Cara Black: Murder in Belleville

“Close the door before they see us!” Anaïs panted.

Out of breath, Aimée crawled in, then pushed the massive door shut. Ahead, the red button of a timer light switch gleamed, and she pressed it. The damp floor and dented wall mailboxes were lit by a naked bulb overhead. Of the several mailboxes only one held a name: “E. Grandet.”

To the right of the staircase, a narrow drafty passage led to the rear courtyard. Newspapers, thrown in a dusty heap, sat under the spiral stairwell.

“Who are those men?” Aimée asked.

“The ones who followed me,” Anaïs said.

Loud shouting came from the street. What if the men broke down the door? Torn between confronting them or looking for an escape, Aimée froze.

Now the voices came from outside the massive door. Loud whacks made the door shudder, as if they were attacking the door’s kickplate. Her fear propelled her to action.

“Let’s go,” Aimée said, pulling out her penlight.

“My legs … don’t work well,” Anaïs panted.

Aimée helped her stand up.

“Put your weight on me,” Aimée said. Together they hobbled down the drafty passage leading toward the back.

Her thin beam flickered off the dripping stone wall; moss furred in green patches. The walls reeked of mildew and urine.

April in Paris wasn’t like the song, Aimée thought, and couldn’t remember when it had been.

Something glinted in the cracks, where stone joined the gutter. She bent down, shined her penlight. In the yawning crevice, an indecently large pearl shimmered.

She pried it out and rubbed the slime off with her sleeve.

“Anaïs, did you drop this?”

“Not my style,” she said, breathing hard.

Aimée slipped the pearl into her back pocket. As she edged past the rotted wooden door, she was glad she’d worn leather boots. Too bad they had two-inch heels.

“Who are they, Anaïs?”

“Just keep going, Aimée,” Anaïs said, panting.

She headed for an old metal fonderie workshop in the courtyard. The fluttering of disturbed pigeons greeted them.

The building smelled of garbage. Her small penlight beam revealed several blue plastic sacks of trash. Unusual, she thought. The building appeared deserted. Not only that, but the garbage in Paris was collected every day.

Slants of moonlight illuminated part of the rain-slicked cobbles and wet walls inside. Empty green Ricard bottles lay strewn in what appeared to be the main part of the old workshop.

She helped Anaïs sit down.

“Let me check for a back exit,” Aimée said. “Take a rest.”

On Aimée’s left, twisted pipes and a network of frayed electric lines trailed up the building interior to the remaining bit of black roof.

Through the hole above loomed the dark dome of the sky, and a yellow glow outlined the rooftops of Belleville. Aimée stumbled on the slippery concrete, caught her heel and lurched outside. She grabbed hold of something rusty that flaked in her hands. Straightening up, she took another step. She skidded and lost her balance but held on to her penlight, shining the beam ahead.

A stone wall five or six feet high stood in front of her. Jagged glass, like a string of grinning teeth, lined the top.

No exit.

Aimée tried not to panic.

Returning to Ana’fs, she noticed the buttery leather Dior bag strap tangled around Anaïs’s shoulder. The last time Aimée had seen Anaïs she’d also been in Dior, radiant and walking down the steps of St-Severin on the arm of her new husband, Philippe, as the cathedral bells chimed over the square on the rive gauche. Aimée remembered dancing with Martine and her father at the candlelit reception at the Crillon, and Ana’fs giggling while Philippe drank champagne from her silk shoe.

She shook Anaïs’s shoulder. “Please, Anaïs, tell me what’s going on,” Aimée said. “Were these men trying to kill you?”

Anaïs gagged, turned, and threw up all over the empty Ricard bottles in the fonderie. The delayed reaction worried Aimée—had the realization just hit Anaïs, or did she have internal injuries?

Anaïs wiped her jaw with her sleeve and nodded. Then she burst into tears, sobbing.

“I wish to God I knew,” she said.

Aimée pulled out her phone to get help, but her battery was dead. They were stuck.

“Nom de Dieu!” Anaïs said. “That pute Sylvie, she’s the cause—” Anaïs choked.

“How—who is she?”

“The sow my husband slept with,” Anaïs said, catching air. She straightened up, then took deep breaths through her nose. “On a regular basis. Sylvie Coudray. It was over. But I think she blackmailed him.” Anaïs began sobbing again. “Philippe, he’s such a weakling.”

Aimée wiped Anaïs’s mouth clean and smoothed her hair back. She knelt closer, trying to ignore the stench.

“What did Sylvie give you?”

“Who knows?” she pleaded, her eyes wide in terror. She reached inside the handbag. Her hand came back with something metal, the size of a makeup brush, and passed it to Aimée.

Aimée recognized the five-fingered brass hand covered with Arabic writing, a good luck ‘hand of Fat’ma’ strung with hanging blue beads and a third eye. A talisman to ward off evil spirits.

Sirens sounded in the distance; the hee-haw got closer. Aimée figured they came from the boulevard. More pounding came from somewhere outside the building. Louder and stronger. Startled, Aimée almost dropped the Fat’ma symbol.

“Open up!” shouted a loud voice.

Aimée stuck the charm back in Anaïs’s purse.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Anaïs said.

Aimée steadied her hand on Anaïs.

“What kind of hell is this?” Anaïs said, covering her ears with her blood-spattered hands, and rocking back and forth. “You’ve got to help—so sordid,” she gulped, grabbing Aimée’s arm.

Aimée brushed Anaïs’s skirt off and helped her to stand.

“Philippe’s a minister. I can’t let them find me here!” Anaïs’s knees buckled.

“Can you walk?” Aimée asked.

Anaïs nodded.

From the passage, she heard scraping metal noises and footsteps.

Aimée looked around the courtyard. They were hemmed in by the U-shaped building and stone wall.

Behind Aimée and Anaïs, the passage’s wooden door banged. The footsteps pounded closer. Aimée figured the only way for them to escape was over the stone wall topped by jagged glass.

Aimée helped Anaïs to the wall, then cupped her hands. “Climb. Be careful of the glass.”

Aimée winced as Anaïs stepped a high heel on her hands. She heaved her up and heard Anaïs groan. Aimée braced herself and pushed Anaïs’s slender frame over the wall. For a small woman, Anafe felt heavy.

“Go on,” Aimée hissed. “Let yourself drop to the other side.”

She heard wood splintering and figured Anaïs had landed.

“Run toward the boulevard. Whatever happens, just get to the Métro,” Aimée said. Getting back to the car would be impossible.

Aimée climbed and gripped the jutting stone. She shimmied herself up trying to find footholds, afraid to cut herself to shreds on the glass if she got stuck. Her fingertips had just reached the ledge with broken glass when she heard voices. She had to move and forget the pain.

Stretching her leg as far as she could and scraping her heel across the stone, she hit something flat and pulled herself up.

She took a deep breath, then pushed off the wall into the yard of the next building. She landed on her feet. No Anaïs. Aimée took off, running, into a disused garage lot, but slowed down to avoid banging into something and alerting the neighbors. A heap of rusted bicycles and once-chrome car bumpers were piled close to each other.