Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (13 page)

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

Strange that an oil company would file suit against Monde-Focus and seek an injunction. Had things changed so much that an oil conglomerate could silence protests against it?

“Those with the most expensive lawyers win. We’re attempting to negotiate to prevent their enjoining our campaign.” Brigitte opened the door to the cold hall.

“How well did you know Orla Thiers?”

Brigitte looked down and when she did meet Aimée’s eyes, a sadness filled them. She started to speak then caught herself and sighed. “I’ll have more to say later.”

“Wasn’t she involved in the roadblock near the nuclear facility at La Hague? I’d like to speak with her friend, Nelie.”

“Nelie . . . the hanger-on? I haven’t seen her for a while.”

Odd. It sounded as if Brigitte didn’t know that Nelie had had the baby.

“How does Krzysztof Linski fit in?”

Brigitte’s eyes blazed back in fighting form. “He’s not part of our organization anymore.”

“But I thought . . .”

“He got us into this mess. He was a right-wing plant. That’s all I have to say.” Brigitte’s keys jangled in her hand. “Look, if you don’t mind . . .”

Aimée pressed on. “Who else can I talk to in your organization, please?”

“Can’t this wait?”

“In news, nothing waits or you won’t have a story.”

Aimée saw videotapes stacked on a cabinet arranged by title and date of demonstration. Surely the demonstration against the oil agreement would have been taped like the others. “Who filmed the march last night? Please, it would help so much to convey the mood of the event. Will you give me the name of the videographer?”

“Sure,” Brigitte said. “I’ll tell you on the way out.”

OUT ON QUAI D’ORLÉANS, Aimée ducked, but not in time to avoid receiving the Peugeot’s diesel exhaust in her face as Brigitte gunned the motor and sped off. Notre Dame lay shrouded in mist on her right, and rain pelted the stone ramp angling into the Seine. She pulled her hood over her head, glad she at least had obtained a lead from Brigitte. Then she stumbled into a rut filled with water and her pants got sopping wet up to her knees. En route to the documentary filmmaker’s studio, she’d make a stop and buy an umbrella.

SOUTH OF GARE D’AUSTERLITZ, once an industrial area, cobblestone-surfaced rue Giffard still held traces of small workshops. Near Les Frigos, the old refrigerator warehouses that had served the train yards, two-story buildings housed artists, musicians and—judging by the graffiti—an anarchist or two. She read CLAUDE NEDEROVIQUE—DOCUMENTARY FILM PRODUCTION by the digicode at his door.

The grillwork gate stood ajar. Aimée pushed it open and entered a narrow courtyard roofed by grime-encrusted glass resembling a train station. Rain pounded relentlessly overhead.

She shook and folded her umbrella, remembering the radio alert she had overhead: traffic advisory warnings and closures of lanes bordering the Seine due to record rainfall.

She knocked. Her trousers and sodden leather boots were soaked through. No answer. She knocked again. Chills shot up her legs. What she wouldn’t give for a warm fire, dry clothes, and . . .

The door swung open. “Took you long enough!”

All she could see was a man’s head in shadow, haloed by the bright lights of the studio behind him. Guitar licks of the Clash met her ears. “Claude Nederovique?”

“Who’s asking?”

He wore torn denims and motorcycle boots. Wavy brown hair hung over one eye and the collar of his black leather jacket. She tried not to shiver, aware of the surprise on his face as he stepped back into the light. His dark eyes studied her. A bad boy, just her type.

Merde!
The one time she forgot to retouch her mascara. Or reapply lipstick.

“Brigitte at MondeFocus gave me your address.”

“Excuse my rudeness,” he said, his voice low. “I’m expecting the AGFA film shipment. They’re late. As usual.”

“Do you have a moment?” She’d seize this opportunity before his delivery arrived. “I’m writing an exposé of violence at the MondeFocus anti–oil agreement vigil. Brigitte said you shot some great videotape.”

Stretching the truth never hurt.

Silence except for the rain. She tried again. “I realize it’s a bad time,” she apologized.

“You’re shaking,” he said, taking her arm. “Why your pants are soaked! Come in.”

The studio was lined with a bank of high-tech equipment: videotape recorders, monitors, camcorders. In contrast, old film-splicing machines and reel-to-reel spools sat atop high cabinets. An inner door led to a small room bathed in red light, emitting the acrid smell of film developer.

