Impure Blood (17 page)

‘Seve – you free?’

‘For you, Captain, I might be.’

‘Come to my office straight away, will you?’ Mansoor’s eyes slid anxiously in his direction. ‘I want you to babysit Mansoor Narooq for a while.’

‘The jumper?’

‘Yes. You can chat to each other in Arabic.’

Darac found Agnès bent forward in her chair, pulling back the toes of her bare left foot. It looked an uncomfortable position for someone with a back problem.

‘Excuse this.
Really
aching feet this evening.’

‘So the Tour people have a hoaxer on their hands?’

‘Not so much a hoaxer; more a non-credible threatener.’

‘Not sure I understand the distinction.’ He drew up a chair and invited her to extend her foot. ‘Here – let me. It’ll be easier.’

She straightened, wincing slightly.

‘I’ll explain all at the meeting.’

‘Good. Your foot? Left or right – I’m not superstitious.’

Her feet stayed where they were. But she was tempted, Darac could see.

‘Paul… Thanks very much but… you know.’

‘I know your feet could do with a rub and it’s killing you to do it.’

‘That’s not quite the point.’

‘What is, then?’

‘Quite apart from the fact that I’m who I am and you’re who you are…’

‘No doubt about that.’

‘—
And
, frankly, I don’t think the end of a long July day is really—’

‘Don’t be silly.’ He held out his hands. ‘Relax.’

‘I think I should probably…’

‘Look – as a special treat, I’ll let you rub mine as well. How’s that?’

She produced her signature laugh, a series of almost silent gasps.

‘Oh…’ She shook her head, her resistance gone. ‘Come on, then.’

Checking her skirt hem wasn’t rising too high, she sat back in her chair. Darac took her foot and began working it between his hands with gentle but firm pressure.

‘My Aunt Sophie taught me how to do this. Fingers like crowbars. Me, not her. Comes with playing the guitar.’

‘Oh my God…’ Agnès exhaled deeply. ‘Perhaps if you’d done this for Mansoor Narooq, he wouldn’t have jumped out of the window.’

Darac laughed but he still felt sheepish about the boy’s attempted escape.

‘This time, I’ve put Seve Sevran in with him.’

‘Oh, Seve, yes.’ Her eyes closed, Agnès’s words were already emerging in an adagio monotone. ‘How is his wife these days?’

‘Up and down. Psychiatric problems are the worst, I think. And it can’t be that easy for him, either. Never knowing what he’s going to find when he gets home.’

‘Indeed… Anyway, before I fall asleep, here’s what we’re going to do with the Florian people. Mansoor Narooq can spend tonight in the convalescent wing at the Maison d’Arrêt. We’ll talk with him here again tomorrow. Ditto Slimane Bahtoum – that alright with you?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘The odious Madame Delage can go home. We’ll resume with her there tomorrow. Our friend Manou Esquebel is bound for the cell block. That boy is as slippery as a sack of eels but he’s feeling the pressure.’

‘There’s more to come from him, alright. It seems he’s illiterate, by the way. Erica picked it up, examining his computer.’

‘Then he’s likely to be particularly resourceful.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘Anything from Frankie’s lycée initiative? I suppose a lot of the staff are away.’

‘Actually, most of them aren’t and she’s managed to speak to quite a few of them already. They seem to break down into three categories: those who, like Principal Volpini, actively liked Florian; those who could take him or leave him; those who didn’t seem to care for him at all.’

‘I like her online questionnaire idea.’

‘Yes and she got it up and running quickly which is important. Once it’s known that Florian was murdered, rather than just died – which is obviously what she told the staff she spoke to – anyone who knew or even just suspected the man was a paedophile is hardly likely to come forward. Makes them an instant suspect, doesn’t it?’

‘Knowledge of his murder might gag someone who hadn’t already come forward – true. But it would obviously make no difference to the murderer, and finding that person is our primary goal. Whether they were ultimately doing the world a favour or not.’

Darac smiled. It wasn’t the first time Agnès had reminded him not to play God.

‘You’re right, of course. But a secondary goal has emerged now and in the end, it might prove more important than tracking down the killer of a rapist. If there are individuals out there who have been abused by Florian and or Manou, I want to find them. And I want to ensure that Manou gets no opportunity to carry on the bad work.’

‘Absolutely – so long as it remains your secondary focus for the time being.’

