The man slowly hangs up, ignoring the furious, pleading voice on the other end. He smiles a gentle smile.
So the moment he was expecting has arrived. He is somehow relieved; he feels a sense of liberation. The time of furtive steps along walls under the cover and protection of shadow is finished. His face has been unveiled. The man is not the least bit worried – he is simply more vigilant than ever before. Now he will have enemies by the hundreds. Many more than the bloodhounds that had been chasing him so far.
His smile widens. It will all be useless. They will never catch him. The long hours of training that he forced on himself as a sacred duty are seared on his mind like the branding of a slave.
Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I know a hundred ways to kill a man, sir. The best enemy is not the one who surrenders, sir. The best enemy is a dead enemy, sir…
Suddenly, he recalls the imperious voice of the man who forced him to call him sir. His orders, his punishments, the iron fist he used to rule every instant of their lives. As if it were a movie, he visualizes their humiliation, their fatigue, the rain on their bodies, trembling with cold. A closed door, a patch of light getting smaller and smaller on their faces in the dark, the sound of a key being turned in a lock. The hunger, the thirst. And the fear, their only real companion, without the consolation of tears. They were never children, they were never boys, they were never men: only soldiers.
He recalls the eyes and the face of that hard, inflexible man who terrorized them. But, when it all happened that blessed night, it had been fairly easy to overpower him. His young body was a perfect fighting machine and the other man was heavy with age and disappointment. He could no longer fight the force and ferocity that he himself had created and strengthened, day after day.
He had surprised him while he was listening with closed eyes to his favourite record, Stolen Music by Robert Fulton. The music of his pleasure, the music of his rebellion. He had immobilized him with a neck hold, tight as a factory clamp. He had heard his bones crunch in his grasp and had been astonished to discover that, after all, his tormentor was only aman.
He remembers his question, asked in a voice that was not fearful but simply surprised when he felt the cold barrel of the gun against his temple.
What are you doing, soldier?
He remembers his own answer, loud and clear and cold in spite of everything, at the sublime moment of his rebellion, the moment in which all wrongs are righted, all injustices overruled.
I do as you taught me. I kill sir!
When he pulled the trigger, his only regret was that he could kill him only once.
The smile leaves the face of the man who has lost a name borrowed a very long time ago and who is once again nothing more than someone and no one. Names are no longer necessary. Only men and the roles they are forced to play: the man who flees and the man who chases, the strong man and the weak man, the man who knows and the man who is ignorant.
The man who kills and the man who dies…
He turns to observe the room. There is a man in uniform sitting on the couch with his back to him. He sees the nape of his neck rising above the couch, the line of his short hair on his lowered head as he examines a pile of CDs on the coffee table.
The sound of John Hammond’s acoustic guitar is coming from the stereo. The floating sensuousness of the blues re-creates the Mississippi Delta, evoking a lazy summer afternoon, a world of humidity and mosquitoes so far away that it might not even exist.
The man in uniform had some excuse to come into the house, overwhelmed with the boredom of a task that perhaps he finds pointless, leaving the other two cops in the street, victims of the same boredom. He was fascinated by the number of records on the shelves and started to talk about music with a presumption of competence that his words showed to be false.
The man stands looking at the back of the defenceless neck of the man on the couch.
Just sit there and listen to the music. Music doesn’t let you down. Music is both the journey and the destination. Music is the beginning and the end of everything.
The man slowly opens the small drawer of the telephone table. Inside, there is a knife, sharp as a razor. As the man raises it and slowly moves towards the other man sitting with his back to him, the blade reflects the light coming in the window.
The head of the sitting man is bent and he nods it slowly, following the rhythm of the music. His closed mouth hums what he thinks is an accompaniment to the voice of the blues singer.
When he covers that mouth with his hand, the hum goes up an interval and grows more acute. No longer an attempt at singing, it becomes a mute chorus of surprise and fear.
Music is the end of everything…
When he slits his throat, a red spurt comes out so fast that it hits the stereo. The lifeless body of the man in uniform slumps down, head to one side.
There is noise at the entrance of the house. Men are approaching stealthily, his alert, well-trained senses can feel them even without a sound.
As he cleans the blade of the knife on the back of the couch, the man smiles again. The blues ballad, melancholy and indifferent, continues to pour from the speakers that are now spattered with rust and blood.
Frank and Morelli left the Rascasse at full speed, racing down Boulevard Albert Premier. Their Mégane, with its sirens blaring, had joined several cop cars coming from Rue Suffren Raymond. There was also a blue van with tinted windows in which the crisis unit was sitting in combat fatigues. Frank had to admire the efficiency of the Monaco Sûreté Publique. Only minutes had passed since Morelli had sent out the alarm and reinforcements were already arriving.
They turned right on Sainte-Dévote and drove along the harbour towards the tunnel, more or less the route of the Grand Prix in reverse. No racing car had ever driven down that road as urgently.
They emerged from the tunnel at great speed, leaving behind the beaches of Larvotto and heading towards the road that passed the Country Club and continued on to Beausoleil.
Frank had indistinct glimpses of curious onlookers turning their heads as the cars passed. The sight of so many emergency vehicles racing together through the streets of Monte Carlo was rare indeed. In the entire history of the city, the crimes that required so many police could be counted on one hand. The layout of the city was such that there was only one road that entered Monte Carlo and one road that exited, which made it easy to seal one side or the other. No one with half a brain would let himself get caught in that kind of trap.
At the sound of the sirens, the civilian cars pulled over and stopped obediently to let the police pass. Despite their speed, Frank felt like they were driving at a snail’s pace. He wanted to fly, he wanted to… The radio on the dashboard crackled and Morelli leaned over to pick up the mike. ‘Morelli.’
‘Roncaille here. Where are you?’ the radio barked.
‘Right behind you, sir. I’m with Frank Ottobre. We’re following you.’
Frank smiled at the idea that the chief of police himself was in the car ahead of them. Nothing in the world would keep that man from being present at No One’s arrest. He wondered whether Durand was with him. Probably not. Roncaille wasn’t stupid. He had no intention of sharing the glory for catching the worst killer in Europe, if he could help it.
‘Frank, can you hear me?’
‘Yes, he hears you. He’s driving but he can hear. He’s the one who figured out who No One is.’
Morelli wanted to make sure that Frank got the credit he was due. Roncaille’s voice again boomed out of the speaker.
‘Good. Excellent. The Menton police are on their way, too. I had to inform them, since Jean-Loup’s house is in France and that’s their jurisdiction. We need them to authorize the arrest. I don’t want any sleazy lawyers using any cheap tricks when this goes to trial… Frank, can you hear me?’
There was a sputter of static. Frank took the mike from Morelli, holding the steering wheel with one hand.
‘What is it, Roncaille?’
‘I hope for all our sakes that you know what you’re doing.’
‘Don’t worry, we have enough evidence to be sure it’s him.’
‘Another misstep after what happened would be inexcusable.’
For sure, especially since the next name to be crossed off the list is yours.
The police chief’s concern did not stop there, apparently. Frank could hear it even in the garbled sound coming through the receiver.
‘There’s one thing I can’t understand.’
Only one?
‘How was he able to commit those crimes when he was practically barricaded in his house, under the constant surveillance of our men?’
Frank had asked himself the same question and couldn’t give Roncaille an answer. ‘That’s a detail I can’t explain. He’ll have to be the one to tell us, once we get our hands on him.’
Frank took it as a bad sign that they hadn’t yet established contact with the agents in the police car outside Jean-Loup’s house. If they’d gone into action, they should have communicated what was happening. He didn’t tell Morelli of his concerns. In any case, Morelli was no fool and had probably come to the same conclusion.
They pulled up in front of the gate of Jean-Loup’s house just as the inspector from Menton was arriving. Frank noticed that there were no reporters. On any other occasion he would have burst out laughing. They’d been constantly watching the house to no avail, only to abandon the hunt right when their story would have been as juicy as a rare steak. They would probably show up again en masse, but the police cars blocking the road in both directions would stop them. There were already men further down, near Helena’s house, to prevent any attempt of escape down the steep descent to the coast.
The blue doors of the police van opened before it came to a stop. A dozen men from the crisis unit, in blue jumpsuits, helmets and Kevlar bulletproof vests and carrying M-16s, jumped out and prepared to storm the house.
The police car was parked outside, empty. Its doors were closed but not locked. Roncaille himself had gone to check. Frank had a bad feeling. Very bad.
‘Try calling them,’ he told Morelli.
The sergeant nodded as Roncaille walked towards them, with the psychiatrist Dr Cluny close behind. Roncaille was not as incompetent as he seemed, after all. Cluny’s presence would be very helpful in case of negotiations involving hostages. Morelli was calling the agents and getting no answer as Roncaille stopped in front of him.
‘What should we do?’
‘The men aren’t responding, which is not good. At this point, I’d have the crisis unit go into action.’
Roncaille turned and nodded to the head of the assault group awaiting instructions in the middle of the road. The man gave an order and everything happened in a flash. Instantaneously, the unit spread out and disappeared from view. A fairly young but prematurely bald plain-clothesman with the lanky gait of a basketball player got out of the Menton police car and walked over to them. Frank thought he had already seen him among the crowd at Hulot’s funeral. He held out his hand.
‘Hello. I’m Inspector Roberts, Homicide in Menton.’
The two men shook hands as Frank wondered where he’d heard that name. Then he remembered. Roberts was the policeman Nicolas had spoken to the evening that Roby Stricker and Gregor Yatzimin were killed. The one who had gone to check on the phone call to the radio station that had been a hoax.
‘What’s happening? Everything under control?’ Roberts asked as he turned to look at the roof of the house just visible through the cypresses.
Frank recalled the tear-streaked face of Pierrot, who at first had helped but then had destroyed everything that Frank had so laboriously constructed. At the cost of human life.
He wanted to lie to Roberts, but forced himself to tell the truth and to appear calm.
‘Afraid not. Unfortunately the suspect was alerted and the surprise was foiled. There are three men inside who haven’t answered our calls and we don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Hmm. That’s not good. But if it’s three against one-’
Roberts was interrupted by the crackling of Morelli’s two-way radio. The sergeant hurried to answer as he joined the group.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Gavin. We’re inside. We’ve searched the place from top to bottom. It’s safe now but there’s been a slaughter. Three officers are dead. Other than their bodies, there’s no one here.’
