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“Did Paul tell you when the job was supposed to go down?”
“No,” Lacroix answered, shaking his head. “He told me he would give me twenty-four hours’ notice, that I would probably hear from him in a week, ten days at most.”
“How was he going to contact you?”
“By phone.”
“Do you still have the phone you used?”
Lacroix nodded and then recited the number associated with the device.
“He called as planned?”
“On the eighth day.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted me to pick him up the next morning at the cove just south of the Capo di Feno.”
“What time?”
“Three a.m.”
“How was the pickup supposed to work?”
“He wanted me to leave a dinghy on the beach and wait for him offshore.”
Gabriel looked up toward the flying bridge where Keller stood watching the proceedings. The Englishman nodded, as if to say there was indeed a suitable cove on the Capo di Feno and that the scenario as described by Lacroix was entirely plausible.
“When did you arrive on Corsica?” asked Gabriel.
“A few minutes after midnight.”
“You were alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I swear.”
“What time did you leave the dinghy on the beach?”
“Two.”
“How did you get back to Moondance?”
“I walked,” quipped Lacroix, “just like Jesus.”
Gabriel reached out and ripped the stud from Lacroix’s right ear.
“It was just a joke,” gasped the Frenchman as blood flowed from his ruined lobe.
“If I were you,” replied Gabriel, “I wouldn’t be making jokes about the Lord at a time like this. In fact, I would be doing everything I could to get on his good side.”
Gabriel glanced up toward the flying bridge again and saw Keller trying to suppress a smile. Then he asked Lacroix to describe the events that followed. Paul, the Frenchman said, had arrived right on schedule, at three o’clock sharp. Lacroix had seen a single vehicle, a small four-wheel-drive, bumping down the steep track from the cliff tops to the cove with only its parking lamps burning. Then he had heard the throb of the dinghy’s outboard echoing back at him across the water. Then, when the dinghy nudged against the stern of Moondance, he had seen the girl.
“Paul was with her?” asked Gabriel.
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, only Paul.”
“She was conscious?”
“Barely.”
“What was she wearing?”
“White dress, black hood over her head.”
“You saw her face?”
“Never.”
“Any injuries?”
“Her knees were bloody and she had scratches all over her arms. Bruises, too.”
“Restraints?”
“Her hands.”
“Front or back?”
“Back.”
“What kind of restraints?”
“Flex-cuffs, very professional.”
“Go on.”
“Paul laid the girl on a couch in the main salon and gave her a shot of something to keep her quiet. Then he came up to the bridge and told me where he wanted me to go.”
“Where was it?”
“The tidal creek just west of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. There’s a small marina. I’ve used it before. It’s an excellent spot. Paul had obviously done his homework.”
Another glance at Keller. Another nod.
“Did you go straight across?”
“No,” Lacroix answered. “That would have brought us ashore in broad daylight. We spent the entire day at sea. Then we went in around eleven that night.”
“Paul kept the girl in the salon the entire time?”
“He took her to the head once, but otherwise …”
“Otherwise what?”
“She got the needle.”
“Ketamine?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“Really.”
“You asked me a question, I gave you an answer.”
“Did he take her ashore in the dinghy?”
“No. I went straight into the marina. It’s the kind of place where you can park a car right next to your slip. Paul had one waiting. A black Mercedes.”
“What kind of Mercedes?”
“E-Class.”
“Registration?”
“French.”
“Unoccupied?”
“No. There were two men. One was leaning against the hood as we came in. The other one was behind the wheel.”
“Did you know the one leaning against the hood?”
“I’d never seen him before.”
“But that wasn’t true of the one behind the wheel, was it, Marcel?”
“No,” Lacroix answered. “The one behind the wheel was René Brossard.”
René Brossard was a foot soldier in an up-and-coming Marseilles crime family with international connections. He specialized in muscle work—debt collection, enforcement, security. In his spare time, he worked as a bouncer in a nightclub near the Old Port, mainly because he liked the girls who came there. Lacroix knew him from the neighborhood. He also knew his phone number.
“When did you call him?” asked Gabriel.
“A few days after I read the first story in the newspaper about the English girl who vanished while on holiday in Corsica. I put two and two together and realized she was the girl I’d dropped at the marina in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.”
“You’re something of a math genius?”
“I can add,” Lacroix quipped.
“You realized that Paul stood to get a lot of ransom money from someone, and you wanted a piece of the action.”
“He misled me about the kind of job it was,” said Lacroix. “I would have never agreed to take part in a high-profile kidnapping for a mere fifty thousand.”
“How much were you after?”
“I try not to make a habit of negotiating with myself.”
“Wise man,” said Gabriel. Then he asked Lacroix how long Brossard waited to return his call.
“Two days.”
“How much detail did you go into on the phone?”
“Enough to make it clear what I was after. Brossard called me back a few hours later and told me to come to Bar du Haut the next afternoon at four.”
“That was a very foolish thing to do, Marcel.”
“Why?”
“Because Paul might have been there instead of Brossard. And he might have put a bullet between your eyes for having the temerity to ask for more money.”
“I can look after myself.”
“If that were true,” said Gabriel, “you wouldn’t be taped to a chair on your own boat. But you were telling me about your conversation with René Brossard.”
“He told me Paul wanted to be reasonable. After that, we entered into a period of negotiations.”
“Negotiations?”
“Over the price of my settlement. Paul made an offer, I made a counteroffer. We went back and forth several times.”
“All by phone?”
Lacroix nodded.
“What’s Brossard’s role in the operation?”
“He’s staying in the house where they’re keeping the girl.”
“Is Paul there with him?”