‘Don’t worry.’

With one hand gripping the ball of her foot and the other the heel, he began twisting one against the other.

‘Oh yes, yes, yes… Your Angeline is a lucky woman… I don’t care what anyone says.’

Agnès needn’t have bothered with the decorum-restoring aside. Darac hadn’t heard it. He was trying to remember the last time he’d massaged Angeline’s feet.

A knock at the door.

‘Wait a moment!’

It was too late.

‘Here we…’ Her eyes averted, the duty officer Béatrice Lacquet advanced into the room as if on rails. ‘Your espresso, madame?’

* * *

Building K’s conference room was the practical choice for the meeting. With desks and stacker chairs formed into a rectangle, the room could seat forty. As Darac took his place, a hand brushed his shoulder from behind.

‘One completed questionnaire in already.’ Frankie Lejeune’s eyebrows rose expressively. ‘From a Mademoiselle Adrianna Volpini.’

‘Daughter of the principal?’

‘The same. Everything’s wonderful at the lycée, according to her.’

‘It may even be true.’

‘It may.’ She smiled and headed off to her seat. ‘Later.’

A vast and gamey presence materialised on Darac’s blind side.

‘Plastic chairs?’ Once more, it seemed that life had shafted Roland Granot. ‘Perfect – if you’re built like a pencil.’ Hoping for the best, he gingerly lowered his backside at the target.

‘Left a bit,’ Darac said. ‘Bull’s-eye. So – some day off for you.’

‘Attending meetings isn’t really work, is it?’

‘Did you see any of your heroes over in Monaco, then?’

‘See – yes; meet – no. Glad I went, though.’ A cantankerous smile lifted the puckers in Granot’s moustachioed chops. ‘It would’ve been better still if someone had given me a nice, relaxing,
intimate
foot massage.’

‘Would it?’ Darac smiled. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Oh, indeed it would.’

‘Béatrice?’

‘My source shall go unnamed.’

Darac shook his head. What was the Caserne – a police headquarters or a convent school? Five minutes and the story was out. And what was the big deal, anyway?

Unaware of the conversation going on to her right, Agnès pushed off her slingbacks and flexing her still tingling feet, gave Darac’s forearm a touch.

‘So much better,’ she said
sotto voce
. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was nothing.’ Or it would have been if it had gone no further than Béatrice. ‘Nothing at all.’

Every seat finally taken, Agnès took one last look at her notes and, parking her reading glasses in her hair, turned to address the meeting. The room hushed.

‘We welcome our colleagues from the Palais de Justice…’ She indicated the two soberly suited individuals sitting on her left. ‘…the examining magistrate Albert Reboux and the public prosecutor Jules Frènes. Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome also to our GIPN chief, Fréderic Anselme.’

Anselme nodded curtly. Reboux and Frènes accepted the greeting with their accustomed hauteur. Frènes appeared slightly irritated at receiving second billing, Darac thought.

‘Next, I’m sorry that those of you who were off-duty had to be called in for this—’

‘So are we,’ Armani Tardelli said, garrulous as usual.

‘—but I’ve been asked to pass on to you the findings of a meeting I attended in Monaco earlier and my arm was twisted so far up my back by Commandant Lanvalle that there was really no alternative.’

Frènes picked up his pen with the relish of a chess player recording a calamitous move by an opponent.

Agnès glanced at his notepad as he wrote.

‘I actually said “twisted”, not “shoved”, monsieur. Could prove important later.’

Frènes made a displacement gesture out of putting down his pen. When he looked up, Darac and his entire team were staring at him. And so was Albert Reboux. Agnès herself seemed unconcerned.

‘I’m sure you all know that several hours ago, a supposed jihadist group calling itself the Sons and Daughters of the Just Cause issued an ultimatum to the organisers of the Tour de France. The group threatened to “reap a bloody harvest” on our streets when the race passes through on Sunday, should certain demands not be met. The various security authorities are as certain as they can be that the ultimatum is not genuine.’ She outlined the reasons given at the Monaco briefing. ‘However, some believe that it may yet pose a threat to us of a limited sort. Accordingly, just as a precautionary measure – and frankly, I think, to cover their backs should it transpire that they got it wrong – extra resources are being drafted into the area even as we speak. Any questions before we go on? Yes, Frankie.’

