 
How to Rob a Bank

Louis Shalako

Copyright 2014 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Cover Illustration: Alberto Vargas, 1920

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-927957-79-0

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

About Louis Shalako

How to Rob a Bank

Chapter One

It was a fashionable district, in an affluent quarter. Their daily clientele included some of the most famous, powerful, talented or even just the most beautiful people in the city. Some of them might even be important, as either a philosopher or a comedian had once said. He was opening an account at the time. Slightly baffled by his own success but looking around at the company he kept, it was as impressive as all hell.

Crédit Lyonnais Paris Branch manager Antoine Noel let himself out of the Mercedes. His son Maurice would pick him up for lunch, and return him to the bank at about one-thirty or two o'clock. Mo would pick him up after work and deposit him safely back at home. If nothing else, the man could drive. One must give him that. The SSK was Antoine's one major concession to vanity. Antoine hardly ever drove it himself. He'd worked hard to build the bank up in its operations, its services, and most especially in the regional expansion of the previous decade. The car was a symbol of his success, a socially acceptable flamboyance in this, the most staid and conservative of industries. Having a chauffeur was part of the fun.

It was an arid profession.

It made some use of, and gave dignity to, a relationship with a family member who would otherwise, be useless to himself and the rest of humanity.

What the young man did with himself in the meantime was no concern of Antoine's. Mo hadn't asked for money, over and above his rather minimal and unambitious salary in quite some time. While Antoine appreciated that his car and driver were mostly available, his son was over-paid now, considering the time spent on actual duties. To be fair, the car was always clean and very well maintained as befitted Antoine's status. To be fair to himself, he rarely said no. The great thing about Mo, was that he never lied to the old man—if it was a woman who needed a quick abortion, or a gambling debt, or a fine for drunk driving, he would at least have the courtesy to say so, rather than engaging in long and fruitless justifications.

Mo had no excuses, no denials, just a complete if concise statement of the facts.

Antoine took it that Maurice had been winning at cards or the horses (or women) lately and that consequently all was well with the world in Mo's book.

"Bye, father. Have a good day."

"Bye, and you, too."

My son.

All Antoine had ever really wanted for his children was for them to be happy. He wanted for them to be healthy, and to live long and to prosper, in whatever way suited them best. Some folks wouldn't understand the attitude. It was hard to know what would fulfill another person. Maurice was happy where some of the others weren't. Some of them had a lot more going for them. At least on paper. Lydie, his youngest daughter, was a constant bitcher. Yet she had two fine sons, and a doting if slightly-stupid husband. They lived in a better house than her parents.

For that and other reasons, he tried not to judge Mo too harshly.

His youngest son was ambitious in all the wrong places, or so it seemed to Antoine. He wanted to ski, or so he said, he wanted to race cars, bed fine young women, write novels and become a painter, a poet, a sculptor.

"Father, I want to be a philosopher—"

Don't give up your day job, son, except of course that Mo had never had one to begin with.

Not really.

And ultimately, a father's rejection was cruel—he simply didn't have it in him, as angry as he was at the time. Many times, every time, until one day all the anger wore away, abraded by Mo's own brilliance, that crushing, diamond-like hardness of the young and determined.

There would be no deflecting Mo from a life of dissolute adventure, a life of amoral unrestraint. The kid sure had some guts, if one chose to look at it that way. Take a look at the world around you, boy. Look at the people, son, read them and weep.

This too, shall eventually happen to you.

It was not entirely impossible that Mo would grow up some day.

What else was wealth for, anyways? That was Mo's attitude, and something inside of his old man had oddly resonated.

Life is for the living and the joy was there for the taking.

If only one had the nerve.

Of all his kids, Antoine liked Mo the best—which is to say that he tolerated him where the others would have gotten a good swift kick in the ass.

Maurice had looked his old man in the eye one day and told him that he had no intention of ever working for a living. He had no plans of ever doing anything that any normal and rational person would ever consider worthwhile, and therefore the old man might as well get over it.

A withered smile crossed the banker's face.

The pair of them, after a couple of snifters of cognac, had been having some heated words, and then after that a hug, which Mo was pretty good for, and then they had laughed like the kings they oddly were, somehow.

Each to his own, as Maurice had said.

Each to his own.

We all have our little role to play, dad.

Maurice could lick them by smiling.

It was all he'd ever had to do.

His face just lit right up and that was it, you were done.

Case closed.

He'd done a real number on his father.

Antoine shook his head at the memory. Maurice, having come of age and somehow managing to stay out of jail since then, had earned at least some measure of respect. Perhaps that was the key to understanding Mo. Inherited status was no good to him.

He wanted to prove that he could do things differently.

His mother doted on him, of course, his youthful scrapes eventually turning into manly escapades of the most roguish kind sometimes.

Antoine stood blinking at his reflection as a dim figure inside the branch fiddled with the locks.

Antoine was probably the first one there, although Monsieur Tremblay and Emilie Martin were also authorized to open up. Emilie had been here almost as long as Antoine himself.

"Good morning, Monsieur Noel."

"Ah. Good morning, Ignace."

It was the Monday after Ascension Day, a national holiday. Everyone loved a day off. It fell on a Thursday, by statute and by Church calendar in this most Catholic of nations, every year. There was a natural tendency, for those in a position to do so, to take the Friday off and enjoy a four-day weekend. It was an old joke, but one or two of them would need retraining after such a long layoff. There was at least a grain of truth in it for some.

An indulgent boss, Antoine had let as many staff take the Friday off as seemed rational. There was that day-before rush, which had to be taken into account. They would be fully staffed on a Monday morning as usual.

His own long weekend hadn't been all that relaxing. It wasn't very exciting, either. More of a pain in the ass, really. His wife's relatives were in town and of course they must be entertained.

A tall, spare, balding man in his late fifties, Ignace wore the formal uniform of a sergeant. The red tunic was only slightly ridiculous when one considered the long history of the private security firm he represented. The founder had been a member of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican before tiring of striped pantaloons and five-metre pikes.

A few generations had gone by since then.

Keys jangled in his hands and Ignace re-locked the outer door as there was a while to go yet. He would hover in the area in front of the doors until proper opening time. They had a few minutes still.

"Lovely weather—" Ignace had a satirical bent.

It was pissing rain and had been all weekend, but it was slated, according to the radio people, to hopefully clear up later this afternoon.

"Oh, lovely. And how was your weekend?" Antoine was open, accessible, and after all these years, serene and confident enough that he genuinely cared about all of his employees.

The young and ambitious were so much more cruel. Young people had no empathy. For that, one had to suffer. One had to have lived a life.

It was the same thing with the customers. Some of them, you had them from the cradle to the grave. You might not see some of them all that often, but when you did, it was an important event in their lives. A young couple looking for a mortgage, hoping to get into that first home, that first flat. Often enough, they'd fallen in love with the place. It would be a heartless man who didn't appreciate what it meant to the average customer to have home at all.

Ninety-five percent of all customers had less than a hundred francs, on average, on deposit, at any one time.

It made a man think sometimes. There was a lot of wealth in the world. There was also much poverty, and consequently, much suffering.

"Hah. About what you'd expect, sir."

Antoine clapped the big fellow on the arm. Ignace went along, flipping on light switches and unlocking interior doors as he went. The inner doors of the lobby would be propped open for the whole day unless it was very hot or bugs were coming in, only the outer doors keeping out the dust and the flies. It was an old building. The air conditioning was always straining to keep up in summer, and the furnace fans pounded away all winter long.

A little oxygen never hurt anyone.

Antoine used his own key to open his office door. He snapped on the warm overhead lights and hung up his dripping coat.

He was just heading off down the short hall to their accounting room to set water on to boil when there came a loud rapping on the thick, tinted glass of the front door.

Glancing out, he saw Ignace going forward to let Emilie in, and in the dull light outside, he made out the form of one of the other girls hustling up the front steps under a dripping black umbrella.

It was about time to open up the vault.

***

"How was your weekend, Emilie?"

The kettle was already whistling as he had put in hot water from the tap. He glanced up at the clock.

"It was wonderful." She was going away with another girl for the weekend as Antoine knew. "See? I am really quite sunburned."

She had a bit of pink on the upper arm and the back of the neck, and a hint of it in the cheekbones.

"Well, the seaside will do that for you." They must have caught better weather. "Would you mind opening up, please? I'm dying for a good cup of tea."

His own cook made excellent coffee but indifferent tea.

Antoine liked it very strong and had learned not to let other people make it for him. They just waved the tea around in front of it and basically ruined what might have been pretty good hot water.

Steeping was everything.

That was the trouble with philosophers, they ignored the smaller questions.

"Yes, absolutely." Her hard heels tapped along on the tiles, polished to a mirror-like shine.

Ignace was letting two more of the staff in at the front door and Antoine turned for his office in the rear again. Cheerful voices babbled and echoed back and forth as they headed for the staff room.

The persistent whine of the kettle on its gas-ring was as nothing compared to the blood-curdling screams torn from Emilie's throat as soon as she opened the vault and stepped inside.

***

Forgetting the kettle, Antoine broke into an instant run. His hard leather shoes, not being the most coordinated of men and getting distinctly older now, slipped on the floor as he tried to make the corner. He went down, sliding along on his left hip as he had been trying to round the corner into the secure area. The pain was shocking but already forgotten as she screamed again.

He slammed into the shining Porphyry marble of the end wall, but he was up in an instant.

Everyone was shouting at once.

He found Ignace holding a distraught Emilie in his protective embrace. Antoine stepped around them to confront the object of their revulsion.

"Get her out of here." The guard nodded numbly but they didn't budge.

Antoine, his guts in turmoil and his heart in his throat, had little choice as to his next move. Kneeling beside the body, he put his hand on the side of the neck, which was cold. There was no sign of a pulse. Tugging the far shoulder, just to make sure there was nothing they could do to save this person's life, Antoine grunted with the effort. Obscenely limp and heavy, the body finally turned over when he braced his right foot against the dead left hip and gave a real tug.

"Oh. Nom de Dieu." It was Daniel.

Emilie was weeping quietly in the background, and Ignace was there with his arm around her shoulders.

"Get her out of here, please. And I think we'd better call the police."

His eyes traveled the length of the room, lined with tiers of safe-deposit boxes, the main vault behind a row of floor-to-ceiling bars immediately to his left.

His heart was pounding in his chest. His knee and left ankle hurt abominably.

There was a dead man in his bank, the implications terrible.

This was going to be a terrible disruption.

Ignace and Emilie hadn't moved, staring down at the body of Daniel Masson, trainee assistant branch manager, and until now, one most definitely being groomed for better things a little further on down the road. There were pale faces at the door, a couple of the other girls, and he couldn't quite bring himself to tell them to go away. He swallowed, still not getting quite enough air.

Off in the distance, the kettle screamed and screamed and screamed.

Chapter Two

"Hello. Special Homicide Unit." Andre Levain listened briefly, eyebrows lifting.

He looked over at the boss.

"It's for you—" There was something in the tone and Maintenon sighed.

He picked up, noting that Levain stayed on the line.

"Hello?"

"Gilles, this is Jean."

Only Chiappe could get away with that kind of familiarity. He hadn't spoken to the Commissioner in at least a month. There was no mistaking that hard, gravelly voice.

Jean-Baptiste had a voice like a cement-mixer as someone once said.

"Yes, sir."

"I've got a real good one for you."

"Of course you do, sir."

Levain's pencil was poised to strike.

Chiappe laughed but sobered quickly.

"We've got a dead man, in a bank vault. One of the employees. They were opening up after the long weekend."

"And where is this?"

"The Crédit Lyonnais." The Commissioner gave him the address, but it was a commercial landmark anyway. "The only thing I can add, is that with the present political and economic situation, Gilles, it's already sending jitters through the market. The sooner we get this one solved the better."

Levain's pencil stopped. He stood, his coffee forgotten and the cigarette quickly stubbed out, the earpiece rammed firmly to his head.

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Gilles. And let me know as soon as you get anything."

"Yes, sir."

There came the crash of the phone from the other end and Levain winced. Maintenon put the earpiece down on its holder.

Gilles heaved a sigh, and then firmly closed the file he had been reading.

"Well. That's it then. There goes our Monday."

Levain already had his hat on. Hitting disconnect on his phone, he dialed the front desk.

"We're going to need a car, Boss."

***

Traffic between the Quai d'Orfevres and the Boulevard des Italiens was heavy, not unexpectedly for the day after a long weekend. After the Resurrection, Jesus had returned to stay with the Apostles for forty days and then He had been lifted up into heaven. Gilles' own weekend, not being a particularly devout or even reverent person, had been spent quietly at home with the radio and his newspapers. Thankfully, they didn't have far to go. The vehicle was warming up inside and they were fairly heavily dressed.

The weather had broken and the brilliant sunshine promised better things to come.

"What's your name, young man?" Gilles was always on the lookout for new talent.

"Constable Renaudin, sir."

"Don't go anywhere. And for Christ's sakes, park someplace we can find you."

"Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."

Doors thudded shut and Maintenon and Levain quickly mounted the front steps of the imposing building.

"Right, then." Renaudin put it in gear and eased it forward, the most recent in a long line of official vehicles.

He left a little room in front of her. They could get out in a hurry if they needed to. It was always best to think ahead when dealing with the big-shots. There were one or two other uniformed types hanging around if he got bored and felt like talking.

Whatever was up, it looked like he might be in for a bit of a long day.

Renaudin got out of the car, needing a smoke. Some senior officers would shit all over you if the car smelled like dead tobacco.

There was a small throng of people, milling around in front of the building. Two other uniformed gendarmes were guarding the door. They were talking to each other and not paying much attention.

"Move along now, there's nothing to see here."

A lady accosted him.

"Officer. That's my bank. What's going on? I have to get in there—"

"You know as much as I do, Madame. Do you have a car?"

She shook her head.

"Got your bank-book?"

"Er, yes." He stopped her from pulling it out of her purse.

"Ah, excellent."

He thought for a moment, then began to give the lady directions to another branch via bus or Metro. At her age, it was a bit far to walk. After a minute, there was more than one listener clustered around him.

***

"Sir."

Gilles flashed his badge at an unfamiliar gendarme, terribly thin and cadaverous at the age of twenty or whatever he was. The officer held the door and stepped aside smartly. Their footsteps rattled and echoed in the cavernous space, all polished stone and hard surfaces.

A harried-looking individual broke out of a huddle with other similarly-stressed individuals, all of them remarkably of a certain stereotype. They were well-fed, anyways. The detective hurried forward to meet them.

"Ah, Inspector Maintenon." He extended a hand in genuine gratitude. "I'm Camille Grosjean."

His sharp eye took in the hulking figure at Maintenon's side.

"Hello."

Grosjean grinned.

"Andre Levain, right?"

They shook hands quickly. Grosjean took a sober look at his hand afterwards, but no, it was still on there, it was still all in one piece. It hadn't been crushed or anything...that was sure interesting.

Holy, crap...

"Come right this way, please." He turned and led them through a featureless door in a flat section of the wall beside the main service counter. This was how the staff got in, with a blank wall directly ahead of them and a long hallway leading off left and right.

***

It was an impressive setup, with half the wall taken up by the sliding steel door, a third of a metre thick and gleaming dully in the overhead light. There was a two-metre opening and ancillary bits of the mechanism on the wall either side of it.

There were too many people in the room. As soon as they saw Maintenon their voices lowered and they focused on the work. They were still taking photos and dusting every conceivable surface for prints. Any distinctive shoe-marks would have long since lost any meaning in the shuffle of men with big feet and habitually wearing stout, heavy shoes. Hopefully they'd taken pictures first and went in after, but one never knew. It didn't seem very likely.

Grosjean was right there at his side.

"Who found the body?"

"A Mademoiselle Emilie Martin, head cashier. She's about forty but not bad-looking. There were security guards on duty all through the weekend. The big branch manager, Monsieur Noel, was the first one to arrive this morning. The call came in at about twenty to nine."

He paused.

"The guards are saying they didn't see or hear anything." He gave Maintenon a look.

Maintenon nodded. Levain squatted by the body, awkwardly leaning in over a puddle of amorphous fluid with little chunks of something in it.

It must be vomit, there was some on his cheek and some on his shirt-collar.

He looked up at Grosjean.

"Personal effects?"

"Haven't looked yet. Quite frankly, I was leaving that for you boys." He gave Gilles a considering look. "I know when I'm a little out of my depth, sir."

"There's no obvious signs of violence, Boss." Levain tentatively sniffed the air.

There was vomit on the floor. The man's face was frozen in a rictus of agony. He had died with his eyes open and full awareness. Gilles studied the young man, standing over him. There were signs of bruising where he must have fallen. Scratches on the throat and neck.

"He was lying face-down according to our witnesses."

Just the usual smell—a lot of urine. The outline of the stain was still there, but it had dried over time. He wondered exactly how long that would take under these conditions. Not all goners shit themselves, a fact for which Levain was truly grateful at times.

Levain had his cotton gloves on and was going through the pockets. You wanted to wipe your feet and leave the shoes outside the door when you went home at night.

"The deceased is one Daniel Masson, deputy assistant manager or something. Third from the top in the local food chain. He was authorized to enter the vault, which he would normally do only during business hours. There's a time lock, and we've called the makers. They should be here any time now, and we'll see if the time lock has been fiddled."

Maintenon nodded thoughtfully, watching Levain and looking around.

The victim was wearing some nice cuff-links. He had a tie clip and a wristwatch. Levain pulled out a set of keys. There was a wallet, just over a hundred francs, small change, a packet of cigarettes and a heavy gold lighter in the jacket pocket. As might be expected, the clothes were very good in the fit, and relatively expensive.

"Does it smell like smoke in here?"

They sniffed, all of them at once.

Opinions were soon divided, but Maintenon filed the question away for future reference.

"Hello." Levain's jaw twitched and he pulled an apple out of the right side jacket pocket.

"There's another problem."

"Ah. There always is, isn't there?"

Grosjean grinned wryly at the Inspector.

"Yes, sir. Ah—according to the manager, the main vault looks okay—he says he'd have to do a proper count, but it looks undisturbed. The inner gate was locked and everything's there, with no signs of disturbance. Otherwise there would be one hell of a panic. As it is, they're merely scared shitless. On the other hand. We have all of these safety-deposit boxes."

He led Gilles through an archway and into an inner chamber, Levain following along.

Maintenon's eye swept the room. They were all closed and none of them appeared to be damaged or disturbed at first glance.

"Ah, Yes."

Grosjean let out a long breath.

"What we were thinking, sir, was to have the manager call a few people, hopefully discreet people...and have them come around and check their boxes."

"Hmn."

It was a ticklish sort of situation.

Gilles nodded sharply. They had damned well better get some answers.

"Yes, but first. We'll have the bank's people check all the empty boxes. They can use their records, and we'll eliminate them first...n'est-ce pas?"

"Sir?" Grosjean was slightly baffled but not the argumentative type.

Levain rose stiffly, accepting a bag from one of the attending technical people and carefully signing and dating it. In went most of the materials.

"Check that apple for prints."

"Ah, yes, sir." There was this look on his face.

One never knew of course.

There was one more item, this one from the right-hand jacket pocket. It was a small, heavily creased bit of shiny paper. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed it suspiciously. There was the hint of something...perhaps fruity? A candy wrapper. He shook his head and put it in the envelope as well.

Levain looked at Gilles.

"This looks like one big, fine mess, Boss."

"You can say that again—but please don't, Andre."

Grosjean stood there, staring at his crime scene. Slightly hunched at the shoulders, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. They really had their work cut out for them on this one.

This case had pressure from above written all over it.

Chapter Three

Under the gun as they were, Gilles made a quick decision.

"All right. We'll have a bank employee standing over us as we work. I'll have to make a quick call to Chiappe—the Commissioner. But I honestly don't see what else we can do." The thoughts of dozens, or hundreds of citizens, going by the number of safe-deposit drawers in the room, God-damned civilians, coming and going to check on the contents of their box, was appalling.

Yet it probably would come to that—off the cuff, he couldn't think of a similar situation or he might have had a better idea of how to proceed.

That was a last resort.

"When you open a drawer, it should be empty. If it's not, photograph the contents, dust for prints, tag it and bag it for the lab."

"Any questions?"

"No, sir." The uniformed gendarmes were pretty much in agreement.

Andre winked at Gilles.

"Nope."

"Very well." Turning, Gilles beckoned Grosjean to come along. "Let's make that phone call and then we'll speak to the manager."

Grosjean had brightened up considerably, now that he had some competent help on the scene.

The thoughts of speaking to Chiappe, whom he had never met, were not all that welcome.

***

The switchboard put him straight through without argument.

"Jean Baptiste, please."

"Who's calling, please?"

"Maintenon. Crédit Lyonnais. Dead man and possible robbery—"

The line clicked and Chiappe's personal assistant Benjamin was there. He put him on.

"Gilles. What are we looking at?"

A real mess, as Levain had said.

"Ah, we have a dead man in a locked vault. At first glance it appears there's nothing missing. They need to do an inventory of cash, and one would think any other financial instruments or valuables on hand."

"Ah."

"Also, there is the question of the safety-deposit boxes."

"Were they accessible from where the body was found?"

It was the usual layout as far as Maintenon knew. He didn't have a box personally, and had never really been in a bank vault before. There was a first time for everything.

"Yes. He was found in front of the little front rooms, where customers can sit and examine their box's contents in privacy, without the staff looking over their shoulder."

"Merde."

"There's no apparent damage to the outer facings of the safety boxes. It would take a real fool not to want to know for certain. There are already reporters outside, incidentally." One or two familiar faces, anyway.

"Yes, we've already had calls." Chiappe had seen it all before.

A main, central branch like this would have a large number of regular and occasional customers. One of them might have been a reporter, short of cash after the long weekend.

"They're very quick."

Either that or someone, in that wonderful spirit of helpfulness people sometimes exhibited, had phoned in a tip to a friendly editor or their favourite paper.

"Hmn. Double-merde."

"Sir. We can try to get a blanket writ. Most judges would stand on the law. They will say the people who rent those boxes are not criminals, and that's most likely true. They also have the right to privacy. Also, let's say we open a box and find some envelopes. What's in them is theoretically none of our business. But. What is to stop us from having a look? After all, we are looking for evidence. Once we're in there, we're not likely to stop with a quick look. People would raise one hell of a squawk and we really are just fishing at this point. The trouble is, how would we know if anything is missing, unless we contact an owner or customer with an inventory? Even then, they'll insist on coming in and checking their own box." He gave Grosjean a look, eyebrows raised.

The young detective whispered back.

"There are a thousand boxes."

Gilles nodded, holding up a hand to stop him there.

"Grosjean says there are a thousand boxes, sir."

"Argh."

That's one way of putting it, thought Gilles.

"In the meantime, sir, while we're thinking about that, I want to have a look in all the unrented boxes."

Jean-Baptiste sighed audibly over the phone, and there was the sound of someone else breathing on there as well.

Did Benjamin have a life of his own?

No one seemed to know.

"And why would we want to do that?" Jean Baptiste sounded resigned to it.

"Because I have one idea, at least to begin with. We can at least eliminate them, while the staff are in the main vault counting money. Bear in mind sir, this is no tunnel job—no safecracking, no armed attack...this one doesn't fit the usual profile of a bank job."

Yet he had instincts, and those instincts were screaming.

"You keep saying bank job like you mean it."

"Yes, I do, sir. It's just that I would like to know for sure."

There was a silence, with Grosjean at Gilles' elbow, straining to catch any sound that might escape from the telephone.

"Very well. Gilles. How soon can they reopen the bank? I'm already getting calls from the company's senior management. I've got Monsieur Beaudoin, one of the directors, hanging on the other line even as we speak."

"When I'm done with the crime scene, sir."

Grosjean's wolfish grin indicated his approval of this answer—although he wasn't sure if he would ever have the nerve to make it himself. Gilles gave him a quick wink.

"All right, Gilles. I guess that's the best we can do. I'll just have to tell them that."

"Thank you, sir." He hung up before Chiappe could think of too many more questions—he had nothing to give him anyways.

Maintenon turned to Grosjean.

"We need to speak to Monsieur Noel."

***

Antoine Noel was waiting in his office, sufficiently sumptuous-looking to display wealth, power and dignity. It was clean, open and functional. In order to keep everyone together and under watch, the rest of the staff were in the employees' lunchroom, up on the third floor.

He leapt up out of his seat.

A younger man seated on a low leather couch by a wide, un-curtained window, barred from top to bottom, got to his feet as well.

"Hello. I am Inspector Gilles Maintenon."

"Antoine Noel. This is our assistant manager, Orson Tremblay."

Tremblay was tall, heavy set in the upper body but with unimpressive arms and legs, even in the tailored suit. He looked like an underdeveloped gorilla. The eyes were intelligent and he seemed very sincere. Tremblay was about thirty-eight by the look of him.

They shook hands like the gentlemen they were. Grosjean found himself in the unique social position of being left out. Having arrived on the scene at the height of emotional upheaval, social niceties had been the last thing on anyone's mind.

As if sensing this, Tremblay, whom Grosjean had never seen before, turned and offered a hand.

His senior nodded but didn't give his own, turning his eyes instead to Maintenon. The two men waited.

"Camille Grosjean."

"Ah. A pleasure." Tremblay attempted to look pleased and failed.

"Well, gentlemen, this is a terrible situation." Monsieur Noel had recovered his equilibrium.

That's not to say he wasn't under a lot of stress.

"Yes," Maintenon was willing to listen for a moment, and then he would instruct them.

The biggest part of the job was listening.

"Daniel was a wonderful young man. He was one of our most valued employees, and destined for much better things. I was the one that hired him, in fact."

Tremblay nodded his agreement. He picked up the thread.

"He was well-liked by everyone. This is a tragic loss for the company. He leaves a mother and a couple of sisters—"

Monsieur Tremblay broke up in that moment, turning away and going over to stand by the windows. His shoulders heaved and he was clearly having some problems.

Monsieur Noel regarded them steadily.

"Gentlemen."

"Ah, yes." Maintenon cleared his throat.

This was the psychological moment.

"Okay, sir. We need to determine several things."

Noel broke in.

"Absolutely."

"One. Is this a death by natural causes? In which case, there may be no cause for alarm. Unfortunately, until we can determine that—and an autopsy is the only thing that can prove that either way, we draw no conclusions. Not without evidence. There are no obvious signs of violent trauma on the body...yet he did not die peacefully, I think. We have enough documentation now to at least remove the body."

"And what are you suggesting?" Tremblay, wiping his eyes dry with a silky-white handkerchief, had rejoined the conversation from his place by the window. "I mean, what's next?"

"We need to know if there has been any theft. Until we can determine that, we cannot allow the bank to open, nor can we allow outsiders in. That includes anyone that might have rented a box." He explained that Commissioner Chiappe was taking a personal interest in the case.

He would be adding his weight to Maintenon's request for search warrants for the private, rented boxes. They needed hard evidence that a crime had indeed been committed.

"We will not proceed without a proper warrant, I can assure you gentlemen of that."

The men were nodding, not happy with it but understanding the necessity. Both men glanced at the clock on the wall, a pair of like-minded professionals.

"How soon can we get into the vault?" Tremblay had recovered, eyes still red and raw though.

When he walked, the shoes flashed in the light coming in the window. Coming back, he sat down heavily. He sighed, and gave his superior a quick look.

"It will take time to perform the autopsy. I can assure you that this will be an absolute top priority. As soon as we clear the body, and the technicians have gathered all their evidence, we will need two or three employees. They can inventory the main vault."

"I see." Noel looked at Tremblay. "Any ideas?"

"Yes, sir. Emilie, Corbyn, and Lorraine Gérin, I think."

The older man nodded.

"And as for Monsieur Tremblay, perhaps he could assist us in another way." Gilles was calm but firm.

"Why, certainly."

Tremblay looked at Noel for approval, receiving another quick bob of the head.

"Because I hate to waste time, and we have men and technicians on the scene already, I would like to eliminate certain possibilities." Maintenon stood in a characteristic posture, hands clasped behind him.

Noel's mouth opened.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You must have a list of unrented boxes..."

Noel's eyebrows raised.

"Yes?"

"The autopsy will take a little time. In the meantime, we could check all of those boxes to see if there are signs of forced entry. I think we should open them up. At the very least. If there is even the slightest indication of forced entry, anything at all that looks wrong, we need to know that. The quicker the better. Non?"

"But, but...why, Inspector?"

"Well, for one thing, because a proper thief wouldn't know which ones were empty, would he?" Unless they had special knowledge. "Masson didn't exactly tunnel his way in there. He had four days, ostensibly. One man could do a lot in four days. The question is, what did he do? And if he took anything, how did he get it out? There was nothing of interest or real value on the body—not as far as we know."

Noel and Tremblay looked a little ill at all of this.

Noel spoke first.

"Tell me, Inspector Maintenon. Is there any chance that Daniel died...died of natural causes?"

"Yes. It is certainly possible."

Noel stared at him.

Gilles calmly stared right back.

"But you don't really believe that, do you?"

Gilles looked at Camille Grosjean, listening just as intently as the others.

"The problem is that we just don't know, gentlemen."

Grosjean stepped in and Maintenon had a chance to listen to the young man's thinking.

"Well, sir. It's just that the body was in plain view of the entrance when the vault door was open. It's difficult to believe that someone would close the door when the body was lying right there. We might assume he died in there, somehow, after the door was closed." He cleared his throat. "He could have been in there and didn't know what time it was, right? Closing time came along and someone snapped the door shut before he realized what was going on. Something like that. He got all stressed out and had a heart attack, right? Really, until we have some facts, it's all pure speculation. Which is what we're paid for, oddly enough."

All eyes turned back to Maintenon.

"Let's just say that we have questions. Many, many questions, gentlemen, and we'll leave it at that for the time being."

***

The morgue attendants had removed the body of Daniel Masson. Dr. Guillaume had been alerted by telephone. He was no doubt rubbing his hands in anticipation, eager to get to work as soon as it arrived, saws and scalpels, his little glass slides all lined up in a row.

They had the two civilians wearing gloves and looking a bit scared. It was highly-symbolic to have them there. A kind of shared liability. Cops tried to cover their asses when they could. No doubt it was the same in their industry.

Levain stood by his side, watching. Monsieur Tremblay, going from a list of unused boxes, began at the lowest number. They were checking them in sequence. The system was a fairly simple one. When a customer wanted their box, an employee of the bank used a guard key to access it. Those keys never left the building and were supposedly never out of the clerk's possession. They signed it in and signed it out for each transaction or 'service event' in their internal jargon. The numbered keys had their own lockup, under control of a senior employee, the head cashier. Each box had two unique keys, as explained by Tremblay and Noel. The clerk would then pull out the entire box. On top of the box, close to the front lip, was another lock-cylinder and keyhole. This was the one the customer would use, seated comfortably in curtained cubicles just off to the right of the vault's main entrance. There were no spare keys. If a customer lost their private key, the cylinder was drilled out by a bonded, master locksmith and a new key and cylinder installed. A simple security procedure.

"No system of security is ever really unbeatable, understand, Inspector. But we try to make things very hard for them—" Noel smiled deprecatingly, his face froze, and then he shut up again. "The thieves, I mean."

He looked sick to his stomach.

Tremblay pulled out a box and gave it a shake. There was nothing in it, but he took a numbered key from another employee, one Eugene Samuel. Samuel was a sallow, tall fellow in his mid-twenties. His baggy pants, slightly longish hair and red bow tie with little white thingies on it, stamped him as something of a hybrid. The white shirt with thin, pale blue stripes and the baggy sleeves was conventional enough in the lower echelons of the financial world. He would set great store in coming out of the back room wearing his green eye-shade and letting the wicket girls get a good look at him.

"What can I tell the employees, Inspector?"

"As little as possible for the time being, Monsieur Noel."

"I must make some calls."

Gilles nodded, patting him on the shoulder. Noel tore himself away, shuffling off like a man on the way to the guillotine.

Maintenon was timing it.

The box was pulled out, shaken, opened, and closed. There were a little over two hundred vacant boxes. It took at least a minute and a half for each one. They'd be a couple of hours at it yet, and what then? It would take some time to get even the most preliminary autopsy reports. There were other things he might be doing.

Tremblay showed Levain, who gave him a nod. Closing the lid, he inserted the end of the box back into its guide slots. He pushed it back firmly into place. Apparently the locks clicked in automatically with no need to actively relock it. Eugene accepted the numbered key, setting it off to one side in sequence. They were using a small folding card table for that purpose.

"Right, the next one is number sixty-five." Tremblay found it a little further down, in the next row of boxes.

Eugene handed him the key, ready to check that one off on the list.

This was taking forever. Gilles needed to use his time wisely. Time that was creeping inexorably along.

Tremblay pulled out the drawer, shook it, opened it, and showed it to Detective Levain. Once again the empty box was replaced, the key accounted for and the next number read out. This was one of the larger boxes, there were rows of them along the lower tiers of the head-high units.

Bending at the knee, Tremblay inserted the first key, turned it and pulled. The box came crashing out onto the floor just as Maintenon was turning to go.

"Oh, boy—"

Levain gently pulled Eugene back, as Tremblay stood there white in the face. Levain lifted it up and tilted it slightly. There was a heavy weight inside shifting around.

"Inspector—there's something in this one."

Chapter Four

The photography and fingerprint technicians stood by, peering over their shoulders.

"Open it."

His eyes sought Maintenon.

"That's number two-thirteen, sir."

"Thank you. You." His eyes impaled a uniformed gendarme. "Take good notes."

"Sir." The man checked his watch and pulled out his notebook.

Finding a fresh page, he busied himself with today's date and the location. He didn't have an incident number yet. Anything but contradict those cold dark eyes.

With the civilians looking aghast, Levain picked it up with a slightly-theatrical grunt. He carried it over and put it on the table.

Eugene hastily handed the customer key off to Levain.

Levain turned the top cylinder and lifted the lid very cautiously, using his pocket flash and peering carefully in from close range rather than just yanking it open.

Tremblay and Eugene Samuel stared, frozen in fascination.

Satisfied that it wasn't booby-trapped, Levain lifted the lid.

A flash-bulb popped. The fingerprint technician hastily shifted as the photographer stepped backwards and out of the way.

Maintenon came in for a look as Levain carefully lifted a heavy object out of the box. There were several more, much smaller items in there was well. There were more flashes.

He beckoned the photographer in for another shot.

"What is it?"

"Shut up, Eugene."

"That's all right, Monsieur Tremblay. Eugene." Gilles pursed his lips.

Gloves on, he lifted the thing and examined it.

"Huh." It had a pistol grip, and it was a good two or three kilograms of solid machined metal.

There was a rotating drill chuck on one end and what looked like a quick-release air fitting on the other. There were drill-bits and a chuck key in there as well.

"What do you think, Gilles?" Levain stood there, waiting before going on to the next box.

"It's a drill. It's also very bad news. Monsieur Tremblay—"

"Yes, Inspector?"

"I need to make a phone call." Gilles turned to Levain and the technicians. "Condense what we are doing into a simple routine. Check every damned one of these blasted vacant boxes."

"Protocols, sir?"

"Anything suspicious, anything at all, pocket lint, gum-wrappers, I don't care if it's a used condom, tag it, bag it, and send it to the lab. Document everything. Document the hell out of it."

"Yes, sir." The sentiment was echoed by the others.

Levain nodded.

With Tremblay at his elbow, Maintenon went looking for Monsieur Noel again.

***

After informing Antoine Noel of the situation, Gilles had them leave the room for a moment while he used the phone on the desk.

Chiappe had heaved a deep groan on hearing the news. There was nothing else for it.

He approved of the actions taken by Gilles and had asked his opinion of Grosjean.

Gilles' initial impression had been good and with no previous knowledge of the fellow, that was about all he could tell the Commissioner. This was always an uncomfortable question for a police officer. No one likes to be a snitch, and a new acquaintance might have been having a bad day or been under some unknown stress in the event of a bad impression. Gilles took a minute and told him all that too.

"Anyhow, sir, he seems pretty bright and he, ah, definitely has a sense of humour. He's smart enough to ask for help. That's more than can be said of some young officers. How long's he been a detective?"

"Yes, yes. Good. He was only promoted about eight or ten months ago. His partner's pretty green, too. You can keep him or get rid of him, whichever. That's the only reason I ask. Okay, Gilles. What do you want us to do now?"

Gilles shook his head in a kind of disgust. While homicide was definitely in his job description, he'd never worked a major bank robbery except as the most junior gendarme. And, while he'd done a thousand interviews, (more like ten thousand), involving pretty much every kind of criminal offence, he had never been in the inner investigative circle of a major bank robbery. In that sense, he'd had little idea of what was going on, which was not the best method of training or getting experience. Thirteen years on the force, plus a year and a half before the War. He'd barely been shaving at the time.

