With a kick at Chloé’s zebra rattle, she gave Martine a condensed version of what had happened in the last few hours.
“Leseur, a haut fonctionnaire knifed to death on the Champ de Mars?” Martine sucked in her breath. “Stay away from this, Aimée. Someone’s more than desperate.”
“Tell me about it,” said Aimée. “I got Delavigne and her daughter out on the last Eurostar to London.”
“Mon Dieu! This’ll be spun as an assignation gone wrong, Aimée, you know that. The ministry won’t let it blow up in their faces.”
“But I have this old file of Gerard Delavigne’s, Martine. There’s something in it I don’t understand.”
“That’s why you called, eh?”
“Can I fax a photo and an accompanying list over so you can you see what you think?”
A sigh. “Hold on,” Martine said, then gave Aimée her tante’s shop’s fax number. “Give me five minutes to go down to the shop.”
BY THE TIME Martine called her back, Aimée’d drifted off.
“As I see it, there are two investigations, Aimée,” said Martine, yawning. “You started off searching for Drina, and now you’re looking for her sister’s murderer, from twenty years ago, who might have engineered your father’s death.”
“One and the same, Martine.”
Aimée pulled the duvet around her for warmth. The fretwork of moonlight quivered on the duvet’s mauve silk sheen. Miles Davis opened one eye, then the other, and stretched his right paw.
“You’re assuming, Aimée. Where’s the proof?”
“Drina’s last words. And proof in her notebook that she informed for Papa.”
“Which you’ve never seen, and which is missing. You need more than that,” said Martine. “At least, I would need more to write a story. No editor would buy it.”
“And Gerard Delavigne’s file?”
“The photo’s incriminating, bien s?r: a minister with a young teenager in a hotel. But that’s already been squashed—a gag order on publication. It’s people in the government and police, that’s what you’re talking about—the prime minister at l’H?tel Matignon and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at d’Orsay. And you have to be very careful what you write about them.”
“Djanka’s body was discovered in the moat at les Invalides,” said Aimée, sitting up, rustling the duvet.
Miles Davis cocked an ear. Stretched and licked his paw.
She studied the file and spread out the crime-scene photos from her father’s procès-verbal, which she’d brought home. “The military were denied an investigation on their own turf. Doesn’t the prime minister trump Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense because he oversees all of them?”
“Aimée, it’s all an old boys’ club, favors galore. They all went to the grandes écoles. Except those from the officer academy at Saint-Cyr, the military elite.”
“Ainsi donc, they’re the outsiders, Martine. The old boys froze out the armée.”
“There was a cover-up,” said Martine. “What’s new? Then and now, it’s who you know. Who’s got something to lose or to gain by shutting up.”
“Pascal Leseur gave this photo to his friend, Gerard Delavigne, as some kind of insurance,” Aimée said. She propped up more feather pillows, pulled the duvet tighter against the chill in her bedroom. The rustle of the smooth silk and Chloé’s whistles of sleep over the monitor lulled her for a moment.
“Fran?oise, Gerard’s wife, called Pascal a manipulator, out for everything he could get. So I figure he held this over the minister’s head and expected favors.”
Martine yawned. “Go to sleep.”
“Can you ask your friend at Le Monde a favor, the one who works in the archives? I need articles on Commissaire Blauet. Anything from 1978. His present whereabouts. Check the obits in case he’s dead, too.”
A sigh. “Why?”
“If Blauet’s alive, I need to reach him. His name’s there, Martine. He’d have been the one to shut down my father’s investigation.”
“Zut! And you think, quoi, he’ll admit it just like that after all this time?”
“You don’t think ‘pretty please with sugar on top’ will work?”
Another yawn. “If I say yes, will you go to sleep?”
If only she could. Miles Davis emitted a snore, and the moon had dipped behind the mansarded rooftops across the river.
“Promise. Merci, Martine.”
Wednesday Morning
AIMéE PARKED THE Gucci-print pod stroller—bought on René’s insistence—at the Saint-Germain piscine. The humid air was tinged with chlorine.
“Here you go, water baby,” she said, handing Chloé to Babette, who was already in the pool. “René or I will meet you at the park later.”
The mamans in their maillots de bain at the baby swim class waved—Aimée had been a part of their group during her maternity leave. She felt a tug of regret at not joining them. “See you next time,” smiled one of the mamans. The lifeguard, a hunk in a Speedo, whistled for their attention. And scrutiny.
“Enjoy,” she called back.
She checked her messages. Maxence had picked up her scooter from Champs de Mars, thank God. But she was waiting to hear what Dussollier had uncovered about Fifi and Tesla, the missing pieces of the puzzle. Nothing. His number answered with an impersonal voice instructing her to leave a message. Why hadn’t he gotten back to her yet? Wasn’t he taking her request seriously? Maybe he didn’t realize how urgent it was.
No news from Martine on her archive query either. Frustrated, she tried René.
“Found another translator for Drina’s Romany?”
“Working on it, Aimée.” René sighed. “What do I say to my friend about that tracker chip? It was a unique prototype. Valuable.”
“So’s a human life, René.”
Pause. “Aimée, walk away from this.” René cleared his throat. “Please, you can’t let—”