questioning by the RCMP that he’d very obviously lied about, she should steer clear of him until they decided what to do.
But as Simone ran through Georges’ fresh account of events that fateful night with Roman and Leduc, and why supposedly he’d said nothing then or since, his anger began to grow uncontrollably. Very obviously Georges somehow realized they were on to him about the club girl, so he’d primed Simone to throw in this ridiculous story at the last hour to try and save his neck. Georges didn’t even have the courage of conviction to face him personally, he’d chosen to hide behind his daughter’s skirt! He cut in halfway through and voiced his thoughts in a fierce volley, and within minutes they were arguing.
No, she didn’t accept it. Georges wouldn’t do that. ‘It’s just something made up by Roman because he knew Georges was going to come clean.’
‘I don’t think so. I had my doubts too initially when Roman claimed something was going on with this girl — but now he’s brought me proof.’
‘Proof,
‘One of the girls from the Sherbrooke club.’
‘Oh, right.
‘No, no… of course not.’
‘Georges always feared that when it came to the crunch, you’d take Roman’s side… and he was right. That’s why he was so nervous about telling you this all along.’
He recalled then just closing his eyes and holding up one hand, willing her to stop as his anger bubbled over. Though it wasn’t directed at her, more at the way Georges had her wrapped so much in his control. But she was on automatic, unable to stop now that Georges had wound her up and sent her in.
‘Roman’s playing both you and Georges for mugs, has been for a while… but you’re just to blind to-’
He flung the photos across the table in that moment. Flipped open the envelope and just emptied them out from a foot up, a half-dozen of the twenty falling face-down, then scrunched his eyes tight shut again and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’
Jean-Paul rested one elbow against the pool edge as he came to the end of his third lap, his laboured breath showing in the humid air. Across the courtyard through the glass, the breath and body heat of the stable horses rose in the cold morning air, as if competing with the vapours drifting from the pool’s heat-exchange vents.
He remembered his father crossing the courtyard the year before he died, one cold February morning. His father and Lillian had moved into the separate wing at the end of the courtyard — which Jean-Paul’s growing family had previously occupied — when Raphael was born and Simone was just seven, seeing his need for space as greater than his own. Security became more of an issue with the advent of their battle with the Cacchione’s, and so the pool block and gymnasium were added: the house they felt was too vulnerable with the courtyard open to their rear gardens, in turn open to the St Lawrence only two hundred yards away. The pool block squared it off, made it more of a compound. Not that any of that made a difference, Pascal was picked off leaving a Rue St Gabriel restaurant before the pool block was even finished.
Jean-Paul had been in the main dining room looking out when his father ventured out for the first time after Pascal’s funeral: shoulder’s sagged, breath heavy on the air as he trudged across the courtyard snow, raising only a weak acknowledging hand to the builders finishing off the pool block. Jean-Paul should have known then that his father might not have long to live. He looked to have aged ten years in the past ten days, defeated, all spirit gone.
But he could have done with his father’s sage, years-worn advice now. He felt so alone with the decision he now faced, undoubtedly the toughest call he’d ever had to make.
He regretted immediately showing Simone the photos, even though in the heat of the moment there appeared little other solution. Her eyes darted uncomprehendingly for a long moment before she finally looked back up again. He could see clearly the hatred aimed at him beyond the hurt, anger and her fast welling tears. He reached out a hand to her — there was so much else he wanted to say in that moment — but all that came out was another weak ‘Sorry’ as she flinched back from his touch, turned and stormed from the room.
He knew that he risked losing his daughter over this; not the complete loss his father and the family had suffered with Pascal, but with Simone losing all love for him and its place taken by nothing but recrimination, it would be like a death of sorts. Jean-Paul didn’t think he could face that, but he just couldn’t see any other possible choice.
Crowley leapt across the squad room as one of his team of five, DC Denny Hobbs, raised one hand, frantically waving.
‘More news just in! Cash card used again.’ Hobbs cradled phone tight in by his shoulder as he covered the mouthpiece with one hand.
‘Where?’
‘A small town called Montrichard. Banque National du Paris cash machine this time.’ Hobbs lifted his hand back off the mouthpiece and started scrawling with his pen. ‘Yeah, yeah… okay. Thanks.’ He hung up, tore the top paper from his pad and handed it to Crowley. ‘Fifteen-hundred francs taken out at 21.27, French time. And the street location of the machine.’
The second breakthrough in only fifteen minutes. The first had been that an Elena Waldren and child had been ticketed through to catch the 4.10 pm Euro-Shuttle.
Crowley went back to his desk and leafed again through the Routiers guide that he’d pored over on and off for the past hour trying to work out the likely pace and direction of Elena Waldren’s journey.
He went over to Sally, the only one of his team with reasonable French, and asked her to raise the Gendarmerie at Montrichard. ‘Get the number from Interpol or the main National Gendarmerie number in Paris.’
Sally pushed a prim smile and clutched lightly at her hair as she tapped and brought up a fresh screen on her PC, scrolled down and dialled out. She’d been under more pressure and harried than most of his team, had born the brunt of their liaison with Interpol and putting out a French police alert on Waldren. Introductory burst in French, and then a more generous smile from Sally.
Crowley got her to ask how many hotels there were in town. Five: four in and around the centre, one just a kilometre outside. Then which hotels were closest to the Banque National du Paris on Rue Petupliers. The Richault was the closest, only thirty yards away on the same road; then the Chateauville, a hundred and fifty metres around the corner. Crowley got Sally to explain their current situation with Elena Waldren: Interpol had already been advised and a French National Police search was out for her. Sally quoted the Interpol reference number she’d been given and the liaising Inspector at Lyon central, if they wished for verification — then Crowley got to what he wanted: two or three gendarmes, or whatever they could spare, to visit both the Richault and the Chateauville to check for Elena Waldren or her car. Crowley had to wait patiently while Sally phonetically spelt out the name and car registration. The other three hotels just a check by phone with their receptions would suffice.
A last flurry of translation tennis, which at one point appeared to over-strain Sally’s vocabulary grasp, and she conveyed to Crowley that Captain Lacombe, Head of Station, assured that he would take personal charge of the situation and do all he could to assist. ‘He’ll dispatch some men straightaway.’
Crowley passed on descriptions of Elena and the girl, in case Elena had registered under a false name, and they waited.
The return call came through seventy-eight minutes later.
Lacombe’s men descended on Montichard’s hotels as if they were searching for one of France’s most
