wouldn’t want to put myself out too much.”
She smiles as she puts the glasses back on. I can’t tell if I amuse her or annoy her.
She has started calling me “tu” now. “So you let me keep the money, young Lucie, but are you going to work on it too, or do sweet fuck all?”
“I . . . I’d prefer to have someone working with me, in the sense that . . .”
“That you have absolutely no idea where to start. Well, at least that’s clear. Did you bring the file from when you tailed her?”
“It’s all on my laptop.”
I bend down to take it out, but she stops me with a snap of her fingers. “Can you put it on a USB?”
The Hyena has put Valentine’s photo in the middle of the table facing her. “Teenagers aren’t really my thing. They usually have good reasons to clear off, don’t they?”
“She might have been kidnapped.”
She puts her head to one side and seems lost in contemplation of the photo. She has beautiful hands, pale with long fingers, I notice that the nails are bitten down to the quick. She wears an enormous ring with a skull on it, a bit pathetic in my view, who does she think she is, the Keith Richards of the shit-stirrers? She concentrates for a moment on the portrait of Valentine, who is smiling into the camera, three-quarter angle, bright eyes, pretty dimples, glossy hair. Slightly plump. Like all girls her age, in family photos they just look like nice kids. Then the Hyena fixes her eyes on me pensively, there’s something disquieting about the insistence of her gaze.
“Little girls with puppy fat are trying to cover up for their father’s lies.”
Brilliant. I thought I was working with James Bond, and now I’m dealing with a family therapist. I don’t know how to answer in a way that doesn’t seem disagreeable, so I opt for being pragmatic.
“Teenagers go in for a lot of sugary drinks.”
“And why did the family take the step of having her watched?”
“I think they thought Valentine was . . . putting herself in danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
“You’d need to look at the other photos in the file, she . . .”
“Later. So what do they think they’re going to do, to protect her?”
“I haven’t had a chance to discuss that with them . . .”
“But all the time you’ve been doing this job, you must have some idea what the clients want, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. No. I don’t have anything to do with what they get up to, once the tailing’s over.”
“Okay. I want the five thousand euros in exchange for the kid, you can tell the clients to get it ready. And you can also tell them that there’ll be expenses. They’re rolling in it, you said?”
“Yes, but I’m in no position to bargain, because I lost sight of her . . .”
“You lost nothing of the sort. You know exactly when she went missing and where. If she decided to make a break for it, you weren’t being paid to stop her. If she was kidnapped, you weren’t being paid to act as her bodyguard, you were simply following her. What can you possibly blame yourself for? Pull yourself together, and tell her father it’s going to cost him plenty.”
“It’s the grandmother I see for everything. She’s not an easy client to deal with, very aggressive, I don’t know whether . . .”
“Perfectly normal. She wants the job done on the cheap, we’d do exactly the same in her place. But two can play at that game: just because she has a nice try doesn’t mean to say she gets away with it. Do you want me to call her for you? What’s your last name again?”
At once, I’d like to go and get myself a shovel, dig a hole in the ground, bury myself there, and let time pass. The Hyena takes out her phone, asks me for the personal number of the client. She looks as if she’s enjoying herself. I’m not, on the whole. Madame Galtan answers at once. The Hyena adopts a firm and suave voice.
“Madame Galtan? This is Louise Bizer, lawyer at the Paris Bar, I’m working with Mademoiselle Toledo, and please forgive me for troubling you so late, but we . . . Thanks for being so understanding. We have a little problem with the assignment, because Mademoiselle Toledo tells me that there has been no agreement about expenses . . . Of course, Madame Galtan, I quite see that, but you’ll understand that we can’t embark on a matter of such importance, and with such a short deadline, without running up a certain number of expenses, and it could have an unfortunate impact on the results if we had to take the metro all the time, or send you a justification ten pages long, before feeling entitled to take a plane . . . But Madame Galtan, I’m sorry to tell you that the contract you have with the Reldanch Agency doesn’t cover a missing person search . . . No, I don’t know what Monsieur Deucené saw fit to assure you, but what I have in front of me is a signed and sealed contract, which only covers a report on watching your granddaughter . . . Yes, I have been informed about the reward, and if you are aware of the standard procedures in these cases, you will know that it’s the absolute minimum for this kind of thing . . . Oh yes, I assure you. No, it’s not negligible, but it’s certainly well below the usual rate . . .”
She stands up, takes her empty glass to the counter, and signs to Cro-Mag to get her another Coke. An amused smile playing around her lips, she winks at me from a distance. The old bat must be putting up sturdy opposition, but the Hyena looks as blissful as if she’s pulling on a really good joint. After a further ten minutes’ argument, she ends the call and comes back to me looking highly pleased.
“A good sort in the end, our Jacqueline. She’s agreed, she’ll cover any expenses. And she’s given way on the ridiculous deadline of two weeks. We need to take a bit of time over this, or we’ll look like total idiots.”
“I’d never have believed she could be persuaded . . .”
“Don’t bother, the magic word was lawyer. Rich people always try to get away without shelling out, but at heart they believe you have to pay serious money, otherwise you’ll only get poor service, and vice versa. Why wasn’t it the father who asked to have the girl followed?”
“Monsieur Galtan wasn’t too keen on the idea. I gather that it’s the grandmother who’s mostly been concerned with the kid.”
“You don’t take a whole lot of interest in what you do, eh?”
“I’m not used to working on this kind of case.”
“In the future, try and listen to the client when they come to tell you about their case. For one thing it makes them trust you, if they get the impression you’re interested. But above all, if you listen properly, eight times out of ten, it’ll tell you where to start. This truth they’ve come looking for, if it didn’t hurt them so much in the first place, they wouldn’t need our services to hear it. And you’ll see, when you bring along your conclusions, even with photos under their noses, people will refuse to admit what they’re seeing.”
I can see this is going to be a whole lot of fun: If she’s going to lecture me like this the first evening, what’ll