The press conference was completely packed. Because they were expecting so many of the media, they had decided to hold it in the auditorium at the Centre Congrès. The hall at headquarters on Rue Notari simply wasn’t big enough.
Durand, Roncaille, Dr Cluny and Frank were sitting before microphones at a long table covered with a green tablecloth. Everybody involved in the investigation was present. In front of them, representatives from the newspapers, radio and television sat in rows of plastic chairs. Frank found the spectacle ridiculous, but the prestige of the Principality of Monaco and of the United States, which he represented as an FBI agent, made it necessary.
It didn’t matter that No One, a.k.a. Jean-Loup Verdier, was still at large. It didn’t matter that when they had entered the house after the attack by the assault unit, they had found it empty and Agent Sorel’s throat cut like a sacrificial lamb. The other two, Gambetta and Megéne, had been shot with the same gun used in the murder of Gregor Yatzimin.
Ubi major, minor cessat – the weak capitulates before the strong.
Certain embarrassing facts could not be revealed and were kept hidden behind the convenient screen of confidentiality. What was being emphasized was the success of the investigation. The identification of the killer, the brilliant joint operation of the Monaco police and the FBI, the criminal’s diabolical mind and the unwavering determination of the investigators, etc., etc., etc.
Camouflaged by that series of etceteras was the killer’s escape, due to unforeseeable events, and his current unknown whereabouts. But it would only be a matter of hours until the man responsible for those horrible murders was captured. All the police forces of Europe were alerted and news of the arrest was expected at any moment.
Frank admired the skill with which Roncaille and Durand steered the tumult of questions. They were both adept at taking centre stage whenever they possibly could and at changing the focus whenever they found themselves on the sidelines.
Neither of them even mentioned Inspector Nicolas Hulot. Frank recalled the photos of the accident, the smashed car, his friend’s body slumped over the steering wheel with his face covered in blood. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and felt the piece of paper inside. Searching every inch of Jean-Loup Verdier’s house for a clue that would explain his escape, he had found an ordinary speeding ticket. The licence plate was that of a rented car. It was dated the day of Nicolas’s death and the location was not far from the scene of the accident. Frank had been led back to Jean-Loup by this simple proof and by the words of someone who had turned out to be an unknowing but effective accomplice: Pierrot.
The secret Frank had asked him to keep as an honourable policeman apparently did not include his dear friend Jean-Loup. Ironically, it was to him and to him alone that Pierrot had confided Frank’s question about the Robert Fulton record. That was how Jean-Loup had realized he’d made a mistake, and then No One had taken off after Nicolas Hulot who was on his quest to find out what he could about the record.
Frank had retraced the inspector’s steps one by one and had learned everything that he had learned. Hulot had discovered the identity of the killer long before they had. And that’s why he was dead. Roncaille’s voice roused Frank from his thoughts.
‘… I will now turn the floor over to the man who succeeded in giving the serial killer known as No One a name and a face: FBI Special Agent Frank Ottobre.’
There was no applause, just a forest of raised hands. Roncaille pointed to a reporter with red hair sitting in the first row. Frank recognized him and prepared himself for a fusillade of questions. Coletti stood up and identified himself.
‘René Coletti, France Soir. Agent Ottobre, have you been able to come up with any motive for why Jean-Loup Verdier mutilates his victims’ faces so horribly?’
Frank tried not to smile.
Two can play at that game.
Frank leaned back in his chair. ‘That’s a question that Dr Cluny is more qualified to answer than I am. I can say that, as of today, we are unable to give a satisfactory motivation behind the methods used in the killings. As Chief Roncaille has already stated, there are still a number of details under investigation. However, there are several elements that we know for certain and can share with you.’ Frank paused for effect. Dr Cluny would have been proud. ‘This certainty comes from the work done previously by Inspector Nicolas Hulot, which I then used to help identify No One. Thanks to an oversight on the part of the killer during the homicide of Allen Yoshida, Inspector Hulot managed to trace him back to an obscure case that happened years ago in Cassis, Provence. It was a violent crime and an entire family was killed. The case was filed away fairly quickly as a homicide-suicide. That judgement will now probably be up for review. I can tell you that the face of one of the victims was disfigured in exactly the same manner as those of No One’s victims.’
The room was abuzz. Other hands shot in the air. A young, vigilant-looking reporter stood up before anyone else. ‘Laura Schubert, Le Figaro.’
Frank gave her the floor with a nod.
‘But wasn’t Inspector Hulot removed from the case?’
Out of the corner of his eye Frank could see Roncaille and Durand stiffen. He smiled at the young woman who was about to hear a different story, the real one.
Up yours, assholes.
‘That’s actually not quite true. It was a misinterpretation by the press of certain declarations, which never mentioned that possibility. Inspector Hulot was simply detached from the inquiry here in Monte Carlo, to be able to follow his lead with the utmost discretion. As you can imagine, this detail was not revealed to the public for a number of reasons. It is with great sorrow that I have to announce that his investigative ability was itself the cause of his death, which did not occur in a simple car accident. Instead, it was yet another murder by No One who, realizing his identity had been discovered, came out in the open to kill again. I repeat, the credit for identifying the person responsible for these murders goes to Commissioner Nicolas Hulot, who paid for it with his life.’
The story didn’t hold water, but it made the journalists sit up and take notice. It was something for the media to tell, which was all Frank wanted. Durand and Roncaille were beside themselves but they tried with all their might to grin and bear it. Morelli, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, sneaked Frank a thumbs-up from under his elbow.
A reporter who spoke French with a heavy Italian accent stood up. ‘Marco Franti. Corriere della Sera, Milan. Can you tell us something more about what Inspector Hulot found out in Cassis?’
‘I repeat, that investigation is still under way and it will be some time before it is concluded. There is only one thing that I can tell you with certainty. We are trying to find out No One’s real name, since we believe that even Jean-Loup Verdier is an alias. Investigations at the Cassis cemetery based on Inspector Hulot’s lead have uncovered the fact that Jean-Loup Verdier is the name of a boy who drowned at sea many years ago while diving, around the time that the violent episode I mentioned earlier took place. The coincidence is suspicious, considering that the boy’s grave is just a few feet from that of the family.’
Another reporter raised his hand and shouted out his question without even standing, miraculously managing to make his voice heard over the uproar.
‘What can you tell us about the incident with Captain Ryan Mosse?’
A sudden silence fell over the room at the mention of one of the affair’s most stinging questions. Frank looked carefully at the reporter and then ran his gaze over all those present.
‘The arrest of Captain Ryan Mosse, who has already been released, was a mistake on my part. I am not looking for excuses or circumstantial evidence, which seemed enough to suspect Mosse of the murder of Roby Stricker at the time. Unfortunately, innocent people can sometimes get entangled in a very complicated investigation. This, however, is not and can never be a justification. I repeat, it was a mistake for which I am solely responsible and ready to face the consequences. Nobody else is to blame. Now, if you will excuse me -’ Frank stood up. ‘Unfortunately, I am still working with the police to capture a very dangerous killer. I am sure that Attorney General Durand, Chief Roncaille and Dr Cluny will be happy to answer the rest of your questions.’
Frank left the table, walked towards where Morelli was standing by the wall and disappeared through a side door. He found himself in a wide, circular hallway adjacent to the conference room. The sergeant joined him moments later.
‘You were terrific, Frank. I’d pay anything for a photo of Roncaille and Durand’s faces when you said that about Inspector Hulot. I’d show them to my grandchildren as proof that there is a God. Now-’
Steps approaching behind them interrupted Morelli. He stared at a point behind Frank.
‘So, we meet again, Mr Ottobre.’
Frank immediately recognized the voice. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the lifeless eyes of Ryan Mosse and the damned soul of General Nathan Parker. Morelli was immediately by his side. Frank sensed his presence and was grateful.
‘Is there a problem here, Frank?’
‘No, Claude, no problem. I think you can go. Right, general?’
‘Of course. No problem. If you will excuse us, sergeant.’ Parker’s voice was cold as ice.
Morelli walked away, not wholly convinced. Frank heard his steps on the marble floor. Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse stood in silence until he turned the corner and disappeared. Then, Parker spoke first.
‘So you did it, Frank. You found your killer. You’re a man with a great deal of initiative.’
‘I might say the same of you, general, although yours are not always initiatives to be proud of. Helena told me everything, in case you’re interested.’
The old soldier didn’t blink an eye.
‘She told me everything about you, too. She told me all about your masculinity, when it comes to taking advantage of a woman who is not in her right mind. You made a big mistake by playing the knight in shining armour. If I remember correctly, I advised you not to get in my way. But you didn’t listen.’
‘You’re a contemptible man, General Parker, and I will destroy you.’
Ryan Mosse stepped forward but the general stopped him with a gesture. He smiled with the duplicity of a serpent.
‘You’re a failure, and like all failures, you’re a romantic, Mr Ottobre. You’re not a man, but only the remnants of one. I can crush you with my bare hand. Now you listen to what I have to say.’ He came so close that Frank could feel the heat of his breath and the slight spray of saliva as he hissed his fury in Frank’s face. ‘Keep away from my daughter, Frank. I can reduce you to a state where you’ll beg me to kill you. If you care nothing for your own safety, then think of Helena’s. I can lock her away in a mental institution and throw away the key, whenever I feel like it.’
The general started circling around him as he continued speaking. ‘Of course, you can join forces and try to defeat me together. Try to spit your poison at me. But remember. On one side, there’s a US Army general, a war hero, military adviser to the President. On the other side, there’s a woman known to be unstable and a man who spent months recovering in a mental institution, after practically forcing his wife to commit suicide. Tell me, Frank, who would they believe? Besides the fact that anything that you two might invent about me would affect Stuart, which is the last thing Helena would want. My daughter already understands that, and promises not to see you or have anything more to do with you. Ever again. I expect the same from you, Mr Ottobre. Do you understand? Never again!’
The old soldier took a step back with the light of triumph in his eyes. ‘However this ends, you’re finished, Mr Ottobre.’
The general spun around and walked off without looking back. Mosse came over to Frank. His face glowed with the sadistic pleasure of striking a man when he is down.
‘He’s right, Mr FBI agent. You’re finished.’
‘That’s something, at least. You, on the other hand, never even got started.’ Frank took a step back, waiting for his reaction. When Mosse tried to make his move, he found the Glock pointed at him. ‘Come on, give me an excuse. Anything at all. The old man has his back covered, but you are neither as useful nor as dangerous as you think.’
