The Dying Minutes Page 11

  Still a little unsettled following his interview with the police, Suchet picked up his phone and called the number he knew by heart. He left a message. In the next fifteen minutes – no more – she would be back to him. He waited twelve minutes, enough time to pour himself a drink.

  ‘De Ternay Investments on the line for you, Monsieur,’ came Monique’s voice.

  ‘Put them through, please.’ He waited a beat. ‘Ah, Jacqueline, so good of you to call …’

  Twenty minutes later, Suchet passed through his assistant’s outer office.

  ‘I’m going out for a while,’ he said without pausing.

  ‘I’ll have Bruno bring the car round,’ said Monique, reaching for the phone.

  ‘No need,’ Suchet called back. ‘But have him meet me outside the Mercure at eight forty-five.’

  And then he was swooping down in the old Edoux caged lift and stepping out into the street, his mind fixed on the young lady he was about to meet in a serviced apartment owned by de Ternay Investments on rue Balon, the relevant information passed to him in the usual financial shorthand. A new stock, Madame had informed him. A Japanese fund with interesting yields. The usual commissions, of course, but well worth the investment. The call had ended with a formal confirmation from him that he would buy in at the rate she was quoting. If anyone had been listening in, it would have sounded as though broker and client were agreeing the details of a sale – in which assumption they would not have been mistaken.

  From the moment Suchet had put down the phone, the phrase ‘interesting yields’ had lodged in his brain and his imagination had gone into pleasurable overdrive. And Japanese, too. So she would be small and delicate, with long black hair and slanting almond eyes. She would whisper to him in a language he would not understand, and her hands and fingers would work him in ways that would be interesting and arousing. There was, he knew, a wet room in the apartment where they would meet, and he had a certain idea that some kind of Japanese water therapy would be involved in the coming attraction.

  So bound up was Suchet in his imaginings, as he set off up rue Grignan, wondering what the new girl would be like, what little tricks she would have up her sleeve – and wherever else she might keep them – that he quickly forgot his visit from the police, and who had sent that damned envelope, and was in no way aware of the black van that slid past him and slowed as he approached the corner of rue Paradis. The driver’s window was down and the driver leaned out and called to him, slowing the van to a walking pace, as though seeking directions. There was no one else close by to whom he could have been appealing, so Suchet turned, drew closer the better to hear, to help.

  And in that instant, the side door slid open and strong arms simply lifted him off the pavement and bundled him on to a stinking mattress in the back of the van.

  So swift and sure was the manoeuvre, his arms clasped tight to his sides, his hands still in his pockets, that there was no time to struggle, no opportunity to react. All he was aware of was the van’s side door sliding shut, darkness filling its interior and a sudden swinging turn to the left that would have rolled him off the mattress had he not been held steady by strong hands. As the van straightened up and the driver put his foot down, working his way through the gears, Suchet felt the sleeve of his jacket being pushed back up and the sharp slide of a needle on the inside of his forearm.

  29

  DRIVING BACK TO the millhouse that evening, Jacquot decided that Isabelle Cassier hadn’t changed a jot. Four years on, not so much the new girl now, she seemed even ballsier than she’d been when they’d worked together on rue de l’Évêché, and when she’d helped him make the move from Marseilles to Cavaillon, sharing his bed, and filling his empty weekends in a strange town. The last time he’d seen her, she was getting dressed on a Monday morning in that loft apartment she’d found for him on Cours Bournissac in Cavaillon, after he’d been thrown off the squad in Marseilles and been posted to the Lubéron. Four days later she had phoned from Marseilles, told him that she would not be coming up that weekend.

  And that had been that. He hadn’t seen her, and they hadn’t spoken, not since that last Monday and that final Friday phone call. That weekend, alone in Cavaillon, had not been fun. And the days that had followed had been equally dull and restless, week after joyless week spent at his provincial cop’s desk, new colleagues to meet and work with, new routines to get used to, and just the three options for his time off: stay at his desk and work late, drop in somewhere for a drink, or go home and watch television. And a hundred times he’d thought about picking up the phone, calling her, to see if he couldn’t retrieve the situation. But a hundred times he’d held back. Because she’d been right. His heart hadn’t been in it.

