The Dying Minutes Read online

  Jacquot reached forward and pulled a book from the rack. One of the cloth-covered titles. De Maupassant. Short stories. He turned to the contents page – Moonlight, The Practical Joker, and Forgiveness – and flicked the dry pages through his fingers, a stale smell of dust and age coming off them. No damp here then, thought Jacquot. Books would have been the first to give the game away. He was about to put the Maupassant back when he noticed an ex-libris sticker on the inside cover. Librairie Santal. Jacquot knew the shop, a second-hand bouquiniste just a few hundred metres along the quay, two blocks back from the Opéra, with open, trestled stalls set out on the pavement. He replaced the Maupassant and pulled out another book, Gide’s Trois Contes, and checked the inside cover. Not the Santal sticker this time but a stamp from the Lycée Simon on Cours de Valerie. A school-book. Of the ten books he checked, five had come from second-hand bookshops, two from the Lycée Simon, with three belonging to someone called Edina, the signature in pencil. An old lady’s signature, Jacquot decided, or a young girl experimenting: the careful, studied curls to the letters, the tidy little underline brought back off the tail of the final ‘a’ and prettily looped beneath the ‘E’.

  And in most of the books he examined there was a bookmark. The same bookmark. A thin laminated strip with Philo’s initials. A neatly worked ‘N’ in red ink at the top left of the strip, and the ‘E’ in green in the bottom right, the two capital letters separated by a column of numbers … the same numbers, Jacquot noticed, on every bookmark: 4305, 1022, 4023, 2836. Page references? Favourite verses from the Bible? Phone numbers? 43-05-10-22; 40-23-28-36 reading across; or reading down 43-10-40-28; 05-22-23-36? Alternatively they could have been the combinations to a set of locks? Or a bank account number, perhaps? Or maybe credit-card pin numbers. Even fishermen had credit cards. And an old boy like Philo, getting forgetful, what better place to note them down? On a bookmark, rather than scribbled on a slip of paper in his wallet. Clever boy, thought Jacquot, slipping the marker between the pages, closing the book and putting it back on the shelf.

  Somewhere beyond the pontoon another cruiser motored past, coming in too fast, its wake slapping against Constance’s hull and gently tipping the deck, enough for Jacquot to reach out a hand to steady himself against the tilt and rock, shallow as it was. Being out at the end of the jetty might have distanced him from the sounds of the city, but it put him closest to passing traffic in the harbour’s main channel, and at the mercy of inconsiderate sailors. In time, he was sure he’d get used to it, just like all the other things he’d have to get used to: trying not to bang his head on the ceiling when he reached up to close the wheelhouse hatch, or when he leaned forward to blow out the main cabin lights, and having to turn sideways to reach the for’ard cabin, spreading out his new sleeping bag over the foam rubber mattress wedged into Constance’s curving bows, a bed so short that he could only stretch his legs out straight if he kept the cabin door open.

  And in the darkness of that for’ard cabin, slanted with moving lights from the distant quays, Jacquot settled himself down that first night aboard Constance, trying to accommodate the ache and spikes of pain in the top of his leg, the distant hum of traffic broken every now and then by a distant siren wailing through the city, or the high-pitched revving scream of a Friday-night trail-bike accelerating along the quay. And in the deepening silences between them, he listened to the whispering gusts of breeze around the open cabin portholes, felt the gentle, lulling rock of the ocean, and with a sigh of puzzled contentment, he fell asleep.

  9

  THEY WERE ALL dying now, mused Patric Polineaux, putting down his cognac and taking a deep pull on his Cohiba Robusto. The lucky ones that is, the ones who had made it through to the end without collecting a bullet in the head, or a wire round the neck, or a knife in the guts. Difficult to say which was worse: the gun, the wire, the blade or, years later, the stroke, the cancer, the sudden, searing heart attack. All of them just as deadly, of course, the only consolation a long life to look back on, but lives now rapidly unravelling. Hugo, down in Antibes, dribbling into his nappy until that last final bursting in the brain just a week before; that bastard Colonese in Menton, with his twenty-seven-year-old widow left everything; and old Bouri, the Algerian, who’d filled the Nice–Cannes section of the A7 flyover with more calcium than concrete, the decaying bones of anyone who’d crossed his path and thought the Arab’s gentle stammer and exquisite manners were genuine. A big, big mistake.

