The chef de sécurité at l’H?tel Matignon and his colleague were out for her. She doubted their questioning stemmed from the usual police incompetence. Dussollier knew people—every savvy flic did—among the back-scratching old boys’ network behind the corridors of power. And she hoped he’d use them.
She remembered what Nicu had told her about the body he’d been shown in the morgue—a body the flics had claimed was Drina’s. They had tried to frame him. Just as Pons had attempted to frame her today, along with the supposed nurse. Were the two things connected?
Setting the steaming espresso on her desk, she called her friend Serge, a pathologist at the Institut médico-légal, to see if he could shed any light on who’d been behind the morgue frame-up. Why hadn’t she done this sooner? No answer. After two tries she reached the pathology department.
“Serge? Attending a medical conference in Prague.”
The same conference Dr. Estienne was supposedly attending?
The sun filtered through the window, warming the back of her neck. Her three further inquiries at different departments of the morgue all suggested she consult the Brigade Criminelle. She got nowhere.
Frustrated, she wanted to kick something. Kick this shadow behind her father’s death. The shadow who’d paid off Drina’s abductor, Dr. Estienne, and had Nicu knifed under the Métro.
The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. A number she didn’t know.
“Oui?”
“Marie Fourcy?” asked a young woman’s voice. “I’m trying to return a call from someone named Marie Fourcy who works at H?pital Laennec.”
It could only be Rose Uzes, the one with the hots for Nicu. She’d left her a message after Madame Uzes, under duress, had coughed up her daughter’s number. In case Rose checked with her mother, Aimée had used Marie’s name, so it would match the card from H?pital Laennec she’d given Madame Uzes.
“Rose, I need to speak with you about Nicu Constantin.”
A quick intake of breath came over the line. “He’s … dead, my mother said. She’s furious with me …” Another intake of breath. Choking sobs.
Aimée waited, guilt rippling inside her.
“Rose, I know this is so hard for you, but you might be able to help—”
“Non, non, you don’t understand,” said Rose. Her voice quavered. “I was arrested last night.”
“Arrested? Why?”
“Nicu promised to speak at the rally last night.” Her words came thick and fast: this was clearly a young woman in need of a sympathetic ear. “He never showed up at the squat. Things turned ugly, a bunch of skinheads showed up, racist types. We knew it was a setup to turn a peaceful meeting into a brawl. The flics hauled us in. My friends bailed me out. Now Maman’s livid that I’m involved with the demonstration for les manouches.”
“Hold on …”
“We’re demonstrating against hate crimes. Like what happened to Nicu,” Rose said, her voice breaking. “There’s a vigil tonight at the spot under the Métro … the spot … you know … where it happened.”
Aimée did know. Visualized Nicu’s arm reaching for her, the blood.
“We drafted a petition at Sciences Po against the violence and hate crimes. We’re getting signatures and taking it to the mairie.” Rose took a breath. “But why am I telling you all this? My mother says you work for the hospital. Why did you want to speak to me?”
An activist—rebel hearts did beat in the daughters of the Uzes family.
“Rose, I won’t share anything you tell me with your mother,” she said. “I can’t. I lied to her. I’m a private detective looking into Nicu’s murder and his mother’s abduction. But you might have vital information that could help me uncover the truth.”
Pause. “Why should I believe you since you’ve already told me you’re a liar?”
“It was no hate crime, Rose. I was there.” Pause. “Come meet me and tell me what you know. Eighteen rue du Louvre. Sign says Leduc. Third floor, right. I’ll have an espresso waiting.”
“NICU HAD BEEN accepted at the Sorbonne for next semester. Religious studies. He’s … he was an Evangelical Christian, you know.” Rose stirred her espresso with a shaking hand. “I can’t believe … Such a waste.”
Aimée nodded. Rose was tall, like her mother, with long, straight brown hair. In her boots, tailored jacket and denim skirt, Rose looked like any other Sciences Po student. She’d worn sunglasses to hide her red-rimmed eyes.
“Didn’t Nicu live in that art squat, the place where the fight happened?”
“Sometimes.”
Quiet all of a sudden, Rose looked away.
“Nothing you say goes any further than me, okay? Please, Rose, I need information, and holding back doesn’t help me work out who took his life.”
“You won’t tell my maman?”
The last person she’d tell. Aimée shook her head.
Five minutes later, Rose’s secret emerged. She’d given Nicu the key to the chambre de bonne in the Uzes’s building so he could stay there when it was cold. That’s all, she insisted, but her blush said otherwise. It didn’t seem like that blush had much to do with what Aimée wanted to know. “D’accord, your secret’s safe. Did Nicu talk about where he grew up, why he came back to Paris?”
“Non, we mainly talked about rights for les manouches.”
Maybe Rose did, but Nicu hadn’t struck her as political. Sheltered, and a bit na?ve, Rose seemed a product of an ancien-régime family with a social conscience.
“We’re going to publish an essay of his in the Sciences Po newsletter.”
“An essay?”
“I helped him. But it’s in his words. Robert used some of the material in his Avignon documentary. Nicu talks about les manouches and music. He was a really talented musician.” She sniffled. “He talked about how his mother’s struggles helped him find God.”
“Did he mention his Uncle Radu, who runs a circus?”
“The one he called a liar? Nicu had little to do with his extended family. When he was little, they threw them out. He and his mother had to hide.”
“Did he say why?”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t think he knew.”