Soul Meaning (A Seventeen Series Novel: An Action Adventure Thriller Book 1) (7 page)

‘Nice,’ said Reid moments later. Up ahead, the Eiffel Tower rose majestically at the head of the
Parc du Champ de Mars
.

Traffic slowed when we hit the
Boulevard Garibaldi
and the
Rue Froidevaux
. By the time we reached the
13ème arrondissement
and pulled over opposite an apartment building halfway down a side street, the sky was starting to redden. A smile curved my lips when I spotted the well-preserved green Renault 5 Supermini taking center stage in the allocated parking space in front of the edifice.

I climbed out of the roadster, crossed the sidewalk to a pair of oak doors, and pressed the buzzer for apartment 3A.

A gruff voice barked a disgruntled ‘
Oui?
’ through the speakerphone seconds later.

‘
C’est
Lucas.’

There was a pregnant pause. ‘Lucas?’ Surprise elevated the pitch of the man’s voice. ‘
Nom de Dieu
!’

Heavy footsteps sounded on the other side of the doors after a minute. They slammed open. The figure on the threshold gaped before engulfing me in a bear-like embrace.

‘My word, Lucas! You haven’t changed at all! What’s it been, ten, twelve years?’

I grinned at the short, portly, middle-aged French man with the thick mustache. ‘About that.’

Gustav Lacroix was a retired detective who used to work at the headquarters of the French National Police; he was one of the few mortal friends the Vauquoises and I had maintained contact with since we left France. Although the Frenchman often joked that we had discovered the secret whereabouts of the Fountain of Youth, I had a feeling he suspected our somewhat unearthly origins. Still, he never asked us questions.

I glanced at the Supermini. ‘I see you’ve still got the old car.’

‘Pah! I wouldn’t trade it for any of these new fancy-schmancy contraptions.’ Gustav’s eyes glinted when he saw the roadster. ‘On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind getting my fingers on that little beauty.’ He greeted Reid like an old acquaintance and ushered us inside the building.

‘So, what brings you to Paris?’ he said once we were inside his apartment.

‘We have business in town.’

A wry smile dawned on the old detective’s face. ‘Ah. I see.’ He placed a tray of freshly brewed coffee on a low table in the sitting room. ‘I take it it’s the kind of business you can’t talk about?’

I nodded.

He sat in a large, padded armchair. ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.’

‘Thanks.’ I reached for one of the porcelain cups and took a gulp of the hot, fragrant liquid; the familiar taste flooded my mouth, bringing back memories of lazy summer days spent in the French capital. ‘Actually, I do have a question.’

Gustav looked at me expectantly.

‘Have there been any—unusual incidents in the city of late?’

A bemused expression washed across the retired detective’s face. ‘In Paris?’

I smiled. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid question. What I meant was, something out of the ordinary, mysterious—unnatural even?’

Gustav thought for a moment before shaking his head. ‘No. Not that I’ve heard of anyway. But, tell you what, my nephew works at the DCPJ,
la Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire
. You haven’t met him before. He just moved to Paris from Lyon. He’s coming over for dinner tonight.’ The old detective shrugged. ‘He might know something.’

Christophe Lacroix turned out to be a much taller and slimmer version of his uncle. It became rapidly evident that his warm, chocolate-brown eyes and loose demeanor belied a sharp intelligence.

‘You’ve known my uncle for long?’ he said curiously while we sat at the dining table and sipped wine from a fine bottle of Cru Beaujolais.

‘Yes.’

‘Gustav mentioned you wanted to know of any strange events that may have occurred in the city recently?’ he asked.

‘Uh-huh,’ I said with a noncommittal nod.

Christophe Lacroix leaned back in his chair. ‘What do you do for a living?’ he drawled, watching us over the rim of his glass.

‘We’re private investigators,’ Reid replied, his tone carefully blank.

The French detective’s eyes moved to my face. ‘Oh? And what exactly, may I ask, are you investigating in our lovely
Ville-Lumière
?’

Reid and I exchanged glances.

‘It’s a missing person’s case,’ I said levelly.

Lacroix raised his eyebrows, a sardonic twist distorting his mouth. ‘Really? Why don’t you tell me more? I might be able to help.’

