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first some
kind of lunch would appear to be in order.
    Tailler
slammed the door and Hubert read off the name of a restaurant, a
cheap one as he had insisted, provided by their new ally behind the
hotel desk. Impressed as all hell to have a couple of detectives
from Paris staying with them, the fellow had nodded in
understanding and then provided them with several
options.
    “ So how do we play this?”
    Tailler
wasn’t worried about the driver overhearing. The situation could be
managed without naming names. He was referring to the Godeffroy
case.
    Misunderstanding his intent, Hubert shrugged in a
non-committal manner.
    “ I can live with pretty much anything. As long as they have
cold beer, that’s all that’s really important.”
    Tailler
agreed to a certain extent, but the heavy red sauces were not his
favourite. Since becoming a detective and feeling the pressure, his
stomach had rapidly become over-sensitive to hot spices and
anything acidic. He had thought driving Chiefs and Commissioners
and Deputy Chief-Inspectors around was stressful enough.
    Cold
beer sounded good to him as well.
    “ I meant the lady.”
    “ Ah. Well.” Hubert’s eyes took in the driver, seemingly
ignoring them.
    Unlike
most of his breed, this one was apparently not much of a talker
once initial requirements for hard information were met.
    “ Give up nothing—and wring her for everything she’s
worth.”
    The
driver’s eyes found him in the mirror and Hubert looked away. He
didn’t answer to anyone but Maintenon, not in his humble opinion.
In certain disciplinary matters Maintenon would be the least of
their problems. Other than the bare-bones information they had,
perhaps the lady would identify the gentleman in their photos as
her husband. It might be an emotional scene, and yet they really
couldn’t tell her anything.
    If she said, no — that’s not my
husband , then the name might just be a
coincidence. It was hard to see it any other way at this point in
the investigation. At least she wouldn’t be looking at a morgue
shot.
    “ Hmn.” Tailler was beginning to sound like Gilles.
    Hubert
decided that silence was the best policy and let the conversation
drop.
    The
restaurant was apparently all the blessed way across town. Lyon was
an industrial city and the capital of its region. He’d sort of
forgotten its size. Any schoolboy could look it up.
    He
settled into the cushions for a long ride, stomach rumbling and
hoping they could get out of there at the crack of dawn.
Interesting as it was, variety being the spice of life, his real
life was back in Paris.
     
    ***
     
    Lucinde
was tall, slender, and very blonde and blue-eyed. She was an
archetype, as Gilles would have said. She unconsciously lifted a
hand and pulled the fine long hair back, sticking it behind her ear
to hold it in place.
    It was
hard to imagine someone like her ever committing a crime, or ever
having darkness enter her life. And yet tragedy had struck. The
odds were against it, but here it had happened.
    Each
person, every story was unique and to make an assumption was to be
bit on the ass sooner or later. For that reason, Hubert had a
prepared list of twenty questions. Tailler would stick an oar in
somewhere in his inimitable way.
    “ Thank you for speaking with us, Madame.”
    She
nodded sombrely, hands clasped in her lap. Stolidly middle-class by
the appearance of her home, a flat in a prosperous section of the
city, she appeared to be bracing herself for what came
next.
    “ Now, these questions are strictly routine and there is
probably nothing in it. Your husband is Didier Godeffroy, and he is
a traveling representative of Gaston e Cie, a wine
wholesaler?”
    “ Yes, Monsieur.”
    “ Please call me Hubert, everyone else does. We’re going to do
our very best to locate your husband, Madame. In the meantime,
every little bit of information you can give is of value. N’est
pas?”
    She
nodded, intent.
    All
Tailler had said on the phone was that they