‘You’ll end up in my hands sooner or later, Frank Ottobre.’
‘We’re all in the hands of God, Mosse.’ Frank spread out his arms to illustrate the possibility. ‘And that’s not you. Now run after your master and get out of here.’
He stood still in the hallway until Mosse and Barker were gone. Then he put his gun back in the holster and leaned against the wall, slowly slipping down until he was sitting on the cold marble floor. He realized that he was shaking.
Somewhere out there was a dangerous killer, ready to strike. The man had already killed several people including his best friend, Nicolas Hulot. Only a few days before, Frank would have given the rest of his life just to write that killer’s name on a piece of paper.
Now he could think of nothing but Helena Parker, and he didn’t know what to do.
Laurent Bedon left the Café de Paris, caressing the wad of €500 notes in the inside pocket of his jacket. He thought about his incredible luck that night. He had pulled off what every roulette player only dreams of doing. Chevals and en plein on 23 red, three times in a row, with the top bet, the onlookers delirious and the croupier devastated at a practically unheard-of stroke of luck.
He had gone to the cashier and started pulling an endless amount of coloured chips from his pockets, as if his jacket belonged to Harry Houdini. The clerk had not reacted to the size of the win, but he had had to ask the other clerk for more cash because there wasn’t enough in his drawer to cover the amount.
As he retrieved his canvas bag from the cloakroom, Laurent had thought about how, when luck finally decides to play your side, her ability to give poverty a slap in the face is almost embarrassing. He’d gone into the Café de Paris just to pass the time, and in half an hour he had recovered everything he’d lost in the past four years.
He glanced at his watch. Perfect timing. He stood on the pavement for a moment, looking out on the square in front of him. To his left, all the lights of the Casino Municipale were sparkling. Next to the entrance, a BMW 750 was parked at an angle, skilfully lit with spotlights. It was the prize for a game of chemin de fer to be held later that night.
In front of him, the Hôtel de Paris looked like a natural outgrowth of the casino, as if one could not exist without the other. Laurent imagined all the people inside. The maids, the porters and the concierges. The guests who were full of self-importance and stinking rich.
As far as he was concerned, things were finally starting to fall into place. Since the beginning of his collaboration with that American, the wind seemed to have changed direction. He realized full well that Ryan Mosse was dangerous. That was clear from the way he had dealt with Valentin. But he was also extremely generous and, as long as that was the case, nothing else seemed very important. When you got right down to it, what had he asked him to do? Just to pass on what he learned about the No One investigation from the police who were waiting at the radio station for the killer to call. A small task that had given him enough money to plug several holes in the leaky boat of his finances.
He had been deeply disappointed when Mosse was arrested as a suspect in the murder of Roby Stricker. Not that he cared much about either of them. The American was clearly a psychopath and, quite frankly, he belonged right where they had put him, in a maximum security prison in the Rocca. As for Stricker, that playboy wasn’t worth shit; his only value in life was the bimbos on his arm. Nobody would miss him, probably not even his own father. May the little prick rest in peace, amen, was Laurent Bedon’s perfunctory prayer in memory of Roby Stricker.
Laurent’s only regret at the news of Mosse’s arrest had been the loss of his own golden egg. Concern over losing his sponsor, as he called him, had overcome his fear of being accused of spying. The guy didn’t seem the type who would talk easily. The cops would have to work very hard if they wanted to get anything out of him. Mosse was tough, even more so with the backing of General Parker, the father of the murdered girl. Parker was big time, and probably held Mosse’s purse strings, to Laurent’s great benefit.
In any case, he had welcomed the news of Mosse’s release from jail with a sigh of relief and a surge of renewed hope. That hope had turned into genuine triumph when he had received a second e-mail from his rich uncle asking to set up a meeting. He hadn’t asked himself what they could want of him, now that they knew who the killer was. The only thing he cared about was renewing the flow of cash into his pockets.
He could still see Maurice’s suspicious eyes peering at him when he had finally paid back his debt. He had looked down at the money on the desk in the back office of the Burlesque, his sleazy Nice nightclub full of cheap whores, as though it were counterfeit. If Maurice had asked him where the money had come from, Laurent wouldn’t have said a word.
He had left with a scornful air, passing Valentin with his still-bandaged nose, a reminder of his meeting with Captain Ryan Mosse. Their suspicion that he was now under the protection of someone even more dangerous than they were had totally destroyed their condescending attitude towards him.
Monsieur Bedon has paid up. Monsieur Bedon is free. Monsieur Bedon would like you to go fuck yourselves. Monsieur Bedon is out of this shithole.
Laurent adjusted the bag he was carrying on his shoulder and left, crossing the square diagonally, heading straight for the gardens in front of the casino. There were lots of people around. Aside from the season and the usual tourists, the serial killer story had attracted an incredible number of curiosity seekers, in addition to all the journalists. It was back to the buzzing activity of better times, even though, by a strange twist of fate, all that resurgence of life was caused by the close proximity of death. People spoke of nothing else. In the papers, on the radio, on TV, and at home in their own living rooms.
Suddenly, Laurent could see Jean-Loup Verdier before his eyes. Cynical as he was, he could not help shuddering. The idea that he had worked side by side with someone capable of doing what he had done churned Laurent’s stomach. How many people had he killed? Eight, if he wasn’t mistaken. No, nine, counting that Inspector Hulot. Shit. A real slaughter, by a handsome boy with green eyes, a deep voice and a reticent air. A guy who seemed more likely to be chased by a flock of eager women than by Europe’s entire police force.
And he was the one who had started Jean-Loup on his career, who had brought him to the station, only to see himself gradually replaced by the young man’s talent and charisma as a deejay. Now all that was changing, too.
Bikjalo, who was apparently completely shattered by the news of Jean-Loup, had been pushed aside by the station owner. Now all he did was smoke one Russian cigarette after another, and anything he said was just more smoke. The station owner had asked Laurent if he felt up to hosting Voices himself. The events had not lessened the public’s interest in the programme and there was a chance that ratings might shoot up even more with the gruesome fascination created by the violent crime.
Okay, dickheads, where’s your Jean-Loup now?
Laurent had also sold an exclusive interview for a shitload of money to a weekly, and the magazine’s publishers had offered him a sizeable advance for an ‘instant book’ titled My Life with No One. Then there was the unexpected win at Café de Paris, just now, and the night wasn’t even over.
The fact that Jean-Loup was still at large did not bother him in the least. Jean-Loup was no longer a problem. As the police said, it was just a matter of time. Where could a man hide whose pictures were all over the media and in the hands of every police officer from here to Helsinki? Jean-Loup Verdier’s sun had set for ever. Now it was the time for the rise of Laurent Bedon.
To his great surprise, he discovered that he didn’t give a damn about Barbara. Let her stay with her cop, her watchdog. Laurent realized that his stubbornness over the girl had only been caused by the bad times he had been going through. He had seen her as a symbol of his failure, the worst of the refusals he was getting from everyone at the time. Now he was sitting on a small throne and was finally able to make choices. The only thing he wanted, if he could want anything more from her, was to have her come to him with her tail between her legs and admit that leaving him had been a huge mistake. He would have liked to hear her humiliated voice begging him to forgive her and take her back. Just for the chance to tell her the truth. That he no longer needed her.
He sat down on a bench on the right side of the park, the area with the most shadows. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned back to watch the world go by, for once without the feeling that he didn’t belong. Soon after, a man slipped out of the shadows and sat down next to him. Laurent turned to look at him. He was not afraid of his lifeless eyes, as dead as those of a stuffed animal. All the man meant to him was more money.
‘Hello, Laurent,’ the man said in English.
Laurent bowed his head slightly and responded in the same language. ‘Hello to you, too. I’m glad to see you out and about again, Captain Mosse.’
The other man ignored his greeting and immediately got down to the reason he was there.
‘Do you have what I asked for?’
Laurent took the canvas bag from his shoulder and put it on the bench.
‘Here you are. It isn’t everything, obviously. I just casually picked up some material. If you had told me what this was for, I could have-’
Ryan Mosse interrupted him with a gesture. He ignored the implied question and thrust a cheap briefcase at Laurent. ‘Here. This is what we agreed on.’
Laurent grabbed the briefcase and put it on his knees. He clicked open the locks and raised the lid. It was full of row upon row of wads of cash. To Laurent, even in the shadows of the park were brighter than all the lights of the casino. ‘Fine.’
‘Aren’t you going to count it?’ asked Mosse with some sarcasm.
‘You have no way of checking the material that I brought you. It would be tacky for me not to trust you as well.’
Captain Ryan Mosse stood up. The exchange was over. The pleasure of each other’s company was certainly not enough to prolong the encounter, for either of them.
‘Goodbye, Mr Bedon.’
‘Goodbye, Captain Mosse,’ Laurent said, still seated on the bench. He waved. ‘Always a pleasure doing business with you.’
He sat watching the American’s athletic figure walk away with his purposeful, military step that civilian clothes did nothing to hide. He remained on the bench until Mosse disappeared from view. He was in an excellent mood. The evening had been a great success. First the win at the casino and then the briefcase… As the saying goes, money makes more money.
And that’s the way things would continue, he was sure of it. Give it time, he said to himself. Give it time. There was an old adage that even a stopped watch is right twice a day. His watch hadn’t stopped, after all.
Laurent got up from the bench and picked up the briefcase, much lighter than the bag he had given Mosse. He stopped to think for a minute. Enough of Café de Paris for one night. He could not ask for too much luck in one day. He had got a lift to the Place du Casino from Jacques, the sound technician. Now he could take a cab or walk down to the harbour, have a few drinks at Stars’N’Bars, pick up his brand-new car from the lot near the radio station, and go back to Nice. The car wasn’t the Porsche he wanted, but it was only a matter of time. For now, it was enough not to have to take the bus to work from his new pad near Place Pellegrini in the Acropolis district. A small place, but elegant and freshly decorated. The twists of fate. It was right near his old place, the one that had been taken over by Maurice, may he rot in hell.
He looked at the time. It was still early and the night was young. Laurent Bedon walked unhurriedly towards the Hôtel de Paris, full of optimism. For the rest of the evening he would just do whatever he felt like.
