Murder in Belleville Read Free Page A

the vaulted hallway.
    “Directeur Berge, accompany us, please,” said a steel-eyed man dressed in riot gear.
    Bernard stood, holding his head high, then nodded. “Lead the way, Monsieur.”
    Bernard followed them past halls carpeted with eighteenth-century rugs and mirrored walls opening onto a sweeping staircase and a soaring, thirty-foot ceiling. More like a museum than a working ministry, he’d always thought. In Place Beauvau, he was bundled into a waiting black Renault. Once inside, the steel-eyed man pointed to the hazy northeast of Paris. “We’re escorting you there.”
    “Aren’t we going to the Elysee Palace?”
    “They’re waiting for you at the church,” he said.
    “Who’s waiting?” Bernard asked, puzzled.
    “The hunger strikers in Notre-Dame de la Croix.”
    “Aren’t there trained negotiators there?” Bernard said, his voice cracking. He knew a crowd of sans-papiers had taken over a church in Belleville. Some were staging a hunger strike to protest deportation.
    “Seems you’ve been requested.”
    “Requested?” Bernard asked.
    “You’re special,” he said, nodding to the driver who pulled into traffic.
    He had been right, Bernard thought woefully. Things could get worse.

“A NAi’S, WHERE ARE YOU? ” Aimee shouted. At least now she could hear herself. The intense heat drove her to move, to shake off the memories of her father.
    She crawled along the cobbles, then pulled herself up. Someone was crying; she heard yelling in the distance. Her body felt as if someone had beaten her all over with a bat. Long and hard.
    “Over here, Aimee,” Anais moaned, sprawled on the sidewalk. She was pinned down by a large appartement a buer sign, ripped from an adjacent building. The rental sign had probably saved her life, Aimee thought.
    Aimee felt for a pulse. It was weak, but steady. Aimee shook Anais’s shoulders. She groaned. Strands of gold chain, muddied and twisted, drooped from her neck. Her pigeon-eye pink Dior jacket was dotted with bloody red clumps and her blond hair was matted. Black vinyl fragments littered the street.
    “Can you hear me, Anais?” she asked, her voice soothing, as she pulled the sign away. She knelt down and took off Anais’s sunglasses. Luckily for her, they’d shielded her eyes from the blast.
    Anais blinked several times, her eyes regaining focus.
    “Where’s S-S-Sylvie?”
    “Was Sylvie getting into the Mercedes?”
    Anais nodded.
    “She’s gone, Anais,” Aimee said, taking Anais’s chin in her hands and making her meet her gaze.
    Anais blinked again and focused on her, growing lucid.
    “Your hands are shaking, Aimee,” she said.
    “Explosions do that to me,” Aimee said, aware of the burning car just meters away. “Let’s get out of here.”
    Anais saw that there was blood on her skirt. She looked up, past Aimee, her eyes widening in alarm.
    “They’re coming back,” Anais said.
    Aimee scanned the street. People peered from their windows. Several men were running down the street.
    “Who?”
    But Anais had scrambled on all fours, pulling Aimee after her into the number 20 bis door, which had blown ajar.
    “Close the door before they see us!” Anais panted.
    Out of breath, Aimee crawled in, then pushed the massive door shut. Ahead, the red button of a timer light switch gleamed, and she pressed it. The damp floor and dented wall mailboxes were lit by a naked bulb overhead. Of the several mailboxes only one held a name: “E. Grandet.”
    To the right of the staircase, a narrow drafty passage led to the rear courtyard. Newspapers, thrown in a dusty heap, sat under the spiral stairwell.
    “Who are those men?” Aimee asked.
    “The ones who followed me,” Anais said.
    Loud shouting came from the street. What if the men broke down the door? Torn between confronting them or looking for an escape, Aimee froze.
    Now the voices came from outside the massive door. Loud whacks made the door shudder, as if they were attacking the door’s