The Dying Minutes Page 10

‘Possibly, possibly. But like I said, I’m giving you guesses here. You’d have to find the gun first. Or a witness. Or get Pierre-Louis Lombard to tell you his side of the story. But what all this looks like …’ Jacquot waved to the envelope on the table, ‘… is someone out for a reckoning, a settling of accounts. Or maybe just mischief, who knows? And after all this time, it’s all long shots now.’

  ‘There’s a link already. We’re not the only ones who got a letter like that.’

  ‘And the link is?’

  ‘There was a suicide in Avignon. Some priest – quite high up. When the police arrived they found an envelope, just like that one. With a selection of photos … The action was here, in Marseilles, about eighteen years ago. Which is how I got to hear about it.’

  ‘Post or courier?’

  ‘A Marseilles postmark.’

  ‘And you’re checking it out?’

  Isabelle nodded.

  ‘So what’s your feeling? About whoever sent these letters.’

  ‘Well, it’s reasonable to assume that Lombard – if that’s who it turns out to be – made the tapes in the first place.’

  ‘Possibly. But he didn’t send them. He’s in prison, remember. And he doesn’t have access to fancy stationery and couriers. And none of them – Lombard, Suchet or Stokowski – wrote that accompanying note.’

  ‘What makes you so certain?’ she asked.

  ‘Because they’ve all got too much to lose by sending material like that to the police. And because the note was written by an educated man. A professional. If I had to guess …’ He glanced at Isabelle.

  ‘Go on. Guess.’

  ‘If I had to guess, I’d say someone in competition with Suchet or Stokowski – if that’s who this Monsieur S is. Someone in the same line of business, out to bring one of them down. But what I don’t understand is how that ties in with your Avignon priest …’ Jacquot spread his hands, a there-you-have-it gesture. ‘Whatever happens, I think you have yourself an interesting case, Isabelle.’

  ‘It’ll be my first down here. On my own.’

  ‘You’ll do it well, I have no doubt. And any help I can give you, just ask.’

  Isabelle gave him a long, appraising look – the grubby T-shirt, the paint-stained shorts, sawdust in his hair.

  ‘You have any decent clothes, sailor?’

  Jacquot frowned.

  ‘I thought I’d take you to lunch,’ she said. ‘To say thank you. You do still like lunches, don’t you?’

  25

  JACQUOT LIT A cigarette and watched Isabelle Cassier at the bar, talking on the phone. A few calls. That was all. A couple of minutes, she’d said, wiping her lips and throwing down her napkin. They had feasted on new-season oursins, the sea-urchins’ purply-black spines scissored away and the mouthparts opened up to reveal the puffy orange gland sacs. A wad of lightly toasted bread between thumb, middle and forefinger was all that was needed to dab into each shell, buttering fingers and bread with the golden spread offered up. They had followed these with a shared sea bass from Chez Ma Mère’s brick oven, and worked their way through a bottle of Sainte-Trophyme rosé. Coffee had come and gone, but Isabelle had drawn the line at a Calva. Through a wreath of cigarette smoke he saw her push a hand through her hair, loop it over an ear, and noted that her blouse had come untucked from the waistband of her skirt. Whoever she was talking to, she looked at ease, in charge, and getting what she wanted.

  No surprise there, Jacquot decided. From the moment she’d joined the squad, back in the days when he was still working Marseilles, before the Cavaillon posting, there had always been something steely and confident about Isabelle Cassier. If she wanted something, she usually got it. And that included him. Within weeks of being on the squad she had just homed in on him, like a bee to blossom. Asking him out for a drink, her boss. And not taking no for an answer. You can fight it all you want, but I’m going to have you, Mister. That was the message that came over loud and clear. And have him, she did. That’s how it had been.

  She was just as pragmatic when things didn’t go her way. It was Isabelle, after all, who’d given him his marching orders, not prepared to take what little he was offering when she finally lured him to bed. She’d read the writing on the wall, decided it wasn’t what she wanted, and did something about it. Rang him up from Marseilles, to say she wouldn’t be coming up to Cavaillon that weekend. His heart wasn’t in it, she’d told him, and that just wasn’t good enough. Not for Isabelle Cassier.

