AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

She had to persist, couldn’t leave without something. Ravic had been a formidable poker player; he always remembered all the cards that had been played.

“You need to see an ID with an address,” she said. “Remember anything from this one?”

He scratched his cheek. “Polish?” Then he shook his head. “I’m not sure. So many people came today.”

“That looks like an L at the beginning and it ends with an I,” she persisted.

“Maybe it’s a Polish name,” he said.

She took a guess. “Lives near the Sorbonne or he used to.”

“That’s right. Rue d’Ulm.” He grinned. “My wife’s father worked on rue d’Ulm, I remembered thinking that.”

She pointed to the scrawl. “Look again, Ravic. Does anything jog your memory?”

He shrugged. She heard shuffling. A long line stretched behind her now. He didn’t remember. Disappointed, she turned as an irritated woman edged in front of her.

“Aha . . . that actress,” Ravic said. “Sounded like that actress.”

She paused and looked back. “Which actress . . . You said it sounded Polish.”

“Rhymes with Nastassja Kinski.”

“You mean Linski?”

He winked. “Got it in one.”

KRZYSZTOF LINSKI WAS the name she’d found listed in the phone directory at an address on rue d’Ulm. He lived in a sand-colored stone building near the Pantheon, a few doors down from the Institut Curie and the Lebanese Maronite Church. The ground floor contained a bar/pub with posters advertising heavy metal and rockadelic nights. Bordering the nearby Sorbonne, this was a student area, the Latin Quarter. The building had no elevator but there was a flight of wide red-carpeted stairs with oiled wood banisters, leading to apartments containing lawyers’ and psychiatrists’ offices. The staircase narrowed to bare wooden steps as it reached the sixth floor, which held a row of chambres de bonnes, former maids’ rooms.

Typical cramped student accommodations. Hovels was more descriptive, she thought. A shared hall toilet; the odor of mildew coming from the dirt-ingrained corners. Peeling floral wallpaper illuminated by a grime-encrusted skylight that let in only a sliver of light. Dust motes drifted in it and she sneezed. The chords of an amplified electric guitar reverberated from down the hall.

She knocked on the third door. No answer. Knocked again.

“Krzysztof Linski?”

The guitar drowned out her voice, her knocks. Either Krzysztof hadn’t returned yet or he was ignoring the raps on his door. His attitude had become belligerent; she doubted he’d welcome her. She’d have to convince him to trust her, open up.

The guitar stopped, someone swore. She heard footsteps below, slapping on the stairs.

A red-haired, pale-faced tall scarecrow of a mec edged past her and inserted a key into the lock on Krzysztof’s door.

She thought fast. “So you’re Krzy’s roommate.”

He nodded.

“I’m supposed to meet him.”

He shrugged.

Unsociable, and no conversationalist. Or was he mute?

“Mind if I wait?”

“Suit yourself.” He actually spoke as he started to shut the door.

“Inside?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

Once she was inside she realized the problem. The attic room wasn’t much bigger than a closet. Two people standing in it would touch shoulders. She hoped the mec wasn’t about to change his clothes.

Orange crates with slats for shelves supported piled textbooks and a Polish-French dictionary. On one side of the tiny room there was a sleeping bag crumpled on a Japanese straw futon. The mec stooped; still his shoulders touched the sloping wood ceiling. She could imagine him sticking his head out the skylight, like a giraffe, to breathe. A pair of black denims and a tuxedo under plastic wrapping hung from the rafters. Perhaps Krzysztof moonlighted as a waiter at fancy restaurants or catered affairs as many students did. She filed that thought away for later.

The mec set his backpack on the floor, sat down cross-legged, and pulled his damp sweater over his head, then started on his T-shirt.

“Sorry, I’ll turn around . . .”

In answer, he pulled closed a little curtain suspended on shower hooks—like those in the sleeper compartments of trains—for privacy. His welcoming skills rivaled his conversation for charm.

The small corkboard on the opposite wall, pinned thickly with photos, ticket stubs and fliers, caught her attention. She looked closer. Photos of a demonstration, Krzysztof carrying the banner of MondeFocus, groups of young people handing out leaflets clustered around a pillar that she recalled; it belonged to the Pantheon.

No one she recognized. Another dead end. She glanced at her Tintin watch.

“Any idea when Krzysztof will get back?”

“Not anytime soon,” the mec said from behind the curtain.

“Why’s that?”

“His stuff’s gone. Guess he forgot to tell you.”

“But the tuxedo?”

“He hated that tuxedo.”

Done a runner. Lost him. Again.

As she was about to stand up, she saw several MondeFocus pamphlets stuck halfway into a dictionary. She’d take one, get the address, and ask around for him there. She coughed to cover her actions as she slid a leaflet out.

A photo fell to the floor. A group shot of student types sitting in front of the Pantheon. And then her heart skipped a beat. She saw the dead girl—straw blonde hair, wearing jeans and a denim jacket, a serious expression on her face. Sitting next to her were Krzysztof, two other women, and two men. But the blonde girl didn’t look pregnant.

The curtain was pulled back. “Jealous type, aren’t you?” he said.

She thought quickly. When caught, brazen it out. And pointed to the blonde girl. “Then she is his girlfriend!”

“What else?”

“For me, eh, it’s casual.” She shrugged. “I met Krzysztof two days ago,” she said, improvising. “But he owes me two hundred francs. Do you know his friends or where he hangs out?”

“You know him a day longer than me.” He shrugged. “No clue.”

This one was really helpful!

All the way down the stairs she thought of Krzysztof’s look of recognition as he saw the dead woman’s face, his reaction to the pages of the Regnault files that he’d picked up and scanned, his parting shot, “You work for them.” It all tied together . . . but she didn’t know how.

She caught the bus, sat in the rear, and turned the photo over. “Orla, Nelie, me, Brigitte, MondeFocus antinuke” was the inscription, but there was no date.

So Orla was the blonde woman in the morgue, his girlfriend, and both were involved with MondeFocus. Strange that he’d refused to identify his girlfriend. Then she wondered if the dead woman might have been the mother of his child. And why would Orla have telephoned her for help and entrusted her infant to Aimee? But now that she had the MondeFocus address, she had someplace to start.

Aimee debated calling the flics and dropping the information she had so far into their hands. But she knew what they’d say. No proof this Orla was the mother or Krzysztof, the father. Why wouldn’t the dead woman have left the baby with Kryzsztof if he was the father? She decided to postpone making any decision until she received the results of the autopsy. First she had to go shopping.