The Woman in the Fifth (33 page)

I blinked and looked at the bedside clock: 6.23 a.m. Great. I'd been asleep for maybe ten minutes.

'Police!'

More heavy knocking. Part of me wanted to play dumb and hope they'd go away and let me sleep.

'Police!'

I was about to say something, but the door burst open and two uniformed officers came charging in. Before I knew it, they'd forced me to put on a pair of pants and a jacket and had handcuffed me and frogmarched me downstairs and into a car that had now pulled up in front.

Ten minutes later, I was in the
commissariat de police
of the Tenth
arrondissement
, sitting in front of Inspector Leclerc. My hands were no longer cuffed behind my back. Instead, one of my wrists had been chained to the metal chair where I had been placed . . . and the chair itself bolted to the floor. The two arresting officers had brought me in here, attached me to the chair and left me to my own devices for around twenty minutes. Then Leclerc arrived, carrying my baseball bat in one hand.

'Good morning, Monsieur Ricks,' he said, sitting down behind his desk. 'I presume you know what this is?'

'Why am I here?' I asked.

'Please answer the question.'

'A baseball bat.'

'Very good. And I presume you also know that we just found this bat in your
chambre
.'

'Can you search somebody's place without a permit?'

'Answer the question,
monsieur
. Is this your bat?'

'I'm answering no questions until I know why I'm here.'

'You don't know why you're here?' he asked, studying my face with care.

'No idea.'

'Do you know a Monsieur Attani?'

'Never heard of him.'

'He runs a bar on the rue de Paradis – a bar where you have been seen to drink on several occasions.'

I tensed. Leclerc noticed this.

'Do you know his wife, Madame Yanna Attani?'

I felt a sweat break on my forehead. I said nothing.

'I take your silence to mean—'

'I know her,' I said.

'Then you must also know Monsieur Attani?'

'We've never been formally introduced.'

'Even though you were formally introduced to his wife. In fact, word has it that you were
intimately acquainted with his wife
. . . that Monsieur Attani was made aware of your intimate acquaintance upon his return from Turkey a few days ago, and was heard publicly to say that he was planning to kill you. So . . . were you aware of these threats?'

I went silent again.

'We need to know your whereabouts last night.'

'Why?'

'Because we have reason to believe that you assaulted Monsieur Attani with this bat.'

'He was assaulted?'

'He is currently in hospital, fighting for his life.'

'Oh, my God . . .'

'Why are you sounding shocked, when it was clearly you who assaulted him?'

'I didn't—'

'You have a motive – he threatened to kill you. Perhaps you were so madly in love with his wife—'

'I didn't—'

'And now we have found the weapon used to smash his head in—'

'His head was smashed in?'

'He is in intensive care with a crushed cranium, a crushed face and two crushed kneecaps. He is brain-dead and will not survive the day. The assailant was very violent and used a hefty circular object, like a baseball bat.'

'I swear to you—'

'Where were you last night?'

'I only bought the bat to protect myself after Omar was found—'

'Where were you last night?'

'If you run forensic tests on the bat, you'll see it's clean.'

'Where were you last night? And I will not repeat the question again. Answer it or I will call an examining magistrate and have you formally charged with murder.'

Silence. I could feel the sweat now cascading down my face. I knew there was only one alibi I could give – and that she might hate me for implicating her in all this, but she'd still cover for me.

'I was at my girlfriend's place,' I said.

Leclerc pursed his lips. He didn't like that one bit.

'Her name?'

I told him.

'Address?'

I gave him that too.

He picked up the phone. I heard him read out Margit's name and her address in the Fifth. Then he hung up and said, 'We will be keeping you here, pending further inquiries.'

'I'd like to talk to a lawyer.'

'But why? If your girlfriend vouches for you, you get to walk out of here.'

'I'd like to talk to a lawyer.'

'Do you have a lawyer?'

'No, but . . .'

He hit an intercom button on his desk, spoke briefly into it, then stood up.

'My superior, Inspector Coutard, will, no doubt, be speaking with you before too long.'

