The Dying Minutes Read online

  ‘So you’re saying you didn’t pay any money for her? Is that right?’

  ‘Just the berth, the notaire, a few odds and ends.’ Jacquot gave a shrug. ‘C’est tout.’

  ‘And you’re thinking of keeping her?’

  ‘Well, that depends. Obviously, we’ll need to discuss it. See what you think …’

  ‘So I’m away just a couple of weeks and this is what happens? Is this how it’s going to be?’

  Jacquot shrugged. This was turning out to be a great deal more difficult than he had bargained for. He’d imagined that Claudine would fall in love with Constance at first sight. A boat. In the Vieux Port. It was a dream. And it hadn’t cost them a sou. Surely she couldn’t complain, or find fault?

  But she still hadn’t said what she really thought about it, what he wanted to hear.

  ‘So what do you think?’ he prompted, side-stepping her questions.

  She looked around, taking it all in, started to shake her head.

  ‘I think it’s madness. And I don’t believe a word of it. No one leaves someone a boat. Someone dies, the boat gets sold. That’s it.’

  ‘I promise you, it’s just as I’ve told you.’

  There was desperation in his voice now; he couldn’t conceal it.

  It was what Claudine had been waiting for. Very slowly, the trace of a smile slid across her lips.

  ‘Dis-moi, is this where you’re planning to bring your lady friends while I’m changing nappies at home?’

  ‘Only the really important ones,’ he said quickly, unsure of his voice, still not certain where this might be going. It might sound encouraging but he knew it wasn’t yet a ‘yes’.

  ‘So do I get invited aboard? Or is this just a tease? I’m not one of the “really important ones” quite yet?’

  ‘Just enough of one,’ Jacquot replied, and helped her across from the pontoon and down on to the aft deck.

  She looked around her: at the city, at the boats beside them, at the various cruisers and sailboats and ferries ploughing to and fro on the main channel, and up at the wheeling gulls and blue sky. Then she stepped forward to the seat locker. Its lid was still ajar. She leaned over, prodded the offending fold with a finger and the lid dropped neatly into place.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ she said, sitting down on the seat now provided, crossing her legs and giving him a serious look. ‘I want you to understand, right now, right here, that every single last franc you spend on this boat, you spend the same amount on me. And then some.’

  The offer hung in the air, as Jacquot tried to make sense of it.

  ‘So does that mean I’m not going to have to sell her, or give her back?’

  She nodded, smiled and reached up for his hands.

  ‘I should go away more often,’ she said at last. ‘And the kids’ll love it.’

  ‘Kids?’

  Claudine’s smile turned to a look of surprise. A frown stitched itself across her brow.

  ‘Oh. Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  She pushed out her belly, looked down at it proudly and then back up at Jacquot.

  ‘They made a mistake. It’s twins.’

  34

  THEY CAST OFF an hour later, after opening a bottle and toasting Claudine’s news.

  ‘Are you sure you know how to do this?’ she asked, sitting beside him in the wheelhouse as he steered out past the breakwater, between the buoys, and took a bearing on Cap Croisette.

  ‘You forget, seamanship is in the blood.’

  ‘You mean you’ve had a few lessons from Salette.’

  He grinned, eased open the throttles and Constance surged forward, slicing through the rougher water, seaspray dashing over her bow. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a few lessons from Salette.’

  If Jacquot could have dreamed up the perfect day, it would have been this day, in this boat, with this woman. The cool salty splash of the sea, a warm breeze and blue sky, a fridge filled with supplies and a cool box with wine and beer.

  They were going for a cruise. Just as he’d planned.

  ‘But I’ve only got what I’m standing up in,’ she’d told him when he suggested it. ‘I can’t possibly …’

  ‘Check the for’ard cabin,’ he told her. ‘I took the liberty of bringing a few things down. Swimsuit, toothbrush, some jumpers in case you get cold, that kind of thing.’ He’d even brought her gardening hat and a headscarf so the wind wouldn’t flick at her hair, or the sun burn her. All possible complaints planned for, all contingencies allowed for, in case he’d had to fight his corner. Not that he’d had to. Not that much.

