“Pardon?” he said.
Good God, had she said that aloud? It was then she noticed the runs in her black stockinged feet, her undone blouse buttons and Babette beckoning her to the WC.
She was leaking.
AFTER BENO?T HAD departed and Aimée had given Chloé a goodnight kiss, she returned to the WC. She cleaned up and applied concealer and mascara, then outlined her lips with a brown pencil and filled them in with Chanel red. Took a moment thumbing through the booklet Babette had pressed into her hands as she left—The Ten-Minute Power Nap Will Change Your Life—before hunting in her back office armoire for the right outfit. Found it and changed into black fishnets and a classic little black Chanel number paired with the beaded vintage fuchsia Schiaparelli bolero. She finished up with a few dabs of Chanel No. 5 on her pulse points. Tonight’s surveillance was at the place the comte had called a “clubhouse for polytechnicians.” But everyone referred to polytechnicians, the elite egghead graduates of the école Polytechnique, by their nickname, “les X.”
She glanced at the power-nap bullet points. Ten minutes and ten minutes only of deep-cycle REM sleep made one fresh and alert. Powerful people and celebrities existed on power naps: CEOs who worked 120 hours a week, models jetting to runway shows around the world—even John Lennon swore by them when he was writing music.
Le Beatle? Maxence would eat this up.
Alert and refreshed after her nap—however long it had been—she now felt ready for battle with Melac. She shot an email to Ma?tre Benosh, detailing Melac’s lawyer’s demand. Next she prepared for the night’s surveillance by reading the dossier on the target, the comte’s cousin, an engineer. With all that accomplished, and for once already macquillée, dressed, spritzed and ready, she still had half an hour to spare.
A little time to try to make some headway on Drina, Djanka and Nicu. She turned back to the timeline on the butcher paper.
She kept coming back to the same question: Why had her father been pulled off Djanka Constantin’s murder investigation?
It felt like something was staring her in the face. She had to go back to the beginning, go over each detail. Then she’d see what she was missing.
She opened her red Moleskine, scanned her notes. Thinking about Roland Leseur, she tried to make sense of his anger. What did he know about what had happened to his brother twenty years ago?
She cut out the 1978 Paris Match pages on Pascal’s funeral and taped them next to Roland Leseur’s name. A scenario spun in her mind: Had Roland murdered Djanka years ago out of rage with her for bringing down the family? Had Pascal threatened to legitimize Nicu? Could Roland have killed his own brother and made it look like a suicide?
A long shot.
What secret was so big it was worth killing over twenty years later? And what did it have to do with her father? Then Drina’s words came back to her—You know.
“Don’t you have surveillance with Maxence, Aimée?” René walked in and draped his tailored Burberry raincoat over his chair.
“Ready and waiting.”
René studied the butcher paper. “Playing pin the tail on the suspect?” He shook his head.
“What’s wrong, René?”
“You missed the lawyer’s appointment, n’est-ce pas?”
“And I rescheduled it for the day after tomorrow. Sit down. Let me explain.”
René rubbed his forehead. “Not this again.”
“Five minutes, René, please.”
He sat, pumped up his ergonomic chair and spun around to face her. “Five minutes, Aimée. Then I’ve got to work on de Brosselet’s project. A paying project, if I need to remind you?”
“D’accord.” Pointing to the timeline, she told him about all the information she’d gathered that day, including Roland Leseur’s reaction to her questions, her meeting with Rose and the frame-up at l’H?tel Matignon.
“The prime minister’s security had you on CCTV?” His brow furrowed. “I don’t like it, Aimée.”
“Think I do?”
“And I haven’t helped you much,” said René. “All I got from Madame Rana was expensive fright. She wouldn’t translate.”
While René told her about his visit, she reapplied her mascara. Nothing they’d learned seemed to have gotten them anywhere.
“Why not go with the simple scenario?” René said. “A jealous Pascal murders his lover, Djanka, dumps her in the moat—it’s not far from the quai d’Orsay. Then, guilt stricken, he commits suicide. The family pays hush money to close the investigation. End of story.”
If it were that simple, why had Drina been abducted? “Not end of story, René.”
“D’accord, say the younger brother pays a hit man to kill his brother, reasons unknown, and his lover Djanka, too,” said René. “Drina takes Nicu, her sister’s son, to protect him. They melt into the countryside—”
“Hold on, René. From what Nicu told Rose, my father gave Drina the all clear and she and Papa struck up an ‘arrangement’ for her to inform. Then Nicu was murdered for her notebook containing proof.”
“All these years later? All these years after your father’s death? Didn’t Nicu tell you she lived in Avignon now?” René leaned back in his chair. “Tonight’s edition of France Soir details the police investigation into Nicu Constantin’s ‘hate’ murder by right-wing youths who targeted Gypsies at the Métro.”
She shook her head. “Too convenient. Whoever murdered him stole the notebook, too.”
“So what, then? Roland Leseur’s so desperate to keep the secret of his brother’s affair that he hired a minion to kill the son after all these years?” said René. “Non, he’d call up a pal at the Ministry of Defense and request a black op to handle it.” René stretched his arms over his head. “That scenario work for you?”