There was no answer. Just the same thick, impenetrable silence she’d heard on those other occasions. She could see him at the other end, the exaggerated expressions, the perfect command of his trained body, but God only knew what he was telling her in his silence.
And then she heard Nicole scream.
CHAPTER 17
The call came in just before three in the afternoon. Malgreave had assigned one of the newer detectives to manning the phone. Over the last two years there’d been so many false leads and crazies calling in with messages from God that Malgreave no longer bothered to deal with them directly. He left it up to Pierre Gauge, a not very bright transfer from the police department in Rouen. What he lacked in brains he more than made up for in doggedness, and Malgreave knew he could count on having a complete transcript of every call concerning the old women that came in, be they from concerned citizens or Saint Joan herself.
Gauge even taped them all, keeping the tapes for a week at a time, long enough for Malgreave or Josef to review them to see whether Gauge might have missed something. He seldom did. Even with his limited command of languages other than French, he managed to do a creditable job, and his nighttime replacement, a weary old veteran on the edge of retirement, did the same.
Gauge knew enough to recognize Vidal’s voice when he heard it, patching the call directly through to the Chief Inspector. “Summer’s still talking with the mayor,” Vidal said. “But he thought this couldn’t wait any longer. You were right—Yvon Alpert, Rocco Guillère, and Gilles Sahut were all inmates at the Marie-le-Croix orphanage at the time it burned down. Two people were killed in the blaze—an elderly gardener and the matron of the house, an old woman named Estelle Marti. There was a question of arson at the time, but nothing could be proven. Besides, the boys were only about ten or twelve years old. Not old enough to be criminals.”
“You’d be surprised,” Malgreave said, tapping his pencil thoughtfully. “Anybody remember the old people? Were they locals?”
“People old enough to remember have been pretty close-mouthed about the whole thing. As far as we can tell, the victims weren’t well liked, either of them. It sounds as if the investigation into the fire was dropped for lack of interest, not evidence.”
“Interesting. What about Bonnard?”
“No one by the name of Marc Bonnard was in residence here at the time of the fire.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Vidal laughed on the other end. “I should mention that a young boy named Marc de Salles arrived about a year before the fire. A very handsome boy, younger than the others, with a talent for theatrics and a particularly winning way with the locals.”
“It should be easy enough to check. The boys would have been sent to other institutions, farmed out to foster homes. Probably our young friend de Salles was taken in by a family named Bonnard.”
“Chief Inspector, the boy was ten years old when the place burned. Surely you don’t think he could have been involved?”
“I’m convinced they all were involved, and they may have had a damned good motive. When you finish up there see what you can find about the gardener and Estelle Marti. Whether they had any criminal record, any history of child abuse, of sexual deviations. It would explain a great deal.”
“Yes, sir.”
Malgreave replaced the phone, a faint expression of amusement momentarily lightening his features. Josef would have to watch himself with that one. Vidal was an eager beaver if ever there was one. It must have killed Josef to let him make that call, but Josef was ever conscientious, putting a case ahead of his wife’s ambitions. Malgreave would have to make sure Josef felt appreciated.
He heard the phone ring in the outer office. He reached for the receiver again, but Gauge was ahead of him, his broad face creased in concentration as he took studious notes, and Malgreave pulled his hand back, reaching for a cigarette instead. He could hear the voice on the other end through a lull in the office noise, some hysterical woman babbling in what sounded like English. Another crazy, Malgreave thought, lighting the cigarette and taking a deep, appreciative pull on it. Thank God he could count on Gauge to deal with it.
It all came together in an instant of pure, disbelieving horror. She knew, the moment she heard Nicole scream, she knew. She didn’t need Marc’s voice, the sudden, rasping, giggly sound of Marc’s voice breaking in, speaking to her at last, to confirm what she’d never wanted to face.
“I am going to kill her, chérie,” he said, his voice high, breathless. “I only like to kill old women, grandmothers like Harriette, but in Nicole’s case I’ll make an exception. She saw me last night with her grandmother, and she’s always suspected about her mother. If it weren’t for Nicole you would have loved me.”
“Marc …”
“She’s trying to hide from me, Claire. She’s running, but she’s so drugged that she won’t be able to get far. I won’t kill her right away once I catch her. I like little girls. I like to touch them. I’ll make it last, chérie. I’ll make it last a long, long time.”
There was no background noise beyond Marc’s eerie voice. Maybe she had gotten away, maybe if she could just keep him on the phone long enough Nicole could run for help. Claire took a deep, struggling breath, only dimly aware of Tom’s arm around her hunched shoulders. “Marc,” she said, and stopped, momentarily astonished at how calm her voice was. “Marc,” she said again. “You don’t want to hurt anyone …”
“Au contraire, chérie, I do. I want to hurt Nicole, I want to hurt you, I want to hurt the old women that watch me, that tease and torture me, I want to hurt them all. I want …” His ranting changed swiftly from English to French, his voice rising to an almost incomprehensible shriek. Tom jerked the phone away from her, listening with growing horror, and Claire thanked God she couldn’t understand French.
And then the line went dead. Silence once more, but not the listening, waiting silence. A few seconds later an impartial buzz informed them that Marc had hung up the phone. That now he could search for Nicole.
Nicole sat huddled against the wall in the hallway, the scream of terror still caught in her throat as she stared at Marc. Nothing seemed to be working, not her legs, not her arms, not her voice, certainly not her brain. She’d felt like this before, the time she’d fallen into a swimming pool, going down, down, deep under the water, fighting through the heaviness that pulled and tugged at her, drowning her. Her mother had saved her, jumped in and pulled her to the surface, where she could struggle and breathe again, scream and cry in terror and life.
But her mother was dead, killed by the monster in front of her, and there was no one to save her. No way she could struggle out of the heavy folds of death that were wrapping around her. Claire had deserted her. Claire who had promised to take care of her, Claire had left her to Marc.
He’d forgotten her for the moment. He was laughing into the telephone, and his eyes were bright with joy and malice. He was telling Claire what he would do to her, what he could do to both of them. Summoning her last ounce of strength, Nicole began to scuttle backward like a crab, along the side of the wall.
Marc stood between her and the front door. She could make it to the back door, but he might catch her, and there were knives in the kitchen, too many long, sharp knives. There was a chance, one chance that he might not know about. Claire would come. Claire had abandoned her, but Claire would come. If she could just find a place to hide, long enough for Claire to get there, she’d be safe.
She must have banged against the wall. Marc turned, looking at her, and his mouth curved in cheerful anticipation before turning his attention back to the phone. He knew she was too weak to walk. She wouldn’t have the strength to go far enough to get away from him.