“Not before you share my tartine and I see you can function. We’ll go to the garden.”
Too weak to argue, Aimée nodded. She and Sylvie sat on a bench in the garden bordered by a gravel drive. An islet of peace bounded by green hedges and old stonework fronting the Observatoire, a blackened limestone-like chateau punctuated with a rounded verdigris metal globe roof, which dwarfed the trees. “When the king ordered the Observatoire built, this was countryside,” Sylvie told her. “Far from the lights of Paris and perfect for the telescopes. By 1900 the street gaslights rendered them useless. Today we measure and calculate the heavens with computers.”
“Vraiment?” Yet, didn’t numerical equations and statistics neglect the allure of the night sky, of wishing upon a star?
Aimée munched the crisp tartine slathered with Brie, pear slices, and cornichons. She felt color returning to her cheeks. It had been stupid to forget to eat.
“Loaded up?” Sylvie shouted to someone behind the hedge on the gravel drive. It was woman in a hoodie and jeans, loading file boxes into the side door of a van. Aimée noticed how the woman kept her head down. Noticed the white Renault van with a temporary plate. The grapefruit juice in her hand trembled.
But how many new white vans drove in Paris?
“She’ll hit traffic. Running late as usual,” Sylvie said.
“Who’s that?” Aimée asked.
“Morgane delivers our instruments. Receives our air-shipped data drives.”
“You use a service from Orly?”
“The van belongs to the Observatoire.”
Could this be the one?
“So it’s kept here at night.” Yuri’s place was in the quartier, only three Métro stations away.
“Why?”
Aimée shrugged. “Guess you’ve got a big budget.”
“Think so? Morgane’s only part-time. They’re cutting back on everything, even research hours.” Sylvie glanced at her watch. “Desolée,” she said, standing, “I’ve got an appointment measuring a black hole.” She smiled. “Take care of yourself.”
Morgane spoke on a cell phone, her gaze fixed on Aimée. A frisson went up her spine. Had she gone paranoid again? Or did this tingling mean something?
Paranoid or not, she wrote down the front license plate number with her kohl eye pencil. She’d need to get closer to see the bumper. Before she could make it to the driveway, the engine turned over, gravel spit, and she saw the muffler wired to the bumper as it took off.
She’d found it—the white van that had pulled in front of them on Villa d’Alésia, the one Goran noticed circling the block. By the time she ran back to the bench and got Dombasle on the phone, the van had gone.
“This might be nothing, but.…” Aimée said, hesitating.
“Anything to do with the Modigliani interests me,” Dombasle prompted.
“Could you check for any traffic video surveillance installed on rue d’Alésia?”
“Mind telling me what I’d be looking for?”
“A white Renault van, license 750825693, belonging to the Observatoire, that could have circled Villa d’Alésia and rue de Chatillon the night of the robbery at, say, eight P.M.?”
“I’d need to call in favors,” he said, the interest gone from his voice. “You’re saying it’s important?”
“I suspect it’s the van that was used in the robbery.” And she needed them off her back, but she kept that to herself. Hadn’t Luebet addressed his message to M … Morgane? “Maybe Luebet was behind this. If so, Morgane’s the woman to talk to.”
“Several witness statements mention a white van. One of those statements has your name on it.” Pause. “What haven’t you told me?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “But I think she broke into my office.”
“Think or know?”
“The only sure things in life are death and taxes, Raphael,” she said. “They blindfolded me and held my head under water.”
“But Luebet’s dead, and according to his message.…”
She couldn’t be sure if Luebet’s team had found the painting, and it had long disappeared. But she needed to light a fire under Dombasle. “His team’s still searching,” she interrupted. “You’d put it past them to kill Yuri? Alors, they gave me twenty-four hours to find the painting.”
There, she admitted it. Hadn’t wanted to, but she needed his help.
“So that’s why you came to me,” he said. “No goodwill involved.”
Playing hurt all of a sudden? Hadn’t he’d drafted her for a sting with a crooked antiquaire? A ploy she was more and more skeptical about.
“Raphael, didn’t you tell me art thieves were up your alley and homicide up la Crim’s?”
She’d burned her bridges with Morbier, who had deserted her. Couldn’t expect Saj to run at full speed. If Raphael didn’t cooperate, she didn’t know who else to ask. Her options narrowed to zero. “Someone threatened me. Can’t you check this out? Isn’t this your job?”
“Morgane’s known to us, that’s if she’s the same one,” he said. “A Morgane Tulle came up flagged in the file. Luebet’s former employee who served time.”
The connection. “Does she work at the Observatoire now?”
“You want an answer off the top of my head?”
She brightened. “But you’ll follow up?”
“Meet me at thirty four rue Delambre at six P.M.” He clicked off.
She felt a tremor of relief—this should lessen her chance of torture—but it still didn’t help her find the Modigliani. Or her mother.
AIMéE TOOK A taxi, had it circle rue du Louvre three times. Satisfied no one was following, she overtipped the driver. Always good insurance for rainy-night taxi karma.
Back in the office, she popped open a Badoit and did some neck rolls. Better. She thumbed the report Saj had culled from details on the oligarch’s dealings in Gazprom, the now privatized Ukraine petroleum giant.