Jacquot and the Waterman (42 page)
'How come?'
'It looks like he pulls their heads back, by the hair. Under the influence of the pronoprazone, the jaw just springs open. No control. No ability - no will - to close it. The water just pours down their throats.'
'Blood? Saliva? Semen? Any DNA route?'
'Not a thing.'
'Fibres? Fingernails?'
'All we have is neoprene. From the victim at Salon-le- Vitry.'
'He wore a wetsuit?'
'It gets cold in the water, Madame.'
Solange Bonnefoy sighed, looked around her office. 'So, if we assume this lunatic is an out-of-towner, where's he holed up?'
'Hotel registrations in the city for periods longer than a month threw up a hundred and sixty possibles. All long-term residents, none of them likely suspects. And no name cropping up for shorter stays but moving consecutively from hotel to hotel.'
'Rentals for the same time period? Villas, houses, apartments?'
Jacquot shrugged. 'Maybe. But. . .'
'Don't tell me. Resources.'
'It's too much of a long shot, Madame. Checking hotels took ten days. Rentals would take much, much longer. And that's assuming our friend is even renting. Like I said, we simply don't have the time or the manpower.'
'So what next? What can I tell the press? The mayor? The chamber of commerce? Not to mention my boss.'
'You can tell them—'
Which was when Madame Bonnefoy's assistant buzzed through.
'You're due in court in five minutes, Madame.'
Solange Bonnefoy looked at her watch and pushed away from her desk. 'I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there, Daniel,' she said, getting to her feet, gathering up her papers and packing them into a briefcase. 'Although I doubt that worries you too much.'
She gave Jacquot a comradely smile.
'It's always a pleasure to see you,' replied Jacquot. 'I'll admit it's a difficult one, and I'm sorry I can't give you anything more . . . positive. But I do promise that we will get him, Madame.'
Solange Bonnefoy came round her desk and headed for the door.
'Believe me,' said Jacquot as he pushed it open for her and stood aside. 'Our man will make a mistake.'
Madame Bonnefoy breezed past him and, over her shoulder, said:
Then let us hope he makes it soon.' 'Let's hope so, Madame.'
It was only later, in the lift, that Jacquot remembered Doisneau. He'd meant to ask Madame Bonnefoy a favour.
39
With no one to cook for her, Suzie de Cotigny prepared her own lunch. In the kitchen she whisked up a couple of eggs, melted butter in a skillet and found the makings of a salad in the fridge. Returning to the stove she took the pan off the flame, rubbed its bubbling surface with a stub of garlic, then poured in the beaten eggs. Tipping the pan and adding a pinch of salt and pepper, she worked the mixture into a roll and slid it onto a plate. As easy as that. Plain omelette with a
frisée
side-salad. Breathing in the warm garlic, she set her lunch on the kitchen table, took a bottle of Provençal rose from the fridge and poured herself a glass, recorking the bottle and placing it back in the rack. A single glass wouldn't hurt.
Thursday was Suzie's favourite day. The house to herself. Hortense, the maid, and Gilles, the gardener, both had the day off and Hortense had left earlier than usual to visit her sister in L'Estaque. When Hortense did this she always stayed overnight so she would not return until the following morning.
Thursday was also the day that Hubert had supper with his mother, going to her apartment in Castellane straight from work, rarely getting back to the house before ten. The old dame liked her suppers early - and her son alone. Suzie had long ago been excluded from these soirees, meeting up with the dragon only when some formal or family occasion demanded it, so that most Thursdays, from mid-morning until a little after ten at night, Suzie was on her own.
Days off were rare treats for her. She might not have needed to work - her own trust fund from the States and Hubert's small allowance saw to that - but she was always on the go. Not necessarily of her own choosing. There were the dreary business dinners to arrange for Hubert's colleagues from the Prefecture or State Legislature, or family dinners with his atrocious daughter and her weedy husband, or receptions for visiting dignitaries, charity balls, cocktail parties, or gallery openings, the Opera or theatre. But Thursdays she always kept clear. Her day. A day to herself.