Rémy Bretécher put on his helmet and raised the stand of his motorcycle with his foot. Even on the downhill slope, he had no problem holding the Aprilia Pegaso. As excited as he was, he could have propped up his bike with one leg. He’d parked in the Place du Casino, in the area reserved for motorbikes right in front of the Metropole hotel. Through his raised visor, he kept his man in sight as he crossed the garden and walked towards the fountain. Shadowing people was nothing new for Rémy. He usually worked at the Casino of Menton or in Nice, or else in other smaller gambling joints along the coast. Sometimes he even got to Cannes. Monte Carlo was considered off-limits for this type of activity. Too dangerous, too small, too many cops around. There was an insanely large number of plainclothesmen mixed in with the normal clientele of the casinos and Rémy knew it.
That evening, he had simply been a tourist, nosing around to see what people were saying in the Principality about the serial killer. He had gone into the Café de Paris almost by accident and it was only from force of habit that he had noticed the guy with the callow face and the swaggering air who had won three en plein in a row, enough luck to win the national lottery.
Cautiously, he had followed him to the cashier and had seen the amount of dough he had stuffed in his jacket pocket. That had immediately transformed his little vacation into a night of work. Actually, Rémy was a mechanic in a garage just outside Nice that specialized in personalized motorcycles. He was so good with bikes that Monsieur Catrambone, his boss, turned a blind eye on his past. What he was doing now had some years ago earned him a couple of stints in a young offenders’ institution. Those were youthful mistakes caused by lack of experience and a hot temper. Fortunately, he had kept out of jail since then. So far. Nowadays, bag snatching was only a misdemeanour and Rémy was smart enough not to use weapons in his ‘contracts’, as he called them. All told, it was worth the effort. You just needed a little savvy, and a second salary never hurt anyone.
Every once in a while, when he felt that the time was right, he went wandering around the casinos, eyeing solitary players who won large amounts. He would trail them and then follow them on his bike. If they left by car it was a little more complicated. He’d have to follow them home and if they had a garage, there was nothing doing. He’d watch them disappear through the gate or down the ramp with the brake lights on, knowing the evening was a goner. But if they parked in the street, it was a done deal. He’d go over to them while they were standing at the door of their building looking for their keys. It would all happen in a flash. He’d approach them with his helmet on, one hand in his jacket, and he’d tell them to hand over the money. His hand in his pocket could be a simple bluff or it could really mean he had a gun. The sums at stake were not large enough for them to risk their lives, and they’d hand it over double quick. Then, a fast getaway on his bike and it would all be over. All he had to do later on was count the winnings of what he liked to call his ‘cashpoint’ operation.
If his ‘customer’ left the casino on foot, he’d just have to find the right moment – a street without much traffic, no cops in sight and dim lighting if possible – and then do the same routine. It was often a lot faster that way.
Since he dealt with people who went to casinos, Rémy often wondered if what he did was a sort of vice, a gambling addiction, with all that that entails. He had finally reached the conclusion that he could consider himself a sort of healer for those who were addicted: living proof that gambling is the work of the Devil. In other words, he had absolved himself. It had never occurred to him that he was just a petty criminal.
He turned on the ignition and the Aprilia started up obediently, with a soft, powerful hum. He hoped his man wasn’t headed for the taxi stand next to the Hôtel de Paris. In one way, that could simplify things, since a man in a cab doesn’t pull into a garage. It might also mean that the evening was not yet over. Gamblers with winnings often blew their money right away in one of the many nightclubs in Nice. Legalized brothels, really. They’d buy drinks for everyone in sight and end up giving some hooker enough money to feed a family of four for a week in exchange for a blowjob in a private room. Rémy would be bitterly disappointed if the fruit of his labour ended up down some whore’s throat.
He raised his foot from the pedal, shifted into first and reached his man as he was crossing the square near the central flower bed. He stopped and put down the stand, getting off his bike as if he had to check on something hanging in the pannier on the back. He saw with relief that the man continued walking past the only waiting cab. If he went down to Sainte-Dévote, it would be an incredible stroke of luck. There were few pedestrians around there and Rémy would be able to take the road to Nice and disappear down one of the three corniches.
Rémy was particularly excited about this sudden, unexpected little job. From the Café de Paris, he had followed his victim on foot through the gardens. The man had headed close to where Rémy’s motorcycle was parked. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to do the job right then and there, then he just could have jumped on his bike and vanished.
He had seen the man sit down on the bench. Rémy had walked on by without letting himself be noticed once he’d seen the other man sitting next to him. Something strange was going on. The man with the deathly pale face that he had been following had handed the other man a bag slung over his shoulder and had been given a briefcase in exchange.
The thing stank of money – or sweet perfume, depending on how you looked at it. There was a not too remote possibility that the briefcase contained something valuable. The contents of the briefcase, along with the money the man had just won at the Café de Paris, might make that evening a top winner in Rémy’s own personal trophy cabinet.
He had missed his chance when the exchange was over and the two of them had separated. A group of people heading towards the casino had been coming down on the right. Rémy had wondered if he should go for it anyway. Even if his victim cried for help, which he doubted, nobody usually got involved in things like that. Whenever a robbery occurs, people are suddenly obsessed with minding their own business. It wasn’t for nothing that self-defence classes taught students not to yell ‘thief during a robbery. That was a magic word that only made people turn their backs and walk away as quickly as possible. It was much better to yell ‘fire’. Then people would hurry to your rescue. Rémy knew that heroes were few and far between. But there might always be an exception to the rule, and he didn’t want to take that chance.
Rémy started the engine and cut down Avenue des Beaux-Arts, turning left on to Avenue Princesse Alice to keep the prey in view. His man was turning on to Avenue de Monte Carlo, which merged into Avenue d’Ostende. If he hadn’t been gipping his handlebars Rémy would have rubbed his hands together in delight. That stretch of road was practically deserted: the ideal place for people like him to earn their daily bread.
Rémy drove slowly in second gear with his visor up and the zipper of his light weight leather jacket half open, like a regular tourist on his motorcycle, lazily enjoying the warm summer breeze. He spotted his victim not far off, walking leisurely and smoking a cigarette. Excellent.
At the beginning of Avenue d’Ostende, the man crossed the street to the same side as Rémy. He was even carrying the briefcase in his left hand. Rémy could scarcely believe it. He couldn’t have chosen a better setting himself. His man had obviously used up all his luck at the Café de Paris.
Rémy decided to make his move. He took a deep breath, raised the front wheel, and with a push upwards on the handlebars, went on to the pavement.
He was behind his victim, just as he was tossing away his cigarette butt, the briefcase clasped tightly in his hand. Rémy accelerated suddenly and came right up to the man, who turned his head when he heard the noise. Rémy’s fist hit him on the left side of his face, between his nose and mouth.
More from surprise than from the blow, the man fell to the ground, still holding the briefcase tightly. Rémy stopped the motorcycle with a skid of the back wheel. He leaned the bike on the stand and got off as quickly as a cat. He’d modified the bike to meet his needs so that it wouldn’t turn off automatically when he put the lever down.
He went over to the man on the ground, his left hand in his pocket, pushing out his leather jacket.
‘Don’t move or you’re dead!’
Rémy got down on his knees, slipped a hand into the man’s inside pocket, and pulled out the wad of euros. The operation was clumsy and the light material of the lining ripped. Without even looking, he thrust the wad of money into his jacket. Then he stood up and held a hand out to the man.
‘Hand over the briefcase.’
Rémy looked at the guy’s sickly face and weak body. Now, with his nose all bloodied, he looked all the more ready to give out. So it was even more of a shock when the guy suddenly reacted violently. Once he understood that the biker in the leather jacket was mugging him, the guy leapt to his feet and whacked Rémy on the helmet with the briefcase.
Rémy could tell that the man was not really very tough; his reaction was more from instinct than an ability to defend himself. The guy had panicked, that’s all. If, instead of hitting him on his crash helmet, he’d shoved the briefcase between Rémy’s legs with that same force, the man would have broken his balls.
Rémy was a fit young man, in much better shape than his victim. He punched the man in the face and heard a tooth break. If he hadn’t been wearing gloves, he would have hurt his hand.
Luckily, there was still nobody else around, although a car passed on the other side, going uphill. One of the passengers turned around to look. If he realized what was happening and reached the Place du Casino, where there were always a few cops around, things might end badly. He had to hurry.
The man was still not letting go of the briefcase in spite of the second blow, but the two punches had done their job. His nose was pissing blood now, spurting it on to his jacket and shirt. He had tears of pain and rage in his eyes.
Rémy grabbed the handle of the briefcase and pulled with all his might. He managed to tear it out of the man’s hand but as he turned and headed towards the motorcycle, his victim found the strength to reach up and grab Rémy around the neck. Rémy tried unsuccessfully to shake him off. He jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow and felt the man gasp and deflate like a balloon.
He felt the man’s weight leave him, looking down to see him bent double, holding his stomach. To avoid any more surprises, he kicked him in the shoulder. The man slipped backward off the kerb on to the street, just as a large dark sedan was rounding the bend from Avenue d’Ostende at fairly high speed.
Laurent Bedon was hit straight on and the impact threw him to the other side of the street. His head struck the pavement. He died instantly.
He had no time to hear the sound of the motorcycle rushing off, a woman’s hysterical scream, the screech of brakes as another car tried to avoid hitting his inert body on the street. A pool of blood was slowly spreading on the asphalt under his head.
Frank looked at the pile of dispatches on the desk in Nicolas Hulot’s old office. He couldn’t sit in that room without feeling his friend’s presence. All he had to do was turn around and he would see Hulot standing behind him at the window. He leafed through the papers as if shuffling a deck of cards, examining them hurriedly. There was nothing important. They were still up to their ears in shit.
Once the elation of establishing No One’s identity had passed, nothing had really changed. Forty-eight hours after discovering who he was, they had yet to discover where he was.
Frank had never seen such a huge deployment of police. All the forces in the bordering countries and all their special sections for the apprehension of violent criminals, with acronyms that corresponded to ViCAP of the FBI, were on alert. There wasn’t a cop in Europe who didn’t have a series of pictures of Jean-Loup, actual photos as well as computer mock-ups showing possible changes he might have made to his appearance. Streets, ports and public and private airports were full of roadblocks. No car went unexamined, no plane took off without all passengers being searched, no vessel left port without being inspected.
