Impure Blood (45 page)

Jarret’s eyebrows. Dark and angled like ticks.

‘I see.’

Jarret’s eyes. Upside down, they appeared more as an abstract entity than as the ‘windows of the soul’ concept familiar from pop psychology. Orange-flecked hazel, they reminded Darac of Agnès’s. He was seeing her in everything at the moment, it seemed. In everything but the flesh.

‘Commandant, I take it your bikes don’t carry tracking devices?’

‘They do not. We trust our… They do not.’

‘Pity.’

Darac concluded the call with a suggestion Mohr call back should he think of anything that might help find David Jarret.

The printer spat out the photo.

‘Listen, guys.’ Darac held up the shot. Everyone put their call on hold. ‘I’m heading out to Gambetta now. I’m going to cruise around.’ He brandished the photo. ‘Obviously, this man could have gone more or less anywhere from there but at least I’ll be out on the streets when the breakthrough comes. Those of you with a finite task: complete it, update everyone and then join me out there. Those with ongoing tasks: assess whether you need to remain here or whether you could carry them out just as well on the move. If you can – you join me, too.’ He gave it a beat. Was there anything else? ‘Flaco?’

‘Captain?’

‘The white van paperwork. Do you have that list of rented lock-ups?’

‘Yes, I do.’ She reached for a loose wad of heavily highlighted pages. ‘It’s this lot.’

‘I know all of them had an initial visit. Were there any inconclusives, any call backs?’

‘Several but I think they’ve all…’ She flicked through the pages, looking for any white spaces. ‘…been done now. No, hang on, there are a couple… Three altogether. Adèle has put them down for a revisit this afternoon but that won’t happen with this big push.’

‘Let me have the addresses.’

The rail-thin one. Holding a phone handset. And in the background, a policeman holding a second phone. The blond one was lurking around also. What was going on?

‘Hello there, Jean. How are we doing today? Alright? Move your fingers for me.’

He moved them.

‘And the other hand… That’s it. Lovely! Just need your own breathing to come up that little bit more and then we can take out that nasty tube, can’t we?’

He blinked once.

The thin one’s sad face.

‘Now this isn’t easy for me but we all have things to face from time to time. Things that are really difficult and the Lord knows
you’ve
had your share these last three months. Well, for most of your life off and on, really.’

Ye gods.

‘But two days ago, life sent something else to you, my darling.’

Get out of my face, woman. Can’t you see they’re coming up to a sprint? Points for the Green Jersey up for grabs. What with David forgetting to give me a wave on TV, the day’s turning out a bit shit.

‘Yes. Something really bad happened to your brother, Emil.’

Don’t tell me the pathetic little bastard has gone under one of those nice new trams? Or choked to death on a piece of
socca
? That would turn my day around in an instant. Turn my
life
around. Well, partly.

But then far darker possibilities began to occur to him.

‘I asked them if it could wait just a couple of hours but they said it was urgent. I’m sorry, darling. We’re here to hold your hand. Listen to the lady on the other end of this phone. She sounds lovely, doesn’t she, officer?’

‘Uh… I suppose she does, yes.’

‘But what she has to say to you isn’t so nice, Jean. She’s a police officer too. She’s going to talk to you to explain things first and then she’s going to ask you a series of questions. They are questions about your son. It seems he’s responsible for Emil’s death and… for other serious crimes since. We can hear the questions too. When you hear them, answer them as you normally do and the officer here will tell the lady what you said. What you meant to say, I mean. Let me just move this TV out of the way. You don’t want it at the moment.’

No. For once, he didn’t. He didn’t want anything except to wind back the clock. He should never have told David what Emil had revealed in that barbed, sneering letter he’d written just twelve short months ago. Announcing that their father had now followed their mother into the grave, Emil had told Jean not to expect so much as a sou in the will.

He could remember whole sections of the letter verbatim. ‘Why is there nothing for you? Because you are not a true Florian. I know all about your real mother and father. Especially your mother!’ That exclamation mark. Hateful. But then the nub: ‘My mother told me the whole thing. You see, you were a Jew baby, given away at birth.’ Jean would never forget how he’d felt as Emil went on to recount the story of Officer Adam Djourescu and his wife Elena; the couple whose betrayal at the hands of a brother officer consigned them to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The only thing Emil’s mother seemed not to have known was the full identity of the informant. Jean would just have to make do with the forename – Vincent.