  As he watched her at the bar, Jacquot wondered why, exactly, his heart hadn’t been in it. Perhaps it was all down to timing. Bad timing. Back then, he’d been living with an Air France stewardess called Boni who’d seduced him on a night flight from Paris and moved into his Le Panier apartment soon after. They’d been together some time, and then, one day, he’d come back home and she was gone. No message, no nothing. And Isabelle, standing there at the bar, had helped him get over it, Boni and the subsequent transfer to Cavaillon, and as he watched her tapping her fingers on the zinc he felt a wince of remorse at the way he had treated her.

  But that was then, and this was now, and she was putting down the phone, thanking the barman and heading back to the table wearing a pleased expression.

  ‘One of your guesses is out of the frame,’ she said, taking the jacket from the back of her chair and pulling it on. Lunch was clearly over. ‘Stokowski,’ she continued, tucking some notes under her coffee cup. ‘Killed in a car crash three years ago. He was sober, the other driver was drunk.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have put odds on that,’ said Jacquot, pushing away from the table and pocketing his cigarettes and lighter. ‘Or maybe he would.’

  ‘Which leaves Monsieur Bernard Suchet.’

  ‘These were just guesses, Isabelle. That’s all.’

  ‘I know, I know. But still …’

  ‘But still what?’

  ‘According to Laganne, Suchet’s office is just three blocks away. I thought we might drop by.’

  ‘Isabelle, this Suchet is big time. You don’t just barge in and expect …’

  ‘Exactement. Which is why I called ahead,’ she said, taking Jacquot’s arm as they left the restaurant, clamping herself to him. ‘And made an appointment. Two-thirty. Which gives us exactly eleven minutes.’

  ‘I don’t have my badge,’ said Jacquot.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll do the talking.’

  26

  MUCH TO HIS amazement, Suchet had heard nothing more from Pierre-Louis Lombard, or whoever else had sent him that envelope. He’d been expecting some follow up, but so far there’d been nothing. It was because of this that he felt a nervous fluttering in his stomach as the door to his penthouse office opened and Monique ushered in two police officers.

  Had the cops also received something?

  Had they been on the mailing list?

  Was Lombard, or whoever it was, really trying to stir up trouble?

  It certainly seemed possible, with the flics suddenly calling on him.

  Of course, it would have been easy enough to postpone the meeting. He was a busy man, with a tight schedule. But he needed to know the reason for their visit. Whether all this was somehow linked in. Even if it was more than twenty years ago now. Water under the bridge. Any river there, long dried up.

  Fixing on a welcoming smile, Suchet pushed himself away from his desk and came around to greet them. A young woman – surely too young to be a Chief Inspector? – stepped forward to shake his hand and offer her identity card for examination, followed by an older, but apparently junior, colleague dressed in a creased linen jacket, an open-necked shirt and jeans. Suchet gave the man a nod and gestured to the chairs drawn up at his desk.

  ‘You have a beautiful office, Monsieur Suchet,’ said the young woman, taking in the panelled room, the four balcony windows and the extensive rooftop views.

  Suchet made himself comfortable, spread his hands.

  ‘Thank you. Yes, it is delightful. We have been here three years now, since
we decided to separate day-to-day operations from planning and strategy. A central address is also more convenient for meetings – banks, investors, the computer people. IT – that’s the way forward in our business. Nowadays, it’s logistics and programming …’ Suchet was about to settle into his favourite subject, his eyes drifting to the front of her blouse, when the Chief Inspector cut him short.

  ‘But we musn’t waste your time, Monsieur. So if you wouldn’t mind? There are just a couple of questions I would like to ask.’

  ‘Go ahead, please,’ he replied, indicating that the floor was hers. He realised, too, to his dismay, that he had been blabbering. He would have to watch himself. Time to play the Chief Executive Officer of Transports Suchet International.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a man named Gilles Barsin?’

  If the envelope he had received and this visit from the police were linked, Suchet had known that the name would come up at some point in the conversation and he was prepared. As he always had been.

  ‘Barsin … Barsin … No, it is not a name I know.’