The hot-seat was nothing new.

"We need to look in those other boxes. We need to know what was taken. Only then, will we know where to look for it." Gold would be fenced or melted down, jewels recut, remounted or moved offshore, financial instruments, bearer-bonds; they could all be flogged off in various ways.

A lot of those criminal methods were known to police. Every so often, someone added a new wrinkle and that's what made life interesting.

Some of it might even be ransomed back to the original owners, or used for blackmail. What was a big operation for the criminals would become an even bigger operation for the authorities.

"Ah."

As Commissioner, Chiappe carried the big hammer as the saying went. Police had total charge of the crime scene. The bank would wish to reopen as quickly as possible and the customers would be wanting to know what was going on. The press would be screaming for answers from the front pages and the higher-ups would feel the small electric tingle of danger through their ass-bones.

The financial markets were very nervous lately. It was a ticklish political problem as much as anything else. Gilles didn't want to start opening boxes on his own initiative, not without higher authority backing him up—possibly to be hung alongside of him later. That much was only fair.

If anyone could come up with a solution, Chiappe could. His first instinct would be to pass the buck...further upwards. Hopefully he could pull it off, and rather quickly. Gilles explained as diplomatically as he could.

"Anyways, that's the situation as I see it, Jean."

"Right, Gilles." There was a pause on the line. "Give me a few minutes, and, uh...uh, we'll get back to you."

"Yes, sir."

They hung up and Gilles sat there for a moment thinking.

There was still plenty more to be done.

According to Grosjean, the people waiting in the staff room were about ready to riot.

***

With Grosjean and two uniformed gendarmes, as well as senior management flanking him, Gilles addressed the small crowd in what was actually a pretty sizable cafeteria. On upper floors, merchant and agricultural banking operations were conducted. There were a considerable number of staff, very few of whom had any business at all in his part of the bank. You couldn't just let them go running all over the place. Pale oval faces, eyes wide with interest, stared at him from their pastel tables and chairs. The whole place was ergonomically designed by someone who had trained at the Bauhaus, sarcastic as that might sound.

"All right, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patience. Officers have taken down your personal details. Has anyone been left out?" There were blank looks from a crowd of thirty or forty people and he nodded.

Staff arriving after the incident had been refused admittance by the gendarmes out front.

"We're going to read some names off of a list. Basically, you come forward, show identification. It's authenticated by a senior staff member. We send you home."

A hand shot up.

"Sir?"

Gilles raised his own hand, palm forwards.

"I'm afraid that's all I can tell you for right now. You can read about it in the papers." As Gilles knew from past experience, the press probably knew all about it by now.

They might even know more than him. They'd be calling all over the place and hammering on every door they could think of, trying to find out what was going on. All he knew was what he saw. The only facts were those which he determined for himself—and that wasn't saying much sometimes. At this point in time, he knew nothing.

At a signal from Maintenon, one of the gendarmes lifted his clipboard and began reading off names.

"The line forms to the left, people." They clustered by the door, some of the younger ones transfixed by the idea of an unexpected day off.

An excited babble of talk followed them across the room. The crime was a bit of excitement for them. Most of them had known Daniel Masson. There was surprisingly little grief evident, it was all too new perhaps.

They were young and there was much that they could do, on a sunny day in early spring. His heart wept sometimes.

Levain pushed his way in against the throng.

"Anything from Chiappe yet?"

"Non. What about you?"

Levain had that look on his face.

"Yes."

Gilles chewed on that one for a while, but there were too many people around, a lot of them watching the detectives like hawks. It was a small enough room, and their voices were going to carry—they really couldn't talk, especially before this honking, arm-beating gaggle of human geese cleared the door.

***

They had kept behind Noel, Tremblay, and the minimum of junior staff. The officers had thoroughly questioned the security guards. Ignace Gosselin and another man had been patrolling the building from six-thirty a.m. that morning. There were two guards on at all times, and theoretically that way they didn't sleep. According to the schedule, shift change was at seven a.m., but people habitually relieved early out of mutual convenience. It gave them time to exchange the shift reports and allowed the occasional latecomer some grace. They had a list of all the guards who had worked the weekend. It would be wise to locate them and get them under questioning as quickly as possible. There was much to do, all of it at breakneck speed. Gilles was on the phone and deploying manpower at an alarming rate.

Finally the two private security guards were let go. They would report the bad news to their employer and await their fate. From the looks on their faces, their hopes in this regard were not sanguine. Clearly both men expected to be sacrificed on the block of accountability. As for the cops' attitude, everything at this point was an open question and everyone, literally everyone was a suspect in a crime that hadn't even been confirmed yet. This was just as true for security as for any other employee with access to the inner workings of the bank.

Maintenon had his gut instinct in these matters. It was better to be prepared, to be too thorough, than to be careless, mistaken, and ultimately you were responsible for your own downfall.

He never made an assumption he didn't have to.

"All right. We have the place to ourselves." Heavily guarded on the outside front and back, it was a sealed crime scene for the time being. "I would like to get some idea of the basic routine of the bank, any bank really. Especially as it pertains to opening up, and more importantly, I think, of closing...closing out, as I believe it's called?"

Noel nodded.

"Yes, of course."

Gilles, had Monsieur Noel, with Tremblay playing the part of the security guard, go through all the motions. The other detectives stood watching and trying to figure out what was significant and therefore what notes they might take,

"So, Gosselin went through, turning on the lights and you, sir, headed for the office."

Emilie Martin had come in and Noel, kettle boiling, had handed off the vault duties to her. It was one of those impulsive little events that probably had little or no significance. All three of them were pretty regular at opening up, Noel mostly because he thought it showed a good example to junior employees. He was something of an inspiration and knew it. Of all of them, he was probably most capable of doing any job in the firm—and that extended, after going off on one or two tangents, to janitorial work, the accounting office and policy-making. The old fellow had started off behind the kiosk, not the usual story of privilege and nepotism, and Maintenon could certainly respect that.

There was always that little devil-figure sitting on the shoulder.

Did Noel get her to open up in order to have someone else discover the body...?

But why...?

It was a kind of applied, professional schizophrenia.

"And, as we can see, when closing the vault, the body would have been all too visible."

They moved the door back and forth.

There were mutters but no demur. It was self-evident.

According to routine, cashiers, the counter clerks, arrived at about a quarter to nine. Emilie assigned them a wicket, of which there were a dozen. They signed for a drawer full of cash, all pre-counted in predetermined quantities of fives, tens, twenties and other denominations. Individual drawers had an allotted count for each denomination of coin. At the end of the day, the drawer was turned in. The contents were counted and recorded. The result was compared with the record of transactions. Minor discrepancies, any shortfalls or overages were duly noted.

"Everyone has a minor discrepancy once in a while, of course." The banker, who had been pale and defeated for the last couple of hours, was beginning to display the first heat of anger. "Sometimes even a major one."

He was about to say, shit happens, but thought better of it.

Being questioned in relation to a crime was an unfamiliar position to be in, and he was nothing if not bright.

"How much money would be on deposit on a typical day?" Levain had his own list of questions and it didn't hurt to keep asking them.

Sooner or later someone would say something interesting.

"Ten, twenty million some days—paydays, end of the month, and more even. Sometimes a lot more, as we handle a substantial mortgage trade. Last week a property deal—please understand that this is confidential, but a deal went through for eight hundred seventy-five thousand. Land and buildings in an industrial area. We can make that up for payment out of our normal operating account. Bear in mind that a lot of transactions are purely paper."

A piece of paper went this way, signifying a charge, and a piece of paper went that way, signifying a payment. At the end of the cycle, everything was balanced out.

"But if there was much more?" Levain again, pondering the straightforward bank-robbery angle. "How much cash do you have on hand?"

If someone had access to the vault, and if they could get tools in there somehow, why not go for the big score?

"No, seriously. Ten or twenty million."

The banker shrugged.

"If a half a dozen deals go through, bearing in mind, we often have a heads-up. Cheques take seven days to even ten days to clear sometimes. More if we have concerns or if we have to wait for funds from somewhere else. A foreign bank for example. Basically we put in a call and it's advanced from the central banking facility to meet our expected needs." When he spoke of routine details and everyday operations, he seemed much calmer. "Over the course of time, our daily needs are quite predictable."

"Ah. And that's not here?" Levain was pressing, as Gilles was still thinking. "This is the big number one branch, right?"

Gilles was nothing if not intuitive, and yet it was early. It really paid to listen sometimes. Let Levain go. He had a completely different mind.

"Oh, no. It's from the central depository of the Bank of France. All of our deposits are insured, of course—" There was a cut-off limit, he explained, but ninety percent of all deposits qualified.

Maintenon's head jerked as he listened, the banker rattling off points one by one.

"The safety deposit boxes?"

"Ah, well. No—"

"Oh, really."

"Er, yes. That is the responsibility of the customer. For one thing, the box is private, and almost by definition we don't know what's in there..." He swallowed. "They are strongly encouraged to purchase insurance for the contents. Which we can do here, although they often go elsewhere. It's not strictly a requirement. That's what's so attractive about a private box in a bank—you have that privacy, plus the assurance of a bank's security."

He was going on, but Levain understood well enough.

"...but there are other issues, right?"

"Yes. Absolutely. It's very difficult to put a value on certain items. There are people who literally keep the silverware, and maybe the family jewels in a safety deposit box. It is the stuff of legends, but it is also true. It might be a priceless antique, passed down over generations, and they might travel. Security in the home is nowhere near as good. The insurance rates are astronomical. It's an ongoing charge against an item that's not returning any income. And yet it has value. There are too many burglaries and they read the papers. People keep their last will and testament, or the deed to their home in one of our boxes. The value of a piece of paper might be negligible. How do we estimate, the, ah, sentimental value if someone loses a photograph of their great-grandmother in an antique silver frame, studded with semi-precious stones?"

It was better to leave that sort of valuation to the insurance specialists.

Levain gave Gilles a look.

"Ah. Now I get you."

Gilles lifted his wrist and checked his watch.

Come on, Chiappe, where in the hell are you?

Chapter Five

They returned to the vault where the work was progressing.

On the left side of the vault, behind a row of bars and having its own internal door and lock, lay the cash repository. Ten or twenty million francs didn't seem to take up all that much space. The money, brought in and taken out by armoured car, was crated, boxed and bagged. The coinage was heavy and bulky compared to the notes. It all had to be counted, coming and going, accounted-for using proper procedures, and then the cash drawers made up for daily business.

The bulk of the money was lined up in rows on metal shelves. For that purpose, along the front wall of the main vault was a long bench, with storage for dozens of drawers underneath. The money was being counted, one block, one box, one bag at a time. This would take hours, possibly days, according to Monsieur Noel. The place and its stacks of cash, some sitting on open shelves in a thin metal locker, appeared to be untouched.

"Naturally, we need to make sure." He ground to a halt, swallowing, knowing the next part of his life was going to be very tough.

There was a kind of pain written all over him.

Maintenon watched the three young people work, with the detectives and the other civilians on the other side of the bars, banging and clashing the drawers. It sounded like they were in a hurry to get results, which was not exactly what he had asked for—careful and thorough was what he wanted.

Lorraine turned and eyed up her employer, her dark eyes latching onto first Maintenon and then lingering longer on Levain, still pulling out drawers one by one. She broke off the assessment, simple curiosity no doubt. She re-focused on the stacks of bills, in their paper sleeves, counting carefully.

"Inspector."

He turned and went back through the gate into the outer room.

"Yes?"

Levain crooked a finger.

There was another deep box, the small card table sagging under the weight. He had the lid open and there were small steel or polished-aluminum bottles inside.

"What have we got here?"

"Looks like gas cylinders, Inspector."

"Hmn. No hose—"

"No, sir, but don't worry. We'll find it."

"Okay. Keep going."

The civilians were looking pleased with themselves, the mature Tremblay, and the much younger Samuel. They had a box seat on the investigation and their fates were perhaps not so closely tied up in the events of the day. It was the sort of thing they'd be telling their grandchildren one day, and that showed in their manner.

Noel, on the other hand, was definitely for the chop. Gilles had seen the attitude before, during the war, when people suffered their first major artillery bombardment. It was a kind of shock.

You had learned that you could be killed, and probably would, someday soon. Very, very soon.

Gilles tipped his head up and idly moved around behind those working the security boxes.

There was a strip of lighting up high, shaded and made indirect by a white-painted sheet-metal valence. There were sprinkler heads, and a number of small ventilator grilles as well as cold-air returns. The ceiling of the supposedly-impregnable vault was studded with loopholes. With all of the steel units, there was no room on the floor for vents. There were no drains in the floor.

"Andre."

"Yes, boss?"

"Get a ladder in here." But things were happening again.

"Bingo." Samuel had just pulled out the drawer that Levain had abandoned in mid-stride.

"Never mind, I'll take care of it." Interrupting men in the middle of a task had always been a mistake in Maintenon's opinion.

He turned to Antoine Noel, back again for more punishment. The banker's eyes were wide as Levain and Samuel pulled out a short length of black hose, spiralled and rubberized black fabric by the look of it, with some very professional snap-fittings on both ends.

"Huh."

Andre's eyes glittered.

"Oh, my God."

"Yes, I know, sir. And I'm sorry. Uh...you must need to change the light bulbs in here once in a while. Would you have a ladder?"

"But of course—would you like that now?" He had a point, as there were already too many people in the room.

"Not right this minute, but where might I find it?"

Their one remaining uniformed gendarme half-raised a hand. LeBlanc, as Gilles thought. He was pretty sure he'd seen him around.

"I could go with him, sir."

"No, you stay here. The bank staff makes a record, and we make a record. Comprene vous?"

"Yes, sir." The fellow would have to make the best of it.

His hand would be aching by now.

All of those notes. It went with the territory. Gilles had been there, he had done that. You put your time in, down in the mud and the trenches. Your feet ached and the lower back screamed. Your mouth tasted like too many cigarettes. There was no place to throw a shit—there were all of the usual complaints.

"Please come this way, Inspector." Antoine Noel, with nothing better to do than watch his bank bleed, took his elbow gently and then let it go.

Maintenon followed him out.

"You have air conditioning in the building." It seemed to work a hell of a lot better than the decrepit old system down at the Quai.

It was distinctly chilly in the place. The smell was of floor wax and money and perhaps a kind of smugness. There was nothing more bourgeois than a bank.

Their footsteps clattered across the floor, the noise and light of the life outside the mute front doors making the interior, brightly lit but deserted, downright spooky in comparison. There was nothing worse than an empty building. The street outside was life itself compared to this. A bank without people in it was just as bad as anywhere else. They went to the central block of the building and Noel hit the button on the wall. There were three elevators.

"The bank is described as a fine example of Beaux-Arts design. We're equipped with all the modern amenities." Clad in stone, there was a framework of iron underneath, he told Gilles.

The fellow went quiet as a tall, slender young woman tap-tapped past on a set of impossibly high-heeled shoes.

Gilles couldn't quite stop himself. Although he knew he shouldn't, he turned for a quick inspection of her gimbal-like hip action. The thin dress left little to the imagination—that was for sure.

Once the door was closed, Monsieur Noel pushed the button for a sub-level and they descended.

***

"What do you think of Lorraine?"

It was an interesting question, coming out of nowhere like that.

"Lovely."

"Yes, well." The banker gave him a shy, sad grin. "We have some of the most beautiful girls in France working our counters. Possibly even the world. It's the sort of thing you can't put in a training-manual, but you'd be amazed."

The fellow had been telling him a little about his career in response to Maintenon's prompting. The banker knew his way around the building. As he explained, if the custodial staff missed something, he was ultimately responsible. The actual public parts of the bank were only a small fraction of what went on there.

"Amazed at what?"

"I once boosted sales, at a little branch in Orleans, by a good twenty-five percent. Over the course of two and a half years. It took some doing, but I got rid of a couple of old battle-axes at the front counter, and, uh, we brought in some really sweet young girls. Kids, really, but the previous manager had no imagination. We had to teach them how to talk to customers. Some people have worked here for years—other places too, and somehow missed learning it."

It was a revealing moment, and Maintenon filed that one away for future reference.

"...no idea whatsoever."

"Smart."

Antoine nodded, glory days indeed. None of that mattered now of course.

Gilles was drawing him out as best he could.

"After all these years, you must know a lot about human relations." Maintenon's tone was admiring.

If Noel was innocent, he really did feel sorry for him.

"Oh, I don't know. Not really." It was the first wrong note Noel had struck.

Like Gilles, he must have seen pretty much everything by now.

Antoine, after this brief rally, was showing his age and his grief more clearly.

The men were manhandling a three-metre stepladder up and out of the basement stairwell when Grosjean found them. The man actually snapped to a halt and saluted upon finding them.

"Sir."

"Yes."

"We have the go-ahead. Our paperwork is on the way." Chiappe must have found a happy judge or possibly one that was just drunk.

***

Trying to sleep was pure agony sometimes. It had been one hell of a long day. Night was sheer torment.

With the pressure on, and with virtually no way to proceed without further information, Gilles had spent a fitful night. The fact that his hip, his left knee, his lower back and his neck were bothering him had him wide awake at four in the morning. His mind just wouldn't shut off. So far there wasn't much for it to chew on. Gilles was so tired at this point that he couldn't even think straight anymore. There were times, maybe one couldn't sleep but at least a man could think. He might have solved a case or two over the years, simply because he'd had the time, the sheer blessed time, to think about it away from all distractions.

Pain, real pain, serious pain, was nothing if not a distraction. It was also a reminder of some rather hellish experiences in the War, and all of those old wounds seemed to be inflamed in sympathy.

Laying on the left side was the worst, laying on the right side not much better. He'd never been able to sleep on his back. It didn't hurt quite so much when he tried. On his back, the pain abated for a few minutes before coming back. The only problem was that he wasn't going to be able to sleep. The only way he could lay on his stomach would be to swap ends and stick his head out over the end of the bed. That clearly wasn't going to work. The edge of the bed would be going right across his Adam's apple. It had been like this for six days. A few more days of this and he'd be in tears.

Getting out of bed before six, a hot bath was the only thing that seemed to help, that and a couple of the narcotic pain pills the doctor had prescribed—ninety pills every two weeks. Over the years, Gilles had come to understand many things. One of which was that he was human and that all human beings had their weaknesses. Codeine was derived from opium. The real trouble was that it worked. It worked especially well with a couple of stiff glasses of cognac under your belt. Shortly after that, the pain was a distant memory, you felt you could beat any odds, and you couldn't quite understand why anyone would ever be against opiates.

And yet he was supposed to be a police officer.

He had thought himself strong, when he was as weak as the most miserable addict.

It was quickly becoming a dependency.

***

With the bank securely guarded and sealed as a crime scene, they were having an early-morning case conference prior to heading over there and continuing the investigation—assuming they could think of anything left to be done.

"Grosjean."

"Sir?"

"Any thoughts on the subject?'

"Well, Inspector. They're not going to like it." Camille was right about that.

The bank and its customers would be screaming like hell. He was referring to their blanket warrant, the ink still drying on the signature. That name, Alphonse Piffard, was one of the more socialist judges, as no conservative judge would have ever signed it. It really was kind of precedent-setting, and yet they were hoping for minimum fuss and maximum cooperation. It was a nice dream, and one that might still happen.

The situation was unique and the book couldn't help you sometimes.

"What I'm thinking, is to have the bank phone them, using their own employees, and asking the people to come in and check the contents of their boxes..." His idea was that the gendarmes could stand over them as they worked. "The headlines last night should have been enough. The bank's switchboard will be lighting up today."

If folks discovered a theft, the police would take down the details.

"Yes, yes."

The young man, on temporary secondment from his own unit, had brought along a partner whom they hadn't met yet. Detective Dufort appeared to be the strong, silent type, not having said one thing so far. He'd been testifying in another important case on Monday or he would have been in on it from the beginning.

Dufort had a tough and competent look about him.

"But, let's assume a theft from the bank. We have a dead man, an employee, found in the vault with no obvious signs of violence. Surely this suggests certain things."

With no desks of their own in this office, Camille Grosjean and Fabian Dufort, his partner, were looking distinctly uncomfortable. Fabian had grabbed an empty seat by the far wall, opposite Maintenon's desk, but his erstwhile partner had settled his buttocks on the front of another desk.

This one appeared fully equipped for work. There was no sign of the occupant, one Detective Firmin going by the bronze plaque on the front. Not exactly standard issue, the plaque was a birthday gift from his kid.

"The nuts and bolts of the investigation are one challenge. The theory of the crime is another—"

The phone picked that moment to ring and Andre Levain picked it up.

"...we simply must have a theory of the crime." It was one of Maintenon's little bugbears.

"Hello?"

Levain put his hand over the mouthpiece.

"It's Doctor Guillaume."

They froze in place and listened for all they were worth.

Chapter Six

"Hello, Guillaume."

"Eh. Hello, Gilles. How's it hanging?"

Maintenon snorted softly, grateful that Levain, needing the bathroom or something, had put his phone down and left the room. None of the others quite had the nerve to listen in.

"So, what have you got for us, Doctor?"

"Well, Gilles. You are going to love this." Guillaume would be grinning fiendishly.

"Merde, I hate it already—"

"I can't find anything."

"What?"

"We're still looking. Okay, so he puked and all of that. The man's heart stopped rather suddenly. We have all the signs of heart failure, ah. You have to admit that, and yet he appears rather fit and healthy for all the fact that he's gone. I've spoken to his physician. There was no history of anything related to the heart. His heart stopped, but it was physically intact, showed no signs of anomalies, and there were no embolisms. We'll keep looking, Gilles. That much I can promise you. But there are all the so-called untraceable poisons, and then God knows what. Everything takes time. I wish I could do better, Gilles. There are no signs of death by natural causes." He was being only slightly facetious. "As for the apple, we've sent it to the lab. That's because apple is one of the things we can easily identify in the contents of the gentleman's stomach."

"So."

"Yes, Gilles. He'd already eaten at least one apple."

If the man had spent four days in the vault, where was the solid human waste disposed of? There had been no sign of it in the unrented boxes. But it might be in a rented box that had not been opened yet. It might have been bagged in oilcloth or rubber bags, and the boxes were relatively tightly-sealed. In another drawer, four jars containing urine had been found, their zinc lids tightly screwed on. There were a couple of empty jars as well, so far no identifiable fingerprints had been lifted from them, although it was difficult to see anyone other than Daniel bringing them in. What they had found, was one box with cigarette butts, ashes, used matches, and the wrappers from candy, dates, chocolate. There was no uneaten food except for one apple. Would that have been enough to live on for four days?

That depended on the motivation, for one such as Daniel Masson. That was another extremely relevant question. Gilles wished his mind would shut up sometimes. This sort of thing was not exactly unheard-of, it was the circumstances that were extremely suspicious.

"Oh, for the love of God." The headache that this case was, was getting worse.

Doctor Guillaume went on to talk about stomach contents. There were various poisons, and various tests. It would be helpful to know what they were looking for, for all of this would take time.

"Look, Gilles. No one has ever died of nothing before—and this is a young guy, in the prime of life. A man found dead in a vault that shows every signs of having being robbed. But I thought I had better give you a call—and let you deal with Chiappe and others, the, uh, you-know-whats."

Argh.

He let the doctor go after a few more desultory questions. He filled in Grosjean and his partner on the details, bringing scowls but no major inspirations.

"Other than that, Dr. Guillaume's preliminary report will be along shortly."

The morning papers lay on his desk. The headlines screamed, conveying outrage and stirring up paranoia.

"What about our other evidence?"

"Hopefully that's where Andre's gone. They should have something for us by now. What with the guard keys, and all kinds of duplicates made up, what a long and laborious process that must have been. Merde. With four days to work, a person could get into any number of boxes..." And yet virtually nothing about the incident made any sense at all.

"How did they get the money, or presumably, some other valuables, out of the vault? Assuming they did. Among other things."

Good question as it was, they had run out of daylight. Heavy storms had arisen before anyone really came to grips with that. It had been a wild night weather-wise and there were trees and power lines down all over the place. It was simply too dangerous to allow men up on the roof during an electrical storm of any great magnitude.

An examination of the roof had just had to wait until today. Gilles lifted his feet back onto the end of the desk, wondering where Levain had gotten off to. As soon as the technical people called, they could round everybody up and get back to the crime scene. Also, there were about a hundred follow-up interviews that needed to be conducted.

The technical people had gone up on the ladder. A closer examination of the ceiling heating vents inside the vault had revealed nothing unusual with the heating and cooling system. The cold air vents were different in that the slot screws on one vent showed signs of use. There were shiny cuts and flecks of paint missing. The screws on all the rest were heavily overpainted. When the grille was removed, it was bagged up for evidence along with the screws. The electric motor that should have been mounted just inside the opening was missing. The wires, neatly capped with tape to avoid short-circuit, were hanging in the cavity. A typical seventy-five millimetre air duct was now open from end-to-end. With three out of four suck-out fans working, presumably no one would have noticed. The box that the fan was mounted in had been laboriously removed, all of this presumably working from the top of a ladder. No sign of these materials had been found so far. For whatever reason, none of the fan parts had been found in the boxes. Presumably, the work had been done well ahead of time, and taking the materials out would tend to avoid premature discovery in the event of the wrong empty box being rented...

Peering up and around the corner with dental mirrors and flashlights had revealed something—the end of a rubber hose or something like that, only they were having the devil of a time snagging it and it was still in the vent. With gendarmes swarming all over the place, protecting the crime scene, it wasn't going anyplace. That was small consolation.

Sooner or later, he had to make some decisive move. Otherwise they were just a bunch of cops sitting around in a room with their heads up their asses, figuratively speaking. Andre came back in with a cluster of thin sheets in his hand. Hopefully that would be some of the lab reports, and he had the usual big envelope full of photos. They might begin by having another look at them, and Gilles scowled at the futility of that.

The phone rang and Levain picked up.

He mouthed the word Chiappe.

Sighing deeply, Maintenon's hand hovered for a moment while he tried to decide what to tell the boss-man.

***

There was a long, low black car waiting at the curb in front of the Crédit Lyonnais when their little cavalcade arrived. There were three or four people waiting at the door, bundled in thick long coats and huddled against the strong northeast wind.

A young man climbed out of the driver's side of the Mercedes, hastening around to let his passenger out. It was Antoine Noel, looking like he'd spent a sleepless night as well. He probably had, in fact.

"Ah, Monsieur Noel. Another rotten morning, and why not say so?'

The banker looked a little shocked and Gilles wished he hadn't said it. They both had enough problems already.

"Hmn. Inspector Gilles Maintenon, I would like you to meet my son..." The gentleman trailed off as if searching for some proper label or description. "Maurice. Maurice Noel."

Maurice, dropping his chin and regarding the police with humorous eyes, extended a hand and shook with Maintenon and Levain. He was a tall, well-built young man of about twenty-eight. His hair and mustache were impeccable, fingernails neatly trimmed.

Some police officers might learn something from him.

"I'm a driver."

Levain nodded thoughtfully. He knew the type.

"Hmn. Pleased to meet you, Monsieur Noel." Maintenon was less judgemental than Levain, perhaps.

"Shall we go up, then?" The elder Noel had a heaviness in his tread as he climbed the stairs, his son at his side, steadying him with one hand on the upper arm.

The young man found Maintenon's eyes upon him. He was even better-dressed than his father and a lot less conservative. The old man wore brown with pinstripes and a plain white shirt, and the usual clunky black oxfords. He had a red bow-tie. The younger man tended to the sharp American zoot-suit look. He wore a soft, hand-knitted charcoal black jacket, and lighter grey trousers, big at the top and tapering down quickly to the cuffs. The gentleman wore saddle shoes. The heavy weight of a flask, probably silver, dragged at one side of his coat. His shirt, with the knock-off collar, must have cost fifty or a hundred francs, having the look of real silk and in that canary yellow to boot. The only thing that could possibly go with that would be grey or black, and in fact he wore a grey and black silk tie.

"Papa hasn't been feeling very well this morning." He seemed embarrassed by the disclosure.

"Shut up, Maurice."

"I'm sorry, Papa, but it's true." Maurice, who had a scar running up from the left corner of his lip but displaying an otherwise placid countenance, had genuine concerns about his father. "I want you to promise, you'll take it easy, okay?"

"Yes, yes, of course, Maurice—"

Maurice eyed the detectives.

"Father has an ulcer."

"Ah." They nodded in professional empathy.

Most of them had ulcers too. It was that kind of industry.

They were at the top of the stairs and the senior gendarme was holding the door open.

"Er. Have a good day, father."

"Yes, you too, Maurice—"

Father and son exchanged a quick and awkward hug, which was touching. The young fellow gave the rest of them an unreadable look. Whatever he was, he was a cool young professional about it.

He could see the impact on his father better than they ever could. Perhaps that was it. Maurice held his old man by the shoulders for a moment of unspoken communication, and then he scuttled down the stairs to where the gleaming black car idled at the curb.

Gilles filed it away.

Maintenon ushered them all in and they could finally get out of the cold wind. Turning for one last glance through the suddenly rain-specked window, he watched the Mercedes' flashing signal and then it pulled out into traffic.

***

It was as silent as the tomb except for the footsteps of the few employees they were admitting.

"All right, Monsieur Noel. I have to get my men up on the roof before those blasted thunderstorms return. I will come back down shortly and we can speak some more then, n'est-ce pas?"

"Er, yes. Of course." A defeated-looking Antoine Noel shuffled vaguely in the direction of the offices and his kettle.

For Monsieur Noel, the morning ritual would never be quite the same again.

A fresh face, wearing the blue of a regular patrolman in their private security garb, gave him a pleasant nod.

"Gentlemen. There is a hatch onto the roof."

The senior gendarme held up a jangling ring of keys.

"It's at the top of the stairs, sir."

"All right. Grab that ladder and follow me." Two men trotted off to get the ladder.

Their footsteps and voices loud in Maintenon's ears, the rest of them followed him up two steps at a time. For one thing, Maintenon wasn't a big fan of elevators, for another, there were just too many of them.

It was at the end of a hall, right at the back of the building on the upper floor. Some buildings had steps going up to a landing and a simple man-door to the exterior. The central block was much taller than the two wings, which indeed had such doors. A quick sweep revealed nothing of interest. The air vent stacks clearly went up to the full height of the building. With no iron-runged ladder in this application, it would be a good four-metre drop to the floor from the lip. Assaulting a bank from the roof wasn't unheard-of. This worked best in a single-story branch of a bank. People had literally cut a hole in the roof. It was noisy, attracted attention whether it was done in the middle of the night or the broad light of day. It had to be carried out in minutes. In short, it was an impossible job in a major city like Paris. Whoever had pulled this particular crime had at least had the luxury of time.

"Careful now."

Two uniformed officers opened up the big step ladder and braced it. The sergeant climbed it carefully, keys in hand.

With a few keys to choose from, it seemed to take forever. It took a dozen tries. It was a simple padlock, and he was working with his gloves on in case of fingerprints.

Something was very remiss and they were taking all precautions.

Finally he had it. He came down and they put the lock aside for the moment on a window ledge.

"Marc."

Gilles had seen one or two around before but didn't know any by name.

Maintenon raised his eyebrows but said nothing. One of the junior men went up the ladder and braced himself. He gave a careful heave. The hatch was solid steel, but necessary for roofing inspections and cleaning drains, as well as washing windows. This happened once a year for most major buildings. Men dangled over the side on cables and platforms. This wasn't Maintenon's idea of fun. Being a police officer had exempted him from the real world of work, in some ways.

The man climbed up and out.

Maintenon turned to Monsieur Tremblay, who was assisting them.

"I need a phone."

Tremblay led him down one level. The stairwell was amazingly clean. It smelled like lemons, and carbolic soap.

"There will be one in this office here."

He used his master key to open up what looking like a low-level executive's office.

"Gilles."

"Argh."

He made the journey back up the steps again, getting minor twinges of pain from his knee, voices from above echoing off hard stone walls.

There was not one soft or friendly surface in the entire place.

It was Levain, at the base of the ladder.

"What, Andre?"

"They say they've got something." He pointed a finger upwards.

Turning, he waited for another man to clear the top of the ladder and then with a nod at the two bracing cops, began to climb as thick maple rungs and runners bent and heaved under the weight.

That was one shitty ladder.

"Merde."

Gilles hurried back down. If they were going to be going up and down all day, then someone had better get a bigger, heavier ladder in there straight away.

"The phone, the phone, my kingdom for a phone..."

Tremblay coughed and politely stood by the window so as not to eavesdrop.

Maintenon made a lightning call to the technical branch down at the Quai and explained what he needed and why he needed it. Their reassurances were fulsome, for whatever that was worth.

Sooner or later a bigger ladder would most likely turn up.

When he got back to the upper hallway again, one of the two remaining gendarmes was just about to go up.

"No. Stay here, no matter how bored you people get. Understand? No one goes up or down that ladder without the two of you bracing it."

"Yes, sir."

Maintenon took in some air and began to climb.

"Thank you." Elevators were one thing, but Gilles was fine with ladders—until you got to the top, and that was when you had to let go and reach for the edge of the hatch.

It wobbled alarmingly from side to side. Industrial safety was a joke in some occupations. They just never thought it important. Senior staff hardly ever used the ladder, and when they did, it was some working-class son of a bitch taking all the risks while they got all the rewards.

That last part was a bit different, but he made it up all right, with Tremblay and an unfamiliar young officer steadying him by the armpits. They wouldn't let him fall. He clambered up and over. It had been a very long time since he went over the top—

It was beginning to show.

***

The roof was flat. It was much like any other roof. There would be some kind of a metal bed over steel trusses, with a rubber bladder to keep out the water and pea gravel to protect it from the sun and to walk on. It was all heavily-tarred and sticky with the heat.

The surface heaved around substantially, a reminder that all human constructions were flawed.

There were puddles in the low spots where the drainage was poor.

"Over here, sir."

Levain was keeping them back, their grubby hands off of whatever it was.

Thunderheads rumbled on the northeastern horizon.

"Oh, for the love of God." Gilles grabbed a gendarme. "I want you to go down with Monsieur Tremblay. He'll show you the phone."

The man was right there at his elbow, all wide-eyed at the cluster of officers and the sight they were obscuring if that made any sense...

"What do we need, sir?"

"We're going to need more people. I want a tent or something to put over that hatch. Tarps. We need the lab people up here on the double. Oh—and bag up that lock...right?"

"Sir."

The idiots pelted off in the direction of the hatch.

"Hey."

The pair of relatively-young men slid to an abrupt halt, feet rasping on the loose gravel, deep in some places and thin or even missing in others.

"No running on the roof."

"Sir."

"Monsieur Tremblay."

"Er, yes, sir?"

"Don't let Monsieur Noel come up here...right?'

Face pale and yet illuminated by an understandable excitement, Orson Tremblay nodded soberly and then turned away.

Chapter Seven

The object of their examination was right beside some kind of vent-stacks, mushroom-capped on the end to keep out the elements.

There should also be some kind of grate or screening in there, to keep out birds and squirrels and such. Levain pulled the sopping canvas tarpaulin back. A man stepped forwards as Levain waited. The technician raised a camera and snapped a series of pictures.

"Okay."

Levain went on, and another officer took the tarpaulin away for tagging and bagging as evidence.

"Well, well, well. What have we here—"

"It's some kind of infernal machine."

Gilles almost laughed aloud, but Grosjean had hit the nail on the head.

Gilles, looking around. There were sodden and slowly-dissolving cigarette butts, disturbed gravel and other signs of heavy use on this part of the roof.

"Shit." He beckoned the photographer forward and got him to blanket the area.

The fellow took pictures from all angles.

Gilles got carefully onto his knees. There was sense here, only he really wasn't an engineer.

"This is obviously some kind of petrol engine." It had one cylinder, air-cooled, a carburettor and an exhaust.

There was a heavy base, and an enclosing framework.

There was a fuel tank, and a spark plug, and a pull-handle for starting. There were three red tins lined up, presumably for fuel. Levain picked each one up in turn. Two were empty, mere drops inside, the third still held some petrol.

Gilles had owned a car once, but it was more a liability in a town with no parking. This was distinctly out of his experience. It was the machine, connected by some kind of clutch, on the other end that was different. There was a chamber, and what might be an air filter, and connections for air hoses.

"It's not a generator." Levain appeared stumped.

"An air pump?"

Maintenon looked up, impressed. Grosjean had hit on it.

Looking around, there was a series of bundles, lined up against the wall of the upper story.

They were bags of hoses.

"No. It's a vacuum pump." How he knew that, Gilles had no idea, but they were definitely onto something. "Ha. It's a suction-pump."

The boys rocked back on their heels on hearing it.

Maintenon had his own gloves on. There were four vent stacks lined up in a row. The one furthest to the left, or towards the wing of the building housing the vault had an odd slant to its top. He grabbed it and gave it a light nudge and it moved slightly. The screws or rivets that should have been holding it on appeared to be missing. Trying the next one, it was solid as a rock, but then the fasteners were all still in place.

