Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,17

grin showed braces. “À votre service.” She guessed Québécois from his accent. A Canadian.

She hung up her leather coat, tossed her secondhand Vuitton bag on the recamier. Unfurling her scarf, she flicked on the chandelier for more light. The crystal drops gleamed, thanks to the new cleaner’s feather duster.

“Tell me you’re at least sixteen and I’m not breaking the child labor laws.”

Maxence nodded, his hair in his eyes. “If you want.”

Anger burned in her. “If I want? I want to follow the labor code. Does René know you’re … how old are you?”

Maxence pulled out his wallet. “Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-two, whatever you’d like.” He fanned out a number of cartes d’identité like a hand of playing cards.

She wanted to smack him. Slammed down her keys instead, almost upsetting the vase of daffodils. René had brought them in; every spring, he bought bunches from large-fisted Eastern European vendors at the Métro entrance. He wouldn’t be refreshing this vase anymore.

“So you’re an outlaw, eh,” she said, “some boy genius? Let’s see your student card from the Hacktaviste Academy.” She scanned it. “According to this you’re eighteen.”

The new radiator emitted blasts of heat. Almost too hot. He gave another lopsided smile. “This work experience will be great for my new gaming company. I need to learn on the job, juggle tasks, set goals. Like I will for my own company.”

Her stomach churned. She debated telling him to put on his Beatles jacket and hike out the frosted glass door. “No room for interns here, desolée.”

He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Please give me a chance,” he said, his cockiness gone. “I’ll do anything. René thinks I’m good. Let me help your part-timer, Saj.”

She knew the flics might hold Saj in garde à vue longer. Or his injuries could slow him down; he might need to take medical leave.

Maxence’s hopeful eyes bored into her skull. After all, René recommended him. Did she even have another option? Might as well try him to see what he could do.

“On a trial basis,” she said. “But you might take an early and permanent lunch.”

Fifteen minutes later, she’d checked the mail stacked on the marble fireplace ledge and started running the virus scans, checking the monitors for daily security contracts. All put in place by René. The whole operation could almost run itself.

“Keep your eyes on the systems and print out the reports and spreadsheets,” she said.

Maxence nodded, eager now. “Then shall I download the info onto René’s desktop files, make a backup?”

She nodded. Not so green after all. Her heart wasn’t in this day-to-day stuff; she’d let the kid handle grunt routine and monitor his work.

Ongoing reports filled her desktop screen, and she took her laptop from the drawer. On it, she pulled up the old files she’d digitized from her father’s dossiers. She’d transcribed his notes during the long November evenings after his death in the bomb explosion in Place Vendôme. A painful exercise in hopes of finding some clue to the explosion. But the leads had all gone up with him in a ball of fire and smoke.

All those years in the police force had instilled in him the habit of recording names, places, descriptions of people he interviewed or investigated—any memorable characteristic or quirk—in pocket-sized leather-bound notepads. Each entry, each date and name or initial, constituted a piece of a case her father had worked on. A detail he’d rechecked to fit pieces together. His scent clung to the notebooks. The pain lessened over the years, but never completely went away. For that reason, she kept his original notebooks rubber-banded together in the safe. Touching them hurt too much.

Now, she searched her father’s case files under V for Volodya, and Y for Yuri. Nothing. She kicked off her ankle boots, rubbed her stockinged feet on the smooth wood floor, and wished she had an espresso. René had forgotten—correction, she had forgotten to buy coffee beans.

Quiet reigned, apart from Maxence’s clicking fingers and the distant thrumming of traffic outside on rue du Louvre. With the report summaries done, she concentrated on refining her search. She limited the parameters to her father’s cases involving indicateurs, or snitches. Problematic, since her father often referred to his informers by initials or nicknames. Again, nothing under V or Y.

Her grandfather’s cases went back to the thirties, a few from the Surêté he’d carried with him as private clients when he’d founded Leduc Detective. She hadn’t gotten to digitizing those yet.

“Quite a history here,” Maxence said, gesturing to the wall