Peter May - Extraordinary People

‘What for?’

‘I think Juge Lelong made it perfectly clear to both of you this afternoon that he would take a dim view of any further interference in this case. I’m pretty sure we can bring charges of obstruction, and withholding evidence in a criminal investigation.’ He opened the door and shouted down the hall. A uniformed officer appeared. The detective said to him, ‘Take these gentlemen down to the Quai des Orfèvres.’ And he turned to Enzo and Raffin. ‘Accommodation for the night courtesy of the République .’ He held out his hand towards Raffin again. ‘Your phone, please, monsieur.’

The police cells at La Crime were on the second top floor at No. 36 Quai des Orfèvres, immediately below the cells kept by the Brigade des Stups — the drug squad. They were blind cells, without windows. One entire wall was made of re-inforced Plexiglas. From the darkness of an observation room on the other side, a prisoner could be kept under constant surveillance.

Enzo and Raffin were put in separate cells. In the police van Raffin had told Enzo, ‘They can only keep us en garde à vue for twenty-four hours.’ Then he had hesitated. ‘Unless, of course, Juge Lelong decides to sign an extension.’ He looked apologetically at Enzo. ‘In which case they could hold us for forty-eight.’

Almost two of those hours had already passed. Crawling by in a glare of fluorescent light. Even if he had felt like it, Enzo knew that sleep would have been impossible. Once or twice, shadows had moved around beyond the Plexiglas, but he had been unable to see who had come to take a look at him. He sat on the edge of a hard bunk bed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. They had taken his belt and his shoes, but left him his bloodied shirt. He had pulled it off and thrown it across the cell, to where it still lay on the floor, and they had let him rinse the blood from his hands and arms. Bare-chested, and in his socks, he felt very vulnerable.

He was still suffering from the shock of finding Roques with half his face missing. Two deaths in a single day. Two names that he had unearthed from the clues left by Gaillard’s killers, and both men were dead. He felt responsible. He felt sick. His reflection in the Plexiglas looked haunted, like a vision of his own ghost staring back at him from the shadows.

The cell door opened and he thought for a moment that he was hallucinating. A woman in full evening dress stood framed in the doorway. Cream silk, cut straight across the chest to off-the-shoulder sleeves. The contrast with the black hair that tumbled over her shoulders and the black opal which hung on a fine chain around her neck was startling. She looked stunning. Red-painted full lips pursed in a thoughtful pout, a frown gathering between her eyes. ‘You know, I was having a good time tonight, until you spoiled things.’ She let her eyes wander over the silvered black hair that curled across his naked chest. ‘They pulled me out of the party just after midnight.’

‘Sorry about that.’ Enzo had difficulty keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.

She turned and nodded to a uniformed officer lurking in the shadows, and stepped into the cell. The door closed behind her.

Enzo stood up. ‘Is it usual for prisoners to receive personal visits from the Garde des Sceaux?’

‘An old French custom. From the days when the guillotine was still in use.’

‘I hope you’re not going to cut my head off.’

‘I feel like knocking it off,’ she said with feeling. ‘Good God, Macleod, you’re a stubborn Scottish bastard.’

‘It’s a national character trait. We don’t like being told what to do. The English have been trying for centuries.’

She canted her head to one side and looked at him with something like laughter in her eyes. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

‘Well, you could tell them to let me go, for a start.’

‘Actually, that’s just what I was planning.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘But I would like something in return.’

‘I’ve never been one to turn a lady down.’

A smile flickered across her face, then faded. ‘I’m sure your experiences today with suicides and murders cannot have been very pleasant for you. More than enough, I would have thought, to convince you of the folly of your ways. But if not, I’d like your word that this business will stop. Right here. Right now.’

‘Or?’

‘Or…’ She looked at her watch. ‘You can spend another forty-five hours or so kicking your heels in here.’ The good humour slipped from her face like a mask. ‘And believe me, Monsieur Macleod, there are many other ways in which I can make your life more than difficult. When I tell someone to do something I expect it to be done. I have set up an official inquiry into the Gaillard case, and I would like it to proceed without further interference from you. The daily revelations in Raffin’s left-wing rag are both a hindrance to the police investigation and an embarrassment to me. And I want them to stop. Is that clear?’

The cell door opened, and Marie Aucoin swung towards it in a sudden fury. Her voice was tense with anger. ‘I thought I told you I wasn’t to be interrupted!’

Raffin stood in the doorway, his jacket draped over his shoulders, smoking a cigarette. He smiled and said languidly, ‘Sorry. Must have missed that.’ And to Enzo, ‘Come on, Macleod, time to go home.’

‘What are you talking about?’ The Minister’s face had coloured with anger and humiliation.

‘The lawyers my “left-wing rag” sent down seem to have convinced Juge Lelong that he has no grounds whatsoever for detaining us. And that the consequences of ignoring their advice on the legality of our detention would be both grave, and very public.’ He slipped the jacket from his shoulders and tossed it to Enzo. ‘For God’s sake cover yourself up, man. You’ll be arrested for indecent exposure.’

Enzo slipped into Raffin’s jacket and nodded to the Garde des Sceaux. ‘You and the good judge should make sure you’re singing from the same hymn sheet next time. Bonne soirée , madame.’

At the foot of the stairs, Enzo and Raffin stepped out into an inner courtyard. Lights from windows lay in geometric patterns across its cobbles. A police car stood idling, its diesel purr reverberating around the cloistered inner sanctum of the Brigade Criminelle, just one part of this sprawling complex on the ële de la Cité which made up the Palais de Justice. They followed their shadows down a long passageway, footsteps echoing back from scarred walls. Ahead of them, one half of the huge wooden gates stood open. And beyond it they could see across the Seine to the lights of the Left Bank. They passed through it into the Parisian night with an enormous sense of relief. A black, uniformed policewoman watched them without curiosity.

The street was jammed with police vehicles, marked and unmarked. Enzo glanced up towards the second top floor and wondered where exactly it was he’d spent the last few hours.

‘Hey!’ They turned at the sound of Charlotte’s voice, and she came running along the riverside pavement to meet them, soft curls streaming out behind her. She stopped and looked at them breathlessly. ‘I couldn’t get parked any closer. My car’s on the other side of the river.’

‘Was it you who phoned Libé?’ Raffin asked.

She nodded. ‘After you called I kept phoning the desk at La Crime asking what had happened to you. Eventually I think the duty officer got fed up with me and told me you were being held for questioning. The only thing I could think of was to phone the paper.’