Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,52
the Resistance had used the tunnels as a command post in the days preceding liberation.
As if it had been yesterday, Aimée could still feel her wet rainboots and heavy school bag on her shoulder. See those walls of bare bones illuminated by bulbs hanging from a single wire. Feel that jolting terror at the mountains of skulls. So terrified she wanted Morbier to carry her. But he’d ducked his head under the timbers. Afraid he’d call her a baby, she tried to keep up, tramping through the webbed limestone tunnels lined with hundreds of thousands of bones. So scared, wanting to close her eyes. Wrinkling her nose at the musty dirt-laced odor of the departed. Shivering at the chill emanating from the earth.
“Were you a soldier, Parrain?” She’d called him godfather until she was ten. She tugged his sleeve until he slowed down.
“I was only a boy during the war, but my father helped the Resistance,” he said.
“But you said your papa worked on the trains.”
“So he did. But in secret he brought Colonel Rol-Tanguy the rail plans to sabotage the Wehrmacht freight in the Gare de Lyon yards.”
“Did they hide here?” she asked, wondering why anyone would.
Morbier ground his foot in the packed dirt. “You could hide here forever.”
“Weren’t they scared?”
“Scared?” He shook his head. Then his thick eyebrows knit. He opened his mouth to say something. Didn’t.
She watched him, surprised, her fear forgotten now. “Why are you sad, Parrain?”
“It happened a long time ago now. People forget.”
“So we’re in this smelly cave piled with bones to remember?”
“Something like that.” He paused, his eyes faraway. “They say if you don’t remember the past, you’re condemned to repeat it, mon petit chou.”
She’d taken his big hand with her small one and squeezed it.
Aimée shook off the memories. On rue Daguerre, a lighted pedestrian shopping street, the evening air carried pungent aromas from the cheese shop. Below a whipping awning stood the butcher Alois in his bloodstained apron. He waved at her. She stocked up here on Miles Davis’s horse meat.
This evening, Café Daguerre’s outdoor café tables bustled on the terrace. She picked her way past the crowded tables to the interior, scanning the patrons: locals, middle-aged women, old men with baguettes and chives poking from their shopping bags—drinking an aperitif before heading home for dinner.
For a brief moment, she thought about how she’d intended to cook more—but since boiling water presented a challenge to her culinary skills, she discarded the thought.
“Un express,” she said, sitting at the counter and catching the scurrying white-aproned waiter. Next to her a young woman cut into a scallion-fringed croque-madame, on a thick-crusted slice of Poilâne bread. Tempting.
Instead she opened her agenda to the to-do list she’d begun after reading that Marie Claire article. Plan, set goals, and prioritize. She ticked off “proposals filed,” “security checks run”—thanks to Maxence—and “butcher’s for Miles Davis.” Under the pending column, she crossed off “René’s tuxedo” and added “autopsy findings,” “fitting for the Dior bridesmaid dress,” “pick up software encrypter.” She also added “Yuri,” “Serb,” and “car repair,” and considered whether telling off Melac warranted inclusion on the list.
No doubt she’d get his voice mail if she tried calling again. She put “Melac” in the future column; she’d deal with him later. Now to Oleg. She’d escaped before the police questioning—he’d be ignorant of the fact that she’d discovered Yuri murdered or that she had Piotr’s letters. Two up on him. Always a good thing when facing a suspect.
“Aimée Leduc?”
She turned to see Oleg, tousled brown hair, corduroy pants and denim jacket—an academic air.
“The flic told me you were in the car that smashed Yuri’s Merc,” he said. “Ran over and killed a man in front of his house.”
Belligerent and breathless. Not even a bonsoir.
“We had an accident. I’ve filed the insurance claim, everything will be handled. But your stepfather wasn’t hurt.” What’s that to you, she wanted to say, moving away from his crowding elbow.
“Maybe you had something to do with my father’s murder this morning.”
He’d turned the tables. Accused her.
The waiter slid Aimée’s express in front of her. “Monsieur, something to drink?” he asked, poker-faced.
Oleg pointed to Aimée’s cup. “The same.” The waiter nodded and moved down the counter.
“Yuri told me you’re the son of his wife,” she said, unwrapping a sugar cube and plopping it in her espresso. “So you have no legal grounds in any of this. I’ll deal with his lawyer about the car.”
“I’m the only family Yuri had.” Oleg drummed his nail-bitten fingers