* * *

  Aimée didn’t speak after they collected her from the observation room until they reached Willem’s tiny office.

  ‘I wish to speak to you alone, Mélisende,’ she said primly.

  ‘If it’s connected with the case, then please continue. Inspector Leroy is completely in our confidence for this operation.’

  ‘Very well.’ She glanced at Leroy, but he stood there with a neutral look on his face. She turned back to face Mel. ‘I want it recorded that I disapprove strongly of the emotional pressure you exerted on that poor boy. He may, or may not, be guilty of the things you accuse him of, but your behaviour was inexcusable.’

  Mel stared at Aimée, for once unable to answer her. What kind of genteel world did Aimée live in? Had she never served in any of the so-called hardship diplomatic posts in the unstable parts of the world? Mel took a deep breath ready to explain the facts of criminal life to Aimée, but Leroy got there first.

  ‘Madame de Villiers, you mistake the situation,’ he said. ‘Nothing we said or used as a way of inducing information from the detainee crossed any procedural or legal lines. Moreover, the “boy” is not a boy. He’s twenty-three and carries with him a string of criminal convictions. Hardly an innocent.’ He snorted.

  ‘Nevertheless, he should have had a lawyer with him to ensure the questions were appropriate and polite.’

  ‘Not for suspected terrorism,’ Leroy shot back. ‘We have forty-eight hours first to question suspects in these cases. Then the magistrate can order an extension.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Aimée, I’m curious,’ Mel said. ‘Have you ever watched a police interview before?’

  ‘You know I studied law and I have attended civil courts.’

  ‘Yes, but what experience do you have of the sharp end? The very sharp end? And I don’t mean credit card scammers, drunks or divorce cases.’

  ‘Well, there was no time to cover everything.’ She looked away and brushed the upper sleeve of her jacket.

  ‘That “boy” in there not only tried to abduct me, and did actually severely injure a colleague, he’s an accessory to murder in Rome,’ Mel replied. ‘He’s wanted on an international warrant for people trafficking and admitted to the police in Rome to casual rape and extortion. And that’s not counting his probable involvement in the booby-trap bomb that almost killed me and Jeff McCracken.’ She jerked her hand in the air. ‘We were very circumspect as he is one of two very thin leads.’ She turned to Leroy. ‘Thank you, Willem. Can you hold him for a day or two?’

  ‘Of course. We can probably get a twenty-four-hour extension, even two, but not indefinite. I suspect that Giordano in Rome will be itching to extradite him.’

  ‘Agreed. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’

  Mel took Aimée by the arm. Pain spread through Mel’s hands even though the cotton gloves protected the grazed skin on her palms. Nevertheless, she led Aimée out of the back door of the commissariat, then released her.

  ‘Listen, Aimée. If you’re going to work with the EIRS even on a temporary basis, you’re going to have to toughen up and realise that we deal with the extreme end of the bad people scale.’

  ‘But you cannot disregard the law,’ Aimée said. Her tone was full of self-righteous indignation.

  ‘We’re not,’ Mel snapped back. ‘The EIRS exists to reinforce the law. Don’t you get it?’

  Aimée said nothing, pulled her face into a pinched expression and nodded. Mel turned on her heel and strode along the Rue Royale then down the Rue de la Loi, not caring whether Aimée kept up with her. By the time they reached the EIRS office, Mel was in a fine temper. Stevenson had to get Aimée out of her hair.

  11

  ‘So we’re no further on with Dalca’s shooting?’ Stevenson raised one eyebrow.

  ‘No, sir,’ Mel said, squirming in the comfortable chair the other side of Stevenson’s desk. ‘However, I’d put even money on this Souleymane having done it but no idea of why.’

  ‘Pity we haven’t got him.’

  ‘Captain Giordano was more intent on proving I was a meddlesome nuisance than catching the two people who’d tried to abduct me. I don’t know what I’d done to give him that impression.’

  Stevenson smiled to himself. Aimée looked smug.