Then he left. A few moments later, two uniformed officers came in. They unshackled me from the chair, recuffed my hands behind my back, then marched me down several flights of stairs, through a maze of corridors. Then we emerged in that holding area in which I had waited for Coutard yesterday. Only this time I wasn't going to be left unshackled on the bench. No, this time I was being placed directly in the cell located next to this bench. I started to protest, saying something like, 'I want to talk to a lawyer,' but one of the cops pulled hard on the cuffs, making certain they dug deep into my skin.

'Shut up,' he said as his colleague unlocked the cell door. I was shoved inside. I was ordered to lie face down on the concrete bed located in one corner of this tiny cell. The bed had a bare dirty mattress, a pillow that was a blotchy canvas of dried blood and snot, a thin dirty blanket. I did as requested. The cop uncuffed me, while also informing me that if I did anything stupid – like taking a swing at him – his colleague had his cosh in his hand and would think nothing of beating me senseless.

'A taste of your own medicine, after what you did to your lover's husband.'

'I promise you I'll behave.'

'Smart boy,' he said, removing the cuffs, then added, 'You can get up from that bed once we have left the cell and the door has been closed. Understood?'

'Yes, sir.'

After the cell door closed behind him, however, I didn't get up. Rather, I gripped the thin mattress and buried my head against the filthy pillow, thinking,
I'm dead
.

I reached down for the blanket. I pulled it over me. The only good thing about not yet having slept was that, finding myself in a horizontal position, exhaustion overtook me and I was vanished from this terrible world in moments.

And then a voice said, 'Get up.'

The voice came from a metal slit in the cell door. I glanced at my wrist and remembered they had earlier taken my watch off me, along with my belt and shoelaces. I felt stiff all over and grubby and parched.

'What time is it, please?'

'Five twenty.'

I had been asleep all day.

'Get up,' the voice said again. 'Inspector Coutard wants to see you.'

'Can I use the toilet first?' I asked, pointing to the stainlesssteel commode next to the bed.

'Make it fast.'

After I finished peeing, the officer opened the cell and cuffed my hands behind my back and started leading me back up through the maze of corridors we'd traveled earlier that morning. Coutard was seated behind his desk when we entered. A lit cigarette was in his mouth. He was reading a file and looked up at me over his half-moon glasses.

'You can uncuff him,' he told the officer. When this was done, Coutard motioned for me to sit in the metal chair facing his desk. The cop was about to recuff me to the chair, but Coutard said, 'No need.' Then looking at me again, he added, 'You look like you could use a coffee.'

'That would be nice.'

He motioned to the cop who disappeared into the corridor. Then he returned to studying the file, deliberately ignoring me for the moment. The cop returned with a small white plastic cup and handed it to me. It was hot to the touch, but I still downed it in one go.

'Thank you,' I said to both the cop and the inspector. Coutard put down his file. He now faced me square on.

'Inspector Leclerc informed me that you said you spent last evening at the apartment of a woman friend . . . a Madame Margit Kadar, resident of 13 rue Linné, Fifth
arrondissement
. Is that correct?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Naturally, we investigated this. We sent several of our men to Madame Kadar's apartment. And I regret to inform you that we discovered that Madame Kadar is dead.'

The news was like a mule kick to the stomach.

'That can't be true,' I finally said.

'It is, I am afraid, completely true,' he said.

I put my head in my hands. Not Margit.
Please
, not Margit.

'What happened?'

'Madame Kadar killed herself.'

'What?' I whispered.

'Madame Kadar took her own life.'

'But I saw her yesterday. When did this happen?'

Coutard stared right at me. And said, 'Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980.'

'W
HAT DID YOU
just say?' I asked.

'Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980,' Coutard said.

'Very funny.'

'It is not at all funny. Suicide never is.'

'You expect me to believe—?'

'
Monsieur,
the question should be rephrased: "You expect
me
to believe that you spent yesterday evening at the apartment of a woman who has been dead for twenty-six years?"'

'What proof do you have that she died in 1980?'

'I ask the questions here,
monsieur
. You tell me you were at her apartment last night.'

'Yes,' I said, deciding fast that, under the circumstances, it was better to maintain the lie than to backpedal.

'How long have you been involved with Madame Kadar?'

'Several months.'

'You met her where?'

I explained about Lorraine L'Herbert's salon. Coutard noted this on a pad and asked for her address.

