Cara Black - Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 2)

Afternoon

AIMEE LEDUCS CELL PHONE rang, startling her, as she drove under the leafy poplars renting the road to Paris. For a moment shed felt as if she were flying flying into spring, away from the winter, when her broken body needed to heal.

Aimee groped around in her backpack until she found her phone wedged next to her ultrablack mascara. Freeing it from her extra sweater, snarled on a software encryption manual, she finally flicked it open.

Aimee! shouted a womans voice. Its Anais.

Ca va? Aimde said, surprised to hear the voice of her friend Martines sister. In the background Aimee heard loud voices. Anais, let me call

You have to help me, Anais interrupted.

Several years had passed since Aimee had seen her. Whats the matter, Anais?

Im in trouble.

Aimee pushed her black sunglasses down on her nose and ruffled her short, spiky hair. How typical of Anaiseverything revolved around her. A dull pewter sky blanketed the suburb of Aubervilliers. Within minutes the sky opened, and rain blanketed the road.

Right now Ive got to drop some work off, Anais, she said with growing impatience.

Martine talked to you, didnt she? Anais asked.

Impatience turned to guilt. Despite her promise to do so, shed never called Anais after Martine spoke with her. Anais suspected her husband, a government minister, of having an affair. Computer security, Aimee had protested, was her fieldnot spousal surveillance.

The phone reception wavered and flared.

Right now its difficult, she said. Im working, Anais.

She didnt want to interrupt her work. Thanks to a client referral, she was dropping off a network systems security proposal at the Electricite de France. Aimee prayed that this would get Leduc Detective back on its feet after a lean winter.

Please, we have to meet, Anais said, urgency in her voice. Rue des Cascades near pare de Belleville. Anaiss voice came and went like a piece of laundry whipping in the wind. I need you.

Of course, as soon as I finish. Im on the outskirts of Paris, Aimee said. Twenty kilometers away.

Im scared, Aimee. Anais was sobbing now.

Aimee felt torn. She heard a muffled noise as if Anais had covered the receiver with her hand.

Birds scattered from hedgerows. Along the gully budding daffodils bowed, skirting a mossy barge canal. Aimee pressed the Citroens pedal harder, her cheek reddening in the whipping wind.

But Anais, I might take some time.

Cafe Tlemcen, an old zinc bar, Im in the back. Anaiss voice broke. get caught. Aimee heard the unmistakable shrieking of brakes, of shouting.

Anais, wait! she said.

Her phone went dead.

M ORE THAN an hour later, Aimee found the cafe with dingy lace curtains. She eased out of her partners Citroen, which was fitted to accomodate his four-foot stature, and smoothed her black leather pants.

Strains of Arab hip-hop remix drifted in from the street. The narrow cafe overlooked rue des Cascades; no entrance to a back room was in evidence at first glance. Pinball machines from the sixties, their silvered patina rubbed off in places, stood blinking in the corner.

Aimee wondered if shed made a mistake. This didnt seem the kind of place Anais would frequent. But she remembered the panic in Anaiss voice.

Apart from a man with his back to her, the cafes round wooden tables were empty. He appeared to be speaking with someone who stood behind the counter. Old boxing posters curled away from the brown nicotine-stained wall. She inhaled the odor of espresso and Turkish tobacco.

Pardon, Monsieur, she said, combing her fingers through her hair. Im supposed to meet someone in your dining room.

As he swiveled around to look at her, she realized that there was no one else behind the counter. He put down a microphone, clicked a button on a small tape recorder, and cocked a thick eyebrow at her.

Who would that be? he said, amusement in his heavy-lidded eyes. His thinning gray hair, combed across his skull, didnt quite cover the bald top of his head.

A long blue shirtsleeve pinned to his shoulder by a military medal concealed what she imagined were the remains of his arm. Behind the counter sepia photos of military men in desert jeeps were stuck in the tarnished, beveled mirror.

Anais de She stumbled trying to remember Anaiss married name. Shed been to their wedding several years ago. Anais de Froissartthats it. She said shed be in the back room.

The only back room here is the toilet, he said. Buy a drink, and you can meet who you like there.

A frisson of apprehension shook her. What was going on?

Perhaps theres another Cafe Tlemcen?

Bien sur, but its three thousand kilometers from here, near Oran, he said. Outside Sidi-bel-Abbes, where I lost my arm. He nodded to his tape machine. Im recording the truth about the Algerian war, anticolorrial struggles from 195461, and how our battalion survived OAS friendly-fire bombardment.

Why had Anais suggested this place? Had she made a mistake?

Aimee stepped closer to the counter. I might have misunderstood my friend. Did a woman use your telephone recently?

Who are you, Mademoiselle, if I may ask?

Aimee Leduc. She pulled a damp business card from her bag and laid it on the sticky zinc counter. My friend sounded agitated on the phone.

He studied her, his hand wiping a falling strand of hair back over the bald dome of his head. Ive been busy with deliveries.

This isnt like my friend Anais, she said. She was very upset. I heard car brakes, loud voices. She searched his face, trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth.

He hobbled out from behind the large chrome espresso machine to where she stood.