Seen and Not Heard (Maggie Bennett 4)

He glanced in the rearview mirror. No white Fiat—either he’d lost him or he’d been ridiculously paranoid. The green Citroën had been shadowing him for quite a while now, but Tom had learned his lesson. He couldn’t let his imagination get the better of him. This was the only major road heading toward the northeast—probably he’d been traveling in the company of the same half dozen cars for hours now, and they all couldn’t hold Marc Bonnard.

He peered behind him just as a car passed, and the headlights illuminated the driver, putting Tom’s lingering fears to rest. The dark, heavy-featured face of the driver was far removed from Bonnard’s almost celestial beauty. The man behind him looked like a hoodlum, with his black leather jacket and cigarette drooping from his surly lips. No, it was a coincidence that he was following so closely.

Putting the Citroën and its unprepossessing driver out of his mind, Tom stepped on the gas and moved a little closer toward their destination.

Malgreave surveyed the practically deserted offices with a feeling of triumph. At six-thirty the following morning he’d finally managed to beat the ever-determined Josef in to work. He nodded as he passed various yawning members of the night shift, moving in to his darkened office and flicking on the light.

Someone had emptied his overflowing ashtray, someone had shifted his chair, and it didn’t take the full power of Malgreave’s deductive reasoning to guess who. The cleaning staff had orders not to touch his office—it could only have been Josef auditioning for the future. Some of Malgreave’s good-humored anticipation abated. Usually Summer’s ambition amused him. Today, this early morning, it crowded him.

He sat down heavily in his chair, lighting his sixth cigarette of the morning and pulling the files toward him. Vidal had managed to unearth an old photograph of some of the boys from Marie-le-Croix participating in a Christmas pantomime. The delicate, almost angelically beautiful child in the center of the grainy photo certainly could have grown up to be Marc Bonnard, but then, that might have been an illusion of the whiteface makeup. He simply didn’t have enough to issue an arrest warrant. Not yet.

But it was coming. He could feel it in the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers. Soon, soon now, he’d have what he needed to bring in both Rocco and Bonnard, to nail them to the wall and send them, an unlikely couple, to the guillotine. And then Josef could empty his ashtrays and sit in his chair, decorate the offices with no-smoking signs, and Malgreave would no longer give a damn.

Anything he did right now would be killing time. The stage was set—they had to wait for their actors to make a move, a final, incriminating move. Pray God another old woman wouldn’t have to die in order to catch the bastards.

He smelled the coffee first, and looked up, expecting to see Josef’s doglike devotion. Instead Vidal was there, holding a steaming mug in his hand. No brioches, Malgreave noticed. And he was wearing peacock blue trousers. Nobody was perfect.

Vidal set the mug down beside the concentric circles of coffee stain on Malgreave’s desk, and Malgreave accepted the pale brown liquid with a resigned sigh. He liked his coffee black, but it did play hell with his stomach.

“Morning, sir.” Vidal slung his lanky body into the chair opposite him. “Where’s Josef?”

“Not in yet.” Malgreave took a careful sip of the coffee. It was surprisingly good, and easier to take. And he didn’t need the brioches—he’d been putting on a little weight recently as Marie had been slimming down. One had to keep up appearances.

Vidal nodded, but Malgreave could see the surprise and faint trace of malicious pleasure in the young man’s face. Perfectly understandable, he thought. Josef was the front-runner, but Vidal was coming up fast.

“Guillère’s left town,” Vidal announced abruptly.

“Damn.” Malgreave spilled hot coffee on his conservative blue shirt. “When did you hear that?”

“Robert called in a few minutes ago. He lost him somewhere outside of Epernay. He was driving an old green Citroën and he hadn’t packed. Maybe he’s just off on a job.”

“And maybe he had enough sense to get out while he still could. Damn,” he said again, furious. “Have you notified the local gendarmes?”

“They’re keeping an eye out for him. I presumed you didn’t want him picked up if they could help, just watched.”

“You presumed correctly. Any word on Bonnard?”

“No one seems to know where he is. His apartment’s deserted—the Americans and the little girl drove off yesterday and haven’t returned.”

“I don’t suppose anyone had the sense to follow them?”

Vidal shook his head. “The man assigned to watch Bonnard’s apartment took his instructions very literally. He was waiting for Bonnard and only Bonnard.”

“God preserve me from dogmatic fools,” Malgreave said, lighting a fresh cigarette from the tail of his dying one. Without asking, Vidal fished in his pocket for his own pack and lit one, and Malgreave’s approval rose another notch. In this world of militant nonsmokers it was good to find another warrior in the battle.

He looked up. Josef had finally appeared, his face flushed, his thinning hair awry as he practically sprinted through the office toward Malgreave’s inner sanctum. He stopped in the doorway, and the expression on his face was ludicrous in his outrage at finding Malgreave keeping company with his greatest rival.

He started mumbling excuses as he darted warning glances at an unrepentant Vidal, but Malgreave cut him off, uninterested in car problems and recalcitrant alarm clocks. “Guillère’s flown the coop,” he said. “So has Bonnard’s mistress and stepdaughter. I want them located.”

“What’s been done so far?” Josef drew himself upright, and Malgreave caught him wrinkling his nose at the heavy s

mell of cigarettes surrounding the two men like a cloud. If Josef was truly ambitious he’d start smoking, Malgreave thought with the last trace of amusement he would feel for days.

“Vidal’s informed the gendarmes in the northeast. Guillère was headed toward Epernay when his tail lost him, and God only knows where the American’s gone. Probably to meet with her lover, though she went in company with another American.”

“Maybe she’s leaving Bonnard. Maybe she knows something?” Vidal suggested.

“Maybe.” Josef’s tone was dismissive. “What would you have me do, sir?”