Cara Black: Murder in Belleville

Dedicated to all the ghosts, past and present

Thanks to so many who helped: Karen Fawcett; Joanna Bartholomew and Gala Besson in Menilmontant; Bertrand Bache merci, soul-soeurs Dot Edwards and Marion Nowak; Latifa Eloual-ladi; Claude and Amina; Julie Curtet, agent de recherche privie; Jean-Jacques and Pascal; Jean Dutailly; the Saturday group; Andre Valat, Police Attache French Embassy Ivory Coast; Thomas Erhady, Police Attache French Embassy Washington DC; sgt. Mike Peck, Bomb Squad; Carla; Terri Haddix, MD, Forensic Pathologist; the Noe Valley librarians; Denise Smart, MD; Isabelle et Andi; encore Denise Schwarzbach Alice; Michael Harris of DRG Digital Resources Group for his patience; Jean Vargues and the Electricity de France group; Jane; the B’s; the woman on the Oujda train; Grace Loh for her generosity; James N. Frey toujours and without whom; Linda Allen for her encouragement; a deep thanks to Melanie Fleishman who makes it all clear; my son Shuchan who lets me; and always to Jun.

As welcome as a hair in one’s soup

—a French saying

PARIS

APRIL 1994

Computer security, Aimee had protested, was her field—not spousal surveillance.

The phone reception wavered and flared.

“Right now it’s difficult,” she said. “I’m working, Anaïs.”

She didn’t want to interrupt her work. Thanks to a client referral, she was dropping off a network systems security proposal at the Electricite de France. Aimée prayed that this would get Leduc Detective back on its feet after a lean winter.

“Please, we have to meet,” Anaïs said, urgency in her voice. “Rue des Cascades… near pare de Belleville.” Anaïs’s voice came and went like a piece of laundry whipping in the wind. “I need you.”

“Of course, as soon as I finish. I’m on the outskirts of Paris,” Aimée said. “Twenty kilometers away.”

“I’m scared, Aimée.” Anaïs was sobbing now.

Aimée felt torn. She heard a muffled noise as if Anaïs had covered the receiver with her hand.

Birds scattered from hedgerows. Along the gully budding daffodils bowed, skirting a mossy barge canal. Aimée pressed the Citroen’s pedal harder, her cheek reddening in the whipping wind.

“But Anaïs, I might take some time.”

“Café Tlemcen, an old zinc bar, I’m in the back.” Anaïs’s voice broke. “… get caught….” Aimée heard the unmistakable shrieking of brakes, of shouting.

“Anaïs, wait!” she said.

Her phone went dead.

MORE THAN an hour later, Aimée found the café with dingy lace curtains. She eased out of her partner’s Citroen, which was fitted to accomodate his four-foot stature, and smoothed her black leather pants.

Strains of Arab hip-hop remix drifted in from the street. The narrow café overlooked rue des Cascades; no entrance to a back room was in evidence at first glance. Pinball machines from the sixties, their silvered patina rubbed off in places, stood blinking in the corner.

Aimée wondered if she’d made a mistake. This didn’t seem the kind of place Anaïs would frequent. But she remembered the panic in Anaïs’s voice.

Apart from a man with his back to her, the café’s round wooden tables were empty. He appeared to be speaking with someone who stood behind the counter. Old boxing posters curled away from the brown nicotine-stained wall. She inhaled the odor of espresso and Turkish tobacco.

“Pardon, Monsieur,” she said, combing her fingers through her hair. “I’m supposed to meet someone in your dining room.”

As he swiveled around to look at her, she realized that there was no one else behind the counter. He put down a microphone, clicked a button on a small tape recorder, and cocked a thick eyebrow at her.

“Who would that be?” he said, amusement in his heavy-lidded eyes. His thinning gray hair, combed across his skull, didn’t quite cover the bald top of his head.

A long blue shirtsleeve pinned to his shoulder by a military medal concealed what she imagined were the remains of his arm. Behind the counter sepia photos of military men in desert jeeps were stuck in the tarnished, beveled mirror.

“Anaïs de …” She stumbled trying to remember Anaïs’s married name. She’d been to their wedding several years ago. “Anaïs de Froissart—that’s it. She said she’d be in the back room.”

“The only back room here is the toilet,” he said. “Buy a drink, and you can meet who you like there.”

A frisson of apprehension shook her. What was going on?

“Perhaps there’s another Café Tlemcen?”

“Bien sûr, but it’s three thousand kilometers from here, near Oran,” he said. “Outside Sidi-bel-Abbes, where I lost my arm.” He nodded to his tape machine. “I’m recording the truth about the Algerian war, anticolorrial struggles from 1954—61, and how our battalion survived OAS friendly-fire bombardment.”

Why had Anaïs suggested this place? Had she made a mistake?

Aimée stepped closer to the counter. “I might have misunderstood my friend. Did a woman use your telephone recently?”

“Who are you, Mademoiselle, if I may ask?”

“Aimée Leduc.” She pulled a damp business card from her bag and laid it on the sticky zinc counter. “My friend sounded agitated on the phone.”

He studied her, his hand wiping a falling strand of hair back over the bald dome of his head. “I’ve been busy with deliveries.”

“This isn’t like my friend Anaïs,” she said. “She was very upset. I heard car brakes, loud voices.” She searched his face, trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth.

He hobbled out from behind the large chrome espresso machine to where she stood.

“A blond, wearing designer clothes and gold chains, came in,” he said. “She looked like she’d made a wrong turn coming out of the Crillon.”

That must have been Anaïs. Aimée maintained her composure—this man was proving to be a helpful observer.

Torn between searching for Anaïs and hoping she’d return, Aimée decided to wait. She drummed her chipped red nails on the counter. She remembered Martine complaining about her sister: It was always hurry up and wait.

“Did you see her leave, Monsieur?”

He shook his head.

She was dying for a cigarette. Too bad she’d quit five days, six hours, and twenty minutes ago.

“She told me to meet her here. She’ll be back.”

“Doubt it,” he said, studying her as if coming to a decision.

“Why?”

“She gave me a hundred francs,” he said. “Said for you to meet her at 20 bis rue Jean Moinon.”

Aimée stiffened. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Had to be sure you’re the impatient one with big eyes,” he said. “She said to make sure it was you.”

He nodded his head toward the street. “She knew she was being followed.”

Aimée felt the first hint of fear.

The man gave a half bow. “Retired Lieutenant Gaston Valat SCE, formerly with the intelligence branch of the Franco-Algerian police,” he said. He stood to attention as much as a one-armed man with a limp could. He noticed her gaze. “A votre service. Not half bad, eh?”

Not all that surprised by his change of attitude, she figured an old vet like him would welcome action on his doorstep.