Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark by Sidney Sheldon, Tilly Bagshawe Page B

heard what had happened to Didier. Nobody deserves to end their life that way.”
    One glance at Hélène Marceau’s face told Matt that she was sincere. This woman did not wish Didier Anjou dead, and clearly had nothing to do with his murder. It was the same story with his other exes. Matt had tracked each of them down. Lucille Camus was now a frail octogenarian, barely able to remember her own name, still less plot a murder of a man she hadn’t seen in decades. Pascale Anjou had remarried a Greek property tycoon and was far too rich to care. Camille, the fourth Madame Anjou, still lived happily with Luc, Didier’s estranged son, on a farm in the Pyrenees. She sounded genuinely upset when Matt contacted her to ask about Didier’s murder.
    Not that Matt had ever had much faith in the “hell hath no fury…” theory, which seemed as flimsy to him as the Mafia link that the police were so keen to pursue. He was sure that the same man who killed his father and Sir Piers Henley had done away with Didier Anjou. But Danny McGuire was right. They needed more than conjecture to build a criminal case, or even to make a half-decent documentary. Matt had to explore every angle.
    Of course, the one ex he really did want to talk to still eluded him. The police claimed that Irina Anjou had returned home to Russia, as she was entitled to do after giving her witness statement. But no one seemed to know where, exactly, she had gone, who her family was or, indeed, anything about her at all. All Matt’s inquiries about Irina had been met by bored Gallic shrugs from the Saint-Tropez police, and few locals seemed ever to have met her. Only one man was willing to talk to Matt about Irina Anjou. Taking his leave of Hélène, Matt Daley set off to meet him.
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    S ET IN THE VERY HEART OF Saint-Tropez’s bustling harbor, Café Le Gorille was the place to see and be seen. Sipping your morning coffee as the superyachts sailed in, ogling the glamorous occupants as they emergedon deck in their Cavalli silk shirts and Eres bikinis, you could almost imagine you were one of their number. Privileged. Golden. Untouchable. And all for the price of a café au lait and an hour sitting on the rather uncomfortable wicker chairs that made the backs of one’s thighs look like you’d sat on a waffle iron.
    Lucien Desforges recognized Matt Daley instantly. Not because they had met before, but because Matt had that earnest, trusting, idiotic look common to untraveled Americans. How odd, Lucien thought, that a nation of people so generally loathed abroad should have such unparalleled faith in their own likability.
    â€œMr. Daley.”
    â€œMonsieur Desforges. Thanks for seeing me.”
    Lucien Desforges had thought twice about agreeing to today’s meeting. He’d had nothing to do with the police since they effectively ignored what he’d told them about Irina Anjou having been violated. “One crime at a time,” the moronic detective in charge had told Lucien, making no effort to record the details of his statement. If the lady declined to report it—and apparently she had—the rape did not officially exist. Less hassle, less paperwork, and everyone was happy.
    Everyone except Lucien Desforges, who still had nightmares about the things he’d seen at Villa Paradis that awful morning. The blood everywhere, on the walls, the carpet, the couches. The horrific wounds to Didier’s neck and face. Irina, naked and bruised, trussed together with her husband’s tattered corpse. Truth be told, he no longer wanted to talk about it, not with this persistent young American, not with anyone. But in the end curiosity got the better of him. Matt Daley claimed that his father had been killed in the same sadistic fashion as poor Didier. There had been a rape in that case too, and Daley seemed convinced that there was a link between the two killings. So convinced that he had given up his