24

AFTER HIS LUNCH WITH MARIE-ANGE, Jacquot headed back to Cavaillon, taking the littoral flyover past the Joliette quays, skirting L’Estaque and climbing into the hills above the city. By the time he’d swept through the road tunnel and out into open country he’d managed to put Marie-Ange and Léo out of his mind, and settled down to consider what she had told him over lunch.

About the photos.

Two women. Their suspects were two women.

Not two men, not a woman and a man. But two women.

And if that’s what Marie-Ange said, if that’s what she had got from the photos, then it was good enough for him. The fact that she’d also sensed danger from the blurred images, sensed a threat from them . . . well, that really did tie it all in.

But that was as far as it went. He might have had a clearer bead on Izzy Blanchard’s possible killers thanks to Marie-Ange’s insight, but what did Izzy and Antoine Berri have in common? Because there sure as hell had to be something, if only because of the anaesthetic Dyethelaspurane. In the Blanchard case it had been used to put down Noël Gilbert before his wife was shot, and at the Delacroix workshop to incapacitate Antoine Berri before his arm was sliced off. Two deaths in two months where Dyethelaspurane had been used as an incapacitating agent when, according to Bernie Muzon, there’d been no other recorded cases of the drug ever being used in criminal activity. Either it was a mighty coincidence, two different sets of killers getting their hands on the same drug at pretty much the same time, or whoever killed Izzy had also killed Berri.

But what was the link between them?

What was the motive?

All he could say for sure was that the husband of the first victim, Noël Gilbert, and the brother of the second victim, Jean Berri, had been cops. Both of them stationed at the Police Nationale headquarters on rue Garibaldi.

Winding up his window, Jacquot reached for his cigarettes, lit one up, then re-opened the window, just enough to suck away the smoke and for tipping out the ash. Drawing in the first lungful he went through everything else they knew about the victims, looking for anything significant.

Both victims much the same age. Within a couple of years of each other.

One just married, the other about to finish his apprenticeship at Delacroix et Fils. As Muzon had said, that Delacroix apprenticeship was a big thing. After five years on the same salary, you got a raise, joined the team. Like a marriage, there was a sense of new beginnings, everything up for grabs. Only for those new beginnings to be taken away at the last moment.

But that’s where the similarities ended, and the stories diverged.

One victim a woman, one victim a man. So no likely sexual context – a serial obsession being played out, a rape gone wrong, infidelity, jealousy, rivalry.

Both victims murdered in different places – eighty kilometres apart – in the Luberon and Marseilles.

And murdered at different times of day – early morning and late evening – in bed and at work.

And in different ways:

A silenced gun and a bullet in the brain – cool, clean, professional.

A spinning table saw – violent, messy and amateur.

If the killers were the same, how come the style was so different?

Finding the link, making the jump . . .

Connections, connections, connections.

It was always the same, thought Jacquot, as he came off the autoroute and crossed the bridge into the dusty, sun-glaring outskirts of Cavaillon. Maybe he’d call Marie-Ange, ask for her help. Take her to the Gilberts’ room at Le Mas Blanc, to the Delacroix workshop. Maybe she’d pick something up, ‘sense’ something. Right then, he needed anything he could get.

The phone was ringing when he got back to his office. He hurried to pick it up if only to stop the clamour.

It was Claude Peluze. After using just a couple of weeks of his compassionate leave, the old cop was back on the beat – kept clear of Minette’s murder investigation but otherwise back with the squad.

‘I was just speaking to Bernie,’ he continued. ‘He said there might be a link between the Berri killing at Delacroix and your case up there in the Luberon. Some drug or other?’

‘That’s right. Dyethelaspurane. It’s a strong anaesthetic. Gilbert was put down with it before they shot his wife, and so was Berri’s brother before they dropped the saw across his arm.’

‘They?’

‘Possibly two women. That’s all I’ve got at the moment.’

‘Well, here’s something else for you, something which Bernie didn’t know,’ said Peluze. ‘Jean Berri and Noël Gilbert were two of the cops with me at Roucas Blanc when we paid a call on Virginie Cabrille. In fact they were the ones who took down her gorilles in the garage shoot-out.’

Jacquot’s heart leapt.

‘You’re kidding me? That’s . . .’

‘I know. It makes you wonder.’

‘But you were there too,’ said Jacquot, without thinking, instantly regretting it.

‘And look what happened to me,’ Claude fired back, as though he’d already thought it through and was expecting the response. ‘Which brings something else to mind,’ he continued. ‘If you add Minette into the mix.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Jacquot.

‘You read the Bible, you’d know. Exodus. Old Testament. Gilbert’s wife shot in the eye. Minette they take out her dentures, remember? And now this hand thing . . .’

Jacquot grunted – that was a long shot, he thought. Claude, back at work but obviously still broken up with grief, sounded like he was letting his imagination run away with him.

‘And that’s not all,’ said Claude in a quieter, less Messianic tone. ‘If I remember rightly, it wasn’t just me and Gilbert and Berri involved. You were there, too. You were a part of it. En effet, you pretty much ran the whole show. Brought it all down.’