Cara Black: Murder in the Bastille

“Mathieu?”

No answer. From somewhere a Mozart sonata played, low and soothing. A tape, the radio?

She heard Lucas feeling around ahead of her. Wood scraped and was pushed aside. They hadn’t gone far. Then a loud ouff as Lucas sat down.

“Look, I don’t feel good prowling in his atelier. He’s probably upstairs asleep. We’re blind, so our sleep patterns are off. Night or day means nothing to us, but to the rest of the world it does.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She tapped with the cane, feeling her way ahead. Sensed the legs of work tables, rectangles of picture frames, hollow panels, the thick metal block of what must be the heater emitting sputtering bursts of warmth. Then the stone wall, thick and damp.

And she heard the gun fall on the floor, skidding over the wood. Her reflex was automatic. “Lucas! Duck and cover your head!”

She ducked down under a thick-legged work table. No shot.

“Lucas?”

No answer. Silence.

Then she heard the door close. The metallic ratchet fell as it locked.

Saturday Night

“THIS CAME FOR YOU, Sergeant Bellan,” said the night duty desk officer. “And these messages.”

All from Aimée Leduc.

Bellan took them, with his espresso, and sat down at the desk. He’d closed the Beast of Bastille file, sent it to the frigo . He wanted to throw Aimée’s things in the trash bin to join the cigarette butts, coffee-stained memos, and wilted violets.

But he set Officer Nord’s report down to read first. Then he opened the thick envelope, scanned the morgue log, and read the note Aimée’s partner, René, had written.

He gulped the espresso.

“I need a driver, officer,” he said, stuffing the report in his case.

“No one left in the driving pool tonight, sir,” he was told. “We’re short on officers if you need a backup.”

“No problem, no backup. I’m on special detail. Get me a car.”

Loïc Bellan sped over the pont Notre-Dame, the dark Seine illumined by pinpricks of blue light from the bateaux-mouches below. He pulled into the Place Lepine, on the Île de la Cité, where vendors were setting up stalls for the Sunday flower market.

He ran into Hôtel Dieu, flashed his badge, and was pointed in a direction by the sleepy-eyed security guard. Several long hallways and wrong turns later, he found Intensive Care.

“Nurse, I need to speak with a patient in custody, Dragos Iliescu.”

From around the night desk came the beeping of machines, and the sound of a floor waxer in the cavernous hallway. The ancient stone had been sandblasted, giving it a butterscotch hue in the dim lighting.

“Let me check, I just came on shift,” she said, consulting a computer. He saw the other nurse in the station nudge her, point to a file. A dark blue folder.

“Too late, I’m afraid, Sergeant,” she said. “He passed away.”

Frustrated, Bellan wanted to kick himself. Why hadn’t he come earlier?

“What was the cause of death?”

“The doctors are doing a preliminary now, taking a toxicology screening to determine if it was drugs.”

“Here’s my card. My number’s there. Have the doctor call me the minute he knows.”

If he hadn’t been so stubborn . . . so rigid in the way he thought. Wasn’t that what Marie told him, “Loïc listen to someone else sometime, then make up your mind.”

Merde!

All the way in the car, he berated himself. There was only one other way. He parked on the curb of 22, boulevard de la Bastille. He turned off the ignition and sat in the car. The small shop was lighted. A minute later he got out.

“ Bonsoir, Monsieur Tulles,” he said. “Is Bidi here?”

“We’re just closing up,” smiled Monsieur Tulles. “Bidi! Guess you want to ask him more questions.”

No answer.

“I’m sorry, that boy with those headphones is . . . Bidi!”

Bellan looked down at his feet. Something about this place, Monsieur Tulles, and Bidi made him tongue-tied. He hesitated, swallowed hard.

“Actually, Monsieur Tulles, if you don’t mind, I need Bidi’s help.”

Saturday Night

AIMÉE SHUDDERED AND CALLED out, “Tell me . . . Lucas, are you all right.”

Mozart’s piano music trilled faintly in the atelier’s background.

Had Lucas been knocked out . . . by Mathieu?

“Mathieu . . . who’s that?”

A sound like a deadbolt slipping into place.

“Who’s there?” Her words caught in her throat.

What was going on?

She couldn’t wait to find out, she had to do something. Quickly.

She groped ahead of her along the floor. Felt a sheet of dense, smooth metal. Hard and thick. She figured it was lead.

Something rustled from the far corner.

Her breath caught. She reached her hands out. Felt a shoe . . . no the curved wooden heel of a clog. She kept on. Her fingers came back sticky and metallic smelling. Blood.

Mathieu.

Now she knew why his door was open but he didn’t answer. Her fingers brushed a smooth round dome. His head. Then she froze.

He was bald.

Why hadn’t she thought to ask before. He was bald . No need for that shampoo.

Too late. She’d been about to accuse him of attacking her, killing Josiane, but he couldn’t have. So dumb. Why hadn’t she realized? If she had, he might still be alive.

And it all fell into place. The tar smell, the burns on Dragos, the lead, and the odd thing she’d knocked over, then touched. She realized that Morbier had been on a wild goose chase looking all over Paris for the “explosives” when they were here.

Right here.

She felt around Mathieu’s body. Next to the sheet of lead were glass bulbs and beakers. Like the ones René had found. But these had raised letters on them. On the bottom.

The script must be Cyrillic. But she traced an upside down U, then numbers. Her stomach jolted.

The symbol for enriched uranium.

U-235.

Weapons grade enriched uranium.

Probably five or ten gram samples from the size of the beaker. Dangerous enough. More than lethal if enough samples were put together. Enough for a dirty bomb.

And the killer had the perfect cover for customs checks.

Of course he must have been here, unpacking a shipment. They’d interrupted him. She prayed he’d knocked Lucas out, not killed him. All she could do was to try to get him talking. Get him near her.

“I know how you did it,” she said, her voice steady. “Ingenious. And I have to say, I admire your plan. But why?”

The Mozart piano concerto rose in the background.

“You,” he breathed. “You’re the one.”

Her breath caught again as she recognized the voice. Shivers ran down her spine. The uranium . . . where was it? Had she touched it?

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“It’s my business,” said Malraux. “I sell and trade.”

“This isn’t smuggling Fabergé eggs, antique icons, or fake Lee jeans,” she said. “Uranium and radiation kill people. Horribly.”

“Commodities,” he said. “They’re called commodities.”

“So you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

“I like that.”

“Oscar Wilde said it first.”

“But you’re wrong,” said Malraux. “I know the price and the value.”

Malraux’s tone, chillingly matter-of-fact, filled her with disgust and fear.

“It’s a business,” he said. “Like any other.”

“But Josiane found out, didn’t she? Somehow Vincent owed you. In return he let you use his e-mail account.”