'And you've regularly seen Madame Kadar since that first meeting?'

'Twice a week.'

'And you were "intimate" with her?'

'Absolutely.'

'You are being serious here?'

'I am completely serious.'

He looked at me and shook his head. Slowly.

'Have you suffered hallucinations like this in the past?'

'Inspector, I am telling you the truth.'

'Have you ever been hospitalized –
committed
– for psychotic disorders? I can –
will
– run a complete check on your medical history and—'

'I am not delusional, Inspector.'

'And yet you insist that you've been having an affair with a dead woman. That certainly exceeds the definition of "delusional".'

'Show me some proof that she is dead.'

'In time,' he said quietly. 'Describe Madame Kadar to me.'

'Late fifties. Striking face, sharply etched features, not much in the way of age lines, a shock of black hair—'

'Stop. Madame Kadar was thirty when she died in 1980. So the woman you were allegedly seeing was over twenty-five years older.'

But if she was thirty in 1980, wouldn't she be in her late fifties now?

'Do you have a photograph of her in 1980?' I asked.

'In time,' he said again. 'Anything else you wish to tell me about her physical appearance?'

'She was –
is
– beautiful.'

'Nothing else? No distinguishing marks or characteristics?'

'She had a scar across her neck.'

'Did she tell you how she received such a scar?'

'She tried to cut her own throat.'

Coutard seemed thrown by my answer, but was simultaneously trying to mask his bemusement.

'
Tried
to cut her own throat?' he asked.

'That's right.'

'The suicide was not successful?'

'Well, evidently
not
, if she was telling me about it.'

He reached for a file in front of him. He opened it. He turned several pages, then looked up at me again.

'Did she explain why she tried to kill herself?'

'Her husband and daughter were killed in a hit-and-run accident.'

Coutard stared down at the file again. His eyes narrowed.

'Where exactly did this accident take place?'

'Near the Luxembourg Gardens.'

'When exactly?'

'1980.'

'What month?'

'June, I think.'

'And what were the circumstances of the accident?'

'Her husband and daughter were crossing the road—'

'The husband's name?'

'Zoltan.'

'The daughter?'

'Judit.'

'How do you know this?'

'She told me.'

'Madame Kadar?'

'Yes, Madame Kadar told me. Just as she told me the driver of the car—'

'What was the make of the car?'

'I forget. Something big and flashy. The guy was a businessman.'

'Why do you know all this?'

'Because Margit was my lover. And lovers tell each other their pasts.'

'Did your "lover" tell you what happened to the driver of the black Jaguar—'

'That's right – she said it was a Jag . . . and the man lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.'

Again he glanced down at the file, then looked up at me. His cool was cracking. He now seemed angry.

'This game is no longer amusing. You have obviously engaged in some sort of warped research about a dead woman who murdered the man who ran over her husband and daughter and then—'

'Murdered?'

'That's what I said.
Murdered
.'

'But she told me he was killed by a burglar.'

'How was he killed?'

'Knife wound, I think.'

'When?'

'Around three months after the accident.'

'You're right. Henri Dupré—'

'That's the name she mentioned. A pharmaceuticals executive, right . . . ?'

'Correct. And Monsieur Dupré – a resident, as you said, of Saint-Germain-en-Laye – was murdered at his home on the night of September 20, 1980. His wife and children were not at home at the time. In fact, his wife had just filed for divorce. The man was a hopeless alcoholic and the hit-and- run accident which killed Madame Kadar's husband and daughter also ended Dupré's marriage. However, Dupré was not killed by a burglar. He was killed by Madame Kadar.'

'Bullshit.'

He reached into the file and pulled out a faded Xerox copy of a newspaper article. It was from
Le Figaro
and dated September 23, 1980. The headline read:

EXECUTIVE MURDERED
AT HOME IN SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
BEREAVED WOMAN SUSPECTED

This story outlined the facts of the murder – how Dupré had been surprised in his bed in the middle of a Saturday night; how the attack had been very frenzied; how the murderer had used a shower in the house, then left a note in the kitchen:
For Judit and Zoltan.
A neighbor who had been up early saw a woman leaving the house around 5 a.m. and heading to the
métro
– and the police now wanted to question Margit Kadar, whose husband and daughter had been killed by Dupré in a hit-and-run accident several weeks earlier.

