Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,35
will try to make things up to you since I had to go away.”
Go away? Aimée checked the faded postmark. She made out 1925, the letterhead of Café de la Gare in Marseilles.
“ ‘When you are older, can appreciate, the portrait belongs to you.’ That’s all.” Marevna looked up. “If the painting exists, it’s very sad. Very rare.”
The painting existed, all right. Yuri’s murder attested to that. But who had stolen it last night?
Piotr had written this as a testament, kept this letter for Yuri as an authentication. Yuri, not Natasha, should have had it. Why hadn’t it come to light while old Piotr was alive?
Questions, so many questions.
She figured Oleg, his stepson, knew of the painting’s existence—that was why he’d been snooping around for money lately. Were there others? She’d start with him.
A door slammed in the back. Marevna jumped. Fear flashed in her eyes.
“I have to work. You go, please.”
“But there’s another letter,” Aimée said.
“Not finished yet, Marevna?” came a voice from the kitchen.
“Leave before Lana asks questions.” With a quick motion Marevna piled the papers together.
“Careful. That’s delicate.” Before she could stick them in her apron pocket, Aimée gripped her hand. “Not so fast.”
“But I translate more after work.”
She’d discovered what she needed for now—the rest later. “We’ll meet then,” she said, noting Marevna’s mounting uneasiness. “I might need these.”
Did Marevna see another avenue of cash? A conduit using the Russian grapevine—the tight community—to broker the information? A portrait of Lenin by Modigliani … and the letter to prove it. One needed the other. But then Aimée knew zero about the art world.
A priest’s referral didn’t guarantee she could trust Marevna, but she had to keep her options open. Aimée stuck two hundred francs in Marevna’s pocket. “That’s for now.”
She paused at the Trotsky photo by the door. A piece of the puzzle clicked in the back of her mind. “Lana’s political, a Trotskyist?”
“That’s all so passé,” Marevna said, glancing back at the kitchen. “It’s her old uncle’s.”
“He around?”
Marevna tipped an imaginary bottle to her mouth. “Fond of the drink. Like all that generation.”
Like Yuri.
“Ask him to call me, will you?” Aimée handed her a card and another bill. Yuri’s money. “But this we keep between us, d’accord?”
Marevna nodded.
Tuesday Early Afternoon, Paris
AIMÉE KNEW LITTLE about art, even less about the art world. But she knew who to ask.
“Lieutenant Olivant?” said the receptionist at the préfecture de police. “He works out of OCSC now.”
She never remembered the meaning behind those acronyms for various police branches. The terms changed all the time.
“He still works with stolen art, n’est-ce pas?”
“Bah ouais,” came the typical Parisian reply. “That’s what they do there, Mademoiselle.”
“Mind transferring me?”
A click. Another receptionist, who transferred her to the third floor, then another series of clicks. A bland recording of extension numbers. Finally, after punching in Lieutenant Olivant’s extension, she got his voice mail. Didn’t anyone answer their office lines anymore?
She got as far as giving her name and number before the recorded voice came on. Message box full.
Great. She’d try later. Right now a big, fat zero.
The old man’s letter hadn’t shed any light on one mystery, though. How did Yuri know her mother? Dead, he couldn’t tell her. But if there was any chance to learn something about her mother, she’d find it.
By now the flics would have questioned people on the street, the inhabitants of Villa d’Alésia. The mink-coated neighbor knew something—even if she didn’t know she did. She’d heard the raised voices. Aimée had to risk going back there to find this Oleg. She didn’t even know his last name.
“YOU AGAIN?”
Yuri Volodya’s neighbor, Madame Figuer, whose name Aimée discovered by reading the mailbox, stood in her door in a black jogging suit. Her red-rimmed eyes darted under freshly applied black eyebrows. “The flics want to talk to you, Mademoiselle. Ask you why you ran away.”
“Please, Madame, I need your help,” Aimée said. “I’ll explain.”
Madame Figuer gripped a pink cell phone. “May I help?” She punched in a number. “Explain it to them.”
Aimée reached out and hit END. “Pardonnez-moi, Madame, but no phone calls. Desolée, it’s important.”
Alarmed, Madame Figuer stepped back. Started to close her door. “Leave me alone.”
Aimée stuck her foot in the door. “Please, we need to talk.”
“They said you could be an accomplice.” Her voice rose. “Dangerous.”
“Can you keep a secret?” Aimée shouldered her way inside, going with her plan B: on-the-fly improvisation—approaching plausible, she hoped. She needed to keep this woman quiet and glean information.