  And twins, confirmed during a routine check-up on the island. Not just one baby, but two. He could have laughed out loud with delight. So he did. Just a perfect, perfect day.

  ‘There’s got to be a catch,’ she said now, pulling down the brim of her gardening hat. ‘I can’t believe things just happen … like this. I mean, a boat?’

  ‘If there’s a catch, I haven’t found it yet,’ said Jacquot. ‘The papers are in order, the berth’s paid for. It’s … ours. If we want it.’

  Claudine shook her head, as he had done with Salette, at the sheer impossibility of something like this. And then she stopped shaking it and her eyes widened.

  ‘Aren’t we getting a little close to that ship?’ she asked, pointing ahead. A commuter ferry from Cassis was coming towards them, heading for La Joliette. Its horn blasted across the water.

  ‘Maybe just a little,’ admitted Jacquot, and he put the helm hard over, heart pumping fast.

  It took the best part of an hour to reach Île de Riou and a further twenty minutes to cruise around to the south of the island where Jacquot brought Constance into a narrow, sheltered cove, its sheer limestone sides rising above them. The sea here was flat calm and a dazzling azure, clear enough to see fifteen metres down to a sandy bottom. Jacquot had prayed there would be no one else there, and his prayers had been answered. Midweek, at the tail-end of summer, the inlet was empty, belonged only to them. Jacquot killed the engine, went forward to drop anchor and when he turned back to the wheelhouse he was just in time to see a naked Claudine dive off the boat and into the water. He wasn’t far behind her.

  They had lunch on the aft deck, in the shadow of the wheelhouse – a cold chicken and potato salad he’d smuggled down that morning, and a dish of ripe Violettes figs from Solliès-Pont, Claudine’s favourite. They had their own fig tree in the millhouse garden and the fruit it provided was sweet and succulent. But nothing came close to the black figs of Solliès-Pont which Jacquot had bought the previous week, hard and green and at great expense, from Traiteur Cigalle on rue Haxo. Now their skin was a deep purple, split at a touch, and the pipped pink flesh inside was soft and luscious.

  ‘If that was meant to be a bribe,’ said Claudine, pushing away the empty bowl and reaching for her wine, ‘then it worked a treat. I could become seriously used to this kind of treatment.’

  By now the afternoon was drifting away and the line of sunlight was working its way up the side of the cliff, leaving them in a dark blue pool of warm shadow.

  ‘We’d better think about getting back,’ said Jacquot, glancing at his watch.

  ‘Do we have to?’ asked Claudine. ‘There’s enough food to last, we’ve got bedding …’

  She got no further.

  Jacquot had leaned across and caught her up in his arms.

  ‘I love you, my darling. More than I can say. And you. And you,’ he said, tapping her stomach.

  ‘You had better. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

  After clearing away lunch they swam again, they made love, and as the shadows darkened and stars broke out in the stone-framed splinter of sky above them, they left Constance and swam to a small sliver of sand at the end of the inlet, with a bottle and glasses, cigarettes and lighter, and some left-overs from lunch in a watertight grab-bag. Once ashore they collected scraps of splintered wood and sun-dried timber, lit a fire and sat by it
s flames, drinking their wine, picking at the food, and listening to the soft lap and slap of the water.

  Just a perfect day, thought Jacquot, wrapping an arm around Claudine and drawing her close.

  Just a perfect day, thought Claudine, resting her head against Jacquot’s shoulder.

  35

  FIFTEEN KILOMETRES WEST of Riou, on the coastal slopes of the Sausset headlands, Claude Dupont kissed his wife goodnight, watched her climb the stairs, then retreated to his study. He closed the door, switched on the desk lamp and unlocked the drawer where he kept Lombard’s folder. Reaching in he pulled it out, placed it on the desk and untied the cord.