"Hmn"

His eyes found Levain.

"Gilles?"

"Be thorough."

Levain nodded.

"And you?"

"I'm going back down." His eyes swept the rooftop.

There was the centre section and then the two lower sections.

"We'll have to examine the entire rooftop. If there was somebody up here, they had to get up and down somehow. Which reminds me—use gloves at all times, and that includes coming and going, up and down." He could have kicked himself.

Now that they knew where to look, surely they should have checked the bank's ladder for prints first, or used their own ladder right from the beginning. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. Rough wood wasn't so good for fingerprints, but one never knew.

Levain turned away, to organize their small gaggle of men and take another sweeping look at the blackening horizon.

***

Gilles was back at the Quai, having left most of his people at the crime scene. It wasn't like he didn't have enough to do already. He had a dozen other cases on the go. It was quite the intellectual challenge sometimes. A gentleman from the maker of the vault, one Yvon Allard, the technical representative from the company, sat across from him.

Allard was a slightly-paunchy, slightly-pompous man of about forty-five. His eyes were clear and he seemed very professional. He had a belly, but then they all did these days. He'd come up from Lyon, where the company had its headquarters.

"Well, there's no sign of tampering." He had provided a series of technical drawings, and a handful of colourful sales brochures for the safety vault in question.

Apparently it was a fairly standard model. They had built dozens for Crédit Lyonnais and other companies over the years.

There was a paper logging tape, and any event, that was to say any time the door was opened or closed, an impression was made. The time and date were automatically stamped on the tape.

Allard had removed the paper reel for them, and it had been secured as evidence.

A review by Allard and their own technicians had shown no such impressions outside of the normal operating time-frame, and therefore no one could have possibly entered the vault outside of those windows of time.

"I have a dumb question. Is it possible for someone to pretend to close the vault, without actually doing so?"

Monsieur Allard scowled at him. From a purely technical point of view, red lights should have changed to green upon the successful closing of the door. Essentially, the wires would have to be crossed. Any innocent staff member using it could hardly fail to notice that red lights should have been green and vice versa.

"No, not really—because there are impressions showing the door was closed." For some reason there was the element of doubt in his voice.

Perhaps he had never really thought of it.

Maintenon was a man who hated assumptions but loved suppositions, according to press accounts.

"What if someone closed the door and then sort of unlatched it again? Assuming they were in a trusted position and no one else was around?"

"I really don't think that's possible, Inspector..." Yet there was this speculative look in his eye. "Honestly, that would show on the tape."

"As long as we have you in town for a while, would you mind going back to the bank and having another look? We really need to have definitive answers."

"No, of course not."

There was the faintest tinge of doubt, but it was there. Allard was wondering if Maintenon was mad or something, or maybe just being a pain in the ass.

Gilles sighed, deeply.

Once he got rid of the gentleman, he must call Chiappe.

He had a dozen other calls to make.

"So, how exactly does the system work?'

The fellow brightened up. People loved to talk about their jobs.

"It's very simple. The time lock is set for the morning, usually a half an hour or forty minutes before the doors open. Once the time lock snaps, only then can the employees get into the vault. It takes a combination code, the tumblers must be set to the correct position. Then they pull the handle and the door will open. There are many safeguards." Allard idly picked a bit of lint from the upper arm of his hounds-tooth jacket. "However, the door can be locked at any time. What's interesting in this particular model is that when an alarm is tripped, the door is automatically closed and locked by electrical motors and an electromagnetic solenoid."

"I see. It doesn't take two people?" Gilles made minor notes.

"No, that's not really necessary. There is armed security, alarms both passive and active, and the nearest police sub-station is mere blocks away." He thought for a moment and then went on. "The big Swiss banks maybe. They might be holding more like a half a billion in gold, where this little branch only had a few mil...no gold, right, all in currency."

"Ah...how would you go about getting into a vault like the one at the bank?"

The man grinned sourly.

"Totally off the record?" Considering the nature of his employment, this sort of talk was strictly a no-no.

"Of course."

The gentleman thought about it for a moment, then he nodded.

"I would go in during business hours. Three or four people, no more—I would make an appointment with Monsieur Noel. I'd see the man about a home purchase, a big business deal or something. I would have two cars, not one. Hell, three or four cars. My people would be armed. I would persuade Monsieur Noel to order the employees to cooperate. We, or one of us, would take him into the vault. But under those circumstances, the vault would already be open—and if the alarm didn't go out immediately, it would be tripped the second we got out the door. This is why we would take Monsieur Noel hostage. I would drag a desk or a heavy chair in there, stick it in the entrance so that damned door doesn't close on me...ah. Set off a smoke bomb and take him with us, even if we just dumped him two blocks up the street."

Gilles agreed. Such plans had succeeded in the past, relying on speed, surprise, and having exactly the right number of professional actors. The criminals would be unusual for the type, with the discipline to do what they were told, and do it well. They would have the experience to know when to improvise in the event of something going wrong. In a word, professionals. Very seldom did an amateur or a lone wolf succeed—certainly not with much more than the contents of one or two cash drawers.

Allard said as much.

"Bear in mind. Just yanking the cash drawers and filling up a few bags, running out the door is only going to net you ten, twenty thousand. In most cases I would say a lot less, and that's on a good day." He thought further, not that this didn't fit in with Maintenon's own impression.

He laughed.

"The best way to rob a bank would be to own it. Fake up some paperwork, and transfer a load of bullion to a country with no extradition treaty—" He stopped on seeing the look on Maintenon's face.

"Tell me, is it possible to rig the wires on the door..." Gilles didn't quite know how to put it.

"No, because you'd have to open the access panel, which, for security, is inside the vault and not outside. You have to understand electricity, and when the door was open, the light would be green when it really ought to be red, comprene?"

"Is there no way to override the lock mechanism? What about an electrical failure?"

"No, although I know what you're thinking. Look, when the power goes out, the door is either open or closed. It can't be opened without electricity, not once it's locked, but it can still be closed. There's a hand-crank, a bit laborious but it works. Trust me, we've been doing this for years. If the power goes out and the door is open, bank employees have to be able to close the vault. They usher all their customers out of the building. It's the same in any retail operation—what with shoplifting and all of that. When the lights go out in a thunderstorm, store security, shit, all the employees, they round people up and shove them out the door. But basically, just cutting power really isn't the key."

Maintenon nodded, heavily. It was more or less his own analysis, confirmed by an expert.

"I see. Well, thank you." Gilles stood up and they shook hands.

The man was sometimes an expert witness, valuable for his court testimony. Life being what it was, they had never crossed paths before. Gilles wondered just how good he actually was. Vaults weren't that complicated, when you thought of it.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Inspector—when I see your name in the paper, we know this is going to be a good one. That's what I always tell the wife, anyways." He grinned from ear to ear, not being much of a suspect and knowing it.

"Thank you—if only it was that easy."

Now that the interview was over, the gentleman beamed on being presented with Maintenon's card.

Detective De Garmeaux from the Second Arrondissement arrived for another conference on the Kleber case, which was coming before the courts first thing Monday morning.

***

After a long talk with de Garmeaux, it was Chiappe's turn. The Commissioner was in and looking pretty informal, which implied a long day of purely administrative work. He was dictating letters by the look of it.

The Boss was in an unusually good mood. The fact that they couldn't do much about it might have been one reason. There had also been a bit of a downturn in plain, everyday violence in the City of Light. Poor old Jean couldn't help but think he had something to do with it. He had been extensively praised in a recent editorial and that was always a good thing for this most political of animals.

"Yeah, it's a real can of worms, Gilles."

"Under the auspices of our warrant, we're calling selected individuals first. Monsieur Noel and his staff are helping us out with that, insofar as they are familiar with the, er, personalities involved."

"What do you mean, personalities?"

"Fuck. Seriously, Jean. A prominent star of film and stage, millionaires, industrialists and singers. A couple of bishops for crying out loud. One or two little old ladies who might presumably be keeping the silverware and not otherwise having much to hide in the sense of scandal or privacy issues..." The issues were perhaps not so obvious. "The publicity hounds will be the worst."

"Ah."

"What about the autopsy? What's Doctor Guillaume saying?"

"Hey, Jean, if the man had anything for us, he would have called—"

"All right, Gilles. Proceed as best you can, and try and keep us out of trouble if you can possibly do it."

He was dismissed from Jean's presence. Chiappe had his head down and appeared to be studying his appointment book. When he looked up and squinted at the clock, his lips were moving in some silent paean to Kronos, the god of Time.

Benjamin winked, twirling a pencil, in a brief moment of time with not much to do or maybe he just needed to think about things for a minute.

***

Gilles had been suffering a little bit of back pain, nothing out of the ordinary, and then one day, when he woke up in the morning, it was excruciating. He was familiar with the dull, gnawing ache from the hips and lower back. It was a legacy of Verdun. A fourteen-inch shell, possibly Boche, (but just as likely one of their own), had destroyed their dugout and tossed logs, corrugated sheet steel and men around like little bits of balsa wood and pink tissue paper.

This was something different, and there was a kind of consternation. It had been so long, he had quite forgotten the intensity. It had been a good year or more, possibly a lot longer in his hazy memory, since he'd felt that kind of shocking agony. He had forgotten what it was like, lying in bed, all night long, unable to get away from the pain and knowing you weren't going to sleep a wink.

You had to work in the morning.

It was equal in intensity to his worst-ever bout of the lumbago, as the quacks called it, a catch-all term for low back pain. That time it had lasted six weeks and he'd been on the verge of insanity by the end of it. If it wasn't for Ann, he might have done it.

"Does the fact that I'm naked bother you?"

Gilles laughed.

Oh, God.

He sat there grinning. The doctor was fully dressed. He had a clipboard in one hand and his studious look included silver-rimmed glasses. Georges was an intense, powerfully-built man of about twenty-four and Gilles found him endlessly intimidating. Yet it was no worse than any other doctor. The real problem was the controversy—the medical community hated practitioners who eschewed dope of any kind and believed that all disease, and therefore all treatment, stemmed from dislocations and manipulations of the spine.

One guy swore by it, another man swore at it—it was all nuts and they were just taking your money.

Like Levain, Georges might have had a crushing grip, but he had also learned to be gentle.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I adjust the vertebral columns of six year-old children and ninety year-old women. They're quite bird-like, some of them, let me tell you. But first, some information."

Gilles had to respect the fact that the fellow took copious notes and had models of spines and vertebra. There were posters of human anatomy plastered all over the walls. He had a reassuring number of professional certificates and diplomas. They were hanging on the wall behind the desk.

"Please, have a seat on the bench."

"Er."

"Let's just pull your shirt out. You can leave your pants on."

"Argh."

"I'm just doing to do a quick assessment here."

The doctor ran strong fingers up and down his spine.

"Okay, up you get."

Georges made him walk down the hallway in his stockinged feet. His gait was relatively normal. It sure as hell didn't feel normal. Gilles had found that a long, hot shower took a good bit of the pain away. He'd had couple of swigs of brandy before leaving the office, Firmin for one giving him a good, old fashioned look, but otherwise saying not much at all. Alcohol and codeine were the only things keeping him sane these days.

That and the fact that he had a job to do and strongly disapproved of homicide.

As for Firmin, he had enough problems of his own as the saying went.

Gilles sat on the bench again as the fellow worked over the column of muscles going up and down the back alongside of the spine. He had to admit, his own ideas on the spinal column were unclear. Gilles was paying a man thirty francs to give him a series of hugs or something.

And perhaps that was just—so much of medicine was psycho-somatic, the power of suggestion, the power of personality being what it was and what human beings were. It might have something to do with strength and resilience being passed from one spirit-animal to another.

The thoughts came out of nowhere sometimes.

"Okay, I want you to lie on your left side." The doctor pulled his left shoulder forwards and made him draw up his right leg.

Standing there with one hand on his right shoulder and one on his hip, the doctor spoke.

"I want you to totally relax. It's better if you don't try and fight me here..."

Gilles nodded, miserable with the helplessness. There was this neediness of having another person's hands all over your body and it was a perfect stranger—you were praying for relief, a miracle cure. If this went on too long, he'd have a witch-doctor blowing air up his backside and waving burning grass around in front of his face.

"Yes, sir."

The doctor laughed.

"All right. That's the spirit, lads."

Gilles grimaced, the allusion not lost on him. It would always be an unpleasant memory for all concerned, especially those who were still alive.

What Gilles was expecting might have been a good question, but what actually happened was a bit of a revelation. The doctor pulled his shoulder forward and centred him up. He placed one hand on a hip, and the other on his shoulder. Gilles could tell that he would be pushing them apart by the light pressure. One more second, oh, God...just trust the guy. The doctor lowered his weight, stiff-armed.

His back, especially the mid and lower sections, snapped in a series of clicks, cracks and pops. It sounded like the zipper of a cheap jacket being pulled down.

"Oh. Oh, nom de Dieu."

The doctor stood beside him, looking a bit pale himself.

"I'm sorry, sir. Can you tell me what's happening?"

Gilles recovered his dignity.

"Holy. I'm all right, it's just I've never been before."

"Ah. How do you feel—"

"I don't know."

Gilles made as if to move.

"All right, all right. Gently as she goes, there. I want you to turn over and we'll do the right side. Can you do that for me?"

Gilles, ever so carefully edging his way on what was a damnably narrow little bench, thought he might be able to do just that. He monitored his body, wondering when the next big spike of pain would hit.

So far it hadn't happened.

He managed to get over without major problems. This time he took careful note of what he doctor was doing, the position of his hips and shoulders, the tug of tension on this muscle or that.

There was some element of shock involved.

It struck Gilles that there might be some science here after all, not just another snake-oil salesman peddling one more miracle cure. Archambault had told him about chiropractic, and insisted that Gilles must try it before giving up on life and moving into a convalescent home.

When he'd exhaled and lay limp and unyielding, the doctor put his weight down across him again and this time he had more time to savour the experience of a man's spine being wrung out completely, just like a wet dishrag.

He would ask about the metaphysical aspects of chiropractic care the next time he was in—that is, if there was a next time.

As yet, he wasn't too sure about that. The relief was immediate, and that bore some consideration.

"Ah...."

"What's happening...can you tell me?"

The doctor was looking anxious. Of course, he'd heard the name Maintenon, and might have had some trepidations.

"Oh, ah, er. It's good. It's good, doctor." Gilles had been expecting to go out worse than he'd come in, and only a sense of desperation could have gotten him in there in the first place.

He was stubborn enough to want to prove Archambault wrong.

If this actually worked, it would be some kind of miracle. If no one could help him, sooner or later he would either kill himself, or simply starve to death by sheer bodily neglect.

At some point, they would be doping him up with morphine and feeding him through a tube.

They would be wheeling him around in a basket.

Chapter Eight

There was a low, dull ache down low in the right hip and that was it. He was already moving and walking better. There was some fear that if he moved the wrong way, that horrendous pain could come back. Walking down the stairs was better. He'd been thinking of moving somewhere where a man could live on a ground floor. Sitting in the car was better, getting in and out was better.

"So, how did it go, sir?"

"Hmn. Very well, constable."

Renaudin's clear grey eyes assessed him thoughtfully in the rear-view mirror.

Everything was better.

His biggest worry that it was only temporary and that the pain would come back.

Back at the office, the phone was ringing when he came in and the other detectives were engaged on their own lines. Firmin was there, and Archambault, looking slightly ill these days, and then there was LeBref, feet not quite touching the floor.

There were times when Maintenon wondered what it all meant. How important was it? What if it was some other fellow doing this exact job, sitting in this exact chair at this exact desk? What difference would it actually make? The Paris city police detachments required exactly x-number of officers to police y-number of citizens. Almost anyone might do, and among that imaginary number, some officers would be good. Some would be bad, and some would be indifferent. The net effect would, most likely, be exactly the same, resulting in exactly the same level of police effectiveness. Admittedly, on a case-by-case level, this would have different results, the human element being what it was.

He could let it go and the people on the switchboard would take a message. In an hour or a day, a little sooner maybe, it would wend its mysterious way up from down below. It would wind up on this desk where there was a tendency to ignore it. Who knew. Another man might have done just that.

He gave an odd little grunt, trying to remove his jacket and pick up at the same time.

"Hello?"

"Gilles. It's Guillaume."

"Oh—yes?"

"Oh, yeah. You got a real big mess on your hands. All right. Daniel Masson, age twenty-three, died of belladonna poisoning. Bella-donna—that means beautiful woman in Italian, Gilles."

Hmn. Interesting—finally.

"Very well. What else have you got for me...?"

"Ha. Isn't that just like you. Okay, the guy was covered in puke and that's always a bit of a heads-up. Tell me something I don't know, says Maintenon..."

"Something like that."

"Okay. There's more. So nice of you to let me have a little time with this—but anyways, he's got some bruising from when he fell. I think he fell and got up again, more than once. You may have noticed how dilated his pupils were, and there are other signs visible via autopsy. The poison was in everything. Everything he ate and drank, Gilles, but only in small amounts. The thing with belladonna, is that the fatal dose for an adult of his size and weight, varies considerably. What might kill a child, nibbling on a few seeds, might not faze an adult at all."

"I see. The poison was in everything, you say?" As far as Gilles knew, not having heard from the people at the bank in a while, was that they hadn't discovered any waste products in the boxes they had opened so far.

How did Guillaume account for that.

"Ah, well. The poor fellow was pretty bunged up, Gilles. He could only bring in so much water when you think about it. The nature of the food he was eating was such that it doesn't create a lot of bulk, and therefore that reduces the need for bowel movements. They were thinking ahead, Gilles. No one wants to spend four days in a steel box trapped with the smell of their own crap. It's almost the definition of torture, in fact."

"Hmn, I suppose." Gilles had more questions, a ton of them. "So what about the time of death?"

"Sunday, probably right after dinner. Whoever, ah, killed him—it sure doesn't look like the usual suicide, but that last meal would have been pretty heavily laced. He might not have been feeling very well, and didn't know why, all weekend. He opened up that last drawer, ate some cheese, bread, some apples, some cookies. He'd been saving them, for when he got bored or was done the job or whatever. It was enough to tip him over the edge. The apples were pretty stiff with belladonna. Probably injected with a syringe. As for the candies, it's hard to say. That sort of confectionery tends to completely dissolve."

"What else did he eat?"

"Ah, boiled eggs, or egg salad, a ham sandwich, things like that. Look, Gilles, maybe the guy had an enema before going in—that way he would have plenty of storage capacity." There was a long silence on the line. "Anyways, somebody sure packed his lunch for him."

"Argh." Gilles' jaw worked back and forth.

Daniel Masson had been set up all along the way. There was nothing there that couldn't be carried in a pocket. Much of it would keep for a few days—longer for many of the items. They were also getting down to the end of their list and it was a bit odd, hence his question to Monsieur Allard about the vault being left open.

"Merde."

"Our friend had a small blister on the butt of his right hand, consistent with soft hands doing unusual work, i.e. drilling out a lot of lock cylinders over a long weekend. There are a few bruises where he fell, and there are tears and gashes where he ripped at his throat and chest in extremis...."

He also appeared to be well fed, according to Guillaume. For a man to stay in a vault for four days, and to do any amount of meaningful work, would have required at least a thousand calories a day. What the doctor found interesting was the sheer variety of foodstuffs he had been able to identify in his examination of the stomach contents.

"Honestly, it's pretty hard to starve to death in four days. It's really more a question of how you feel."

As far as bowel movements, the contents of the lower intestine appeared to be relatively normal—although there was nothing particularly bulky or fibrous in there. He hadn't been eating beans or corn, potatoes or cabbage. Was this the picture of a man who had been locked in for four days? Arguably so. This sort of killed a growing question in Maintenon's mind, as to whether the alleged vault had ever been really locked at all.

It would make things a lot easier—either that or what if the body had been found outside the vault. That would have been a big help or maybe he was just tired.

Wishing wasn't going to make it so, but for a moment there, Maintenon was terribly confused.

***

Ignace Gosselin sat across the interview room from Detective Andre Levain. Gosselin was a man who gave the impression of being narrow across the shoulders. He was fairly tall. He was a man of average build who had been somehow stretched in the middle.

Gosselin held the nominal rank of sergeant in the private security firm where he worked. Private security companies were organized on paramilitary or para-police lines. They had their hierarchy of rank. Rank had its perks, such as the red formal jacket. To wear it today was a desperate plea, although an unspoken one. It was true that he had failed at his job. He was also probably another victim. The police didn't make such assumptions too lightly or too soon. Under the firm's sumptuary guidelines the jacket might be worn but few times a year and only under certain circumstances. No doubt, like campaign ribbons and the identifying badges of military units, this was a jealously-guarded privilege.

The gendarmes originally attending the scene had conducted the usual interviews and Detective Levain had the written reports in front of him.

"So. You were on duty, on the day shift, Friday, Saturday and Sunday." They did three, twelve-hour shifts, three on and three off, three on and two off.

"Yes, sir."

Levain nodded. Desperately clinging to his dignity, the rangy old fellow, veteran of a hundred battles in the mud and the slime, was having trouble blinking back the tears.

"Your date of birth?" Levain was just warming him up and wasting a little time in the process.

Gosselin was about sixty-two years of age and looking at being demoted. In his mind, he was already working a parking lot entrance somewhere, or night shifts in the boiler plant or something. You could hardly blame the man for that, what with it being true and everything.

Levain tried to imagine the man running across a muddy, shell-torn hell, artillery fire all around. A rifle and a pack on his back, all of this in his mid to late forties.

Jesus H. Christ.

"And you heard nothing, saw nothing, for the entire weekend?"

"No, sir." The security office was in the basement, just off the entrance to the furnace and electrical utility rooms.

He was already sweating. The red coat was pure wool. The black pants, beautifully creased front and back, probably the same.

They conducted patrols, with one man remaining in the security office by the phone. The other partner did the rounds with a leather-encased watch-clock. They went from station to station. They pulled a key out of a box on the wall and stuck it into the clock. When they turned it, an impression of the key and the time were noted on a spool of clockwork-driven paper. There were key-stations scattered throughout the building. Guards had a whistle slung around their necks as well as side-arms, batons and handcuffs. They were empowered to make a citizen's arrest, and sworn to defend the property entrusted to their care. The basic duty was pretty simple: to stay awake in spite of long hours of extreme boredom. Levain considered much of this to be of symbolic value. The very fact that there were people in the building was enough to deter most crime, and this surprisingly applied to banks as well. Most small branches didn't even have a single guard. They relied on external police vigilance and the impregnability of their vaults against all but the best-planned crimes and the most professional of criminals.

The number of such professionals was small. A good proportion were already behind bars at any given time. Another proportion, at any given time, were either laying low, or facing charges and awaiting trial—a good time to stay out of trouble and keep a low profile. Then there were those already back out on parole, subject to some stiff penalties if they fucked up. With recent memories of what it was actually like inside, these tended to be the meekest of the meek—until their full sentence had elapsed and they were free again.

Levain was sort of with Maintenon, in that this crime didn't look like the typical plan. What that implied, was maybe not the usual sort of criminal, or in this case, it would have to be a group of unusual criminals.

A major crime must have a plan, and a good one, if it was to succeed. Gilles would dearly love to meet the mind that had conceived of that plan. He intended to do just that if he could possibly arrange it.

There was nothing impulsive or opportunistic about it. Someone had thought all of this out, and long beforehand.

That someone must have had a pretty good brain.

Chapter Nine

Chiappe had stepped into the Special Homicide Unit's squad-room to have a quick word with Maintenon.

"Ah, Gilles. You've been avoiding me." He wasn't angry or anything, he just happened to be going by.

Gilles shrugged.

"I've been trying to do my job." The interviews with the security personnel had not been particularly enlightening.

It was all negative information.

The people on duty over the weekend claimed to have done the rounds. This was borne out by the watch-clock tapes. They swore up and down that they never fell asleep, never left the building, and hadn't seen or heard anything that was the least bit amiss. They had not been drinking. They hadn't opened the doors or phoned up and ordered food to be delivered. They had not been visited by wives, mistresses or girlfriends, nor had they gotten up to any of the usual screw-ups and shenanigans that happened from time to time in their peculiar trade.

According to all of the guards, their patrols stopped at the end of the hall at the top of the stairs.

Going out onto the rooftops was not part of the duty. There was a key station there, and the men themselves were all of a type that did not encourage initiative. Not a man-jack among them would ever walk one step further than their job or duty-description called for. This would be spelled out to the letter in the contract between the bank and the security company.

In the past, such men had been gotten-to. Such men could be extremely useful to a criminal mind, once suborned and cooperative. Every damned one of them was being thoroughly investigated, watched around the clock and followed everywhere they went. If they had even half a brain, surely they must expect as much. Their day-to-day routines, so far, appeared dreadfully dull and drab. They were small men leading small lives. They might even be grateful, most genuinely happy to be working, to be fed, to have a roof over their heads.

Most of them were family men with a lot to lose.

As for pumps and petrol engines, men working up there, not one of them admitted to hearing a thing.

Since Gilles hadn't been back to the bank that day, he was hoping Jean-Baptiste might have some kind of revelation. As it turned out, he was looking for whatever information he could get.

The press was clamouring for attention and sooner or later the authorities must make some kind of statement.

"So. Gilles. What have you got for me?"

"Hmn. We're still investigating."

"Ah, ha. Very nice—"

"Well, what the hell did you expect me to say—"

Chiappe had taken an empty chair and the two men sat glowering at each other for a minute. The other detectives found reasons or even just excuses and left the room as unobtrusively as they could.

Unexpectedly, Jean-Baptiste grinned.

"All right, Gilles, spit it out."

"Shit. We have one civilian claiming that something is missing from their box. Madame Delisle. She says it was stack of cash, and if she wasn't extremely upset, as the loss is not insured, I doubt if she ever would have told us. There are some questions as to how she came by it. Here we are, some sweet old lady. There is some question of income-tax evasion, and that's just the half of it. Yet it's not really what we're interested in, and where the hell was our probable cause before the robbery? Some are refusing to come in, only insisting that there had better not be anything missing or there will be hell to pay. Yet they won't quite come out and say what it is that they're worried about, either. We have people showing up with their lawyers and kicking up all kinds of fuss—until they realize nothing is actually missing. Or until they realize we mean business. But what gets me, is that the perpetrator of any robbery—and I wouldn't put it past a certain type of person to make a false claim based on the information we are providing, but someone understood the system well enough to know what this would do to us. If we just grab keys and start looking in people's boxes, even with the best of intentions, there will be hell to pay." After this little outburst there was a silence. "Someone is very, very good at wasting our time, Jean-Baptiste."

Which sort of implied that time was of the essence. If only they knew what to do next.

"Do we know who closed up, ah, Wednesday evening?"

"Monsieur Noel himself, apparently. He says there was no one in there but he admits he really didn't look in the cubicles." There was also a kind of alcove in the main vault, where there were shelves at the back and on the sides, and Daniel might have hidden there. "According to him, most of his people were gone and there were only two or three staff members in the bank. According to him, the vault area was deathly quiet and he never even thought to have a look."

Chiappe sighed.

"This just keeps getting better and better. Tell me about the material evidence."

Maintenon shrugged.

"From unrented boxes, we have uncovered a drill, some lengths of rubber hose and pressure fittings. We have recovered enough gas bottles, propellant for the drill you understand, to open all kinds of boxes, and we must assume they had all kinds of time. The bottles are mostly full, as they were hardly needed. We've tried it out and that is one noisy drill. Air-power is no quieter than electricity. We found jars of piss, for crying out loud. Daniel Masson, presumably. We are sort of assuming the vault was properly closed and that no one outside could hear the work going on...shit. We really ought to do some kind of a noise-test." He made a note of that, but there was more. "We're sort of assuming the job could be done, once their rather prodigious set-up was in place. It could easily be done, by one individual hoping to exit the vault, after opening time, first thing Monday morning. Argh. His coat was still hanging up on the rack in the executive lunch room. It's the one thing they apparently never thought of. What a foolish young man."

"And what about the equipment on the roof?" According to the technical people, the vacuum system would have been able to suck cash, as long as the packets were opened up, coins, almost anything small up to the roof.

Yet it was a little too bizarre. All it would take was one small jam-up in the vacuum-hose, and the plan would fail...

"Ah. Yes. The lab is still analyzing it. Also, there is the question of the tube or hose caught in the ventilator. The techs are still fishing for that one. But there seems little doubt that it was a big industrial vacuum system..."

"Ha."

"Yes. The man in the vault, presumably, opened the box or boxes, and the person or people up top sucked something, money presumably, out through the vents." He stared into Chiappe's face. "Theoretically. The cash is gone, wrappers and packaging were left behind, for example."

Chiappe sat there open-mouthed.

"One of the items we found is a military field telephone. They must have somehow snaked a wire down the shaft. I've been told any electrician could do it. It must have taken a few tries. It might have been easier to do it from the bottom. That way, once it comes out up top, you know it's going to the right place. It's not going to clunk and rattle and pop out over Antoine Noel's desk, for example. We didn't find the fish, as the electricians call it, but there aren't too many ways to do it. So. They had a telephone-set up on the roof. Someone would have had to smuggle all of the equipment into the bank. They had to get all of that equipment up onto the roof. All of that must have happened during normal business hours, obviously. It could have been done, by one or more trusted employees, either of the bank or the roofing company. It's difficult to see how it might have been done otherwise, and this includes the equipment on the roof as well as the vault. It is only an assumption that it involved the roofers. Which brings us back to Monsieur Masson." And others, most likely. "His end of the phone and a plug-in jack was in another box."

It dragged every damned one of them through the mud, innocent as virtually all of the bank's staff must be. The same could be said for the roofing company's men. Virtually all, but not all.

"Very well."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Do you think Masson came up with this all on his own?"

Maintenon raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Then why kill himself?"

"Jesus. How in the hell would I know?" Gilles fiddled with his pen, eyes downcast.

"So in other words, no." Jean-Baptiste stood, rattling coins in his pocket in a way that reminded Gilles of his Uncle Eduard, a perennial bachelor and rich before his time.

"You're doing a fine job, Gilles. I have every confidence in you and your team." He brightened, thoughts turning to his upcoming press briefing. "There, now we're getting somewhere."

Gilles snorted.

"As always. Anyways, Gilles, whatever happened is obviously an inside job—maybe with a little bit of outside help, eh?"

"Yeah. I'm going after that one, real bad."

Jean Baptiste grinned morosely.

"So, I'll just tell the powers-that-be and the media people that Maintenon's on the case." Arrests to follow shortly, would be their natural assumption. "I shall be tight-lipped and rather cryptic."

"Argh."

Chiappe stood at the door, ready to go.

"Let me know if there's anything or anyone you need. I will move heaven and Earth to get it for you."

"I need more men, trained men and women, people who can tail a suspect. They need to be able to blend in, and not give themselves away."

Chiappe gave him a considering look.

"I'll see what I can round up, Gilles. I'm afraid it won't be much—you have Firmin, Archambault. De Garmeaux if you need him. Grosjean and his partner, Fabian whatever. Levain and LeBref of course."

Maintenon closed his notepad decisively.

"Yes, sir. Anyways. I'd better get back downtown."

The boss-man's ample buttocks disappeared through the squad-room doorway and then Gilles had peace and quiet again. More than anything, he would like a minute to think.

The blood in his ears coursed softly but insistently and he mentally counted up the pain pills he'd had since rising at ten to six that morning. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, just different.

Three, or was it four? The pain had never really left, although he could at least walk. He could at least get to sleep at night.

There were a limited number of avenues, and a limited number of ways in which he could legally and logically proceed. It seemed awfully unfair sometimes. The criminals knew no rules. Evidence obtained illegally was worse than no evidence at all—you couldn't use it and it was frustrating as all hell to know exactly what had happened and watch the bad guys go free, thumbing their noses at your stupidity.

They would be laughing all the way to the bank—their bank.

***

Antoine Noel, in their first interview since the Monday morning, was aghast.

"The roof? But I don't understand."

That tired old face got longer and longer as Gilles outlined the sort of things they had found up there.

He understood the significance immediately. He couldn't keep the one hand off his beard. He was desperately trying to control himself. Surely this meant his head. At the same time, Monsieur Noel wasn't the sort to bawl openly, thought Gilles. He'd seen a few men weep over the years.

No, he would go home one night, a week, a month, or a year from now. He would pour himself a glass of brandy. He would take a long slug. He would light his favourite old pipe, possibly a very expensive cigar. It would be his last, and he wouldn't even finish it. He would open up a beautiful antique curio cabinet and take out a fine weapon. The odds were that he would use a revolver, loading all chambers and not fucking around with any kind of Russian roulette. He would not leave his fate to Fate. Not him. The thought was written all over him as his head kept turning and looking towards the light of the big windows.

He would do it quickly, before he changed his mind. His honour was at stake.

The man stared at Gilles. Fluttering hands patted his jacket side-pockets, and he pulled out a paper roll of stomach tablets. His shaking hands poured cold water and he gulped the bilious green horse pills, a good four millimetres thick and fifteen wide.

Those eyes could go anywhere but to the point.

The man felt guilty as hell, his own failures, his own complacence, his own good faith and trust in people having led him to this.

There was no God out there to comfort him. Only Maintenon and his inexorable questions.

He would put himself out of it rather than face the truth of his disgrace. It was an injustice. Assuming the gentleman was indeed innocent, one had to wonder what he might have done differently to prevent it. What a terribly nice man. Other men would have complained—they might have screamed and shouted and thrown a childish temper-tantrum, blaming the police for the failure and damning them for their incompetence. Surely arrests and convictions could have, should have been made by now—

None of that was Noel Antoine. Gilles wasn't a priest, neither was he a psychologist. It went without saying Maintenon had his own doubts and his own inability to confront certain facts of life.

All of that had to have been done right under the man's nose. That is to say, if he really wasn't involved—and that's pretty much what everyone, all of his peers certainly, would be thinking.

None of the employees had noticed a thing during the roofing job, just as an example. Noel was the man in charge. There were certain things Maintenon would have liked to tell Monsieur Noel, which was that no system of security was unbeatable—and that someone who was willing to play the game over the long haul, could worm their way inside the system. And, after a time, when they were ready, when the time was right, they would strike. His competitors, the bank's competition, arguably ought to know that.

People just loved to talk, though.

Noel blamed himself and no other—he kept saying Daniel was such a nice young man.

He couldn't have been that nice.

Monsieur Noel.

Maintenon didn't say that. There was just no way.

Some of them wouldn't be exactly shy about saying it, either. The Crédit Lyonnais wasn't the only bank in town. There were rivals, and there was the tendency to crow at another's fall. The gossip, the scandal alone, might be enough to kill him.

"According to Monsieur Tremblay, the bank got a new roof last year." Levain was seated at Gilles' side, silently until now. "Can you recall exactly when that was? He says it was a company called Commercial Roofing Specialties. Is that correct?"

"Yes—yes, we'll have all that in our records. But that is definitely the people who did the roof."

"Monsieur Noel. There is little doubt that Daniel was involved with the plot—it seems unlikely that he got in there by accident, or that someone else slipped out when the vault door was opened. If everyone's statements are correct. The body was definitely in there, first thing Monday morning. He died Sunday night and there's no way to get him in there once the vault is closed. This crime was long in the planning, Monsieur Noel. It wouldn't be wise to blame yourself too much." Levain went on. "We'll be continuing our interviews with all concerned. In the meantime we need a better idea of what might have been taken, and why."

In Maintenon's opinion, Masson and whoever he was working with—or for, wouldn't have gone to all that trouble just to open one box. They really needed to get in there and have a look—and that required cooperation from the bank and its customers. The police and the bank had people on the phones. Officers were standing by to supervise, take statements and document anything that was found, in the positive or negative sense. All of this took precious manpower. The disruption to the bank's daily operations was also considerable. It was, after all, their flagship branch.

At that point, the man's eyes filled with tears and he proceeded to put his head down on his forearms on the table and to bawl his eyes out.

This would be the death of Noel as well as Masson, in Gilles' humble opinion.

Either that or it was a pretty good act.

On balance, the tears were real, as real moisture and dampness on his shirt-sleeves attested.

***

Sabine Barthet was one of the kiosk girls, although in this branch they seemed to traipse in and out of the vault without much thought. The branch had been opened to regular business, partly to facilitate the people coming in to check their boxes and partly due to pressure from the bank and powers-that-be. She was tall, slender and graceful. Sabine was a strawberry blonde.

Her lilting voice was enough to make butterflies walk across any normal man's balls, figuratively speaking.

"Tell me about Monsieur Masson."

The young lady crossed her elegant, silky, sheer stocking-clad legs and blinked at them. Levain was focused on his notes, desperately trying to ignore the inherent provocation, but Maintenon was made of sterner stuff. She was worth looking at.

