AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

“But do you recognize who she’s reaching for? It’s Nelie Landrou.”

“So that’s what she looks like.”

In slow motion they saw Nelie limping. She had an anguished look on her face, and was almost doubled over as she ran. But there was no baby; Aimee didn’t see Stella.

“Keep going, Leduc.”

She forwarded the video in slow motion now. “Here’s the proof the blonde gave the backpack with the bottle bombs to Krzysztof. It was a setup.”

“You’d be a good avocat, Leduc,” Morbier said. “It’s easy to interpret the video the way you want, in your client’s favor.”

Aimee was frustrated. “Look at the video. The proof is right there!”

“Or it was an elaborate plan, and Krzysztof expected her to bring the bottle bombs in the backpack and to give it to him.”

Aimee rewound the video to show Krzysztof’s smiling face as the blonde was kissing him. “I think he’s just a sucker for a pretty face. Doesn’t it look like that?”

“It wouldn’t persuade the tribunal.”

She sat down, tired. “It doesn’t have to. Gabriel Leclerc’s off to La Sante anyway for a good long visit. Show him this in a tete-a-tete. Get him to spill. Tell him you’d appreciate his cooperation and you’ll reciprocate, et cetera.”

“Reciprocate?” Morbier snorted. “It’s out of my hands. Out of my realm now.” But he tapped his pencil, a sure sign he was thinking.

“Promise Gabriel a three-man cell instead of the usual one for six,” Aimee said. Her temples were throbbing. She needed more ice. “Or say you’ll try to get him assigned to the VIP wing. You know, along with the disgraced financiers and officials.”

There was silence except for the whir of the tape rewinding. Aimee could smell the bitter dregs of her espresso. She was worn out. All she wanted to do was crawl under her duvet.

“He’s pretentious enough to like that,” Morbier said. “You actually think he’ll admit that Halkyut is involved in sabotaging ecology groups and, in particular, MondeFocus?”

Smart. Why had she underestimated Morbier? He had to watch his back and he was always moaning about imminent retirement. And he didn’t like taking on the ruling powers.

“Morbier, you won’t lose your pension or anything else, and you’ll just gain in self-respect.”

“So you’ve got it all figured out, eh?”

“Figured out?” She shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

She didn’t know what else to say. She stood up, buttoned the tuxedo jacket, shouldered her bag, and walked to the door.

“Still not going to tell me, Leduc?”

She froze. “Tell you what?”

Hiding the baby? Finding Vavin’s body? There was so much she’d kept from him. She wished she could confide in him, like she had before.

“Leduc, you there?”

She turned to face him. But he sat shaking his head, in disgust or anger, she couldn’t tell. When he looked up, she saw the redness of his eyes and the pouches under them. And, for a moment, she saw him for the hard- working, aging man he was. And the one constant in her life, her father’s old partner, whose pigheadedness time hadn’t tempered. Others came and went, but Morbier was always there.

“Leduc, I covered for you . . . the hole in the Seine . . .”

She cringed. So he knew about that. Would they make her pay for the damage?

“Don’t ask me to go out on a limb. Again!”

“You’re focusing on me, Morbier. Focus on that salaud Gabriel, who set the bomb.“ She fixed her eyes on him. “It’s not MondeFocus, not Krzysztof or Nelie. It’s those who employed Gabriel. It’s Halkyut and the ones who hired them.”

“I know,” he said, a thaw in his voice. “That’s the problem.”

She felt vibrations shaking the table. Noticed Morbier’s hands clutching the edges.

“You OK, Leduc?”

Startled, she nodded. What had come over him?

“Remember the pool in Butte aux Cailles?” he said, a distant look in his eyes.

A faded image of cracked yellow tiles, spring water feeding into a pool. She hadn’t thought of that in years.

“She insisted you take swimming lessons,” he said, an unreadable look in his eyes. “She overrode your father’s objections. She took you every week, even talked me into it a few times.”

Aimee’s gut wrenched as she remembered the smile on the carmine red lips greeting her as she emerged from the swimming pool and the feel of the dry towel her mother held to wrap around her.

“Maman?”

Her American mother, the woman Morbier never mentioned.

“For once in her life she was right,” he said with a sad smile. “It’s a good thing she made you take swimming lessons.”

“Are you going to tell me something about her that I don’t know?”

“She always said you had to learn to take care of yourself. And you can. But now it’s time to stop.”

“Where did Maman go, Morbier? I . . . if you know something, tell me. I can take it.” She clenched her fists and fought back tears. “If she’s dead, just . . . can’t you just say it?”

He stared. “Now’s the time for you to step away, let us handle it. It’s too dangerous, Leduc. Will you stop?”

Bargain . . . this was the bargain. The powers that be had warned Morbier off. He’d asked for her help in nailing Monde-Focus, Krzysztof, and Nelie, but she’d tied Gabriel to the bombs and Halkyut. Rene and Saj would find documentation, proof, they had to. And now Morbier wanted her to back off.

“Even for you, this is low,” she said, her shoulders tensing. “Going along with them!”

“It’s for your own sake, Leduc,” he said.

Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t turn Nelie in. And she wouldn’t hand Stella over to the authorities.

“Why don’t you find a man, have babies, do what other people do?”

She averted her eyes. If only he knew. “That’s rich coming from you, Morbier.”

He’d lost custody of his grandson, Marc, to the other grandparents who lived in Morocco after his estranged daughter was killed in Belleville.

“Once and for all, will you do as I say if I tell you what you want to know, Leduc?”

She yearned to know so much it hurt. But he was trying to manipulate her. Nothing came for free from Morbier.

“Not on your terms, Morbier,” she said. “I don’t negotiate about Maman. Either you tell me because it’s the decent thing to do, or you don’t.”

“You make everything so difficult, Leduc.” Morbier sighed.

“You’re just dangling a carrot in front of me to get me to do what you want. You don’t know anything more about her, do you?”

Morbier said, “Your swimming saved you. It’s nothing to do with ‘them’ or this snake pit of an investigation.”

But he was wrong. Abandoning Stella, turning Nelie in were too much like her own mother’s case. She had to get out of this room, this Commissariat, with all the memories it held, before she broke down.

“You can’t ignore the video, Morbier. You saw it. Someone trumped up a plan to brand Orla and Nelie as terrorists for blocking some trucks in La Hague. They want all the ecological protesters stopped, or denounced as violent agitators. I won’t let it rest,” she said, reaching for the ice pack. “I’m leaving.”

He met her gaze full on. “I don’t know if your mother is alive or not.”

“That’s all?”

Morbier tented his fingers. Again he had that unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Your father took you to the Klee exhibition in the Palais Royal on your fourteenth birthday, remember?”