  ‘Something I feel he regrets from his latest message this morning,’ Stevenson continued. ‘He sends me his apologies along with an updated forensic report from the restaurant where the waiter was killed and from the remains of the flat that, er, exploded. The conclusion from the latter was that it was remotely triggered.’

  ‘Ah! As I thought.’ Mel rubbed her chin. ‘I only saw a brief movement through the window so I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘Enough to trigger your own reaction to run.’ Stevenson lifted a paper from his file. ‘Examination of the bedding doesn’t show a great deal, but the Italians have extracted two different samples of DNA for which they are awaiting analysis. It looks to me that we are left with two leads – Ananou, not very reliable, and the mystery French voice.’

  ‘You have my transcription of that, sir,’ Mel said. ‘Unfortunately, I was not in a position to get a recording.’

  ‘Really, Mélisende, you must stop blaming yourself for not being Wonder Woman.’ Stevenson smiled at her. ‘I grant you it’s not spectacular, but this is solid progress which we can build on.’ His face became more solemn. ‘We have obviously attracted attention and stirred something up. Now we have to push, and hard. What do you think our next move should be?’

  ‘Well, I’d like to—’

  ‘One moment, please,’ Aimée’s sharp voice interrupted. ‘Surely it is for the director to decide what action should be taken, not the subordinates.’

  Mel and Stevenson both stared at her; Mel furious, and Stevenson with a look of polite disbelief.

  ‘My dear Aimée,’ he started in a gentle but firm voice. ‘We don’t work in a hierarchical way here in the EIRS. I encourage discussion and ideas from all my colleagues.’ He smiled at Mel who returned one of her own. ‘They will often come up with perspectives that I don’t, sitting here in my ivory tower.’

  Aimée drew her chin in, like an affronted chicken, Mel thought.

  ‘However, the final decision is, of course, mine.’ He turned to Mel. ‘Please continue, Mélisende.’

  ‘I think it might be worthwhile going to see Colonel Vasseur at my regiment. He’s old school and would hate the idea of a whiff of disloyalty. I might also have a less formal word with some of my colleagues, especially in the records secretariat.’

  Stevenson chuckled.

  Mel blushed. Her opinion of paper-pushers wasn’t high and Stevenson knew that. Aimée frowned, not having a clue about the undercurrent.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Go home now and rest, then take the train tomorrow afternoon to Strasbourg.’ He looked at her hands. ‘How are they?’

  ‘Sore, but healing. At least I’m not in the hospital like Jeff.’

  ‘I’ll visit him tomorrow.’

  ‘He’ll probably moan and ask you to get him released but the doctor there won’t hear of it.’

  ‘Well, if he pushes too much, I’ll remind him we’re all under somebody else’s orders,’ Stevenson said and smiled.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Mel stepped out of the Pétillon metro station and made for her flat. The shine reflecting up from the road surface in the warm sun seemed extra bright. She screwed up her eyes. It was probably delayed reaction from the bombing in Rome. Poor Jeff, stuck in hospital. She’d visit him again up at Queen Astrid’s as soon as she was back from Strasbourg.

  Something else disturbed her, but she couldn’t pin it down. The EIRS handled difficult, awkward or sensitive cases, but this one seemed to be encircling them with danger. The unseen enemy was ahead of them whatever they did. She shook her head. An early night would put it all in perspective. Still, better to be cautious; she couldn’t get the implied threat from the telephone man in Rome out of her mind. He was messing with her head, of course, but nevertheless… She walked along on the opposite side of the road past the front door to her building then turned confidently up the path between two blocks. Although it didn’t have a sale sign on it, Mel knew the ground floor corner flat of the block on her right was empty. She slipped round the back of the building and dropped her bag. She leant back against the red brick and breathed out hard.

  She counted to ten to steady herself, then peeked round the edge of the building. Nothing. Just a warm sunny day in an empty suburb. All the normal people were out at work, shopping, playing with their kids – living their normal lives. She could even hear children shouting and laughing in the playground of the school behind the block of flats. A cyclist rolled along in the narrow lane at the edge of the road, white wires from the earphones fixed in his ears. Then he braked and stopped. Mel grabbed a breath along with her phone.

