Dry Bones Read Online Free PDF

cheeks.
    Also in the file was a copy of the page beneath the final entry in the desk diary found in Gaillard’s study. Enzo reflected that Raffin must have had good sources to get hold of material like this. The page containing the final entry itself had been torn out. But because of the impression it had left on the page below, the
police scientifique
had been able to treat the paper in the lab with electrostatic detection equipment to find and then visualise the fibres damaged by the abrasive pressure of the pen. Enzo looked at it carefully.
Mad à minuit
, it read. Evidently, Gaillard had spent some time on the entry, for he had gone over the letters several times, and then surrounded them with idle doodles and curlicues. The kind of doodles he might have engaged in absently during a lengthy telephone conversation. The police had secured phone records for the night before the date of the entry. They showed that there
had
been a phone call—about fifteen minutes long—shortly before ten o’clock. It was the last call registered to Gaillard’s phone, and it had been made from a public call box. In spite of extensive publicity, no one had ever admitted to making the call.
    Enzo frowned and read and re-read the entry.
Mad à minuit
. Many before him had puzzled over it and, in the end, failed to make sense of it. Mad at midnight. Except that there was no such word as
mad
in the French language. And why would he have mixed English and French? It had to be a shortening of another word. Enzo pulled a French dictionary from the bookcase and looked up words beginning with
mad
. There were not many.
Madame
,
mademoiselle
, and
Madeleine
, the French for Magdalene.
Madagascar
and
Madeira
,
Madras
and
Madrid
.
Madalopam
, a strong calico.
Madéfier
, the verb to wet or moisten.
Madone
, the Madonna.
Madriér
, a thick plank of wood.
Madrure
, a mottle on wood or porcelain. A few others. But nothing that chimed.
    The date of the entry was Friday, August 23rd, 1996. So presumably it referred to a rendezvous somewhere at midnight that night. The speculation was that the entry had been made in the course of that final phone call registered to his number the night before. But there was no way to prove it.
    Enzo turned his attention, then, to photographs taken of Gaillard’s apartment, and wondered again how Raffin had managed to get copies. Then he noticed a tiny sequence of figures printed in red in the bottom corner of the prints. 2906’03. A date. These pictures had been taken just a little over three years ago. He frowned. How was that possible? It was ten years since Gaillard had disappeared. He dug into the thigh pocket of his cargos and found his cell phone. He tracked down Raffin’s number and pressed dial.
    Raffin managed to convey sleepy and irritated in a single word. ‘
Oui
?’
    ‘Roger, it’s Enzo.’
    There was a splutter of indignation from the other end. ‘Jesus Christ, Macleod, do you have any idea what time it is?’
    ‘How did you manage to take photographs of Gaillard’s apartment seven years after he’d disappeared?’
    ‘What?’ Raffin was now transmitting a mixture of incomprehension and anger.
    ‘Did you take these photographs of Gaillard’s apartment?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Because the place hasn’t been touched since he vanished. His mother has preserved it. Like a shrine. Except that she refuses to believe he’s dead. She wants it to be there for him, just as he left it, the day he returns.’
    Enzo could hardly believe his luck. A potential crime scene, preserved as in aspic, available for re-examination after ten years. ‘I want to see it.’
    ‘Talk to me tomorrow.’
    ‘No, I want to see it tomorrow. As early as possible. Can you arrange it?’
    He heard Raffin sigh. ‘Call me in the morning.’ He paused. ‘At a civilised hour.’ And he hung up.
    Enzo sat for several minutes contemplating the prospect of being able to revisit Gaillard’s apartment after all these years. No