  Yet all he could see, as he spoke the words, was the snarling, spitting face of Gilles Barsin in La Caboucelle car park, up close to his, and the snatched image of that bastard cop’s pistol smashing into his nose, the cartilage grinding and snapping, blood spilling out of his nostrils. That was the moment, sprawled on the ground, with Lombard standing in the shadows, that he’d reached for his own gun, a small stubby Colt .45, firing with concentrated energy as Barsin leaned over him and smiled his ratty little lick-spittle smile. At such close range it would have been difficult to miss – two bullets in the chest, one in the left eye and the last in the right cheek. Barsin had dropped his gun, lumbered backwards on to the bonnet of his squad car and dropped to the oil-stained cement floor, the sounds of the gunshots echoing, multiplying, around the various levels of the car park. How no one had heard the shots, or come running, had astonished Suchet. But they hadn’t. And with Lombard’s encouragement he’d stumbled to his car and managed to drive away, leaving Lombard to clear up.

  Suchet laced his fingers and smiled, as though inviting another question. Anything he could do to help.

  Across the desk, the Chief Inspector nodded as though she had expected this answer. It was clear to Suchet that she believed him, and he was pleased with his performance.

  But she wasn’t giving up. She caught and held his eye in a most disconcerting manner. This young woman was not one to underestimate.

  ‘Gilles Barsin was a policeman. A Chief Inspector, here in Marseilles. He was killed in the line of duty.’

  Killed in the line of duty. Suchet liked that one. In normal circumstances, he’d have chuckled at such a description. But he sensed a trap, delicately laid, and put on a suitably concerned expression.

  ‘I am so sorry to hear that. I truly am. Was he married? Are there children?’

  The police officer shook her head.

  Suchet sighed, spread his hands. ‘But Marseilles is a tough town, as we all know.’ Then he paused, frowned, preparing to lay down his ace. ‘But there’s been nothing in the papers. I would have read about it. Surely such a thing would have been reported …’

  ‘It was, Monsieur. Twenty-seven years ago.’

  Suchet managed a little gasp of surprise. ‘Twenty-seven years? But that’s …’

  ‘But that’s just a day when someone murders a police officer, n’est-ce pas? That kind of thing is never forgotten.’

  Suchet gathered himself. ‘Mais, bien sûr. Of course, of course. And it shouldn’t be forgotten … something like that.’ He started to shake his head. ‘Such things, such horrible crimes, should not be allowed to go unpunished. But I can’t see how I can possibly …’

  ‘What about Lombard?’ she asked. ‘Pierre-Louis Lombard. Also known as L’Hippocampe.’

  He’d been cut short again. It was something Suchet wasn’t used to, something he didn’t much like. He felt his face start to harden, took a breath to settle himself, to loosen the tightness in his cheeks and chin, to ease the gentle clenching of his teeth. He must not let this policewoman, or her doltish-looking colleague, think that he was discomfited by their probing.

  Everything under control.

  Wits about him.

  Chief Executive Officer.

  But there was still a tightness in his belly, below the level of the desk, a chill crawling in his guts. They knew something. That con Lombard …

  Suchet tried a smile; easy, complicit. ‘Ah, mais oui. Now that is a name I do remember.’ He tipped back in his seat, looked up at the ceiling, as though better to remember, and then settled his eyes back on Chief Inspector Cassier, with a glance at her colleague, out of politeness. ‘Now I never met the man, you understand, but I have certainly heard of him. Years ago now, when I was starting out. Back then, believe me, if you had any business on the waterfront, Lombard was going to cross your path sooner or later.’

  ‘But you say you never met him?’

  ‘Not Lombard, not personally, but a couple of his thugs on a few occasions … In those days you had to … pay your way, if you understand me. I didn’t like it then and I don’t much like it now, but there you are. Call it insurance. Protection money.’ Suchet spread his hands. A small confession. Nothing for him to worry about. So long ago now. ‘Back then a few hundred francs every month,’ he continued, ‘and no one fired my trucks, or sugared my tanks, or shot out my tyres. I’m a bad man to fool with, Mademoiselle,’ he replied, deliberately discarding the use of her title, ‘but I know when I have to play the game. Businesses like mine, along the waterfront, have gone down for less. Always have and always will.’

