“Why do you want the child?”
“I’m a sentimental old man. She’s the last living relative of a woman I loved dearly. For Harriette’s sake I want to protect her.”
“And Bonnard?”
“Once the woman and the man who cuckolded him are dead he will regain reason. He’s had times like this before, word has it. But if you wish to survive you’ll have to stop your nasty little hobby. Even if I can manage to get rid of Malgreave, someone else will be after you and if you’re almost caught once, someone else can put the same facts together. And next time it won’t take them so long.”
Rocco wished he had a silk handkerchief of his own to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “I’ll stop. I don’t know if it will be possible for Bonnard.”
Hubert smiled sweetly. “Then you’ll simply have to stop him.”
Rocco shut his eyes for a moment, feeling the sweat roll down his back and under his arms, pooling in his groin. If he was frightened of anyone in this world he was frightened of Marc Bonnard. He met Hubert’s grave expression and nodded.
“And take good care of the child for me. I would be very distressed if Bonnard got to her first.”
“I’ll find her. And the Americans.”
“And Bonnard,” Hubert said gently.
“And Bonnard,” agreed Rocco.
CHAPTER 18
Claire slammed down the telephone, crashing it into the receiver. Nicole slept onward, curled in a fetal position on the uncomfortable sofa in the salon, and Tom stood by the window, looking out into the afternoon streets. “They won’t listen,” she said, her voice raw with frustration and unshed tears. “Damn their souls to hell.”
“What did the police say?”
“Just the same garbage they told you. They would record my complaints and pass the information on to the next available officer. That they appreciated my assistance in this matter. Damn them!”
“You couldn’t remember who’s in charge of the investigation?”
“I know who’s in charge of the investigation.” Claire wrapped her arms around her shivering body. “He’s a tall man, in his late fifties, with gray eyes and a deeply lined face.”
“I hate to be nitpicking, Claire, but what was the man’s name?”
“For God’s sake, don’t you think I’m trying to remember?” she cried. “It was something French. And don’t tell me that isn’t any help. I know most people who work for the Paris police have French names. It was something like … Mal … Malgreave.”
He still hadn’t moved from his spot by the window, and she wanted nothing more than to cross the elegant, haunted room and lean against him, huddle in the shelter of his warmth and strength. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t give in to the weakness and terror she was fighting so hard. Tom couldn’t take responsibility for the three of them, much as she wished she could simply hide her head in the sand and let him. She had gotten herself, and to some extent, the two of them, into this mess, and she had to get them out.
“Did you leave your number with the police?” Tom asked. “Are they going to call you back?”
“Yes. Not that I’m holding my breath. It was clear they thought I was a crazy American lady.”
“They wouldn’t listen to me either.”
“You’re a crazy American man. They’re not going to take our word against that of a man with Marc’s reputation, not unless we can prove it. At this point it’s our word against his.”
“And you don’t think there’s enough proof? What about when Nicole wakes up? Won’t they believe her?”
“She’s a child, a child who’s recently lost her mother and her grandmother in violent, unexpected ways. They’ll think she’s fantasizing.”
“I think you’re being needlessly pessimistic. Let’s wake her up, go outside, and get a taxi to police headquarters. We can just camp there until someone listens to us. At least Bonnard couldn’t get to you there.” She could tell Tom was making an effort at being reasonable, but she couldn’t listen.
“No!” she said, fighting panic at the very idea. “I know how charming Marc can be, and when it comes right down to it, I have no right keeping Nicole with me. He could even tell the police that I drugged her, I kidnapped her. They’d take her from me and give her back to him, and there’d be nothing I could do about it.”
“I don’t know if Bonnard is capable of such rational behavior anymore,” Tom said slowly. “He sounded like he’d slipped over the edge.”
