“Ah, you mean cross-eyed inbreds? Otherwise known as les Berrichons.”
“That’s it, René. They’re Berrichons. From the Berry.” Now she’d remembered what she’d been chasing—Djanka’s autopsy. “The dental records used to identify Djanka Constantin were sent from the Berry.”
“What’s this got to do with the price of butter, Aimée?” said René, returning his Montblanc to his jacket’s inner breast pocket. “Nobody cares about the Berry, not even les Berrichons. Everybody who can get out, does.” He took a copy of Le Figaro from his briefcase and slapped it on the desk. “Look at this, rumors of a shake-up at the quai d’Orsay involving a ministry official from le Berry. They even make it into the government. See?”
“By ministry official you mean Roland Leseur, brother of Pascal. Nicu’s uncle. That’s the connection.” She pointed to the photo in Paris Match and the “family” with the matching urns.
René shook his head. “Et alors?”
The computer on the teacher’s desk, a chrome affair, yielded to her guest-user request. A moment later she’d navigated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs site.
“It says the Leseur father was awarded the Légion d’honneur for his Resistance work in the Berry.” Was that the Leseur connection to les manouches? Did it go back to the roundups and the camps? She scanned the site further, saw that it listed the ministry’s official conferences and meeting schedules.
She glanced at her Tintin watch. 12:30 P.M. She logged off the classroom computer.
“If Roland Leseur won’t call me back, I’ll go to him.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Could you work on translating Drina’s Romany? I’ll call you later.”
René stuck the signed contract in his briefcase. “Maurice saw a blue van on rue du Louvre this morning. Promise me you’ll be careful, Aimée. If only for Chloé’s sake.”
She nodded, a shiver rising up her neck.
MARTINE MET HER in the salon by the statue of the Marquis de Galliffet. After a two-minute huddle, she ran down the marble steps, armed with Martine’s new press pass. On rue de Varenne, beside the plaque stating that the American writer Edith Wharton had lived here, she hailed a taxi.
“Quai d’Orsay,” she said. No one bothered to call it the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The taxi driver, a mustached man of about sixty, peered at her in the rearview mirror. “Which entrance?”
“Press entrance, s’il vous pla?t.”
AIMéE FLASHED MARTINE’S badge and got through security without a hitch at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But when she arrived at the press briefing it was already coming to an end. Chairs scraped back and a microphone whined like a siren, making her cover her ears. Several officials, identifiable by the ministry “uniform” of navy blue suit, blue shirt and red tie, filed down the few steps from the dais.
She recognized Roland Leseur from his photo in Le Figaro: mid forties, tall, black hair shot through with silver, long face, prominent nose. He spoke to an AFP reporter while a photographer stood by. Aimée caught a few phrases. “As we outlined in the briefing, those Roma, citizens of Romania, Albania and Bulgaria …” She lost the thread as someone pushed in front of her—a reporter and a technician from RTL, the radio network. “We’re working on agreements with these countries, among others in Eastern Europe, who’ve proved extremely helpful. The Roma situation differs from that of the manouches born in France …”
“How can you make that claim, even while native manouches are being resettled like immigrés? The protesters on the Champ de Mars …”
She didn’t hear the answer. By the time she caught up with the reporters, Leseur had disappeared.
“Where’s the next briefing?”
“Briefing? The minister and his cronies went to play squash.” The RTL reporter laughed. He wore round, owl-like brown glasses and a wool jacket with elbow patches. He ran his gaze over her legs. “New to the pack, eh?”
She nodded. “I need more for my story.”
“Good luck with that. They’re off to the sports center to flex their muscles for one another.”
“Sports center?”
“Talk about green,” he said, happy to lord it over her. “Under the Assemblée Nationale. Off-limits to us. But if you wait outside for a few hours, they’ll deign to recycle what they’ve already spewed out, and you’ll get points from your editor for persistence.”
Like she had the time for that?
But she smiled. “Guess I’ve got to learn the ropes; I appreciate the tip.”
He sidled closer. “Plenty of time for a drink. What do you say? By the way, I’m Allert de Riemer.”
By the time they’d reached the café across the street, she had a plan.
“Un cocktail?”
“This early?”
She nodded. “But come on, there’s not really a sports club under the Assemblée Nationale, right in the Palais Bourbon. You’re joking, right?”
“Don’t believe me then.”
“You mean the ministers just walk across the quai in their gym shorts?”
Allert smirked. “There’s an underground walkway. They don’t even come up for air. Normal people’s air.”
“Some kind of tunnel?”
“Used to be a Nazi bunker, part of the ammunitions storage carved out of the old Palais Bourbon wine cellars.”
She grinned, switching to her full-on flirt. “Be nice, don’t tease a newbie. You were a beginner once, too.”
“I bought you a cocktail, didn’t I? What could get nicer than that?”
He leaned in. His hot garlic breath hit her ear.
“If you’re so nice, where’s the entrance to this Nazi bunker?” asked Aimée.
“Rez-de-chausée, make a left at Talleyrand.”
She hit the VIBRATE button on her phone. “Oops, my editor. Be right back.”
He pulled her close. She tried not to breathe in. Wished she could plug her nose. “I’ll be waiting, big eyes.”