Practically every inch of southern Europe had been searched by every means possible in the manhunt. A demonstration of overwhelming authority was necessary to combat a criminal who had made such a deep impression on the public. The Principality of Monaco had a lot of influence. Some still considered it a Ruritanian state, but that judgement was both hasty and misleading.
Still, however, they had found nothing.
Jean-Loup Verdier, or whoever he was, had disappeared into thin air, which actually made the Monte Carlo police appear less of a failure. If he had managed to elude everyone, if nobody had been able to handcuff him, he was obviously of much higher intelligence than the norm, which justified their failure to that point. The philosophy of ‘a trouble shared is a trouble halved’ could apply even to hunting criminals. Frank thought they might as well try consulting a psychic – they were that desperate.
Jean-Loup’s house in Beausoleil had been turned upside down without finding even the slightest clue. They had managed to get some information about his past by following through with Hulot’s investigation, thanks to the phone number Morelli had found for him. The caretaker at the Cassis cemetery had confirmed that he had told Nicolas the story of La Patience and what had happened there. They concluded that Hulot had most probably been caught and kidnapped by his murderer right at the cemetery.
Their inquiries about Marcel Legrand through the French police had ended up hitting a dead end. Legrand had been a member of the intelligence service at some time in the past and his file was top secret. All they managed to unearth was that at a certain point, Legrand had abandoned active duty and retired to Provence in complete isolation. There was some complicated manoeuvring of diplomatic and state secrets to try to move certain obstacles and open certain doors. Legrand was just a skeleton, but it was still very difficult to get anyone to open the closet. On the other hand, no leads could be neglected, whether they came from the past or the present. No One was dangerous and his freedom threatened the lives of anyone who crossed his path.
Until then, he had killed his prey in delirious attacks that followed scrupulous patterns. Now he was fighting to survive and everyone was the enemy. The ease with which he had disposed of the three agents showed what he was capable of doing. This was no mere radio deejay, a good-looking guy who could play music and answer phone calls. When necessary, he was a top-level fighter. The dead bodies of three highly trained policemen were proof enough.
In the midst of all that, Frank was trying unsuccessfully to push the thought of Helena to the back of his mind. He missed her so much, and knowing that she was a prisoner in the hands of her unscrupulous father was agony. His feeling of helplessness was slowly loosening all his inhibitions. The only thing that kept him from running to the house and strangling the general to death was the certainty that it would only make things worse.
Here I am. This is who I’ve become. A man at a desk who doesn’t know where to start hunting ghosts.
He opened a drawer and stuck the dispatches inside, though he was tempted to throw them in the bin. In the open drawer he saw the floppy disk that he had put there when he had first taken over the office. The label said COOPER in his own handwriting. In the chaos of the last few days, he had completely forgotten Cooper’s phone call and the lawyer, Hudson McCormack, whom Cooper had asked him to check on.
It wasn’t the moment to ask for something like that, but he had to try. He owed it to Cooper and everything they had been through to try to lock up Jeff and Osmond Larkin. He buzzed the intercom and called Morelli.
‘Claude, could you come in here a moment?’
‘I was just about to. Be right there.’
The sergeant walked in the door a moment later. ‘Before you start, there’s something I have to tell you. Laurent Bedon is dead.’
‘When?’ Frank sat up in his chair.
‘Last night.’ Morelli hurried to give him the details, in order to avoid a predictable series of questions. ‘Nothing to do with us. The poor guy was killed during a robbery. He won a bunch of money at the Café de Paris last night and some chicken thief tried to steal it from him, right behind the casino. He fought back, fell into the street, and was hit by a car. The thief got away on his motorcycle. If the licence number a witness gave us is correct, we should catch him in a few hours.’
‘Yeah, but it’s one more death to add to the others in this mess. Christ, it’s beginning to feel like a curse.’
Morelli answered by changing the subject.
‘Aside from that bad news, what was it you wanted?’
‘I need a favour,’ Frank said, remembering why he had called him in.
‘What is it?’
‘It has nothing to do with this. Is there anyone free to trail a suspicious character?’
‘You know what things are like. Right now, we’re even using dog catchers.’
‘Here’s the photo and name of someone who might be involved in a case my partner is on in the States.’ Frank threw the floppy disk on the desk. ‘He’s a lawyer who’s officially here in Monaco for a regatta.’
‘Must be the Grand Mistral. That’s top-class yacht racing. The port of Fontvieille is full of boats.’
‘The guy’s the lawyer of a big-time drug dealer we caught some time back. The theory is that he’s more than just a lawyer and that he’s not here in Monaco just for a sail around the bay, if you know what I mean.’
Morelli went over to the desk and picked up the disk. ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do, but it’s not a good time, Frank. I don’t have to remind you.’
‘Yeah. A bad time. No news?’
‘No news. Not a peep. After a flash of light we’re fighting shadows again. All the cops in Europe are chasing their tails and, as Inspector Hulot said-’
Frank finished his sentence for him. ‘The only thing attached to a tail is an asshole.’
‘That’s right.’
Frank leaned back in the chair. ‘Still, if you want my opinion… and I’m only talking about a feeling…’ He stopped, straightened up in the chair and leaned his elbows on the desk. Morelli sat down in the armchair and waited. He had learned that the American’s feelings needed to be examined very carefully. ‘I think he’s still here. Searching for him all over the world is pointless. No One hasn’t left the Principality of Monaco.’
Morelli was about to reply, but the phone rang and Frank looked at it as if it were asking him a question. He picked up on the third ring and was assaulted by the operator’s excited voice.
‘Mr Ottobre, it’s him on the phone. And he asked for you.’ Frank felt like he’d just been punched in the stomach. There was only one person that could be meant by him.
‘Put him on. And record the call.’
Frank pressed the speakerphone button so that Morelli could hear. He pointed to the phone with a slow movement of his right hand.
‘Hello?’
There was a moment of silence and then a familiar voice came through.
‘Hello, this is Jean-Loup Verdier.’
Morelli jumped from the chair as if he had been shocked. Frank rotated a finger in the air. Morelli answered with a fist and a thumbs-up and ran from the room.
‘Frank Ottobre here. Where are you?’
A short pause and then the deep voice of the deejay.
‘No useless chatter. I don’t need someone to try to talk to me. I need someone to listen. If you interrupt, I’ll hang up.’
Frank remained silent. Anything to keep him on the phone so that his men could trace the call.
‘Nothing has changed. I am someone and no one and I can’t be stopped. That’s why it’s useless to talk. Everything is the same. The moon and the bloodhounds. The bloodhounds and the moon. The only thing missing now is the music. I’m still here and you know very well what I do. I kill
The line went dead. Just then, Morelli came racing in. ‘We got him, Frank. He’s calling from a mobile phone. There’s a car waiting downstairs with a satellite dish.’
Frank jumped up and followed Morelli, running down the stairs four at a time. They shot out into the lobby like two bullets, almost knocking two agents to the ground. The car took off with the doors still open, tyres squealing. It was the same expert driver as the morning that Allen Yoshida’s body was discovered. Frank was glad to see him at the wheel. A plainclothesman was sitting in the passenger seat, looking at the monitor with a map of the city. There was a red dot on a wide street running along the coast.
Morelli and Frank leaned forward into the space between the two front seats, trying to see without blocking each other’s view. The agent pointed to the red dot, which was now moving.
‘That’s the mobile phone that made the call. We found it through satellite signals. It’s in Nice, right around Place Île de Beauté. We’re in luck. He’s on this side of the city. He wasn’t moving before, but from the speed, I’d say he’s on foot.’
Frank turned to Morelli.
‘Call Froben and tell him what’s going on. Tell him we’re on our way and get them there, too. Keep contact so you can tell them the subject’s movements.’
The driver was burning the tarmac.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Frank.
‘Xavier Lacroix,’ the agent answered in a calm voice, as though he were taking a walk rather than shooting down the road like an Exocet missile.
‘Okay, Xavier. If things work out, I’ll do all I can to get you into motor racing.’
The agent stepped harder on the gas, perhaps as thanks for the appreciation. As Morelli spoke excitedly to Froben, Frank turned to look at the display, where the red light was now flashing.
‘What does that mean?’
The agent answered without turning around. ‘He’s making a call.’
‘Can we hear him?’
‘Not with this equipment. All it does is locate the signal.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is knowing where that son of a bitch is.’
They raced along the Basse Corniche at a speed that would have made any Finnish rally champion jealous. The racing driver – Frank thought it was the right thing to call him – drove that fireball through the city traffic with a coolness that comes only with natural talent.
Froben wants to know where-’
‘He’s going up Rue Cassini… Now he’s stopped. He’s making another call.’
There was a small traffic jam at the beginning of the square and Lacroix swerved around it by driving in the wrong direction and then raced up Rue Cassini as though qualifying for the Grand Prix. The agent in front of the monitor gave directions and Morelli passed them on to the Nice police.
‘Left here and go up Emmanuel Philibert.’
‘Emmanuel Philibert,’ repeated Morelli.
‘Right on Rue Gauthier.’
‘Rue Gauthier,’ echoed Morelli.
They turned right practically on two wheels, tyres smoking. When they reached the end of the short street with cars parked on either side, there were police cars blocking the junction with Rue Segurane in spoke formation. The uniformed police were standing in a group near by. One of them was replacing his gun in its holster. They stopped their car next to the others, jumped out, and sprinted over. Froben saw them arrive. He looked at Frank and spread out his arms with the expression of someone who has just stepped in a large pile of shit.
Standing in the middle of all those policemen was a little boy, about twelve, in a red T-shirt, lowrider jeans hanging down to his knees, and Nike sneakers. He was holding a cell phone.
He looked at the policemen one after another, not in the least afraid. Then he flashed a huge grin, revealing a broken tooth, and remarked in earnest, ‘Holy shit, man! Cool!’
It was almost two in the morning when Hudson McCormack pulled up near the wharf at the Fontvieille marina, stopping in front of a large cabin cruiser with blue fenders, moored between two yachts. He got off his scooter and kicked down the stand before taking off his helmet. He had rented a scooter rather than a car, because he thought it would be easier in the Monte Carlo traffic. The city was already chaotic in the summertime and getting around by car was a real drag, despite the many parking garages. But during the regatta, Fontvieille was a huge scrum of people coming and going – crews, media, sponsors and their representatives, not to mention the hordes of fans and onlookers.
