A long and wide desk, designed for the space, was positioned in front of the window. It was almost empty, except for a large leather-rimmed blotter and a few framed photographs, one a studio portrait of his ex-wife and two children. Clients were reassured by evidence of stability and family values, so he kept it on display.
There were three other photos: the first was a formal portrait of himself, at twenty-one, shortly after his graduation from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in Paris, shaking hands with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the Front Nationale; the second was taken at Compostella; the third, taken last year, showed him with the Abbot of Citeaux, among others, on the occasion of Authié’s most recent, and most substantial, donation to the Society of Jesus.
Each photograph reminded him of how far he had come.
The phone on his desk buzzed. ‘Oui?’ His secretary announced his visitors had arrived. ‘Send them up.’
Javier Domingo and Cyrille Braissart were both ex-police. Braissart had been dismissed in 1999 for excessive use of force when questioning a suspect, Domingo a year later on charges of intimidation and accepting bribes. The fact that neither had served time was thanks to Authié’s skilful work. They’d worked for him since then.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘If you’ve got an explanation, this would be the time to share it.’ They shut the door and stood in silence in front of his desk. ‘No? Nothing to say?’ He jabbed the air with his finger. ‘You had better start praying Biau doesn’t wake up and remember who was driving the car.
‘He won’t, sir.’
‘You’re suddenly a doctor now, are you Braissart?’
‘His condition’s deteriorated during the day.’
Authié turned his back on them, hands on his hips, and stared out of the window towards the cathedral.
Well, what have you got for me?’
‘Biau passed her a note,’ said Domingo.
Which has disappeared,’ Authié said sarcastically, ‘along with the girl herself. Why are you here, Domingo, if you’ve got nothing new to say? Why are you wasting my time?’
Domingo flushed an ugly red. We know where she is, Sir. Santini picked her up in Toulouse earlier today.’
‘And?’
‘She left Toulouse about an hour ago,’ said Braissart. ‘She spent the afternoon in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Santini’s faxing through a list of the sites she visited.’
‘You put a trace on the car? Or is that too much to ask?’
We did. She is heading for Carcassonne.’
Authié sat down in his chair and stared at them across the expanse of desk. ‘So you’ll be on your way to wait for her at the hotel, won’t you Domingo?’
‘Yes, sir. Which h — ’
‘Opposite the Porte Narbonnaise,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want her to know we’re watching her. Search the room, the car, everything, but don’t let her know.’
‘Are we looking for anything other than the ring and the note, sir?’
‘A book,’ he said, ‘about so high. Board covers, held together with leather ties. It’s very valuable and very delicate.’ He reached into a file on his desk and tossed a photograph across the desk. ‘Similar to this one.’ He gave Domingo a few seconds to look, then slid the photo back towards him. ‘If there’s nothing else . . .’
We also acquired this from a nurse in the hospital,’ Braissart said quickly, holding out a slip of paper. ’Biau had it in his pocket.’
Authié took it. It was a recorded delivery receipt for a package posted from the central post office in Foix late on Monday afternoon to an address in Carcassonne.
Who’s Jeanne Giraud?’ he said.
‘Biau’s grandmother, on his mother’s side.’
‘Is she now,’ he said softly. He reached forward and pressed the intercom on his desk. ‘Aurélie, I need information on a Jeanne Giraud. G-i-r-a-u-d. Lives in rue de la Gaffe. Soon as you can.’ Authié sat back in his chair. ‘Does she know what’s happened to her grandson?’
Braissart’s silence answered his question. ‘Find out,’ he said sharply. ‘On second thoughts, while Domingo is paying Dr Tanner a visit, get over to Madame Giraud’s house and look around — discreetly. I’ll meet you in the car park opposite the Porte Narbonnaise in’ — he glanced at his watch — ‘thirty minutes.’
The intercom buzzed again.
What are you waiting for?’ he said, dismissing them with his hand. He waited until the door had closed before he answered.
