The bewilderment on Stefan’s face and a warning look from Marcus made Jules simplify.
“I hear you’re good with engines. You’ll drive the getaway car.” He winked and raised his cloudy amber glass. “Salut.”
Now, as he drove into Paris, Stefan realized he’d guessed wrong. Jules was an arnaqueur, a con man, using the cause for his own purposes. But, Stefan reasoned, hadn’t they all … in one way or another?
Paris had changed over the years, he thought, but it still made him nervous. He shuddered, easing the old Mercedes into the parking spot. Time for his quarterly visit. Time to pick up some goodies. The older he got, the more careful he grew. No big amounts to attract attention. Just a little at a time.
He adjusted his Basque beret, donned dark glasses and a brown raincoat. Outside the car, he walked fast, his hands swinging by his sides.
For all he knew, some off-duty flic might recognize him from the old Interpol wanted list. Now they called it Europol. Same thing. He was still wanted. They all were. Small chance after all this time, but the fear jelled his bone marrow some nights.
He bought a mixed floral bouquet. Like always. Inside the cemetery gate, he took a deep breath. Not to worry, he told himself, patting the tools inside his pocket. This wouldn’t take long.
Flowering plane trees swayed in the weak breeze. Distant traffic and shouts of children in the nearby playground hummed in his good ear.
He walked down the path to the mausoleum, pulled the grill gate open.
The coffin was there. He raised the lid. It was empty.
He stood stock-still. Shock waves hit his heart.
Where?
He collapsed onto the sandy gravel.
Who? Had Jules taken it?
Sunday Afternoon
AIMÉE KNOCKED ON THE Figeac apartment door. The Polish cleaning woman who answered surveyed her with narrowed eyes. She had a weathered face with high cheekbones and was wearing a short blue skirt and rolled-down ankle socks with sandals. Radio talk blared in the background.
“Pardon,” Aimée said. “You remember me, eh? I’ve come to gather the owner’s things.”
The woman leaned on her mop, tucking wisps of hair back under her scarf. “The immobiliére doesn’t want people in here,” the woman said, shaking her head.
“Bien sûr, the agent’s right,” Aimée said, thinking fast. “But he forgot his carte d’identité.”
“We’re not supposed to … something to do with insurance,” the woman said, shaking her head.
“Only take a moment.” Aimée smiled, hoping she sounded more authoritative than she felt. She edged her foot in the doorway.
“Tanya!” the other cleaning woman shouted from inside. The rest of the words were in Polish.
“Go ahead,” Aimée said, “I’ll just pop into the study, then leave.”
The woman looked at her wristwatch, hesitating.
“We’re running behind,” she said. “Got two more places to clean today.”
“I’ll make it quick,” Aimée said, stepping inside. “For your help, merci.”
The woman moved back reluctantly.
Thank God they hadn’t started in Romain Figeac’s writing room yet.
Aimée walked into the tall-windowed room, closed the door, and locked it with the key Christian had used. Pulling on latex gloves from her backpack, she found her Swiss Army knife and surveyed the room.
No bookshelves lined with books. No photos. No announcements tacked on the wall. Not even old mail or torn envelopes. Just a secrétaire, with cabriole legs, in the middle of the room. The room’s stillness and stale air bothered her. But she knew people had shot themselves with a .25 and lived. It didn’t add up.
She opened the desk’s only drawer. Full of off-white, thick vellum paper.
Blank.
On the desktop lay a wooden pen and an assortment of nibs by a bottle of bleu des mers du sud Waterman ink. The typewriter, a shiny red Olivetti, was a classic. Under it was tucked a sheet of paper, a reference sheet, on which appeared a series of page numbers and typographical error symbols. A copy editor’s comments, she imagined.
She looked closer. Under the Tallimard logo, a line read, “From the desk of Alain Vigot, éditeur.” In the bottom right-hand corner, she saw “agit888 … Frésnes,” written in blue ink, running off the paper.
Frésnes was the prison where Jutta said her mother had been held!
She didn’t know its significance but she folded the paper and stuck it in her backpack.
If Romain Figeac wrote in ink, then transcribed it on the typewriter, where were the boxes of his work—as well as newspaper clippings, photos, or research notes? Where would Idrissa have put them?
She got on her hands and knees and went over the sloping wood floor looking for a floor safe.
Nothing but dust and cracks in the honey-colored parquet.
The floor creaked every time she moved. No wonder Christian Figeac heard noises. Or thought he did.
Dust motes flickered in the fading light slanting through the windows. She knew she was missing something. What, she didn’t know.
She sat in the desk chair, an old leather one. Then put her head down on the desk. She measured from that point to the red-brown bloodstain smudged on the wallpaper. At least a meter and a half.
She knelt. With her Swiss Army knife she cut away a long rectangle of the bloodstained floral wallpaper from the recess bordering the door frame. She peeled it down to the baseboard. Another layer of smudged wallpaper, older and with a faded blue striped pattern, emerged. The bloodstain was fainter.
She cut into the faded stripes, peeled off a section, and found an older layer with dense clusters of roses. Quaint, turn of the century.
Dark red blood splatters had even soaked into this old-fashioned rose wallpaper. Not only gruesome, she thought, but odd.
Carefully, she pulled the wallpaper down to the baseboard and pried loose the edge.
A dark red congealed clump had seeped down. She sat back; she really didn’t want to do this. Jutta Hald’s face flashed before her.
A faint metallic odor came from the dried, encrusted blood. She scraped up a sample, took a glue stick from her bag, and rubbed it over the wallpaper. She pasted each layer, except for the old-fashioned roses, back on and smoothed them over.
Still on her knees, she checked the creaking parquet floor. At the tall window, the rooftops of the Sentier spread before her, squat chimneys, impossibly angled rooflines, and bricked-up windows opposite.
Doubtful if anyone could see in.
She traced her gloved fingers over the cold glass windowpanes. Felt in the grooves where glass was framed by metal. Something hard was stuck between the glass and metal.
She wedged it out, fingered it.
A small ivory bone fragment.
She turned the fragment over in her palm. Curved and with jagged lines, like a river seen from space.
She felt around more. Near where the metal joined the floor was another bone bit.
Apprehension came over her. What gun had sufficient force to scatter bone this far?
She’d come here looking for clues about her mother. And they were here somewhere. But if Romain Figeac was a suicide, she was his onetime neighbor Madame du Barry.
The door rattled as the knob turned.
“Mademoiselle, we have to clean in here!”
Aimée scanned the room again, wondering where the writer’s files could be kept.
“Open up at once or I’m calling the agent!”
She slipped the bone fragments, the wallpaper sample, and then her gloves into a Baggie. Time to get out of here.