"Well. He was very professional, of course—"

"But of course. What do you mean by that?"

"Well. Daniel was cute and one or two of the girls really liked him."

"And what about you?"

She coloured slightly, then shrugged her shoulders.

"He was all right."

Naturally, she was going to be pretty reticent with four cops sitting across from her, one or two of them fairly young and good-looking themselves.

"Do you know if he liked you?"

There was this funny look on her face, and then she nodded vaguely.

"I suppose we got along all right."

"Did you ever go out with him?"

"No, not really."

"Were you friends?"

"Yes. I guess so. Sure."

***

They interviewed a couple of the staff members and then turned it over to Grosjean and his partner. Having seen some of their reports, Gilles was convinced that the interviews would be thorough. Everything would be written up clearly and concisely.

So far, they weren't getting anything anyway.

Maintenon and Levain had a more pressing errand. There was this feeling that finally the investigation could get off the ground.

Commercial Roofing Specialties had been around for thirty years. Their trucks, with the signs on the doors, were a familiar sight around town. Their sales offices were located just off the Rue de l'Evangile, in a busy commercial area of the city's eighteenth arrondissement. Fighting their way through cross-town, midday traffic was the usual nightmare. With the car windows all the way down, they were assaulted by the roar of buses, lorries and automobiles, and cyclists by the million. There were horns honking and people talking loudly enough. They waited patiently as a throng of pedestrians tried to squeeze every last drop out of the opportunity provided by a green light.

The streets were awash with a flood of humanity, now that the nicer weather had finally come.

"Ah, a familiar face."

Constable Renaudin was again their driver. Maintenon had been asking for the constable, and getting him when available from the motor pool.

He wanted to study him a bit.

Renaudin turned and gave them a look.

"Ah, yes, sir. Always a happy to be of service." He flashed a toothy smile. "Just trying to make a difference in the world."

This elicited a grin from Levain at least. Maintenon, as usual, was somewhere else.

The signal clicked in the dashboard as Renaudin patiently waited and then made his turn.

"Only a couple more blocks now, sirs."

Chapter Ten

Monsieur Norman Chardin was the number-one salesman and estimator for the roofing company. Jacket off, he wore a proper shirt and tie, although his nails were untrimmed and not very clean. The owner, one Jacques Chabert, was away on holiday (was that suspicious?) and the manager, a Madame Beliveau, was out of the office at the time they arrived.

Her kid had a dental appointment.

He was holding the fort as people said.

"Anyways, good morning, gentlemen."

He closed the door to the outer office. The sound of typing came sporadically from the other room, and then the ringing of a telephone. The typing stopped. They heard part of an animated conversation, not a customer by the sounds of it.

"Good morning, Monsieur Chardin."

Gilles was letting Levain take the lead, with his usual aggressive style.

"Your company did the roof on the Crédit Lyonnais. Downtown. The one that was robbed."

"Er, yes, I suppose so—"

"Who was the foreman on that job?"

"Ah—ah, Etienne Arseneau. He's not here right now, he's out supervising one of our projects—"

"Uh, huh."

Monsieur Chardin wasn't particularly flustered.

"He usually calls in about this time. If there is anything I can help you with?"

"We're just here to get a general sense of how a roofing job might work, on a big important contract like that. We'd like a list of all employees who worked that job. We would especially like to speak with Monsieur Arseneau. Can you tell us where he's working right now?"

Chardin pressed a button on his phone unit, speaking slowly and carefully towards the base unit.

"Mademoiselle, would you come in here please?" He looked up at them, hand still hanging over the button, pride written all over him. "Ada will be here in a second."

"Oui, Monsieur." It was sublime, in that they could hear her almost as well from the other side of the partition as they could through the tinny little speaker.

Her chair was shoved back and the girl's heels clattered on tile floors, the sound coming over a partition that was completely open above head height. It might have once been the second floor over a hardware shop. It was like a big stockroom, with the ceiling open to the rafters and all the utilities clearly visible. Someone had thrown a carpet down in the front room and put up a few partitions. A couple of proper desks, one or two plants. Gold lettering on the window overlooking the street behind rather nice but very dusty rattan blinds. Some filing cabinets, a phone or two, the occasional display ad in the newspaper and you were in business.

The door opened and the girl, barelegged and wearing sandals and a bright yellow sundress, was right there. A wonderful aroma washed into the room. Levain coughed quietly into his hand for a moment, having a dry throat.

"Yes, Monsieur Chardin?"

The whole charade was ludicrous. The rest of the place smelled like tar. The inner office was grubby in the extreme, with shelves sagging under the weight of many years' worth of product and distributor catalogues. Every surface, and the shelving was voluminous, was piled high with bills, receipts, time-sheets, estimates and work orders. A bulletin board and a chalkboard beside it, at one end of the room, was, if anything, even more chaotic than the ones in their own squad-room.

Maintenon could see the manager, the office team, deploying their troops across the city in response to promises and demands. Each worker would be assigned, according to his strengths and weaknesses, his needs and his capabilities.

There were architectural drawings spread out across an unusually large desk. This was a strictly utilitarian table knocked-up from heavy planks. It had been smoothed and stained and varnished into something to be proud of if only one could actually see it. It had nice legs and a bottom shelf running along up high underneath, with dozens of sets of rolled-up plans heaped up. Chardin was in the middle of estimating a pretty big job, as he had explained upon their arrival. He was skilled enough in his specialty, and yet showed signs of being a perfectly ordinary little man in most respects. Unless something else turned up, Chardin was more of a pawn than a serious suspect.

The girl, on the other hand, was young and wholesome, now that they had her out from behind her desk.

It was the privilege of the old, to make dispassionate observations about such things.

"We need the employee pay records for the Crédit Lyonnais job."

Gilles was only half listening. The roof had been replaced in the previous year. It was late summer, early fall. The crime was well thought-out, although it might have been conceived in one momentous instant of preternatural clarity. That must have been a moment of pure inspiration, one such as he himself had never had. No matter what other people said, or how they thought he actually worked.

"Ah—yes, sir." She seemed doubtful, and without some system, she would have to go through the files one by one.

The fellow gave her a nod and she departed.

"So who does the hiring around here?"

"Jacques or Madame Beliveau."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. Also, the foremen can take someone right off the street, if they're on a job and someone comes asking." Chardin explained that the firm had eighty or a hundred roofers. "Yeah. If someone brings his kid brother to work, or a cousin or whatever, they're just as likely to put them to work and see how they do. It happens often enough."

There were various other trades, all going great guns in the good weather. This was the busy season. In winter, the work was restricted to repairs or the odd job where it was new construction and there was no stripping involved. As far as that sort of job went, times were pretty slow. The economic picture was not very bright, as he explained. That bubble had to burst sooner or later. When there was a big job, a customer would normally call for at least three bids, and the bank was no exception.

Commercial Roofing Specialties had put in the low bid.

"I've seen strip-jobs in winter." Levain wasn't contradicting the man.

Not exactly.

"True, but there are very few calls." It was very dependent on the weather, a little bit of snow being better than a shit-load of rain according to him.

"What other trades do you have?"

"Well, not everyone's capable of doing copper or slate. We have three crews for tile roofs. We have a few guys with experience in church steeples. A hell of a job, is what I always say. We have a couple of tin-bashers for trim and drains. Some of our men are purely labourers—the ones doing flat roofs don't need that much technical skill. For that we rely on the supervision. Our trucks aren't especially big, and so the men don't need any special licenses or anything like that. If we hire a crane, it comes with its own crew. Anyone can drive one of our trucks, even a woman. We have a couple of _nègres_ too. Shit. More than that. Half a dozen, anyways."

The phone was ringing and Chardin snatched it up.

"Hello? Ah. Etienne."

There were noises.

"Etienne. The police are here. An Inspector Maintenon would like to meet with you. He has a few questions..."

There was a cartoonish squawking from the other end of the conversation, audible even from where they were sitting.

"Yes, yes, I know, but they want to speak to you. I will call Duval Brothers and get that to you as soon as possible—" He banged the receiver down and gave them a recalcitrant grin. "Merde. He's not happy, but then they never are. All this rain of course. It pisses him off. Anyways, gentlemen, he's not going anywhere. Ada should have that list by now. The pay records will be all in bunches, ah, by the week. If Etienne has any names that she's missed, just let us know and we'll get those records for you."

The sound of metal drawers being pulled out was clearly audible over the partition.

He told them where Arseneau might be located. Their number-one crew was presently engaged in re-roofing a commercial building. It was only a little ways out of their way on the way back to the Quai or wherever they were going next.

"This is in relation to the bank job."

Chardin nodded. He smiled brightly, having read the papers.

Maintenon on the case.

"I surmised as much. Anyways, we're more than happy to cooperate with the police. Just let us know if there's anything more that you need."

"We'd like to speak to Jacques as well. Can you have him call us?"

"Absolutely, gentlemen."

They all rose. The detectives took their leave. Chardin was back on the phone before they were out the door.

The owner and the office manager would be hearing all about it when they finally turned up.

Ada had a list, not quite complete as she flipped through their records from the two weeks that that particular job had entailed. They ended up with a list of twenty names. They hadn't all been there on any given day. The Friday would have been the end of the pay period, and payday was the succeeding Thursday. According to the time-sheets, the job had begun on September fourth, which was a Wednesday, and ended on September twentieth, which was a Friday. This seemed significant in terms of group psychology and human nature. Friday afternoons were a weak point in any organization. More than anything, the bank would have been busy—the counter staff harried, the management focused on getting out of there on time.

They would be eager to get home and start their weekend.

A couple of familiar, maybe even unfamiliar faces traipsing up and down the stairwell with odd-ball machines, tools and bits of kit would have gone essentially unnoticed. Not after weeks on the job. The staff would have already endured two weeks of disruption by smelly, unshaven men in rough boots, virtually of them with probing eyes and lecherous looks.

That much, at least, made some kind of sense.

It might have been possible to predict when the job would end. It might have been possible to stall the cleanup to some extent, making that fall on the Friday. Maintenon's brain, as usual, was going full blast. That low bid was interesting...did somebody know something?

Levain was right there at her shoulder. She finally sighed and gave it up.

"I'm pretty sure this is all of them."

"Okay. We'll make certified copies and return them to you. You're open till five, right? Do you know any of these guys?"

"Yeah. I suppose I know all of them, really."

"I see. You give them their paycheques?"

"Not really." Ada explained in a low but breathy voice that the crew lead hands, or the foreman on a job, would normally hand them out sometime after noon on a Friday. "Sooner or later, they all have to come into the office for something. This is where they would inquire when they were looking for work."

There was something unstated on her face, and Maintenon wondered how she liked being a beautiful woman in an environment that was so dominated by males of the unskilled, worker caste. Some would revel in it, as he knew, and some would hate it but fulfill the duties nevertheless. All those strong, rough hands, et cetera.

"How long have you worked here?"

"Oh, God. Forever, or so it seems sometimes."

Maintenon smiled dutifully and kept waiting.

"I came to work...in September nineteen-twenty-six. I'm pretty sure. I would say about three years. I came in just at the start of the busy season."

"Thank you, Mademoiselle."

This one seemed more intelligent than most, going by the steely glint in those sea-green eyes, and for whatever reason further questions died on his lips.

***

"The scum of the Earth. Honestly, if it wasn't for wine and a bit of opium, I mean, after work and on their days off, most of these guys wouldn't be worth a shit." They had enticed Monsieur Arseneau down off of his roof with flashing lights and a quick blip of the siren.

They stood on the curb as they talked.

"First, whatever do you mean, and second, is this list complete?" The foreman glanced at the paper in a kind of contempt.

The cops, obviously, did not understand his problems.

"I take my men where I can get them. It's tough, dirty and shitty work, and I'm just fucking grateful to get them sometimes. I've had days when half my crew doesn't show up. I don't ask too many questions when they do show up, okay? That doesn't necessarily mean that I love all of them like fucking brothers. Eh? All I fucking care is that they show up when they say they're going to show up and that they can work even the half of what the fuckers claim. Fuck. I talk tough, and cut them as much slack as I can. They talk tough and dog-fuck like crazy when I'm not around. Otherwise they're free to walk and they frequently do, usually right about when we're at our busiest and I need them the most..."

Gilles nodded impatiently as the man finally brought his reading glasses out of his pocket and scrutinized the list.

"Yes. That's pretty much all of them." To his credit, he took a moment and thought some more.

He had another look, but couldn't come up with any more names.

Levain thought of something. It was always the way—but a quick trip back to the firm's office might pay off big time.

"Tell me something, Monsieur Arseneau."

"Yes?" Red-rimmed, coal-black eyes, appearing unnaturally large in the thick lenses, peered at him in detached assessment.

"Who worked that, uh, bank roof on the last couple of days?"

"What?" His eyes went far away and then came back. "Shit, that fucking bank. That was a real hot September, as I recall."

He tensed slightly, and then forcibly relaxed the muscles in the neck and shoulders.

"I was sick for a couple of days there...shit. As I seem to recall, but I just don't know. Yeah, there were a couple of real wingnuts working right about then."

Levain gave Maintenon a quick look.

"Wing-nuts?"

He'd heard the expression of course.

The gentleman shrugged.

Arseneau was trying to recall a sequence of events from eight or nine months previously.

"Okay, take your time. Who took over as foreman in your absence? Also, what about this list of names?"

"Ah..." Arseneau resumed scanning the list. "Alphonse took over right near the end there."

"So what did you have? A cold? The flu? Some other kind of health problem?"

"Yeah. Some kind of stomach thing. I had the worst gut-ache, cramps, nausea. I was puking my guts out. I was right out of it for, ah, two or three days there."

"And by the time you got back to work, the bank job was totally complete?"

The term bank job was a nice one, thought Gilles.

"Er, yes. I think that's about right."

Maintenon broke in.

"To your knowledge, sir, do any of your men have a criminal record?"

Arseneau looked up, still looking at that list, still not entirely sure.

"What? Oh, God. Probably, Inspector. I wouldn't be surprised with some of them boys. Hell, I've lost a few of them to you people, but let's be honest. Anyone with even the slightest thing going for them, wouldn't be applying to this stinking shit-hole in the first place."

***

"Well, well, well." Levain handed it over and Renaudin hung up the dashboard microphone.

From where they were still parked, they could see the men working up on the roof. It was a few metres down the street. There were two men at ground level and they were being fed scrap materials down a chute, which was the only safe way to get it down without tramping a million times up five or six steep and narrow flights of stairs. The men would wait until a rolling bin was full, and then yell noisily up to the man or men above. The bin would be pushed aside and another one put in place. There was a man pushing a broom. More scrap came down from above with a dusty crash. On this particular job, they were going up and down by a series of rickety ladders. On other jobs, they used interior stairs, many of Paris' multi-story buildings having access hatches to the roof. Maintenon's mind was sort of idling along. What was interesting was that the houses were continuous, wall to wall, and somehow they had to tie in to adjoining roofs without causing a leak. The street was reduced to one narrow lane due to the work, but that was someone else's problem and not Maintenon's. He wasn't there to check building permits...

Their little list of men and the radio call to central dispatch had yielded quick results. At some point they might as well go back there.

"So, Gilles. What do we do now?"

"Let's sit here for a while. Our presence has no doubt been duly noted, and Monsieur Arseneau hardly impresses me as the silent type. If someone asks, and surely someone will, he will tell them that we're the police and that we've been asking a lot of questions..."

"And then...?"

Gilles glanced at his watch.

"And then, I think, we will find a phone and make a couple of quick calls."

Levain nodded.

"Boss, I got a funny feeling more than one name on that list may have quit their employment with Custom Commercial Roofing."

Gilles snorted.

"Yes. But according to Monsieur Arseneau, this other foreman is still with the company."

"Yes. There is always that."

"Gilles?"

"Yes, Andre?"

"Do we have a theory of the crime yet?"

"Hmn. Yes, but since it has been so thoughtfully provided for us by our unknown criminals, one would tend to assume that it must be wrong. Also, we still haven't heard from all the people who have rental boxes." Some of them were out of the country.

Some might be on vacation, sick, or moved. They might have changed telephone numbers without giving proper notification to the bank. One or two little old ladies were immobile. Their guardians or next of kin, or their lawyers, were temporarily unavailable. Some were just slow in coming in. Some of those involved were out of town and coming to Paris would take some time and cause some inconvenience.

Sooner or later, most of them would turn up. In the meantime, according to what he was seeing in the reports from those attending at the bank, more people had come forward to discover a loss and advance their claims. These were the same in any case. People didn't have insurance on the box and they were claiming that substantial amounts of cash were missing. Five thousand francs here, ten thousand francs there. Yet it was hardly big, hardly worth all that planning—hardly worth killing for, one would have thought. People had been killed for far less though. The cash would have been useful—you couldn't buy a train ticket with uncut gemstones.

It was part of the larger plan.

Maintenon had no reason to deny or contradict the people. For the most part they seemed like good, clean, decent citizens who had some pretty solid reasons to keep a little ready cash on hand. The police would respect their privacy insofar as it was possible to do so. An aging matron with an alcoholic husband, one prone to infidelity, might find great comfort in having a secret little nest-egg put away for an uncertain future. She had answered their questions and she had signed her statement. What else were the police to believe?

The people involved would have little reason to rob their own box in such spectacular fashion. There were other reasons to hide cash, and to forego the pleasure of earing a few points of interest on one's money. All of that was a side issue. All of this required thought, further investigation, and that most precious of commodities, time. It was all a matter of time and following the right leads. Sooner or later they would get a sniff of something real.

The sun was out. They were sitting in shade, but it was getting intolerably hot for one such as Levain. Plainclothes detectives were constrained by public expectation and departmental policy to wear hard shoes, a starched shirt and, perhaps the worst thing of all for a former farm-boy, the blasted jacket and tie. No matter how thin and light the thing was, in summer, you were essentially wearing one too many layers at all times. In winter, one layer not enough.

"How's the back?"

"It's much better." And thank God for that. "For the moment, anyways."

Levain reached decisively for the ignition switch as Renaudin playfully batted it away.

Levain's eyebrows rose but he said nothing.

"Come on. I've had enough of this." His guts were rumbling and his stomach was gnawing on his backbone.

The motor fired up and the car moved away. Maintenon, bending low and peering up through the side window at shapes moving around up on the edge of the root, seemed fascinated, but then his mind was no doubt busy. Not so much far, far away as deep—the boss's mind was somewhere very, very deep.

Levain snorted.

They were going to solve another improbable case. Andre had little doubt of the boss's abilities on that score. Yet they would be damned hard-pressed to describe exactly how the man did it sometimes. There was nothing there to be put in a training manual for the delectation and edification of succeeding cohorts of gendarmerie.

Individuals would retire and eventually die, but the department would live on...Levain thought they should put that in the manual.

It made as much sense as anything else in there.

The humming, of which Gilles was totally unconscious, Andre could live with.

The car moved through the slanting light and shade of the city at midday in spring, with the sun still on a fairly low angle. The buds had all opened and the leaves, though small, were bright and fresh and green. The air was perfumed with blossoms. There were people everywhere, sitting on the steps in front of their houses, walking hand-in-hand, crossing against the light.

The fact that the guy was completely gone and you couldn't get an answer out of him with red-hot pokers and squeezing his nuts with a set of iron tongs, was a minor irritation. He would talk when he was ready and not a moment sooner. Andre grinned at his thoughts. The fact was that Gilles was intuitive, and that sort of thing was rarely instilled by text-books and academics. You really couldn't train people in that sort of thing. It was something Maintenon had picked up over a lifetime of police work. He was also an extremely persistent person. Maybe that was the real secret. Another officer might have pretended to investigate—to pretend to follow endless lead after endless lead, and ultimately, never come up with anything real. They would eventually let it drop, feigning disgust and regret all the way.

You could get used to anything, given enough time.

Gilles heaved a deep breath and finally re-entered this plane of existence. He sat back, relaxing in the seat. He was getting the odd little jab in the lower part of his back, but it was nothing like before, when sitting in a car going down a cobble-stoned street was a study in torment.

"I have no idea of what the hell is wrong with me lately."

Levain snorted again.

So the boss was happy then—for whatever unaccountable reason.

If only he would share it with the rest of them once in a while. If Levain wasn't mistaken, there was a pretty good lunch counter a couple of blocks away.

"Renaudin."

"Andre?"

"Stop at The Ham Bone."

"Yes, sir."

***

Rather than grabbing men from other duties, after lunch the pair went back to the office with their list of names and addresses. The Sûreté's files on criminals within France, its dependencies and overseas departments, were extensive. Deep in the basement, the air was still and close, cool and damp. Papers were limp and soft in the hand from much reading before being filed, forever to be forgotten in most cases. The occasional rumble of traffic on the street above came through to underline the profound quiet as they moved up and down the racks. With the list of names and some help from clerical staff, the two detectives soon had a stack of files thick and thin.

It was a little disturbing, perhaps enlightening was a better word. Criminals, having paid their debt to society, had little choice but to work, to starve or to commit further crimes. It was no wonder they ended up in the most laborious and menial jobs, the most unskilled of professions. Perhaps that was just—but over time, the impossibility of getting ahead, or even mere survival in the case of ill health or disability, meant that a certain number would inevitably re-offend. There were one or two social causes of crime, and never was this truer than in the case of recidivism.

Taking their files back to the squad-room, Levain settled in heavily after taking off his coat. He began to read, in no particular order. Gilles studied the raft of messages, some of which were from investigators still attending at the bank.

He cursed softly and made several quiet phone calls, with Levain immersed in his reading.

After a time, Maintenon was done and no longer on the phone. Andre looked up.

"So?"

"Okay, Boss. Ruben Bourque. Age, about thirty-five. A long list of petty crimes, mostly before the age of twenty-two, but he's been good with the law since he got out of prison seven years ago."

"Hmn."

Levain closed that file and put it aside. He took up another.

"Here's another one. Valentin Lavigne. Same deal. Mostly alcohol and domestic violence offences. He's not presently looking at any charges, and the notes say once he broke up with the previous spouse, he doesn't seem to have had any problems with keeping the peace. None of the offences are of the classical, larcenous type—he's never been charged with theft, for example, or fraud, or issuing a bogus cheque with intent..." That one was about twenty-four years old.

"Hmn."

That went for the both of them, as far as Levain saw it.

"Yes, I agree. Not much of a candidate. They're both still with the company, incidentally."

"How many names do we have, Andre?"

"Right now, at least eight. With priors, that is."

Maintenon nodded.

He thought for a minute.

"Follow my logic here."

There was a long silence and Levain waited.

"They're doing a roof job. Every twenty or thirty years, they need to replace the roof. It's no big thing, it's not a secret, generally speaking, except that this is a bank..."

"Okay."

"Someone senses an opportunity—"

"Sure. The opportunity to get some equipment on the roof."

"Yes, Andre, but there's more." So, so very much more as Maintenon's mind chipped and chewed and ground away at their little problem. "We have that inside element—it wasn't the hired hands who instigated this plot. No matter who, or which ones lugged that machine up onto the roof—this had to happen during normal, business hours. That would be the most likely scenario."

The bank was fifteen or twenty metres tall, after all.

In Maintenon's opinion, the crime had been planned, perhaps not down to the last detail, but well enough. The crime had been conceived months or even years before, and perhaps the roof job had sparked something in what might have been, up until then, barely a gleam in somebody's eye. The bank's own daily or long-term routine played heavily in that plan.

That someone must have had inside knowledge. At least, one would think so...there was really only the one interpretation.

"So. We're looking for a connection, then." A connection between a bank employee and an employee, possibly more than one, of the roofing company.

"Yes, Andre."

The phone on Maintenon's desk was ringing and he picked it up almost absently, still pecking away at the mind of a bank robber, and the mind, ultimately, of a killer. He was brushing hard up against the mind of someone who had thought long and hard about it.

"Hello?"

He listened intently, eyebrows raising.

"Very well. Keep him there. I want to talk to him."

He hung up and gave Andre a look.

"And—"

"That was Grosjean's partner. What's his name. A Mister Abraham Solomon has finally checked in." Maintenon smiled thinly. "One wonders if he reads the papers at all. Apparently, he was keeping an estimated one-point-three million in small, uncut, gem-grade diamonds in his safety deposit box."

Mouth open, Andre stood and headed for the coatrack, the files on his desk temporarily forgotten.

Maintenon was right behind him.

He was even humming.

Chapter Eleven

"Monsieur Solomon, thank you for speaking to us." They had borrowed a small office from a junior executive, forcibly relocated and now sharing space elsewhere with someone equally discontented.

There had been some whining involved, but he was gone and the police had a relatively secure space to conduct interviews. As much as anything else, it was a place to hang up coats, hats, and have a coffee and a sandwich while out of the public view.

"So. Why did it take so long for you to contact police?"

"Ah, I'm very sorry about that, gentlemen. It's just that I've been in Antwerp for a few days, traveling on business."

The gentleman, immaculately dressed in a blue pinstriped suit, had a short, neatly trimmed beard and exhibited none of the outwards signs of orthodoxy.

Abraham Solomon's face was sketched in soft, gentle planes. He was the end of the line, and ultimately responsible for the loss. Like some of their other victims, his loss was uninsured. He told them all of this dispassionately enough.

Levain stepped in as Gilles watched the fellow, whom he took to be scrupulously honest, very upset and yet very much in command of his dignity.

"I didn't know there was a bourse in Paris."

Solomon shrugged.

"No. There isn't, really. However, there is a substantial market here and then there's Antwerp. Our family has been involved in the business for over sixty years now." Apparently his grandfather, Isaac, had begun life as an apprentice gem-cutter, and upon marrying the boss's daughter, had inherited the progenitor of the present business, Solomon and Sons.

"I see. So why were you keeping them in a box?"

Pale but calm, Monsieur Solomon explained.

"Normally, we only keep finished products in our shop. That's the retail side of it. Uncut stones are wholesale. The average person never sees an uncut stone in their lifetime. While our alarms and our security are good, the total retail inventory is a quarter of a million francs already. Keeping any kind of unfinished stock in the store merely compounds the problem and fuels the temptation. The other thing is the insurance. Additional coverage, sufficient to cover a complete loss or write-off, adds substantially to our overhead. We're already paying premium rent because we're located in a rather prestigious location."

Location, location, location.

"So, you were worried about theft, hold-ups even, from the shop. What sort of precautions do you take?"

"Er, well, we have a small safe for cash. Items in the window are taken in and locked in the cabinets at night. Many of our more expensive display items are actually paste—cut glass. If a customer orders something, we have it made up and then we call them when it's ready. I employ a half a dozen highly-skilled jewelers and a pretty good watch repairman. All windows and doors are barred. We have an alarm service, and we have a night watchman on duty from seven in the evening until I come in, which is usually shortly before seven a.m. For me, the mornings are the most serene part of my day—no customers, no staff to deal with except the cleaning lady—"

Maintenon nodded pleasantly.

"So. How often do you come into the bank?"

"Hmn. Oh, I don't know. Half a dozen times a year, maybe."

"And when was the last time?

"Ah. Probably two or three weeks ago—something like that."

"Any other precautions? What about in the home?"

Abraham settled into the chair a little deeper.

"I carry a pistol when I travel, and we keep one at home as well. This is also true of my sons. My wife knows how to use it. A really stupid thief might think there is stock at my home, which there really isn't. As a designer, as a jeweler, as a trusted dealer in a fine commercial-grade gemstones, it's necessary to travel. We go to Antwerp, Zurich, London, Brussels, other places. We do attend the occasional convention, where a fair bit of the wholesale trade happens."

"Did you carry all of those stones across the city, ah, all at once? What sort of chances would you take? I mean, totally off the record—man to man and this goes no farther."

Monsieur Solomon swallowed convulsively, and then decided, sounding slightly pompous.

This was only natural.

"I never take chances, Inspector. Not if I can help it. I have brought a few small packets in for storage, all by myself. Storage is all it was meant to be. But when I bring, say, a few thousand francs worth, I hire an armed guard for four hours—that's their minimum charge." It was the price of doing business, and tax-deductible.

He coloured slightly and went on.

"The smaller packages are, uh, local people who want to convert into a little cash." The implication was that they were old friends and such...needed groceries or something.

Ahem.

Levain nodded sagely, having no idea of what he meant.

"How were the stones packaged?"

Small lots would have been in labeled envelopes. Those stones had been sorted, graded, and fair or market prices worked up. He had a book back at the shop where the envelopes, numbered, dated and described, were listed along with their estimated value. When he needed something he could find it. The actual selling price might be different. Larger packets would have been wrapped in chamois leather, and carried in light wooden boxes with small latches. Those in turn would have been carried in a taxi-cab in a big leather shoulder-bag, which somehow felt less obvious to Monsieur Solomon.

"We open the box, unfold the chamois, very soft, very fine, and a potential buyer can have a look."

Then they would start the bidding or negotiation.

"Ah. Good. We were wondering. We've recovered some materials which we think might have been yours."

"I see."

Levain began digging through his piles of photographs, as there would be pictures of the exact items the gentleman was describing.

"What colour was the chamois?" Those blasted photos had to be somewhere...

"I use black, a really deep purple, or sometimes blue." There would be some nice contrasts there, all those stones shimmering in the light against a dark backdrop.

"Ah."

Maintenon stepped in.

"What about bonded couriers?"

"Honestly, they have additional fees for bonding and insurance. The bigger the bond the higher the price. It's cheaper to do it myself. The guards are always armed. They're fairly well-trained men, some former police, some were in the Army. I never keep to a set schedule for that sort of thing." Monsieur Solomon cleared his throat. "Among my own people, we deal on our reputations and a handshake."

A friend of his had some really big sons who worked as his bodyguards. Solomon preferred to hire licensed professionals and keep his sons out of trouble as he put it.

Levain cut in again.

"We understand. This is a terrible thing for you. We're going to do everything in our power to get the stolen property back. I read an article on the industry one time, so perhaps we're not entirely unaware of how that works."

The gentleman nodded sadly, admittedly it didn't sound all that reassuring. Stranger things had been known to happen.

Maintenon cleared his throat,

"This crime was committed by a person or persons of a certain calibre."

"Oh, absolutely." Solomon's eyes flashed. "I will do everything I can to assist you."

Finally, a hint of something other than patience and acceptance from the gentleman, obviously not the sort to visibly panic or resort to histrionics. His dignity was apparently worth millions.

"I see. That seems pretty reasonable. So here's my question. How many people would have known, or had any idea, that you kept diamonds in the bank? Because that's just a shit-load of money, really, and it's the most significant of our, ah, known thefts—also totally off the record."

Maintenon was giving up a little info, unusually for him, noted Levain. Opening another folder, Andre finally found the pictures he wanted.

Solomon shook his head.

"Oh, God. Probably quite a few."

"How many employees do you have?"

"Thirteen, Inspector." He thought about it. "Anyone at the security company might have known about it, or figured it out—I am a jeweler after all, or any of my competitors might have guessed..."

Maintenon sighed, deeply.

As he recalled, Solomon and Sons had a fair frontage, twenty-five or thirty metres, on one of the more fashionable side streets just off the Place Vendome. They were on the Rue du St. Honoré, or so he thought, unwilling to scrabble through his notes to find it.

"Do you have children? Your sons work with you, right?"

"Yes."

As long as they had him, they might as well wring him out.

Levain had a list of questions.

"All right, have a look." He slid the stack of pictures across to the victim.

Solomon looked deeply troubled.

"Yes. That's one of our boxes—we bought that lot from the cartel, that's their logo. My own monogram—there it is, on the wrapping, which I seem to recall was black."

He looked through the rest of the stack, nodding at Levain's patient probing.

"Yes, gentlemen. That looks like ours—"

"So. One-point-three million. Exactly how big would that be, anyways? And was it all in diamonds?" Andre and his wife had been in the store, one time, and they had emeralds and rubies and whatever the blue stones were, he couldn't even recall the proper word.

The whole subject was rather foreign to him. On his pay, perhaps that was best.

"How big? Oh, God, you could fit it all in a jam-jar."

Or stuff it into a couple of condoms and shove it up your backside, thought Levain. One-point-three million in small bills would take up a couple of suitcases. Larger notes were too visible—they drew attention. Even then, the money would fill up the average executive briefcase.

If you had to steal, diamonds really were the thing.

***

Chiappe had cast his net very wide, dragging in men from all over the department. It was a big job, and one that might take a lot of time. Among other things, there were certain inquiries to be made into Solomon and Sons.

Those inquiries might be strictly routine, but they would have to be made and Chiappe could see the sense in that. Gilles had pulled Grosjean and his partner from the bank, leaving only a pair of uniformed but relatively experienced gendarmes. They would wait for further rental-box customers to show up.

The instructions were simple. Watch them like hawks in conjunction with bank staff, standing right over them as they opened up their deposit box. They were to take down any complaints or reports, delaying the customers, keeping them there. They were to call in and get technical people on the scene, photographing, documenting things, and checking for fingerprints. Proper detectives, or uniformed sergeants at a minimum, would conduct all interviews. One of the unused boxes had revealed several sets of gloves along with duplicates of dozens of the bank's guard keys. The bogus keys had paper tags and they had been numbered, so their list had been narrowed down substantially. There were over a hundred names on that list. Only about half had been contacted or had turned up on their own. So far they had exactly three reported thefts. There were no longer men on the roof, the site having been thoroughly analyzed, photographed, and inventoried. The evidence lockers were bulging with material.

So far, it was all useless.

They were having a conference in Chiappe's office. Benjamin, who knew everything that was going on but had never walked a beat or made an arrest, was taking notes and fielding the odd phone call.

"So, Gilles." The boss had their full attention after turning aside to his assistant, in a low-toned consultation on other matters while someone from another busy unit held on the phone.

Gilles took a sip of water, downed a codeine pill and then heaved himself to his feet. He had been gaining new insight into the opium-eaters of this world. If lying in bed was agony most nights, sitting in almost any kind of chair was intolerable for more than a few minutes at a time. He'd had enough pain, now that he knew relief was possible. He wandered around, maddeningly enough, going in behind Chiappe and Benjamin. The other detectives could follow along well enough. He drew himself up. Something clicked in the lower back as he stood before the window.

"Regarding Monsieur Solomon. One-point-three million francs, and in stones, no less. If those aren't out of the country by now, I'd be very much surprised—certainly enough time has gone by. As for the gentleman himself, we're digging, but he has a good income. The store and the business are healthy. At his age, as he's not exactly old. He seems to be doing pretty well. Gut instinct, he's not lying, also, his reputation is pretty much spotless. He's Jewish, okay. They do business on a handshake, and scrupulous honesty is to be expected there." Otherwise no one would talk to him and he'd soon be out of business.

He grinned.

"The big markup is for Gentiles."

It was also true that not everyone involved with the jeweler's trade was a Jew. The real question there, was where would the police even begin looking?

"Ah. Yet it's damned hard to take it at face value, Gilles—"

"Perhaps. There is that inside element, which by no means lets him entirely of the hook. But with this theft, now the whole thing begins to make more sense."

"Okay." Chiappe looked at the other detectives.

"Grosjean?"

"Ah, yes, sir. It makes sense. Someone in the bank makes a lucky guess. They know quite a bit about individual customers in a general sense. So someone figures out why old Solomon has a deposit box. They have all the sealed bids from the roofing companies. They get a couple of their own people to take jobs there, possibly even before the contract is even awarded. Pawns are expendable, but this just makes it tougher to identify them. They get flunkeys, people who don't have to know anything at all about the operation, into those companies. They don't even have to know why they're there. Unskilled labour. When the contract is awarded, they already have their pawns in place. No one has the slightest suspicion. Someone in a position of trust, a position of authority, snags a guard key. They figure out how to make a blank. Using a wax key, they make an impression, possibly even picking the lock if they could find a moment of privacy. They get in there and have a quick look. They are pleased to discover their suspicions are correct. Yeah, that's great, a big bag of diamonds, one-point-three million. Some old Jew. It sets them to thinking: how do I do this? They close up Monsieur Solomon's box and sit and think on it a while. They take a look and find some more customers worth robbing. This time they're looking for cash. We've asked the lab to have a good look for signs of picking, but their results are inconclusive. See, here's the thing, uh, Commissioner. The actual lock cylinder isn't all that impressive when you see them. I won't say it's a piece of shit, but the manufacturers of the boxes—they're counting on the bank's own security, also the guard lock. Theoretically, no unauthorized person would ever get a crack at them. Bear in mind, sir, that the bank staffer pulls the box and brings it to the customer in the cubicle." In his view, without a customer, the bank employee would be alone in the cubicle.

This might be utterly simple in a big, busy bank during a rush.

You didn't even need a customer—just some balls, as Dufort had said.