  Each of them – Hugo, Colonese, Bouri and a dozen more – killers all. Utterly ruthless. Had to be, of course, to make it through.

  But not one of them as bad as that old coot Cabrille, who’d passed away just a few months earlier, whose funeral Polineaux himself had attended. A foggy Sunday in Marseilles. No more than a small handful of the old guard there to pay their respects: René Duclos, from Toulon; Jean-Claude Rachette, also known as The Hatchet, after his weapon of choice; and Guy Ballantine, stooped and greying, in his fancy London suits. Now it was the youngsters taking control, and only a few of those prepared to turn up for a gangland adieu. Too busy with their casinos and their hookers and their fancy cars to honour the passing of an old-schooler, even if Cabrille had been a certifiable psychopath.

  And his own turn soon, thought Polineaux with an icy stab of dread.

  With a rug tucked round the stumps of his long-lost, bullet-shattered legs, he sat in his wheelchair on the terrace of his home, high on the western slopes of Cap Ferrat, watching the lights twinkle around the bay of Villefranche. So much prettier, he thought, than the buzzing orange glow of Nice, and Cannes, and Antibes. Taking another long draw on his Robusto, he remembered how the same stretch of coast had looked some fifty years earlier, when his father had bought this house. No golden glow then, no smudged orange shimmer reaching to the stars and running from Mont Boron to the shadowy pleats and folds of the Esterel Hills. Nowadays you needed sunglasses at night. If you’d lived long enough to see it. But Villefranche, seen from out here on the Cap, from the terraces of Hauts des Pins, was little changed, just as it always had been.

  Polineaux knew that he had been one of the lucky ones. An invalid for the last fifteen years, tucked up in his wheelchair, with a hoist in his bedroom and bathroom, a live-in nurse to wipe his arse, and an oxygen tent on hand for one of his ‘episodes’ – that terrible breathlessness, the blood pumping up his neck and into his head, until his face felt as tight and red as a ripe tomato. But at least he was still around. He might know what the cold blade of a knife felt like, and the terrible slicing and shredding of a fusillade of lead, and by all accounts he should be dead. But he wasn’t. He was still at the top of his game, keeping the youngsters in line. Legless he may be, but there was life in the rest of him.

  Polineaux gave a little shiver, tapped the ash from his cigar and held the red tip to his cheek. It was starting to turn chill and he felt the Robusto’s heat, knew they’d be out for him soon – the new nurse, Delon, with those long, slim fingers and that ridiculous waxed moustache, and his old butler, Jarrive, in his striped green waistcoat. But with just one Cohiba a day permitted to him, he wasn’t going to let them spoil his treat because it was getting a little cold. He’d stay till the damned thing was ash between his fingers, and they could choke on it.

  He was closing his lips around the fat cigar when he heard the door slide open behind him. He could tell from the soft footfall that it was Jarrive, and prepared to send him packing. But Jarrive beat him to it, starting to speak while still some distance from the chair.

  ‘Monsieur Didier has arrived. Shall I ask him to step out?’

  Polineaux frowned for a moment. Didier? Didier? And then he remembered. Of course, of course. He had sent for him an hour earlier, asked him to drop by. He raised the cigar and waved it over his shoulder. ‘Show him out. Show him out.’

  A reprieve. Now he could finish his cigar in peace.

  ‘And bring me another cognac,’ he called after Jarrive. A second cognac would certainly help w
arm him up.

  A few moments later Didier Lacombe stepped out on to the terrace. He was formally dressed for the casino in Beaulieu, from whose salle privée he had just excused himself following Polineaux’s late-night summons, and he tugged at his cufflinks and straightened his bow tie as he came closer.