Getting anywhere was a constant obstacle course and the best way to wriggle through the commotion was by motorbike. Plus, wearing goggles and a helmet was an excellent disguise to keep from being recognized and stopped at every turn by someone asking about his boat.
Looking at the enormous cruiser, Hudson McCormack thought of the endless debate over yachts and motorboats that often exploded in furious bar-room arguments between aficionados of one or the other. To him, the distinction was meaningless. They were all motorboats, except that a yacht doesn’t have a traditional propeller or gear cranks, cylinders, pistons and fuel located somewhere under the hull. A yacht’s motor is the wind. And like all motors, it has to be analysed, understood, its pulse regulated, and its natural advantages exploited to the utmost.
While watching car races, which he loved, he had seen engines explode in a sudden burst of white smoke. Many times, he had seen single-seaters pull off the track as the others raced past, and the driver would get out of his car and bend over the rear axle, trying to understand what had betrayed him.
It was the same for boats. A yacht was also subject to the whims of its motor – the wind – which twisted, changed direction, rose or fell as it pleased. Unexpectedly, without any warning, the sails could fall limp while just a dozen yards away your opponent’s boat was speeding along with the bright-coloured spinnaker so swollen that it looked like it might burst.
And sometimes that too could happen. The ripping of the sail made a noise like a huge zip, and organized chaos ensued: the excitement of changing the damaged sail, the skipper’s orders, the instructions of the tactician, the crew members crossing the deck like dancers on a moving stage.
Hudson McCormack had no personal explanation for all of that. He only knew that he adored it. He didn’t know why he felt so good when he was at sea, and he didn’t care. You don’t analyse happiness, you live it. He knew he was happy on a boat, and that was enough.
He was suddenly excited for the coming regatta. The Grand Mistral was a sort of dress rehearsal for the Louis Vuitton Cup at the end of the year, which was itself a competition to find a challenger to take on the holder of the Americas Cup. This was when you showed your cards before reshuffling them if you needed to. The crews sized one another up, tried out their boats and tested the innovations designed to make them more competitive. Afterwards, there would be plenty of time to make the necessary changes before the most important and prestigious race of them all.
Everybody came to the Grand Mistral. Experienced crews and newcomers, even absolute beginners like Mascalzone Latino, a new Italian boat. The only one missing was Luna Rossa, the boat sponsored by Prada, still training at Punta Ala.
Hudson’s team’s boat, Try for the Sun, was parked with all its gear in a rented shed equipped for haulage and launching near Cap Fleuri, a few miles from Fontvieille. The workers were staying there too, in spartan but functional accommodation. The boat had to be under close watch twenty-four hours a day, so that prying eyes would not discover the top-secret details. In ocean racing, as in car racing, a revolutionary idea can mean the difference between triumph and defeat. Ideas were unfortunately easy to copy, and everyone tried as hard as possible to keep the details of their boats, the Formula 1 vehicles of sailing, hidden.
Of course it was to their advantage that most of the aerodynamics, so to speak, were located underwater. You never knew what could happen, though. There were oxygen tanks and underwater cameras and unscrupulous people. Someone who was shallower than him – Hudson McCormack smiled to himself at that word – might think such precautions excessive.
But substantial economic interests were at stake as well as the honour of victory. It was not for nothing that all support crews had artificial respirators on board, the ones that use oxygen, not air, invented during the Second World War for underwater attacks. They recirculated carbon dioxide so that divers could approach an enemy ship without revealing their presence through air bubbles rising to the surface.
Wooden legs, eye patches and cutlasses were not in style and the skull and crossbones no longer flew over the ships, but buccaneers were still around. Their progeny were alive and well and spread over the seven seas. Kings and queens no longer dispensed fleets of caravels, but sponsors gave out millions of dollars instead. The men and the boats were different, but the reasons were the same. They had merely substituted a sophisticated weather-forecasting system for what was once ‘the pointing of a moistened finger’ to find out which direction the wind was blowing.
The crew of Try for the Sun, to which Hudson belonged, were staying aboard the yacht flying their sponsor’s corporate colours in the Fontvieille marina. It was all a question of PR. The venture’s backer, an international tobacco company, intended to get as much publicity as possible. And quite frankly, with the amount of money it had put down, Hudson figured it had every right.
The official presentation of the boat and the crew was held at the Sporting Club d’Été. All the members of the team had attended in their sailing uniforms, which Hudson found much more elegant than the tuxedos and evening gowns of the other guests. At one point, the master of ceremonies had requested everyone’s attention: a skilful play of lights, a drum roll from the orchestra, and they had run out from either side of the room to stand in a row in front of the guests, while images of Try for the Sun were projected on the wall behind them. ‘We Are the Champions’ by Queen, arranged especially for the occasion, was played with a large string section to evoke gusts of wind in the sails.
They were introduced one by one and each received a round of applause as he stepped forward at the announcement of his name. They were strong, agile, intelligent men of expertise: the best the sport had to offer. That, at least, was the way they were presented and it was nice to believe it for a little while.
After dinner they had moved on to a nightclub, Jimmy’z. They were athletes and usually behaved themselves. Their mindset and attitude could be described by the adage, ‘Early to bed, early to rise.’ But they were not going to sea the next day and the team management thought that a little moderate partying could only help the crew’s morale.
Hudson locked a chain around his scooter. It was a big chain, covered in clear red plastic to match the scooter itself. They had all told him that there was no need to worry about thieves in Monte Carlo, but this habit was ingrained. He lived in New York City, where people could steal your shirt without even touching your back. Taking precautions was part of his DNA.
He stood on the wharf in front of the large cruiser, lit only by the service lights. There was no movement on the boat. He lit a cigarette and smiled. He wondered what the bosses of the tobacco company would say if they saw him smoking a rival brand of cigarettes. He strolled along the quay to finish his cigarette, leaving the yacht behind him. The person he was waiting for, if he knew anything about women, would not arrive for another half-hour, twenty minutes if he was lucky.
He’d spent the entire evening talking to Serena, a New Zealander he had met by chance at the party. He didn’t really understand what she was doing in Monte Carlo, except that she was there for the regatta. She wasn’t on the staff of any of the teams, each of which required extensive personnel in addition to the crews and reserves: technicians, designers, press agents, trainers and masseurs. One team had even brought a psychologist, though their boat was not considered particularly competitive and gossip around the dockyard had it that he was there more to comfort the crew after losing than to gear them up before the race.
Serena was probably just one of those rich girls who travelled the world on her family’s money, pretending to be interested in one thing or another. Sailing, in this case.
You know, the wind in your hair and the sound of the prow cutting the waves and that liberating feeling…
Or something like that.
Hudson was not usually so susceptible to female charms. Not that he didn’t like women. He was straight as they come and a pretty girl was always a great way to pass the time, especially if she had class. He had his affairs in New York, and they were fulfilling but without commitment, by mutual agreement. He could take off at any time for a regatta without explanations, without tears and handkerchiefs waving on the pier in the hand of a sad girl mouthing the words, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ He liked women of course, but he didn’t need any trophies.
Tonight, however, was special. The lights, the people, the applause – a little narcissism was understandable. He was there doing what he loved most in the world, in one of the world’s most beautiful places. It was captivating. He could not deny that Monte Carlo was magical to him. After all, he was an American through and through. The beauty and uniqueness of the place and all those stories of princes and princesses…
Serena’s eyes had flashed at him. What’s more, under her evening dress she had a gorgeous pair of breasts. They had chatted about this and that. Sailing, of course. Mostly they had discussed sailing gossip, who was who and who did what. Then their conversation had moved to a topic that Hudson was vaguely aware of: the story of the killer who snuck around Monaco disfiguring people. The girl was all worked up. The story had even pushed the regatta into the background. The criminal had killed nine or ten people and he was still at large, which was why there was such a massive number of police in the city. Hudson had thought of his scooter chain: so much for the place where crime was rare.
As they became acquainted, a comforting, promising expression had appeared in Serena’s eyes that said, ‘Knock and ye shall enter.’ And between one glass of champagne and another, Hudson had knocked. A few minutes later, they were both wondering why they were still there, in the middle of all those people.
And that’s why he was pacing up and down the wharf at Fontvieille at that time of night. They had left the disco almost immediately. They had decided that he would go down to the wharf to park his scooter and she would come and pick him up in her car. Serena had told him she had a convertible and had suggested a night drive along the coast.
In other words, a land regatta, free and easy, with the wind in their hair. He suspected their jaunt would begin and end without leaving her hotel room. Not that he minded. Not at all.
He threw his cigarette into the sea and walked back to the cruiser. He went on board in the absolute silence, listening to the gangplank creak under his step. There was nobody around and the sailors were sound asleep. He went down to his cabin next to that of Jack Sunstrom, the skipper. Jack was a terrific guy, but he snored so loudly that he sounded like a go-kart race. Light sleepers needed earplugs to be anywhere near him. The two cabins on either side of Sunstrom’s were chosen by lot and he and John Sikorsky, the tactician, had lost.
There was no noise coming from Sunstrom’s cabin, a sign that he was still at the party or still awake. Hudson removed the jacket of his official uniform, planning to change and put on something less flashy. The affair that evening was one thing; going around town like a colourful tropical fish was another. He put on a pair of blue trousers and a white shirt that showed off his tan. He decided to keep his shoes on – comfortable, cool deck shoes. His all-American looks didn’t require a pair of cowboy boots. He sprayed on a little cologne. Looking at himself in the mirror, he thought that, narcissism aside, a touch of healthy, honest male vanity would add spice to the evening.
Hudson left the boat, trying to make as little noise as possible. The sailors – professionals who worked hard and looked down on regatta crews as spoiled and lazy – were not very understanding about people who disturbed their well-deserved rest.
He found himself back on the pier, alone.
Serena must have decided to go back to her hotel and change before coming to pick him up. Her evening gown and heels were not the right clothes in which to continue the evening, however it would end. And it was quite likely that her own healthy, honest female vanity required a bit more time.
He glanced at his watch and shrugged. There was no need to keep checking the time. He would have the next day all to himself and that allowed for some laziness. Up to a point, anyway.
Hudson McCormack lit another cigarette and pondered his stay in Monte Carlo. It included a few tasks that were not exactly part of the regatta. A classic two-birds-with-one-stone. He had to speak to a few bank directors and see a couple of business people. People who were very, very important for his future.
