She heard the rustle of paper, his notes. “Looks like it.”
“Don’t the rich stick together, Morbier?” she said. “Have they checked his whereabouts on the dates of the attacks? The murder?”
“Getting to it. The man’s a lawyer, after all, and knows his rights.”
“And you’re telling me so I’ll …”
“Dors tranquille, Leduc,” he said. “Zazie’s back, the mec’s off the streets, so give the little sprout a break.” Pause. “Doctors recommend rest during the second trimester, eight solid hours a night and naps.”
How could she argue with that? The tiredness, the guilt of having put the baby at risk this morning. Still, doubt sprang up in her mind. “Don’t you think the pieces add up too well, Morbier?”
“Not my case,” he said.
Her mind went back to the addendum file Zacharié stole for Jules. The top names she’d seen involved in Morbier’s corruption investigation. That was his case. Proof he could use.
Yet how could she tell him without revealing the heist, the murders and kidnapping, her complicity?
“Morbier … alors …”
“Take a nap, Leduc.”
He had clicked off.
On her screen another email from Florian at Systex came up. Reconsidered my offer? I’ll sweeten it with a new Leduc Securité logo, you as acting consultant and board-member position, upping your shares to 42 percent.
When would she get another offer this good?
She checked the letter from the social insurance that covered profession libérale, the CANAM, stating that she qualified for paid maternity benefits—a pitiful monthly check.
Her heart thumped. Looking down on her from the walls were the black-and-white photos of her father in police uniform, the original sepia-tinted Leduc Detective license. Memories, that’s all they were now. She had a new life stirring in her. More shaken than she’d let on to René or Saj, she knew this offer would clear money issues long-term and erase the need to use the Luxembourg funny-money shell account. She sat back and pondered. Should she give this up? Could she?
Wednesday, 5 P.M.
TACHET STUCK HIS head in Madame Pelletier’s office. “Zazie Duclos turned up, like you figured,” he said. “Cross that procès-verbal de disparition off your list.”
A rush of relief. She always felt relief when they turned up. She nodded. “Shall I do the exit interview?”
“Would there be any point in questioning this thirteen-year-old? The parents will no doubt cover up for their little girl’s drunken exploits.”
“Still, the rapist …”
“A Monsieur Vasseur, father of Mélanie Vasseur, one of the victims, is in garde à vue being questioned for his wife’s murder. And he’s a vintage weapons collector.”
Madame Pelletier thumbed through the dossiers on her desk. “Vasseur, Mélanie,” she said and scanned the case notes. “How does that connect? The girl wasn’t shot.”
“But his wife was last night. With a nine-millimeter German Luger, war issue. Hand me the file,” he said. “Vasseur was the one who’d found his daughter after she was attacked. You know those markers for incest might add up. I’m off to question him.”
Disturbing.
He paused in the doorway with the file. “This could wrap up tonight, so go enjoy your vacances.”
She remembered Monsieur Vasseur sitting with his sobbing daughter, the icy wife who had only appeared once. The questions the team had had. Statistics in these cases pointed to the parent … Still, something didn’t add up.
But the name had come to her. The name she’d tried to remember. She pulled her old address book out from her straw bag, searched and dialed his phone number.
THE BALCONIED HAUSSMANNIAN buildings stretched up the grand boulevard, filling the horizon. Traffic hummed and mothers pushed strollers into the department store Galeries Lafayette. The vibrations of the Métro rumbled beneath Madame Pelletier’s espadrilles as she poured the vin rouge into both wineglasses at the outdoor café. She clinked her glass to Rodot’s. “Santé.”
“I’d like to think it’s my good looks that inspired you to ring me, but I understand it’s to do with an old case.” Rodot, a broad-chested barrel of a man with a bald head and matching round, smooth face, reminded her of a shorter version of the Michelin man. “Juvenile sexual assault is not my turf.”
“More like your memory of ten years ago or so, sir,” she said. Sipped. The smooth, full-bodied Bordeaux should open his mind. “Something you’d remember hearing about.”
“Rumors, you mean?”
“To be honest, sir, I don’t know what I mean. I overheard something at my first posting. I was just an eager rookie then, but I never forgot it. You were stationed there.”
“The Commissariat on Place des Petits Pères?”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “And it’s been bothering me.”
“Burglaries, bar brawls, domestic disturbances, purse snatching on pension day, gang knifings kept en famille,” he said. “Innocent stuff. Not like today, predators attacking young children.”
She disagreed. Children had always been victims; incest, beatings, neglect—none of it was new. She dealt with it every day.
“Maybe it sells more newspapers now, sir.”
“Sensationalism,” he said, dismissive. “A different world these days. Glad I’m retired.”
“The case was unusual,” she said, persisting. “I think I remember staff talking about it, how it involved music.”
“Think it matches the one in the papers?”
“I can’t discount it, sir.” She took another sip. “Brought to mind a lecture you gave at the academy …”
“You mean the ‘be yourself, everyone else is already taken’ one?”
She smiled. His famous new-recruit lecture, based on a line of Oscar Wilde’s for which he took credit.