Cara Black - AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

He hesitated and shrugged. “Why not?” He hefted the bag. Voices around him rose in song and he recognized “The Internationale,” the old Socialist anthem. He found himself stepping out in time with the singing. And then she vanished, dropping behind the ranks of marchers, as someone hugged him.

The group linked arms and strode over the cobbles. Beside him, Gaelle held the green STOP THE OIL DRILLING banner aloft.

As they marched, their voices and laughter echoed off the stone buildings. Their candles flickered in the soft breeze from the Seine. His uncle’s speech came to his mind. Proud of his ancestry? This made his heart swell with pride.

They reached the corner and rounded it. Ranks of uniformed CRS, Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, an armed riot squad, stood in front of l’Institut du Monde Arabe.

This made no sense to Krzysztof. They were marching peacefully to protest oil pollution.

He paused in midstep, as did the others. The CRS was drawn up in riot formation. The revolving police-car lights cast a bluish light that was reflected by the clear shields they held positioned in front of them.

This was only his second demonstration and he almost jumped out of his skin as a Mercedes limo screeched down the institute’s exit ramp and tore off toward the Seine.

“ Merde ,” Gaelle said at his side, “the bigwigs are taking off before we can present our proposals. The pigs!”

Krzysztof exchanged a confused look with Claude, a tall, leather-jacketed documentary filmmaker who stood on the sidelines.

“Get this on film, Claude!” he called.

Claude raised his fingers in a V, video camera crooked between his neck and shoulder. “Got it, from the beginning!” Claude considered himself a master of cinéma vérité . His ten-year-old documentary of activists fighting the building of African oil platforms was already considered a classic.

The marchers were at a standstill. Strategize, Krzysztof told himself. They had to strategize and keep the momentum going.

“Gaelle. Over here.” He made his way through the crowd, toward plane trees with peeling bark. Amid the planters holding bushes he set the backpack down.

The CRS loudspeaker broke the silence. “Advance no further.”

“Everything’s legal,” Gaelle shouted back, “approved by the—” Her voice was drowned by the clanking of the metal-heeled boots of the CRS scraping against the cobblestones.

“This is an unlawful assembly. Your permit has been revoked,” the loudspeaker blared. “Put down your weapons.”

Their permit revoked? Weapons?

“We’re conducting a sanctioned peaceful assembly,” Krzysztof shouted. MondeFocus only countenanced peaceful lawful demonstrations.

All of a sudden, a figure ran toward the front line of marchers, cradling something to her chest. “Wait . . . !”

Before he could see who it was, the stark white glare of police searchlights blinded him. He shielded his eyes.

“Krzysztof!”

He recognized Orla’s voice. But more blinding light prevented him from seeing her.

“Look, Orla’s arrived,” Gaelle said.

“This is your last warning.” Static crackled from the loudspeaker.

He stepped back in a panic. “But I obtained the permit. How could they revoke it?” he asked, dazed.

“They can’t do this,” Gaelle told him.

“Of course not. No one informed me!”

“Lies!” The crowd started chanting, their voices mounting in the humid air.

“They’ll have to understand,” Gaelle said, desperation in her voice, as she broke past the marchers and ran ahead.

The CRS advanced in a single rank, clear shields positioned in front of their faces.

Gaelle raised her candle and took a step forward, into the boulevard.

What was she doing? The CRS came closer, truncheons raised. He could see their features behind their clear shields. He sprinted forward. She took another step.

“Gaelle, non! ” He reached for her arm.

People behind him shoved forward and he tripped, losing his balance. The banner fell. He was pressed against a stone bollard.

“We’re presenting a peaceful petition—”

The rest of Gaelle’s words were lost in the bone-cracking whack of a truncheon. She crumpled to the ground. For a moment, all was silent, then cries of horror rose around him. Blood spurted from Gaelle’s head, drenching her scarf. And Krzysztof was pushed to one side in the melee as the crowd surged around them.

Monday Night

AIMÉE ANSWERED THE door, her hands shaking. The Chanel dress she wore was now caked with clumps of beige formula.

“About time, René!”

Her partner, René Friant, a dwarf, all of four feet tall in his tailored Burberry raincoat and custom-made shoes, stared at her.

“Interesting fashion statement. Sorry I’m late,” he said, hanging his coat on a chair. “They cordoned off the bridge because of some MondeFocus demonstration.” He sniffed. “Did Miles Davis have an accident?”

“I need your help, René,” she said.

“System up and running, right? Is this about tomorrow’s meeting . . . ?” He paused, his eyes searching hers. “Don’t tell me you missed the deadline.”

“Come here.” She took his hand and led him down the hall.

The baby’s mauve-hued eyelids were closed, the small chest rose and fell. She was at peace, asleep on the duvet.

“A baby? Instead of playing house, we need to monitor Regnault’s security update.”

Miles Davis cocked his head at the baby’s gentle breaths.

“René, it’s not like that.”

He took a step back. “Did I miss something during the past nine months?”

She shook her head. “No cracks about the Immaculate Conception either.”

“Shouldn’t her mother come for her?”

For once she agreed.

He sat, his eyes intent on the screen. “What’s this ‘system down for maintenance?’” he asked. “You didn’t get the system back online.”

“I indicated we had maintenance issues because I needed to buy more time. Everything’s up and ready. I checked.”

“We can’t use that delaying tactic again, Aimée. We have to get the system admin done in time, every time. Our clients have to have confidence that we’ll get the job done. Otherwise we’ll lose our big account because you’re babysitting. Have you gone soft in the head?”

Soft in the head . . . never. “I got a mysterious phone call, I went downstairs, and found this baby.”

He turned in the chair, his legs dangling. “What?”

“Sssh , it took forever to get her to sleep.” She pointed to the second laptop screen displaying the system program. “Tell you later. Once I go back in, we’ve got seven minutes. Ready?”

Her fingers ached by the time they’d checked the last user configuration but they finished with two minutes to spare.

“Close, Aimée. Too close.”

“Just listen, René.”

“It better be good.”

And she told him.

He frowned. “Somehow the woman found your name and your phone number,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “It’s some scam. Now she’ll demand money.”

Aimée doubted it. The desperation in that voice had been real.

“Wait a minute,” she said, running her hands through her spiky hair. “I didn’t have time to check earlier, too much was happening.” She dumped out the diaper bag’s contents, spread them on the parquet floor: diapers, wipes, another tin of powdered Lemiel formula. She turned the bag inside out and noticed stains. Earlier, she hadn’t paid attention to the rust-colored smears on the lining. She leaned down and sniffed.

“Dried blood, René.”

René sat back, open mouthed for the second time.