He ran his hand over his chin, still smooth from his close shave before the fancy event. Hudson knew what he was doing and the risks he was taking. Anyone who saw him as just a good-looking American – healthy, athletic and in love with his sport – was making a big mistake. There was an intelligent, extremely practical mind behind his charming looks.
He was well aware that he didn’t have what it took to be a king of the courtroom. Not because he lacked the ability, but because he simply didn’t want to wait. He had no desire to slave away trying to pull delinquents out of jail when they had every reason to be there. He had suspected for some time that his studies were not particularly suited to his temperament: he had no intention of working his butt off all his life, hobnobbing with the filth of society at whatever level. He did not want to reach the age of sixty-five only to find himself playing golf with other geezers full of money, making sure his dentures wouldn’t fall out on the putting green. He wanted the things that interested him now, at the age of thirty-three, while his mind and body were able to back him up in the fulfilment of his desires.
Hudson McCormack had his own philosophy on life. He wasn’t greedy. He wasn’t interested in villas or helicopters or endless amounts of money or power. In fact, he considered those things more a sort of prison than a sign of success. He pitied the bigshots, the ones who slept two hours a night and spent their days buying and selling bonds or whatever it was from five different phones. They all ended up in intensive care with heart attacks, wondering where it had all gone wrong and why, with all their money and power, they couldn’t buy themselves more time.
Hudson McCormack, the young lawyer, took absolutely no pleasure in arranging the destinies of others: he wanted only to control his own. His ideal life was on the ocean, sailing. The wind in his hair and the sound of the prow cutting through the waves; the freedom to choose the route, any route, according to the moment.
He threw his cigarette butt into the sea. To do what he wanted, he needed money. Lots of money. Not an enormous amount, but a substantial sum. And there was only one way to get it in a hurry: by circumventing the law. That was how he put it. A slight euphemism. Not breaking the law, but circumventing it. Walking along the edge, on the margins, so that he could turn around quickly if someone called, showing his good-boy face and answering ‘Who, me?’ with innocent eyes. He could not deny that there was a risk involved, but he had weighed it up carefully. He had examined the question up and down, front and back, and decided that the risk was, all told, acceptable. There were drugs involved and that was not to be taken lightly. Still, this case was special, very special, as cases involving mountains of money always are.
Everyone knew where drugs were produced and refined and what they were used for. Entire countries based their economies on different kinds of powders, which cost less than talcum powder where they were produced but went up 5,000 or 6,000 per cent once they reached their destination.
The various comings and goings of these operations were part of a horrific war, no less ferocious and well-organized because it was underground. There were soldiers, officers, generals and tacticians who remained in the shadows but were no less capable and determined. And liaising between the various armies were people who had turned money laundering into a professional calling. The business world was not sophisticated enough to turn its back on someone who came with three or four billion dollars, if not more.
Hudson McCormack was not a big enough hypocrite to hide his head in the sand. He knew that what he was doing was a legitimate part of the shit that was destroying the planet. He did not intend to shirk from his own implacable judgement. It was only a question of stimuli, of weights on the scales. For the moment, what he wanted was on one side and had much greater weight than any argument he could put on the other.
He had carefully assessed the situation during long evenings at home, poring over the facts with the same coldness used to analyse the balance sheet of any legitimate company. He believed that he had foreseen everything. He had even made a list of things that were unforeseeable. The possible events and outcomes that couldn’t be known.
In the best-case scenario, he would have enough money to soothe his conscience and get the boat he wanted. Then he would sail around the world, free as the wind. In the worst-case scenario – and he knocked on wood – the consequences would not be that bad. In any case, they would not be enough to ruin his life completely.
He had left himself several outs, which put acceptable limits on the risks. As acceptable as a risk of that kind could be. Everyone has a price, and he knew he was no different. Still, Hudson McCormack was neither corrupt nor greedy enough to raise the price to a rash level that he could not support.
He was pulling the strings. In a very short time, his fee would be deposited into a Cayman Islands bank account, where the first half was already credited. He thought about the person who had made the deposit for him, his client Osmond Larkin, who at that moment was sitting in jail in America.
The man disgusted him; his revulsion had only grown with every meeting. His cruel eyes. His attitude that the world owed him something. His arrogant tone, always smarter than everyone else, turned Hudson’s stomach. Like anyone who thought himself clever, Osmond Larkin was also stupid. Like every cunning person, he could not keep from showing it off, and that was why he was in jail. Hudson would have loved to stand up and tell him so, and then leave the room. If he could have had his way, he would even have violated professional secrecy and told the investigators everything.
But he couldn’t do that.
Besides the risks he had already taken, that option would mean pressing the remote and turning off a TV showing a magnificent yacht cutting through the waves with a handsome man at the tiller.
No, there was nothing he could do. Despite his aversion to Larkin, he had to deal with certain unpleasant things if he was to get everything he wanted. Not everything, he said to himself, but a lot and without delay.
He walked back towards the sponsor’s cruiser. The boats were lost in the darkness. Only the larger ones had on their service lights, reflecting in the water.
He looked around. The wharf was deserted, the bars closed, their plastic chairs piled atop the outdoor tables, the umbrellas down. It seemed strange. It was summer after all, despite the late hour, and summer nights always had impromptu actors onstage. Especially summer nights on the Côte d’Azur. He remembered what Serena had told him about the serial killer. Was that why he was the only person on the pier? Maybe nobody wanted to wander around and chance running into the killer. When people are afraid, they generally seek the company of others in the illusion of protection. In that sense, Hudson was a real New Yorker. If he allowed himself to think like that, he would never leave his apartment.
He heard the engine of an approaching car and smiled. Serena had finally made it. He imagined the girl’s nipples hardening at his touch and he felt a pleasant, warm sensation and a satisfying bulge under his zipper. He would think of some excuse to get her to let him drive. An intriguing image came to him as he waited, of him driving the convertible past the pine trees along the dark haute corniche, the wind in his hair and a lovely New Zealander bent over his lap with his cock in her mouth.
He moved towards the city lights on the other side of the wharf to meet her. He did not hear the steps of the man coming up from behind, for the simple reason that they were silent.
But the arm that encircled his throat and the hand that covered his mouth were made of iron. The blade of the knife, striking him from above, was precise and lethal.
It cut his heart in two.
Hudson’s athletic body doubled in weight and suddenly fell limp in the arms of his killer, who held him effortlessly. Hudson McCormack died with the sight of the castle of Monte Carlo in his eyes, without the satisfaction of one small, final vanity. He never knew how well his white shirt set off the red of his blood.
From her balcony, Helena responded with a smile to her son’s wave as he walked out of the courtyard with Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse. The gate clicked shut and the house was deserted. This was the first time in several days that they were leaving her alone and she was surprised. She could see that her father was following a plan, but she was unsure of the details. She had walked in on her father and his thug in the midst of a conversation that had stopped suddenly as she entered the room. Ever since her involvement with Frank, her presence was considered suspicious, even dangerous. The general hadn’t even considered the idea of leaving her alone with Stuart for an instant. So now that she was left at home, anguish was her only companion.
Before going out, on her father’s orders Ryan Mosse had removed all the phones and locked them in a room on the ground floor. Helena didn’t own a mobile phone. Nathan Parker spoke to her briefly in the tone he used when he would not accept ‘no’ as an answer.
‘We’re going out. You’ll stay here, alone. Need I say more?’ He interpreted her silence as an answer. ‘Good. Let me remind you of just one thing, if I have to. Frank’s life depends on you. If your son isn’t enough to bring you to reason, maybe the other one will be a deterrent for anything you want to do.’
As her father spoke to her through the door that opened on to the garden, she could see Stuart and Mosse waiting for him by the gate.
‘We’ll be leaving here as soon as I finish what I have to do. We have to take your sister’s body home, although that doesn’t seem to matter much to you. When we’re back in the States, your attitude will change, you’ll see. This is just a stupid infatuation.’
When he had returned from Paris and she’d found the courage to throw her affair with Frank Ottobre in his face, Nathan Parker had gone crazy. He certainly wasn’t jealous, at least not the traditional jealousy of a father for his daughter. Nor was it the attachment of a man towards his lover since, as she had told Frank, it had been years since he had forced her to have sexual relations with him.
That seemed to be over for ever, thank God. The mere thought of his hands on her brought back a revulsion that she could still feel years later, which gave her an urgent need to wash. His attentions had stopped as soon as the baby had been born. Even earlier, when she had told him in tears that she was pregnant.
She remembered her father’s eyes when she had told him that she was going to have an abortion.
‘You’re going to do what?’ Nathan Parker had asked, incredulous, as if it were that idea and not the pregnancy that was an abomination.
‘I don’t want this child. You can’t force me to keep it.’
‘And you can’t tell me what I can and cannot do. I am the one who tells you. And you will do nothing, do you understand? N-o-t-h-i-n-g,’ he had enunciated slowly, inches from her face.
‘You will have this child.’ He had handed down his sentence.
Helena would have liked to slash open her womb and pull out what she carried inside with her own bloody hands. Her father had read her mind, which was written on her face. In any case, she had not been left alone for a single moment after that.
To justify her pregnancy and Stuart’s birth in the eyes of the world, Nathan Parker had invented that ridiculous story of the marriage. Parker was a powerful man. As long as national security was not at stake, he was permitted to do almost anything he wanted.
She often wondered why none of the people who associated with her father ever realized how deranged he was. They were important people: congressmen, senators, high-ranking officers, even presidents. Was it really possible that none of them, listening to the words of General Nathan Parker the war hero, suspected that those words came from the mouth and brain of a madman? Perhaps there was a simple explanation. Even if the Pentagon or the White House were aware of the unwholesome aspects of the general’s personality, as long as the consequences were confined to his domestic arrangements, they could be tolerated in exchange for his service to the nation.
After Stuart was born, Parker’s father became possessive of them both in a way that went well beyond his obsessive habits, his unnatural way of loving. Mother and son were not two human beings, but personal property. They were his possessions. He would have destroyed anyone who threatened this situation, which, in his totally lucid but unbalanced mind, he believed to be completely legitimate.
That is why he detested Frank. The agent was standing in his way, opposing him with a personality that was just as strong as his. Despite Frank’s past, Parker realized that his strength was not sickly, but healthy. It didn’t come from hell, it came from the world of men. It was in that guise that Frank had firmly opposed him, refusing to help Parker when the general sought him out – and striking at him when he should have stayed away.