There were other possibilities, it was almost too easy. They have one customer. They distract the head cashier, grab two keys, signing for one, opening up a second box while the other person had their box in the cubicle. There were a number of ways in which it could be done—a pocket full of gas cylinders, a length of hose wrapped around the waist before even going in to work in the morning. It might have been Daniel working alone—or there might have been quite the collective effort.

"Are we looking for their locksmith?"

"Sure. Absolutely. We've got ten junior officers pounding the pavement. So far, no one has admitted to anything. There are quite number of places to get keys made. We're looking for a criminal type who would have at least some idea of what he was doing—all those similar little keys would be rather suggestive to a legitimate locksmith, after all."

"I see. So what was the drill for?"

"The inner keys were made from wax impressions. Bear in mind, Daniel couldn't sneak them out of the bank. There would be a gap in their rack on keys, locked in a metal cupboard. Masson probably didn't have the skill to make a sticky or imperfect key work. We've found quite a number like that—a little too rough to work. He wasn't a skilled safe-cracker, locksmith, or burglar—and more than anything, they wanted those stones. The drill was backup. By definition, Daniel was not a criminal, or he never would have been employed at the bank in the first place."

"So, how many locks were drilled out?"

"Just one. A few thousand francs missing."

Chiappe's eyes flicked across from right to left. Levain, Firmin, Archambault, they appeared more or less in agreement.

"How much?"

"Ah, twenty-seven hundred."

"Gilles."

"Sir."

"We have a theory of the crime."

"Theoretically."

"And what is the best way to proceed?"

"Follow everyone involved until they drop."

Chiappe uttered a tired sigh when he heard that one.

"Seriously."

"Perhaps it's not as bad as all that, sir. At least three or four of the men from that roofing crew—by some odd coincidence, have since quit their employment."

"Er—which ones? And when did they quit?"

"We have their names. They were laid off for the winter—they didn't actually give notice. And when spring rolled around, according to their employer, the firm was unable to contact them at the phone numbers provided. A couple of them, at least, never checked in with the firm. The office staff really can't recall every little detail, from millions of phone calls and all that's going on at the start of the season, a month and a half or two months ago. This sort of thing happens. The natural assumption is that they've moved on, found other work. Maybe they just aren't interested anymore. It's a physically demanding job and they tend to have a high turnover rate, so there may be nothing more to it than that."

At that point, the firm would go to a stack of applications and start making calls.

"What's your instinct, Gilles?"

Gilles came back from the window and seated himself on the left arm of his former chair.

"It would go something like this. The men get themselves hired, in good time, sufficient time, to gain the trust of their employer. Not that their employer trusts them any more than they have to. Employers are blind to what happens in the back shop or out in the real world. It's a fact of life."

"And?"

"Someone arranges a little bit of food poisoning, some low-level poison in Monsieur Arseneau's jug of wine. The lunch-time jug of red is the workingman's privilege. A little bit of belladonna might be just the thing. They arrange for him to be sick, which would imply that the replacement foreman has some level of involvement. But think about it. He might not know the whole crew by name and by face. It sows confusion if nothing else. We're watching him very closely, of course. He is second in seniority, and has extensive experience in flat roofs. Neither one has a prior history, and neither one has any known criminal associates. The men in question were supposed to be cleaning up the roof. The job was supposedly complete, but they did one last inspection. They have to remove the safety barriers and bring them down. They have the scrap chute, and they have to lower their tar-heating system, any leftover materials. It all goes back down over the side and down to the ground level again. Any marks that left are, or would be, pretty good camouflage for someone going down at a later date. It all goes back to the yard, where it can be used by other crews doing other jobs. This is a brilliant crime in its detail and foresight." It smeared everyone, widening the field of suspects, most of whom were probably not involved directly.

There were an awful lot of pawns in this game.

Chiappe was thinking.

Levain coughed.

"The bank was the company's last big job of the year. What that means is that people could expect to be laid off shortly, even without collusion from people inside the roofing company."

Detective Levain continued.

"Okay, sir, what happens is that men get laid off at the end of the season. It looks like they were just putting in a couple of days, in order to make up a full pay period. They have nothing but their own savings, casual work, or the dole to get them through the winter. It generates good feeling between the firm and its employees. It's a bit of a draw to get them to come back the next year. Gilles is right. I've done flat roofs like that, before I decided to get some schooling. It's horrible work. It's hot, it's hard, it's dirty, and you come home at night with your face and hands just black..."

Chiappe nodded.

"Okay. Well, you've got the manpower, Gilles. All we can give you. So who were you thinking of putting under surveillance?"

"Surely not all of them, Gilles?" Archambault, a heavy-set man, and five years closer to retirement than Maintenon, was a tired man these days.

He had recently taken a couple of sick days.

Maintenon nodded grimly.

"Yes—every God-damned one of them."

"And this Alphonse character. Do you want us to talk to him?" Grosjean thought that was only logical.

"No. We'll let them stew on it for a while—follow him, though. Watch him like a hawk." Maintenon had his ideas.

So did Chiappe.

"All right, gentlemen, carry on. And if you would please excuse us, we have some rather more political duties to attend to."

"I need more men."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Of course, Gilles. Of course."

That seemed rather inconclusive.

The tone of Chiappe's voice suggested a kind of envy.

Jean Baptiste had started off his career in the prison system. Now his job was to get them the resources.

He was usually pretty good about it.

Chapter Twelve

They straggled down the hallway and thundered down the stairs.

Trooping into their unfamiliar squad-room, grown small and grubby in comparison to the polished surfaces of the bank, they grumbled and mumbled. Maintenon had a pile of fresh reports stacked high on his desk, which he could only afford to ignore for so long.

They were settling in, and that was the one thing Maintenon could not allow.

"Gentlemen."

They looked up expectantly.

"We need to know more about Daniel Masson—girlfriends, haunts, habits, where he comes from, where he was going, everything. Someone got to him—and it was the death of him. But before his death he served them, faithfully, expecting great reward. Somehow. Obviously."

Fabian Dufort, Grosjean's partner, raised his hand.

"Er..."

"You want the job, you've got it. He has friends, cousins, co-workers. He went out with girls, he had some kind of secret life—the sort of thing his mother and the people at Crédit Lyonnais wouldn't know about. He must have had friends, he must have talked to someone." Gilles steamrollered on. "The sort of thing his mother wouldn't want to hear."

"Yes, sir." The young men exchanged glances.

They had just been catapulted into the big time.

Ready or not—here we come.

They would have killed for Maintenon in that moment. It was a curious fact, jaded and a little bit cynical as Gilles was, the man himself couldn't see it. His reputation flattened everything before it.

They would follow orders because they had no ideas of their own. It was something he had accepted a long time ago.

You really couldn't say that, of course. They were also very bright and had a lot of potential for doing some good in the world. All he had to do was to point them in the right direction.

"Also. Comb this city and find these other characters, our missing roofers."

Sitting down, Maintenon reached for the stack of reports.

They were dismissed.

***

The men had been taking good notes and being fairly thorough in the questioning of the junior bank staff. In such situations, it was best to go back to the same people a few days later. People often gave an answer, during those initial interviews, answers that might be diplomatic. It was enough to get them out of actually answering. It answered a question that the subject might have found slightly uncomfortable—if only in the social sense, and the interrogator, satisfied, would just as sensibly move on.

The bank was giving employees time off and cab fare. They were using an interview room at the Quai.

The girl, Sabine Barthet, had admitted to having a liking for Daniel Masson. Fabian Dufort, the officer conducting the interview, was an extraordinarily handsome young man, big, brawny and polite and quietly impressive in his own way. He might not be another Andre Levain, but there was the same aura coming of the man.

Blushing furiously, those delectable knees and ankles crossed, long eyelashes batted over those big baby-blues. She stammered out the truth.

"We had an affair."

Gilles and Grosjean, whom he'd rather taken under a wing, stood on the other side of the one-way glass and watched her like a bug under a microscope.

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere."

"What do you mean?" Grosjean's voice was hushed.

With a nod of dismissal, Gilles led Grosjean out into the hallway and back to the squad-room.

Firmin was still there, and he could keep an eye on things as well as anyone.

"It all comes down to the question of motivation." Gilles laid it out for Grosjean. "What does it take to talk a nice, sensible young man like Daniel Masson into such a mad adventure? For surely that's how it must have appeared to him."

Grosjean had been wondering that himself.

Daniel Masson was twenty-three years old. He still lived at home with Mama. He had been saving his money and he had a stamp collection. The one or two personal friends they'd spoken to all said the same thing. He had good marks in school. He had gone on to study accounting for three years, having the good fortune to get hired right off the street into the management stream—he'd only worked the counter for three months, during his probationary period. Daniel was a pretty normal person, a pretty nice guy. They also said he hadn't been around much lately and they had been wondering why they hadn't heard from him in a while. When they tried to call him at home, Daniel was always out.

Dufort and Grosjean had been the ones to break the news to the family and they had learned much.

Masson, going by all accounts, had been that most elusive of creatures: a sensible young man. This was borne out by other sources, school records, teachers, his old Scout master. He had never missed a day of employment. Masson had been convinced, enticed, entrapped. He must have been used and ultimately discarded when his usefulness had ended. Theoretically, once the stones and whatever else was safely out of the vault, he had been killed—and yet probably, according to the facts as presented, killed by his own hand.

He got hungry. He ate the apple, in spite of not feeling very well the whole time. It must have been a very long four days for Daniel Masson.

Grosjean kept looking at the door. Like many young pairings of detectives, he and Fabian were very close. For Maintenon, this was understandable, laudable, even tactically sound at most times. Yet there was such a thing as the division of labour. You had to trust your partner's notes, their observation, and their very competence. Grosjean would be shitting razor-blades, wondering what was happening in Interview Three.

He needed to break himself of that habit.

Otherwise you found yourself watching every little thing the other guy did and it was enough to drive one mad.

***

"So you had an affair."

She wrung her hands, unable to look directly into the penetrating and yet kindly blue eyes.

"Well..."

"Well?"

She sighed.

"It wasn't exactly an affair."

"So what happened?"

"We went out a couple of times. That's all."

"I see. How many times did you go out?"

"Um. Maybe five or six—"

"What, only five or six?"

She flushed again, and this time she gave Fabian a defiant look, as if to say, a real gentlemen wouldn't be asking such questions.

"Did he ask you out? Or did you ask him?" He was trying to shake her up a little.

"It really wasn't like that. It was just a thing, and we ended up going together."

"What do you mean, a thing?"

"A show, officer. That's all—a thing."

"Did you have sexual relations?"

She was frozen in tension. To talk about it must seem unthinkable.

"Is this—is this really necessary?"

"I'm sorry. We realize how painful this must be for you. All of his friends and loved ones, really—" A patient reminder that there were bigger issues involved. "Look, all of this will be kept in the strictest confidence, insofar as it is possible. I mean, it probably doesn't relate to the crime at all, right? But we're trying to build a picture of Daniel's last days, which must have been extraordinary..."

The girl was crying again.

Fabian Dufort sat patiently waiting.

"I mean, really, for Daniel to rob his own bank—his own friends. Really. It's extraordinary. We were just looking for some kind of clues as to what might have been going on in his own life." He tapped his pencil, annoyingly, on the table-top. "Whatever was going on inside of his head, eh?|

Sooner or later, she would spit it out. They were asking everyone the same questions, again and again, until they got the whole story. He retreated temporarily.

"So, ah...what sort of things did you do, what sort of places did you go?"

"Oh, just around. We went to the cinema, and out for dinner. Drinks and dancing..."

No matter who you were talking to, no matter what the subject was under discussion, no matter how objective or well-informed someone was, you were never going to get more than half the story, as Maintenon would say.

If you could smell a rat, you're probably half-right, as Dufort's old man would have said.

Daniel had not died a virgin.

That much seemed clear.

***

After sending Grosjean back to his own interviews, all junior bank employees, (most of them female), Gilles was just settling into his desk when a diffident little knock came at the door.

Other than him, the room was empty at that moment.

"Yes, yes, come in."

He looked up as a curious pair entered. The first was a reedy young gendarme with a face and neck reddened by months of sunlight and walking a beat. Gilles was familiar with the look.

The figure at his side was hunched, crabbed up like a spider singed by the flame. His wizened old face spoke of a life-long obsession with the more affordable vintages. The bright blue eyes indicated two things, one of which was a certain raw, unformed intelligence—which you didn't always see, and the other thing was a kind of defiance. He was still alive, he wasn't dead yet, and that was at least something.

There was nothing more touching than an alcoholic's dignity.

Deep down inside, he still cared what others might think of him, although he, himself, no longer did.

It was one of those things.

"Ah, Inspector Maintenon." The gendarme's Adam's apple bobbed in nervous apprehension.

"You've got your man. And who are you, sir?"

The gendarme blushed furiously.

"Blondin, sir. Ah—"

"Relax. Go on, I don't bite."

The wino looked away, searching for clues to life and his barren existence within its framework in the corner cobwebs. He took in the acoustic tiles on the ceiling and the lights hanging on their rods and chains. He shuffled his feet, sniffled and rubbed at his ear.

Perhaps it was just the fact that he was indoors for a change. The smell wafting from the gentleman was nothing if not interesting. It invited a certain analysis.

"Okay, sir. As you recall, we were asking around the neighbourhood about the Crédit Lyonnais job."

"Yes." Gilles leaned back in his chair, idly toying with a pencil on his desk.

"Specifically, we were asking if anyone in the area had heard any kind of motor noise, if anyone had heard anyone working up there on the weekend or during the night. So far, we haven't turned up anything. It's a commercial district. In that area there really aren't too many residential properties."

"True." It wasn't exactly a centre of nightlife either, and yet there was substantial traffic on neighbouring streets, which ran in front of, and behind the bank.

Situated on a corner as well, there must have been pedestrian traffic pretty much all night long. Maintenon's eye traveled over the grubby fellow, silent and crushing a battered black slouch hat between gnarled old hands. The fingernails were black and untrimmed in what might be months. His breathing was quite loud, although the man himself was completely unconscious of it.

"So."

"Sir, Gaspard says he lives on that corner. He says there was no noise up there. He says no one was up on the roof. According to him, no one came down on a rope or anything like that."

"Monsieur Gaspard?"

"Yes, sir, Inspector Maintenon?"

"Do you live right there?"

"Er, well, sir, it's like this—"

Blondin stepped in.

"Yes, sir. He lives in the alley directly behind the bank, ah, and across the street behind the main entrance, comprene? With all due respect to Monsieur Gaspard. It's my regular beat. I have sort of tried, gently but also repeatedly, to see if we could get him to move on, maybe even find him better accommodation elsewhere. Perhaps a boarding house or something. He's an ex-soldier and he does get a pension. It's the only thing that keeps him going, I suppose." Blondin coughed, gently. "His pension is deposited at the bank once a month. When his application was accepted, it was the only place he could sort of think of..."

Maintenon nodded.

"I see." His eyes flicked up and poor old Gaspard's flicked away.

"What unit where you with?"

The man's eyes came back, briefly.

"I was in a pioneer battalion, sir." The tired old back tried to straighten, and there was the suggestion of even more moisture in those rheumy old eyes. "The good old seven-sixty-fifth. Colonel Georges Bazin, commanding."

"And what did you do? What was your job?"

"Ah. Well, sir. I looked after the horses, drove wagons, built roads, dug ditches and laid barbed wire. All that sort of thing, sir."

"Were you under fire or behind the lines?"

"Both, sir. I...oh, yes, sir. I was under fire a number of times." He gulped and a quick twitch went through him.

"Where."

"Verdun, sir. Bringing in the big shells, feeding the guns and the men, sir. We worked mostly at night, of course, sir."

Maintenon got up, came around and stuck out a hand as the gentleman flinched, almost cowering at his nearness. He held his ground though. There was the hint of alcohol on the air, but Monsieur Gaspard seemed to be more or less all there in between the ears. Slowly the gentleman straightened, the tired, sad eyes finally finding his.

They shook hands, the old fellow frankly baffled by this treatment.

"I was also at Verdun. There aren't too many of us left, eh?"

"Oh, argh. Oh. No, sir, I suppose not—"

Gilles pulled a chair over for Monsieur Gaspard, leaving Blondin standing at attention beside the older man.

Gilles sat down. He picked up a notebook and pencil.

"Okay. All right. We're going to need a little, ah, personal information."

Chapter Thirteen

While the police were not social workers, they clearly couldn't let the fellow go back to his alley.

There was the bare possibility that his testimony would eventually be needed. The lives of such men were uncertain. No matter how much of a fixture he might be, men like Gaspard took off or disappeared with depressing frequency. They died in their sleep, or dropped in their tracks, clutching at their chests as the river of life passed them by on the sidewalks. Living on the streets wasn't very healthy, even in the best of seasons. Monsieur Gaspard had a deep, wet, hacking cough that sounded like a lot of fluid in the bottom of his lungs. It might be cleared up with some bed rest in a proper room. A little food and a wash wouldn't hurt the man either.

There was a small budget for such contingencies, and Maintenon gave Blondin simple but explicit instructions. Hopefully Gaspard would cooperate.

The gentleman said he would, but when he was drinking he really didn't have good control, and cheerfully admitted as much to them.

As for Blondin, the young man just seemed grateful that Gilles hadn't shit on him or anything like that. Considering what he had brought in, that was a valid concern. Negative information was just as valuable as positive information, or so it said in the training manual. Maintenon was one of the people who had written that section and it was good to know the students were actually reading it. The officer had shown some initiative and had taken a small professional risk. If nothing else, Maintenon would remember the name.

For Blondin, that would be enough of a reward—Maintenon would remember his name.

As for the information provided, at this point in time Maintenon wasn't drawing any real conclusions. It did tend to corroborate what the security guards were saying. Gaspard was the first one to have any outside, independent information at all, and in that sense it was worth noting.

If true, it had to fit into the pattern somewhere, somehow, for some reason.

***

Gilles stood looking through the one-way glass. Sometimes it felt like examining a bug under the microscope. He was watching Grosjean work.

Their subject's name was Serge Chastain. He was a sly-looking man with narrow shoulders, big hands and long, lanky hair surrounding a pate that was entirely bald. De Garmeaux, working with LeBref, had picked him up. He was one of those who hadn't returned to work with Commercial Roofing Specialties when spring rolled around.

"So you were working with this Bouchard character."

"Ah, yes, sir."

Chastain had been living in a flophouse. A known thief, a one-time pimp according to his record, he'd hit rock bottom. Michel looked hungry and desperate. His suit, which might have once been nice, was a little big for him. The pants had been badly re-hemmed, possibly by Chastain himself. It had been picked off the rack at one of the local church missions. He had no socks and no laces in his shoes. Chastain didn't have a coat or a hat.

He wasn't in hiding or anything like that, as he had patiently explained to De Garmeax.

When he heard the flics were looking for him, he did the right thing and made the call. He had to call collect.

According to him, his conscience was clear. He would be happy to assist them, with no thought of reward. In short, he was scared shitless and worried sick. There might even be a reward in it, and he told them that too. That's what he thought at the time, anyways.

Once it occurred to Michel that the police must inevitably catch up with him, he'd come in on his own hook.

"So, you have nothing to worry about then."

"Ah, yes, sir." Both of them knew better, but it was sometimes better not to let on...

"Tell me what happened."

"Well, nothing really—"

"Someone told you to take this stuff off the roof, someone told you to carry this machine up the stairs."

"No."

"What?"

"I mean, we cleaned up the roof. But we weren't carrying nothing up the stairs, it was all coming down. We lowered the tar and shit off the edge of the roof. We had a crane come in. There was a skid and a half of tar left over. It's in these barrels. Oh, I don't know how big they are." He made hand gestures, they were about so big and so high. "We had to shovel up the pea gravel. It was in a big pile at one end. We put that in pails, and lowered it down too."

"So what sort of stuff went up the stairs? What, you didn't take any tools?"

"Just us, officer. There were tools already up there." Their job was to clean up and get it all down.

Individual workers (ones with any skills) might have some of their own tools, and the employer had used a locking bin overnight for company tools. Theoretically this kept stuff from walking away.

"You and this Bouchard fellow?"

"Uh, yes."

"And then what happened. What time did you go home that day, do you remember?"

Serge heaved a sigh.

"Yeah. They laid me off at noon. I really haven't worked since."

"Okay. You haven't worked since." The detective did his best to look kindly. "Laid you off at noon, eh. What seems to be the problem? With the work, I mean?"

"Pain, officer. Pain, pain, pain..." Chastain's face was pale and drawn, and watching him walk down the hallway had been a bit of a revelation.

It didn't look like they were going to get much more out of this one.

According to Chastain, he'd last seen Bouchard—the only name they had for someone described as a tattooed, barrel-chested man of about forty, at a bar in one of the industrial slums of the city's south-eastern quarter.

***

The area was a mix of the older housing styles, flattened blocks studded with new, white-painted storage tanks and processing plants on the riverbank. This was interspersed with the worst sort of urban blight, including burned-out buildings and empty lots overgrown with tall weeds. With all of the uncertainty in the marketplace, it might take a while to find a buyer for some of those.

The gendarmes had swarmed the area of the city's twelfth arrondissement, its bars, its flop-houses, its lunch-counters, cheap restaurants, coffee houses and more than anything, its missions. They were checking with everyone from the Salvation Army, with their paramilitary structure, to the more orthodox St. Vincent de Paul and some other do-gooder organizations, mostly concerned with reform and temperance, submission and repentance. They asked everyone they came across the same questions. They didn't even have a picture to show. Without a proper first name and initial, there were just too many criminals, going back thirty years, in the files listed under Bouchard.

No one had seen or heard of Monsieur Bouchard in some time.

The rumours, on the other hand, were interesting. People at least seemed to know who he was.

It was said that Bouchard had been seen in a suit and tie, which was unusual for him. It was said he'd been seen with some of the finer whores the area had to offer, but that was mostly in the early autumn and early winter. If he'd saved and lived cheap and clean for a while, he might have had a little money left on him. He wasn't a particularly stupid man.

That was the speculation, anyways.

"And no one has seen him since?"

"No, sir." The bartender blinked, polished his glasses, and looked surreptitiously around the long, cool, dark interior of one of the small watering-holes that dotted every block in the place.

Half the people in there must have been running a tab. It was that kind of place, the home of the defeated.

Trains rumbled past but metres away, shaking the building with a low-pitched vibration that was not unpleasant.

"All right, thank you. If you see him or hear anything more about him, you talk to us, okay?"

Grosjean handed over the business card and a five-franc coin.

"Ah, yes, sir."

So much of police work was like that. Most crimes would never be solved without the cooperation of the public. The next time the bartender saw Bouchard, he would probably tell him to leave town and be quick about it. When Detective Grosjean located his partner, talking up the locals in a bar on the very next street-corner, it was the same old story.

Monsieur Bouchard seemed to have disappeared off of the face of the earth, but then they got a break and that was when some grey-bearded old lag, short of cash and needing a drink, remembered that the subject had a real name and Bouchard wasn't it.

***

Bouchard's real name was Boucher. It was a double-play on words. Boucher was old French for butcher. Some wag had decided that Bouchard, which was slang for 'big mouth' was a pretty good fit, and it had stuck. Nicknames often had a certain rough justice to them. He was said to be tough and mouthy, a bad combination sometimes. Aggressive enough with people smaller and weaker than himself.

A radio call confirmed that Boucher was indeed in the files. He was about forty and lived not too far away.

A quick call to Commercial Roofing Specialties confirmed that someone had been cashing the paycheques issued to Bouchard. Clerically speaking, they appeared to be confused but unrepentant at this odd little error. If a cheque was cashed, and no one reported it lost or stolen, they simply assumed the right person was getting the money—assuming they thought about it at all.

The address matched up with the man in the police files.

Gilles, Andre, Grosjean and Dufort, accompanied by a police sergeant and a pair of gendarmes, had found Boucher's last known residence.

Upon getting out of their cars, a youth of about fourteen, sitting in a doorway and smoking, had hastily decamped, nipping indoors and running up the stairs. There weren't too many places to go as there were no interior doors at street level. There was the door and a bunch of stairs. There was a jar on the step, with an inch of wine left in it, quickly abandoned when he saw them coming. Perhaps there was nothing more to it than underage drinking, but there was such a thing as a lookout in some neighbourhoods.

This was one of those neighbourhoods.

They left Dufort on the sidewalk, and one of the gendarmes scampered the length of the block, looking up at the parapet. In this neighbourhood, escape across the rooftops was second nature to a certain type of citizen.

They were desperate not to get involved as the saying went.

If the kid was smart, he would just stay up there.

On the second floor, there were doors on each side of the landing, with the stairs going straight up ahead of them. There was the lingering smell of boiled cabbage mixed with more immediate smells, and the sound of bacon frying behind the right-hand door.

Dead silence reigned behind the left-hand door.

Gilles caught the sergeant's eye.

"Quietly."

That hard-bitten face nodded, and the two men in uniform grabbed the handrail, carefully placing their feet on the dusty old steps.

They eased their way up to the third floor. Gilles was conscious of some scrutiny from a peephole in the left-hand door at the first landing.

The door opened a crack, still on the chain though, and a youthful face, not the same one, peered out.

"Who are you after?"

Gilles waved him off impatiently.

"Mister Big-Mouth? He's home. The cocksucker thumps around up there half the night, and my mum's sick. She's fucking dying. That one's a freebie, incidentally."

"Stay inside, boy."

The dark little eye winked at him. The door closed, very, very softly...nice neighbourhood.

Gilles eased his weight down and went up the last flight as silently as he could manage.

There was only one door at the top of the stairs, it lay head ahead. Their two uniformed officers got on each side of it and signaled that they were ready.

The young officer, with his long reach, knocked loudly on the door. He stayed out of the line of possible gunfire, which was wise enough.

"Monsieur Bouchard."

There was no answer.

"Monsieur Bouchard. This is the police." There were small noises, coming through the wall as the detectives waited a couple of steps below the top landing.

They clutched the handrail. If a suspect came running out the door, their brief was to crouch and grab. Hopefully the suspect wouldn't break his neck on the way down from there.

"He's running." The young gendarme looked to Gilles.

The sergeant nodded.

"Monsieur Bouchard. Open this door or we kick it in."

The noises seemed a bit louder now...

He gave Gilles a look.

"Do it." Maintenon nodded firmly.

He had distinctly heard the sound of hard maple scraping on dry boards. It was probably a back window being forced up against old paint, dry rot and an opening made tight by heat expansion, the settling of the building and the usual shoddy workmanship.

One kick, up beside where the latch was, and the door crashed inwards.

The young gendarme, quick as a flash, baton at the ready, entered the apartment, his sergeant hard on his heels. The detectives boiled up the last few steps and into the apartment.

"Merde."

"Fuck. We had him." They were already at a window at the end of a short hallway.

The sergeant pulled hard on the young gendarme's belt and yanked him back into the room.

The three of them brushed past the detectives and thundered back down the stairs.

Grosjean stuck his head out the window.

He just as quickly pulled it back in.

"Oh, my, God."

Turning, the young detective bolted for the stairs.

"Grosjean."

He stopped.

"Sir."

"Check the closet, check the bedroom. Check the toilet and the kitchen."

"Ah, yes, sir."

With a wry nod, Grosjean drew his weapon and proceeded to do just that. It didn't take long at all.

"Hey!"

From the bedroom came the sound of a struggle, a woman's voice rising high and indignant. Gilles and Levain stood there with pistols cocked, and then Andre moved towards the bedroom door. There was a thud, a thin partition bulged in the middle, and the whole apartment shook, or so it seemed.

Grosjean dragged a woman out by the wrists, now handcuffed behind her.

She spat as soon as she saw them, still tugging and struggling against her bonds.

Levain smiled, which was just like him.

"Uh, huh, what have we here?"

There was shouting from outside the open window. It seemed not too far away and fairly urgent.

"Gilles?"

Levain went over to the window.

Maintenon nodded, and Andre carefully stuck a leg over the sill. He eased himself out onto the baking roof tiles and was quickly lost from sight.

He was back at the window a minute later.

"It's okay, boss, they got him."

The woman kicked and spat and shouted curses. Maintenon was expecting it, and managed to dodge, it was mostly spittle and not a real horking loogie as the Yanks would say. Their spelling was odd as well.

"Shut up, or you'll be one sorry lady." Poor old Grosjean had spit running down his face as Levain clambered back into the room.

Taking over from Grosjean, Andre gave the lady a certain look and she subsided. He looked the type to whack a woman on the head with a lead-weighted cosh, and think nothing of it...

As a look, it was pretty convincing. Gilles had seen him do it, once. Under the circumstances, it had been perfectly justified and that was all that really mattered sometimes.

Maintenon pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to Grosjean.

"Thank you, sir."

"Madame."

"What? Fuck you. God damn you all to hell. Rotten bastards."

"What's your name?"

"Angelique." They accepted it at face value for the moment. "Angelique Boucher."

"Come on, come on, we're just going to look in your purse and then ask the neighbours."

She really hadn't done anything that they were interested in. She was incidental—she had gotten in the way.

"That's my real fucking name, asshole."

"That's my real name too. Is Monsieur Boucher, or Bouchard, or whatever he's calling himself today, your husband, your son, or your brother?" Is he the man in your life, or a pimp, or both?

She was about to spit at him again, but thought better of it as Andre gave a quick shake of the handcuffs.

"You know better than that."

Gilles nodded. In her present state of undress, with the stench of cheap perfume in the air, and the bottle of not very good wine on the table, the situation seemed fairly clear.

"He's my husband."

Interesting.

"In which case, why are you so angry?"

Levain filled in.

"Yeah—this doesn't have to involve you. Not unless you really piss us off."

Grosjean snorted, handing Gilles back his handkerchief.

"What am I, chopped liver?"

Maintenon raised a hand, cutting him off.

"He still owes me fifty francs—" Again, the lady lunged and Levain had quite a struggle, holding onto her without doing any more damage than necessary to her fine, lady-like wrists.

Gilles reached for his wallet.

He waved a fifty-franc bill around in front of her face.

"Tell me everything you know about the gentleman, and this goes no further. Comprene vous?"

Chapter Fourteen

Sometimes it seemed as if Paris itself were a character. It was that constant dialogue between light and shadow. It was that constant contrast between pain and joy, sorrow and liberation, the sublime surrealism of ten million stories all going on at once and no one really cared to listen, no one gave a damn until it was just too late all of a sudden and another tragedy had been written into the history books.

It was a background emotion, one evolved over a long period of time. And so, one seized the day for what it was, transient and illusory. Life was not for the faint of heart sometimes, but it was all one had.

Boucher or Bouchard was just one aspect of life in the city. His first name was Richard. He'd been born into the most abject poverty. His mother was a prostitute, his father absent much of the time. And now, his wife was also a prostitute. It was an old family tradition, and yet there had been that attempt—to try and make a go of it, to try and live a decent life. They had gotten married in a church, a fact he was insistently proud of. He loved his wife, and she loved him. It's true that they fought a lot, and in fact he owed her money as well. He'd been looking for work and not having much luck. Times were very uncertain. They were trying to keep her mother in an old age home, which was very costly. When he was a child, his drunken father, a sailor on the Levant runs, had beaten the young Boucher mercilessly. He had brothers and sisters, it was the same for all of them. It all came out of him in a rush, and his interrogator was just warming up.

On the other side of the partition, Maintenon and Fabian Dufort watched and listened carefully.

Grosjean was handling the questions. Levain was using a little psychology. Seeing the state of mind of the subject, Andre had opened up the room. He brought in a tray with coffee, bagels and colourful paper napkins. Levain seemed very breezy and casual, even friendly. Grosjean pulled out the inevitable pack of smokes and some matches.

There was some question of background issues, a slow learner or possibly an indefinable illness.

Levain closed the door softly behind him as Grosjean pressed coffee on the gentleman.

"Well, Richard, we, uh, sure appreciate your being frank with us."

"Hmn." Boucher wasn't buying it, not yet.

"And you say you never took nothing up on the roof?"

"That's what I said, officer—look. I swear it's the truth. Shit, I heard about the bank job. I told Jelly, that's my girl, I said, hey. That's the bank I worked on last year..."

"Okay." Grosjean appeared to think. "So, really, who put the poison in old Arseneau's lunch-bucket?"

"What?"

There was something about the tone, and Boucher turned and looked at the one-way glass.

"I swear to God. Maintenon. I know you're there. But I been staying out of trouble. I'm good with the law. I don't need no trouble with you guys, shit. I'll tell you anything you want, okay?"

Maintenon's head jerked in an unusual motion.

"Merde."

"What?" As usual their voices were an unnatural whisper.

"He's telling the truth..."

Maintenon tapped on the window.

A wild look passed across Boucher's face and there were tears in those eyes.

"I swear to God, Maintenon. Fuck, you guys. I know you're there, Maintenon. Please, Maintenon."

"It's okay, all right? One thing you know about Maintenon, he wants to get the right guy. Eh?" Grosjean obviously read the papers as well, which was only a little tiresome at times. "Everybody knows that, right?"

Hero-worship was an unwieldy basis for a proper, working relationship. It was a hierarchy of equals, it even said so in the training manual.

It was one of the more fatuous bits.

Boucher bit his lip and subsided as best he could. It was clearly an effort, and Gilles wondered about any bad habits the gentleman might have. The real junkies would have been sweating bullets by now. Boucher's hands were a little shaky, he had a fair bit of white around the eyes, but he was standing up to Grosjean.

All of this meant something.

Grosjean returned to the questioning, as Boucher settled back into the hard, uncomfortable seat, eyeing up the coffee and buns in a cautious but speculative fashion.

"Go ahead, help yourself. You must be starving—I'm sorry we had to hold you overnight, but you know, you really shouldn't run away from us like that."

Boucher snorted. He tentatively reached for his cup.

"Oh, come on—consorting with a prostitute is a crime, after all. And I do have a rather extensive record. I won't lie to you. I've actually got a summons, a fine. I didn't show up in court that day, and there's probably a warrant out for me. Fuck, I just don't have the money, ah...Camille."

He glanced at the mirrored side of the partition and then leaned forward to concentrate on Grosjean. If he could convince Grosjean, he could convince anyone.

"What's the fine for?"

"Drunk and disorderly. You can look it up in a heartbeat."

They already had, which Boucher might have guessed. Most of his scrapes with the law were pretty minor. It was that attempted hold-up when a man got cut, and Boucher was dumb enough to take the fall for the guy that actually did the cutting. That was the one that kept coming back to haunt him, and he told the detective all of that too. The man had a bad lawyer. The youthful Boucher had been trying to cover for a real bad one, someone he had looked up to and admired at the time. Sometimes the flics knew all that too, but oh, well. It wasn't their lookout.

What were you going to do about that, eh?

He had a few resentments over the years.

"Yeah. Well, that's not really my problem. Look, uh. If only you had something to give us."

"I know, I know. Look. Let's say we get laid off after lunch on a Friday afternoon. Let's say the foreman puts us in for an eight-hour day. Eight and a half, actually. We start at eight and quit at five, a half-hour for lunch. They actually paid us for fifteen-minute breaks. They were all right as far as that goes. Who's going to know, right? Fuck, all we did was shovel up a couple of cubic metres of gravel, load up a couple of pallets with leftover tar. We had a few hours to kill and so that's what we did. Okay? We sling it, and lower it over the side. Then we dismantled the lifter, that's a smaller thing, and once disassembled, we, ah, lowered the bits and pieces on a rope. There were some tools, some garbage. We carried that shit down the fucking stairs. Once we're gone, anything can happen. And guess who's in the hot-seat? Me. Me, officer."

"What about that top section? The upper roof?"

"Yep. That one too."

"Okay. Well. The boss thinks you're all right. As for me, my opinion doesn't matter. So tell me about these other guys, the ones you were working with...how many were you?"

"Just the two of us, and Alphonse. Ah, yes, sir. Sure, Detective."

"Look. We know you want to go home, eh?"

Boucher sat there, mouth open.

"Did you go back to the shop?"

"Ah, no. Alphonse took us out for a drink." He mentioned the name of a dive, with dancers, cheap beer, cheaper wine and a so-called free lunch. "So, what's Alphonse saying, anyways?"

Grosjean ignored it, but it was basically the same story.

"Did you guys have a truck?"

"Ah, yes, sir. We had a stake truck."

"The three of you were in that truck?"

"Yes, sir."

"Convince me. That's all I'm asking. So. Uh. How come you're not working anymore?"

"Oh, Jesus. Have you ever done that kind of work?"

"Ah, no, not really. Go on."

"Ah...shit. I'm not going back there, okay?"

"So how have you been living since then?"

Without any direct input into the questioning, there was little need to be there. Gilles had seen enough.

"Do you have a bank account, Monsieur Boucher?"

"Ah, no, not really."

"Who cashes your cheques for you?"

"I sign the back, give it to the wife and she takes it to the grocery store on Saturday morning."

"Ah. Okay, we were just sort of wondering."

