Shallow Be Thy Grave (36 page)

“What the fuck happened?”

“There isn’t enough time. Get the video and run. Ok?”

“Ok. Where are you?”

“Laters. Get out of the house,” Lily hung up the phone.

She used her last remaining franc to buy a bottle of water from the local shop. It had charcoal, gas canisters and bags of wood stacked on the forecourt. The sun was getting warmer and she felt a faint mist of sweat on her forehead. She watched a farmer drive up, in a flat bed truck. He got out and strode across the forecourt, into the shop. Lily wandered idly over to the truck, keeping her eyes open all the time for people watching her. The keys were still in the ignition. She looked around, saw no one. She closed her eyes, offered up an apology and then jumped inside the truck. Jo had taught her to drive last year, but she hadn’t had much practice since. The gear stick was on the wrong side for one thing, but she jammed it into first and pressed her foot down on the accelerator. The truck sped off, throwing up a cloud of smoke from the dusty forecourt as she went. She strained for the sound of men yelling, but didn’t hear anything. She shoved the gear stick back to second and the truck accelerated. She almost smiled.

A couple of miles later she came to a T-junction and a signpost that said Paris, 39 km. She had no idea how far that was in miles, but she swung right, forgetting momentarily about driving on the left, and having to swerve to avoid the car that was heading towards her. She took a swig of water and pressed her foot harder against the accelerator.

The flat countryside gradually became more and more built up, until she knew she was on the outskirts of the city. She’d just survived the most terrifying spaghetti junction she’d ever encountered when she saw a Metro sign. She nearly broke down and cried. Instead she drew the truck up onto the pavement, parked at an angle, wiped the steering wheel and the door handle with one of her black layers, like she’d seen them do in the movies and jumped out. Then she remembered she’d spent the last of her money.

It was still early, but the Metro station was bustling with people, commuters going to work.  She vaulted over the barrier, heard the guard shout, and sprinted down the tunnel, weaving in and out of the crowds. She cursed her dreadlocks and threw herself onto the first train she saw. She didn’t care where it was heading. Once she was in the system she could travel wherever she wanted, tickets were only needed for entrance and exit.

She got off at the next station and caught her breath. She studied a map of the underground and then waited for the train to the Trocadero station. It didn’t take long. She realised the other passengers were staring at her and knew she wasn’t looking her best. She kept her head down and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

There were no mechanical barriers at that station and she managed to get past the guard by immersing herself in the hordes of tourists  heading to the Eiffel Tower. As soon as she emerged from the Metro station she got the most amazing view of the Tower, rising up in the distance. She licked her lips and hoped that Jo and Stuart had made it too.

As Lily was cursing the fact that she hadn’t been more specific than to meet at the Eiffel Tower, she almost tripped over Jo and Stuart who were waiting for her on the same patch of grass where they’d sat on their first night in Paris. Stuart had a thick, swollen lip and a bruise above his right eye. The white of his eye was filled with blood, which made Lily’s eyes water just to look at it. “Jesus.”

Stuart got up onto his knees, before standing up. “Thank God, you’re ok.”

“Wish I could say the same for you.”

“I knew that guy was bad news, soon as I saw him.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Jo, clambering up from the floor. “Stuart said it was Alain?”

“He’s part of the team,” said Lily. “He’s not the organ grinder though. Just the monkey.”

“Where is he now?” asked Stuart.

“Nursing a very big headache, I’d imagine.”

“What’s he got to do with Brigitte’s family?” asked Jo. Lily led them over to the base of the tower, thinking it best to be lost in a crowd.

 “Nothing. None of this is to do with Brigitte’s family. She’s been blackmailing one of her clients. She made a film, that’s what they want. The video.”

Lily kept an eye on the crowds passing by. It was mainly tourists, and most of them seemed to be Japanese, which helped. If Carlos did get it in his head to come here, he’d be head and shoulders above them. Lily studied the queue of people waiting to go up the Eiffel Tower but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What did they do to you?” asked Jo.

“You should ask what I did to them,” said Lily, an inappropriate excitement welling inside her. She felt powerful, bigger than normal. “Did you bring the tape?”

