Speak Softly My Love (27 page)

“
Ah.” Levain’s eyes glittered at the prospect. “Now we’re
cooking with gas.”

“
The odds are the girl never received any letter. It’s a prop,
pure and simple. He wrote it wearing gloves and brought it along in
a pocket.” The killer would have used the lady’s dead hand to put
her prints on there, while wearing gloves himself.

You put
on the gloves, peel off a dozen sheets right off the top, and then
write your little note. Same thing with the envelope. If there even
was one. A fresh box would be opened, wearing gloves, the same
procedure basically. Tailler could see it in his mind’s eye well
enough.

That’s
how the trick was done.

“
Yes. I’ll tell you what. Take an hour or so, longer if you
need it. Your little staff on the third floor have nailed Didier’s
whereabouts. He is in fact in Bordeaux. It took him a while but he
got there, and we have his hotel room and everything…”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Write it up as best you can, and I’ll have a look at it.” He
gave Tailler a look. “What’s our theory of the crime?”

“
Damned if I know. We need to know who’s who—and who’s what,
before we can go much further.”

“
Okay. Off you go, then. And Hubert—you might want to let the
hired hands go back to wherever, unless you feel they might be
needed?”

Hubert
chewed on that for a second.

“
No, sir. Let’s give them some legwork—we’ll start at the
local train stations. If we don’t get anything, we can think it
over and decide again. Because honestly, when you think of his
travel itinerary, his history I guess, there’s just a shit-load of
places to canvas. And let’s leave Didier out there for a while.”
When the time came to bring him in, Hubert wanted something
tangible to bonk him over the head with.

***

Tailler
had typed it up as best he could.

“
This is not going to wash, Tailler. I asked you, what is the
theory of the crime?” They were usually so much better than
this.

Gilles
let the application for a warrant fall to the desk.

It was a
big case, a complex case. Tailler he could almost understand, but
Hubert had more experience and even he had been loose, too loose in
the questioning, too loose in the thinking.

Tailler
pursed his lips. Hubert looked worn out, a man with no
ideas.

“
I don’t really have one. But bigamy is a crime, and
abandonment is a civil crime. The man had two wives, God knows how
many affairs, girlfriends, one-night stands probably, and sooner or
later his luck had to run out.”

Tailler
was struck by an inspiration.

“
I got an idea, boss.” He went to their pile of
exhibits.

He
pulled out three passports.

“
Okay, boss. According to the ladies, each of whom knows about
one passport, these both belong to Didier. Right?”

Gilles
shrugged.

“
Now you are at least
thinking,
Tailler—that’s what I want
to see.”

Tailler
picked up the phone.

Hubert
looked mystified.

“
What are you doing?”

“
It’s just that I don’t believe
anything
anymore.”

Tailler’s forefinger spun the dial.

“
Hello? Who is this?”

Hubert
stood waiting, Gilles went back to reading files.

“
Ah. Can you send a fingerprint technician up to Maintenon’s
office?”

Hubert
listened open-mouthed.

“
Thank you.” Tailler hung up. “We’re lucky, they have someone
available right now. He’s coming right up.”

***

Their
fingerprint technician was done working. He looked up from the
passports, frowning.

“
Well, we have a couple of good prints from each one. They are
from the same person.” He handed over the big magnifying glass.
“This is our male subject.”

Next it
was Ludinde’s passport and the prints from the body in the Rive
Gauche.

Tailler
had a look, Hubert had a look, and then Maintenon had a look. They
compared the prints on the passports with the enlarged
reproductions of the prints from the female subject, taken by the
examiner, Dr. Guillaume at the city morgue.

“
They are not a match.”

“
Are you sure?” Tailler was a little upset, although it was
definitely a long shot…

The
technician shrugged.

“
It’s the best I can do, anyways you can see for
yourself.”

The
technician had carefully examined the passport from Lucinde. There
were good prints, many of the same person, but obviously some from
customs officials as well. With an anonymous print, there was no
way to determine gender.

The
technician, a man named Proulx, next compared them to the prints
taken from the woman in the Rive Gauche. There were only so many
ways he could say it.

“
Well. There you go. They are not a match—none of
them.”

“
Hmn.” Tailler and Hubert were mystified.

“
Okay, so that didn’t prove a damned thing.”

“
You’re wrong, Emile.” Maintenon chuckled.

All of
this was in the written reports. Tailler doubted everything, which
was an interesting state of mind. He would go over it and over it
until he dropped if he had to—

“
It sort of indicates the man in the river was not Didier—and
the woman in the hotel was not Lucinde.”

“
Well. Since you put it that way—”

Tailler
beamed at Maintenon, and then Levain.

“
All right, thank you.” Gilles dismissed the technician, who
put his brushes and powder bottles back in the briefcase and
departed.

Maintenon looked at Emile Tailler.

“
Sit down, please, gentlemen.”

The pair
reluctantly did so.

“
You had an idea there, Emile.”

“
Ah, yes I did, sir.”

“
Care to tell us what it is?”

Tailler
bit his lip. He looked doubtfully at Hubert, who looked at Gilles
and then Levain.

“
I have no idea what he’s on about.”

“
It’s a process of elimination…” Emile heaved a deep sigh.
“Okay. I think I know what happened. They’ve done a nice job on us.
We desperately need search warrants, for three premises at
least—otherwise we are never going to get them.”