  There was work to do.

  Claude Dupont did this two or three times a week, going through Lombard’s notebooks, the various documents, the cassette tapes and videos, sorting through the Zip-lok plastic baggies, and deciding who to hit next: the city councillor who traded construction permis for cash? Or the union boss who dipped into union coffers to fund holiday breaks with his various mistresses? Or maybe the two small-time hoods in L’Estaque who skimmed every load of cocaine brought in by a dealer called Gonzalez? Or the judge and his fondness for rough trade? Or the doctor on rue Longchamps who liked to drug and molest his prettier patients? The list of the venal and the guilty went on and on, page after page. Names, dates, places. Everything meticulously recorded over the years by his client in Les Baumettes, and accompanied by a compelling range of evidence: from shell casings to bank accounts, from credit card records to expense receipts, parking tickets to shipping manifests. And photos, of course – wallets of them. And tapes and cassettes. Everything neatly labelled.

  All the documentation, Dupont had noted, was at least five years out of date, the most recent material dating back to a month before Lombard had been brought in for the Arab killing. But most of it was still as fresh and current as the day the various crimes and misdemeanours had been committed, and just as damning.

  Of course, some of the people Lombard mentioned in his notes had died – one or two high-profile gangsters along the coast, a rapist in Villeneuve – while some had moved out of the area or were already serving time as guests of the Republic. But for all the blanks and dead-ends, it still made gripping reading.

  When Dupont had first seen the contents of the case, he’d spent a couple of days wondering what to do with it all. His initial impulse had been to hand it all over to the Judiciaire – the notebooks, the documents, the gold, the money, the jewels – and let them sort it out. But he quickly realised it wouldn’t have taken the police long to trace it all back to his client whom they’d immediately visit, asking questions, poking their noses in.

  And that, he knew, would not serve.

  Lombard would not be amused.

  Even on his deathbed, in a prison, Dupont knew his client still had ways and means. He was not a man to fool with.

  Of course, he could always wait until Lombard died – surely not long now – and then hand the material over to the authorities. Either anonymously, or perhaps as part of a last will and testament, final instructions he had been given by a client. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he had a professional and ethical duty to follow through on his client’s instructions, despite being so thoroughly hoodwinked and upset by said client in the matter of his murder charge. In short, Dupont decided, it was a question of honour. And Dupont liked to think that he was an honourable man.

  It was also, he came to realise, a cleaning-up operation, a chance to set the record straight, to see justice done outside the confines of a courtroom where so often justice was not seen to be done. And that appealed to him greatly.

  And then, of course, there was the money. A great deal of money. The drugs – cocaine or heroin, he didn’t know which – might have been worth more than he could imagine, but he’d already disposed of those, on the roadway above the house, the two packs torn open, their powdery contents given to the breeze, his hands scrupulously wiped clean. As to the rest, he knew that the gold bars and precious stones and assorted bearer bonds easily amounted to millions of francs. And then there was the cash, the wads of currency.

  For now, everything rested in his safe, to remain there until he had properly worked out how to dispose of it. There was also the matter of his fees to consider, the work he had undertaken, the hours he could bill for. That, too, needed to be carefully calculated … well, not that carefully, he supposed. He was in his sixties, he had worked hard. It was time, maybe, to take things a little easier. And now he could.

  But these were all attendant, almost secondary issues.

  The main consideration at this early stage was what to do with the incriminating documentation that Lombard had provided, how to make it play to the best advantage, as his client had requested.

  The trick, Dupont discovered, was matching documentation to recipient. To the best possible effect. Deciding who should be sent what. There was no question of him using it to blackmail someone; why would he want to take the risk of actual involvement? The fun and games were to be had by placing the incriminating information in the hands of the most appropriate recipient, then sitting back to see what happened.

  That was what Lombard had wanted.

  A little bit of mischief. Deadly mischief.

  And that was what he had done.

