the Mairie and for holdups using the arms that were stolen six years ago.”