I smiled. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. Our clients are very particular. They would like to keep this as low-key as possible.’

Lacroix frowned.

Gustav entered the room and lowered a large casserole dish in the middle of the table. He lifted the lid. Steam billowed out, followed by the fragrant aroma of slow-cooked meat and vegetables. ‘Voila! My famous
Coq au Vin
. Dig in!’

The conversation turned to more mundane matters. Gustav’s nephew took his leave just after ten, blaming an early start the next day. He stopped in the apartment doorway and studied us carefully.

‘In response to your earlier query, no, there haven’t been any unusual incidents in the city of late. None that has attracted the attention of the DCPJ anyway.’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured.

We rose from the table and headed for the door a short while later.

‘Here, this is the spare key for when you get back,’ said Gustav, handing me a door key. ‘I’m afraid one of you will have to sleep on the sofa. The guest room only has a single bed,’ he added apologetically as he let us out of the apartment.

Earlier that evening, I had looked up the H.E. Strausses listed in Paris in the retired detective’s White Pages. There were five of them. Although the CGM, the Center for Molecular Genetics research lab where Strauss was assigned, was located on the
Gif-sur-Yvette campus some twenty miles southwest of the French capital, my instincts told me that the professor quite likely kept a place in the city. I ruled out the Strausses who lived too far from the center and the addresses that were not within walking distance of a train station or metro. That left only three H.E. Strausses; one in Montreuil and two within the
Boulevard Périphérique
, in the
11ème
and
7ème arrondissements
.

We took the roadster and headed east past the
Pitié-Salpêtrière
Hospital and the
Quai de la Gare
. I crossed the River Seine at the
Pont de Tolbiac
and turned right onto the
Quai de Bercy
before joining the
Boulevard Périphérique
. Eight minutes later, we entered the suburb of Montreuil.

The first address was a detached house in a small road not far from the metro station. Lights were still on behind the ground floor windows when we pulled up some fifty yards from the property. After watching the place for ten minutes, I left the car, crossed the shallow fore garden, and knocked on the front door. It was opened by an elderly gentleman.

‘
Est-ce que je peux vous aider
?’ he said in a frail voice, blinking in the porch light.

‘I apologize for bothering you at such a late hour,’ I replied in French. ‘I was passing through and thought I’d look up an old university friend, a person by the name of H.E. Strauss?’

‘Oh. I’m terribly sorry, I’m afraid I’m the only Strauss living at this address,’ he said with a weak smile.

I thanked him and strolled back to the car.

‘Any luck?’ said Reid.

‘No. Let’s try the next address.’

Traffic had thinned out considerably and the drive to the
11ème arrondissement
took less than ten minutes. The address was an apartment located in an old neoclassical building halfway down a quiet cul-de-sac. I parked the car at the entrance of the street and we sat watching the block. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off behind the large French windows on the second floor. They remained so for the next half hour.

‘Wanna check out the last place?’ Reid suggested. I nodded.

The apartment in the
7ème
was owned by a Hélène Eveline Strauss, a teacher at a local elementary school. Her voice sounded thin and harassed on the speakerphone and the high-pitched screams of children rose in the background.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said hastily after confirming her details. I returned to the car.

‘No luck here either?’ muttered Reid.

‘No. Let’s go back to the
11ème arrondissement
. I have a feeling that’s the place we want.’

We headed across the river and I pulled into the empty parking space we had previously occupied. The apartment on the second floor was as dark as when we had left. Minutes after I turned off the engine, the front door of the building opened. A man stepped out with a dog on a leash. He glanced curiously at the car when he walked past.

‘Fancy a stroll?’ I said to Reid.

He shrugged. ‘Sure. It beats sitting here the whole night. Besides, the friendly neighborhood watch might call the cops on us if we hang around here much longer.’

We left the roadster and headed down an alley at the side of the building. It led to a gate behind the property. We scaled the wooden palisade and landed quietly in a short, walled garden.

Lights from the first and fourth floors bathed a brick patio in a golden glow. Flowerpots dotted the edges of the terrace and a set of four ornate metal chairs sat around a small cream table. Outlined starkly against the back wall of the apartment block was an elaborate, iron spiral fire escape. The lack of rust suggested it was a fairly new addition to the otherwise grand and faded facade.

