Bonnefoye laughed silently.

‘But before you write off my fishing expedition as a trip down the garden path, answer me this – is there any reason why Francine Raissac might decide to confide in a bloke like me? I didn’t invoke my charm particularly, nor did I resort to strong-arm tactics . . . A little light coercion, perhaps, but nothing she couldn’t have seen through and side-stepped if she’d wanted to. I’d say she was playing my game. Why would she choose to pass on to a man she’s never met before, and a foreign policeman at that, a piece of information that might be vital to the solution of last night’s murder?’

Bonnefoye was silent, tugging at his moustache, unable to meet his eye.

‘What reason?’ Joe insisted.

Finally, ‘Listen,’ he said quietly. ‘I told you I had three urgent cases on my books?’

Joe nodded.

‘I was supposed to shelve them or delegate them until the end of the week for this conference. But, you know how it is . . .’

Again Joe nodded. ‘Can’t be done. Especially when you see threads running through them which fresh eyes might not be able to connect.’

‘Right. Well, one of them involves this hooligan brother, this Alfred. It’s thought he was in a fight with three or four other men down by the Canal St Martin. Some bargees reported a scuffle and screams. Nightly occurrence! No one took much notice. Alfred disappeared on that night and hasn’t been seen again since. His sister reported him missing. She was supposed to be having coffee with him as she always does on a Sunday afternoon – passing on some of her wages no doubt. She gets paid on a Saturday. He didn’t turn up. She made an incursion – brave girl – into his territory and caught hold of one of his pals. He told her nothing but the terror in his reaction, she reports, was enough to make her fear the worst. And then, late last night, before I came out to meet you at the airport, on my desk, a note from the morgue.

‘A body of a young man fished from the canal. No identification but the description fits Alfred.’

‘Have you had time to go and see it?’ said Joe.

He had a memory of walking past three dripping bodies on slabs on his way to view Somerton. ‘The night’s catch,’ the pathologist had commented. ‘A poor haul.’

‘No. Been too caught up with your business, Joe.’

‘Cause of death? Is it known?’

‘Oh, yes. It was very clear. And it wasn’t drowning.’ Bonnefoye’s sentences were growing shorter and shorter as his tension increased. ‘The ultimate cause of death was a stiletto to the heart.’

‘Ultimate?’ Joe picked up the word.

‘Yes. That’s what killed him. Finished him off. But before he died, his lips had been sewn together. With a length of black cobbler’s thread.’

Chapter Twelve

Joe groaned and put his head in his hands.

Not histrionics, he thought, but hysterics or verging on it. Francine Raissac had been mourning her brother, still raw from the Inspector’s description of his death, bruised, no doubt, by what Bonnefoye called ‘his rough-tough image’, when the English policeman had come bumbling in on his two left feet, making, with insouciance, silly remarks about her panda’s eyes. Eyes swollen not, as he’d unthinkingly assumed, by interrupted sleep but by grief. Mascara smudged by tears.

Joe tormented himself and Bonnefoye by insisting on going over some of his worst remarks. ‘“Bespoke killing . . . made-to-measure murder,” I said! Can you believe that? How crass! How hurtful!’

‘How were you to know? You weren’t, Joe. And with all that sewing equipment about the place – I have to say – rather an apt if unfortunate image. Now stop this!’

‘She hinted at it, you know . . . said she might herself be discovered with her mouth sewn up with – I think she said scarlet – thread. And scissors in her heart. She was using the facts of the death you’d just dropped into her lap to illustrate something – something she was frightened to disclose but . . .’

‘I think her grief pushed her to tell you too much. She didn’t tell me, she was still stunned. Gave me nothing. I’ve seen this before. Shock makes them clam up. Then the anger begins to build up. By the time you got to her and flashed your understanding eyes at her, the desire for revenge had taken over and she was ready to pop. You were treated to her explosion and didn’t have the facts to help you to make sense of it. But her insinuations – that there’s a clandestine assassination agency with a flair for the dramatic out and about and doing business in Paris – what do we make of that? Ludicrous, surely? And it has no name. What in hell would you call it?’ He grinned. ‘Shakespeare & Co.? No, that’s been used. Bookshop, I think. How about Death by Design?’

‘Bonnefoye, there are two corpses laid out side by side in the Institut Médico-Légal. Alfred Raissac and Sir Stanley Somerton, unlikely morgue-mates. Knifed to death, the pair of them, and they’re not laughing with us.’

‘Sorry, Joe.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes it’s the only way through the nastiness. But it’s not like you to be such an old misery guts? La belle Francine seems to have had quite an effect on you. Always a danger with these girls.’

‘No, Jean-Philippe! That’s the problem. She isn’t just one of “these girls”. I thought she was a very fine young woman. And I’m deeply sorry that I must have – albeit unconsciously – offended and upset her at a distressing moment in her life.’

‘Hard to avoid that in this job,’ commented Bonnefoye. ‘Always offending someone. But – look – put her out of your mind and concentrate on the most important character in all this. We’ve hardly given him a thought since it started.’

‘Yes, of course. Somerton. The victim. The moment George wakes up I’m going to want to know exactly how the two are connected. There’s something he’s not told us. George is an accomplished liar. It’s not like him to do it badly. That’s what concerns me. But, if he hasn’t told us, can you blame him? – we haven’t got around to asking him yet. Though I’m sure old Fourier must have made the attempt.’

They both turned to the bed where, from his pillows, George gave a fluttering and extended snore. They waited for him to turn and settle again before they continued their hushed conversation.

‘While you’re filling in background on Somerton, I’ll go off and take a look at this address in Montparnasse,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘The one Francine confided. I’m getting to know that area quite well. I’ll be able to make more sense of it than you would, I imagine. Oh – and don’t forget you’re due to escort the Lady Somerton to the morgue.’

He took out a notebook and checked a page. ‘A message came to headquarters. I ring in every hour and there’s usually something for me. Six o’clock at the British Embassy. Can you pick the lady up there? The Embassy’s just down the road from here. Very convenient. Oh, they stipulated number 39, rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. That’s the residence of the Ambassador – not the offices next door. That gives you forty minutes to smarten yourself up. No time to go back to your hotel . . . Why not borrow one of Sir George’s shirts? You’re about the same size. He’s got a drawer full of them over there. And a hat? Never did get your louche fedora back but you’ll find something suitable if you look in the wardrobe.

‘And look, Joe . . .’ Bonnefoye weighed his next announcement, suddenly unsure of himself. ‘You’ll probably think I’m overreacting to circumstances . . . put it down to Gallic hysteria if you like . . . but I think we should move Sir George out of here. To a safer place.’

‘I agree. Sensible proposal,’ said Joe. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘The rue Mouffetard,’ he said. ‘My mother’s apartment. She’s used to soldiers. My father and uncles were in the army. She’ll take good care of him. I’ll take him out the back way through the kitchens. When you’ve finished at the morgue why don’t you come along and check his accommodation? He’s technically in your custody, after all! It’s above the baker’s shop halfway down. Got a map? Here let me show you . . .’