7:51 A.M.
Tea, dearest?”
Aja’s nostrils stir first, sniffing the hot steam. Then her eyes open. A breakfast tray. Three croissants in a basket.
Christos has a fourth one in his mouth, and his beard is covered in crumbs.
“Did you sleep, Aja? You look like an insomniac gramoune.”38
“Thank you, Chris. I love getting a compliment whenever I wake up. Yes, I must have got about an hour or so of sleep, in ten-minute instalments.”
“I listened to Radio Cop on the way over here. Nothing new, then?”
“Nothing. It’s as if Bellion has vanished into thin air. I’ve had Laroche on the phone—he’s directing Operation Papangue. Six choppers have been searching all over the island since sunrise. No sign of a grey Clio, no sign of Bellion or his daughter. Laroche has only been on the island for six months. He’s supposed to call me back when he’s gone through things with the prefect. He . . . he seems competent.”
“Say it like you mean it, Aja.”
“What?”
“When you call him ‘competent,’ say it like you mean it.”
Aja sighs. She stretches and clasps her hands around the hot mug. Christos sits on the windowsill.
“I do have some news, though, Aja. And it’s bad.”
Aja’s eyes shine; she’s still halfway between dreaming and waking.
“Seriously? You work even when you’re in bed?”
“That’s truer than you can imagine. I got the information from a friend. A woman with a brain like a computer and a memory like a three terabyte hard drive, ideal for processing local news stories. Anyway, basically, my lady friend told me that Martial Bellion was mixed up in a shady case a few years ago: a kid who drowned off Boucan Canot.”
Aja’s gaze has lost its sparkle.
“What’s wrong? You don’t believe me?” Christos asks, disappointed.
“Oh, I believe you . . . It’s just that we’ve had seven phone calls since last night, telling us the same thing. The people here have an amazing memory for anything unpleasant that happens on the island . . . a better memory than us, anyway. Not one single police officer made the connection between this tourist on the run and the case of the drowned kid. As you can imagine, we’ve done some digging overnight and I’ve had emails from France. I need to go back and read them in more detail, but, to cut a long story short, Martial Bellion lost his first child, by his first wife, the one before Liane. Alex was the boy’s name. Six years old. He drowned in the ocean. Bellion was watching him, but clearly not well enough. Right now, I can’t see a link between that and the double murder in Saint-Gilles. What I do understand, however, is that our tourist—supposedly lost in a foreign environment—actually knows this island like the back of his hand.”
“Look on the bright side, Aja,” Christos says sarcastically. “He may have completely fucked us over, but there are extenuating circumstances.”
“Bellion lived on the island for nine years,” the captain goes on, as if Christos had not said a word. “Between 1994 and 2003. He worked at the sailing club in Bourbon. According to what the ComGend told me, Bellion still has a few acquaintances living on the island. A diving friend in Langevin, a sugar cane plantation owner on the river Mât, an ex-girlfriend in Ravine à Malheur. They all say they lost touch with him after he returned to France, and that they haven’t seen him since he came back to the island. They’re all being tailed and bugged, of course. But there’s not a single trace of Bellion.”
Christos gulps down a second croissant.
“He’s a clever one. Sorry about the dud lead . . .”
“Forget it. Sorry I gave you shit last night.”
“I was asking for it. And you were exhausted. Now you’re even more exhausted. You should go back to sleep for an hour or two.”
Aja blows on her tea.
“No way. It’s all about to kick off, I can sense it. Bellion must have found a hiding place for the night, but he’s going to come out into the open, he has to. Like a rat sneaking out to find food. He didn’t run away for no reason, Christos; he has something in mind. A specific aim.”
“If I offered you some help that was, let’s say, a bit borderline, what would you say, Aja?”
“I’m not really in a position to turn anything down right now.”
“Well, it’s my lady friend. She’s a Cafrine, and her enormous brain was working on the case all night. She thinks there’s something fishy about this whole affair too. Some sort of underlying logic we can’t yet see.”
“All good leaders must know how to delegate, Christos. Is she a witch doctor, your girlfriend? Coffee grinds or goat entrails?”
“She’s more like Harlan Coben. Guesses the answer about three chapters before the end.”
Aja swallows some tea, burning her throat. She grimaces, then makes a decision.
“Sure, why not? Tell her to come and see me. What harm can it do?”
Christos smiles.
“Cool, boss. You won’t be disappointed. Imelda is a national monument.”
He takes a bag of grass from his pocket, and rolls a cigarette.
“Christos, please tell me you’re not about to smoke zamal in here? It’s a police station, for God’s sake! And today of all days, when we have the entire ComGend about to descend on us . . .”
“Chill out, Aja. We’re on a veranda. By the sea. The wind will blow the smell away. Anyway, it’s all in a good cause. I confiscated this packet from a kid before I left home.”
Aja sighs, resigned.
“You really do wear me out, Christos. I don’t want to have another row with you this morning.”
Christos takes a drag.
“So what else is new, darling?”
“There’s news coming in every minute. Operation Papangue, remember? There are dozens of men on the case, here and in France.”
“Just give me the highlights then. The juicy details.”
“Oh, I think this will be juicy enough for you. One of the latest things I’ve heard is that the computer guys at the ComGend have been digging around for information about the Jourdains. They have confirmed that the Jourdains didn’t know the Bellions before meeting them here a few days ago, but . . .”
The second lieutenant sucks hard at his joint. He has a feeling he’s going to enjoy this.
“But?”
“But then they decided to check the Jourdains’ internet accounts. His, in particular. And guess what that sly old fox had hidden away on Picasa?”
“Dirty photos, right?”
“Bingo, Chris. Jacques Jourdain collects photographs of pretty young tourists, sunbathing topless on the beach. He must have taken some of them close up with his mobile phone, and others using a Konica Minolta with a telephoto lens, like a paparazzo.”
“Whoa, I’m impressed! Never would have guessed that lawyer had it in him. So, can we lock him up?”
“Unlikely. Except that among his gallery of girls, there are a good ten or so snaps of Liane Bellion. She obviously didn’t like to get tan lines.”
Christos grins joyfully, the joint clamped between two teeth.
“I’m on it! Can I see the pictures?”
Aja bursts out laughing.
“The ComGend has several agents just as obsessed as you are and they have already volunteered for this particular task. You shouldn’t have gone home last night!”
Christos drops his cigarette.
“I hate those ComGend bastards just as much as you do! So, you think Jacques Jourdain had a crush on Liane Bellion?”
“Who knows?”
The captain unhurriedly finishes her cup of tea, then looks up at Christos again.
“I’ve got something else for you. Seeing as you’re an early riser, do you want to make yourself useful?”
“That’s why I got up, dearest! I even forsook my morning screw so I wouldn’t be late.”
Aja sighs and puts down her mug.
“There’s another lead that needs checking out. I got a call last night after one of those newsflashes on TV. A girl, Charline Tai-Leung, who works behind a flight desk at Saint-Denis airport. According to what she told us, Martial Bellion came to see her five days ago, forty-eight hours before the double murder, wanting to change his plane ticket. If this is true, then the whole thing starts to look premeditated. The girl is off work today. She lives in Roquefeuil, in Les Hauts de Saint-Gilles. She’s at home, waiting for an officer to take her statement.”
Aja holds out a card with an address scrawled on it.
“You know me so well, my lovely. I have a real thing for air stewardesses!”
Faced with his superior’s weary expression, he adds:
“Come on, Aja, it’ll be all right. The noose is tightening. We’re going to catch him, soon. We’re bound to.”
38 Old person.