If anyone could wring out a suspect or a witness, it was Grosjean, and Levain kept coming and going as well.

Gilles closed the door softly behind them.

***

"Inspector. What if all these guys are lying to us?"

"That wouldn't exactly be unexpected. The thing to remember is that pawns are pawns." By definition, they would know the bare minimum, being expendable.

The very fact that they were desperate always counted against them. This was true, even in a court of law where evidence was evidence, facts were supposed to be facts and prejudice was supposed to be left out of the equation.

Maintenon had returned to the squad-room where Dufort had found a desk, mashed into the darkest corner. Fabian sat down, ready to begin typing up reports as they were getting behind.

"And what if they are telling the truth?" Maintenon fished for a smoke.

"Well, Inspector—that would be a weird little inconsistency. Right?"

"Either that, or a very weird consistency." Gilles had to pee.

He slapped Dufort on the arm and left the room.

The boys would be done with Boucher soon, and they had to decide what to do about that—should he stay, or could they let him back out into the world?

He would make an interesting witness, (but what would he tell the jury?), maybe even a fine suspect, but at the same time, people had rights. Putting people away for no good reason was very bad policy for any number of reasons. It would take six months or a year to bring him to trial, and they had nothing. Not a damned thing. Not really—just a prior history and the fact that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For one thing, Gilles wanted to get the right guy—or gal.

There really was such a thing as justice.

As the Yanks would say.

***

They had decided, after some discussion, to cut Boucher loose. He couldn't leave the country, not without some sort of proper ID. Apparently the man didn't even have a birth certificate. He'd done some time. When he got picked up, his previous landlord had tossed all of his effects. He and the wife weren't living together at the time or she would have looked after his personal belongings. They had nothing in the way of evidence, no good reason for charging him with anything. It would be difficult to keep him under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, especially in his own unique little neighbourhood. The attempt, risky as it was, had to be made.

The case was taking up a lot of manpower. A lot of the information was still negative.

According to the telephone report that Dufort took an hour later from LeBref, Boucher had gone straight home. The floozie, one Angelique, (Jelly?), had turned out to be his lawfully-wedded spouse. His claim actually checked out. A church in the neighbourhood had a notation in the register as to that effect. The lady, at least, had ID and it was in the family name.

The cops weren't commenting on their lifestyle. It wasn't their problem right now.

As to whether she worked in the trade or merely had extremely bad taste in clothing was a very good question. With a little watching, that situation might become clearer. Boucher didn't impress as the sort of person to initiate a plan on his own. He simply didn't have the resources. If he had, no one would have taken him seriously. Not with the crooked teeth, and that lopsided face, some kind of congenital birth defect, and one or two other factors including some of the coarsest language even the cops had ever heard. The man had a head like a strawberry and there was no getting over it.

Unprepossessing wasn't the right word for it.

Grosjean set about phoning around, trying to find someone to relieve LeBref.

There were things that still needed to be done, including follow-up interviews with the bank staff. According to Fabian, one of the girls had mentioned Maurice, just in passing. She was assuming they knew everything about him. Upon checking with Monsieur Tremblay, sworn to confidentiality, (another damned risk), the police were surprised to learn that Maurice Noel had worked briefly at the bank one or two years previously. He had departed his employment amicably as far as Tremblay knew, being cheerfully unsuited to the business.

"Okay. Thank you." Grosjean hung up, mission accomplished.

Maintenon had his feet up, thinking.

Tremblay himself had been with the company about eighteen years and was hopelessly devoted to his rotund little wife and a child with some sort of palsy. That's not to say he wasn't a suspect, because he was. He was being watched closely.

Camille spoke.

"Tremblay has no idea where Maurice gets his real, serious money. He does have some sort of allowance, more of a token wage. Then there are the usual emergency handouts from the old man." His glittering blue eyes were thoughtful. "Why are we trusting Monsieur Tremblay, anyways?"

Maintenon just smiled indulgently, like a boa constrictor, mid-section bulging with a deer half-digested. It was safe to say that he'd had a pretty good lunch—for once.

"Hmn."

Dufort raised his eyebrows, prepared to listen.

It was nothing if not interesting. Detectives are all too familiar with poor little rich boys. Such people caused an inordinate amount of trouble in the world, sometimes even homicide.

Dufort lowered his notepad and the remaining detectives looked at Maintenon. Eyes closed, he was in his characteristic position, feet up, chair tipped back and his hands up behind his head.

Blue tendrils of smoke curled up above from his thin black cigar.

"So what now, Boss?"

There was a long silence. In Maintenon's opinion, there were two choices. They could increase the pressure, or they could relax it—or appear to relax it. Surely the thieves would be expecting some surveillance. They would anticipate a lot of interest for every single person involved, anyone who might have had access to that vault. It was Maintenon's job to out-think that other mind.

Hmn.

The thief or thieves would be planning on waiting them out. It was either that, or they were already gone, and it was already too late.

He chewed on his lip. He could find enough work to keep them going.

There were all sorts of questions to be asked. Most crimes were solved once enough information had been accumulated. That didn't always happen though.

Finally he opened his eyes and gave Grosjean a glance. His answer was, as often as not, maddening in its simplicity.

"Ah, yes, Camille. And now, we wait."

Chapter Fifteen

Maintenon had sent them back to the bank, which even now was still getting a steady trickle of people coming in to check their boxes. There had been one more reported theft—twenty thousand francs. This was serious eating money for someone running for cover with a bag of stones that might be difficult to quickly dispose of. Like Solomon, someone with access to a little inside information, in this case that of Madame Montagne, might have guessed the box would be worth looking into. The family was obscenely rich and pretty much everyone knew it. This was pure speculation, and a pretty good inference. This lock had also been drilled out, their second. It was a minor detail.

Their current errand was a bit different.

Antoine Noel, looking very grey in the face upon their request, had introduced them to Maurice's former superior, a Monsieur Delacroix. The gentleman was the loans manager.

His boss had stepped out and the footsteps receded sufficiently. The gentleman got up, went over and closed the door firmly. He sat down and sighed.

"Argh. All right, gentlemen, but for the love of God, this goes no further."

The pair of young detectives exchanged a quick glance.

Grosjean suppressed a sardonic grin.

"Yes, sir." Of course one must say such things, thought Fabian.

"Maurice is the nicest guy you're ever going to meet. Fuck, I ended up loving that guy. It's weird and I know it sounds stupid. You won't believe this, but we're still friends. But that is exactly what Mo is. He's a very stupid, very charming man. His paperwork was an abortion, gentlemen, and I do mean abortion. He'd approve anything, and I mean anything, all for the love of his fellow human beings. That guy would lend money to anybody. He didn't have the brains God gave to a squirrel. He was truly nuts, gentlemen. I had to go, and gently try and explain the situation to his old man—not in so many words, not in those exact terms. Ah, but Mo was clearly not going anywhere in this business. Where, if nothing else, a certain meticulousness is called for. As I am sure you gentlemen would agree—not being entirely unfamiliar with the concept, ah, in your own line of work."

"Er, well, yes—"

It was all the encouragement the fellow needed.

"Yeah, you wouldn't believe it. He really is a nice guy, but he's such a fuck-up. Charming as all hell, and apparently the fellow's got the luck of the Irish. I mean, we'd all like to be born rich, right. Maurice has the nerve to abuse it. Of course, all the women were in love with him. That's the one thing I will say for him—he really knows how to treat the ladies."

"Whatever do you mean?"

The fellow shook his head sadly.

"God, I wish I had his touch." A thick wedding band was embedded in the flesh of his short, sausage-like finger. "He would spend money like water. Most of us have to earn it and so we maybe appreciate it a little more—"

Dufort looked over at Grosjean with questions written all over him.

"They say everyone has a special gift in life. I've never actually discovered mine—I've always had to work my ass off, at everything I ever did. Just to get anywhere at all, gentlemen. But my advice to you, is don't play cards with that man."

"Ah. And why is that?" Grosjean kept prodding.

"Oh, I don't know. They won't let him in the casinos anymore. For one thing." He was referring to Monte Carlo and some of the private games around town, sometimes known to police but tolerated as an outlet for a certain rather over-privileged set. "Honestly, he should have been a natural at this game. Cards, as you may know, is nothing more than the study of probabilities." The loans manager shook his head. "Really, mortgage and loan, it isn't that much different from gambling—we do our research. If he has any kind of a system, really, he should have been able to understand ours. Basically, we try to remove as much of the, ah, element of chance as we can."

Grosjean looked down at his notes and then over at Dufort, as if seeking inspiration.

"And what is your system?"

Delacroix snorted.

"Let's just say that we hold at fifteen, no matter how lucky we're feeling."

Grosjean sighed. They might as well wrap this up, as it looked like the gentleman was finished.

There were new questions to be asked elsewhere.

***

Maintenon groaned, sat up in bed and switched on the light.

The phone was definitely ringing, interrupting a bad dream which was already fading into meaninglessness. His father had been dead for over twenty years.

"...as long as you're going, can you pick up a pack for me...?"

It had no real significance.

It rang again. He snatched it up, almost against his will. For once he must have been sleeping.

"Hello?"

"Gilles." It was Firmin, the most inconspicuous man ever, working unusually late.

"Yes."

"We've got some weird kind of action here."

"Like what? Where are you?"

There was music in the background and a dull human roar. Firmin was engaged in a heated discussion with someone.

Another voice came on the line, loud, breathy, half-drunk and half-familiar.

"Gilles."

"Yes, what. Don't shout at me. I will have you checking parking meters."

"Ha. That's a good one. Do you know who this is?"

"Ah—"

Someone laughed.

"Gilles, it's me. LeBref. Three of our innocent young ladies are here. They're having a big long conversation. And they've beaten back a couple of likely prospects, when young women come to places like this for one reason, mainly. To dance. And maybe later, to get fucked. Hello?"

"What in the hell are you talking about? This had better not be a joke, mon ami."

"Ah, no, Gilles. It's no joke. Okay, so they're young and single. They've turned down a couple of handsome men. I mean, really good-looking guys. But listen to this—we've got Luce Coteau, age thirty, Mathilde Lambert, a bare nineteen, and Danielle Wathelet, who's pretty young too. She's about twenty-two. They've barely touched their drinks. It's been hours. They're conferring pretty heavily on some serious subject. I can't get close enough, they just clam up, basically when anyone comes around, but I will keep trying—" One had to bear in mind that LeBref was ugly as hell.

He was barely a hundred and fifty centimetres tall.

"LeBref. Put Firmin back on." Gilles listened intently, but the line had gone suspiciously quiet.

He tapped the cradle, hearing a good click in the earpiece. The line went dead, which meant that the boys had hung up on the other end. Presumably.

That was the trouble with tailing operations on an expense account.

They never knew where it was going to take them.

Gilles sighed, settling back onto the pillows. They were at a club, somewhere in Greater Paris or its environs. Other than that, he could try and go back to sleep.

Tracing the call was tempting, it was also an over-reaction.

His gut instinct was that good, old-fashioned, plodding, methodical police work was the only thing that held any hope whatsoever of solving this case. The man-hours were mounting up alarmingly. The bank and their lawyers, the insurance company, were showing signs of going over his head and becoming political. Chiappe was calling him three or four times a day.

Three women out for a night on the town. And why shouldn't they? It was the weekend. At least for them. He checked the bedside clock.

It was two a.m.

His guts were churning.

"Oh, for the love of God."

He reached over and snapped off the light.

***

He didn't have a whole lot of pain or anything.

Gilles tossed and turned, thinking of Ann. There were some warm memories but more melancholy thoughts too. After a time, his thoughts turned to his family. They were mostly far, far away. Some lived in town, but he rarely saw them these days. He might remember an aunt or an uncle, a cousin. As often as not, he had no idea of what all of their kid's names might be. He couldn't remember the half of them.

This seemed enough of a barrier, human nature being what it was, and so he never called.

He thought of the day ahead. He wondered where the others were. What they were doing and more than anything, why in the hell they would bother him in the middle of the night.

Some kind of weird action...

They had their own instincts too. Their subjects all worked at the same place. They would be acquainted by name and by sight. That didn't necessarily always translate into friendship. The ladies might be of different ages, but they might also be fellow-travelers, like-minded in their pursuits.

They might very well have hit it off somehow. Luce was the oldest and divorced. He remembered that from the interviews. None of them claimed a steady boyfriend or fiancé. She would be exotic, or she might appear tough and cynical to younger women. She might have a certain leadership quality among them. Why shouldn't they go out for drinks? Psychologically, it fit well enough.

There was a vehicle idling in the street below, and snatches of a human voice. There were scooters off in the distance, a persistent buzz that never left the city if one had ears and the awareness. On the other side of his bedroom wall, a door closed, audible in spite of forty or fifty centimetres of masonry. He wondered why they were up over there until he recalled that they had a new baby of about eighteen months.

He'd seen them coming and going at street level, but the odds were he would never ever learn their names.

He was just dropping off when the phone rang again.

"Argh."

He wasn't going to answer it, but human curiosity being what it was, he just couldn't help himself.

Call it a sense of personal responsibility.

"Lord, love a duck." Not that he couldn't cuss when it was appropriate.

His language had been atrocious lately, a sign of something deeper.

"Hello?" He bit back the inevitable question.

Do you know what bloody time it is?

"Boss. You are really going to love this..." This time it was Fabian Dufort.

Over the years, Gilles had seized every opportunity to stick a bright young guy with an experienced, older detective. He did it every chance he got. Grosjean, the senior partner, was getting a little bit of solitary work, legwork, but he was mostly off on his own or working with Archambault. And yet he could have sworn he heard Grosjean talking, right there at Dufort's side.

It struck him then.

"What in the hell are you all doing together?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, sir. Sorry to wake you up. Ah, we've got the three dames and then out of nowhere we caught sight of Maurice coming into the bar. Our boys were right on his tail. They're together now, Boss. And they're not drinking, although they have drinks in front of them. They've had some little appetizers...no big meal, no real dancing so far."

"Maurice Noel?" Merde.

"The one and the same, sir."

"Stay on them. Stick to them like glue."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, and one more thing."

"Ah, yes, Inspector?"

"Call whoever is relieving you. Make sure you link up with them. I want twenty-four hour coverage. Oh—and don't call here again tonight. Right?"

"Ah, that's two things, sir. But of course—" He hung up abruptly as the hiss of his fellow detective whispering in his ear was cut off in mid-stride.

Gilles looked at the clock.

Four thirty-seven a.m. in the God-damned morning.

If he was lucky, he could still get a couple hours of sleep. The dull ache in his hips was much diminished in the last few days. The problem with the pain pills was that lift they gave you when all you really wanted was relief—to feel normal again.

It might not mean anything of course. Girls will be girls and men like Maurice would run true to type, whatever that type turned out to be. The man was a gambler. That bore some consideration. He would know everyone at the bank except the more recent hires. Analyzing the personality, the mind behind this crime was critical. One more thing for his own tired little brain to chew on.

Gambling, cards or horses, it was all about analyzing the probabilities...interesting. He couldn't quite decide whether to haul Maurice in and ask a few pointed questions or not. It would give a lot away, assuming they were getting close. What exactly they would be asking a man who hadn't worked at the bank in a year and a half was another good question.

There was a loud snork sound. His eyes popped open. The sky outside his window was much lighter and the birds were going like some kind of infernal twittering machine.

His pillow was wet from where he'd been drooling.

Ergo, he must have been asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

It was another damned Monday. The over-crowded squad-room was abuzz with talk of the weekend when Gilles stalked in, bags under his eyes and looking ready to bite someone.

"Oh, look, Boss. We got fresh coffee—" Camille and Fabian exchanged a glance.

"Argh."

Levain stepped up to the microphone, figuratively speaking.

"Okay, Boss. We got our subjects home, and they either did a couple of errands or stayed in on Saturday and Sunday. The girls will be at work by now. Sunday was pretty quiet. We have enough men on the job."

Gilles nodded grimly.

"We need to know a lot more about Monsieur Noel."

"I would tend to agree."

There was a silence and then Archambault had one of his coughing fits. This always called for an embarrassed silence, but what the hell could you say anyways? You couldn't really talk with all that going on.

Sweeping a jaundiced eye across the faces of the detectives in the room, Gilles realized that they hadn't been sleeping any better than he had. All that overtime. It was insidious—they wanted the money but it took a toll. That toll mounted when you had to come back first thing Monday morning and start a forty-hour week all over again. A bit of a binge at taxpayer's expense probably hadn't helped.

"All right. Good job, everybody. Ah—let's hope we get a break soon. What about the stones?"

Archambault pulled the handkerchief away from his face.

"So far, no rumours, no feelers, no whispers going the rounds, Gilles." The gem-cutting community was international in scope, but it was also quite small.

Archambault's breathing was loud, shallow, laboured.

The criminal world was much larger in terms of community. They had their jungle telegraph.

Certainly, as Jews, the majority of dealers would sympathize with Solomon and most likely, cooperate as best they could. They would be hot to catch the culprits. They would be on the lookout for unusual or suspicious deals, or even just feelers from unknown actors.

However, fences and other criminal types were a different story.

"That kind of action would be difficult for all but the biggest fish, Gilles." Stool-pigeons would be much less likely to hear about such activity. "So far, no one's doing a lot of bragging."

You really couldn't take one or two uncut diamonds to the typical, low-level fence. It would generate a lot of talk and curiosity. They also had a lot of stones to get rid of.

Maintenon nodded.

He eyed the coffee pot, sitting on its hot-ring.

"Very well. Carry on, gentlemen."

***

Gilles was in Chiappe's office for a brief talk after going through numerous reports.

"So, how's it going?"

"Hmn."

"Like that, eh?"

The truth was, it wasn't going very well. Sometimes that wasn't always the best thing to say.

Chiappe wasn't a bad guy, he was merely the Commissioner.

As such, he was at a bit of a disadvantage. All he could do was to apply pressure. This was understandable, but not exactly helpful. He would say what he had to say and they would do what they had to do—whatever they could do. Not being directly involved with the case, Chiappe had no idea of what was going on. He would ultimately defer to the officers. They were the ones with all the direct knowledge of the case.

It was sometimes said hiring was done based on shoe-size rather than IQ. Some officers lent real credence to such a suggestion, not that they weren't useful enough.

The question was when and where to deploy them. That was Chiappe's problem.

"All we can do is wait. Careful inquiries regarding Monsieur Maurice are being made."

"What are we hearing so far?"

"That he is very good at cards, and particularly gifted with predicting the outcomes of horse races. The trick is not to let it get back to him. Anyone with any involvement in this case will be hyper-alert to signs of the police sniffing around." His dark, slightly bloodshot eyes sought out the big chief. "We have to present them with a certain amount of police presence...and then let it slacken off. Inevitably."

Even if the stones were out of the country, the thief or thieves must have some kind of a plan for their personal future. They were only going to wait for so long.

What the police were doing, what was being reported in the press, had to look reasonably complete, and at the same time, inefficient.

"Okay, so I called the Defense Minister."

Maurice had been in the army, coming of age in the latter part of the war. He'd been a junior officer, quickly discarded after the Armistice. He'd never seen action, being employed at regimental headquarters. He was what the Army called literate. One of the things Maintenon liked about Chiappe was that he could put things in twenty-five words or less.

What he left out was unimportant.

"Hmn." Gilles was seated comfortably with one ankle across a knee and a cold drink, ice clinking in the glass at his side.

He had a new appreciation for life. He was rather enjoying the temporary respite from the noise, the ringing telephones, the incessant questions, and to some extent the boisterous good humour of the younger men. When they didn't have enough to do, the horse-play and downright shouting back and forth got out of hand. A smart boss would indulge them to some extent. He wasn't sure if this was a manic state or a reaction, mere contrast with the past pain and extremely low state of mind at times. His mood must inevitably affect the men.

Also, a smart boss would get the hell out of their way once in a while.

It built rapport, team spirit, and blew off steam in more or less socially-acceptable fashion—as long as senior officers in adjoining sections didn't object.

They had their own work to do, and their own mixed bag of troops to keep under discipline.

"So he's gifted."

Maintenon snorted.

"Here's the thing. He only lasted about eight months. Maurice hasn't been employed at the bank for over a year and a half. But. He would have had the opportunity to learn much, including the layout. He and the brother might have gotten up on the roof, who knows. As a child, it is said that the old man would bring them in sometimes, and let them play about the place. He has an older brother and three sisters. They say the boys were quite a pair, in terms of pranks and such. The girls, they were all cute as a button. A lot of companies have that—bring your kid to work day. Antoine is nothing if not a people person. The people we're talking to, they might have let Maurice walk right in, simply waving him through the crowd. They might not even ask what he was doing there. They might assume he was looking for his father, and once in, he has the run of the place. Yet it's still pretty far-fetched. It's no way to hatch a plan—not if you want to get away with it. Not in the long term. No one has mentioned anything like that, and then there is the sheer recognisability of the fellow. What's he going to do, go walking through the lobby with machinery and bags of hoses slung over his shoulder? Surely someone would have remarked upon it. It would be easier for a scruffy old roofer, or someone who looked like one, to get away with that. That sort of job is noisy and disruptive. If someone recognized Maurice, they'd be sure to stop and talk to him. The lab boys found spider-webs in the vacuum pump. We figure it's been up there all winter already. The roofing people, every damned one of them, swear it wasn't up there when they did the work...those spider webs are extremely suggestive."

"Shit. It's a pretty puzzle."

"Oh, I don't know about that. It's a brilliant plan, insofar as it appears to have worked. They do have the stones." Getting the diamonds back seemed an unlikely prospect.

Only the real thieves knew the location. Enough time had gone by. They could have been mailed out of the country for all the police knew. Random postal and customs inspections weren't much of a deterrent, as the drug problem clearly showed. There would be any number of small packages, all first-class postage, on materials that were leaving the country and not entering it. One or two packages might get popped. With simple precautions most would get through—a series of different originating addresses, different package sizes, different-coloured wrapping paper, maybe even different handwriting, and using different denominations of stamps. The packages could be sent to a number of different post restante addresses. It would work just fine, although there were limits as to how long a package or letter would be kept before being sent back. There were also private post restante addresses. They might hold a package indefinitely for the proper fee.

It was all theory at this point.

"Ah. If this was organized crime at its most professional, the stones have already been broken up into smaller lots and dispersed." The boss wagged his head from side to side.

The big corner office, overlooking the Seine in all of its polluted and algae-ridden splendour, was an oasis of quiet in an environment not noted for such niceties.

"But you don't think so?"

Gilles considered it.

"It's a little too original, although they do hire outside consultants from time to time." There were other possibilities. "People with ideas sometimes try and sell them to the mob. They're looking for expertise. They're on someone else's turf—and it's good to have your disposal, your buyer, all rigged in advance."

"So what else is there?"

"The men are digging into Daniel Masson. We've got over a dozen or twenty people under surveillance. Shit, I lose track at times. For all the good it has done so far. But the meeting, as the younger detectives are calling it, is interesting if nothing else. It appeared to be a serious discussion, which ended on terms that were less than cordial. Whatever they were talking about, they weren't very happy. Or maybe they were just scared."

Chiappe nodded, lost in thought.

"The Moulin de Galette. Honestly, it's a weird place to have a confidential meeting."

Maintenon agreed. However. There were so many other things they might have been talking about, or doing, or maybe they just ran into each other by coincidence. Someone said the wrong thing and their little party might have cooled off quickly.

They could have been talking about the stock market, or more likely, who was the best-dressed or most outrageously promiscuous star of stage or screen.

***

"Oh, God. Why did you have to do this terrible thing—"

Fabian Dufort had comforted more than one bereaved parent over the years.

It never got any easier.

Grosjean sat comfortably sipping tea, having seen it all before and knowing that to overreact was patronizing. The woman, not bad looking once, but now old before her time, wept and the father sat there like a bump on a log. Fabian had been steeled in a hard school over the years. It was an interesting performance.

"My son was such a good boy." Lena Masson's shoulders heaved.

Her eldest daughter held her tight, arm around her, glaring at the police as if willing them to stop.

She had also previously indicated that she would be delighted to help them catch her brother's killer. The sister had been the one to identify the body. The family were having trouble with the facts on the ground. She was mad as hell, without anywhere to direct it. They were getting as much out of the sister, Phoebe, as Lena.

The old man's name was Jean and he didn't seem to be all there and not particularly curious about them either. The old man sat there in his chair, waiting to go back to the papers and no doubt wondering when he would get his supper. They had turned the radio down so as to talk and the old man didn't know what it was all about.

He couldn't quite comprehend that his son was dead.

"Daniel was such a good boy." Daniel's mother Lena wrung her hands, tears streaking her mascara and running down her cheeks.

Madame Masson, sixty-five in appearance, possible a little younger in reality, was a heavy-set, blowsy woman with the most ample bosom Fabian Dufort had seen in quite some time. Her cooking would be wonderful and she reminded him of his grandmother. It was an unfortunate reminder.

One day Fabian might not come home and the thoughts of what that would do, to his grandmother, and his mother, and his kid-sisters, were anything but pleasant.

"He had a very good job at the bank." Daniel's older sister was understandably proud.

She was also devastated by the death of her baby brother, and desperately trying to shield her mother from further pain.

"So what was he like around the house? Ah, did he go out much?" Fabian was being as gentle as he could.

There was something missing, some piece of a larger puzzle and he would sure as hell like to know what it was. Phoebe was holding something back. It was written all over her, from the angle of the neck, the unnaturally bright expression, the hands clasped tightly in the lap. Just the way she sat told him much.

The police would keep digging. People had been hurt, and now more people would be hurt some more. It was unfortunate. The police would go where the impulse took them. In the absence of any real leads they would watch, they would wait, they would listen, and with someone like Maintenon, they would keep chewing away at it, like elephants, never forgetting.

Fabian and Grosjean had other cases as well. Sooner or later they would be sent back to their own unit.

Sooner or later it had to happen, right?

"Ah, Daniel went out on weekends."

"Did he have a regular girlfriend?"

"Ah—" She looked at Mother. "Well, no."

The old woman's face had crumpled and fresh tears spewed forth.

Her son would never marry, her son would never bring her grandchildren. There was so much more.

Fabian nodded. The young woman, obviously used to dealing with her aging parent, took the old woman, practically dragging her up off the sofa, and put her to bed. The detectives heard them moving around in the master bedroom, their low voices going back and forth. The old man sat glaring at them, furious at this disruption of his routine. So far he hadn't said a single word.

If looks could kill.

She came back with that shameful look, the look of a bedraggled person stretched just slightly beyond their limits and aware that it shows. The old man sat there, not needing anything but supper and the radio.

"Mother is very old-fashioned."

"Ah."

A baby crying in the background gave them a new perspective on her life and challenges. One wondered where the father was, but this was more about Daniel.

"Was your brother a virgin?"

Phoebe froze into rigidity.

"Ah...I really don't know. I hope not—" Again she seized up.

To say such things was unthinkable, of course, but attitudes were also changing.

More things were being left unsaid.

"My brother liked the clubs, of course."

"Ah, the clubs."

She mentioned a few names, all of which rang a bell to the officers involved. They were well-known watering-holes. They also had the reputation of being expensive.

They had been in and out some of those places a few times themselves, sometimes in a professional, sometimes in a private capacity. Nightlife meant people, and large numbers of people meant crime. It was like flies on a baby's blanket.

"What about the Moulin des Galette?"

She shrugged.

"Oh, God. Probably."

"Have you cleared out his room yet?" It was kind of dumb question, but an opener for the next one.

Daniel had only been gone a few days.

She stared at them, a pale oval face with dark, sad orbs implanted where a person's eyes ought to have been.

"No—no, it's just exactly how he left it."

Fabian had the impression the lady was lying but plowed on, relentless.

"Would you mind if we had a look? Because honestly, I really don't see Daniel as that sort of person. He never would have come up with this sort of plot all on his own. We think someone might have induced him. Maybe even coerced him. It's a theory, right? If only, ah, if only we could find some sort of a clue as to who that might have been...to have put him up to it...this, uh, terrible, terrible thing."

There was this look of abject fear, and eternal gratitude all mixed up like a dog's breakfast.

It really sucked being a detective sometimes. Without cooperation they would have no choice but to request a search warrant. This was much less complicated than the safety-deposit boxes.

They had all kinds of cause. It was better to spare the family the additional pain.

The lady wasn't half bad-looking if one could overlook the dress, which was more like a gingham tent pitched over a very lean frame. The flapper look, joyous and youthful at best, hung on her in the modern flat-shoe, flat-chested look. It was the best attempt of a poor girl to look good, the whole effect underwhelming. Even the stockings were just slightly off-shade, in a not particularly nice flesh tone. The calves were a bit thin for his liking. She had rabbit's feet, long and narrow, with a bunch of tight, curling little toes on the end.

Those eyes were compelling. There was a strong message in behind there. It looked like guilt of some form or another. Standing, she led them to Daniel Masson's bedroom. It was a nice big room in masculine colours, with a pair of tall windows looking out over the back. The block, surrounded by buildings, had the usual greensward of gardens, brush, shrubs and waste behind the houses. There were a couple of nice gardens out there. The curtains were heavy and dark, but thrown open to reveal a narrow bed, a dresser, and a violin in a case. This room smelled different from the rest of the house.

"Please...this is just as Daniel left it." There was the wash of tears in her eyes.

"Yes. Of course. We understand." Grosjean turned and engaged her sympathetically.

Grosjean and Dufort stood looking around for a moment. They took in the posters of prominent opera singers, genuine playbills taken from walls and display cabinets in the front lobby. Daniel must have known someone to get those. Dufort especially liked a candid, glossy photo of Igor Stravinsky.

With a calm glance at the lady, who would be staying in the room with them, Dufort pulled on his gloves. His partner Grosjean stood by with a notebook, a camera bag, looking like military surplus, slung over the left shoulder and a good camera around his neck. He was properly trained and had all the certifications required to gather evidence.

There was an expectant, speculative look on his face.

"I thank you, young lady. We really appreciate your help with this."

There was a grim look on her face, as Dufort, with the unerring instinct of the flics, headed straight for the roll-top desk in the corner under the window. The bedside table had a small drawer, another good prospect with a distinct smell, vaguely familiar, coming from somewhere in the vicinity.

When he opened the top right drawer of the desk, the first thing he saw was the gun.

***

"Someone had to have drawn a very clear and accurate picture of what they wanted to do."

"And then?" Chiappe, sitting in on the meeting, listened carefully, as did Gilles.

Dufort and Grosjean were taking turns, one simple step at a time, gaming it out according to some kind of criminal theory they had—Gilles thought Lombroso but he could be mistaken. It might have been one of the eminent criminologist's more obscure works.

"And then they had to act upon it. They had to know something about Monsieur Masson. They had to get at him somehow, going by our theory."

His partner picked up the tale.

"Monsieur Masson used cocaine. Fabe says he smelled hashish in the drawer. Me, I'm not so sure, but. He had some other expensive tastes. He had a small semi-automatic pistol, which no one else in the household knew about. There was one spare clip and a box of bullets. All rounds accounted-for. Odds are the gun's never been fired. The thing was clean as a whistle. He was just some nice young guy, with no real reputation as a hard-rock. We found bills from some pretty fancy restaurants, ticket stubs from expensive shows. There was most of a bottle of good whiskey in a bottom drawer, and a handful of genuine Havanas. There's something aspirational about all of this. He took cabs when other young men, employed at a similar level, would have taken the Metro. A lot of young bucks are riding some clapped-out, broken-down motor-scooter. Either that or they're walking. There were some other bills and receipts in there. He could afford good clothes, and ah...some of the purchases would appear to be feminine. There were a few loose condoms, the kind dispensed by a machine and not by the box-load from a pharmacy. Daniel had a girlfriend. He must have. If he was making the purchases for personal use, he didn't leave any sign of it at home. I suppose it's an angle worth looking into."

"When you say feminine, what exactly?"

"Yeah, boss. Clothes, stockings, scents." He mentioned the names of a few shops.

Chiappe's own wife shopped at one or two of those places. They were not exactly cheap.

"Hmn. Homosexuality?" Chiappe made a face but Maintenon just nodded thoughtfully.

It would be strong handle for such a person. He was a tool. Meant right from the start to be killed, an expendable pawn, the mere threat of exposure might buy all sorts of cooperation—especially if there was some big reward involved for the young man's assistance in the robbery.

You didn't scoop over a million in gemstones without incurring some expenses.

It was the cost of doing business. That's what the killer would have told Daniel.

"So, what did his sister say? Did we confront her?"

"Er, yes, sir. She said she didn't know that he had been using cocaine. She said that she sort of saw it in there—she said she knew he had some money. It would have upset her mother to bring the subject up and so she didn't. She pretended not to know what it was. No signs of a syringe. No needle marks on the body, according to Dr. Guillaume. There are other ways to do it though. Some kind of headache or toothache powder, that's what she thought. She apparently goes to some sort of Oriental apothecary herself. It's mostly bullshit. Without a will, and without evidence that the money was obtained by crime, we can still hold onto it as evidence—which we think it is. We're pretty damn, sure, actually. But he could have just barely saved that much from his own resources. Only, only if he wasn't indulging in such expensive tastes. It's the classical criminal conundrum. Where is all this money coming from? His bank account shows a pretty good balance too. Eight hundred ninety francs. He had an account in his own bank. His bankbook was recently updated. I'm surprised no one really remarked on that. That's not bad for a young guy with a social life. Someone was bankrolling him, or he had some other source of income no one knew about. She said she never saw the gun, but I doubt very much if that's true either."

"So she said she didn't know about the dope?"

Grosjean shrugged.

"What else could we reasonably expect her to say? But when pressed, she says she doesn't do the stuff herself. She really doesn't impress me as the type. A little too dowdy if you know what I mean, and by all accounts she runs in a different crowd—they're all working-class girls. The odds are she found it when she looked in the room. A kind of denial, she just didn't want to deal with it. She has officially denied looking in any of his drawers. She was a little too scared-looking and I don't really believe it. She might not have really known what it was, basically thinking it's just a white powder in a glass vial. Most likely, she saw things in there and didn't know what to think. She's kind of house-bound, not overly-sophisticated, but one has to wonder if she reads the papers or any of that."

In other words, her story didn't entirely make sense. So far, no one's story made sense. When it began to make sense, watch out.

"So. Gentlemen. What's the plan?"

Chiappe was getting ready to leave.

"When we get a minute, we want to follow up on some of those receipts. Some of the clubs. If he was a regular, someone with a little money, a big tipper, spending lavishly and smoking a big fine cigar, somebody will remember him. Hopefully they will remember someone of interest, tagging along beside Monsieur Masson."

Thoughts of that other meeting, the other night, danced through their heads.

"What about phone taps, Gilles?"

Maintenon shrugged.

"I don't know—I think there are just too many of them." Besides which, they had nothing in terms of probable cause.

Not yet.

Chiappe rose abruptly.

"Very well. Thank you. Gentlemen—you're doing a fine job."

That was the second time someone had said that recently.

Shit.

And that was it, the boss was gone.

Levain looked up from his desk, pulling out the sheet in his typewriter decisively. The light of a fine humour danced around in those eyes. He set it on top of the stack and pulled out a blank sheet.

"I've often wondered what he meant by that." Although it did put a bit of separation between the big boss and the investigation.

There was some purpose to it.

The younger men chuckled dutifully, and even Maintenon's lips stretched in a reluctant grin.

Chapter Seventeen

The Moulin de Galette was named after the famed windmill that had appeared so prominently in the works of the Impressionists. It was a shabbier, watered-down competitor to the Moulin Rouge. The really great thing was that the tourists, in some unspoken collective agreement among concerned Parisians, had never heard of it. It was typical for a big city cabaret. The food was said to be surprisingly good. The dining room was on the ground floor, the club downstairs. Prices for drinks were a bit steep but not outrageous. There were nightly shows, bands, dancing, even acrobats and magicians.

The marquee, with its replica windmill on the left side, brightly-lit and spanning the entire top of the building, cast its blue glow over the rain-washed streets. Noises were oddly muted by the rain. It was like the city just hissed and swished sometimes, all deeper frequencies suppressed.

A quick flash of the badge and they were admitted, bypassing a long line which went down the block and around the corner. The whispered word flics traveled fast, and yet if people were staying out of trouble, what were they so worried about?

Screw them if they couldn't stand the sight of cops.

We're just doing our jobs.

Fabian followed Grosjean to the far corner. The long mahogany bar, taking up most of the back wall, awaited. The noise was horrendous, and the music wasn't even going. People were elbow to elbow, all of them talking at once.

Fabian started off with the photo of Daniel Masson. Their first bartender hung there, not particularly caring one way or the other if they ordered a drink—the problem was that every night was a busy night and the people were lining up three and four deep. Dozens, scores of well-dressed men, young and old, were waving their arms and their money around and trying to get someone's attention. There were four or five of them working the bar, and it was never enough.