Yet Jean had to pass the revelation on to David. The boy needed to know the fate of his true grandparents. And it explained so much else. It explained why the Florians had treated Jean like a piece of shit once Emil came along. It explained why he had gone on to treat his own wife and son like pieces of shit.

Jean had never blamed his wife for leaving him and taking David with her. He hadn’t blamed her for reverting to her maiden name of Jarret. He hadn’t even blamed the pair of them for hating him. It had been too late to explain things to his wife; she had died years before. But with David, the neglected son who had disowned him, there had been a chance of redemption. Jean had never had any thought of avenging the original crime, he had sought only to win back his son. David had evidently had different ideas.

What a price Jean had paid. By sharing Emil’s revelations, he did get David back; but by sharing them, he might have lost him for ever.

Cold plastic smothered Jean’s ear. The thin one was right – the woman’s voice on the line was soft and beautiful. But it gouged a hole the size of the Verdon Gorge in his heart.

Neither had spoken for hours. Having to raise their voices wasted too much energy. When the moment came, Agnès wanted to be ready. Or that was how the period of silence had begun. Now, the first seeds of doubt were taking root. Perhaps it would be better, she’d begun to think, if they just gave in. Let the flies take over completely. And how wrong had she been about the harmlessness of their waste? Leave the stuff another day or two and see what it might achieve.

She kicked one foot against the other, sending a searing pain into her spine. She was furious with herself. That sort of thinking was a one-way street. She would not give in.

The silence wasn’t helping. She needed to end it. Trying to manufacture some mucous with her rasp-dry tongue, she moved her head in an agonising arc towards her father. A false errand. He was asleep. It
was
just sleep, wasn’t it? A chill washed over her like ice water. She peered hard at his chest. The nightshirt was moving. Never mind about breaking the silence. It was best to conserve energy. Just concentrate on getting through the next minute. And then the one after that.

The fattest of the flies finally came in to land on her leg. She retched. A positive sign. The thing was too high up her shin to kick away. Bringing more pain, she drew back her foot, lifting the knee. The fly rode the rollercoaster. She would have to use a finger to flick it away. Pulling the chain through the eyebolt behind her, she extended a hand. Nearly. Nearly. Her eyes watering with the pain, she finally managed it. Success! She had shooed away a fly. It looped the loop a couple of times and returned.

Leave it. It doesn’t matter.

Forty seconds to go… Thirty…

The thunder overhead subsided momentarily. A gap in the trains. She understood that there was a world of interest in the subject if she could just muster the energy to think about it. She heard a lighter rumble. More of a whooshing sound, in fact. Lorries? It made sense – the Cannes–Menton line ran in tandem with a switchback of highways through a long swathe of the city. The heavy rumbling started up once more, slow at first and then speeding up. It meant the train had pulled out of a station. Probably. Think about which station. Rumbling speeding up; rumbling slowing down. The rumble almost never maintained the same momentum throughout. So it was a station where nearly every train stopped. Nice’s Gare Thiers was the principal candidate. No sooner had the theory formed than a continuous rumble challenged it. But it wasn’t moving fast. A freight train wouldn’t stop at the station, she realised. She considered the thunderous volume of that sound. And the accompanying shockwave. It was as almost as if the rail tracks had been laid on the roof of the van. The whoosh of the road traffic, though, was far less distinct. Yes, they were holed up near Gare Thiers, all right. The viaducts carrying the rail bed were very low on either side of the station – several metres beneath the highway. There was an explanation for everything.

Into the next minute…

With a graunching metallic sound, the back door of the van jagged open. Light flooded in, burning her eyes. Now! Assess. Speak. Bargain. But all she could see was a silhouette behind the bruising beam. Vincent cried out. The silhouette swung the torch at the sound, silencing it.

‘What a stink,’ the silhouette said. A female voice. ‘But it won’t be long now.’