  And each time he went to his study, after Francine had gone to bed, the more fun it became. The stealth of it, the damning effectiveness of it. It was just as Lombard had promised, fun and games. And every time he sat there, Dupont felt a pleasing shiver of excitement. It was like playing God, dispensing justice. Three or four envelopes a week, posted from around the city or delivered by messenger. On a couple of occasions he’d even made phone calls, thrilled by the closeness, the intimacy of the disclosures. Tonight, sorting through the material, he decided to start with the British Ambassador in Paris, alerting him that his esteemed local consul in Nice had been selling off British passports for top dollar. Small time, sure, but still fun.

  He had finished writing his standard covering note in short, sharp capitals, and was reaching for an envelope when he heard a noise in the hallway. The squeak of a door handle? A loose shutter? Francine coming down, looking for him, wondering where he was? She’d be cross, of that there was no doubt. He glanced at his watch – not too late – and then at his desk top. Nothing incriminating for her to see. Just work, some briefs to sort before next week, chérie. As he got up from his desk and went to the study door, he knew what words he would say to placate her.

  But when he opened the door there was no Francine, just a man with a gun, raising its long, silenced barrel and pointing it right between his eyes.

  36

  IT WAS LATE morning when Jacquot and Claudine arrived back at the millhouse after their night out on Constance. They had showered, changed their clothes and were finishing lunch on the terrace when the phone in the kitchen started ringing.

  Jacquot took it. ‘Oui? Allo?’

  It was Isabelle Cassier.

  ‘I’m sorry to call you at home,’ she began. ‘But there’s something you need to see.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Jacquot, as Claudine followed him into the kitchen with their lunch plates and glasses. She flipped open the dishwasher and slotted them away.

  ‘Niolon, off the L’Estaque highway. We’ve got a nasty one.’

  He gave Claudine a do-you-mind? look.

  She pointed to the ceiling, put her cheek to praying hands. She’d told him over lunch that she wanted a rest. And that’s what she was going to do.

  ‘Give me an hour,’ he said, and hung up.

  Jacquot found the house easily enough, a scrum of squad cars, lights no longer flashing, crowding the driveway off the Niolon beach road. The coast here was steep and rocky and only a few brave villas perched on its slopes. Those that did were walled, private and expensive with spectacular views across the bay, to the distant smudgy sprawl of Marseilles, and to the craggy outlines of Cap Croisette a
nd the islands.

  Isabelle, wearing blue latex gloves pulled up over the cuffs of a cream blouse, was coming down the stone stairs from the first floor when Jacquot stepped through the front door. The place had been ransacked – books, magazines, papers strewn over the floors, furniture overturned, pictures snatched from the walls, broken glass crunching underfoot.

  ‘Husband and wife,’ she said, leading him down a long tiled hallway and into the main salon. The shutters were closed, curtains drawn and an overhead light was on, throwing shadows off the two bodies beneath it, facing each other, three metres apart, wrists and ankles wired to the chairs they sat in. Both were naked, shoulders slumped, heads hanging down. And of a certain age – loose wrinkled skin, grey hair, thin legs and arms. Judging by the sprays of blood and scattering of pale bone fragments on the tiled floor between them, they had been shot in the back of the head. And judging by the state of them, thought Jacquot as he walked around the macabre stage-set, that swift execution must have been a welcome release. Open knife wounds like scarlet lips on their skin, circular black burn marks so large that they must have come from the burning tip of a cigar, fingers bruised and bent. He noticed the blood on the floor had still to form a skin. They hadn’t been dead long.

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Claude Dupont. A lawyer in town. Top firm. His own. And his wife, Francine.’

  Jacquot knew the name. And the man. Though he’d never have recognised him from the body bound to its chair. More than once Maître Dupont had visited police headquarters to take instructions from clients being held there, or issue them to investigating officers with regard to his clients’ rights and comforts. Only big name clients, as far as Jacquot could recall. Dupont did not appear to represent the lower criminal classes. Clearly the tactic worked. This house would be worth a fortune.