'This is unbelievable,' I said.

Coutard reached into the file and pulled out an eight-by- ten photograph and pushed it across his desk. It was a police photo – black and white, but still shockingly lurid. Dupré was shown strewn across a bloodstained bed – huge black blotches surrounding him – his chest ripped open in several places; his face and head gashed horribly.

I sucked in my breath and pushed the photograph back to Coutard.

'To call this attack "frenzied" would be to exercise understatement,' Coutard said. 'This was a murder committed in white-hot rage; the killer unable to desist even after the fatal blow was struck. What most intrigued the investigating inspector at the time were two interrelated aspects to the case: its meticulous planning and the fact that the murderer clearly wanted the police – and the public – to know that she was responsible. The police checked Madame Kadar's phone records after the attack. It seems she had rung the Dupré household the night before the attack. In his report, the inspector presumed that she was calling on a pretext – perhaps using a false voice to ask for his wife and simultaneously finding out that he was at home that weekend. How did the police work this out? Because Madame Kadar's phone records also show that she called Madame Dupré on the same Friday evening at the apartment in Saint-Germain-en-Laye to which she had moved with her son, having first obtained this new number from Directory Enquiries. Madame Dupré remembered the call when she was questioned by the police – a woman, sounding very French, telling her that she got this number from her husband, and that she was working for a company selling holiday apartments near Biarritz and she would like to send Madame some information, and should she use her husband's address? Madame Dupré then informed her that she no longer lived with her husband, and that she wasn't interested in a holiday apartment near Biarritz, and hung up the phone.

'So Madame Kadar now knew that Dupré lived alone and was at home that weekend. The attack happened the following night around four. Madame Kadar had visited Saint-Germain-en-Laye earlier that day. The same neighbor who spotted her leaving the Dupré home at five that morning saw someone looking carefully at the house the previous afternoon – walking around it, inspecting every aspect of it. But as Dupré had it on the market, the neighbor thought it was just a prospective buyer. When Madame Kadar returned that night, she entered through a window that had been left open on the ground floor. She evidently made no noise, as Dupré was surprised by her in bed. We have no idea whether she briefly woke him before beginning the attack or murdered him while he was asleep . . . though the medical examiner postulated that Dupré must have woken up as soon as the first blow was struck and was therefore aware of his assailant. The police were fairly certain that Madame Kadar wanted Dupré to see it was her – as this was an obvious act of revenge.

'Afterward, Madame Kadar stripped off her clothes and used Dupré's bathroom to have a shower. She left her blood-splattered clothes on the bathroom floor and the knife by the bed. She had evidently arrived with a small suitcase containing a change of clothes – and after dressing, she went down to the kitchen and made coffee and waited—'

'She
made coffee
after knifing him like that?'

'The first train doesn't leave Saint-Germain-en-Laye until 5.23 a.m. She didn't want to be waiting outside the station – so, yes, she made coffee and wrote that simple note,
For Judit and Zoltan.
It sounds like a book dedication, doesn't it? Besides being an act of revenge perhaps she considered this murder to be a creative act. Certainly her planning was most creative. She left the house around five. It was a fifteen-minute walk to the station. She boarded the first train and changed for the
métro
at Châtelet. There she proceeded to the Gare de l'Est and bought a first-class ticket to Budapest. She even paid for a separate sleeping compartment. She had to give her own name when booking the first-class compartment. This she did. But she evidently gambled that no one would be stopping by the Dupré house on Sunday . . . or that if it was discovered, it would still take the police most of the day to figure out she was the murderer, and to alert Interpol that she was now on the run. In other words she had, at a minimum, a clear twenty-four hours to get to Budapest. As it turned out, she gambled right. Dupré's body wasn't discovered until late Monday afternoon when he failed to show up for work, and his employers called his wife. She went back to his house and came upon the crime scene. Of course, she was immediately considered the prime suspect – the spouse always is in a case of a murder in the home – until the forensics showed that Madame Kadar's fingerprints were on the murder weapon and that the bloodstained clothes left behind were not Madame Dupre's.'