With a reverberant clang, the door slammed shut.

Tears lubricated Agnès’s voice.

‘Papa, are you alright?’

The reply was no more than a mumble.

‘Papa!’

‘I’m alright.’

Braving the inquisition of her spine, Agnès turned her body towards him.

‘Papa, the woman’s voice? I recognised it.’

‘Yes?’

‘It was Corinne Delage.’

Silence.

‘Corinne Delage, Papa. Do you know that name? Do you?’

‘Sorry, my darling. I’ve never heard of her.’

At last, Vincent was telling the whole truth.

Two lock-ups down; one to go.

Set to the Brigade’s encoded frequency, Darac’s car radio was alive with traffic. The messages followed a pattern. Possible sighting of Jarret reported; sighting investigated; sighting proved negative.

He slowed on Avenue des Fleurs, checking out a broad echelon of motorcycles parked at the kerbside. With one ear on the output from the radio, he called Granot on his mobile.

‘Yes, chief.’

‘Anything further on Astrid?’

‘She’s still fighting but… I’m not sure she’s winning.’

‘Come on, Astrid, come on. Anything from the TV people?’

‘They’re running stuff but nothing’s come of it yet. Annie Provin herself led the footage review – on camera, of course. And they did find a clip of Jarret but it doesn’t add anything to what we already knew – he’s heading north on Gambetta, going out of frame at Rue de la Buffa. They’re broadcasting the clip in split-screen on their news channel, alternating it with the shot we have of Jarret. It’s great coverage but she’s claiming it merits the exclusive Frènes promised her. He’s already told her it doesn’t unless a viewer gives us a lead from it.’

Darac cleared the echelon of bikes. None was a blue GR BMW.

‘We’ve got the whole fucking world looking for Jarret. Surely somebody will have seen where he went.’

‘Hundreds will, chief, and we’ll talk to them. It’s whether we can act on what we find out in time. We’ve got almost none left.’

Darac turned into Boulevard François Grosso and headed north towards the rail/road viaduct.

‘Later, Granot.’

He rang off, restoring the radio chatter to centre stage. Parked against the viaduct wall was another posse of bikes. One caught his eye. He raised his shades. It was big and blue. Slowing, he glanced at the shot of a GR machine Granot had printed off for him. Attracting a fusillade of horns, he stopped the car under the viaduct and went to investigate. It was a BMW of a similar spec. But it was a civilian’s bike. He got back into the car as a message from the DCRI helicopter crackled noisily in.

‘Magnan sweep completed. Target not sighted. Commencing St Augustin sector. Over.’

His mobile rang. The incoming number was Deanna Bianchi’s.

‘Deanna?’ He held his breath.

‘I know it’s all systems go but I have something you need to hear.’

His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

‘Go on.’

‘Astrid’s going to live. And although there are complications, as you can appreciate, I’m fairly confident she’ll make a full recovery.’

Darac punched the wheel. And then let out a long breath.

‘She’s already spoken a few words and that’s why I’m ringing now. The perpetrator was riding a blue motorbike with a letter P for pancreas on the windshield. That is what you’re looking for.’

‘Thanks – we got that info and more elsewhere. David Jarret is the guy’s name. But she’s some girl to have picked it up while being attacked, right?’

‘Her ability to stand stock still helped save her life. It slowed the take up of the lancuronium while convincing the poisoner it had taken instant effect. Fortunately, he didn’t realise that if it had, she would have toppled over straight away.’

‘So how close a thing was it in the end?’

‘Had the helicopter taken three minutes to get Astrid to St Roch rather than two, I might be examining her in very different circumstances now.’

‘Another sixty seconds and she would have died?’

‘Another thirty, even. It was that close.’

‘Thirty seconds? Jesus Christ…’ He went to a different thought. ‘How do you think Jarret got hold of these drugs?’

‘Most likely stole them from a hospital, clinic, or possibly even from an ambulance. Neither lancuronium nor neostigmine is a controlled drug, you know. So if some went missing, nobody would have notified the police. All they would have concluded is that some fool nurse had smashed a few vials on the floor and hadn’t reported it.’