Jacquot and the Waterman (77 page)

She was carrying the birdcages to the front door that Tuesday morning, for an hour or two of fresh air and sunshine, when Jacquot appeared at the foot of the stairs. She put down Mittie and Chirrie and placed her hands on her hips, four-square and confrontational.

'So?'

'Happy birthday,' he said, and bent down to give her a kiss, not easy to do when she made no effort to offer her cheek.

'Who told you it was my birthday?' she asked, taking the small parcel he offered.

'You did. Last week. And the week before. And the week before that. Just like you do every year,
Grand'maman.'

Madame Foraque shrugged off his reply, scrabbled to untie the ribbon, then wound it round her fingers; opened the wrapping, then folded the paper neatly, putting both in her apron pocket. Only then did she inspect the gift. Five cheroots from Tabac Delorme, also bound in ribbon.

'Have you got that Waterman yet?' she asked, lifting the cheroots to her nose and sniffing suspiciously. 'You look as if you have.'

Jacquot shook his head. 'Not yet, we haven't,' he told her. 'But you don't have to worry yourself. I have a feeling that our friend has moved on.'

'You have a feeling? Just a feeling?' Madame Foraque clucked disapprovingly. 'And that's supposed to make me feel better? A woman on her own? With a madman on the loose?
Pppjff'

'You'll see,' replied Jacquot, heading for the door. 'Mark my words.
C'est fini.'

And as he made his way down the sloping steps of rue Salvarelli, a sweet salt tang in the air, Jacquot knew he was right; knew in his bones, that bright Marseilles morning, that their man was packing his bags, or already gone.

First off, Jacquot decided, turning along rue des Honneurs, all the brouhaha over the de Cotigny killing would have unnerved him. All that press and TV coverage over the weekend. Suzie de Cotigny was too big, too important a name, to be ignored. Her murder would become a high-priority, high-profile case and the killer would know that Marseilles was no longer the safe billet he'd enjoyed so far. The heat would be turned up, all police resources directed at this one case, and he'd have to watch his step. Easier, if he was the transient Jacquot suspected, just to move on.

Secondly, if the Waterman was still hanging around, too cocky or confident to worry about increased police activity, then the Cuvry murder would certainly see him off. When they got their confession from Madame Basquet, currently residing down the street at police headquarters, and the press splashed the story saying how she'd tried to disguise it as just another Waterman kill, that would be an end to it. Killers like the Waterman hated copycats. Hated them. He'd move on for sure. Somewhere new - another city by the sea, on a river, beside a lake.

Not that they'd stop looking for him, of course. As far as the
Judiciaire
was concerned, a file remained open until the killer was apprehended. But that wouldn't happen in Marseilles, Jacquot knew. Not now.

One day soon, though, a call would come through from some other force - more murders, more drowned bodies. It was the way it went. As Jacquot had said to Solange Bonnefoy, sooner or later, wherever he happened to be, the Waterman would make a mistake.

And then they would have him.

Toulon. Nice. Biarritz.

Wherever he pitched up next.

The body of Suzanne Delahaye de Cotigny, in a shiny mahogany casket furnished with sturdy brass handles, was released to the Delahaye family at mid-morning and taken from the city morgue to the airport at Marignane by a firm of undertakers. Suzanne's brother, Gus, supervised proceedings, watched by Max Benedict who'd followed in a cab from the Nice-Passedat.

So far as Benedict could see, Delahaye handed out tips to nearly everyone he came into contact with that morning - the concierge at the front desk, the busboy who brought round his rented Mercedes, the two medical orderlies who wheeled the trolley from the back entrance of the morgue to the undertakers' limousine, and undoubtedly, though Benedict was unable to confirm this, to the undertakers at the airport after the body had been loaded onto the family jet, possibly even to the Immigration officials who dealt with the paperwork and cleared the casket for the journey home.

From Marignane, Benedict followed Delahaye's Mercedes back to town and the Nice-Passedat where the tip-happy Wall Street broker joined his parents for lunch on the terrace.

It was the first time that Benedict had seen the older Delahayes since their arrival three days earlier. Either they'd stayed put in their room or they'd managed to evade him. Like his son, Leonard Delahaye wore a black suit and tie, while his wife wore a narrow black dress and jacket, black shoes and pillbox hat. Benedict sat three tables away, close enough to see the dishes they were served - a slice of foie gras and toasts for Gus Delahaye, a simple green salad with quails' eggs for his mother and a small steak
frites
for his father - but not close enough to overhear their conversation, an occasional, whispered affair. The brother drank his customary bourbon and branch but his parents made do with mineral water. They rarely looked up from the table, either at each other or at the waiters who attended them. Benedict sensed an air of unsurprised despair in the way they held their forks - in the American manner - and in the way they sipped their drinks, as though they had somehow always known that it would come to this. How Suzanne had disappointed them once again, albeit for the last time.

An hour after their lunch a chauffeur-driven limousine, as black as their suits, drew up at the front of the Nice-Passedat and the Delahayes were taken to the Cathedrale de la Major for the funeral service of Hubert de Cotigny. Max Benedict watched them pull out of the hotel forecourt, then waved up a cab and followed at a discreet distance.