The pace was frenetic from early evening onwards, and no one had time to pose for the Manets of this world. Or so his expression seemed to imply.

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't recognize him." The fellow's voice was flat and cold.

He had better things to do than talk to the police about his customers.

"Oh, come on, sir." Dufort pulled a five-franc coin and slid it across the bar. "Can you please just take another look?"

"Sure." The coin disappeared.

Something about the contemptuous ease of its disappearance told him they still weren't real popular in his corner of the world.

"Yeah, maybe I seen him around."

"Here, sir? What's your name? If five francs buys us some kind of an answer, how much does it take to get to the whole story?"

Unexpectedly, the fellow grinned, shrugging his shoulders and perhaps aware that his own long face was transmitting something unusual to the nearest customers. To be fair, they were mostly intent on their own business, stricken by powerful thirsts as they had been. One character at Grosjean's elbow took a second look and then faded, pushing backwards and being quickly enveloped by a sea of thirsty patrons.

They ignored him for the time being, having more urgent business.

"Do you know his name?" The bartender was about twenty-five years old and bearing the pasty skin of those perpetually employed during the hours of darkness.

He shrugged elaborately.

The flics had some sympathy for the honestly-employed troglodytes of this world.

Another bartender, younger, sensing big tips to be made, leaned in as he was going by towards the long row of beer coolers at the end.

"That looks like Daniel, doesn't it, Pierre?" The young man kept going, but snaked a quick look back over his shoulder.

He grabbed four tall cold ones and proceeded to serve a quick customer.

Giving Grosjean an elbow-nudge in the ribs, Dufort pulled his badge and shoved a couple of men out of the way. He made his way to the far left end of the bar, pulling out the rest of his sheaf of pictures. It was surprisingly easy for someone with such gravity (and mass) to get away with some gentle prodding.

Masson was on top of the stack.

He handed over another five francs.

"You know this man?" To his right, Grosjean and the bartender were talking, heads down over a handful of pictures.

The photos had been provided by the newspapers, by Daniel's sister, and some had been obtained by other means including secondary-school yearbooks. They weren't showing the autopsy pics.

"Ah, yeah. I think so—that's Daniel. Right? He was a warlock or something."

Dufort's jaw just about fell off of his face.

"Uh, yes, sir. A warlock, you say. That's Daniel. So, did he come here often?"

The young man grinned from ear to ear.

"Sure. He had this thing for the ladies, and they seemed to have a thing for him. I always figured he was casting spells on them. It was hard to imagine, otherwise. Danny was a fairly ordinary-looking guy. How much we got in the budget?"

It was Dufort's turn to smile, stiff as his face was at that exact moment.

"Fifty."

"You can do better than that."

Dufort smiled even harder. He managed to pull it off.

"Merde. Yeah."

Of course he could, although there was some internal regret on behalf of the taxpayers.

"Show us the pictures, officer."

This kid was going places. Especially now that he had a little money in his pocket.

Interestingly, he didn't seem to know Daniel was dead, either.

***

If the noise had been bad before, now it was a revelation. The line of dancers on stage thudded and pounded through an energetic can-can and the orchestra did its best to keep up.

The kid, whose name was Raoul, kept getting hit after hit. What was especially interesting was the identification of Mademoiselles Sabine Barthet, Mathilde Lambert, another lithe young beauty, and Danielle Wathelet. According to him, they'd been in there pretty often, maybe even fairly recently. As far as he could recall, they were together. They were together on at least some occasions. They were all regulars.

Generally speaking, the women sat at the tables. While there were wait staff, they were hard-pressed and the males would line up for trays of drinks. But the fellow sort of thought they were together. There might have been some others. People came and went, and the young man wasn't quite sure.

Fabian pulled out the picture of Lorraine Gérin and the fellow nodded firmly. He tried Luce Coteau.

"Oh, yeah."

They showed him a photo of Maurice.

He nodded brightly.

"Yup. That one too." The bartender knew Maurice very well, or as well as any customer, or so he told Dufort.

"How often does he come in?"

"Oh, God, all the time."

Grosjean had finished with bartender number one, a faceless bit-player in a so-far-off-Broadway it wasn't even funny sort of a side-show, and was now standing close beside Fabian.

As for the detectives, their excitement was rising.

After pressing yet more money on Raoul, with his rather dispirited-looking fellow-employee now looking over his shoulder, they got his full name, his address and the number of his landlady's telephone.

"Would you be willing to sign a statement as to all of this?"

The big hand hovered, a large bill in it.

"Ah, yes, sir. I guess so."

Dufort let the money go and it disappeared.

This one was no slouch either.

"All right, gentlemen. Thank you ever so much for your help." The music was raucous, the air blue with smoke and profanity. There was a wall of hot and sweaty humanity between them and the door.

The tune ended, the lights came up again and a flood of dancers washed back off the parquet even as others fought the current.

There were a dozen similar clubs in the neighbourhood, possibly even hundreds. The night was young, there was work to do and they hadn't even properly had a drink of their own yet. With their present workload, as well as the need for sleep, evenings were the only time open to them.

***

He puttered about the house, not particularly bored.

The nights spent alone at home were the worst. With the coming of spring, the old building creaked and cracked and groaned. Somewhere nearby a branch scraped at the side of the house. He had the windows open. Gilles had always marvelled at the faint and occasional cheep of a solitary bird in the night. He thought they were nightjars. It was a word he'd heard in conversation, without ever really thinking about it. He had no idea of what they looked like. They roosted on rooftops, or maybe it was some other type of bird. Maybe birds were afraid of the dark. Certainly they must endure it. Perhaps birds had bad dreams from time to time, just like people. There were always crickets. Even in the city there was considerable greenery, weeds and crabgrass poking out of every crack and slot between paving stones.

As was often the case, the ghost that Ann had become was right at his elbow. Maintenon poured himself a drink from the cut-crystal decanter that she had bought at a little shop in Arles when they were down there one year. Her face was fading into oblivion, and he no longer felt guilty about that. When he took out their thin little photo album and had a look, there was always that poignant stab of grief. Every so often he did look at it—he made himself do it. The sight of her in her glory, that was painful. She'd been just twenty when they met, he a pompously-mature twenty-three and already going places in the Force, or at least that was his impression.

She must have seen something in me.

He had become comfortable with the odd tear, alone in the privacy of his own home.

There were times when his thoughts lingered on the hot and sunny south. He would be alone wherever he went, but the interest and the action that was the city had taken deep root in Gilles Maintenon. Yeah, you could move south.

You could go home, Gilles Maintenon.

What was he supposed to do, muck about with seeds and bulbs, dig in the dirt, and grow roses and such? What, get a dog and take it for long walks? The south was all very nice. It had never been that much of an obsession with him.

He was standing in front of the radio, not quite sure how he had arrived. Idly, he switched it on.

He didn't hate dogs, but clearly he didn't love them enough. Gilles figured sooner or later you were tied to the things. It would be a make-work project just to walk it twice a day. Sooner or later it must, inevitably, become a pain in the ass.

Madame Lefebvre had left him a hot meal, as well as some fresh-baked pastries. He was looking forward to demolishing them later. He rarely ate dessert as such. As a young, hard-working officer, real food, home-cooked meals, that was the thing. Meat, and potatoes, and fresh green vegetables in a salad—it blew away the greasy food the average flic made do with all too often. A lot of police officers didn't enjoy a long and happy retirement, either—the constant stress, the bad food, the coffee and the cigarettes caught up sooner or later. That and the drink, of course.

It occurred to Gilles that he'd had one too many bad nights in a row and was rapidly losing perspective. His body sagged in exhaustion. He could barely walk straight. For whatever reason, at that exact moment in time, there was no pain, none at all.

He couldn't even appreciate it.

He had no use for it.

Where in the hell was he supposed to go.

Yet it seemed, like they had caught a break in the case. He settled into his sagging, battered old armchair with the burn marks on the arms from when those times when he fell asleep with a cigar going.

Some said you made your own breaks. Gilles had never been entirely sure. Sometimes a tip came in from nowhere, and sometimes a case simply unfolded. It was a natural and logical progression of events as much as anything else. It was a situation made for thorough, detailed, routine investigative work.

Go here, go there. Ask this man that; ask that guy this, and ask that other lady something else. See what they say and then come back and compare notes. It really was just that simple, slimy word that it was sometimes.

When you got a break, be grateful and make the most of it. That was about all you needed to know. Knowing the truth was one thing. Getting convictions in a court of law took work and some solid skills. Loose threads gave the defense an opportunity to concoct an alternate theory of the crime, and therefore they all had to be nailed down...tightly.

Or as tight you could get it.

He had his favourite show on the radio, the sounds of big band music swelling up and out and filling the room with the sounds of New Orleans, St. Louis and New York City. It was a completely different world. He couldn't listen to classical music or opera all the time. A man would go mad listening to popular music, if he listened too long that was. Five or ten minutes would do it.

Sitting back, he raised the glass and sipped. Fumes nipped at the back of his nostrils and heat flared in his gullet.

Ah.

Gilles Maintenon closed his eyes. This was one of those cases. In the usual homicide, if it wasn't solved within the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, it wasn't ever going to be solved. The more seasoned investigators had just learned to accept such things. As often as not, the typical case was solved in about six questions. The killer was the one phoning it in, the wife dead or dying at their feet, shot in the guts, stabbed in the heart, head bashed in with a ball-peen hammer. This case was different. This case was no street-corner slaying over an insult, some nineteen year-old schmuck straying into the wrong turf with a big mouth and a gut-full of wine. It was not a man and a woman arguing over where all the money went, drunk and mad as all hell. It was not like one of those cheap, ten-centime detective novels, the ones with the lurid covers, all slathered in hot dames and big, black pistols. Cheap plots and cheaper characters, all of whom seemed to know each other.

It was like one of those mystery novels where exactly twelve people (or better yet, thirteen), sit around a table and then one of them dies from cyanide poisoning. Right in front of everyone's eyes. None of the waiters or kitchen staff have any discernable motive—unless they were someone's missing twin, a relative long since thought dead, come back to get revenge and take the money. There was some sleight-of-hand involved, nothing more. There was a limited number of suspects, and a limited number of folks for the police to investigate. The investigators would not rather run off to Mongolia and start interviewing village hetmen in their yurts on pure speculation...not without a reason.

They would focus on those twelve people.

If the police were not predictable, then who were?

This sort of thinking was not entirely useless.

That other mind had also been down this road. They must have been.

This was part of the trail. How in the hell you would ever put that in a training manual was a good question.

It was the mind that was distinctive. So far, nothing they had, no one they had really spoken to, indicated that they had run into such a mind.

Not so far.

Everyone so far was either a victim or a bit-player.

When it came time to interview Maurice Noel, Maintenon would be taking it. He wanted to look into those eyes and listen to that voice again. He wanted to probe that mind...

The longer they kept going, the better their chances were looking.

His lips moving, Gilles Maintenon realized it was nothing more than a game. The killer wasn't really a killer at all—he was a robber who was willing to kill. It was an amateur, with an inspiration. Or she. It might very well be a woman, as the use of poison would immediately suggest, ancient Greeks and kings of old notwithstanding. The right woman might have induced Daniel to do just about anything—

Given the profile of events—and Gilles had contributed his fair share of cop-speak to the training manuals over the years, but given that profile, poison was the only thing that would have worked under the circumstances. There was simply no other way of doing it.

In that sense, it was eminently practical.

Gilles wasn't so chauvinist that he thought a woman incapable of being practical. Far from it, in fact, they were often more practical than their male counterparts. Someone had used Daniel Masson, someone who knew that he was into wine, women, song...good whiskey, good cigars, and cocaine.

Daniel was into money.

Thoughts flooded his head. The song on the radio was by Louis Armstrong. The host, or perhaps his audience, was sophisticated enough to risk a song in a foreign language. Gilles was fortunate to understand, having worked side-by-side with the Tommies in the War. Thinking it might lead to promotion and advancement, (which was true enough), Gilles had studied English at the Lycée, one of the few electives available to junior cadets. Cadets had to take a couple of electives, which broadened their scope or something.

St. James Infirmary, or so he thought.

What a wonderful piece of music.

***

The phone rang again, in the middle of the night. It was becoming a bad habit lately.

Maintenon groaned, eyes popping open. He'd been in the semi-conscious state, enduring a certain amount of pain but almost sure he'd get to sleep sooner or later.

He snapped on the bedside light. A pen, a piece of paper and his reading glasses were right there, along with the alarm clock. It was about one forty-seven a.m.

He picked up the phone, his heart thudding lightly. There was one quick jab of pain above the right hip and he winced. He wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

The pain was already building. Even so, it was nothing like last week.

Merde.

"Yes? Hello. Maintenon here."

"Gilles. We've got movement." The voice, coming in rather high-pitched, broke up in static. "You wanted to be kept informed."

Tense and fast, he had no idea of who that might have been.

"Hello? Hello?"

"...ah, yeah. Sorry boss. Maurice Noel was in all evening, and the lights in his rooms went off a couple of hours ago. All of a sudden, one of the garage doors opens, and he comes out in the Mercedes. The place is still dark, Gilles. The lights never came on again."

"Oh, really."

Maintenon listened intently, mouth hanging open and straining his ears. Maurice lived, mostly alone, above what had once been stables at the back of his parent's fine house. Quiet and sequestered, it was a small palace in its own right. Going by the pictures on file (nothing being sacred anymore) there were five big doors at ground level and quite a number of rooms up above. According to talkative servants, there were plenty of folks, many of them attractive women, coming and going at all hours of the night and day. Much of the area between the big house and this smaller building was paved, with plenty of room for turning around.

"Who is this?"

"It's Grosjean. Maurice has picked up one of our lady subjects, Luce Coteau. LeBref and what's his name are following the car. As soon as I get off the phone, I am out of here. Dufort's driving and I'm in a phone booth."

What's his name?

Chiappe had been digging up warm bodies all over the place and there were a couple of new faces on the team.

The faint hoot of a bus and the bustle of downtown foot traffic came in over the line.

"Where are you?" Grosjean told him and he made a note of it.

It was a good few kilometres from Maurice's place, and nowhere near the usual haunts of playboys or gamblers—two sides of a similar coin, or so he thought.

"Who did you say he picked up?"

"Luce Coteau."

Hmn. Interesting.

"Very well. Interesting. Yes, keep on them." Their cars, unmarked and indistinguishable from ten thousand other battered black sedans in the city were radio-equipped, but at home Maintenon was out of the circuit.

He thought.

"Okay, and, ah...keep me informed." He regretted it as soon as he said it, but by now he was wide awake.

There was always coffee, brandy, cigars and the radio. There was always his armchair and the long, quiet hours of the night.

"Yes, sir."

The line crashed and went dead.

Gilles had always admired enthusiasm. With a deep sigh, he flung the covers back and, moving carefully, managed to get himself sitting up with his legs over the side.

He was looking at another long night. And an even longer day.

If this kept up, he was looking at a very long, slow and painful death.

Chapter Eighteen

The coffee percolated on the gas stove. He had his cigarettes, his amber lighter and his ashtray all set out beside his armchair. It was terribly early for a cigar. He had just opened the Chinese cabinet, another piece that always reminded him of Ann. This was where he kept his liquor. Ann had had such aspirations for their home, especially after it became apparent that there were to be no children in the Maintenon household.

If he left the coffee too long, it would get black and bitter, and since he could count on drinking two or three cups before dawn, it was better to make it sweet and not too strong.

The phone in his study was ringing, and the strident bell was echoed half a second later from the wall-mounted unit at the back of the kitchen.

"Argh." He pulled the aluminum coffee-pot of the burner and set it on the flat spot in the centre of the four elements of the gas stove.

Snapping off the gas, he headed for his cluttered little office. With the phone in the bedroom upstairs going, the ringing was coming from everywhere.

"Hello."

At this time of night, the building was deathly quiet, although there was a vehicle going by on the street down below.

"Hello, sir. Dufort here. LeBref and what's his name are following the subjects, and I am at a phone booth on the Rue des Londres. We're just around the corner. Maurice, along with the other woman, stopped and picked up Mathilde Lambert."

"What? Shit. Okay."

"Ah, yes, sir. She was waiting on the curb out front of her little pension-style apartment where she lives with another girl. That other one's not employed at the bank..."

"Oh, really."

"Yeah, boss, and she's got a small overnight bag. Nothing real big, but—"

Gilles found a note-pad and a pen that seemed to work. The first couple he tried were all dry and scratchy. He hated rooting around in the drawers. He could never find anything in a hurry. The muscles of his lower back tugged and pulled and threatened dire consequences. Oh, God, if he kept it up for just one more second...argh.

"What about the other girl? She have baggage? Luce, I mean?"

"Not sure. I didn't see that one, sir."

His eye strayed to the clock, a big round thing similar to that found in bus terminals and train stations. It ticked away on the wall, one big beady eye dominating the room.

It was five to two in the morning. Even at this time of night, going across town took a certain amount of time. The question was, where in the hell were they going?

"Keep on them."

"Ah, yes, sir." There was a pause. "What do you want me to tell Archambault and Firmin?

"Tell them to go home. I'm assuming that you're not going to lose them, right?" This wasn't the first flap they'd had.

The problem would arise if Maurice started picking people up and dropping them off—

But why would he want to do that?

"No, wait. Tell them to hang in there until I say otherwise, right?"

Merde!

He couldn't quite make up his mind.

Mind, mind, mind.

Waste of time. A waste of their time...

It was that mind—wasting their time, again.

Again.

Maurice.

Shit.

One of their security guards had gone out for a late-night errand, and in the end it turned out he was attempting, if he could find an all-night pharmacy, to buy ice cream and pickles for a wife in the later stages of pregnancy. He'd been dragging quite the tail all over town.

Maurice.

"Ah, tell them to stand by the radio but try and get some sleep—" Gilles was so dead tired that this brought a slightly hysterical giggle.

Let them boys suffer for once.

"Yes, sir."

"So who else is with you?"

"Ah, Jacques and Emile, sir."

That wasn't much help.

The line was cut off before he could think of anything else.

"Merde."

The odds were they were going to some club or other, where the action really didn't get going until well after midnight. The man was a gambler, with an eye for the ladies. The ladies apparently liked Maurice Noel.

And why not? It's a free country.

Gilles retreated to the living room with a hot cup of coffee and a snifter of cognac at room temperature.

The lights were doused and the curtains pulled back as far as he could get them. He had his own observation post on the intimate world of this one little block. He sat staring at the warm but dimly-lit windows on the other side of the street. It was barely twelve metres away, and probably closer, with its small bays jutted out over the street. He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen someone over there. He worked mostly in the day, and they had the curtains closed at night. The only clue to their existence was the fact that lights turned on and off. When it was hot or when it rained, windows mysteriously opened and closed.

He had too many other cases. This one was going nowhere in spite of all the effort, all the so-called evidence, all of this in spite of the fact that Gilles knew what must have happened—how it must have been done.

That part was almost too simple.

The only real question was who. Or whom.

Maurice Noel.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Sighing, he picked up the glass and had a quick snort.

It was surprising, how well it all fit—if only it were true.

If only he knew for sure.

It would be terribly hard on the old man.

***

He was dozing in his chair when he awoke with a start.

"Damnation."

The phone was ringing.

"Hello." His voice, mouth dry and tacky from sleep, was harsh.

This had better be good.

"Sir. Monsieur Noel has picked up Danielle Wathelet."

"Merde."

Maintenon had particularly liked that one.

Danielle had to be a good hundred and eighty centimetres of the leanest, lankiest, outrageously pouty, smelling-of-something floral but highly-sexualized, twenty-year old woman he'd laid eyes on during the entire case and that was really saying something.

Hell, it might have been years since he'd seen one like that.

Years.

Blonde, blue-eyed and seemingly not very smart, to see her stalk through the bank on a pair of impossibly-high heels, red patent leather, in a flowing white dress, had been a bit of a revelation, even to someone who had increasingly been feeling his age. He hardly ever felt his oats anymore.

"Very well. Where is that?"

Dufort read it off and Maintenon dutifully noted it. He might catch a few winks during what promised to be a long and interminable wait—

"Did she have luggage?'

"Ah, yes, sir. She's a real looker, too."

"I already knew that. All right. Keep me informed. I'll be heading to the office for eight o'clock, most likely earlier. Look, where are they headed, do you have any idea?"

The answer was a shock to the system.

"Well, they're on the N-6. It looks like they're heading for the A-5, sir. As far as we can guess."

Whoa.

"What? Shit."

For one brief moment of time, consternation reigned supreme in Maintenon. It struck him that he had enough men on the job. He settled back gratefully into the seat. The younger men were keen, like bloodhounds, and just a bit too hungry to make their names. He could trust them to do their best.

They wanted it as much as he did.

He picked up the coffee with his free hand.

"All right. Listen very closely. This is what I want you to do."

***

It was still the bloody middle of the night, with barely a sign of lightening in the east.

Gilles stood at the curb. He was wearing a loose and comfortable old grey suit. The spring birds were chirping and the smell of blossoms hung in the soft pre-dawn air.

A big, powerful car came around the corner, tires loud but not screaming quite yet. The thing darted across the lane and scraped to a halt in front of him on the wrong side of the street. Gilles got into the back as Levain reached awkwardly from the passenger seat to unlock the left rear door. Gilles slid across to the far side as their driver was fairly tall. He had the seat all the way back, and Maintenon wanted to be able to talk to the both of them anyways.

Gilles belted himself in.

"Where to, sir?"

"Renaudin. Can you drive? I mean, really drive?"

"Ah, yes, sir. I would like to think so, anyways—"

"We need to get to the A-5. Andre, hand me that microphone."

"Do you want to change places, Gilles?"

It was a good question as Renaudin, hesitating slightly, held it in gear but not letting the clutch out.

"We'll change later. Drive, and don't hold anything back. Try not to hit anything, Constable Renaudin, and I will be eternally grateful."

"My pleasure, Inspector."

***

It was becoming perceptibly lighter now. Shifting up and down, expertly controlling the car in a high-speed skid, approaching intersections with both power and brakes on, Constable Renaudin could indeed drive. It was a big town, a maze of streets at this speed. It was hard, trying to spot the street-names at intersections. Chin down, head on a swivel, he looked both ways and gunned it. At the higher revs, the unrestricted exhaust and greater power of the police model made themselves known in an unmistakable fashion. Wind and engine noise mounted and Gilles had to get them to roll the windows up to within a couple of centimetres of being closed so he could hear the radio.

"Okay, sirs, we're coming up to a long straight stretch."

The vehicle heeled alarmingly as Renaudin swept her into a big right-hander, something over ninety degrees, and then they came out onto one of the wide boulevards Paris was so famous for.

Without taking his eyes off the road, two big hands on the wheel and the speedometer hovering uncomfortably near one hundred-sixty kilometres per hour, the constable spoke.

"How much of a head start do they have?"

They were coming up fast on a big line-up of trucks, cars and buses sitting at a red light. Renaudin hit the button, the lights came on and the familiar siren sound rang out. He squeezed her down, late-braking. He held to the left, popping into the oncoming lane. He watched the traffic closely. He zoomed around the stopped vehicles and shot through the intersection as soon as it cleared.

Renaudin turned off the noisemaker as the speedometer wound its way up again.

Gilles relaxed. He had two other teams in unmarked cars, with men at headquarters calling ahead on the expected or possible route. The big Mercedes would be expected, watched, and reports of its location would be fed back to some guy called Lafarge in the squad-room.

Who the hell Lafarge might be was sort of irrelevant. One must assume he would be competent. It was good to know the machinery could sweep into action like that.

Sooner or later the units tailing the Mercedes would have to break off for petrol, or oil, or coolant, or one would have a punctured tire. It was best to plan for such eventualities.

It would be interesting to know where they were going.

But first, Gilles wanted to catch up to the chase.

There was nothing quite like seeing it for yourself.

***

"Okay, Gilles. Slide over in behind, ah, Renaudin."

Gilles squashed himself into the far corner. Andre clambered over the top as best he could, ending up half-upside down on the right side of the rear bench seat. Doing a squirming half-somersault, he came up, face darkening with blood in the weird half-light of dawn. Maintenon reversed the process, trying not to kick Renaudin or Levain in the head as he went over the seat-back and ended up awkwardly in the front seat.

"Constable, what's your first name?"

"Ah, Jean, sir."

"Okay. Jean. How long would it normally take to drive from Paris to Switzerland? Say Basel, or maybe Lausanne." Lausanne was not all that far from Italy and the seaports of the Adriatic.

Then there was Rome, Vienna, Prague...

Someone with a little money could absolutely lose themselves, in Rome or any other really big city within twenty-four hours. If they had even the slightest idea of what they were doing and where they wanted to go. Cash money would definitely help.

"Ah, at least five or six hours, sir, to Basel anyways. The weather's good. They seem to be taking a different route, although I agree it's headed in the same direction. As for Lausanne, yes, sir. At least one or two more hours. There's more mountain driving as well. These guys are really moving though—"

The radio crackled in the dashboard.

"Car One calling Cars Two and Three, over."

"Car Three, that's us, sirs."

Maintenon picked up the microphone but just listened to the other two cars. Car Three had made brief contact, only long enough to check the license plate number. It was definitely the Mercedes in question. The car had some very distinctive coachwork, there wasn't anything else like it in the whole town. Dropping back, they had stopped for fuel. They needed to go to the bathroom and would dearly like a bite to eat, if that was even remotely possible

He raised the microphone, but Car Two cut in.

"We still have a quarter tank of fuel, but we do not have the subject in sight. Over."

"One, stay on them for a minute. Two, get up there."

He looked over at Renaudin, who shrugged.

"Where in the hell are they?"

Gilles watched in fascination as the now brilliantly-lit countryside flashed by, the engine revs creeping up again and the speedometer showing ludicrous numbers. Shadows stretched straight out sideways and the sun wasn't even really up yet. It was a painter's light.

"Car One, what is your position?"

The country was flat and open and they couldn't be all that far behind, although getting out of the city had taken forever.

The voice on the radio came again.

"Getting close to Vesoul. A few kilometres out."

Maintenon wasn't sure who that was.

One and Two chattered back and forth.

Finally he cut in.

"This is Car Three. The Boss Man. All right, catch up to them as best you can. We have alerted authorities ahead, and everyone that can be spared is watching for them. Over."

***

The minutes were quickly turning into hours. After a while, conversation became intermittent and then died completely.

The quarry had taken the N-6 to the A-5, leading to Montereau, and then on to Cuy after that. They were just eating up the kilometres, Renaudin holding at double the speed limit much of the time. He wasn't insane, merely brilliant. That was Maintenon's conclusion after watching him closely in the tighter bits and zigzagging through the occasional slower traffic.

Finally Car Three caught up to the others.

In the vicinity of Langres there was some confusion as to where they had gone—there were too many cross-roads, too many possible routes. Police detachments were few and far between, in areas where population was so much thinner. A single, unconfirmed report indicated that a black Mercedes had taken the N-19 towards Vesoul. The three pursuit cars, together again, set out with Car One, driven by an enthusiastic LeBref, seat all the way forward and peering above the steering wheel, leading the way.

Telephoned reports from other detachments were made to Paris. One of Car Three's jobs was to stop and call in for information along the way. It wasn't all that complex. It avoided the need to change frequencies all along the line, which their radio couldn't do anyway. It was better than being bombarded by a lot of negative reports as well, leaving the radio clear for tactical communication.

Chapter Nineteen

The big car thundered across country, with Andre taking over for a spell. They were a couple of minutes behind the main cavalcade. Gilles would have Renaudin in the driver's seat. They would get closer as they approached the border, assuming they actually did so.

The Mercedes was being driven very fast and very competently according to the other two cars. Car Two had gotten ahead of the Mercedes briefly, passing them in a slow and crowded stretch. Car Two turned into a laneway as they zipped past, having confirmed that Car One had them in sight. Having seen a petrol station, Car Two wanted to go back and refuel, which was a concern for all of them again at this point. Maintenon gave them a quick go-ahead. They rocketed past in the opposite direction at a closing speed that must have approached three hundred kilometres an hour.

The black SSK had followed the D-9 east, through Héricourt in the Haute-Saône and then through Moval. After the soft, rolling plains and farmlands south of Paris, the country had at first become hilly, and then after a time, as the shadows shortened, the mountains showed on the horizon.

The view was hypnotic as Gilles fought sleep. There was nothing better to do than to listen to the other cars working the tail. The car's civilian receiver was set at low volume, tuned to a local radio station playing some kind of soft music that none of the three had ever heard of.

Maintenon found himself dozing off, waking up with a start, only to discover that his hips were aching again. Wild horses couldn't have kept him away—that was his trouble sometimes. With one or two quick stops for coffee and croissants, a ham sandwich along the way, he'd gobbled three of his codeine pills. Gilles longed for a real drink, and there was always the power of positive thinking. They did, after all, have three cars, a total of six or seven men, plus all the gendarmerie between Paris and the Swiss border keeping their eyes peeled and their bug-like antenna quivering.

Only as a last resort would the Swiss authorities enter the picture. Maintenon could, on his own authority, call ahead and ask them to deny entry. It was a case of clear pursuit, and the Swiss would be more or less happy to return a favour in order to receive one at a later date.

One way or another, they all had to eat. So far, they had made all their bathroom breaks. It wasn't so easy to piss on the run. That was all tension.

"Holy, merde. If you don't eat you don't shit—and if you don't shit, you die." Levain seemed pretty adamant about that.

The others sighed deeply at this remark. Any kind of action was a relief from this kind of conversation.

"Car Three. Car Three, come in please." They were using the Paris number four frequency, which hopefully no one this far out into the boondocks would be using or able to intercept.

Renaudin's hand stabbed out and he turned up the volume. He snatched up the microphone.

"Car Three here. Who's calling, over?"

"Car One. Detective Dufort here. Our subjects have pulled off the road, over."

"Where are they, over?"

"It's a hotel and eatery."

"Tell them to wait somewhere just up the road."

Renaudin nodded. Gilles was wide awake now. Altogether, the pain wasn't too bad. He was looking forward to getting out of the car though. Any God-damned time about now would be good. The nice thing about the back seat was that he could at least sprawl out.

"Car One. Hold up just on the other side. Car Two, maintain surveillance if possible..." Renaudin looked over and Maintenon nodded. "Do the best you can. Where are they? Over."

"They've picked one of the nicer little roadside inns along here. It's called the Coq au Vin. Over." They'd been hitting long straggling villages where their speed inevitably must be reduced or risk killing the innocent.

The thoughts of the occupants of the Mercedes, swilling cold champagne and dissecting the contents of a couple of well-planned picnic baskets along the way had been almost intolerable.

Up until now, that was.

It had just become insufferable.

Maintenon's stomach rumbled, and no doubt the other men had similar thoughts. He checked the time. It was barely one-thirty in the afternoon and the border was definitely within striking distance from here. Assuming that was where they were going. If nothing else, Car Three would have the chance to catch up. With everyone smoking like fiends, the air was thick with tobacco.

His bladder was near bursting again.

Some sort of a roadside inn. Going by the solid houses, the prosperous villages clustered around picturesque crossroads, one had to wonder what the food in there might be like.

Argh.

***

Renaudin, after a quick consultation with a fuel-station attendant, had found them a public park. It was just off the road and under a stand of tall trees. It was a blessed relief after a long morning spent in the vehicle. It had been hard getting back in that car. Maintenon had spent some time just trying to stretch himself up to his normal height, being very stiff in the lower back and his neck wasn't very good either. He did a slow, strolling kind of dance, stretching his lower legs and calves with an odd gait that nevertheless felt very good. It had been a while since he had urinated against a tree.

Luckily, he hadn't forgotten how.

That's not to say they were happy because they weren't.

Car One, presumably, pulled up in the dim shade of a vast, spreading old oak. Facing in the opposite direction, the vehicles were door-handle to door-handle. Eyes red and bloodshot, Dufort looked tired but calm in the driver's seat.

The two engines ticked over at idle.

"Holy, shit, it's about time." Levain, still crammed in the back seat with its limited legroom and lowered roofline, was getting grumpy. "Come on. Hand it over."

With groans at the smell wafting out of what appeared to be a dozen colourful pasteboard containers, the bleary-eyed men in Car Three sat up, saliva squirting at the thoughts of hot food.

"Oh, God. What is that?"

"Ah..."

That was no answer.

The boys in Car One had picked up food for them. They handed it in through the window. There was a second bag, even bigger, bottom stained with hot fat and smelling heavenly.

They sat, talking in desultory fashion as Gilles and the other two fought over patates frites, quiche Lorraine, plums, and in truly blessed fashion, a gallon jug of the local blended red. Someone truly inspired, with a wallet full of cash, had gone all out. There was this terrible realization sometimes that your wallet was empty and you had no money of your own.

"Make sure you keep the receipt."

Dufort nodded, intent on his own stomach.

There was some cheese, butter, and a couple of fresh baguettes. A good-sized folding pocket knife from one of their brother officers and they were soon gobbling good, old-fashioned fare.

There was a brief flurry of events. Finally, Maintenon sat back, pushed the debris aside and took a breath.

"Well, isn't this special. I haven't done anything this completely mad for a long time." With the first good drink under his belt, and having dispatched his third piece of fried chicken, dripping with grease, Gilles sat there in the dappled green shadows coming in through the windscreen. He blinked, looking slightly baffled as Levain, Renaudin and the boys in Car One broke up in spontaneous laughter.

Maintenon, for whatever reason, craned his head and took a good look.

"Who is that masked man, anyways?"

They laughed again, Grosjean slumped in post-prandial splendour in the back seat. The new guy sat there in the passenger seat, grinning like he was just one of the boys.

"Jacques, sir."

"Ah, of course." Jacques.

I will remember that.

A gendarme, he had his jacket off and the tie loosened. Ignore it. When you get a report from him, check his spelling and grammar and the quality of his mind.

"Where's LeBref?"

"Car Two."

"Well. Okay, it's all the same to me."

Maintenon sighed at all of this inner life. Spring was for the living. It was like he was fucking dead sometimes. You were supposed to live for the moment. What could be finer than this? A few of the lads and some kind of adventure, as some idiot once said.

Over the top.

Up you go, lads.

Surely this was no worse and it might even be better in some ways...

It was a beautifully warm day in spring, the sun was out and they were one hell of a long way from home. It was an adventure, and why not look at it that way? He'd been stuck at home and in the office for too long.

"Well, gentlemen. We must try and make the best of it."

The buggers laughed again.

He pulled out a cheap paper napkin and wiped the grease dripping from his chin. The roadside stand, a tourist trap by any stretch of the imagination, where you literally ate at a picnic table in the flies and the hot sun, had come through when all else failed.

He would survive, and that was one way of looking at it.

"Andre."

"Yes, Boss?"

"Ah—the jug, if you don't mind."

"Ah, ha."

Renaudin turned and gave him a sardonic grin as Levain passed it over from the back seat.

"That's the spirit, Inspector."

Other than that, the chicken tasted pretty good. They were out of the office, and they were following suspects to an unknown conclusion.

Life was good, bad, and indifferent, all at one and the same time.

The show must go on.

Such events being rare and indescribable later, it was something only they would share.

***

Since none of the four suspects had ever seen Renaudin, Gilles had given him his jacket. The young gendarme borrowed Andre's hat and fished around in the glovebox until he found a pair of scratched but serviceable sunglasses.

"Don't leave without me, eh, guys?"

Maintenon grinned but said nothing.

Suitably disfigured, Renaudin set off on a bit of a stroll.

He returned fifteen minutes later, wending his way along a flagstone path under the trees, whistling casually, tie missing, hands in pockets. He looked passable, although the shoes were a bit off. A young woman going in the opposite direction turned and had a second look as Gilles and Andre watched. Renaudin snuck a quick second look of his own—

Maintenon suppressed a smile.

Life was for the living, and the future belonged to the young.

Renaudin would be okay, in his opinion. It was a nice thing to see, sometimes.

The passenger door opened and he climbed in. Maintenon was in the back seat, trying to catch some sleep. Levain was behind the wheel in case they had to move quickly. The radio had been quiet.

"Did you go in?"

"Ah, no, sir. They're all plainly visible. They've got the car parked right by the door and they've got a front window. The sun was just right, actually. A big booth, right in the corner. One man and three women. There was some glare off the glass when I walked past, and Maurice had his back to me. Still had his hat on, they must have just gotten seated. The place looks fairly busy. I definitely recognized Luce and Danielle, and I saw Mathilde in profile. It's them all right. They seem to be keeping a pretty good eye on that car." All of this from a few pictures that someone had been smart enough to bring along—Maintenon wrote reports too.

Whoever that was, probably Dufort, they had earned a brief mention.

Renaudin knew all about the case by now. Five or six hours in the car was probably the longest case-briefing anyone had ever had. The information delivered might be a little different from their reports, condensed and reduced to its essentials, but it was thorough enough.