  Later he heard that she’d left Marseilles and transferred to Paris; her mother was ill. And that had been the end of it. She really had made a break, gone to another city, taken on another life, and that sudden distance between them, a real, geographical distance, had made a phone call redundant.

  What was the point?

  Did he want to sleep with her? Yes, of course he did.

  Did he love her? No, he did not.

  That’s all there was to it. Time to move on. Just as she had done.

  And Isabelle, he knew, would have been feeling a great deal worse than him, because she plainly had loved him, or had been in danger of doing so. Whereas he … well, he’d just felt lost and lonely and needed the companionship, her warm body beside him in that lumpy, squeaking bed, under the eaves on Cours Bournissac, her breathless whispers and gentle caresses …

  Soon after that final phone call, he’d pulled himself together. He’d taken a spring ski break, on his own, stayed longer in the mountains than he’d intended, and by the time he returned to Cavaillon he’d banished the blues and started to settle into life in the Lubéron. Not long after that, covering a case in Luissac, he’d met Claudine.

  And now Isabelle was back.

  As the sky started to darken in his rear-view mirror, and up ahead the day slid away in layered bands of red and gold and scarlet, Jacquot wondered what he thought about it, meeting her again.

  Well, she was still goddamn sexy, and no mistake. Walk into a crowded room and look around and hers was a face and a body that would catch your eye, that you’d linger on. And, if you had the nerve, you’d do something about it. Four years earlier, at her invitation, he had done just that. They’d been lovers once, but now they weren’t. Not that he didn’t enjoy thinking about it. Remembering.

  He wondered, too, about her. How had she felt about meeting up with him again? He’d have been surprised if the encounter hadn’t come freighted with a certain … tension, after all this time. But she’d handled herself well. Cool and professional when she came aboard Constance to quiz him about Barsin, and just friendly and enthusiastic when she’d caught hold of his arm outside Chez Ma Mère. Apart from that little start she’d given when Suchet came out of his building and he’d tapped her on the leg, as though the touch was somehow electric, there had been no indication that she still had any feelings for him beyond the kind he had for her. There had been no mention of their time together, their abrupt parting, and no sense for Jacquot that they were now anything other than friends. Friends and colleagues, playing on the same team. The rest was history. She’d moved on, and so had he. All in all, he was happy with the way things had turned out.

  Up ahead, he saw the slip road sign for Cavaillon and swung up through the toll, crossed the Durance river and skirted the town heading for the Apt road, and the millhouse. Claudine was due back and the old place was in need of a wash and brush up.

  Or she’d want to know the reason why.

  30

  ‘WHERE’S MY GOLD, you son-of-a-bitch?’

  Bernard Suchet blinked in the darkness.

  As the words settled into his consciousness – the sharp sound of them, if not yet their exact meaning – Suchet became successively aware of a number of sensations. His shoes and socks had been
removed and the stone floor was cold. He was in shirt sleeves, shivering in fits and starts, and his wrists and ankles had been bound with wire to the chair he sat on. A hard wooden chair with a flat seat and a straight back that reached as high as his neck. And the darkness wasn’t real; he could see a band of light across his chest where the black hood over his head ended, and peering through its folds and weave he was aware of four dim shapes.

  ‘I said, where’s my gold, salaud?’

  It was a man’s voice, an old man’s voice, low and level, and without thinking Suchet turned to his right, to the shortest of the four shapes. That was where the sound had come from, maybe three or four metres away. Someone sitting in a chair. But not tied, not like him. Not restrained, or that was the impression he got.

  And gradually the words began to take on some form and order and sense.

  A question had been asked.

  Something to do with gold.

  ‘Is he conscious yet?’ asked the old man in the chair.

  ‘Oh yes,’ came another voice, from his left. A younger man this time, with a stronger, deeper voice. ‘Just look at the feet.’