We negotiated the metal steps carefully and stopped next to an old sash window on the second landing. The soft tinkle of a piano drifted from somewhere above, while the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the babble of conversation rose from the floor below.

Reid removed the lock pick set from his jacket and carved a hole in the glass with a small, circular diamond cutter. He reached through the opening and thumbed the internal lock. There was a soft click.

It took both of us to lift open the heavy wooden frame of the sash window; several layers of paint had glued it solidly to the casing. The cords and counterbalances creaked faintly in the night when the pane finally moved in its runners. We climbed through the narrow gap and entered the building. We straightened and remained still while our vision adjusted to the darkness.

A security light illuminated a common stairwell to our left. On the other side of it, a passage ran parallel to the corridor we stood in. There were four apartments on each floor, two at the front and two at the rear of the building. We headed for the one that faced onto the cul-de-sac.

As we passed the apartment on our right, the door opened quietly on well-oiled hinges. An old woman in a white nightdress appeared on the threshold and squinted at us.

‘Is someone there?’ she said in a frail voice, her tone hesitant. ‘Is that you, Hubert?’

Reid and I froze on the landing. I held my breath, aware that she only had to raise her hand to touch my face. Tense seconds passed. The old woman finally released a sigh and closed the door. We carried on down the corridor.

Silence greeted us outside Strauss’s apartment. I tried the door handle. It twisted easily in my grip. I glanced at Reid. He was already reaching for the Glock. I slid the wakizashi from its scabbard and pushed the door open with the tip of the blade.

The interior of the apartment was inky black and still as a tomb. The air was stifling and overlaid with a faint stench of decay. We stopped just beyond the threshold.

The low, rectangular outlines of furniture appeared in the gloom. To the left, the grand, ceiling-high French windows loomed behind sets of heavy, brocaded curtains.

Reid switched on a pen torch. Dust motes danced in the beam as he swept it across the vast space.

A drawing room occupied half the width of the apartment. Tastefully decorated with an eclectic collection of old and opulent furnishings, it boasted a beautiful vaulted ceiling and a stone fireplace. French doors at the rear opened onto a kitchen diner.

We traced the smell of putrefaction to a garbage holder and the half-open fridge; the internal light cast a pale glow on the linoleum floor and partially illuminated the kitchen cabinets. Inside, the shelves were well stocked. A glass of rancid orange juice stood forlornly on the countertop.

On the other side of the drawing room, a corridor led to a master bedroom, a bathroom, a study, and a small second bedroom.

Although the apartment bore a general air of untidiness to be expected of a busy scientist, it also showed signs of having been searched. The hard drive of the computer in the study had been wiped clean. Documents lay scattered within wallets and folders inside the drawers of the writing desk and the filing cabinets that lined the walls. The tomes in the bookcases had been put back haphazardly. Even the messages had been deleted from the answer phone in the drawing room, while a digital camera with its internal memory erased lay on the coffee table.

‘You notice the pictures?’ said Reid.

I nodded, anxiety knotting my stomach.

Dotted around the apartment were dozens of photo frames. They were all empty. Only the paintings had been left untouched.

‘Lucas.’

We were inside the master bedroom. I looked to where Reid had directed the torch beam. On the rear wall of the chamber, next to an oil canvas reproduction of Degas’s 1888 “Dancers”, was a spattering of dried blood.

A small, perfectly round hole had been punched into the plaster scant inches from it. It looked very much like the entry point of a bullet.

‘Crovir Hunters?’ said Reid.

‘Probably.’ My gaze shifted from the crimson droplets to the Degas. I crossed the floor to the bed and lifted the painting off the wall. There was a small, faded rectangular mark on the rear of the gilded frame. I traced it with the tips of my fingers, my mind racing.

Something had been taped to the back of the painting.

I peered at the space behind the headboard. It was empty. I put the painting back on the wall, knelt, and looked under the bed. Reid dropped down on the opposite side and shone the torch across the floorboards.

The light glinted off a small object half obscured by a dust-covered suitcase. I reached for it.

My fingers closed around something hard and cold. I lifted it to the light.

It was a key attached to a strip of adhesive tape. Bloody fingerprints covered the metal. Beneath them were engraved the letters CNRS and the numbers 129.