  The man looked up, searching as if for a specific address. Mel snapped a couple of shots. He looked ordinary enough, but nothing was ordinary now. He stopped his search at her front door, seized his handlebars and dropped his bike against the low wall in front of her building. He examined the four postboxes under the porch overhang and slipped a small package into one of them. Mel couldn’t see which one from where she stood.

  She watched the cyclist get back on his bike and carry on down the road at the same slow pace until he disappeared into the traffic at the junction. She’d give it another five minutes, which sounded a short time, but now seemed an eternity. Several women and a few men were starting to walk up the path between the two blocks, some chatting, some pushing buggies with babies, some alone. It must be school leaving time. Mel waited until they had passed by, but the last woman dawdled then stopped opposite Mel.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked after a moment. ‘Locked yourself out?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  One of the woman’s hands was clutching a cloth bag hanging from her shoulder; the other was in her pocket. She conveyed an expression of concern on her face, but no warmth in her eyes. Almost too late, Mel realised what was happening. As the woman withdrew her hand from her pocket and aimed a small handgun at her, Mel dodged. An instant later, a loud detonation and a hot pain seared the surface of Mel’s upper right arm. The woman aimed again, her hands trembling. Ignoring the agonising stab of pain, Mel brought her fists together and rammed her forearms upwards between the woman’s. The pistol flew through the air. Mel kicked the woman hard on the knee and slammed her to the ground. As the woman opened her mouth, Mel pushed her face into the ground with her left hand and knelt on her back. Jerking back to avoid the woman’s flailing arms, Mel grabbed her phone and dialled Inspector Leroy’s number.

  ‘Willem? Can you get your nearest patrol car to Avenue du Commandant Mellois stat? Somebody’s just tried to terminate me.’

  * * *

  Willem Leroy pushed the woman down into the back of one of the two police cars by a firm hand on her head. Her hands were now secured behind her back by handcuffs instead of the strings of her cloth bag that Mel had used. Leroy tapped the roof of the vehicle and it set off down the road. Two uniformed officers had dispersed the small crowd that had gathered and they now waited by the second car while Leroy took a few more photos of the street and passageway, and of the pistol where it had landed in a neighbouring garden. He crouched down and inserted a pen through the trigger guard, lifted it slowly and slid it into an evidence bag.

  ‘Any idea what that was about?’ he said as he stood and looked into the back of the ambulance where Mel was sitting.

  ‘Not a clue,’ Mel replied. She wished Willem hadn’t called an ambulance. But he’d insisted she was checked. Her hands were throbbing and her knees, bruised again and still tender from Rome, were joining in with the deep graze to her right arm, so she’d been happy to give in. The paramedic had done vitals and tutted when he examined Mel’s knees and hands and redressed them as well after cleaning them with evil smelling orange antiseptic.

  Mel grimaced at the shreds of her shirt sleeve stained with blood and antiseptic and again as the medic clipped a sling to hold her right arm. Nevertheless, she gave the medic a smile of thanks, then turned to Willem, but before she could say anything, the ambulance radio crackled. The driver stuck his head out of the cab and shouted, ‘Emergency. Traffic accident. We’re nearest. Let’s go.’

  He switched on the blue light and siren. The paramedic helped Mel out of the back, jumped in and slammed the door. They were gone in a flurry of speed. Mel put her hand to her forehead.

  ‘Look, could we go to my place?’ She pointed across the road. ‘I need a cup of strong tea. You can take my statement there.’

  ‘Sorry, of course,’ Leroy said. ‘You must be shattered.’

  He handed the evidence bags to the other two officers who left in their patrol car, then picked up Mel’s bag and guided her across the street. Inside, he told her to sit down while he busied himself in the kitchen. In between gulps of the hot drink, Mel gave him a factual version and as good a description as she could. The woman had just looked like any other mother who, realising the time, had flung her coat on without having time to tidy her hair or run a lipstick across her mouth. When Mel stopped talking, she still gripped the warm mug. Leroy eased her fingers away and set it down on the coffee table.