Jo pulled it out of her bag and held it aloft. “What’s on it?”

“I’ll tell you everything once we’ve found a hotel.”

“You don’t think we should go to the police?” asked Stuart. “We know where the guy works, we know his name. All they have to do is pitch up and arrest him.”

 “We’re going to watch the film first,” said Lily. She took it off Jo and stashed it inside her denim jacket. “I want to see what’s so important. I thought the French were unshockable when it came to sex. Whatever’s on this tape, must be really bad.”

They rented a family room in a good hotel. Lily had had enough of prostitute districts. She wanted clean sheets and hot showers and she’d still got travellers’ cheques. Besides they needed a room that came with a TV and video recorder. The receptionist regarded them with suspicion but ultimately took Lily’s money. Lily was willing to accept they did look a bit of a state. Stuart with his beaten up face, Jo’s flattened, bed-head Mohican and wide pupils. She didn’t like to dwell on her own appearance.  Luckily there were no mirrors in the foyer. The receptionist beckoned to a porter, but Lily said it didn’t matter, they didn’t have any luggage.

Lily filled Jo and Stuart in on the events of the past few hours and then they all three sat together on the edge of the double bed and Stuart put the video into the machine. They pressed play. Lily recognised the décor of the Love Shack apartments straight away, the room was almost identical to the one Fiona had. Brigitte looked amazing, dressed in black leather straps and little else.

Her client writhed on the bed, , wearing nothing except a pair of handcuffs and a pink pair of women’s pants. They bulged at the front, his excitement tangible. It was a while before Lily studied his face. She was too engrossed, watching Brigitte stride around the room, totally in control in a pair of thigh high black boots. She was holding a black cane, might have been a riding crop, which she stroked up and down the man’s body.

It wasn’t until Brigitte straddled the man, that Lily noticed there was something familiar about him. The moustache. Where had she seen that moustache before? The last few days were a blur. It took her brain a few moments to make the connection. “Fuck, he’s a copper.”

“How do you know?” asked Jo, leaning forward and peering at the screen.

“It’s Yvette’s boss. He interviewed me. Shit. No wonder he wants the film back.”

“Are you sure?” asked Stuart.

“Dead sure.”

“Great, now we’re really in trouble,” said Stuart.

“This isn’t making any sense,” said Jo. “Why would a copper have killed Fiona? I mean, it’s bad enough he’s caught on camera having SM sex with a teenage, illegal immigrant, prostitute. But murder?”

“I don’t think they did kill Fiona.” Lily stood up and flicked off the TV. The last thing she saw on screen was Brigitte pulling back the pink pants and the man’s erection pinging up to vertical. “Carlos said Brigitte was supposed to meet the guy, the Chief of Police or whatever he is, on the Saturday morning, to hand over the film. He’d already paid the money she’d asked for. And she didn’t show.”

“Why would they kill Fiona before then?” said Stuart.

“Exactly. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Perhaps he was trying to find Brigitte before he paid her any money?”

“Alain said Carlos showed up at St Paul’s on the Sunday, trying to find Brigitte. So then Alain discovers the Chief of Police is being blackmailed, after being filmed in a flat he’s illegally sub-let to Brigitte. He was worried he’d lose his job.”

“Serves him right,” said Stuart.

“Plus Brigitte owed him money. Then the whole thing snowballs. Particularly because they discover that Brigitte is friends with a girl who’s just been murdered. No wonder he want his film back.”

“So,” Jo unlaced her Doctor Martens and took her boots off. “What about her family?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think she made the whole thing up?”

“I found some of her stuff, at Bruno’s. Remember the box, the one we took to Bruno’s house? It’s full of her personal stuff. I found a letter, which had been sent to Brigitte Chance, but when I read it, at the top, in bold, it said something like, you know when you get a letter from the dole office and they put re: overpayment, or whatever. It was like that but it said ‘Brigitte Stolz’. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but it had been sent to Brigitte Chance, at Bruno’s flat.”

Jo and Stuart both looked nonplussed.

“I think they’d rumbled her identity fraud,” Lily explained. “Remember when Bruno said he gave her some letters, and she went pale. I think that was the letter. She knew she was going to have to start over, that she’d need another identity.”