‘Qui, Aurélie?’
His hand went to the gold crucifix at his neck as he listened.
‘Did she say why she wanted the meeting brought forward an hour? Of course it’s inconvenient,’ he said, cutting off his secretary’s apologies. He pulled his mobile phone from his jacket pocket. There were no messages. In the past, she’d always made contact direct and in person.
‘I’m going to have to go out, Aurélie,’ he said. ‘Drop the report on Giraud at my apartment on your way home. Before eight o’clock.’
Then Authié snatched his jacket from the back of the chair, took a pair of gloves from his drawer and left.
Audric Baillard was sitting at a small desk in the front bedroom of Jeanne Giraud’s house. The shutters were partially closed and the room was dappled with the semi-filtered light of the late afternoon. Behind him was an old-fashioned single bed, with a carved wooden headboard and footboard, freshly made with plain white cotton sheets.
Jeanne had given this room over to his use many years ago, there for him when he needed it. In a gesture that had touched him enormously, she had furnished the room with copies of all his past publications, which sat on a single wooden shelf above the bed.
Baillard had few possessions. All he kept in the room was a change of clothes and writing materials. At the beginning of their long association, Jeanne had teased him about his preference for pen and ink and paper, as thick and heavy as parchment. He’d just smiled, telling her he was too old to change his habits.
Now, he wondered. Now, change was inevitable.
He leaned back in his chair, thinking of Jeanne and how much her friendship had meant to him. In every season of his life, he had found good men and women to aid him, but Jeanne was special. It was through Jeanne that he had located Grace Tanner, although the two women had never met.
The sound of pans clattering in the kitchen drew his thoughts back to the present. Baillard picked up his pen and felt the years falling away, a sudden absence of age and experience. He felt young again.
All at once, the words came easily to his mind and he began to write. The letter was short and to the point. When he was done, Audric blotted the glistening ink and folded the paper neatly in three to make an envelope of it. As soon as he had her address, the letter could be sent.
Then it was in her hands. Only she could decide.
‘Si es atal es atal.’ What will be, will be.
The telephone rang. Baillard opened his eyes. He heard Jeanne answer, then a sharp cry. At first, he thought it must come from the street outside. Then the sound of the receiver hitting the tiled floor.
Without knowing why, he found himself standing up, sensitive to a change in the atmosphere. He turned towards the sound of Jeanne’s feet coming up the stairs.
‘Qu’es?’ he said immediately. What is it? ‘Jeanne,’ he said, more urgently. ‘What has happened? Who telephoned?’
She looked at him blankly. ‘It’s Yves. He’s been hurt.’
Audric looked at her in horror. ‘Quora?’ When?
‘Last night. A hit-and-run. They only just managed to get hold of Claudette. That was her calling.’
‘How badly hurt is he?’
Jeanne didn’t seem to hear him. ‘They are sending someone to take me to the hospital in Foix.’
‘Who? Claudette is organising this?’
Jeanne shook her head.
‘The police.’
Would you like me to come with you?’
‘Yes,’ she said after a mom
ent’s hesitation, then, like a sleepwalker, she went out of the room and across the landing. A moment later, Baillard heard her bedroom door shut.
Powerless, fearful of the news, he turned back to the room. He knew it was no accident of timing. His eyes fell upon the letter he’d written. He took half a step forward, thinking that he could stop the inevitable chain of events while there was still time.
Then Baillard let his hand fall back to his side. To burn the letter would render worthless everything he had fought for, everything he had endured.
He must follow the path to the end.
Baillard fell to his knees and began to pray. The old words were stiff on his lips at first, but soon they were flowing easily again, connecting him to all those who had spoken such words before.
A car horn blaring in the street outside drew him back to the present. Feeling stiff and tired, he struggled to his feet. He slipped the letter into his breast pocket, picked up his jacket from the back of the door, then went to tell Jeanne it was time to go.
