Read Chapter 22: The Trap Laid

The telephone on Étienne's desk rang at four minutes past eleven. He let it ring twice, watching the harbor through the blinds, before picking up. The voice on the other end was familiar—Bastien, one of Guérini's errand boys, a man with a weak chin and a weaker sense of self-preservation.

"Morel. The boss wants to know about the Saint-Charles storage," Bastien said. "Said you'd have news."

Étienne had no news about Saint-Charles. But he had an idea, forming in the space between heartbeats, and he grabbed it before it could slip away.

"Tell him I've found something better," Étienne said. "The Roquette warehouse on Quai des Belges. Heard the customs rotation is changing next week. There's a gap Tuesday night—the night inspector takes his dinner at the brasserie on Rue de la République. Two hours, maybe more."

A pause. Bastien was not a thinking man, but even he seemed to register the shift in Étienne's voice.

"Roquette's small," Bastien said.

"Small is safe. Guérini wants to move the Haiphong shipment without the harbor master breathing down his neck, he needs somewhere off the main manifest. I can make the Roquette look clean. Paperwork's already half-done."

Another pause. Then: "I'll tell him."

The line went dead. Étienne set the receiver down and looked at his hand. It wasn't shaking. That surprised him.

---

He found Claire at the café near the Vieux-Port, where she took her lunch when she wasn't working the books for her uncle's import business. She saw him coming and her face did something complicated—relief and worry and a question she didn't dare ask in public.

He sat across from her, ordered a coffee he didn't want.

"Tuesday," he said quietly. "You need to be gone by Tuesday morning."

Claire's fingers tightened around her glass. "I thought we had time."

"We don't. Lenoir knows about the photographs. Guérini's men are camped outside my apartment like it's a hunting lodge. And I just did something very stupid that's going to work only if I'm not worried about you when the pieces start moving."

Her eyes searched his. "What did you do?"

Étienne leaned forward, kept his voice low. "I told Guérini's people about a warehouse on Quai des Belges. Made it sound like an opportunity. It's not. It's a trap—Moreau's people will be waiting when the shipment lands."

"You're going to hand Guérini to the police."

"I'm going to hand both of them to each other." He watched her process this. "Lenoir's the connection. He's the reason Guérini's had warning every time the police got close. If I can make them both show up at the same place, at the same time, with the evidence in the middle—they'll do the work for me. Either Lenoir arrests Guérini in front of witnesses, or Guérini realizes Lenoir set him up and removes the problem himself. Either way, I'm gone."

Claire was quiet for a long moment. Then: "You're not coming with me."

"I can't. I need to be here when it happens. If I vanish now, they'll suspect." He reached across the table, took her hand. "Tuesday morning. I'll have someone take you to the train. You'll cross into Italy at Ventimiglia, then keep going until you find a city you like."

"And you?"

"I'll meet you there. A week, maybe two. Soon as the ash settles."

She didn't believe him. He could see it in the way her jaw tightened, the way she refused to look away as if memorizing his face. But she nodded, and that was enough.

"The box," she said. "The one from the pawnbroker. You need to give it to Moreau before Tuesday, or the whole plan falls apart."

"I know. I'll do it tonight."

He paid for the coffee he never drank and left her there, watching the gulls wheel over the harbor.

---

The ledger was exactly where he'd left it, hidden beneath the loose floorboard in the corner of his room. He removed it carefully, felt the familiar weight of it in his hands—years of his life compressed into ink and paper. Everything Guérini had ever moved through this port, every bribe, every name, every date.

He wrapped it in oilcloth, then in a copy of *Le Provençal*, then slid it into the bottom of a market bag alongside some onions and a baguette. If anyone stopped him on the street, he was a clerk going home after shopping. Nothing more.

The Citroën was still parked across the street, engine off, two shapes visible in the front seat. Étienne didn't look at them. He walked the long way to the pawnshop, doubling back twice, taking alleys he knew had no windows. By the time he reached the Rue des Remparts, his collar was damp with sweat.

The pawnbroker was behind his counter as always, reading a racing paper, looking up with the mild surprise of a man who expected no visitors today.

"I told you I'd come back," Étienne said.

The old man's eyes moved to the market bag. "You brought the package."

"I did. And I need to ask you something first."

The pawnbroker set down his paper. Behind him, the shelves glittered with unredeemed watches and wedding rings, all the small tragedies of other people's lives.

"The scar-faced Corsican," Étienne said. "You said he knew my name before the newspaper article. How long before?"

The pawnbroker considered the question for a long time. He was a man who weighed words like gold. "He came in June. Early June. Asked if I knew a clerk at the port who kept good records. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about. He described you—tall, glasses, walks with a slight stoop. Said you had a habit of visiting the Café des Douanes on Thursdays."

Étienne's stomach dropped. He'd taken a drink at the Café des Douanes almost every Thursday for three years. A habit he'd never thought to break because it had never occurred to him that anyone was watching.

"He also mentioned your sister," the pawnbroker added. "Said she had a pretty singing voice. I told him I didn't know anything about that, and he left."

Étienne's hand tightened on the bag. Camille. His sister had been dead for eight years, but there was a time—before she got sick—when she sang at the cathedral choir. A detail so small, so personal, that only someone who had been watching him for months could possibly know it.

"How did he find out?" Étienne asked.

The pawnbroker shrugged. "People talk. Old mothers, old priests, old photographs. Or maybe he just reads old parish records. The point is, he made sure you would understand what he knew. That's not surveillance, Monsieur Morel. That's a warning."

A warning that Étienne had been too blind to see.

He placed the bag on the counter. "Take it. Keep it safe."

The pawnbroker hesitated, then nodded, accepting the weight of the secret along with the bag. "The locker key I gave you—Gare Saint-Charles, number 47. If something goes wrong, you can leave a message there. I check it Wednesdays."

"Thank you."

Étienne left the shop and stood on the street, breathing in the salt air. The ledger was safe. Claire would be gone by Tuesday. Guérini would walk into the Roquette warehouse and find Moreau's men waiting.

But the scar-faced Corsican had known about Camille. And if he knew about Camille, he might know about Claire too.

Étienne began to run.

---

He reached Claire's apartment on the Rue de la Loge in time to see the black Citroën pulling away from the curb. He didn't see the face in the back seat, but he didn't need to. He knew that car, knew the way it moved through traffic, patient and predatory.

Claire met him at the door, pale.

"They were here," she said. "Five minutes ago. They asked about you. Told me you'd been seen with Inspector Moreau." She looked at his face. "They mentioned my name, Étienne. They knew who I was."

He pulled her inside, shut the door. The plan was already collapsing, the threads unraveling faster than he could gather them.

He would have to move sooner. Tonight.