A pang of guilt pierced him.
She lifted a small folder. Inside were photos from a lost time; black and white images of a young boy in a sailor suit, a serious-looking girl with long braids holding his hand. They stood in a room surrounded by museum- quality furniture, Impressionist paintings on the wall.
Conflicted, he turned away. “I’m sorry, I wish I could help you. But I don’t know how.”
“Monsieur, forgive me, I’ve offended you,” she said, “I’m sorry this came out all wrong. I’m grabbing at a thread from more than fifty years ago.”
He saw her to the door and watched her make her way through the courtyard.
Nothing must threaten his arrangement. Nothing. Even though the pieta dura commode sat in his cellar, refinished and ready for the auction house.
AIMEE FIDDLED WITH THE bandages around her neck. The stiff awkward bulk bothered her. Her hair clumped in sticky strands from the gel she’d combed through it. Or thought she had. She never realized combing hair could be such an art. And how hard it was without sight.
She heard a familiar gait cross the linoleum: Morbier’s slight shuffle. His right foot was half a size larger than his left, so even though he wore an extra sock on it, one shoe flapped.
The breeze had stopped flowing through the window. He must be crossing on her left and have taken in her hospital gown and seen the chart at the foot of the bed.
“There’s food on your tie, Morbier,” she said, facing the window.
The footsteps stopped. “Can you see?”
“You always have food on your tie,” she said. “Grab a chair.”
“I spoke with the nurse. She didn’t say much,” he said. “How bad is it?”
Was that concern in his voice?
She let a big silence fill the space. Morbier, a master interrogator, knew how to wait.
So did she.
Trolley cart wheels wobbled and squeaked in the hallway. Lunch was over; maybe it was medication time.
“That bad?” he asked finally.
“You mean, can I see anything?”
“That’s a start,” he said.
He wasn’t one to deal well with emotion. If at all.
“Or will I ever see again?” She threw her leg over the bed, reached for what she thought was her comb on the tray. It clattered to the floor.
She heard him grunt as he bent down for the comb.
“The neurosurgeon’s procedure saved my life, but the lack of oxygen or the bleeding from the blows to my skull obscure where a weak vein ruptured.”
“Say it so I can understand, Leduc.”
“They call it complications of treatment.”
“Aha . . . clear as Seine mud.”
She agreed.
“Someone attacked me in the passage,” she said. “The force of the blow caused a weak vein wall in my brain to burst.”
“And the prognosis?”
She heard him rifling through his pocket, the crinkle of paper.
“The doctor’s becoming repetitive. ‘Just wait and see.’ ‘No pun intended,’ he says.”
She wished her relationship with Morbier was different. For a moment, she wanted Morbier to throw his big arms around her. Hold her. Tell her it would be all right and that he would make things better. Like he had once when she was little and her father was away on stakeout. After school, she’d tripped and split open her knee on the Commissariat’s marble step. He’d scooped her up, held her to his scratchy wool jacket, dried her tears with his sleeve and cleaned her knee while telling her stories about his old dog who loved strawberries and would fall asleep standing up.
She wasn’t a child anymore. And she might not ever be all right. What if the blindness didn’t go away?
“Got a cigarette, Morbier?”
“Didn’t you quit?”
“I’m always quitting,” she said. “There’s one in your pocket, isn’t there?”
“Why do you think the Beast of Bastille attacked you?”
“Did I say that?” She lay back and stared into the blankness, imagining what he looked like; the pouches under his alert brown eyes, his jowly cheeks, the socialist party pin worn in his lapel, a used handkerchief . . . she felt a thin stick wedged in her hand, then heard the sound of crinkling.
“Suck.”
“Morbier!” She smelled lemon. She aimed and hit her lip, then tasted a sour Malabar lollipop.
“Better than coffin nails,” he said. “So talk to me.”
“Sergeant Bellan questioned me already. I might feel like sharing, if I knew the murder victim’s name.”
“This case belongs to the special detail for the 11ieme.” That’s what Bellan had said. But Morbier must know some- thing since he’d answered the phone there. However, as always, he’d make her pay for his information. “Not my fiefdom,” he said.
If only she could see his face!
She’d give him an edited version.
“Look Morbier, here’s what I know, maybe you can open your mouth after you listen to me,” she said. “In that trendy resto, Violette, I incurred the wrath of my big client, Vincent. Next to us sat a woman, wearing the same Chinese jacket I’d paid the moon for, talking on her phone.”
She told him the rest.
“Now tell me. Who was the woman killed on Monday night? Which passage was she found in?”
Morbier hesitated. “Like I said, this isn’t my case.”
“I heard the old woman who found her interviewed on the
She heard tapping on the linoleum.
“Keep this to yourself. The victim was found in the cour de Bel Air,” he said. “The courtyard next door to where you were attacked.”
“Those passages and courtyards all connect somehow, don’t they?”
“Nice theory,” he said. “But who knows?”
Since she couldn’t see his face or body language she had to listen more closely to his words. “They’ll find Vaduz. Don’t worry,” he said.
“What worries me, Morbier, is that it’s not him.”
“Leduc, he’s killed five women,” said Morbier. “This case and the attack on you both fit the victim profile.”
“Which is . . . ?“
He yawned. She heard a slight snapping. He broke toothpicks when he was nervous or deep in thought.
“Why not tell me, Morbier?” Frustrated, she twisted the sheets between her palms. “Early thirties, currently blond-streaked, single . . .”
“Wrong,” interrupted Morbier. “Single like you, but all living in the Bastille area. The victims were in their late twenties, thirties, and one was a woman in her forties. Dirty blonde, tall like you. Usually a party girl. Some hung out in the Spanish tapas places, the clubs. A certain type. Showy.”
She hesitated. “I planned on staying in Bastille, in Martine’s brother’s place, while he’s working in Shanghai.”
“Since when?”
