“For years I’ve kept my promise, never intruded into your life, only watched from afar.”
“So you had me under surveillance? What, waiting for your chance to swoop in?” The left side of her face was shadowed by the hanging ginkgo branch from a street-facing garden. “You’re a dreamer, Roland. Wake up. Whatever happened between us … that’s ancient history.”
Roland waved her words away. “Fran?oise, listen to me. I’m here because I need to warn you. What if Pascal didn’t commit suicide?”
“You’re implying someone murdered Pascal? But there was an autopsy, a cause of death. Autoerotic asphyxiation, wasn’t it? But the papers were paid to keep it quiet.”
How could she think that?
“After the cremation, the autopsy report disappeared. My father wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Murder? I don’t believe it.” Fran?oise shook her head. “For once open your eyes, Roland. Pascal couldn’t face the repercussions of what he had done, the blowback that was about to level his career, et …” Her voice tailed off. “Désolée.”
Roland’s hand shook. “Fran?oise, I did things, things I shouldn’t have.”
“No more than anyone else, I’m sure,” she said. “You’re still trying to protect Pascal, but he played politics, made enemies by the dozen. It caught up with him, and he took the easy way out. Why is this all coming up now? What’s changed at the ministry?”
This wasn’t going how he’d expected. Why wasn’t she taking it seriously? “You mean who cares now, Fran?oise?” His voice rose. Someone above slammed the shutters on their window. He took a breath. “Someone who stands to gain something. That’s who.” He showed her the Libération proof sheet.
“Always playing Pascal’s pawn,” she said, looking at the sheet. Her hand shook. “Your brother with a Gypsy lover, blackmailing the higher-ups, bribes disguised as delegation junkets? Amazing how Pascal can still stir up the merde even from beyond the grave.” She shifted the basket on her arm. “Don’t let them use you.”
“But Gerard’s mentioned here, too,” said Roland. “You need to know things will come out—things people will do anything to cover up.”
Fran?oise sighed. “It’ll be squashed before it can reach the press as usual. Stay out of it. Don’t bother on my account, Roland. What you call protection, I call guilt.”
Tuesday Morning
AIMéE ROSE AT 6 A.M. with Chloé, and despite minor diaper leakage, by 8 A.M. they had walked Miles Davis and bought a copy of Le Parisien at the café tabac. And she’d drunk two double espressos. If only she could ingest sleep in demitasse-sized shots throughout the day, she might survive.
Chloé had woken up several times last night. Bleary-eyed, Aimée had consulted the bébé bible the mamans at yoga swore by, a book by Dr. Fran?oise Dolto. The respected pediatrician and psychologist insisted every bébé can sleep through the night, be trained to use a spoon and exhibit rudimentary table manners by six months old. Otherwise it was the parents’ fault. Well, clearly it was Aimée’s fault.
The adamant Dr. Dolto insisted that one needed to talk to one’s baby and explain to her that she shouldn’t wake up at night. Reason with a teething six-month-old? Aimée was supposed to practice la pause: “pause a bit” before going to the baby instead of responding immediately to her cries, because the child needs to learn patience. And she was meant to try that with her little siren wailing at 3 A.M.?
Now, with her two double espressos downed and the world starting to take on some clarity, Aimée had the paper open in front of her, Chloé nestled at her side with cold compresses soothing her teething gums.
She noted that the article about Drina’s abduction took up part of Le Parisien’s front page. In the sidebar were photos of Radu and his extended tribe filling the clinic’s courtyard, human rights groups brandishing placards condemning ethnic inequality. Another photo showed some anti-elder abuse activists marching to the prime minister’s residence, l’H?tel Matignon, a few blocks away. Bravo, René. The headline was splashy: GYPSY KIDNAPPING SCANDAL ON PRIME MINISTER’S DOORSTEP IN EXCLUSIVE 7TH ARRONDISSEMENT.
Exaggerated, and not the most intellectual take, but it worked. She loved Le Parisien.
The kidnapped woman, the article read, had passed away during the night, shortly after she was located by authorities at a different hospital from the one she had disappeared from. Did she die as a result of trauma from her abduction? Her doctor, a Dr. Edouard Estienne, had left for a medical conference in Prague and could not be reached for comment.
Convenient.
The coverage went on. There was on ongoing inquiry into the death of a young manouche man reported to be her adoptive son in a stabbing nearby. Police were investigating a known hate group in the area.
The sick feeling washed over her again.
Nicu’s young life cut short. All her fault.
What would her father have thought? His daughter had ended the life of the little boy they had brought Christmas presents to. Gotten that little boy killed because she was so selfishly determined to answer her own questions.
She had to pick up the pieces, fit them together into a whole picture. Otherwise, Nicu had died for nothing. But even with Drina dead, Aimée was hardly out of danger. Priorities, she reminded herself. First she had to take care of the rest of her life.
After leaving Chloé with Babette, Aimée finished the addendum to the proposal for de Brosselet and emailed it to René. Plenty of time to prepare for the appointment with the attorney that afternoon.
What to wear? Earth mother or businesswoman?