Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

BERNARD STOOD INSIDE THE gate of the Vincennes detention center, where a busload of men awaited forced repatriation. Other buses had taken those without any papers to chartered planes at Creil, a military air base. Bernard stamped his feet on the frigid packed earth. Cold—he always felt cold. His body never warmed up until July. Then there were one or two fitful months of what they called “heat” until the cold resumed again.

The barred media waited outside like hungry carrion to fill their newsfeeds. Inside Bernard was numb. These men had come to France years ago, seeking asylum from repression, and stayed on illegally after their applications were rejected. What could he do?

“Directeur Berge, please sign the transport receipt,” said the hawk-faced detention official.

Bernard hesitated. He wished he could disappear.

“Just a formality, Directeur Berge,” the official put the pen in his hand. “But we’ve got regulations.”

Bernard could have sworn the man guided his hand, forcing his signature.

Then it was over. Officials marched him through the receiving yard, past the buses disgorging the eighty or so sans’papiers. They formed into lines waiting to be processed. Bernard felt like a war criminal, like a Nazi who’d been released because he’d agreed to talk. Hadn’t he acted, as his mother had pointed out, like the Gestapo?

And then above him he heard the sound of helicopter blades. Grit and sand shot over the yard, spraying everyone as it landed. A RAID officer jumped out and ran toward them.

“Directeur Berge,” he shouted, making himself heard over the rotor blades. “ Ministre Guittard needs you.”

Bernard stumbled.

The officer caught him.

“But why?” Could things get worse?

“Hostage situation, Directeur Berge. Orders are to proceed immediately.”

Bernard began to shake his head but the officer held his arm, propelling him to the waiting helicopter.

Monday Noon

AIMéU WALKED FROM PHILIPPE’S office all the way to her own. She kept alert down the narrow streets. No one followed her. The biting wind had risen from the Seine. She pulled her coat closer.

The scent of flowering lily of the valley reached her from a walled garden nearby. For a moment her mother’s blurred face floated before her. All her mother’s clothes had been scented with lily of the valley, the room full of it long after she’d left. And then the image was gone. The gusty wind snatched the scent and her memories away.

Aimée’s cell phone rang in her pocket.

“Allô,” she said, her frozen fingers fumbling with the keypad.

“Everything’s my fault, Aimée,” Anaïs sobbed.

“What do you mean?” Aimée was surprised. “I thought you were in the hospital?”

“Hostage situation … Simone,” Anaïs’s voice faded, then came back, “ École maternelle … in the Twentieth Arrondisse-ment. I need you.”

Aimée’s blood ran cold.

“Rue l’Ermitage, up from Place du Guignier.” Anaïs’s voice broke. Aimée heard the unmistakable rat-a-tat-tat of a semiautomatic, people screaming, and then the shattering of glass.

“Anaïs!” she shouted.

Her phone went dead.

AIMÉE RUSHED to the tree-lined nineteenth-century street, buzzing with La Police and the elite paramilitary group RAID.

To her left the école matemelle, a building with iron-railed balconies bordered the north side. The adjoining ecole elementaire held the entrance for both schools on rue Olivier Metra.

Nervous and scared, she wondered where Anaïs and Simone were. What could she do?

An old man, his winter coat thrown over a bathrobe, clutched a parrot cage and complained loudly at being evacuated from his apartment across the street. Paris in April still hadn’t shaken off winter’s cold cloak, she thought. Frost dusted the cobblestones and wedged in the cracks of the pavement.

“I must speak with the commissaire in charge,” she began.

The businesslike plainclothes flic listened to Aimée’s story, checking her PI credentials. He spoke into a microphone clipped to his collar, then finally directed her past a police barricade. Somewhat relieved, she ran ahead. She knew she had to persuade the officer in charge that she could help.

Inside a Belle-Epoque building housing the temporary com-missariat command post, she waited for the inspector in charge. Glad of her wool sweater and parka, she rubbed her hands together in the mirrored building’s foyer, the hallway echoing with the tramp of boots and radio static.

She felt another presence and looked up. From the spiraling marble staircase expanding like a nautilus shell, Yves stared down at her.

For a moment the world stopped; scurrying police and walkie-talkie static around her ceased. “What’s going on here?” she said.

He edged down the stairs toward her.

“Who wants to know?” said a stocky blue-uniformed policeman beside her.

She turned and showed the flic her PI license, glancing at the badge with his rank. “Sergeant, my friend Anaïs de Froissart called me from inside the école matemelle. Is she in danger?”

“You could say that,” he said. “Attends, I’ll get the inspector.” He walked over to a knot of uniformed men in deep discussion.

Yves’s deep brown eyes met hers.

“Some things never change,” he said, coming down the stairs and standing beside her.

“I thought you were in Marseilles,” she said returning his look, taking in the flak jacket over his bullet-proof vest. “You’re still undercover, aren’t you?”

“And you’re still smack in the middle of things,” he said.

She felt her face grow warm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Certain things are better left unsaid.”

“Like your wife?” she said. Right away, she wished she’d bitten her tongue.

“My ex-wife?” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Did you think—?”

“Policy must have changed,” she interrupted, “if they let you come front-line on hostage situations.”

“I pulled up before the area got cordoned off,” Yves said. “To meet Martine when she dropped Simone at school. We planned to interview Hamid.”

She didn’t believe him for a minute. A brown curl escaped from his jacket collar. She’d almost forgotten the curving nape of his neck.

“Why was Anaïs taken hostage?” Aimée asked.

“Everything’s unclear,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He shook his head. “The sans’papiers were removed from the church, and Ha-mid’s been taken to the hospital. I’m going to meet Martine there.”

The smell of burnt grease hovered near the marble staircase. Someone had forgotten to shut off their stove. Aimée struggled to look away from Yves’s face. A man motioned to Yves from the barricades. “There’s my colleague. I’ve got to go,” he said. “But I know where to find you.”

“Don’t count on it, Yves,” she said turning away, now determined. “If you can’t speak the truth, forget me.”

“The less you know the better,” Yves said. “The other part doesn’t work.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“Trying to forget you.”

Why did everyone have secrets and keep her in the dark?

“I forgot you until you popped up in my flat,” she said, unable to meet his gaze.

“Liar.”

But she’d turned and strode toward a knot of men in the foyer. By the time she looked back, he was gone.

Technicians and RAID teams speaking into headsets hurried past her. The hell with Yves. She had to get back on track, talk to the head honcho to find out how to help Anaïs.

“Who’s the commissaire in charge here?” she asked.