Normally Suzie went shopping, called in at the gym, or curled up in her own little apartment off rue Paradis with whoever it was she had on the boil. She'd rented the place soon after moving to Marseilles and she'd taken as much care in its refurbishment as she had in the restoration of Hubert's dark and gloomy residence in Roucas Blanc - as soon as they'd managed to lever out the old lady and send her packing to Castellane. One of the many reasons why Suzie was not welcome at Thursday supper. Not that it bothered Suzie one jot.
Suzie liked having her place on rue Paradis and used it frequently, as though she actually lived there. There was a TV, a hi-fi, a stack of discs, a stocked kitchen, loaded bookshelves, odd bits and pieces that she'd taken a fancy to at the markets - which Hubert would never have given house room to - and, in the bedroom, a packed wardrobe. Clothes she'd bought in town and brought back to the flat, clothes she never wore at home, that Hubert had never seen. It was all hers and she loved it. The independence of it all. Another life. She'd done the same in New York, briefly married to that investment banker Brad. Twenty minutes downtown from their Park Avenue duplex was her own little roost. The place she'd had as a student and kept on without Brad knowing. Not much different from her bolt-hole on Paradis.
She finished her omelette and salad and pushed the plates away. She might cook for herself, but Suzie had no intention of clearing up, even if there was a dishwasher. Didn't even think about it; that was what maids were for.
Of course the rue Paradis place was different. There Suzie gloried in her homekeeping, the apartment always scrupulously clean. At the de Cotigny residence she'd never dream of lifting a finger, but at Paradis she dusted, she hoovered and she cleaned the bathtub even when it didn't need doing. As though the effort suited the space, as though that was how it was done in such close, intimate quarters, in the lives lived in such places. And on those occasions when Suzie had company on Paradis, she never left without changing the sheets, making the bed, and filling the airing cupboard with fresh towels.
But this Thursday she was going nowhere. Suzie was staying put.
She'd got up late, made herself coffee and toast for breakfast - the empty cup, percolator and toast crumbs left untouched by the stove - and spent what was left of the morning by the pool. But now it was too hot to be there, the sun too fierce, the wasps that hummed around the pool too numerous and irritating. The best time was evening, when the sun slanted through the stand of pines lining the boundaries of their property, the air cool and the light that fabulous dusky gold.
She looked at her watch. It would be another hour or more before the terrace was bearable. Even in the shade.
Time to freshen up, she decided, time to get herself ready.
She had a visitor coming by.
Her new friend from the gym.
40
The call came through on his mobile as Jacquot pushed through the doors of the Palais de Justice and stepped out into the bright midday sunshine, eyes squinting against the glare.
It was Luc Jouannay, Clisson's number two on the forensics team, calling from Vicki Monel's apartment. They had gone in there that morning to give the place a proper going-over, looking primarily for prints to see if they could turn up any matches with Records.
'How's it going?' said Jacquot, pressing the mobile to his ear. The lunchtime traffic on me Grignan was loud with the beep of horns and the gunning of engines.
'Plenty of prints so far, coming on for thirty separate sets the last count.'
'Good, good,' replied Jacquot, crossing the road to his car, wondering why Jouannay should be calling him.
'But there's something you should see,' said Jouannay. 'It could be important.' Taller and younger than his boss, with thick black brows and lazy grey eyes, Jouannay was far less bothered by scene-of-crime protocols. When he came across something interesting, he called it in straight away, rather than waiting and typing it up like Clisson.
'I'll come right over,' said Jacquot.
'We'll be here,' replied Jouannay and the line went dead.
Twenty minutes later, Jacquot arrived at Vicki Monel's apartment building. This time he avoided Madame Piganiol's bell and rang the one for Vicki's apartment. It was Jouannay who buzzed him in. On this visit the lift was working, the sign forbidding its use no longer strung from the door handle. By the time he reached the top landing, Jouannay was waiting for him in the open doorway. He was dressed in his usual kit, a white zip-up Tyvek suit and white booties, with a face mask loose around his throat.
'Thought you'd like to see this,' said Jouannay with a grin, leading Jacquot into the apartment.
There were four of them, including Jouannay, in the apartment, all dressed in zip-ups. Jouannay s three colleagues were patiently dusting down every door frame, door handle and light switch they could find, taps and cooker knobs, TV and hi-fi controls, picking fibres off the sofas and carpets, working their way silently and thoroughly through the apartment.