Angel of the Dark

Everyone except Lucien Desforges, who still had nightmares about the things he’d seen at Villa Paradis that awful morning. The blood everywhere, on the walls, the carpet, the couches. The horrific wounds to Didier’s neck and face. Irina, naked and bruised, trussed together with her husband’s tattered corpse. Truth be told, he no longer wanted to talk about it, not with this persistent young American, not with anyone. But in the end curiosity got the better of him. Matt Daley claimed that his father had been killed in the same sadistic fashion as poor Didier. There had been a rape in that case too, and Daley seemed convinced that there was a link between the two killings. So convinced that he had given up his job and traveled halfway across the world to pursue it.

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” Lucien confessed.

Matt said, “Well, you can’t be any less help than the cops, that’s for sure. Those guys take ‘not interested’ to a whole new level.”

Lucien Desforges’s face hardened. “They failed in this case. The killer is gone and they know nothing. We French do not like to be reminded of failure. Especially by Americans. How

can I help you?”

Matt pulled out a pen and notepad. Like most writers, he carried a pen and pad everywhere, in case he saw or heard something funny he could use as material. Investigating a murder wasn’t exactly like writing a sitcom, but it still required a scrupulous attention to detail.

“I want to know about Irina.”

“What do you want to know? I told the police that she was raped. The poor thing had bruises all over her thighs and breasts and choke marks round her neck. She was hysterical when I found her. But nobody gives a shit.”

“I do,” said Matt. “I need to know more about who she was. Who she is. They were planning to get divorced, right?”

Desforges nodded.

“How bad were things between the two of them?”

“Bad enough, I guess.”

“What I mean is, none of Didier’s other exes wanted him dead. But did Irina?”

Lucien Desforges took a sip of his coffee. “I am a divorce lawyer, Mr. Daley. In my experience most women want their husband dead at one time or another. However, I can tell you one thing with certainty. There is no way that Irina Anjou had anything to do with Didier’s murder. The rape…what she suffered…” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the memory. “This man, this animal, he is not normal. His is fou, crazy. Détraqué.”

Matt noticed the blood rushing to the lawyer’s face and waited for him to regain his composure.

“Didier wanted to get out of the marriage. That’s why I was going to the villa that day, to discuss a divorce. He was furious with Irina about something, but I never found out what it was.”

“Do you know anything about her background?”

Lucien Desforges shook his head. “Not really. She was Russian, new to the area. I never met her until that day. The marriage surprised everyone. But I understand she was wealthy in her own right. She had no need of Didier’s money. Which is not to say that others didn’t. Didier Anjou kept some pretty shady company right to the end of his life. He was ‘friendly’ with a number of senior Mafia figures in Marseille.”

“So I hear.”

“Those guys don’t play around. If Didier had fallen foul of them in some way, they’re more than capable of killing him and of raping his wife. They’re animals.”

A pretty dark-haired waitress came over to take Matt’s order, smiling coquettishly at his broken French.

“She likes you,” said Lucien as the girl walked away, deliberately swaying her hips.

“Really?” Matt turned and stared after her, twisting his wedding band miserably.

“Why don’t you ask her out?”

“I can’t. I’m married.”

This seemed to amuse the Frenchman enormously. “So?” He guffawed. “I’m hyperglycemic, but I still like ice cream.”

It was a good line. In another life, Matt would have written it down. As it was, he wrenched the conversation back to the subject at hand.

“What do you think happened to Irina? The widows in the other two cases I’m investigating disappeared shortly after the attacks and were never heard from again.”

Lucien shrugged. “I’m not surprised. I imagine they wanted to leave it all behind them, all the gruesome memories, and start again. You can’t blame Irina Anjou for getting out of France.”

Matt frowned. “Well, you could blame her. You could say that she took the money and ran.”