  ‘Quite so, Monsieur. Just one last question. When did your relationship with Lombard cease?’

  ‘I would hardly call it a relationship, Chief Inspector.’ This time he did allow himself a little chuckle.

  ‘The paying off, then.’

  ‘With Lombard, about six or seven years ago. I believe he was sent to prison.’

  ‘There’ve been others?’

  ‘That’s two questions, Chief Inspector …’

  A little joke, a little lightness, didn’t seem such a bad idea at this particular point.

  But she didn’t bite. She waited for his answer.

  Suchet shrugged. ‘Now and again, of course. Something sous table, some extra protection. That’s the kind of world it is, Mademoiselle. Ça, c’est Marseilles, non?’

  And that’s how it ended.

  The Chief Inspector thanked him for his time. He demurred. Hands were shaken. Suchet saw them to the door, watched them cross Monique’s office, waved briefly, then closed the door behind him, rested his back against it.

  He was in the clear.

  They had nothing on him.

  Whatever Lombard, or whoever else, had sent to them, he was not in any kind of trouble. Serious trouble. If he had been, he’d have known it. The interview might have been testing but he’d performed immaculately, kept everything under control, and the way it had ended left no room for doubt.

  He would not be hearing from Chief Inspector Cassier again.

  27

  ‘WELL, IT’S THE same voice,’ said Jacquot, as he and Isabelle stepped out on to rue Grignan, the last of the mistral snapping at shop awnings.

  ‘The same voice?’

  ‘You didn’t hear it: “I’m a bad man to fool with”? Just like he said it on the tape.’

  ‘I missed that.’

  ‘But you did get his fingerprints.’

  She shot Jacquot a look.

  ‘Making him take your card, like he needs to examine it? Usually I drop mine, wait for them to pick it up for me. But neatly done, all the same.’

  ‘Thank you. I thought so too.’ She looked around, saw a café-bar a few metres down the road. She looked back at him, tipped her head. ‘Coffee? You got time? Tell me what you think?’

  ‘Only if I get the Calva to go with it.’

  And that’s how they spent the next h
our, going over the interview with Suchet. Neither of them was in any doubt that the man they had just met in his sixth-floor penthouse office in the building across the road was the Monsieur S of the tapes, and that for the last twenty minutes he’d been lying through his teeth. He had known Barsin, and had probably killed him, too, in that underground car park. Any print match would confirm it – on the car-park ticket or possibly the casings. And if it was his voice on the phone, it was also clear that he’d known Lombard too, though he’d made a good fist, with both names, of pretending otherwise. In short, Monsieur Bernard Suchet was in a very great deal of trouble.

  They were discussing how Isabelle should proceed – bring Suchet in or keep a watch on him – when Jacquot tapped her knee and pointed through the bar’s window. She gave a start, then looked where he was pointing.

  Across the road, Bernard Suchet stepped out on to the pavement. Winding a white silk evening scarf round his neck and tucking it into the lapels of his jacket, he set off at brisk pace along rue Grignan.

  Jacquot and Isabelle moved fast. Calva tossed back, a scatter of francs to cover the bill, and they were out of the bar in seconds. They spotted Suchet half a block ahead now, crossing rue Lulli and heading for rue Paradis. Shoulders hunched, head down, hands plunged in his trouser pockets, he had a clipped kind of swagger to his walk and was easy to mark. As he closed on the corner of Grignan and the busier Paradis they lost sight of him for a moment when a large black van drove past, slowing for the intersection. By the time the van had moved on, turning left into Paradis and accelerating away, Monsieur Suchet had disappeared from view.

  ‘I wonder where he was off to,’ said Isabelle Cassier.

  ‘You’ll never know now,’ replied Jacquot.

  28

  BERNARD SUCHET COULD still smell the Chief Inspector’s perfume. Faintly. But it was there. Musky. Oriental. It reminded him of Pamlin, the last girl he had called up from Madame Jacqueline. A Malay. Quite exquisite. He wondered how Madame found them. And thinking of Pamlin and Madame and the quite delightful entertainments he’d enjoyed with her firm over the years, and with his wife in Saint-Tropez, what better opportunity?