Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [75]
“According to what I’ve been told, you’re the one who acted as a go-between for Flavien Carvel …”
She stared at him with eyes wide open behind her lightly smoked glasses before looking over the inspector from head to foot, scornfully. “I don’t understand.”
“Mattéo, Criminal Investigation. Carvel’s in the morgue, and I’m trying to nail the guy who bought him a one-way *“Prick-Pull” and “Sausage-Pull.”
ticket there. The sooner the better. You teamed up to buy the peep show on rue Greneta, right?”
The theory had come out of his mouth without even thinking about it. From the panic-stricken fluttering of her eyelashes, he realized he’d hit a bull’s-eye. Now he had to proceed with caution.
“Flavien is dead? No, he can’t be!”
She threw herself back in her chair, her chest under the silk shaken by spasmodic breathing. Her distress was not affected. He wondered if she was one of those interchangeable girls who waited for the prodigal son in the car when he made a visit to his mother on the impasse du Gaz. Mattéo pushed away a pile of interior design magazines and sat down on the couch.
“Forgive me, I didn’t realize you were that close … He was found this morning near the Porte Saint-Denis, stabbed … I’d like to learn how you met him …”
She stuck a Camel into a cigarette holder with a python emblem and lit it with a matching lighter.
“In the simplest possible way. He opened that door and sat down in the exact same spot you’re in now … He wanted to buy an apartment in the no-car area, preferably Tiquetonne … After ten visits or so, he decided on a big four-room in a historical landmark building on rue Léopold Bellan …”
“It’s not cheap, in that sector. You gave him a good deal?”
She shrugged.
“Seven thousand euros a square meter. He had about a hundred and twenty square meters … You can do the math … Flavien had a third of the money and he was sure he’d have no problem getting the rest from what the peep show brought in. He was supposed to move in next month.”
“Where was he living in the meantime?”
“Upstairs, fourth floor, a studio apartment that belongs to the agency … I have a copy of the keys.”
Mattéo learned that the real estate agency owned the building with the rooms for voyeurs, that Tristanne had tipped off her rich client, and that his bank was on the Place de la Bourse, near the editorial offices of the Nouvel Observateur.
The lieutenant then brandished the notes Flavien had taken.
“Do you know why he wrote down these bits of human interest stories on paper scraps?”
“No. He used to copy them onto his computer in the evening, to post them on a website, that’s all he told me … I held onto a few of them. I also remember he backed up all his work on his flash drive.”
The young woman opened her bag—a Vuitton—and fumbled around in it.
“Here, this is something he wrote.”
The police officer took the paper:
The police have been heating up since the start of the riots,they’re provoking us more and more. The brother of oneof the electrocuted children was hanging out with us asusual, in front of his building, when the police got there.
They started to look us up and down and finally they saidto him: “You, go home to your mother.” He walked threesteps toward the cops to talk to them and one of themsaid: “Stop or you’ll regret it.” We ran away to the