Camille Read Online Free PDF Page B

dusted.
    All I need to do now is pick up the bags, walk to the far end of the cul-de-sac and get into the rental car. Actually, we’re not quite done yet. You might say this is just the beginning. Time to settle the scores. Take out the mobile phone, punch in the number that will set off the bomb. I can feel the shock wave from here. I’m a fair distance away, but even at forty metres I feel the rental car shake from the force of the blast. Now that’s an explosion. For the Turks, it’s a one-way ticket to the Gardens of Delight. They’ll be able to feel up a few virgins. A plume of black smoke rises over the roofs of the workshops – most of them are boarded up, the local municipality has the land earmarked for redevelopment. I’ve just given them a helping hand with the demolition. It’s possible to be an armed robber and still have a sense of civic duty. Within thirty seconds, the fire brigade will be on their way. There’s no time to lose.
    Stash the bags of jewellery in a left-luggage locker at the Gare du Nord. Drop the key into a letterbox on the boulevard Magenta.
    My fence will send someone to pick up the haul.
    Finally, assess the situation. They say killers always return to the scene of the crime. I like to respect tradition.
    *
    11.45 a.m.
    Two hours before going to Armand’s funeral, Camille receives a phone call asking whether he knows a certain Anne Forestier. His number is the first entry in the contacts list on her mobile and the last number that she dialled. The call sends a cold shiver down his spine: this is how you learn that someone is dead.
    But Anne is not dead. “She has been the victim of an assault. She has been taken to hospital.” From the tone of the woman’s voice, Camille immediately knows that Anne is in a bad way.
    In fact, Anne is in a very bad way. She is much too weak to be questioned. The officers in charge of the investigation have said they will call round as soon as possible. It took several minutes of heated negotiation with the ward sister – a thirty-year-old woman with bee-stung lips and a nervous tic affecting her right eye – for Camille to get permission to go into Anne’s room. And then only on condition that he not stay too long.
    He pushes open the door and stands for a moment on the threshold. Seeing her like this is devastating.
    At first he can only make out her bandaged head. She looks as though she might have been run over by a truck. The right side of her face is a single, blue-black bruise so swollen that her eyes, barely visible, seem to have withdrawn into her skull. The left side is marked by a gash at least ten centimetres long, the edges where the wound has been sutured are a sallow red. Her lips are split and inflamed, her eyelids blue and puffy. Her nose has been broken and has swollen up to three times its normal size. Anne keeps her mouth slightly open, her bottom gums are bleeding, and a thread of spittle trickles onto the pillow. She looks like an old woman. Her arms, bandaged from her shoulders to her splinted fingers, lie on top on the sheets. The dressing on the right hand is smaller and it is possible to make out a deep wound that has been stitched.
    When she becomes aware of Camille’s presence, she tries to reach out her hand, her eyes fill with tears, then her energy seems to drain away. She closes her eyes then opens them again. They are glassy and expressionless; even her beautiful green irises seem colourless.
    Her head lolls to one side, her voice is hoarse. Her tongue seems heavy and clearly painful where unconsciously she bit into it; it is difficult to make out what she is saying, the labial consonants are inaudible.
    “I feel sore . . .”
    Camille cannot utter a word. Anne tries to speak, he lays a hand on the sheet to calm her, he does not dare to touch her. She suddenly seems nervous, agitated; he wants to do something to help, but what? Call a nurse? Anne’s eyes are shining, there is something she urgently needs to