‘What form do the acronyms from Paris believe this limited threat might take?’

‘Amongst those who believe the ultimatum isn’t a flat-out hoax, there are two schools of thought. Some – and I have to say I am not one of them – believe it may have been designed as a smokescreen; a means of diverting police resources to the stage route while the perpetrators, who are not terrorists at all but common, everyday criminals, carry out their true plan elsewhere. Others believe the ultimatum has an explicitly political purpose: a local one. Considering the events on Rue Verbier this lunchtime, it’s a pretty cogent argument.’

Captain ‘Armani’ Tardelli adjusted the folded-back cuffs of his crisp white shirt.

‘They want to stop me buying shoes?’

Laughs. Even Frènes seemed to find some amusement in the crack.

‘No, you’re safe,’ Agnès said, smiling. ‘The issue in question is a first mosque for Nice. As this is the only realisable demand the group made, I originally thought it represented its sole true objective: the only piece they intended to be left on the board when all the other pieces had been sacrificed. A moment’s reflection and then an intelligence report from the DCRI disabused me of the notion.’ She turned to Darac. ‘Paul has something on this.’

‘Yes, I was saying on the way over that the balance of opinion at the Mairie seems to have shifted somewhat. As we know, it used to be tilted heavily in favour of the no-mosque lobby. Now, according to Imam Asiz and his flock – if “flock” is the word – things are more evenly balanced.’

Agnès nodded.

‘Probably the most sacred icon of our national life is the Tour de France – agreed? Any group connected with Asiz and company is unlikely to think that threatening to desecrate it would tip the balance finally in their favour.’

Frènes gave Reboux an astonished look.

‘What’s this? A blanket assessment of an entire community? Tarring all the Muslims in Nice with the same brush? Isn’t that the kind of prejudiced thinking you abhor, madame? Just because they worship like automata doesn’t mean that they all think and believe the same things. There could be extremists amongst them. Have you ever heard of the phenomenon?’

‘I think I may have come across it somewhere,’ Agnès said, ridiculing the ridiculous. ‘This is where the DCRI intelligence I mentioned comes in.’

When it came to portraying scorn, Frènes was a natural.

‘Well? Perhaps you would condescend to share that with us?’

Condescend… Darac’s patience with Frènes, already thin, was wearing out fast. But there was little point in expressing it. Agnès had never needed anyone to fight her corner for her.

‘Like you, monsieur,’ she continued, ‘I’m not best placed to answer questions of security. So let’s hear from Freddy.’

Darac shared a look with Frankie. They knew Agnès enjoyed using the pet form of Frédéric Anselme’s name because it so ill-suited him. A super-fit individual with a shrink-wrapped head, Anselme would lead his SWAT team into the eye of a hurricane and out again if ordered to do so by the Ministry. Darac thought the man was certifiably insane.

‘Thank you, Commissaire.’ Anselme’s voice was an improbably high-pitched affair; an anomaly no one had ever been rash enough to point out to him. ‘Shall we just say that the DCRI have mounted a thorough investigation of the local Muslim situation? They found it was clean. As a whistle. Cleaner, in fact.’

‘Thank you.’ Agnès scanned the room. ‘Any further questions at this stage?’

Perand raised a lazy finger.

‘Boss – how did the DCRI mount that investigation? Out of interest.’

‘I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me.’

Frènes made a derisory sound in his throat.

Anselme shook his head emphatically.

‘That would be classified information. Even at my level of clearance.’

Anselme’s high-pitched piping gave way to Frankie’s velvety contralto.

‘I have a question, Agnès. If it’s generally recognised by those who favour a political interpretation that the threat wasn’t made by Muslim activists, then who did make it?’

‘They believe it was an anti-Muslim group – either Front National types or just local people worried that theirs might be the neighbourhood earmarked for the mosque. The aim of this, obviously, being to torpedo the Muslims’ standing at the Mairie, thereby nixing the project.’

Granot nodded his jowly head.

‘This makes the most sense to me. I’d never do anything about it, of course, but if I’m honest, I wouldn’t welcome a mosque next door. Some might enjoy hearing the call to prayer five times a day through a tinny tannoy but I’m not one of them.’

The debate found supporters on both sides until Yvonne Flaco brought it back on track.

‘How have the DCRI et cetera formally responded to the demands, madame? If they have.’