Crime Fraiche (28 page)
Authors: Alexander Campion
“So tell me, Commissaire”—he drew the word out to extract the maximum irony—“how many times have you had the murderer confess over a friendly drink and not been able to do one single goddamn thing about it?”
Capucine decided it was high time to get back to Alexandre and began the long trek to the restaurant. For a few seconds she toyed with the idea of acting on Vienneau’s confession and then chided herself for her rookie’s reaction. Even signed confessions witnessed by two officers of the law were ridiculously easy to overturn in court, and this had just been drunken boasting witnessed only by a bartender who was certain to swear he hadn’t heard a word. It was always the same: no evidence, no case. And there never was any evidence in hunting accidents.
At one point in her lengthy odyssey Capucine remembered she had yet to find the little lady detective’s room and began exploring passageways she had ignored on the way out. In a narrow side hallway she almost collided with Henri Bellanger, who achieved the impossible by looking even more pleased with himself than usual, sporting a deep apricot tan of the sort obtainable only in the Caribbean and apparently genuinely delighted at the encounter.
“Actually,” he said, “I came looking for you. I saw you leave the restaurant and thought I’d find you out here somewhere. I’d hoped to be able to buy you a drink. I owe you a considerable debt.”
“How so, Monsieur Bellanger?”
“Thanks to you I just collected a very healthy fee. If you hadn’t solved the case, I don’t think Monsieur Vienneau would have sold his business. That psychopath Martel would have eased into Gerlier’s job, and it would have been business as usual. Vienneau would never have divested.”
Capucine, who from her days in the fiscal branch of the Police Judiciaire was fully conversant with the structure of investment bankers’ fees, was perplexed. “Surely, the sale of the Elevage Vienneau couldn’t have been that important to you.”
“Oh, but it was. You see, it was necessary to structure a very complex financial montage. In addition to the usual tax issues, there was a tricky divorce in the works. Of course, I charged a good deal for that.”
“Financial montage?”
“Yes, just between you and me, the bulk of the transaction was offshore. So, not only did I map out the transaction, but I portaged the shares for a little while and brokered the transfer of funds from one holding company to another until they wound up, well, wherever they wound up. And, naturally, my fee reflected all that activity.”
“Are you trying to tell me the funds are all hidden in some fiscal paradise like the Isle of Jersey?”
“Oh, my dear, how you date yourself. No one but the sort of people who want to buy cashmere twinsets goes to Jersey anymore. Nowadays it’s all done with puts and calls and anonymous escrows in faraway places.” His toothy smile was made all the whiter by his deep tan.
Back at the restaurant Capucine found that the Opportunité executives had all left and Alexandre had lit a cigar, pulled back his chair, and was telling a long story to the waitress, now sitting on the edge of the table, fully reverted to her gangly teenage persona. As Capucine walked up, she was wrinkling her nose and attempting to take a sip from a comically large snifter while giggling uncontrollably. She caught sight of Capucine through the enormous glass, blushed deeply, and darted off.
“I see you had a lot more fun than I did.” She picked up the huge snifter and took a deep draft. “What is this stuff?”
“Something that was allegedly put in a bottle in eighteen ninety-three. Its most impressive attribute is its price.”
Capucine drained the glass. “Order me another one.”
“I’ll do even better. There’s one on the list that claims to have been bottled in eighteen fifty-four. Your trip to the ladies’ seems to have been eventful.”
“I ran into both the bad guys.”
“Was it who and what you thought it was?”
“Almost exactly. Except I did learn that the Channel Isles are no longer in vogue.”
Alexandre demanded little of his wife except the privilege of having the last word, something she was always happy to grant him. “So,” he said, “tradition still prevails and the two national pastimes—tax evasion and eliminating one’s enemies with bird shot—continue unabated. As Alphonse Karr, that good boss of
Le Figaro,
liked to say, ‘
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’
—the more it changes, the more it’s the same. Continuity is so reassuring.”
Le Figaro,
liked to say, ‘
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’
—the more it changes, the more it’s the same. Continuity is so reassuring.”
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2011 by Alexander Campion
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2011922120
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7220-1
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