Dry Bones

Dry Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Dry Bones Read Online Free PDF
Author: Peter May
Tags: Mystery, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General
doubt it had been cleaned after forensics had finished with it. But there was so much you could learn about a man from the space he inhabited. And there was always the possibility that Enzo might see something others had missed.
    The party across the street continued relentlessly. God, did these people not have homes to go to? Enzo adjusted the desk lamp and rubbed his eyes again in the bright light it spilled across the papers strewn over the desktop. He stretched and thought about bed. But his mind was still full of Gaillard, and his eye lighted again on the photocopy of the diary page treated by forensics. He stared at it for a long time, and then screwed up his eyes, inclining his head, and became aware that his heart-rate had suddenly increased. He looked around the apartment, frustrated that it was unlikely to provide the tracing paper he needed. And then he had a thought and crossed to the small, open-plan kitchen where he began going through the drawers. The third one turned up what he was looking for. A roll of greaseproof paper. He tore off a good twelve inches, and took it back to the desk, smoothing it out over the top of the photocopy. Crisp, opaque paper, but thin enough for the lines beneath to show through. Ideal. He reached for a pencil and immediately began the careful process of retracing Gaillard’s final doodles.

Chapter Three
    I.
    Passy is on the green métro line No. 6, which loops right across Paris from Nation in the east to Place Charles de Gaulle and the Arc de Triomphe in the West. It is a short walk up a steep hill from the station to the Place Costa Rica.
    It was a misty morning, cool after the heat of the night before, and Raffin had the collar of his jacket turned up as if he were cold. But he had chosen to sit at a table on the pavement outside the Brasserie Le Franklin. The dregs of a
grande crème
stained his cup,
and the crumbs of a croissant littered the tiny table in front of him. He was reading that day’s edition of Libération, the left-wing daily to which he most often contributed as a freelance. He looked up and frowned as Enzo slumped into the seat beside him. From here they had a view back down the Rue de l’Alboni to where the métro line stretched away above ground, disappearing into the mist over the Pont de Bir-Hakeim.
    ‘You’re late,’ Raffin said. It was all of five minutes beyond their agreed meeting time.
    ‘It happens,’ Enzo said without guilt, remembering the more than twenty minutes Raffin had kept him waiting the night before. ‘Is it all fixed?’
    ‘Of course. She’s waiting for us in the apartment.’
    ***
    The elegant stone façade of Gaillard’s five-storey apartment block was in the Rue Vineuse. Raffin entered the code that unlocked the wrought-iron gate and pushed it open. Through a passage they walked into a small courtyard, glass doors leading to a wood-panelled lobby, where polished brass stair-rods held in place a thick-piled red carpet dressing a marble staircase. Beyond, Enzo could see another, bigger, courtyard, a garden with manicured lawn and shady trees. Everything about the place reeked of wealth.
    Raffin said, ‘Gaillard achieved the aspiration of every ambitious Parisian to be
entre le court et le jardin
.’ Enzo had heard the phrase before. To be between the courtyard and the garden was Paris-speak for having made it. To live almost anywhere in this prestigious sixteenth
arrondissement
was to have made it. It was an area populated by politicians and film stars, TV celebrities and pop idols.
    They took the elevator to the fifth floor, and Madame Gaillard opened tall mahogany doors to let them into her son’s long-empty apartment. She was a surprisingly small woman, shrunken by age, a little unsteady on her feet. Raffin had told Enzo on the way up that she was nearly ninety. As they shook hands, Enzo’s big fingers enveloped hers, and he was afraid to grasp her hand too firmly in case it broke.
    ‘Monsieur Raffin tells me you’re
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