  Suchet realised that they were talking about his own feet. And realised, too, that he was wiggling them up and down, the bony balls drumming on the stone floor, the binding wire cutting into the skin. He hadn’t even known he was doing it. He stopped moving them.

  There was a grunt from the shape in the chair, and the old man’s voice started up again.

  Same tempo. Same level. Just as chilling.

  ‘1972, scumbag. Not so long ago. Not long enough to forget. Or forgive.’

  And with every new word, Suchet began to put it all together.

  Where he was. What was happening. What this was all about.

  My gold, the man had said. My gold.

  And suddenly Suchet wanted to pee very badly – which was maybe why he’d been drumming his feet. Because now he knew who the old man in the chair was, who that chilling voice belonged to.

  He’d never met him, but he knew who this was.

  Patric Polineaux.

  And Suchet knew, too, what gold Monsieur Polineaux was talking about.

  Seventy-five bars, twelve kilos a bar. A ton of gold. And it had gone missing. More than twenty years ago. All that was left just an empty truck on the quay at Madrague. Four bodies on a sidestreet in Pointe Rouge, and a fifth body, the driver’s, left by the truck.

  ‘So where is it? What did you do with it?’

  Suchet opened his mouth to reply but discovered that his tongue was as dry as bone, almost glued to the roof of his mouth. He gagged rather than spoke.

  ‘Give him a drink,’ said Polineaux, and for a moment Suchet expected the hood to be raised and a glass put to his lips. He was wrong. The shape on his far left seemed to step forward and swing something in his direction. The next instant he felt a massive smack of icy water dashed over him, flattening the shirt against his chest, the black hood against his face, making him gag even more, gasping for a breath through the cloth, trying to suck in some of the water, trying to sluice it around his mouth to unglue his tongue, then swallowing, then reaching for another breath, for more water. Icy. Icy.

  ‘I don’t know …’ he began.

  ‘Oh yes, you do, you piece of shit! Yes, you most certainly do. And you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Lombard. He’s the one you should talk to.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Lombard. I know all about Lombard. Did me a favour, he did. Sent me some pretty pictures. Photos. Of guess who? Just the head man at TSI, that’s who. But playing pally with the flics way back when.’

  Suchet’s heart nearly stopped, his guts twisting and cramping.

  So he hadn’t been the only one to get an envelope. Lombard must have sent one to Polineaux, too. That was why he was here. After all this time, for whatever reason, Lombard had decided to drop him in it. But what photos? What had Lombard sent? What had Polineaux seen?

  ‘Barsin,’ Suchet whispered. And then, clearing his throat, a little louder, ‘Barsin.’

  ‘The cop? That’s his name?’

  ‘That’s his name.’

  ‘So you know who I’m talking about here? Your friend. The other one in the photos.’

  ‘I know who you’re talking about,’ said Suchet. ‘But he’s no friend. He came after me. After the heist.’ The words felt sticky, unnatural in his mouth. As if his tongue was somehow too large, still too swollen, to operate, despite the water he’d managed to suck in through the hood. That’s what it felt like. The drugs, he decided. Whatever they’d given him in that van.

  ‘After, not before?’

  ‘Afterwards. Two, three days later. Wanted to know about the gold. Where it was. Who’d taken it.’

  ‘And why would this cop, Barsin, think you’d know something like that?’

  ‘Merde alors, I don’t know. Because I got out? Because I didn’t get taken at Le Canet? Who knows? Maybe because a couple of my boys were in that third truck? But look what happened to them. Shot. Left on the side of the road, they were.’

  Silence settled as Polineaux considered this.

  ‘So why don’t you tell me about that third truck?’ he began again. ‘Tell me how come it ended up in Madrague?’

  ‘That’s what Barsin wanted to know. Like he had a personal interest, nothing to do with the cops. Said it was me who had set it up. Had my boys go off plan, take a different route. But I hadn’t. I didn’t know anything about it, I swear. All I knew was we did what we’d been told to do.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Everything by the book. That’s how it went down. Just as planned. The information was good …’

  ‘Of course it was good. It was me who got it.’

