But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. If only they got along better. If only she didn’t always feel like a child with him. He had been the only constant in her life since her father died.
She hugged him. Hadn’t hugged him like that since she couldn’t remember when. Inhaled that Morbier muskiness, so familiar from her childhood: the smell of wool, a trace of unfiltered Gauloise and—mon Dieu—something new. She sniffed.
“Is that Eau Sauvage, by Dior?” She sniffed again. “Another gift from Jeanne?”
He shrugged. “Ce n’est rien, just some experimentation with my fragrance palate.”
“Fragrance palate?” Did he even know what that meant?
His thick eyebrows drew down in irritation. “It’s all to do with the body’s chemistry. Olfactory stimulation.”
Her jaw dropped again. “Next you’ll be taking vitamins, mixing protein shakes and doing yoga.” And the world would spin off its axis.
He stretched both hands in the air, reached for the ceiling. “They call this the talasana, or palm tree pose.”
“Really? Yoga?” She caught herself before she said, “At your age?”
“No age limit, according to the instructor.” Why did she always forget his uncanny skill for reading her mind at the most awkward moments?
“Tisane, Dior eau de cologne and now yoga. Wonders never cease.” Or maybe he was just getting in shape to impress the sexy grandmothers at Chloé’s playground. She grinned but quickly hid it. Time to be serious. She needed to find out if he knew anything that might help her find Drina Constantin. “Who do you know at the commissariat central in the seventh, Morbier? Does Jojo still man the desk on rue Peronnet?”
“What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Leduc? Does this have anything to do with the Gypsy-looking boy you were talking to after the christening?” He looked at her and shook his head. “Does it?”
She nodded.
“Go on, what happened, Leduc?” He sighed and sipped his tisane.
Standing next to him at the counter, she told him about Nicu and Drina. Held back the meeting with Martin. After all, Morbier was a commissaire divisionaire and Martin an ex-con and private informer.
“Leave it alone. What’s the point of bringing all this up again, Leduc?”
“A dying woman’s abducted from a hospital and new information about Papa is hitting me in the face. What am I supposed to do, ignore it? Let Papa’s murderer go unpunished?” she said. She slammed her hands on the counter. “Let the murderer evade justice again?”
Morbier put his cup down and shrugged. His profile was dark against the window overlooking the Seine and the quai’s globe streetlamps.
“Morbier, you were Papa’s first partner on the beat. Did you know this woman? Have you heard of Drina Constantin?”
“Putain, Leduc. Say this woman did inform for him. We had tons of informers,” he said. “Why connect her to him years later? Doesn’t make sense.”
“She’s the one who made the connection—maybe a secret she needs to get off her chest before she dies?” she said. “Some Gypsy code of honor—I don’t know.”
“She thinks of you while she’s lying on her deathbed, Leduc?” Skepticism filled Morbier’s voice.
“But someone else thought it was important, too. Someone else cares enough to try to shut her up.”
“Gypsy culture’s a law unto itself,” said Morbier. He squeezed the teabag with his spoon. “We’re talking professional thieves here. You can’t believe they wouldn’t steal a person if they wanted to.”
Typical. The easy way out. Aimée remembered Le Parisien’s article the week before about police crackdowns on Gypsy enclaves.
She’d seen the encampments of gens du voyage off the RER B line, tin shacks hugging the rail lines, the laundry hanging from trees, the lean-tos on the other side of the périphérique near the Stade de France—mostly refugee Roma, the Eastern European Gypsies. Sad.
“I know the prefecture mandates workshops on the dangers of discrimination, how to avoid racial profiling,” she said. “Have you been skipping those seminars again?”
“Missing the point as usual, Leduc. There’s a time to realize when things are best left alone,” he said, his voice thick. “There’s nothing you can do for this woman, or for your father. Move on. You’ve got Chloé now. That’s what he would want, you know that.”
She knew. “But Papa offered her his help. My help. Look.” She thrust her father’s card in his palm. “Papa always said a person’s only as good as their word.” Over his wine glass, standing on this exact spot in the kitchen, a week before the explosion.
Morbier averted his eyes. “A promise made years ago? Grow up, Leduc.”
Aimée winced. Why couldn’t Morbier understand?
“Were you at the bombing? Did you find his melted glasses, his charred—” Her throat caught. She rubbed the burn mark on her palm, the scar had been imprinted from the smoldering van’s door handle. “Mais non, you were … you were …” She couldn’t finish the sentence. A no-show at the morgue, at the pitiful funeral. “Where were you, Morbier?”
He leaned on the counter, his fists clenched, the knuckles white. “I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s complicated …”
“Complicated how, Morbier? Isn’t it about time you told me?”
But Morbier’s chest heaved. He grabbed at his cup on the counter, missing and sending it clattering on the wood parquet.
“You all right?”
“Indigestion.”
A cry pierced the warm kitchen air, making them both jump. It was followed by a second. The baby monitor; it was right there on the counter. She could hear Chloé’s sobs, the crib springs creaking.
“We’ve woken her up, Leduc,” said Morbier. The color had drained from his face.
Alarmed, Aimée wondered if he could be having a heart attack. “Any chest pains? Shortness of breath?”
“Leave it, Leduc. I’m fine.”