Levain nodded, eyeing Maintenon in the mirror.

"So, what do you think?"

"Well, for one thing, I want my jacket back."

Renaudin's big shoulders were straining at the seams.

The radio crackled with the interference from some distant thunderstorm.

"Car One's just around the corner and Car Two is a half a kilometre down the road, sir. Just before the intersection." They were the cork in the bottle.

Renaudin put Andre's hat on the dash. Getting out of the car, he took off Maintenon's soft, knitted jacket and then he and Andre swapped positions up front. He sat there coatless, the blue shirt not much different from the cotton smocks some of the local peasants wore although the pleated pockets were unusual.

The vehicle sat in the warm light of a spring day. They listened to the birds and crickets and wondered, first of all, how long even the hungriest (or possibly the wealthiest sort of person, able to indulge every whim), real gourmands and such, might spend both in time and money at lunch.

Secondly, where in the hell was a guy supposed to take a shit around there.

This was a surprisingly good question sometimes, but Maintenon thought it could wait for a bit.

On impulse, Renaudin turned and gave Maintenon an engaging grin.

"Isn't this great? Time and a half on overtime, eh, sir?"

"Argh."

Levain, his hat pulled down low and slumped against the door, snorted softly, mouth working, half asleep himself. As for himself, like a philosopher, he tended to ignore the smaller questions.

***

"Car Two, Car Three, come in please."

Renaudin snatched the microphone before Levain could get to it.

"Car Three, go ahead." There was a bit of a squeal and then the second half of Car Two's truncated response came.

"...over."

"Car One here. They're on the move. They're up from the table and two of the ladies are just coming out the front door. Over." Someone over there might even have a pair of binoculars, which was more than Car Three could say.

"Roger that." Renaudin handed off the microphone to Levain.

Jean reached for the ignition.

"Hold on, just relax." Yet Maintenon felt the tension as well.

They had bloody well better get something—it had occurred to Gilles that it would look good on the flics if the Mercedes were to turn around, head straight back to Paris and then wind up parked in front of some all-night club. People getting out and heading up the stairs, the damned Folies Bergere or something. They had no choice but to follow. All these men and three cars was a lot of time and gasoline—but too much time had gone by already, and so far this was their only lead.

Someone was wasting their time. He kept coming back to that.

Psychologically, it was rife. It was a shitty feeling sometimes, not knowing for sure.

"Car One here. Okay, we've got the man and the other lady coming down the steps. Stand by."

The engine fired up. There was more commentary and then the three were rewarded by the sight of the Mercedes SSK, black on black, with black and chrome accessories, go rolling past. The car was headed south towards where this little side-road intersected the E-27 and the border crossing into Switzerland near Boncourt.

"All righty, then."

Maintenon tapped Renaudin on the shoulder as Car One swept past at a sedate pace. Car Two was already well up the road in the classic squeeze-play. If necessary, they were prepared to ram the quarry, rather than let them get over the border.

Levain groaned and sat up straight in his seat, fishing for the seat-belt.

"Merde."

Chapter Twenty

"Car One here, come in please. Car Three, come in please."

Levain took the call.

"Car Three here, go ahead, Car One."

"We've got real problems here. They've just blown past us at a hundred miles an hour, please advise."

"Merde."

Levain looked over his shoulder at Gilles in the back seat.

"Renaudin. Put your foot down."

"Huh?"

The car shot forward, and then it rather hesitated.

He gave Maintenon a quick look.

"Catch them, Renaudin. Catch them bastards." Andre turned to Gilles. "You, ah, might want to put your seatbelt on, Gilles."

There was Car One up ahead.

Puffs of blue smoke were coming out of the tail-pipe with every shift of the gears. A pale, unfamiliar face behind the wheel glanced over as they went by at a high rate of speed.

Shit. That wasn't going to last forever.

Renaudin swept out and around with a quick flick of the wrist and then the open road lay ahead.

Just on the brow of the hill ahead came the flash of brake lights. Just as quickly they were gone.

The car itself, when it reappeared climbing back up out of the valley, was a dark blur against the hazy backdrop of dusty green pines, barren, rocky hillsides and the long, low, buff stone fences of the region. When the angle was right, the sun flashed off the windshield.

The road turned at the top of the first rise and then kept going upwards. It was narrow as all hell, and Renaudin must have had the reflexes of a cat. They were heading straight at the shoulder of the hillside. There was another blind turn, coming up fast. It was blind right up until the last second, and this time they went left. The road funneled up into another switchback. The climbs were relatively straight but also relatively short.

Gilles and Levain were craning their necks, looking up the hill, trying to catch a glimpse.

The big black car was nowhere in sight.

"Damn. Damn, damn, damn."

"Oh, no sir. Don't you worry. Sirs. They're up there." There was nowhere else for them to go, except into farm lanes or turn into postage-stamp sized fields, sloping at an easy thirty or forty degrees.

These were mostly visible from the road.

"Fuck them, they aren't getting away."

Maintenon's heart was in his mouth.

Even so.

It was two against one, with another dusty official machine right on their tail.

Downshifting, Renaudin tapped the pedal to let them know, and then he squeezed the brakes hard, popping the handbrake, stomping the throttle and swinging the back end through another hairpin turn. The road climbing up in front of them was still empty.

"Look—look."

"What, what?"

Renaudin's right arm shot out, pointing. There was the barest suggestion of dust, a puff of roadside dirt, stirred up and whisked away by the passage of a large object travelling very fast over a patch of loose gravel. The light breeze was busily engaged in taking it away over the side of the valley.

With both hands back on the wheel, Constable Renaudin put his chin down and focused.

There was just no way in hell he was going to be beaten by a civilian, no matter who they were or what the fuck they were driving.

***

"Car One here. We've pulled out. Over."

"Car One, acknowledged."

The road-signs were unequivocal.

Switzerland, dead ahead.

"Faster. Faster. That's not even twenty kilometres—" Maintenon's body strained at the belt as Renaudin hauled the big sedan down from a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, to a mere fifty, sliding the tail around on gravel, somehow steering the heavy machine with one hand and keeping up with the gearbox with the other.

The road was mostly paved. The surface broke up every spring and was crossed by any number of rivulets. Eventually, they would combine to become a river in their own right. A small chunk of the road was downright missing as they slammed past...water running across it.

Renaudin hit the wipers and cleared the windshield.

"It's okay, sirs, not a problem."

With the woods and the brush, hillsides now dark with late-afternoon shadow, there was a glimmer of red up ahead, just as quickly extinguished.

"There—"

"I see it." The constable already had it matted, and the car's body slewed from left to right, bobbling up and down with every crack, bump and declivity of the pavement.

The hillside, near vertical, up on the left and down on the right, was right there at their elbow.

Gilles' left eye crept over to the speedometer, the map clutched in hands that were sweaty. The paper was already turning into a pulpy mush and he stared at it, trying to estimate their rate of travel. Six or seven minutes and it would be over, one way or another.

Car One was on the radio again. They had boiled the radiator and probably cracked the cylinder head. They would not be able to rejoin the chase. Car Two was now a kilometre behind them, and in their estimation could not catch up before the border, barring unforeseen circumstances.

"Shall I turn on the siren, sir?"

"No. Get closer. That car can go faster—"

Having gotten this close, from their perspective with no obvious signs of pursuit, the people in the Mercedes were definitely making a break for it. Lots of drivers broke the speed limit, but this was an impressive display. Renaudin was spending considerable amounts of time on the high side of a hundred and forty, a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour sometimes, and yet he was barely making a dent in her.

Sooner or later the driver up front must become aware of their presence, and they would also be aware that the car behind was not dropping away but gaining.

Ever so slightly, but gaining they were.

"Merde. Baiser vous—"

"What? What?" Gilles stared, mesmerized.

As the front end of the car lowered, he strained at the strap again under the forces of rapid deceleration. One of the ubiquitous stone fences slewed across in front of his eyes from right to left.

"Yeah. He knows I'm here now, the baiseur—" Renaudin's eyes were narrow, the expression fiery calm.

Reaching over, he snapped on the headlights.

Nice.

Competence was written all over his hairy wrists and tanned hands as he rocketed down a slope that looked to be better than forty-five degrees but that was impossible. The big Mercedes was just turning in at the bottom where the valley opened up and the road straightened. Renaudin wasn't even breathing hard, a smoke hanging casually out of his mouth, while Levain in the back seat was afraid to talk for fear of a moment's distraction.

There really wasn't much to say.

You either lived or died some days, that's what he told himself anyways—

"Oh, Jesus..." Levain couldn't hold it in.

Renaudin dropped her into second and pulled the handbrake, cranking in opposite lock and then hitting the throttle. She came around in a heart-beat.

Up through the gears, bang-bang-bang...blind as it was, he had no fear of going uphill.

Constable Renaudin had it in fourth for about ten seconds, and the brake lights ahead flashed again. Renaudin dropped her into third, breaking the rear wheels loose with the clutch, and controlling the over-steer with a massive foot on the gas. Renaudin snapped her into second and mashed it, shifting up again just as quickly.

Over the top, through pines and open meadow.

They plummeted into a darkening valley. It wasn't actually mountainous, it was more hilly than anything. This wasn't even the foothills of the peaks that still lay far over the Swiss border. This was cows-and-cheese-and-chocolate country. There were fields of hay rather than wheat or oats or beans or potatoes. It was said the Swiss even made wine.

There was the reek of alcohol, as their own jug rolled around in the rear foot-well.

"Here we go. Here we go."

They had come up on the SSK, which had little choice but to play the game and stop at every stop sign whereas the flics didn't have to worry too much about that sort of thing. Maintenon would have paid the ticket gladly—

"So. What do you want me to do, sir?"

Maintenon bit his lip. The Mercedes, less than fifty metres ahead, was accelerating away from a four way stop-sign, even as their own car was braking hard to stop in time, the intersection being just on the other side of a short but abrupt rise. There was no one coming from left and right. Looking out of the corners of his eyes, Gilles tried to keep his head back and not obstruct the view. Renaudin didn't hesitate, he dumped the clutch and sped after them.

"Yeah, yeah, get them." Levain was all for it. "Fucking jerks."

Maintenon scrabbled for the map. For all of their excitement, they really hadn't put much thought into this moment. It was almost like panic, an uncharacteristic state for one such as Maintenon.

"We'll give them a ticket for speeding, right, sirs?" Renaudin laughed, enjoying himself hugely.

"Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Where in the hell are we?" Gilles hadn't bargained on a rally-chase through the bush for crying out loud—

He stared, squinting, as Renaudin matched the pace of the Mercedes, perhaps even allowing it to draw ahead in a move meant to reassure their quarry, and a sign flashed by at an awesome speed.

Renaudin looked over.

The sign said Grandvillars, left, one-point-five kilometres.

"Sir?"

Gilles found it on the map. It was getting pretty close to the bone.

"Yes—yes. You can put the siren on now."

Renaudin hesitated.

Either they would pull over or they wouldn't. Maintenon's eye strayed over. They still had a half a tank of gas left. Local officers, just maybe, at least according to theory, were waiting up ahead, just before the border crossing. They wouldn't get much warning at this rate. There were any number of little side-roads. It wasn't quite over yet.

It was the psychological moment though.

Renaudin's finger finally hit the switch and lights and siren blared forth in their trademark, pulsating melody. His voice, when it came, was calm and professional.

"All right, gentlemen. Let's see what happens next."

***

The Mercedes sat idling in the looming shadows of late afternoon, parked a metre from a stone abutment to the right and leaving much of the lane clear for other motorists. Constable Renaudin put the handbrake on. They were on a pretty good downslope leading to the next village or hamlet. He left her running. Standard operating procedure when it worked. Taking his foot off the brake, he waited to make sure it was going to hold.

The pale buildings and faint lights on the far side of the valley might even be Switzerland, if so, then they were getting very close to the bone, possibly even the marrow.

Better late than never.

Back in his proper cap and uniform jacket, the tall officer was an impressive sight as he walked up the road. Levain had gotten out of the back seat. A solitary car three-wheeled car, very small but cheerful in sky blue, its mustachioed driver wearing a straw hat, puffing on a curvaceous clay pipe, and no doubt wearing wooden clogs on bare feet, buzzed down the hill past them. The air was cooling rapidly now that the sun was behind the hill.

The sound faded down the valley and the forest swallowed the last of it.

Gravel crunched as they came up alongside of the black car, at least two pretty blonde heads visible through the rear window.

Renaudin had the driver's side. Levain hung back a little, hand in his pocket where his pistol resided, taking the passenger side.

The driver's window came down.

"Good evening—" There was a little quaver in the voice and it occurred to Levain that Constable Jean Renaudin had never made a real traffic stop in his life.

"I'm sorry, officer. Was I speeding?"

"You sure as hell were."

Andre was in the midst of suppressing a grin when the shock and surprise on Renaudin's face registered.

"Nom de Dieu."

Whipping out the 7.65, Andre dropped into a crouch, pulling back a bit to get Renaudin out of the line of fire. He covered the occupants as best he could through the rear and side windows. With a soft top providing zero protection for those inside, his only real concern was the ricochet from the roof's frame members, which would be much heavier than the usual sheet steel. Bullets could and would go anywhere, anywhere at all.

There was this look on Renaudin's face. He'd taken a half-step backwards and then froze.

There was the sound of feminine laughter, coming from the inside of the vehicle. A pale and oddly appreciative face turned and looked at Andre through the right rear window. It was real and they really were laughing in there.

A stern and disapproving Constable Jean Renaudin stepped forward.

"Open the door." There was a stunned silence where only crickets sang.

The smell of cedars and other aromatic plants hung there, as if waiting.

"Why officer, whatever seems to be the problem?"

Renaudin grabbed the handle and gave it a wrench. He yanked open the door and Andre went to the rear passenger door and pulled it open.

The aroma of beautiful women and tobacco, perhaps a little something else, rolled on out.

Levain wasn't taking any shit from anybody. Gun drawn, he stuck it in the lady's face. She gulped and spluttered in indignation.

"Driver. You were told to get the hell out of the car." All of this was fairly simple to comprehend, in Levain's opinion.

The driver turned, face pale and features amorphous in the dim interior light, and they gave Levain an astonished look.

A grey-suited figure moved, a surprisingly smallish figure, with plenty of headroom for the hat.

They must have undid their seatbelt, as Andre stared into the shocked faces of the three women, who were not very happy with the tone or volume of his voice. Too many men, good cops and bad, had died making routine traffic stops. He wasn't too worried about their feelings.

Not just yet anyways.

On the far side, the driver turned sideways and then stood up.

Renaudin's eyes stabbed into Andre's.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here." There was a grim look that Andre didn't completely understand, but he was playing second banana and Renaudin was clearly onto something. "Turn around and put your hands on the top of the car."

Andre Levain's jaw dropped when the driver complied, innocent blue eyes staring now into his.

The significance of the fake little mustache and softly-rounded features began to sink in.

"Who in the hell are you? And where in the hell is Monsieur Maurice Noel, the legally-registered owner of this vehicle?"

Levan took another good look as the door of their own vehicle slammed shut and then Gilles was coming forward.

"Well. I'm sure I have no idea, gentlemen—"

"Shut up."

Andre's voice was tight and hard, very loud in his own ears. Hopefully they would get the message, as it seemed they didn't quite get it yet. The ladies were all shock and indignation, all of them with lips flapping and mouths going at once.

"Shut the hell up. All of you. You, are all under arrest."

Maintenon took one look at the driver and then he got it.

It was Lorraine Gérin, one of the girls from the bank. She was all dressed up in a man's clothing.

Her hair was tucked up under the hat, and she was made up to look more or less like Maurice Noel, who as he recalled, had exactly that kind of neat little mustache. That was probably one of Monsieur Noel's hats as well.

"Shit."

No, the Inspector was not very happy about that.

***

"Oh, my God. I don't believe it."

For the time being, the four women suspects were handcuffed in the back seat, jammed in like sardines, temporarily in custody as it were.

Gilles was on the radio, getting directions to the nearest police station where he could use a phone. The look in his eyes was murderous. He was tempted to put out an immediate arrest warrant for Maurice Noel, and probably should. Yet he was hard-pressed to actually justify it.

Legally, that was. Morally, it might be a different story. If only he was sure.

"Very well." The microphone went crashing into its dashboard clip. "Drive."

Renaudin dropped it into gear. Car Two, with Levain, would secure the scene, and wait for a proper flatbed to come for the Mercedes. The four women were going straight into cells until they could figure out just what the hell was going on—

"Are we in trouble, officers?" Renaudin looked in the mirror, where they were jammed in like sardines.

It was Lorraine.

"What's the opposite of drag, anyways?"

Her eyebrows rose and there was an element of contempt there that was very hard to take.

"Shut up."

"I want to call my lawyer."

"Why?" Gilles was livid.

All that time, all that energy, all that manpower and now this.

God-damn it all to hell.

It struck him that Monsieur Maurice Noel might have, must have, a very good mind indeed.

"Because this is an outrage. I want to speak to my lawyer."

Renaudin, wondering about his own role in all of this, turned and spoke over his shoulder.

"Don't you worry, lady. Or gentleman. You'll get your chance."

"Five kilometres. Make a right. We'll see the sign."

"Ah, yes, sir."

Things were very quiet in the back although the smell was still heavenly.

They would hold them overnight and transport them in the morning.

***

Chiappe stood beside Maintenon. Grosjean and Dufort were practically holding their breath, flanking them at the one-way glass as Levain went through his list of twenty or a hundred and ten questions.

Lorraine Gérin, still a stunner in her dull prison garb, sat across the battered maple table from Levain, smoke curling up from a cigarette in the corner of the mouth. Those long, luxuriant tresses shone and curled and fell over her shoulders in the stark overhead light.

"So. You and a few of your friends just decided to go away for a few days."

"Yes." She pulled the cigarette away and blew smoke up at the light. "What's so wrong about that? It's not a crime."

"So, ah, who was it that came up with this idea? Taking off in the middle of the week and going to Switzerland?"

"All of us, I suppose. It was no one person's idea."

"And, good old Maurice said you could use the car? Is he always that generous?"

An oddly confident smiled crossed her face.

"Yes, he's a wonderful man. Very sexy. I don't know if you've noticed—"

"Hmn. Yes, I have. So you had permission then?" Levain stared at her, willing her to be concerned—frightened, even. "I'd like to verify that. Automobile theft is a serious crime—and that is one very nice car. So where can I get in touch with Monsieur Maurice?"

"Oh, I don't know. Possibly at the club, any club, really, or the races maybe—"

"A club? The races? Did you have permission to use the car? You haven't answered my question."

"Not in so many words."

"Not in so many words. What words, exactly are we referring to? Ah, you do know, I take it, that the vehicle is registered in the name of Antoine Noel. I guess we had that wrong earlier. Why, he's a little bit concerned about things. Why, I believe he would like to know where his son is. He doesn't much like people stealing his car—or murdering his staff."

The lady paled at that, stubbing out her cigarette and immediately taking another from the pack on the table between. Her match scratched and flared.

"I'm sorry, I really can't help you, officer."

"And why not?" Levain's voice was getting louder and the tone creeping upwards.

"Fuck you."

"Hmn. So where did you learn to drive? Did Maurice teach you?"

She pointedly ignored him, looking away.

So far, they'd all been like that, defiant, saucy, and not giving a damn for the police, or the crime, or its human cost.

"So tell me about Daniel."

"What?"

"I said, tell me about Daniel."

The lady looked away, and she struggled with it, but this one was strong and she turned back to Levain.

"I really don't know much about him."

"Oh, come on. He was, ah, such a nice guy. All the other girls say so. Did you have an affair with him? Did you engage in sexual relations with Daniel Masson?"

She did her best to ignore Andre.

"I guess none of you ladies knew he was supposed to die, eh?"

She stared at Andre, and then the tears began to flow.

She chewed on her lip, stared at Levain and the window, and slumped down and back into her chair.

"I would like to go home now, officer."

Puffing furiously, they were again at a stalemate.

They weren't getting anywhere with this. Levain took a long time. He thoughtfully pulled out a smoke of his own and lit it up, exhaling and smacking his lips in appreciation. Sooner or later the pack would run out and she could to back to the cells.

Two big questions remained. Where was Monsieur Maurice Noel, and where were the stones?

As for the young ladies, they were in heap of trouble whether they accepted it or not.

Chiappe inclined his head in Gilles' direction.

"So. What do we do now?"

"Stick them back in their cages and try again tomorrow."

"What does this do for our theory of the crime?"

"It fills in a few blanks—if true, that is."

Chiappe sighed.

It was always the way, wasn't it?

***

"Where are the stones, Luce."

"How in the hell would I know? You're the cauchon. Do your job and find them."

Levain sat back. His eyes fell and he read the next question.

"Do you understand that you were in a stolen car?"

"Bullshit. We took it anytime we wanted. We had permission."

"What?"

The lady shrugged, puffing furiously away on the pack of Gitanes provided by a thoughtful interrogator and the taxpayers of this great city.

"Had you guys ever taken the car before? On your own, I mean, without Maurice?"

"Sure."

"Okay. When."

She shrugged, elaborately.

"Can't remember."

Argh. Maintenon scowled as he observed through the glass. This was a total waste of time.

Everyone's time, including theirs.

Such foolish young women—and yet they were so close to getting away with it.

So close.

Such fools.

***

Mathilde Lambert might be the weak link in the chain.

Unfortunately, she didn't know any more than the rest of them.

Mathilde was typical of their four accessories.

She had come from a small town about forty kilometres away. Coming to the big city had led to a natural progression of events. She had started out in secretarial work but had always kept her resume out there. Right from the start, she had wanted to work for a bank. She wanted to marry a banker...someone with real prospects.

Maurice might have fit the bill very nicely.

She had studied typing and secretarial. She had gone on to study business arts, which led to her current position at the bank.

From the age of fifteen, she had helped out in her parent's store in Chessy.

Her skin glowed. Her eyes flashed. One could not help but wonder, having met Madame Noel, Antoine's wife and Maurice's mother, what Madame Noel might have thought when she inevitably came into the bank on personal business or just to pick up her husband for a lunch date.

Antoine Noel had stocked his virtual harem—there had been no hint of impropriety from any of the scores of people they had spoken to, but surely the man wasn't blind to them once hired. It was just eye-candy to him, perhaps nothing more, but. The thoughts of his son, a fox among the pigeons, might have crossed the old man's mind. He might have secretly approved, living vicariously through his little boy. From his perspective, they might be more suitable prospects for marriage than some of the bar-flies, dancers and entertainers that Maurice had a reputation for bringing home.

"So tell us about Daniel. Why did a nice young kid like that have to die—"

She huddled with her lawyer and they whispered back and forth.

Finally they straightened up and looked at the interrogator.

"We—"

A hurried cough from the lawyer brought her up short.

"I knew nothing about it. I was as shocked as anyone by the robbery...and Daniel. I really shouldn't speak for the others, of course."

"Sure. You're going to jail for a very long time. The penalties for robbery are stiff, the penalty for murder, or accessory to murder, can range up to life imprisonment, or even the guillotine."

"Maybe Antoine stole the diamonds."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Watching through the window, Maintenon shook his head at futility of it all. All they had to do was to stick to their story, better yet contradict each other all over the place. There was no way in hell they were ever going to get a conviction.

Not without Maurice Noel, and the stones, and some more material evidence. Something more than just Daniel Masson's fingerprints all over apples and drills and candy-wrappers and such.

They needed something real.

***

A thorough search of Maurice Noel's rooms, and an equally-thorough search of the main house had turned up exactly nothing that could be directly or even indirectly tied to the bank job.

Maurice didn't even own a gun. There were no books on exotic poisons, no drawings or plans or cryptic notes to be deciphered...

"This is an outrage." Antoine Noel, upon being served a search warrant, had quickly phoned his attorney.

"Yes, it is, Monsieur Noel." Maintenon was nothing if not aware of their feelings.

White-faced and furious, the uniformed officers at the door had to stiff-arm them to keep them out of the former stables. When they went to go back to the main house, they were turned back from there as well. It was an angry man who, along with his wife, sat in the lawyer's opulent vehicle before coming out to supervise the technicians and officers coming and going.

He stood there and glared at each of them in turn as they came and went.

And in the end, they had nothing—nothing that would tie either of the two Noels to the crime.

All they really had were sightings in bars of people who had every right to be connected socially and out on the town. They had some odd-ball behaviour on the part of a small number of female individuals. They all knew the victim. It was all very thin, and entirely circumstantial.

Not a fingerprint out of place, not a mistake had been made.

In that sense, it really was the crime of the century, as the papers had begun calling the case.

What was really interesting was that no one had seen Maurice in a couple of days.

If he turned up, Maintenon would collar the man, (better yet, take him by the ear), and ask him a few pointed questions.

If he never turned up, then Maintenon would draw his own conclusions and act accordingly.

It was a kind of hell, knowing exactly what must have happened.

After all this time, they still had nothing that could prove anything either way.

So far, Gilles Maintenon was the only one who seemed to know it—although Chiappe might have suspected it.

The others just kept soldiering on, still trying to come up with ideas and alternate theories of the crime.

Just this once, Maintenon had been beaten.

You really had to take your hat off to Maurice Noel.

If it was true—

Would he ever like to know for sure.

Chapter Twenty-One

It was another high-level briefing with Chiappe, and private as well. Even Benjamin, ever-present and seemingly untouchable, (although when Chiappe fell, Benjamin would also fall), had been sent away on some implausible errand. Not being stupid, he would somehow return bare moments after Gilles' departure.

"So." Chiappe stood, going over to his liquor cabinet even though it was barely nine-thirty a.m.

"So."

Jean-Baptiste brought Gilles a cognac as the Inspector patted his jacket pocket absently.

"Here, Gilles. Have one of mine."

Jean-Baptiste pulled a fat cigar out of his hand-carved humidor.

The lighter snapped and sweet blue smoke eddied around their heads as they sat. Chiappe regarded him.

"What's the big hurdle?"

"Huh." Maintenon heaved a deep sigh. "Well. Until one of the girls cracks, or until we catch up with Monsieur Maurice Noel. Or until his body turns up—"

Gilles trailed off.

"So it's like that, eh?" Chiappe chewed on the cigar. "The bank, in the interest of squelching bad publicity, has made good the losses of their customers. They've turned it into a good news story. Your money is safe with us. It'll be on the radio next. I suppose that's just good policy on their part, although coughing up for Solomon must have been tough. That's a lot of smackeroles. So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we have a missing person of interest. No major clues, no good leads. This case is going nowhere."

Chiappe thought about that for a moment.

"What do you want me to do?"

Maintenon puffed, sighing deeply and setting the cigar, which was indeed a very good one, into the ashtray.

"Slowly, casually, we might as well begin re-allocating resources..." He left the rest unsaid.

Chiappe's head bobbed, he got it well enough.

"Wind it up, eh?"

Gilles nodded.

"So tell me, Gilles. Just between you and me. What happened."

"For almost the first time in my experience, we have run into a really good brain. I mean, this guy's fantastic. If Maurice really planned all this and if he really did pull this off, then I would very much like to meet him. I have a funny feeling that that, is never going to happen."

Chiappe leaned back in his chair and turning sideways, put his feet up on the end of the desk.

"I mean, tell me what happened. What's your theory of the crime?"

"Ah, yes. Daniel Masson was young and impressionable. Maurice had knowledge of the bank. He had knowledge of its operation, possibly the victims. He had access to money, and cocaine, and fine young women who were looking for a husband. They were looking for a good time. But the real beauty lies in the details. In the use of simple human psychology, this crime stands apart. Head and shoulders above the rest. In my opinion, somebody, most likely Daniel, walked into that vault during business hours. He used the proper keys and scooped up the stones, a little cash, and walked out. This was days or weeks ahead of time."

"Oh, really."

"Yes. The stones were long gone by the time we arrived on the scene. Everything else was just window dressing. They could have stopped at any time, leaving all sorts of misleading evidence behind. As it was, it borders on overkill. Most likely, our four young women knew nothing about the machine on the roof. Daniel probably knew little or nothing about the roof part of the operation. Yet I'm convinced he was the one who removed the fan, the motor and all of that—he must have been bringing things into the vault for days and weeks beforehand. The job could easily have been done overnight—or so it was supposed to look. He was probably in there more than once, and all he had to do was to walk out when nobody was looking. But think about it. A customer brings in a briefcase. They ask for access to their box. It could be anybody—it's totally anonymous and therefore we have no record of any transaction...it's completely bogus. There is nothing, therefore, for us to find. Daniel, he's watching for them, and so it's always him. He takes them in there. An anonymous customer comes in at lunch time. He's a management trainee and the only senior staff member available. Some of those rental customers, or at least one, will never return—I'm sort of convinced of that. Then, they simply stick a drill in the box, or a bunch of hose, and then they leave. And yet—and yet—it's all bullshit."

"Ah."

"But by this time, Daniel Masson is in so deep, he can't back out. He's under orders and following instructions. In my opinion, he's already spent at least one night in the vault and made a go of it. He was the one that dismantled the vent system, and you can't just do that in a minute. He could have stood on the top of the boxes and barely reached the screws..."

"Okay, so Daniel takes the stones out, maybe even the money, and he agrees to stay in over the weekend and make it look that that was when the crime occurred...is what you're saying."

"Hmn. One wonders how gullible he was, but this was the opportunity to get rid of the one indispensable member. Daniel would have been demanding a fair share, after all." He might even have been asking for half the proceeds, considering the dangerous game he was playing.

"Yes, I see. And the equipment on the roof? All window dressing?"

"From Daniel Masson's point of view, he may have had some concerns about his safety after the fact. That's why he had the gun. But all he had to do was to refuse to cooperate, and he didn't do that. It might have cost him his job, what with the dope and the gambling, fraternizing with female employees and all that sort of thing. But it would most likely have saved his life."

"Yeah. Obviously, he expected to get out of the vault Monday morning. Wait for a quiet moment and just walk out. Only this time, he would have grabbed his coat and just went. So we're dead in the water then—"

"Ah. Yes and no—we have alerts out to foreign governments. We're watching, and we have bulletins out, for all seaports, international airports, border crossings, trains, buses...so far no hits. He's probably altered his appearance and he's gotten himself new name."

"Here's an alternative theory of the crime, Gilles. Old man Antoine walked out with the stones, and the cash. Then he kills his own kid, dumps the body somewhere real good and basically induces Daniel Masson to do the job. Okay, I've gotten the sequence wrong, but you know that I mean. The women are all lying to us already—we sort of know that. But what are they lying about? That's my point."

"Hmn. No. According to our information, Monsieur Noel has been home at night, every night, and at work during the day. Antoine Noel dedicated his life to building up that bank. They'd taken him on at sixteen and a half or something, having shown rather peculiar mathematical ability at a young age. He was responsible for starting up a dozen branches in towns all over the country. He was a driven man and one in his prime. According to company officials, some of whom you have spoken to, he would eventually have made vice-president in charge of day-to-day operations. He would have been given a seat on the board. As it was, at his age, it simply wasn't possible for him to have risen any higher nor received any greater compensation, and then there are the honours. I asked our own financial specialists about his portfolio and they just laughed. Don't even go there—that's what Desjarlais said." Antoine Noel's wife was from a fine and ancient family, one related to some of the most illustrious names in their national history.

St. Louis, and all of that shit—

A self-made man, he wouldn't give up all that bourgeois, conventional success for anything.

"Yeah...yeah, I get you."

Chiappe cast his eye around the room, finally alighting on the clock.

"So that's it? Are we done here?"

"Ah, yes, sir." Maintenon drained his glass. "I guess we are. Anyways, sir, when I'm lying on my deathbed, I'll feel a lot better about things knowing I gave it my all."

Chiappe laughed, slapping his thigh at this sally of wit, and Maintenon was dismissed.

***

Eventually the story died in the newspapers, who must inevitably move on to other things or lose the attention of the readers.

In a natural progression events, their four female suspects were turned loose. Police were still looking for a couple of day-labourers from the roofing job. When they found them, if they ever did, they would be asking them all the same questions. It was a big city, though. In Maintenon's opinion, the likelihood was that they would be getting all the same kinds of answers, although someone had to have carried that machinery up onto the roof. Perhaps Maurice himself, wearing grubby coveralls, unshaven and greasy cap pulled low over bloodshot eyes.

No one would have given him a second look...he would have been beneath their notice in that class-blindness people had.

None of their subjects, still under periodic but no longer continuous surveillance, had shown any recent signs of wealth. None of them had developed itchy feet or shown any sudden urge to leave town. The security guards were still employed, albeit no longer at the bank. The four young women had been summarily dismissed, and it looked as if Monsieur Noel's only consolation was that he would be Number One Main Paris Branch Manager for the rest of his career—or his life, whichever came first.

He had also lost a son.

He would never go any higher. The suddenly rather potent Orson Tremblay, having risen to the occasion, was handling most of the serious workload, or so it was said. All of this was especially true, once it inevitably leaked out in the press that Maurice, notable society person, and a man who liked games, horses and women and drink, in no particular order, had unaccountably disappeared.

No one seemed to know where he had gone. He hadn't been seen in any of his usual haunts since shortly after the robbery, and no one closely connected to him was saying anything at all.

At this point, the case had gone dormant. Even the newspapers had stopped speculating and moved onto other things.

That's not to say the police ever stopped looking, because they sure as hell wouldn't.

***

The phone rang beside his bed.

Dragging himself up out of a deep sleep, Gilles groaned and reached for the light-switch.

Sighing, he reached for the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this Inspector Gilles Maintenon?"

"Ah, yes, it is." There was a powerful buzz on the line and the voice was high, cold and distant.

There was an odd foreign lilt to the voice.

"This is the International Operator. You have a collect overseas call from Zanzibar. Would you like to accept the charges?"

"What? Who in the hell—" Zanzibar.

Gilles didn't know anybody in bloody Zanzibar.

"Who's calling, please? I don't know anybody in Zanzibar."

"The call is from a Monsieur Maurice Noel. He says you will know the name."

Merde.

Shit.

Bullshit.

"Ah—ah. Yes. Put him on. I accept the charges."

"You may go ahead now, sirs." There was a click and a thud and the line cleared up somewhat.

He threw aside the covers. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed. Maintenon waited, listening intently.

"Hello? Maintenon?"

"Yes. That is me. So where are you, Monsieur Noel?"

"Why, I'm in Zanzibar, Inspector. Just like the lady said."

"So. Why are you calling, Maurice?"

"Yeah, call me Maurice. Gilles. The young ladies didn't have anything to do with it. That was all me and Daniel. I mean, they were useful, and everything. But basically I just used them. They're not very smart, when you get right down to it."

Maintenon listened to the hiss on the line. It might not be international, there were plenty of bad lines out there, but that operator sounded pretty authentic. He'd have the call traced just as soon as the fellow was gone of course—

Maintenon had a million questions. He settled for just one.

"What do you want, Monsieur Noel."

"I just wanted you to know what an inspiration you've been. Always in the papers, eh? I was just wondering what you thought—you know, of my method. It really was the perfect crime, eh? How to Rob a Bank. Imagine that. I really ought to write a book, Maintenon. That one will be a big bestseller. Everyone will want to read that one, eh?"

"So. Why don't you? Don't forget to send the self-addressed envelope with that...uh, submission." He cleared his throat, still dry and sticky with sleep. "I would love an autographed copy of that—"

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Such sanctimony."

"Just remember that Darwin is on our side, Monsieur Noel."

Maintenon thought he heard a giggle, but possibly not.

"So be it—"

"Yes, Monsieur Noel—so be it."

There was more silence.

"So. What do you expect me to say? You want me to be impressed. Well, okay then—I'm impressed."

"It's nothing personal, Gilles. I just want you to know that—ah, perhaps you wouldn't mind telling my old man that."

"Why don't you call him up and tell him yourself. So far he hasn't killed himself. Not yet, anyways. Your mother would probably like to hear from you once in a while."

There was a sound and then Noel was talking again.

"Anyways—Gilles..."

Fuck you.

Maurice.

The prodigal son—hell, he might even come back.

"Anyways, Monsieur Noel, you are the one man in a million. It's what you always wanted to hear, isn't it? You are the criminal mastermind. You are the big one that got away, eh? Good for you, sir, good for you. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy you. Good evening, sir." He uttered a long and heartfelt sigh.

It was over.

Almost.

"Gilles—"

"Oh. And good luck to you, Monsieur Noel. For of all the people in the world, you, sir—you, sir, are surely are going to need it."

"Aw, don't be like that, Buddy."

"For you will never be able to sleep again, sir."

That's about when Maintenon hung up on him.

It was a bit rude, but you could hardly blame the Inspector, really.

It was just one of those things.

End

About Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author of novels, novellas and short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.

> http://shalakopublishing.blogspot.ca/ <