“Excuse the mess,” he said, shoving cardboard cartons aside with his boot. “But I’m glad to take a break. I’m editing my Rwanda documentary. The Hutus and the Tutsis: genocide, ghost villages, and no one cares.”

Pain and determination layered his voice. For a moment he looked lost and then he turned away.

“I’ll make it brief,” she said. She edged toward a strobe light, feeling awkward. “Here’s my card. Again I apologize.”

He glanced at it. “
Pas de problème.
I did shoot some video footage that might interest you. Can you give me a minute?”

She nodded, reaching into her backpack for a notebook.

He gave her a crooked smile, a nice smile, then took off his jacket and pulled a cell phone from his faded gray corduroy shirt pocket. Suddenly businesslike, he went to the red-lit darkroom to speak into the phone.

On the studio walls hung black-and-white blowups of barefoot African child soldiers in tattered uniforms, AK-47s slung over their shoulders. None looked more than ten years old. A shantytown—skyscrapers in the distance—a cluster of huts with cardboard and metal siding, dogs, garbage strewn on the dirt street. She looked closer, horrified to see that the dogs were sniffing at bodies. A baby, flies on its open mouth, lay next to a metal gasoline jerrican, ESSO printed on it. Her insides wrenched.

No wonder oil protesters like Krzysztof were passionate. Another photo titled
Sorbonne ’68
showed a cloud of tear gas engulfing miniskirted and bell-bottomed students. A 1987 film poster for
Guido and the Red Brigade
with a shot of the Roman Coliseum was inscribed
Claude Nederovique, writer and producer
in red letters below. She felt like a voyeur seeing the most brutal side of injustice. Just a shallow urbanite worried more about her lipstick than the suffering of the world.

“Quite a body of work.” She didn’t know how to express her feelings . . . her horror at these views of evil.

He pulled up a stool for her in front of another deck of video machines and monitors. He straddled another, turned down the stereo’s volume.

“Why film, if you don’t mind my asking?” Aimée said.

He sat back, reflective. “Because I don’t have the words like you journalists do to express this. He gestured to the wall. “Suffering, injustice.” He shrugged. “I’m bankrupt in that department. I envy you lot, if you must know. So I film, searching for the essence—the look, the gesture, a glimpse into a window that speaks volumes.”

Some underlying pain drove him. She sensed it. And she felt even guiltier for impersonating a journalist.

She put that aside; she had to keep her goal in mind. A woman had been murdered, and Nelie was in hiding. And there was Stella.

He leaned forward, leaving a sandalwood scent in his wake. The warmth in the studio crept up her legs.

“
Et alors
, just raw footage, haven’t had time to edit it yet. Bear with me until I find the march.” He inserted a cassette into one of the two videotape recorders, hit
Rewind
, and switched on the monitor. The whir of winding competed with the spattering of rain against the windows. “Anything or anyone specific you’re looking for?” he asked.

A dead woman. Talk about rewinding a ghost. A glimpse of the mother with her baby. Something.

She pulled out the photo she’d taken from Krzysztof’s flat and set it on the smooth aluminum counter. His knuckles clenched so hard they turned white.

“Do you know them?” she asked. “Friends of yours?”

“What happened makes me sick,” he said. “I’ve documented this movement from its inception.”

“Do you know either of these women?”

He nodded. “Demonstrations, sit-ins. . . . I’m sure I’ve seen them.” He pointed. “
Oui
, her.”

Nelie.

“I’d like to talk with her.”

“Me, too,” he said. “She borrowed my old Super 8. Promised to give it back a few days ago. But I’m still waiting. Why do you want to interview her?”

“Were they both at the demonstration?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I think so. Bedlam, chaos—that’s what I saw.”

“Wasn’t she involved with the roadblock at La Hague?” Aimée hoped this would draw him out.

Silence, except for the rain beating on the skylight.

Keyed up, she said. “I know she’s in trouble. Hiding.”

He studied her, the scent of sandalwood stronger, his teeth just visible between his half-parted lips.

“Journalists protect their sources, right?”

“Always.” At least that’s what Martine had told her.

“I have connections to the network.”

“Network?”