“She made up all that shit about being abused?”

“Who knows?” said Lily.

“Women don’t become prostitutes by choice,” said Jo. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

“That’s true. Whatever happened to Brigitte, you can bet it wasn’t great. But I don’t think her family are on her tail trying to bring her back. I mean - think about it - that never really made sense. She ran away six years ago, has obviously never said anything to the police, even though she’s been arrested. Then the wall comes down and her family are after her because they’re scared she might suddenly decide go to the police?”

“But why would she say they were if they weren’t?” said Stuart.

“Because people who have shit families make up stories. Because anything’s better than the truth. I used to tell people my dad was a rock star, for fuck’s sake. Whatever Brigitte’s family are like, you can guarantee one thing, it wasn’t Happy Families. ”

“So what do we do about the video?”

“I think we give it back to him,” said Lily. “Jo?”

Jo pressed eject on the video recorder. The machine whirred and the cassette slid out of the top of the machine. She passed it to Lily. “Your call. Hate to think of them getting away scot-free, though.”

“Why didn’t Brigitte give them the tape?” asked Stuart. “I mean, if he’d paid her already.”

“I reckon she forgot the tape. Sounds like she moved out in a bit of a rush on Thursday, late at night. Olivier’s just offered to save her, Fiona’s furious with her because the trip’s off. By the time she realises, Fiona’s supposed to have put the boxes in storage. Only she doesn’t know where. She’s made up this story about her family, so she can’t go out. And she doesn’t know how to get hold of Fiona.”

“So when we turn up, and tell her Dee got beaten up in Amsterdam, she panics. Gets us to take the box to Bruno’s, so she can rescue the tape.”

They all absorbed this information. Jo lit another cigarette. “So, we’re no closer to knowing who killed Fiona?”

Lily inhaled deeply. She’d though of nothing else the whole drive back from the farmhouse. “No. I don’t know. Maybe it was Beaumont. I can’t think straight. Maybe the police will come up with something. Forensics. Yvette seemed pretty determined to get to the bottom of it all.”

“We could try and find out what Beaumont was up to? Thursday night and Friday.”

“Maybe,” said Lily, but she knew she had something else to do first. “I want to go home. It’s Arthur’s funeral tomorrow.  I want to go, represent Fiona, kind of thing.”

 “What about you, Stuart?” asked Jo. “Do you want to press charges against Alain?”

Lily studied his face while he made his decision. The skin around his right eye was turning purple and his lip was swollen and bloodied. “What about that woman, in Amsterdam? Surely they should pay for that.”

“Funny you should mention that,” said Lily. “You’ve just given me an idea.”

Lily went to a phone box to ring Yvette. Jo and Stuart came with her and they all crowded into the booth together. Now the Chief of Police was involved, Lily knew she couldn’t be too careful. She rang the number and asked to speak to Yvette.

“Hey Lily, what’s up?”

“Your boss, the guy who interviewed me. Will you give him a message?”

“Commissaire Charbonneau? What is the message?”

“Tell him I’ve got the information he wanted.”

“What information?”

“Sorry, Yvette. He told me only to speak to him. Will you tell him to ring me back straight away.” She gave her the number of the phone box. “Tell him, I’ll only be here for the next five minutes.”

Lily replaced the receiver and pulled a face at Jo and Stuart. She was actually going to do this and she felt better than she had in a long, long time. All she needed now was for him to take the bait.

The phone rang three minutes and fifty five seconds later.

“Ok, here’s the deal,” said Lily. “Tell him, we’ve got the tape, and as far as I can see, what a person gets up to in their spare time, is their own affair.” She paused, giving Stuart time to translate her words into French for the Commissaire. “But, beating up women in Amsterdam, that’s a big no-no.”

Stuart frowned and then spoke slowly into the receiver.

“I want Yvette in charge. I want her to investigate Carlos and Alain. I want her to make sure they had absolutely nothing to do with my sister’s murder.”

Stuart held up his hand and spoke some more French into the telephone.

Lily exhaled a cloud of smoke. “When she tells me it wasn’t them, he can have his tape back.”