  ‘Will you send a copy of my statement to Mr Stevenson?’ she said at last.

  ‘Of course, as well as anything else we find. If it’d been a typical mugging, it would have gone down as another statistic. Even with a knife.’ He shrugged. ‘But an attempted shooting, a one-on-one in a street like this? That’s not normal. And why you? You weren’t carrying anything obviously valuable.’

  ‘Agreed. She must have specifically targeted me. Oh, God.’ She shivered and closed her eyes for a second ‘Wait. She didn’t have any gloves on – it’s too warm – so your forensics people must be able to get some kind of print. That makes her an amateur then.’

  A few moments of silence passed. Mel looked away and Leroy checked his phone. To distract herself, she jabbed at her own phone and transferred her photos of the cyclist to Leroy’s mobile.

  ‘We’ll run the cyclist anyway,’ he said. ‘He may have been a decoy. But first, let’s have a look in the postboxes to see what he delivered.’

  ‘You don’t think we should get forensics in?’

  ‘No. If it’s innocent, we’ll have all kinds of grief. I’m going to do a quick preliminary.’ He fished a pair of blue latex gloves out of the pocket of his leather jacket. ‘I suggest you stay put.’

  ‘Would you mind if I did? I feel a bit tired. Sorry.’

  ‘No, you’ve just had somebody want to blow your head off. You’re entitled to be a little unsettled. Even you.’ He gave her a smile. Dieu, she missed Jeff at moments like this.

  Downstairs, under the overhang in the outside porch, Leroy gave her a running commentary over the phone as he opened the postboxes with his pass key. The third one contained a white envelope with no stamp but addressed to two people. He gave Mel the names.

  ‘That’s the couple on the ground floor,’ Mel said. ‘So, presumably okay?’

  Leroy pressed it in various places.

  ‘It seems to just be papers and something small inside.’

  ‘Take a photo of the return address, just in case,’ Mel said. ‘You never know.’

  A minute later, Leroy was back upstairs in her apartment.

  ‘I expect you want me to come to the station?’ She felt like death warmed up. No, not even as lively as that.

  ‘No, we’ll process your would-be assassin and get some ID established. You look shattered. Come and see me in the morning if you’re up to it.’

  Mel nodded to him as he left. She slipped her arm out of the sling, locked the door and slid the top and bottom bolts across. She brought her hands up to her face and let out a loud sob.

  12

  Her phone shrilled. Mel blinked hard then grabbed it off her bedside table. Stevenson. Hell, it was only six in the morning. She wriggled semi-upright and leant back against her pillows.

  ‘Mélisende. Good morning.’ His voice was crisp, bordering on sharp. ‘Will you have the goodness to call in at the office at your earliest convenience this morning, please?’

  Dieu, he sounded really pissed off.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Stevenson,’ she said in the most neutral voice she could muster. ‘Actually, I’ve arranged to meet Inspector Leroy at Rue Royale first thing and to interview my assailant.’

  ‘I see. Are you all right? I’ve just read the copy of your statement he sent me. What the hell is going on?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mel lied. She felt fuzzy-headed from eight solid hours’ sleep and her arm throbbed. ‘And I don’t have any idea what this is about. That’s what I hope to find out this morning.’ She tried hard not to sound exasperated.

  ‘Of course,’ Stevenson replied. ‘But no longer than an hour with Leroy. I want to see you before you leave to go and see Vasseur.’

  * * *

  Dark glasses perched on her nose, her hair bundled up off her face and enclosed in a scarf and with a double dose of coffee inside her, Mel presented herself at the unmarked back door of the Rue Royale commissariat at a quarter to eight. After perching the sunglasses on her head so the scanner could get a fix on her face, she was buzzed in and escorted to Leroy’s office. He looked up from his screen.

  ‘Morning.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Are you in disguise?’

  ‘No, not really. I suppose I wanted to put a little distance between me and other people.’