  Polineaux glanced up at him. Mid-thirties, curly black hair that would likely fall out by the time he was fifty, a long nose, black eyes and thin lips … thin as a blade of grass. Tall and slim and deadly. And loyal – loyal to a fault. A winning streak at the races, or a good hand at the tables, or a tasty lady – Didier would dump them all when he got the call from Hauts des Pins. Not many around like that any more.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’

  Polineaux waved him to a chair, then pointed at the cream-coloured envelope on the table. Didier picked it up, peered inside, pulled out the contents. He looked at the photos then read the covering note. It was short, precise, and written in neatly sloping capitals.

  FOR YOUR INFORMATION …

  ‘The cars look old,’ said Didier, putting down the letter and shuffling through the images again. Three of the photos showed two men talking to one another. Grainy long shots, black-and-white. In a shopping street somewhere, in a car park, outside a bar.

  ‘They are,’ replied the old man. ‘Twenty-seven years old, to be precise.’

  ‘You recognise the men?’

  ‘The shorter of the two was one of ours.’

  ‘One of ours?’

  ‘Back then, yes. Monsieur Bernard Suchet of Transports Suchet International. Gone straight now, so they say.’

  ‘And the other guy?’

  Polineaux studied the picture. ‘The other one’s a cop. Can’t be sure, but he’s got that look about him. Probably working both sides. Out to bulk up his pension, you know?’

  Didier nodded, came to the last two photos. Polaroids.

  ‘And these?’

  Polineaux didn’t need to look. The flash of colour. Almost blinding. Nothing black or white or grainy. In one, a single bar of gold sitting on the front page of Thursday’s Le Figaro. The other, a close-up of the same bar. The assay marks and stamps easily made out.

  ‘Before your time, but no need to tell you, I expect.’

  Didier nodded. ‘You know who sent this?’ he asked, sliding the note and photos back into the envelope.

  Polineaux turned down his mouth, pushed out his bottom lip – a long red shiny slug – and spread his hands.

  ‘It can only be that shit Lombard. Going that far back.’

  ‘Can’t be Lombard,’ replied Didier. ‘He’s in Baumettes, remember? A long stretch.’

  ‘Then someone who knows that swivel-eyed freak. Someone he’s brought in. Someone who knows which bells to ring.’

  Polineaux pulled in a mouthful of cigar smoke, let it lick the inside of his cheeks, slide over his tongue, then blew it out in a thin whisper that made his lips tingle. For the first time that day, since the envelope had arrived, he had his wits about him. That’s what Cohiba Robustos and a good cognac did, the second of which Jarrive was even now setting down on the table. No better medicine known to man.

  ‘A cop. Or a lawyer,’ said Didier.

  ‘That’s my guess,’ said Polineaux, reaching for the cognac, nodding to the butler; the nurse, Delon, would never have allowed it. ‘Someone he’s got his hooks into, someone on the outside. That’s who sent it. And that’s …’ Polineaux waved his glass at the envelope ‘… that’s who’s got my gold.’

  Somewhere below the terrace, in the gardens of Hauts des Pins, the sprinklers started up and a frog began to croak.

  ‘You want me to make some … enquiries?’

  ‘Enquiries? Oh, yes. And just as soon as you can, please.’

  10

  ‘YOU HAVE UNTIL Monday, Sister. On Monday you will all be gone.’

  The voice was low and steady. No emphasis, no sense of threat, just a message delivered with unwavering certainty. A dozen words that rang in Sister Mercy’s head as she watched the man turn on his heel and cross the open yard. His jacket had been tightly buttoned but the breeze still caught at it, similarly the grey trousers, and he lifted a hand to push back a lock of hair. Although Sister Mercy didn’t take it in, he wore trainers too. It was a strange look, given the suit and the briefcase. At the gate her visitor passed the postman coming in, pushing his trolley. As she took the letters and package he had brought her, wishing him a ‘bonne journée’, her heart tightened and her voice caught as the message finally registered.

