Fat chance.
Congenital heart defects, a gene disorder recurring every so many generations, God knew what else—how could they deal with possibilities if no one knew her medical history? Or what to look for and treat?
Noticing her expression, the doctor smiled again. “This is routine for ninety-nine percent of my patients, Mademoiselle Leduc. Even one who jogged into her eighth month. Gave birth to twins.”
Calm down, she needed to calm down. She still had her father’s old trunk at home with her vaccination records from those childhood Port Royal clinic visits, so hazy in her memory. She’d see what she could find. But he’d burned all of her mother’s things.
On the pavement in the hovering humidity, she kept to the dappled shade of a plane tree. The drifting mist from the water fountain felt delicious on her bare legs. She checked her phone, which she’d put on silent for the appointment, and saw the voicemail icon. Before she called in to listen, she checked her call log. One missed call from Virginie, one from René.
Good news? Her hands trembling, she hit the voicemail number.
“We’ve been at the Commissariat since dawn. The suspect’s deep in a coma.” Virginie’s tired sigh. “They’re questioning his cohort. Tearing his place apart, Aimée. If there’s any trace of Zazie, they’ll find it. The flics think she’s run away. But … I don’t know what to think. I’m at home taking care of Lucien. He’s sick.” Defeat and exhaustion seeped into her voice.
Click. End of message.
Her heart skipped. No Zazie. Nothing new. The next was from René.
“Aimée, the violin teacher’s gone until this afternoon. I checked …”
Merde!
“… but … I heard on the police scanner …” His words chopped off. “… reported attempted rape.” Horns honked in the background. “… last night on rue Lamartine. The girl got away.” More horns. He must be driving. “She’s at the Commissariat this morning—her father took her to make a report. They’re treating it …”
The message cut off.
Rue Lamartine. Aimée pulled out Zazie’s map. In the ninth arrondissement.
She called him back. Only voicemail. “Find out who the girl is, René, and then find the father. We must talk with him—” The message cut off.
Great. Nothing for it now but to try to sweeten the sour taste of her last encounter with the Brigade des Mineurs. She dialed, and a woman answered the phone.
“Madame Pelletier?” Aimée tried.
Sounds of conversation in the background. “Can I take a message?”
And waste time? “The girl attacked on rue Lamartine last night—the one who’s giving her statement with her father right now—”
“Who’s this?”
“Is she blonde, and does she take violin lessons?”
“Why?”
“Just tell me, please … blonde? Takes violin? I’m wondering if it’s my neighbor’s daughter.”
“I can’t give out names, Mademoiselle. Security issues.”
“Mais oui, I understand,” she said, thinking hard. “I’m concerned. After all, I live on rue Lamartine. I want to help them if I can.”
“Best if you wait to speak with Madame Pelletier.”
“Please, for peace of mind … just yes or no. I used to babysit her. She’d be twelve now. Mon Dieu, I hope it’s not her.”
Pause. “Désolée …”
“Please, can’t you just say …?”
“She’s blonde. Carried an instrument case, but I can’t verify any more.”
“Merci.” That was all she needed. The merchant seaman from Lille wouldn’t tell them anything when he came out of the coma, if he ever did. He wasn’t the rapist.
Despite René’s message, she called the violin teacher, Madame de Langlet, again. Only answering machine. Didn’t people answer their phones anymore?
Maybe she should sit down at that corner café and plan, work out every possibility, go into painstaking detail then plot a course of action. Get Madame Pelletier to listen and then leave her Brigade and les flics to it. The two forces who, combined, still hadn’t put the rapes together?
She’d promised Virginie she’d find Zazie. Her instinct was to tackle it in her usual way—dogged, persistent, single-track mode.
But now her back ached, and she had to stifle a yawn. So tired.
Still, if it were her child who was missing, wouldn’t she want someone to make good on that promise?
She could follow her to-do list, hail a taxi, try one more time to trace Zazie’s steps. Or maybe she should listen to her body. Go home, put her feet up and catch some delicious sleep.
She hailed a taxi.
THE LYCéE JACQUES Decour incorporated the former abattoir of Montmartre into part of the gym. The portico’d walkway of the nineteenth-century school’s courtyard enclosed a garden of shooting purple hollyhocks. The school exuded a convent-like ambience—apart from the clumps of teenagers, the running and yelling and the piercing bell. A blur of movement, pounding footsteps, and then the testosterone and chaos evaporated behind high classroom doors.
After a five-minute talk with the gardien through the window to the wood loge, Aimée knew which classroom to look for. Finding it, she discovered, was another matter. Staircases on the far side of the courtyard led to an upper floor with long corridors and a warren of rooms. A bit like her old lycée in the Marais.
Salle A led to Salle A1, which led to a roomful of students bent over exercise books. Those low wood desks and chairs were exactly how Aimée remembered them, gouged with initials and murder on her long legs. Two teachers stood conferring by the chalkboard. One wore a peach scarf, the other a sundress—no doubt ready for les vacances.
“Pardonnez-moi,” she said. “Is either of you Zazie Duclos’s teacher?”