“The network that helps people who have to lie low. Know what I mean? I can help Nelie.”

She was about to tell him about the baby, but something prevented her. She just nodded.

“But you need to keep this confidential; it’s a clandestine highway,” he said. “If you should make contact with Nelie, let me know.”

First she’d have to find her. “Did you see any bottle bombs at the march?” she said.

“In every struggle, there are power shifts within organizations. Right now,” he said, pointing his finger at the photo, “the MondeFocus people think this
mec
’s a saboteur.”

Krzysztof. That fit with what Brigitte said.

“He planted the bottle bombs, right?” she said.

She figured he’d shown up at the morgue to see for himself if Orla’s body had been the outcome.

“Who knows?” Claude said with a shrug. “I just document and record the moment.”

The videotape clicked to a stop. He hit
Play
. A rainbow bar code showed on the monitor, then dots of candlelight, dark figures. Blue light from police cars swept the crowd. Faces were blurred. There were shouts. Then a close-up of bushes, leaves, sprays of water. Action too rapid to make sense of. Feet, a leg. Truncheons raised in the air.

“That’s it,” Claude said. “Water damage, I think. Residue and condensation corrode magnetic tape.”

Disappointed, she slumped back. Rain drummed on the roof harder now, the rhythm of the Clash bassist throbbing in juxtaposition.

“Can you slow the tape down?”

He nodded. Ran it again.

“Any way you could enhance this, magnify it, or go frame by frame?”

“Video’s not like film, with twenty-four frames a second.”

“Sorry, but does that mean you can’t isolate images?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said. “Unlike film, video’s written on magnetic tape in interlacing lines of resolution, converted into an electronic signal like a wave written in odd and even stripes on the mag tape. Much faster than film, too, at sixty images per second. So it can’t be isolated without capturing part or half of the preceding or following image as well.”

He hit
Pause
, then
Play
, adjusting a jog shuttle dial on the keyboard. “Look, notice the blue flickering, the gray line below?”

She nodded.

“That flickering, twitching effect shows the degradation. Really, it’s showing part of the next image. It is impossible to isolate one movement. See what I mean?”

She did. The blurred tape showed her little. Another dead end.

He sat back, glancing at his watch. “Give me a few hours. I’ll work on the color contrast and saturation, using a processor to boost the sound. I’ll see what I can do.”

A pool of water had dripped from her feet onto the hardwood floor beneath them.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Again, apologizing. She reached for a rag by the large porcelain sink and mopped it up.

“Any other proof that this Krzysztof sabotaged MondeFocus’s demonstration?” Aimée asked.

“I like him. It’s not my place to say anything.” He paused, hands in the pockets of his torn denims.

Was this some code of honor not to tell on fellow activists?

“Did anything strike you as odd at the vigil? Did Krzysztof seem out of sync?”

He shrugged.

She figured he’d said as much as he would.

He switched off the video camera. Then paused. “It was odd the CRS knew about the bottle bombs but the demonstrators didn’t.”

More than odd. She filed that away for later and tried another angle.

“Would any of the demonstrators know Nelie’s whereabouts?”

“Ask Brigitte.”

She was wasting his time—and hers—now. Better go.

“I’ll call you later to get a copy of the enhanced tape.”

Again, she saw that lost look. Vulnerable, at sea. A maverick bad-boy type looking for a life raft. Her.

“How about a
verre?
” He gestured to a bottle of Chinon, half full, and pulled out the cork. “Until your clothes dry.” He jerked his thumb toward the window. Water ran from the gutters nonstop.

Thirty minutes until her next appointment if she hurried. His sandalwood scent and dark eyes were appealing. She stepped closer. Then caught herself. She shouldn’t get involved. Couldn’t.

“Merci,”
she said, accepting the
ballon
of rouge. She sipped it. Flowery, notes of juniper, hint of berry. Nice. Expensive. Out of her price range. Like everything else until the check from Regnault cleared.

She sat on the stool.

“You got me thinking, you know, why I do this. Film.” He sat. “Call me a red-diaper baby, my mother did. So proud of it, too. She was steward of the Lyon railway trade union.”

Aimée nodded. Lyon, capital of unions, the staunch labor movement stronghold. She knew the milieu, figured he’d grown up in a working-class socialist household.