Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“Where did she put it?” a loud voice was saying. “Thadée owes me.”

What did they mean? Thadée’s stash? Or the old key she’d found? But it had gone with her bag. And she hadn’t known what it opened. Her plans for flight had gone up in smoke.

Nadège crawled, her muscles protesting, and gripped the edge of the armoire. She must get inside, hide under piles of clothes. But she felt so tired. Her hand loosened, fell.

“Where the hell did she go?”

Nadège knew that voice. The Bonbon King. Panic gripped her. She owed him. She forced her legs, made them crawl. Somehow she got inside, curled into an embryonic position, pulled an old crocheted shawl over her, and closed the armoire door halfway. Like she’d hidden when she was small and her parents fought, trying to drown out her father’s accusations and her mother’s tears. But she never could.

Only her grand-mère ’s warm arms that rocked her, and her inexhaustible supply of ginger candy, had made it better. For awhile.

Several men argued in the doorway. “We find her, grab the kid—”

One of them kicked the bedstead, then the old desk, splintering it to pieces. Nadège shuddered. He’d smash the armoire next.

Saturday Morning

THE VANILLA-HUED LIGHT, UNUSUALLY clear for November, haloed René’s head. Aimée blinked and opened her eyes wider. Everything fell into place. There was no fogginess or blurring. She breathed a sigh of relief and smelled something wonderful.

But where were they?

And then she remembered their Clichy hotel room.

“Your espresso’s getting cold,” René said.

“ Merci .” She sat up, untangling her purple fishnets and Moroccan shirt.

“You mumbled something last night about running a virus check on the Olf account and duplicating log entries and emails before a meeting with de Lussigny later,” he said. “I’m printing them out now.”

“Fantastique. And good morning to you, partner.” She smiled, stirring two lumps of brown sugar into her cup. “How do you feel?”

“The mattress came with the hotel in 1830,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the bed. ”But after the hard earth in the air raid shelter, I loved it.”

“We can’t go back to the office.”

“Or my apartment,” he said. “Saj got us some new cell phones. He’s bringing my scanner later. Look at you. Nice outfit.”

She grimaced, checking the stitches on her arm. “Perfect for escaping through garbage chutes, playing in heavy metal bands, and also for attending elegant soirées .”

René swallowed his espresso the wrong way and choked. “Going to tell me about it?”

Aimée handed René a napkin and told him about Regnier’s suspension, her encounter with Blondel and Pleyet, Sophie, and the old Chinese grand-mère . She didn’t mention meeting de Lussigny.

“Blondel? How’s he involved?”

“Thadée owed Blondel; his henchman Jacky made my skin crawl,” she said. “Gassot’s hiding. Afraid. But I don’t know why. And I’m no closer to the jade. I need to discover Pleyet’s motive and what exactly the Circle Line is .”

“Aimée, if Pleyet once worked with Regnier,” René said, “stands to reason they’re in this together now.”

“But Pleyet intimated he’s surveilling Regnier,” she said. “And somehow, I buy it. He didn’t have to reveal himself last night. Or tell me about the past.”

René hit SAVE on his laptop.

“You mean about the Place Vendôme surveillance? He could be leading you on. But how is that relevant? What you need to discover is who had the jade originally. Then you can question them.”

Good point! But so far she’d run into dead ends and silence.

“I e-mailed Thadée’s files here. Can you look them over? The Drouot won’t release the name of the consignor,” she said. “It’s in data storage on the île de la Jatte. What’s important is, who wants it now? That should point to who killed for it.”

René rubbed his bandaged wrist. She noticed his right leg propped on the chair and pillows below his hip.

“Are you with me on this, René?”

He shrugged.

“No choice,” he said. “But be careful.”

She switched on her laptop.

“This might help,” she said. “I’ve got four digits of Lars’s password. If we get the rest, we can crack the Circle Line.”

And figure out why the Circle Line was looking for the jade.

She heard a knock on the door. “Who’s there?”

“Didn’t you say you needed a hacker?” someone asked.

She opened the door.

Saj stood there in flowing Indian pants and wool Nepalese sweater.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “Got a challenge for you two.”

He rubbed his hands together, taking in the three computers. “My pleasure.”

She typed in the digits she’d written on her palm.

“There’s four of the twelve numbers Lars entered,” she said. “I need the complete password. Want to try a brute force attack?”

René shook his head. “A brute force attack with every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to try and duplicate a password? That could take two days. Aren’t we in a hurry?”

“What about a dictionnaire attack?” asked Saj. “Try common words found in a dictionnaire starting with pets’ names or others commonly used in passwords.”

“Most ministries use heavily encrypted passwords,” Aimée said. “Like we do. Changing them constantly.”

But in this socialist system, with the endemic work overloads, she knew little time was spent on such safety procedures.

“Lars’s system, I figure, like all the ministries, uses a stored ‘hash’ of the password in a file,” she said.

“Right,” said René. “One-way encryption uses a common algorithm which manipulates the password.”

“But breaking a twelve-digit or letter password could take a whole day,” Saj said, sitting down. “If we use two computers, it will take less time, of course.

“ Bon, you’ve got this under control. I’ve got to follow someone,” Aimée said, pulling on her coat.

“Not one of those mecs .”

“An old Chinese grand-mère ,” Aimée said. “A Cao Dai member. We should have a lot in common.”

THE OLD grand-mère dropped Michel off at the nearby école maternelle and Aimée followed her. The Asian woman, her padded silk jacket flapping in the wind, walked with a quick step across busy Place de Clichy. She paused at the Vietnamese restaurant, fronted by a flashy aquarium proclaiming CATCH OF THE DAY. Gunmetal gray storm clouds bracketed the last slice of blue sky.

Now was her chance.

“ Quelle surprise, Madame!” Aimée smiled. “Why, I’m just going in for lunch. May I invite you to join me?”

The woman backed away in surprise, fear in her eyes.

“Eat at home,” she said.

But a group of black-suited Asian businessman, their voices raised in singsong Vietnamese, blocked her way. The skies opened, pelting down hail, slivers of ice, which bounced on the cracked pavement.

“Quick, you’ll get wet. Please, be my guest,” Aimée said, steering her inside. Flustered, the woman was herded forward by the smiling maître d’hôtel . With a flourish, he showed them to a table in the well-lit restaurant and proferred menus. Once this had been an old style workers’ bouillon canteen, Aimée thought, noticing balconies several floors high, all filled with tables.

A fragrant pot of jasmine tea appeared on the table with two celadon green cups.

“ Please ,” Aimée said, reaching for the cup and pouring the tea.