“Maybe. I can’t count on it.” She moved over and sank down on the couch, inches from Nicole’s bare feet. Tom had been surprisingly patient all afternoon, calling the police and trying to get through in his adequate French, making tea that neither of them drank, his very presence a comfort, a defense against the forces of evil. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had enough. After all, he had no ties to her. They were merely chance-met strangers in Paris, and she’d managed to draw him into a web of murder and madness from which there seemed to be no escape. It would be little wonder if he wanted to wash his hands of the whole sordid affair.
“Damn it, Claire, we can’t just sit here …” he began, rumpling his already tousled hair in frustration.
“No, we can’t,” she said, pulling a hard-gained serenity back around her. “And I’ve decided what I have to do.”
“Have you?” His tone of voice wasn’t promising, but Claire ignored it. The sooner Tom was out of this mess, the better.
“Nicole and I are going into hiding. My new American Express card should be ready. With that I’ll rent a car, take Nicole, and go off someplace where Marc can’t find us. Just long enough for the police to realize we’ve been handing them their murderer on a silver platter. Once I read in the paper that Marc’s been arrested I’ll bring Nicole back.”
He’d listened to this all with an enigmatic expression on his face. “And what am I supposed to be doing during all this?”
“Working on your novel. While we’re gone you could keep after the police, tell them how crazy Marc is. With you to badger them, they should eventually see reason.”
“Sounds very efficient. Where were you planning on going?” His voice was mild, and Claire found herself struggling between relief and disappointment. She had thought, had hoped, he’d put up more of a fight.
“I wasn’t quite sure. South, I suppose, maybe near the Riviera. We’d call in, check to see if anything’s happened. We’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be dead,” he said flatly.
“Tom …”
“For one thing, you can’t rent a car without proper identification, and that includes a passport. For another, Bonnard knows the Riviera, you don’t. You’d be much safer in a less-inhabited part of the country. God knows that’s easy enough to find—most of the population is crowded around Paris and the southeast coast. And in case it’s slipped your mind, you can’t speak French. Not a goddamned word of it. So how do you expect to fade into the woodwork for God knows how long without Marc finding you?”
“I can’t involve you in this.”
“I’m already involved. He knows me, he knows where I live. He called you at my apartment, remember? I’m just as likely to wind up with a knife in my throat while you’re off sunning yourself at Cap Ferrat.”
“Don’t.” Claire shuddered.
“Sorry, lady. I’m in this all the way. You’ll find I have my uses. I’m a jack of all trades—I’ll be your chauffeur, your translator, and your bodyguard. And I work cheap. Just an occasional pat on the head, a crumb of affection, and I’ll be your slave.”
“I can’t let you do it.”
“You have no choice,” he said flatly, and Claire wondered how she had ever thought he was easygoing. “It’s very simple. First, I don’t have a car, but I have a friend who has an old Peugeot that simply sits around getting rusty. Second, I don’t think we should bother with your American Express card. Bonnard will expect you to get a new one—it would be his best chance of tracing you. We’ll manage without. I ca
n get plenty of cash, and where we’re headed we won’t need much money.”
“Where are we headed?”
He grinned at her, and suddenly she found herself grinning back, feeling reckless and oddly carefree. Whether she liked it or not, she did have someone to turn to. “We’re going toward one of the darkest, emptiest corners in the back of beyond. A place where the goats outnumber the dogs, and the dogs outnumber the people. The only place in France where grapes don’t grow. In other words, we’re going to my vineyard.”
“You have a vineyard?”
“For want of a better word. It’s a bleak and barren outcropping of earth where the sun never shines and it only rains when you don’t want it to. What grapes survived three different kinds of blight are at this moment fermenting into one of the world’s worst wines. We closed down last year and as far as I know no one’s been back since. It’ll be the perfect place to hide out. No one speaks English, but they’ll remember the crazy American who tried to grow grapes where grapes won’t grow. And Bonnard will never find us.”
Claire shook her head in disbelief. “And where is this Garden of Eden?”
