more crimes. He owed his late assistant that much, surely? He owed Paul Macron the courtesy of a significant death.
31
Calque ignored the box elevator and made his way laboriously up the stairs. He hesitated for a moment at the threshold to his room. Then he reached down, twisted the handle, and threw the door open in one fluid movement. What was the Corpus going to do? Bushwhack him? Shoot him in a public place? They’d already had their chance at him, and passed on it. He obviously wasn’t that important to them.
The room was immaculate.
With a burgeoning sense of hope, Calque hurried across to his suitcase and threw open the lid. All his notes were gone.
‘ Merde! Putain de merde!’
Calque slammed the lid of the case. He had grown up under the tutelage of a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, both of whom had instilled in him their very own – although occasionally contradictory – versions of correct behaviour. As a result he rarely swore. What was the point in shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted? But today was something of an exception.
What terminal lunacy had encouraged him to leave his notes in his hotel room? And why had it never occurred to him to use the hotel safe? Too darned inconvenient, that’s why. If Calque had ever bothered to subscribe to something as mundane as the concept of low self-esteem, he would have been forced to admit to feeling gutted. As it was, his brain simply jerked up another gear and into overdrive. And the first thing on his sparkling new agenda would be to find out all he could about what had happened to the woman.
Leaving his door wide open – after all, what did he have left for anyone to steal? – Calque retraced his steps down to the lobby. The concierge was back in his usual place, no doubt digesting after his lunch break. Calque cut straight to the chase.
‘Did my assistant, Madame Mercier, register with you this morning? She was due to arrive here around breakfast time.’ He allowed the man a brief flash of his illegal badge to further drive home his point.
The clerk looked about him in so secretive a manner that even if Calque had not been watching out for it, he would have been hard-pressed not to suspect that the man had some hidden agenda. ‘Madame Mercier, you say?’
‘You heard me.’
The clerk swallowed. He looked as if he were fighting some internal battle with himself, and losing. ‘I have to ask you something first. It’s very important.’
Calque felt like giving the man an open-handed clout around the head. Instead, he nodded encouragingly, his lips fixed in the rictus of an artificial grin. ‘Go on then.’
‘How many croissants did you eat for breakfast this morning?’
Calque’s mouth fell open. He was briefly tempted to reach across and grab the clerk by the scruff of his neck and shake him like a terrier does a rat – but in the present circumstances that might have proved counterproductive. Instead, Calque fixed his eyes on the clerk, leaving the man in little doubt that he would not take kindly if his question masked some vague attempt at a practical joke. ‘You’re serious? The important question you have to ask me is how many croissants I ate for breakfast this morning?’
The clerk nodded. ‘Yes, Sir. That’s the question the lady told me to put to you.’
Calque rolled his eyes. He willed himself to cast his mind back to earlier that morning, and not to throttle the clerk. ‘Let’s be surgically precise here. I ate three. Or rather, two and three-quarters. Two of my own, and one of Madame Mercier’s that she inadvertently abandoned, unfinished, on her plate. Does that satisfy you?’
The clerk scrabbled underneath his counter and came up with an envelope. ‘Then I’ve been told to give you this, Captain.’
Calque lunged for the envelope.
The clerk clutched it against his chest, a canine expression on his face.
Calque grunted. He rummaged around in his pockets and handed the man a ten-Euro note.
The clerk hesitated, as if he were briefly considering holding out for more. Then he handed Calque the envelope.
‘Did anyone else ask for Madame Mercier?’
The clerk shrugged. ‘If they had, I would have asked them the same question I asked you. And if they had answered correctly, I would have given them the envelope. Madame Mercier gave me the strictest possible instructions.’
Yes. And a fifty-Euro tip with my money, you snivelling little bastard, thought Calque.
Calque retreated to the lift, just as if he were contemplating an imminent return to his room. Once out of sight of the front desk, however, he tore open the envelope. All it contained was a single line of writing and an initial.
8, 7, 11, 13, 12, of where we sat this morning. Your jacket. L
Calque leaned back against the wall. What now? Another trap for him to stumble into? Perhaps the Corpus was having difficulty reading the handwriting on his case notes? Perhaps they wanted to invite him back to the Domaine to make sense of all the material they’d pilfered from his hotel room? It would be a simple enough thing for anyone with a semi-normal IQ to work out where he and Lamia had been sitting that morning. After all, the Corpus had staked out the place with cold-blooded efficiency, had it not? And the road to the beach was a cul-de- sac – meaning it led to a single, specific destination. The whole thing was scarcely nuclear physics.
Calque shrugged, and began to work out the riddle in his head. He decided that he had little choice, in the circumstances, but to follow where it led him.
PAMPELONNE PLAGE. Eighth letter N. Seventh letter O. Eleventh letter P. Thirteenth letter A. Twelfth letter L. NOPAL. What was that? Some kind of Mexican cactus, no? Or was it a seaweed? Definitely Mexican, anyway. So what was there likely to be that was Mexican in a town like Cogolin? A restaurant? That was the most likely answer. Or maybe a shop that sold Mexican goods? But more likely a restaurant. Lamia wouldn’t have had a long time to think up her plan, and she would have been under considerable pressure. She would have made the answer as obvious as possible in the time left to her.
The concierge was obviously for sale to the highest bidder, so no point asking him if there was a Mexican restaurant in town. Calque might as well take out an ad with Radio Free Europe.
Calque made up his mind. He headed towards the rear of the hotel. This time he expected to be followed. If the Corpus had truly failed to get their hands on Lamia, then he was the obvious person to lead them to her.
Calque breezed out of the hotel’s rear exit. He accosted the first passer-by he saw and asked the man the way to the nearest police station. Disinformation. That was the name of the game.
With the address of the gendarmerie safely to hand, Calque walked briskly up the street, looking neither to his right nor left. Let the bastards stew in their own juice. They’d obviously let him go for a reason, and that reason was that they’d failed to get Lamia back. Now they were expecting him to lead them to her. Well, he’d soon show them that they weren’t about to have everything their own way.
Calque walked boldly up the gendarmerie steps and straight to the main desk in the lobby. ‘Good morning, Sergeant. My name is Captain Joris Calque, Police Nationale, retired.’ He proffered his entirely legal and above- board retirement warrant card – it wouldn’t do to flash the illegal one by mistake.
The pandore behind the counter stood up and saluted. ‘It’s a pleasure, Captain.’
Calque returned the salute. So I’ve still got what it takes, he thought to himself. You can take the policeman out of the service, but you can’t take the service out of the policeman. ‘I’m staying up the road, at the Hotel de la Place. I just thought I’d drop by and leave you my card. I have a feeling your Commandant and I know each other from way back.’
‘Shall I call him, Captain? I’m sure he’d be pleased to come out and see you.’
‘No. Please don’t do that. I’m already running late. And I’m sure the Commandant is very busy. I was just passing by on my way to lunch. I’m going to eat at the Nopal. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s just up the road?’
‘The Nopal?’
