AllFreeNovel
Share Us
28
Café Marly
Nothing about the man depicted in the photograph suggested he belonged anywhere near an Old Master art gallery in the elegant Eighth Arrondissement of Paris. Not the logoless cap pulled low over his brow. Or the wraparound sunglasses covering his eyes. Or the false beard adhered to his face. And certainly not the aluminum-sided Tumi suitcase, 52 by 77 by 28 centimeters, that he was wheeling along the pavements of the rue la Boétie. He was sturdy in manufacture, compact in size, confident in demeanor. An athlete in his day, perhaps a former soldier. He wore a drab overcoat against the cool early-spring weather, and leather gloves—presumably so that he would leave no fingerprints on the handle of the suitcase or in the taxi that was pulling away from the curb.
The time stamp on the photo was 13:39:35. Jacques Ménard handed Gabriel a second image, captured at the same instant. “The first shot came from the camera at thetabacacross the street. The second one is from the Monoprix a couple of doors down.”
“Nothing from your surveillance cameras?”
“This is Paris, Allon. Not London. We have about two thousandcameras in high-traffic tourist areas and around sensitive government buildings. But there are gaps in our coverage. The man in the photograph exploited them.”
“Where did he get into the taxi?”
“A little commune east of Paris, in the Seine-en-Marnedépartement. My colleagues at the Quai des Orfèvres haven’t been able to determine how he got there.”
“Did they manage to find the driver?”
“He’s an immigrant from the Côte d’Ivoire. He says the customer spoke French like a native and paid the fare in cash.”
“He checks out?”
“The driver?” Ménard nodded. “No problem there.”
Gabriel lowered his gaze to the second photograph. Same time stamp, slightly different angle. A bit like his reworking of Modigliani’sReclining Nude, he thought. “How long did he stay inside?”
Ménard drew two more photographs from the envelope. The first showed the man leaving the gallery at 13:43:34. The second showed him sitting at a table at Brasserie Baroche. It was located about forty meters from the gallery, at the corner of the rue la Boétie and the rue de Ponthieu. The time stamp was 13:59:46. The assassin was looking down at the object in his hand. It was the remote unlocking device he had removed from Bruno Gilbert’s desk.
“You and Madame Bancroft approached the gallery from the opposite direction.” Ménard produced a photograph of Gabriel and Sarah’s arrival, as if to prove his point. “Otherwise, you would have walked right past him.”
“Where did he go next?”
“A taxi to the Sixteenth. A nice long walk in the Bois de Boulogne. And then,poof, he disappeared.”
“Very professional.”
“Our explosives experts were quite impressed with his bomb.”
“Were they able to identify the phone he used to trigger the detonation?”
“They say not.”
“I’m certain that Valerie Bérrangar’s phone was inside that gallery.”
“My colleagues at the Quai des Orfèvres have their doubts about that. Furthermore, they are inclined to accept the conclusion of the local gendarmerie that Valerie Bérrangar died as the result of an unfortunate road accident.”
“I’m glad we cleared that up. What else has the Quai des Orfèvres concluded?”
“That the two men who tried to steal Monsieur Isherwood’s attaché case were probably ordinary thieves.”
“What about the men who searched his room at the InterContinental?”
“According to the hotel’s head of security, they don’t exist.”
“Did anyone bother to check the internal video?”
“Apparently, it was erased.”
“By whom?”