  She had known it would happen, sooner or later, but she hadn’t been prepared, hadn’t been ready for it so early in the morning. She had buzzed open the outside gate, thinking it was the postman, then gone to the front door. And there he stood, shoulders as wide as the doorway, as clean-shaven as he was ever going to get, jacket buttoned, tie a grease-darkened red, a double chin bellying over his collar. Even before he said a word, she knew who he was. From the landlord’s office, as a result of a month’s unpaid rent on the small factory space that she and Sister Odette occupied. Eight years they’d been there, and every month the rent had been paid on time. But one slip and they were on to her. Letters first, then the visits. This was the third man to knock on her door in as many weeks.

  She knew why, of course, this speed and enthusiasm to observe every last tiny phrase of their lease, to follow minutely every sub-clause and condition of tenancy: to have them out, as swiftly as possible, because the landlord wanted to develop the space, an old soap-making factory that had closed down twenty years earlier and lain damp and deserted until Sister Mercy from the Convent of the Immaculate Conception had taken a short renewable lease on it, the rent paid through donations and sales from the print-works they’d established. But times were hard. The summer had been long and hot, outgoings had increased but income had fallen. And so, the shortfall. Which was why they’d missed that month.

  Money. Money had always been tight, but they’d always managed to make ends meet. This time things looked bad. Because of that misunderstanding with the bank and a bounced cheque from one of their retailers, they had to leave on Monday. Three days. No, not even that.

  Either take up the ten year lease remaining, payable in full – a little over a million francs – or leave by Monday. Either / or. That simple.

  Clutching the mail, Sister Mercy closed the door and turned down the passageway towards her small office. There were three polychrome prints of the Virgin Mary on the wall between the front door and her office – the Madonna’s skirts as blue as the sky above Marseilles that morning – and at each one Sister Mercy made a hurried sign of the cross, kissing her thumbnail on the last, before bustling into the box room she called an office and dumping the mail on her desk. Above her, on the first floor, doors opened and closed. There was the sound of footsteps on the lino-covered passageway, a burst of children’s laughter, an accompanying scream to counter it, and voices – women’s voices. In an hour, the children would be breakfasting in the refectory before crossing the yard to nursery and classes, their mothers to work on the presses or in the office or around the house. Working for their room and board. And safety. Just like any other day. The chanting from the classroom, the rackety-rack of the printing machines, the smell of cooking from the kitchen wing … just as it always was.

  Until Monday, he had said. And Sister Mercy had known he meant it.

  Then it would be over. They would be out of there. All of them, women and children, out on the street. For Sisters Mercy and Odette there was always the convent in Aubagne, but for the thirty-two women and eleven children who lived at the refuge there would be no such fall-back position. A hostel, a friend’s apartment, maybe a parent’s house. Or, more likely, out on the street or back home for more of the same abuse from the drunken husbands or unforgiving pimps who had driven these poor women out in the first place, taking their children with them. For years now the two Sisters had provided shelter, work and food for hundreds of such women, eac
h given six months to find her feet and move on. The Sisters were as strict about that as the men who wanted to evict them on Monday. A deadline was a deadline. A deal was a deal. There were other women waiting for a place of safety. Six months was enough to sort something out and move on to make room.

  But Monday … It was just hours away, thought Sister Mercy, and her chest tightened with another drum roll of fear and anxiety. What on earth could they do? Where would they all go? How in the good Lord’s name would they manage?

  And then Sister Mercy did the only thing that she knew would make her feel strong enough to face the challenge ahead. She got down on her knees, rearranged the folds of her habit, then rested her elbows on the desktop and lowered her forehead to her clasped hands.

  And as she prayed she felt the tightness in her chest ease, her heartbeat settle and the weight on her shouders fall away, drawing in her breath at the end of every line of her prayer to begin the next, a whispered litany of thanks and blessings and faith.

  It was after breakfast when Sister Mercy got round to the morning’s mail. She’d told Sister Odette of the deadline, but no one else, and as the two women sat together trying to come up with some kind of plan, Sister Mercy started on the mail, slicing each envelope open with the penknife at her belt, unfolding the letter within, reading it with a sigh – always official, always a request for money – before adding it to the pile.