“About four hours away if we drive directly. I propose we take a roundabout way in case anyone follows us. We don’t have a telephone at the vineyard, but there’s a public phone in town. Once I get you settled into the farmhouse I can go down and call the police again. Maybe by then they’ll be more receptive.”
“Or maybe by then Marc will have convinced them that he’s innocent.”
“Maybe. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, I want you to pack some clothes for you and Nicole. Just the bare essentials—we want to travel as light as possible. Then we’ll head out across town to my friend’s house.”
“Couldn’t you just get the car yourself and come back here?” she suggested, bowing to the blessed inevitable. “I could pack while you’re gone, and I promise we’d keep the doors locked.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t wanted to point this out to you, darling,” he said gently, “but this is Bonnard’s apartment. A locked door isn’t keeping him out. He has keys.”
Claire could feel her face turn pale, her small measure of security ripped away from her. “How could I be so stupid?”
“It’s all right, Claire. As far as I can tell he hasn’t come near all day.”
“I’ll get our clothes,” she said numbly. “You call your friend. I’ll be ready to leave in five minutes. If Nicole’s still asleep you can carry her.”
“We don’t need to rush …”
“I need to get out of here,” she said, her voice deep and grim. “Call your friend.”
Josef dropped the neatly folded paper on Malgreave’s desk. “As ordered, sir,” he said, dropping wearily into the chair across from his superior. He wiped his domed forehead with a linen handkerchief. “A nasty business.”
Malgreave smiled benevolently at his assistant. “A nasty business indeed. Your wallowing in the sewers has brought it closer to completion, my friend.”
“Sewers, indeed.” He gestured toward the paper. “Is that what you wanted leaked?”
Malgreave picked up the evening paper. The ancient photograph of the Marie-le-Croix orphanage reproduced poorly—it looked shadowy and gothic, full of brooding evil. The headlines were suitably macabre—“Orphans’ Sex Ring Tied to Killings” got the message across quite nicely, if without subtlety.
“You did well, Josef. You and Vidal.” He kept his face bland at Summer’s involuntary wince. “And there’s no mention of Bonnard?”
“None at all. Just the dead butcher, Sahut, the bureaucrat, Alpert, and Rocco Guillère described in such intimate detail that you don’t need his name to know who they’re talking about.”
“Very good. And de Salles?”
“Also profiled. I’m afraid Vidal got a bit creative in that part when he talked to the reporter. He said the boy had a marked talent for miming.”
Malgreave shrugged. “No harm done. At this point I don’t care what we have to do to smoke him out, just so long as we can make it stick in the end.”
“Just so.”
“You look tired, my friend,” Malgreave said. “You’ve been at work even longer than I have. Go home and spend some time with your wife.” Before it’s too late, he added silently.
“You’ve been here almost as long,” Josef pointed out politely.
Malgreave shook his head. “You go home. I have to check the telephone calls and then I’ll leave.”
“I checked with Gauge when I came in,” Josef said. “Just the usual crank calls. I’ll check the transcripts to make absolutely certain, but it seems ordinary enough. Some hysterical woman insisting the killer was after her stepdaughter, a man with an incomprehensible tale of drugs and such. Gauge was in the midst of typing them up. I’ll go over them and then go home.”
Malgreave’s forehead creased. “Maybe I should take a look …”
“Sir!” Josef managed a look of affront. “Surely you can trust me on a matter such as this. I’ve been checking the phone calls for months now.”
“Of course.” Malgreave backed down. It had been a long day, and the tension was beginning to tell on both of them. “I’ll go home for a bit. But call me if anything turns up.”
“Of course, Chief Inspector.”
Josef watched the old man leave. It was funny how he’d aged in the last few years. The chief inspector couldn’t be more than fifty, yet he looked at least ten years older. Would the job do the same thing to him?