“
Who’s them, Tailler.”

Tailler’s eyes were far away.

“
Inspector.”

Maintenon was the most patient man Levain had ever met. These
young guys had potential, but not much discipline. Their minds were
all over the place—especially when you let them go off on their
own. There were one or two holes in the training that needed to be
filled. Yet Tailler was clearly chewing on something. It was the
old problem.

They
needed to get their ducks all in a row.

“
Yes?” There was nothing there but gentle
amusement.

“
When you stumbled on that body in the park…that was
Didier.”

“
Well. I have been sort of wondering.”

Hubert made a little
snork
sound. Maintenon wasn’t trying to be
funny.

“
All he had to do was to be tripped over. All he needed was
for someone to report a body. The odds were they would head for the
nearest phone. Almost anyone would have done the exact same
thing.”

“
You’re saying he was alive then?”

“
Yes. He cut the coat, and probably made some little nick in
his arm, or something. The coat had to have blood on it. There was
a
lot
of blood
according to the lab report. That’s great if he was actually
stabbed. But what if he wasn’t? It was merely for effect. If he was
waiting for you, specifically—and he lived right in the
neighbourhood, Inspector. He might have seen you around. And you’ve
got a hell of a lot of credibility. His wife says he was wearing a
black suit. Yeah, they have a bit of a fight. But before leaving,
he nips into the bedroom. Changes clothes…and the brown suit
already had the cuts in it. He might have even provoked a fight. It
would take less than a minute. All he has to do was to put fresh
blood on there.” Tailler would bet on it, the man would have a big,
half-healed gash on him somewhere. “He’s on the way to the park and
he sees you going into the store—yeah, that’s it.”

He might
have even had a minute in the darkness to freshen up the
blood.

“
And what did all of that accomplish, Emile?”

“
It convinces the great Gilles Maintenon that there is a body
in the park—a body that was subsequently removed by means
unknown.”

“
And why would he want to do that?”

Hubert
and Levain stared at each other. There was a simultaneous shrug.
Gilles’ eyes were on Tailler, not without signs of
amusement.

“
Confusion. Mystification, so his wife could call in a
missing-person report, and then, not too long after, good old
Didier comes walking in the door, very much alive. Because he was
planning to kill another man—one who, just by the luck of the draw,
resembled him well enough.”

Gilles
nodded.

“
Go on.”

Tailler
shrugged.

“
I can’t. We don’t know enough. We don’t have a
motive.
We still haven’t
identified the body in the river—my sense is that we never will,
not the way we’re going at it. Because we’re actually pretty good
at that sort of thing. Those bulletins are all over France—and
we’ve already had our one good hit. And that, sir, was in Lyon.
Didier’s second spouse. And it wasn’t even a picture of Didier. The
resemblance must be pretty close and we can see that for
ourselves.” Tailler took in some air and went on. “If we take a
photo of the river victim and show it to the neighbours—what are
they going to say?”

He
waited. Gilles shook his head.

“
I don’t know, Tailler—” There was promise here nevertheless.
“And who, Emile, was the blonde woman in the Rive
Gauche?”

Emile
Tailler turned and found his desk. He sat heavily on the seat,
staring up and out of the window for a while.

With a
sigh, Maintenon was about ready to get back to his own
files.

“
Ah.” Tailler sat up. “Ah!”

“
Well, Tailler?”

Tailler
locked eyes with Maintenon.

“
If I tell you, will you get us those warrants? I mean, you
can do it, right?”

There
was such a thing as a friendly judge, and Maintenon had been around
a lot longer than either Tailler or Hubert.

“
Yeah—I might.”

“
Okay, boss, then listen. Listen good. You are really going to
like this one.”

Levain
chuckled softly, giving Emile an admiring look. The guy had only
been with them for three or four months, for crying out
loud.

Persistence was better than nothing. The boy certainly had
his share.

Chapter Twenty-Two

All
three of their warrants were to be executed at once. For reasons
that were rather more political than practical, it was anticipated
that Gaston e Cie would cooperate willingly. As it was, their name
should be kept out of it as far as that was possible. Before
approaching the firm, some solid information would be
helpful.

Levain
and Tailler had been elected for the house in Paris. Gilles and
LeBref were to search the house in Lyon, while Firmin and Hubert
were in Molsheim.

“
Are we ready?” There were six hulking cops on the
sidewalk.

Levain
gave Emile a nod.

“
Go for it.”

Tailler pushed the button beside the street level door
labeled
Godeffroy.

“
Yes, hello?”

It sure
sounded like Monique; but then how the hell would he
know…

“
Madame Godeffroy?”

“
Yes, who is it?”

“
This is Detective Emile Tailler. I have a warrant, duly
signed and issued by a competent authority, to search these
premises for evidence related to a homicide.”

There
was a long pause.

Tailler
looked at Levain and bit his lip. He caught Sergeant Richard’s eye,
as he stood with the axe casually over his shoulder. They had a
master key from the landlord, but there were interior doors and
closets as well. It would be interesting to see how she handled
it.

Tailler
was just about to speak when the latch clicked.

“
So. She’s going to be sensible, then.” Levain grabbed the
knob, whipped the door open and then they were all clattering up
the stairs.