She chose the latter. Opened her armoire, slid the hangers draped with vintage Givenchy and worker’s overalls aside in favor of a Dior pencil skirt and an agnès b. silk blouse just back from the dry cleaner’s. A slim tuxedo jacket, silk tights and heels completed the outfit.
She returned to the old Paris Match, still spread open on her floor. On her hands and knees, she scrutinized Pascal Leseur’s baby picture, putting it next to the one of Nicu in Djanka’s arms and then squinting to see if she caught a resemblance. Hard to tell. She looked again, studying the background. Something jumped out at her in the baby photo of Nicu. Something she’d seen before.
She turned the page of Paris Match to the picture of the Leseur family chateau, the cemetery on the grounds. She recognized it now. Those matching garden urns that topped the stone wall, bearing the letters LS and the Leseur family crest. The urns on the wall in Paris Match were dead ringers for the urns in the background of the “family” photo of Djanka, baby Nicu and Pascal. Proof the photo had been taken in the Leseur garden.
She shivered at the implication: Pascal Leseur had been Nicu’s father. She grabbed her phone. Time to talk to Pascal’s brother.
Roland Leseur’s administrative assistant took her appointment request with an I’ll-get-back-to-you-don’t-hold-your-breath attitude. For now, Aimée would call Martine.
But first she checked in with Morbier.
“Leduc, I’m going into court,” he said, his voice gruff. “Another day of testimony at le Tribunal de Grande Instance. I’m the main witness, and I’m turning off my phone. If my contact turns up something I’ll let you know. Meanwhile you’ll have to hold your horses.”
She’d found Drina herself without his help. “Might want to take a look at Le Parisien, Morbier.”
But he’d clicked off.
She fought off her irritation. Hold your horses. Such an old-fashioned phrase.
But … horses. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Going through her father’s old file, she took out the military cadet’s brief statement and the crime-scene photos of Djanka Constantin’s body in the Invalides moat. The école Militaire, only a Métro stop away, held the military stables. It was where she’d learned to ride.
She made several calls. Revised her schedule for the morning, confirmed her afternoon appointment with the lawyer, and shot off an email with instructions to Maxence before heading for the Métro. After a twenty-minute ride, she handed in her ID at the sentry post outside the école Militaire’s limestone fa?ade, pocked with bullet holes from the fleeing German soldiers in ’44.
The complex was a living museum. The école Militaire had been founded by Louis XV, with a nudge from Madame de Pompadour, as an academic college for officers from poor families. The campus had mushroomed, overtaking the farmlands of Grenelle to conduct training maneuvers on what would become the Champ de Mars, named for Mars, the Roman god of war. Napoléon, who had been a cadet here, had graduated in one year instead of the usual two. Or so went the legend as passed on to Aimée by her riding instructor.
Horses clip-clopped over the cobbles by the stables, their breath came out in puffs of steam in the crisp air. The aroma of fresh hay by the fenced dirt riding ring reminded her of Thursday lessons after lycée. Little had changed.
Upstairs in the office, Commandant Thiely—her former instructor, now in charge—grinned. “How’s my former equestrian?”
She kissed him on both cheeks. “Wondering about a little future equestrian of my own. Chloé’s only six months old, but I know how much competition there is for places.”
He grinned. “Wait until she’s fourteen, Aimée. I’ll make sure she’s a shoo-in.” He glanced at his watch, a reminder he was squeezing her in. “On the phone you mentioned an investigation?”
He sat down, gestured toward a thick-legged chair.
“I’ll take but a minute of your time.” She sat and put the crime-scene photos on his desk. “Nineteen seventy-eight. Remember this?”
He pulled down his glasses from the top of his head. Clucked his tongue. “The moat at les Invalides.” He nodded. “One of my cadets found her. Gave a statement.”
“I know.” She leaned forward. “But I need more. I need to talk with him.”
“He made commander in the army.” Thiely shook his head. “We lost him in a NATO ambush in Sarajevo.”
There went that idea.
“Is there anything you can tell me, any detail you remember?”
“That’s a long time ago.” He sat up straight in his hard-backed chair. “You know I’m retiring after thirty years of service, Aimée. Best years of my life.”
Was he brushing her off? Perhaps not, but from his tone she sensed something else going on.
“Do you remember anything about this cadet’s reaction to finding the body?” she said. “A brutal strangulation, a young woman’s body discarded in the moat. Did any fingers point to him or other cadets?”
“Cadets at l’école Militaire?” he said, his brow furrowed. “You don’t shit in your front yard—sorry—with a four-star general living right across the street.”
She nodded. “What theory went around?”
“Didn’t make sense.”
He did remember. “In what way?”
A sigh. “What’s it to you, Aimée?”
“My father investigated this case. Came up with nothing. There’s been a recent murder, and there’s a connection.” She’d keep it to that.
Another sigh. “To us—nothing official, mind you—this had a paramilitary flavor.” Thiely tented his fingers. “Lots of rumors. Des barbusses.”
“Barbusses?”
“That’s what we called secret agents, hired guns for dirty jobs back then.”
“What we’d call a black-ops contractor now?”