Authié parked his car in one of the large and anonymous municipal car parks opposite the Porte Narbonnaise. Hordes of foreigners, armed with guidebooks and cameras, swarmed everywhere. He despised it all, the exploitation of history and the mindless commercialisation of his past for the entertainment of the Japanese, the Americans, the English. He loathed the restored walls and inauthentic grey slated towers, the packaging of an imagined past for the stupid and the faithless.
Braissart was waiting for him as arranged and gave his report quickly. The house was empty and there was easy access at the back through the gardens. According to neighbours, a police car had collected Madame Giraud about fifteen minutes ago. There had been an elderly man with her.
‘Who?’
‘They’ve seen him around before, but no one knew his name.
Having dismissed Braissart, Authié set off down the hill. The house was about three-quarters of the way down on the left-hand side. The door was locked and the shutters were closed, but an air of recent habitation hung about the place.
He continued to the end of the street, turned left into rue Barbarcane and walked along to the Place Saint-Gimer. A few residents were sitting outside their houses overlooking the parked cars in the square. A group of boys on bicycles, stripped to the waist and tanned dark by the sun, were hanging about on the steps of the church. Authié paid them no attention. He walked briskly along the tarmacked access road that ran along the backs of the first few houses and gardens of rue de la Gaffe. Then he climbed to the right to follow a narrow dirt path that wound across the grassy slopes below the walls of the Cite.
Soon Authié was overlooking the back of Giraud’s property. The walls were painted the same powder yellow as at the front. A small, unlocked wooden gate led to a paved garden. Pendulous figs, almost black with sweetness, hung from a generous tree, which covered most of the terrace from the eyes of her neighbours. The terracotta tiles were stained purple where overripe figs had fallen and burst.
The glass back doors were framed beneath a wooden pergola covered with vines. Authié peered through and saw that, although the key was in the lock, the doors were also bolted top and bottom. Since he didn’t want to leave evidence, he looked around for another way in.
Alongside the French windows was a small kitchen window that had been left open at the top. Authié slipped on the latex gloves, threaded his arm through the gap and manipulated the old-fashioned clasp until he slipped the catch. It was stiff and the hinges groaned in complaint as he eased it open. When the gap was wide enough, he squeezed in his fingers and released the lower window.
A smell of olives and sour bread greeted him as he climbed into the chill pantry. A wire guard protected the cheese board. The shelves contained bottles, jars of pickles, jams and mustard. On the table was a wooden chopping board and a white tea towel covering a few crumbs from an old baguette. Apricots sat in a colander in the sink, waiting to be washed. Two glasses, upended, stood on the draining board.
Authié walked through into the main room. There was a bureau in the corner on which sat an old electric typewriter. He pressed the on/off button and it buzzed into life. He slipped a piece of paper in and struck a couple of keys. The letters appeared in a sharp black row on the page.
Sliding the machine forward, Authié searched the pigeonholes behind. Jeanne Giraud was an orderly woman and everything was clearly labelled and filed: bills in the first section, personal letters in the second, pension and insurance documents in the third, miscellaneous circulars and flyers in the last.
Nothing caught his interest. He turned his attention to the drawers. The first two yielded the usual stationery: pens, paperclips, envelopes, stamps, and stores of white A4 paper. The bottom drawer was locked. Using a paperknife, Authié carefully and efficiently slid the blade into the space between the drawer and the carcass and popped the lock.
There was only one thing inside, a small padded envelope. Big enough to contain a ring but not the book. It was postmarked Ariège: 18:20, 4th July 2005.
Authié slipped his fingers inside. It was empty except for the delivery receipt confirming that Madame Giraud had signed for the package at eight-twenty. It matched the slip Braissart had given him.
Authié slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Not incontrovertible proof Biau had taken the ring and sent it to his grandmother, but it pointed that way. Authié continued his search for the object itself. Having completed his examination of the ground floor, he went upstairs. The door to the back bedroom was straight ahead. This was clearly Giraud’s room, bright and clean and feminine. He searched the wardrobe and chest of drawers, his expert fingers riffling through the few but good-quality clothes and underwear. Everything was neatly folded and ordered and smelled faintly of rose water.
