Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

AIMÉE SLID out of the back kitchen window, climbing down the rusty fire escape to an asphalted yard. Following the yard, she exited onto rue Crespin du Gast and walked the two blocks to Samia’s apartment.

She knocked on the door. No answer.

“Samia, it’s Aimée.”

All she heard was pounding Rai music with a techno-beat.

She tried the handle. Locked.

If Samia was scared, why play the music so loud?

Aimée tramped back down to the courtyard. The rain was coming down hard. She rolled up her collar, passing the boarded-up butcher shop. Peeling posters lined the facade. She headed toward the spot overlooked by Samia’s kitchen window.

And then she saw the orange-pink phosphorescent watch on the stones. She bent down, picked it up, her heart quickening.

“Are you here?”

Water rushing from a rain gutter answered her.

She edged toward the passage, reeking of urine, that bordered the hammam. And then she saw Samia sprawled against the stone wall.

“Samia, ça va?”

But when Aimée got closer she froze.

A dark red wound blossomed on Samia’s chest, staining her peach twinset, her eyes open to the falling raindrops. Aimée gasped and knelt beside her. “You’re too young,” Aimée whispered, reaching for Samia’s hands. Cold.

Dead cold.

Guilt stabbed at her. And was supposed to protect the streetwise, childlike Samia.

She closed Samia’s eyes, saying a prayer, promising her justice.

She punched in 17 for SAMU on her cell phone, gave the location, then waited until she heard the siren scream before she slipped into the street.

Where had Samia been going? Why here? But that was for the flics to chase, she thought grimly. Dédé had been two blocks away looking for her; he’d meant business when he’d warned her others would die.

She dreaded calling Morbier, debating when to tell him. But in the end she stood on the rainswept corner a block away on rue Moret and tried him on her cell phone. She didn’t want him hearing it on the news or over the flic’s radio.

“I messed up, Morbier,” she said.

“Any good news, Leduc?”

She heard the flick of a match, and heard him inhaling.

“Bad. Samia’s gone.”

Morbier’s silence seemed to last forever. She knew this news had pierced him.

“Nom de Dieu,” he sighed. “I’m so stupid.”

“Désolée, Morbier.” The tears welled in her eyes. “My fault.”

Why hadn’t she made Samia stay in the car, baby-sat her until she’d made the plastique connection.

“You took a bullet too, didn’t you, Leduc,” Morbier said finally, his voice sad and tired. “Where are you?”

She told him.

“Get out of there, Leduc. Start walking. Now!”

She stumbled against the street sign, then ran all the way to rue de Belleville and flagged a taxi. They’d be after her now, double strength. An icy determination took over; she could play hardball too. She handed the taxi driver a hundred francs and told him he’d make another if he got to the Ministry of Defense in under thirty minutes.

TWENTY MINUTES later in the ministry reception area Ai-mee told Philippe’s secretary, in a hushed polite tone, that she needed to see le Ministre immediatement!

The secretary reluctantly acknowledged that the minister was busy. He had high-level meetings but would get back to her within the day.

Aimée continued, her tone just above a whisper, that if she couldn’t be accommodated the secretary would have the blood of innocent people staining her silk blouse. No amount of dry cleaning could take care of that.

The secretary blinked but still refused.

However, when Aimée threatened to burst into the meeting she rose up in alarm and showed her into an adjoining office.

“Oui?” Philippe said, coming in a moment later.

His haggard eyes and stooped shoulders projected an air of defeat. A new experience for Philippe. Pathetic, she thought, and pitied him. But only briefly.

“Philippe, I’ve got proof that the humanitarian mission’s bogus,” she said. “And someone’s blackmailing you.”

Alarm shone in Philippe’s eyes. He stepped back. Voices buzzed in the background, papers rustled under a glowing chandelier. He turned and shut the door.

“There’s a conference going on, officials from my department,” he said, his voice tight. “I can’t talk.”

He hadn’t denied it. And he looked pale.

“Don’t talk, Philippe,” she said. “I can help. Just listen.”

He’d changed after his threats on Canal Saint Martin. He looked almost tame and so beaten. Maybe she had a chance. She pulled a gilt upholstered Louis XV chair close to him.

“Sit down. Give me three minutes,” she said easing him toward the seat.

For a moment, she thought he’d refuse, but he sat down. That was a start.

“You didn’t know the funds went to the Algerian military, did you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course not, you trusted Hamid, Kaseem, and Sylvie. Why not? They’d been your friends since the Sorbonne. When the late sixties revelations about French repression came to light, the legacy left in war-torn Algeria—you joined what became the AFL.”

She watched Philippe. He blinked and rubbed his thumbs together.

“What proof do you have?”

“Hear me out, Philippe,” she said. “Hamid followed Islam his own way. I’m sure you admired his peaceful means and how he embraced a broader humanity. You contributed discreetly to the AFL as you rose in the ministry.”

She paused: now the ugly part.

“Kaseem had returned to Algeria. Made money supplying the military, somehow. But you didn’t know that. Six years ago Syl-vie came back into your life.”

Philippe shook his head. “She wasn’t my mistress.”

“I know. She talked you into funding this humanitarian mission while sweetening your bank account. The project revitalized the 196 sector, a land ravaged and barren since the Algerian war in the sixties. Provided irrigation, remapping the area, building roads, a power station, and housing. After all, it helped those most affected, you thought. You believed in the mission, wanted it to succeed. This was for the disenfranchised tribes in the bled, not the politicians or the military. You believed Kaseem. So did Sylvie and Hamid. He was your friend. Your old friend.”

She had Philippe’s attention, she was reaching him.

“But the reality hit when the photos of ‘ST 196’appeared. No new settlements, roads, or irrigated fields. Just death-squad executions and weapons for the military. Sylvie grew a conscience quickly. You did, too, Philippe. But Dédé, one of the generals’ hired mecs, blew her up when she threatened to expose the truth.”

His shook his head.

“You stopped funding the project. That’s why you’re hiding Anaïs,” she said. “They planned to kidnap her, use her as bait to force you to fund the project. But I got in the way.”

Anger blazed in Philippe’s eyes. “You’re always in the way!”

The door opened, and the light from the hallway streamed in.

“Philippe, we’re waiting,” said Guittard, the blond man she recognized from Philippe’s kitchen. He ignored Aimée, tapping his designer loafers, and faced Philippe. “They’ve tabled the resolution. Get up, man! Unless you propose a new initiative, the mission goes down the pissoir.”

“Why shouldn’t it, Monsieur?” she said.

But she spoke to their backs.

Two women had been murdered but that didn’t seem to grease the wheels of the government. Money did. At least the mission wouldn’t be funded. But someone had to pay, Aimée told herself.