  ‘… The convoy came along right when it was supposed to. Up that hill. The right number of trucks. The right number of outriders. We had the road blocks ready, and we got the gold. Three security trucks. I was the lead driver. Drove them on into town, taking separate routes at Prado like we were supposed to. But only two of us made it to the rail-yards. And then the cops were everywhere. We were set up. Had to be. Someone knew, someone talked.’

  The more Suchet spoke, the easier it became, just a roughness now at the back of the throat.

  ‘And that someone wasn’t you? Telling this Barsin all about it, so the cops would be at Le Canet and you’d be able to pull a fast one over in Madrague?’

  ‘That’s crazy. If it was me, then why wasn’t I driving the third truck? Why would I drive to Le Canet if I knew the cops were going to be there? Me and a couple of the boys, we only just made it out.’

  ‘Tell me about the driver, the one in the third truck. Was he one of yours?’

  ‘I didn’t know the other drivers. They were brought in from Nice. I got the job as lead wheels because I knew Marseilles, and I had some lads on my crew who were up for the game; fit boys, knew the city, too, and how to handle themselves. But Barsin didn’t believe me. Kept on at me. Where was the gold? Who’d taken it? That’s all he wanted to know. Took out a gun, threatened to use it. It was him or me. He was crazy. He was going to finish me.’

  ‘You shot him? That cop in the parking garage? That was you?’

  ‘I told you, I had no choice. He had his gun stuck in my face. Lombard was there. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘And I’m sure he will. But in the meantime it’s you in the box. It’s you telling me what happened. And it better be what I want to hear.’

  ‘I swear to you, I’m telling the truth,’ Suchet began. ‘Whatever happened that night, I didn’t know about it …’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on.’

  There was a chuckle from the outline on the left, and the unmistakable snick-snick of an automatic pistol being primed.

  Jesus, there are guns, thought Suchet.

  And then he thought, Of course there are guns. This is Polineaux.

  They were going to shoot him. He was a dead man.
>
  ‘Écoute … Listen …’ he began.

  The sound of the gunshot was little more than a whisper, a kind of compressed, pneumatic phut.

  But the pain exploding in his left ankle was nothing short of gigantic, and he gasped then screamed at the size and pitch of it.

  ‘So where did it go, Ber–nard?’ asked Polineaux, drawing out his name. ‘What did you and your cop friend set up?’

  ‘Rien. Nothing …’

  There was another phut and his right knee shattered in a blast of splintering white heat.

  ‘One more time. Where is the gold? What did you do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t know …’ a weeping Suchet managed to splutter, somewhere between a scream and a whisper. ‘If I did, Christ JESUS, don’t you think I’d tell you? I just … I just don’t know …’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘No, no, wait. Listen …’

  ‘Listen? Listen to what? All I want to hear about is the gold. And all you do is tell me you don’t know, or you tell me to listen. And then, when I’m listening, you tell me absolutely nothing.’

  ‘That’s because there’s nothing to tell. I don’t know about the gold. Where it went. Who got it. I don’t know about Madrague. All I know is that Barsin was involved – and not as a cop, like I said. Lombard too. He was always around.’

  It was as if Polineaux hadn’t heard a word.

  ‘The trouble is,’ the old man continued, ‘you think it’s all too far back to matter, don’t you?’ Polineaux’s voice was level, unhurried, thoughtful. ‘And you think that now you’re too big to be involved. To explain. To take responsibility. But when it comes to the family, this family, no one’s too big, Monsieur Ber-nard Su-chet, of Transports Suchet International. No one. Not you. No one.’

  As Polineaux spoke, Suchet became aware of the shadow on his left moving closer and then passing out of sight, somewhere behind him. There was the whining sound of an electric wheelchair and he could see Polineaux reversing away from him, and the two other shapes on his left stepping back.