A jewellery box sat on the dressing table in front of the mirror. A couple of brooches, a string of yellowed pearls and a gold bracelet were mixed in with several pairs of earrings and a silver crucifix. Her wedding and engagement rings sat stiffly in the worn red felt, as if they were rarely taken out.
The front bedroom was bare and plain in contrast, empty except for a single bed and a desk under the window with a lamp on it. Authié approved. It reminded him of the austere cells of the abbey.
There were signs of recent occupation. A half-empty glass of water stood on the bedside table, next to a volume of Occitan poetry by René Nelli, its paper marked around the edges. Authié moved to the desk. An old-fashioned pen and ink bottle stood on the top, together with several sheets of heavy paper. There was a piece of blotting paper, barely used.
He could hardly believe what he was seeing. Someone had sat at this desk and written a letter to Alice Tanner. The name was perfectly legible.
Authié turned the blotter round and tried to decipher the signature half visible at the bottom. The handwriting was old-fashioned and some of the letters merged into others, but he persevered until he had the skeleton of a name.
He folded the coarse paper and slipped it into his breast pocket. As he turned to leave the room, his eye was caught by a scrap of paper on the floor, caught between the door and the doorjamb. Authié picked it up. It was a fragment of a railway ticket, a single, dated today. The destination, Carcassonne, was clear, but the name of the issuing station was missing.
The sound of the bells of Saint-Gimer striking the hour reminded him of how little time he had to get back. With a last look around to check that everything was as he had found it, he left the way he had come.
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting on the balcony of his apartment on the Quai de Paicherou looking back over the river to the medieval Cite. On the table in front of him was a bottle of Chateau Villerambert Moureau and two glasses. On his lap was a file containing the information his secretary had gathered in the past hour on Jeanne Giraud. The other dossier contained the preliminary report from the forensic anthropologist on the bodies found in the cave.
Authié reflected for
a moment, then removed several sheets from Giraud’s file. Then he resealed the envelope, poured himself a glass of wine and waited for his visitor to arrive.
CHAPTER 32
All along the high embankment of the Quai de Paicherou, men and women sat on metal benches overlooking the Aude. The sweeping, cultivated lawns of the public gardens were divided up by brightly planted flowerbeds and cultivated paths. The garish purples and yellows and oranges in the children’s playground matched the riotous colours of the flowers in the beds — red-hot pokers, huge lilies, delphiniums and geraniums.
Marie-Cécile cast an appraising eye over Paul Authié’s building. It was what she had expected, a discreet and understated quartier that had no need to shout, a mixture of family homes and private apartments. As she watched, a woman with a purple silk scarf and a bright red shirt cycled past on the towpath.
She became aware someone was watching her. Without turning her head, she glanced up to see a man was standing on the top floor balcony, both hands placed on the wrought-iron railings, looking down at the car. Marie-Cécile smiled. She recognised Paul Authié from his photographs. At this distance, it did not look as if they had done him justice.
Her driver rang the bell. She watched Authié turn, then disappear through the balcony doors. By the time her chauffeur was opening the door of the car, Authié was standing in the entrance, ready to greet her.
She had chosen her clothes carefully, a pale brown sleeveless linen dress and matching jacket, formal but not too official. Very simple, very stylish.
Close up, her first impressions were reinforced. Authié was tall and well toned, wearing a casual but well-cut suit and white shirt. His hair was swept back from his forehead, accentuating the fine bones of his pale face. An unnerving gaze. But beneath the urbane exterior, Marie-Cécile sensed the determination of the bare-knuckle fighter.
Ten minutes later, having accepted a glass of wine, she felt she had a sense of the man she was dealing with. Marie-Cécile smiled as she leaned forward and extinguished her cigarette in the heavy glass ashtray.