The roads around the cathedral were packed, the city's finest turning out to bid farewell to their friend and their colleague, a sway of black umbrellas to protect against a blazing sun. Benedict watched it all from the back seat of his cab - a milling swarm of the great and the good in tails and frock coats, top hats and dress uniforms, sashes, gloves and veils making their way through the cathedral doors. He waited there in the dusty heat until the service was over and he watched as the two grieving families reappeared - Delahaye Senior with a stooped Madame de Cotigny on his arm, Mrs Delahaye with her son, de Cotigny's daughter with her husband - followed by the pall-bearers, de Cotigny's casket hoisted onto their shoulders and draped in a rippling
tricolore.

Across town, at the Saint Pierre cemetery, ahead of the cortege, Benedict paid off his cab and took up position on a rise of headstones some fifty metres past the intersection of Allee du Japon and the Grande Allee, the main cemetery concourse where his man at the Nice-Passedat had told him the de Cotignys kept their family mausoleum. Pulling a pair of Leica binoculars from his pocket Benedict scanned the miniature
faux
Greek temples and Palladian palaces, the Gothic towers and arabesque tents that faced the Allee.

It was not difficult to identify the de Cotigny mausoleum, nothing less than a miniature chateau with witch-hat turrets and marble battlements, its wrought-iron doors wide open, its grassy bank strewn with wreaths. Above the doors, between lowered and furled banners, was the family name, the letters boldly carved in capitals but spread with yellow lichen.

Ten minutes later, Benedict watched the hearse turn through the gates, enter the walled cemetery and lead a column of black sedans between the shadowing lime trees to the family plot. It was immediately clear that there were fewer people here than at the church and, as the guests stepped from their plush back seats, Benedict raised his binoculars and scanned the faces. There the Delahayes, there a weeping Madame de Cotigny now supported by her granddaughter, and gathering around them a smaller circle of family and friends.

Slowly, the casket was drawn from the back of the hearse and four frock-coated undertakers took a handle each. Carrying it slung between them, they slow-stepped to the mausoleum where a Monsignor in papal red gave the final blessing and the casket passed into the darkened crypt. A minute or two later the pall-bearers trooped dolefully back into the sunlight, one of them securing the mausoleum doors, another presenting the
tricolore
that had adorned de Cotigny's coffin to his mother.

It was over. As simply and as finally as that. Car doors slammed, engines started and ten minutes later the only thing that moved on Saint Pierre's Grande Allee were the leaves of the lime trees, rustling their own indistinct adieus.

Stepping out onto Grande Allee, Benedict made his way back to the cemetery gates, pausing only briefly to note the flattened grass outside Hubert de Cotigny's final resting place, the mourners' wreaths and the messages of farewell.

Outside the cemetery he cast around for a cab and knew it didn't look good. Most of the traffic was heading north into the suburbs. In order to find a ride back to town he would have to cross the road for the southbound flow. He was trying to decide how best to do this when a grey city cab slid out of the line of traffic and pulled up at the kerb. In the back seat he could see a woman lean forward with money for the fare.

As she opened the passenger door, Benedict stepped forward, drew it wide and offered a hand to help her out. Her eyes were concealed behind sunglasses, and only a border of dark curls showed beneath a tightly wrapped headscarf. She wore a blue mackintosh draped over a light cream trouser suit and she carried a single rose. Without looking at him, she murmured what he presumed were thanks and hurried through the cemetery gates.

Sliding into the back seat, warm from the sun and scented from the previous passenger (Eau de Flore, he was certain), Benedict gave instructions for the Nice- Passedat and the cabbie, with the heel of his hand on the horn, nudged his way through the flow of northbound traffic.

As they made the turn, mounting the far kerb and bumping off it, Benedict glanced back down the long, lime-treed length of the Grande Allee and noticed that the lady in the coat and pants suit appeared to be standing in front of the de Cotigny mausoleum.

As the cab straightened and accelerated away, Benedict wondered who she could be? A mistress, maybe? Coming to her lovers grave after the family had departed? So discreet. So stylish and so French, he thought, sitting back in his seat, not a little surprised that a man like de Cotigny, if indeed it was his mausoleum the woman had stopped at, should have had a mistress.

As the cab headed back into town, Benedict wondered if he should follow it up, ask around, another angle for the story. But then he dismissed the thought. The piece was just about wrapped. It was time to check out of the Nice-Passedat, and go home to La Ferme Magny. Tonight he would do a final edit and send his story off to New York.

If it worked, maybe he'd just add a final sentence about the lady in the trouser suit. The single rose. Something unresolved. Enigmatic.

Benedict liked the feel of it. A sweet little touch.

It was the news, delivered by jacquot, that Anais Cuvry had been three months pregnant which finally broke Madame Céléstine Basquet. Whether it was knowing that her husband Paul had likely fathered the child, or the fact that she, Céléstine, had unwittingly ended two lives instead of one, it was impossible to say.