Sounded like Mélanie didn’t.
“Do you think I could talk with Mélanie at the clinic?” Aimée paused. “With your permission, of course.”
Madame Vasseur stared at Aimée, almost as if she was seeing her for the first time. “Mélanie’s withdrawn into a shell, the doctor said. She won’t speak to anyone. Look, on Friday, when I visit, I’ll ask her, as long as there’s a way to avoid more stress.”
Friday … too late.
“Does your husband know more about the attack? Would he know what Mélanie told Zazie?”
Madame Vasseur shook her head. “He blames me. He’s good at that.” She rolled her eyes, which had reddened. “For six months after Mélanie was born, I stayed home, cared for her, put my whole career on hold and devoted myself to her.” Madame Vasseur took a long sip of wine. “It sliced me in two to go back to work. I cried for days, wondering if I had made the right decision. Financially I didn’t have to, but—you’ll face this too—work fulfills in ways motherhood doesn’t. And you’ll have to choose. No one ever tells you a double standard exists. Women work hard at the job and harder at home.”
She let out a sigh. Globed lights outside the tall windows illuminated the garden hedge with a golden sheen. “You’re always supposed to be a mother first, no matter what. That’s a man’s attitude. You’re up all night with their colic, then it’s bronchitis, the teacher meetings, the clean clothes, the lost homework … that’s your life. Six A.M. you’re up to do it again.”
Madame Vasseur, chic in her Dior suit, did not appear to have gotten up at six this morning. Aimée doubted she’d ever made the school run. She wondered about the woman’s relationship with her husband.
Fueled by the Burgundy, she grew more maudlin with every sip. “Think I sound like a cold bitch, n’est-ce pas? I just wish someone had told me.” She gave a little shake of her head. “Another piece of advice. Peach-pit oil works magic on stretch marks.”
An angry, driven, unhappy woman. A townhouse in an exclusive enclave, an attorney’s power and salary; she was a woman with almost everything. Aimée reflected—could this be her in the future, determined to run Leduc Detective at the cost of her child?
“May I read your police statement, Madame?”
“Claude handled everything at the Commissariat.” She waved her cigarette in a dismissive gesture. “My daughter’s safe now. Away, nothing to do with this or you.”
Au contraire, she almost said. “Just this afternoon Zazie told me Mélanie had shared disturbing things with her. She attempted to surveil this rapist Mélanie described. Asked for my help. Now she’s missing, after Sylvaine was raped and murdered. Don’t you see? If there’s anything, anything at all …”
A phone trilled. Madame Vasseur rifled in her matching tan pigskin Hermès bag and pulled two out, glanced at the display of the one that was vibrating. “A client. I need to take this. I’ve helped you enough.”
She called that help? Time was running out.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Haldane,” Madame Vasseur said, “no disturbance at all. Quoi? The requisition? It’s on my home computer. One moment.” She stood in her stocking feet. “You know the way out.”
Gracious, too.
But she needed to pee. “May I use your bathroom?”
The woman waved as she walked none too steadily down the hall.
Madame Vasseur’s second cell phone peeped out of the bag. Her personal phone. Aimée slid it out and scrolled down the numbers dialed. The third one showed a Swiss country code. The fourth was labeled “M.” With her kohl eye pencil, she wrote both numbers on her palm, then nicked one of Madame Vasseur’s business cards.
This house gave off an antiseptic aura. Expensive art on the walls, Philippe Starck furniture, period detail—but it felt lifeless. For show. In the state-of-the-art kitchen, she searched for photos and found one attached to the stainless-steel refrigerator by a red magnet: a blonde girl barefoot in the garden wearing pink Levi’s and matching pink sunglasses—the same smiling girl from the photo Madame had showed her. The only other evidence of Mélanie.
AS SHE CLOSED the front door, her mind reeled through what she’d discovered, trying to piece together connections—cheese-shop owners and high-ticket lawyers, both with daughters who attended lycées in the ninth arrondissement. So far she’d learned Mélanie’s music teacher’s name and that both girls studied the violin, were blonde and wore pink.
Zazie attended school in the quartier, she was a redhead, and she played video games, not the violin. If the rapist had a type, which it seemed he did, Zazie wasn’t it.
But could she be a hostage, taken because she knew too much? Murdered?
Hurrying down rue Ballu, she punched the Swiss number into her phone. After a series of rings, a recorded message came on: “You have reached Clinique Berzeval. Please call back during business hours from nine A.M. to noon and two P.M. to six P.M.”
She tried the number from Madame Vasseur’s list that had been labeled M, hoping it was Mélanie’s. The phone rang once. “Message box is full.” If it really was Mélanie’s number, the clinic might have put her in psychiatric lockdown, cutting off her contact with the outside world.
Both numbers led nowhere fast. Questions—that was all she had.
A girl had been raped and murdered; Zazie still hadn’t made contact, and there was no trace of her to be found. Aimée wanted to throw something. If she had known Zazie would immediately break her promise not to go investigating, Aimée would have made her do her homework right there in the office where she could keep an eye on her. Talked some sense into her.
Worry roiled her stomach. Intent on Madame Vasseur’s phone, she’d forgotten to pee.