Of course, he might have made a habit of drugging Nicole. Looking back over the past few months, there were any number of times that Nicole had slept unnaturally long hours and awoken pale and sluggish. Maybe Nicole’s current state wasn’t as singular an occurrence as Claire imagined.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was to get help, to get both of them out of there. If she couldn’t drag Nicole’s drugged body out of the apartment, she could at least hide her. Sliding her arms under Nicole’s, she half-tugged, half-dragged the little girl out of the bed.
She hit the floor with a muffled thud, falling on Claire, and the two of them sat there, the woman breathless with fright, the child still unconscious. The apartment was well-soundproofed, protected by thick walls and heavy carpets, but Claire had no idea how deeply Marc slept. He awoke when he wanted to, usually at times she least expected.
For a long moment she didn’t move, waiting for some telltale sound. But the air, the silence, was thick and still, surrounding them like a cocoon. With a whispered murmur of apology, Claire rolled Nicole’s body under the bed, yanking a pillow and a blanket off and making swift, futile attempts at wrapping the drugged child. Then she rose, tugging the bedspread down almost to the floor, so that it covered any sign of Nicole’s hiding place.
She left the scribbled note on the kitchen table beside the pot of coffee that was much stronger than what Marc usually preferred. “Nicole and I have gone to visit Harriette. Meet us over there. C.”
Even if he knew Harriette was dead, he couldn’t be certain they did. If they were due any sort of luck he would go after them without bothering to search the apartment, and once he arrived at the building the police would detain him, ask him all sorts of curious questions. Maybe even that sad-looking Inspector Malgreave would take him in for a statement. At the very least it would give Tom and Claire time to spirit Nicole away.
She let herself out the back door, closing it with a silent click. She sped down the back stairs and out into the sunny streets without a backward glance, her sneakered feet flying over the pavement as she raced down the broad sidewalks toward Tom Parkhurst’s romantic garret. And as she ran she prayed.
“The mime.” Malgreave was alone in his office. It was late morning, he’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes, eaten two brioches, and was in the midst of his fifth cup of very strong coffee. All morning he had sat there, staring at the walls in his windowless office as his brain chased around that one elusive memory. Josef had gone to Marie-le-Croix; Vidal and the others had come and gone in respectful silence, knowing Malgreave’s expression of old. It had taken a long time, longer than usual, but in the end he had come up with the missing piece. He stubbed out his cigarette, sat back in his chair, and grinned, a savage, hunter’s look that Marie had never seen.
“The goddamned mime,” he said again. “His picture on the old lady’s dresser. Him and his American girlfriend in the park just after the other murder. I do not believe in coincidence.”
“Did you say something, sir?” Vidal poked his head inside the door.
“See if you can track down Josef,” he ordered, leaning forward again and shuffling papers that were beginning to make sense. “If you have to, send someone down after him.”
“I’ll go myself.”
Malgreave had expected that response, and was pleased with it. “Do that. Have him ask particularly about a boy who might have lived in the orphanage just before it burned back in the fifties. A boy named Marc Bonnard.”
“The mime?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“He’s well-known if you like that sort of thing. My girlfriend does.” He made a disparaging gesture with his shoulders.
“Do yourself a favor, Vidal. Don’t marry her.”
Vidal grinned. “No, sir. I’ll call in as soon as I find Summer.”
“Bon.” Malgreave watched him leave. It was a visceral thing, this excitement when things finally began to fall together. The Grandmother Murders had gone on longer than most, and been more baffling, more frustrating. In the end, it would be his greatest triumph. And the perfect swan song. Let Summer deal with Vidal and all the other hounds at his heels. It would soon be time to rest.
Rocco wasn’t a man to believe in premonitions. He believed in facts, in flesh and blood and pain and death. He’d heard the preliminary reports of the old lady’s murder and emptied a bottle of red wine to celebrate. But his sleep had been troubled, and even reading the newspaper accounts the next morning, the typical vagueness of the police reports, hadn’t soothed his worries. It was almost noon now, he was well into a cheaper bottle of Beaujolais, and the bright sunny day was casting shadows into his soul.
He was sitting outside at his favorite café, his shiny black boots propped up on a chair, the newspaper open on the table in front of him. He had nothing to do, no jobs to complete. Nothing until next week, when he promised Hubert he’d oversee a transfer of boxes trucked in from Spain. He had a fairly good idea what was inside those boxes, but he didn’t care. The one person he would never dare mess with was Hubert. His reach was long, endless, and Rocco always knew which side to favor.
Marc must be celebrating. Would he have gone back into seclusion, or would he be with that tight-assed Américaine? He wouldn’t have minded having a piece of her himself. He liked the Américaines, with their love of excitement and their lack of Catholic scruples. They were particularly fascinated with him, with his air of danger and amorality. Part of the perfect college vacation—see the Notre Dame, the Lo
uvre, and the bed of a French criminal. He liked to hurt them first, just a little bit. Not enough to scare them away, just enough so that they’d know they were in for something different.
But maybe Marc shouldn’t be celebrating. Rocco hadn’t liked the expression on Malgreave’s face when he’d stormed out yesterday afternoon. And it was getting dangerous, when you picked someone you knew. It wasn’t wise to underestimate Malgreave. He would have made a great criminal, Hubert had always said so. He knew how to think along gutter lines, he knew the inside of madness when he dared to look. No, Malgreave was a definite threat, and more than once Rocco had considered wasting him.
He’d always changed his mind. The murder of little old ladies could be overlooked. None of them had much family to bother about them, and they would have died soon enough anyway. And no one cared about drug dealers found floating in the Seine, apart from those damned environmentalists who didn’t care for pollution messing up their beloved river.
But a chief inspector was a different matter. Cop-killers were hunted down with a determination bordering on fanaticism, and Rocco had no desire to be the object of such a manhunt. Malgreave was respected and even more unusual, well liked. There wasn’t a flic in all of Paris, perhaps all of France, who would rest before Malgreave’s killer was found.
Marc was the smartest man Rocco had ever known. He would have covered his tracks. There was no way Malgreave could figure out anything, no matter how good he was. If Rocco could get away with it for so long, no one could take Marc Bonnard.
But he still couldn’t get rid of that uneasy feeling lurking at the back of his neck. Maybe if he talked with Marc he’d feel better. He couldn’t go to the apartment on the Left Bank—he’d be walking into the police’s hands if they’d happened to find anything. No, he’d check with Hubert. Hubert would know if everything was well. Hubert would be able to make the contact with Marc if need be, or at least set his mind at rest. Hubert would take care of things.
He leaned forward and folded the paper. A shadow covered the sunny table, a hand reached over and took the paper from him. He looked up into Chief Inspector Louis Malgreave’s world-weary gray eyes and an unlikely shiver of foreboding swept along his backbone.
“Mind if I join you, Rocco?” Malgreave inquired amiably, pulling up a chair. “I wanted to talk to you about your childhood.”