He had every intention of finding out. And the way Malgreave was going, it would be soon. When they cracked this case, Josef had every intention of seeing that he was in line for his share of the glory. Malgreave was always generous in sharing the credit. If he could just keep Vidal down where he belonged, and if Malgreave did as he threatened and retired once they put a stop to the recent killings, then his future looked rosy indeed.
He settled down into Malgreave’s chair, his broad bottom fitting nicely into the worn leather seat. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of dead cigarettes. A filthy habit, and as far as he could see it, Malgreave’s only weakness. That, and the bitch he was married to.
Lucky for him that Helga was so understanding. Her ambition rivaled his, and she had no objections to late nights, early mornings, and an absentee husband if his salary and prestige continued to rise. And if sometimes he felt a little lonely, if he missed his son and daughter as they grew up without him, then that was the price he had to pay for the good life.
But things would be much better once he took over Malgreave’s job, Malgreave’s private office with the window overlooking the street. He could set his own hours, not have to put in twelve- and fourteen-hour days to impress his superior. He’d leave that to brownnoses like Vidal.
Pierre Gauge’s shaved head ducked inside the door. If he was surprised to see Josef relaxing in his superior’s chair his bland face didn’t show it. “I’m going off duty, sir,” he said, and Josef took pleasure in the respectful title. “Do you want the transcripts in here?”
“Leave them on my desk,” he said airily. “I’ll check them tomorrow morning.”
“Very good, sir.” And Pierre Gauge departed, leaving Josef to his dreams of glory.
It had taken them longer than five minutes. Claire had thrown clothes together into a large suitcase, paying little attention to her choices, but Nicole had proven almost impossible to wake. Her clothes were filthy, and she managed to swim to consciousness only long enough to struggle into clean clothes and submit to having her face and hands washed by a maternal Claire before drifting back into a semi-stupor.
Without a word Tom scooped her up, wrapping a blanket around the thin, frail body. “Are you sure she’s all right?” Claire worried. “Maybe we should take her to a doctor.”
“She’s fine, Claire. She’s just drugged. All she needs to do is sleep it off.”
“You’re certain?”
“Reasonably so.
If she seems to be falling deeper into sleep we’ll stop at the first hospital we can find. Does that satisfy you?”
“It’ll have to. A hospital will want to know where her father is, and I’d rather not have to answer those sorts of questions.”
“We could tell them I’m her father.”
“Which would work fine until she woke up enough to start speaking in French,” Claire said. “God knows, I wish you were her father.”
“At least Bonnard isn’t either. Come on, Claire. Hélène said she’d meet us out front.”
“Hélène?” Claire echoed. “Your friend is a woman?”
He managed the ghost of a grin. “I told you I tried being a vintner, a writer, a dancer, and an artist. I never told you I tried being a monk.”
“No,” she said. “You never did.”
The Peugeot had definitely acquired more than its share of rust. Claire wished she could say the same thing for its driver. As she and Nicole bundled into the back seat she caught a whiff of Opium, a mane of black hair, and a decidedly hostile smile from the driver, who then proceeded to involve Tom in a raucous conversation held entirely in French. Claire tried to summon up enough energy to seethe, but the heavily drugged child in her arms took all the emotions she had to spare, so she merely leaned back in the cramped seat and tried not to concentrate on the back of Tom’s head as he flirted with the French woman.
His hair was too long. There was a badly mended hole in the thick black sweater, and Claire wondered who’d darned it. Certainly not the exotic creature with the mundane car who couldn’t seem to control her high-pitched laughter. Claire told herself if the woman giggled one more time she’d scream. She’d wanted to scream for hours now, and had controlled herself. It wouldn’t take much to break that control.
Traffic in Paris was always ghastly; in rush hour it was bordering on criminal. It took forty-five minutes and several close brushes with death for the aging French car to travel less than a city mile, with Hélène laughing all the way. When they finally pulled up outside a block of modern, soulless apartments, the dark-haired woman slipped from the car, once more casting the subdued Claire a calculating look, and then proceeded to kiss Tom full on the mouth.