Blood Counts

‘One of our own, Daniel. It goes without saying. And you’ve got pretty much the whole squad working on it. The rest of us are out on Dupont going over the crash site.’

Vincent Pilger was head of Cavaillon’s scene-of-crime unit, a quietly spoken man with a broad beak of a nose, thinning brown hair and sad, sloping blue eyes. Like the rest of his team he wore rubber gloves, plastic bootees and a white Nyrex one-piece suit that swished softly as he moved. He and Jacquot were standing in front of the black VW Beetle that had been dragged from the ditch on avenue Dupont and brought to the basement parking lot. It had been driven onto a sheet of thick white plastic and items taken from its interior were already piling up on a line of trestle tables also standing on the plastic sheet. Both passenger and driver doors were open, bonnet and engine cover too. It looked like the beetle it was nicknamed after, wings spread, ready to take flight. It was dusty, dirty and tipped to one side where the tyre had been blown out. One of the headlights had been smashed and snatches of grass from the ditch were caught in the front bumper and front nearside wheel arch.

‘What have you got so far?’

‘Not an accidental blow, c’est certain,’ said Pilger. ‘Rear offside tyre shredded with bullets. Four shots, given the holes we’ve found in the wheel arch and the shell casings in the back footwell. I’d say someone in the back seat deliberately blew out the tyre.’

Jacquot thought of the guns that Claudine and Midou had brought with them to the concert. Which of them had done it? he wondered. Which of them had blown out that tyre? Which of them had decided on the tyre rather than their kidnappers? If they had a gun, they could have shot through the front seats as easily as the wheel arch. But he knew that neither Claudine nor Midou would have been able to do that. They’d have gone for the softer option.

But how, Jacquot wondered, had the two sisters overlooked their bags, failed to search them? It was a mistake that had cost them dear. And with Vincent Pilger on the case it would continue to do so.

But at least Claudine and Midou were still alive. One of them certainly. Or had been. Say twenty minutes after being taken. And conscious too. But that had been hours ago. What had happened since then? And where were they now? Somewhere within a thirty-kilometre radius according to the cab-driver – unless, of course, the sisters had stopped at a petrol station and filled the tank. If, that is, they had bothered to check the gauge. And if they were heading for the autoroute, which way had they turned? North or south? How many exits? How many possible destinations? Jacquot knew the answer, and drew a deep breath, trying not to lose hope.

‘Paris plates, as you can see. And looks like they did some camping too,’ Pilger continued, nodding at the tables. ‘Rolled up ground mats, sleeping bags, a tent, basic cooking equipment in the boot. As for the interior, the usual mess: sandwich wrappers, pizza crusts, crisps, nuts, bits of paper, a few gas and Péage receipts, duct tape, road maps. You know the kind of thing. But there’s no blood we can find.’

‘Mind if I take a look at the tables?’ asked Jacquot, relieved to hear that no blood had been found, either from the gunshots or the subsequent crash.

‘It’s all yours. Like I said. One of our own.’ Pilger gave him a consoling pat on the arm. ‘So it’ll be large ones all round.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Jacquot with a grim, but grateful smile. ‘And thanks again.’

Over at the tables he snapped on a pair of powdered latex gloves and sorted through the larger items – the ground mats, sleeping bags and camping equipment. Rolled up with one of the sleeping bags was a dark blue mohair jumper with shiny brass buttons. He picked it up and held it to his nose. A strange mixed scent of flowers and sweat and the farmyard reached him. He guessed the jumper hadn’t been washed for some time, and guessed, too, that the strands of material he’d found in the linen room at Le Mas Bleu and in the woods behind the millhouse would match it perfectly.

Putting down the jumper, he turned to the next table and the smaller items: a lipstick, a hair clip, sweet wrappings, pens, pencils, coins, a dented can of Diet Coke and an empty bottle of Orangina. The first thing he picked up was a chewing gum wrapper. Silver foil exactly the same as the wrapper he’d found the previous afternoon at the millhouse. And an open packet of mint chewing gum. He could almost smell her breath. There was also a crumpled pizza napkin with a lipstick stain on it, a pair of brand new pliers (for the car, or removing teeth? Jacquot wondered idly), some scissors, a roll of thick silver duct tape that might well match the tape used on Berri and Chabran, and various scraps of paper.

He was opening up the first of these scraps when one of Pilger’s team came to the table with a bag in each hand. Jacquot recognised them immediately – Claudine’s cream silk clutch and Midou’s tote. He picked them up, one by one, sorted through the contents – tissues, lipsticks, perfumes, a set of house keys, a fold of notes pressed into the back of a cigarette packet, and a couple of ready-rolled spliffs in a side pocket of Midou’s tote. But no guns. If Marie-Ange Buhl had still been alive, and working on the case with him, he’d have handed the bags to her. Chances were, she’d have got something from them – like a bloodhound taking a scent. She’d have known where to look, where to go. But she wasn’t with him; he was on his own. All he got from the two bags was a wave of loss and fear and longing.

Jacquot put down the bags, and turned back to the scraps of paper, opening them up one after another: autoroute Péage receipts, parking tickets, chits for petrol, a flyer for an oriental rug sale. Tipping them closer to the light, he looked for the locations. And there they were: Cavaillon, Forcalquier, Manosque, Marseilles and Salon, the last two pointing south, Salon just down the road, no more than thirty kilometres away.

It was on one of these pieces of paper – a car park ticket taken out in Forcalquier just a few weeks before he went there with Brunet – that Jacquot found something else: two sets of hand-written numbers.

Phone numbers.

And two sets of initials. MV and PB.

He held the piece of paper up to Pilger.

‘Mind if I take this?’

‘Help yourself,’ replied Pilger.