Above all, Frank was not afraid of him.
Nathan Parker considered Mosse’s release from jail – and the fact that FBI agent Frank Ottobre had been forced to admit he was wrong – as a personal triumph. Now, all he needed for absolute victory was to catch Arianna Parker’s killer. And Helena had no doubt that he would succeed. In any case, he would try.
Helena thought of poor Arianna. Her stepsister’s life hadn’t been much better than hers. They didn’t have the same mother. Helena hardly knew her own mother, who had died of leukemia when she was three. Treatment for the disease was not very developed at the time, and she had passed away quickly, despite the family’s wealth. All that was left of her were some photographs and a super-8 movie, a few images of the slightly awkward movements of a thin blonde woman with a gentle face, smiling into the camera. She was holding a little girl in her arms and standing next to her husband, and master, in uniform.
Nathan Parker still spoke of his wife’s death as a personal affront. If he could express his feelings about it in one word, he would say it was intolerable.
Helena had grown up by herself, in the care of a series of governesses who had been replaced with growing frequency as she got older. She had been just a child and hadn’t realized that the women left of their own accord, despite the excellent salary. As soon as they’d breathed the air of that house and discovered what sort of man General Parker really was, they would close the door behind them with a sigh of relief.
Then, without warning, Nathan Parker had come back from a long tour of duty in Europe, something involving NATO, with a new wife, Hanneke, as a souvenir. Hanneke was German, a brunette with a statuesque body and eyes like chips of ice. The general had treated the whole affair in his usual hasty manner. He had introduced Helena to the woman with the smooth, pale skin. A perfect stranger, her new mother. And that’s the way Hanneke remained, not a mother but a perfect stranger.
Arianna was born soon after.
Engrossed in his flourishing career, Parker had left Hanneke to care for the house, which she did with the same icy coldness that seemed to flow through her veins. Their relationship was strictly formal. Helena was never allowed to see her sister as a child. Arianna was another stranger who shared the same house, not a companion who could help her grow up and whom she could help in return. There were governesses, nannies, teachers and private tutors for that.
And when Helena turned into a beautiful adolescent, there was the boy, Andrés. He was the son of Bryan Jeffereau, the landscaper who supervised care of the park around their mansion. In the summer, during school vacations, Andrés worked with the men to ‘gain experience’, as his father had proudly told Nathan Parker. The general was in agreement and often called Andrés a ‘good boy’.
Andrés himself was shy and sneaked furtive glances at Helena from under his baseball cap as he dragged lopped-off branches to the pickup truck to be towed away. Helena had noticed his awkwardness; his embarrassed looks and smiles. She had accepted them without giving anything in exchange, but inside she was aflame. Andrés was not exactly handsome. There were lots of boys like him, not good-looking but not bad-looking either, with manners that suddenly turned clumsy when she was present.
Andrés was the only boy Helena knew. He was her first crush. Andrés smiled at her, blushing, and she smiled back, blushing too. And that was it. One day, Andrés had found the courage to leave her a note hidden in the leaves of a magnolia tree, tied to a branch with green plastic-coated wire. She had found it and stuck it in the pocket of her jodhpurs. Later, in bed, she had taken out the paper and read it, her heart racing.
Now, so many years later, she could not remember the exact words of Andrés Jeffereau’s declaration of love, just the warmth she had felt at the sight of his shaky handwriting. They were the innocuous words of a seventeen-year-old boy with a teenage crush on the girl he saw as the princess of the manor.
Hanneke, her stepmother, who certainly did not live by the rules she set, had walked in suddenly without knocking. Helena had hidden the note under her blanket a little too quickly.
‘Give it to me.’ Her stepmother had come over to the bed and held out her hand.
‘But I…’
Hanneke raised her eyebrows, a cold stare directed at her stepdaughter. Helena’s cheeks had turned red.
‘Helena Parker, I just gave you an order.’
She had pulled out the note and given it to her. Hanneke had read it without the slightest change of expression. Then she had folded it and put it in the pocket of her sweater set. ‘All right, I think this should remain our little secret. We wouldn’t want to cause your father any grief.’
That had been her only remark. Helena had felt an enormous sense of relief and did not realize that the woman was lying, simply because she enjoyed manipulating people’s emotions.
She had seen Andrés the next day. They were alone in the stables where Helena went every day to care for Mister Marlin, her horse. The boy was either there by chance or because he had managed to find an excuse, knowing that she would come by. He had approached her with his face bright red with excitement and confusion. Helena had never noticed the freckles on his cheeks before.
‘Did you read my note?’
It was the first time they had spoken.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘What did you think?’
She hadn’t known what to answer.
‘It… it was lovely.’
Suddenly, plucking up his courage, Andrés had bent over and kissed her cheek.
Helena had turned around and felt like dying. Her father was standing there, framed by the stable door, watching them.
He had come down on the boy in a fury and slapped him so violently that his mouth and nose started to bleed. Then, he had lifted him up off the ground and hurled him like a twig against Mister Marlin’s stall. The horse had backed off with a whinny of fright. Andrés’s nose was dripping blood on to his shirt. Parker had grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up.
‘Come with me, you little bastard.’
He had dragged Andrés to the house and thrown him at Bryan Jeffereau’s feet like an empty sack. His father had stood there with his mouth open and a pair of gardening clippers in his hand.
‘Take your sex maniac son and leave my house immediately. And be grateful that you’re getting away so easily without being charged with attempted rape.’
There was no answer to Nathan Parker’s fury and Jeffereau knew him too well to try. In silence, he had taken his son, his men and his equipment and left for good. Helena never saw Andrés Jeffereau again.
Nathan Parker’s attentions to her had started not long afterwards.
Helena crossed the bedroom that looked out on to the balcony. The bed was cut in two by a ray of light and she noticed that the half bathed in sunlight was the side that Frank had slept on. Frank – the only person in the world to whom she had had the courage to confess her shame.
She left the room and went downstairs.
The happy memory of those few moments spent with Frank were not enough to erase her other memories, long past but still vivid enough to wound her as if it had all happened yesterday.
The world was full of Nathan Parkers. Helena knew it. And she was equally sure that the world was full of women like her, poor frightened girls who cried tears of humiliation and disgust on sheets covered with blood and the very semen that had conceived them.
Her hatred knew no bounds. Hatred of her father and of herself for not being able to rebel when she still could have. Now she had Stuart, the son she loved as much as she hated her father. The son she once would have paid any price to have lost and whom she now refused to lose at any price. But who was he? As hard as she tried, she could find no alibi for her weakness in the face of her father’s violence.
She sometimes wondered if the same sick love that existed in the mind of Nathan Parker also existed like a cancer in her own. Did she continue to submit to the torture because she was his daughter, with the same blood and the same perversion running through her veins? She had asked herself that question time and time again. Strangely enough, there was only one thing that kept her from going insane: the knowledge that she had never found pleasure in what she had been forced to endure, only pain and self-disgust.
Hanneke must have suspected something but Helena never knew for sure. What had happened afterwards was probably just the result of the fire she kept hidden beneath her glacial, formal exterior, a fire that no one had ever noticed, perhaps not even Hanneke herself. In a banal, undramatic manner, simply leaving a letter that Helena had only learned of years later, Hanneke had run off with the family’s riding master, abandoning her husband and daughters. She had taken with her a very large amount of money, the icing on the cake.
The only thing that Nathan Parker had cared about in the whole affair was the discretion with which it was handled. Hanneke had probably been some kind of high-class whore, but she wasn’t stupid. If she had publicly humiliated her husband, the consequences would have been devastating. The man would have followed her to the ends of the earth to get his revenge.
The letter, which Helena had never read, had probably offered an exchange for what the woman knew or suspected about her husband’s behaviour with his daughter. Her freedom and silence in exchange for the very same freedom and silence. The pact had been tacitly accepted. Meanwhile, lawyers for both sides had arranged a hasty divorce to set things straight.
And, as they say, no one was hurt.
Certainly not Nathan Parker, whose lack of interest in his wife had become absolute, like his power over Helena. Certainly not Hanneke, who could now enjoy her money and riding masters wherever she felt like it.
Helena and Arianna, hostages of fate, had been left to pay the consequences of mistakes they had not made. As soon as she was of age, Arianna had left home. After roaming around for a while, she had ended up living in Boston. Her fights with her father had escalated as she grew older. On the one hand, Helena was terrified that the same thing would happen to Arianna that had happened to her. Sometimes she examined Arianna’s face when their father spoke to her, to see whether or not the fear appeared in her eyes. On the other hand, and she cursed herself for the thought, she prayed that it would happen so that she would no longer hear her father’s step as he approached her bedroom in the middle of the night, or feel his hand raising the sheets and the weight of his body in her bed, or…
She closed her eyes and shuddered. Now that she knew Frank and understood what two people could really share when they were intimate, she was even more horrified and disgusted by what she had experienced in those years. Frank was the second man she had ever slept with, and the first with whom she had ever made love.
The ground floor of the house was flooded with light. Somewhere, in that city, Frank was living in the same light and feeling the same emptiness. Helena walked down the hallway leading to the garden doors, passing in front of the room in which the telephones were locked. She stopped at the doorway where she and Frank had exchanged a long look on the night that Ryan had been arrested. That was when she had understood. Had it been the same for him? There had been no trace of emotion in his eyes but her woman’s intuition said that everything between them had started right then.
More than anything else, she wanted him there so she could ask him.
She pulled a mobile phone from her pocket. Frank had brought it to her the second night they had spent together, when he had had to rush off to tell Céline that her husband was dead. She reflected a moment on the enormity of the situation that had required her to hide the phone, something the entire world considered an everyday object.
No, please, Frank, don’t run away from me now. I don’t know how much time I have left. I’m dying at the thought of not being able to see you, and at least if we could speak…
She pressed another button, the one for police headquarters.
The switchboard operator answered. ‘Sûreté Publique. Bonjour.’
‘Do you speak English?’ Helena asked apprehensively.
‘Of course, madame. How may I help you?’
Helena took a deep breath. At least she was spared from stuttering in a foreign language. Hanneke had taught, or rather forced, her and Arianna to speak German. Her father’s second wife hated French, which she called the language of homosexuals.
‘I’d like to speak to Agent Frank Ottobre, please.’
‘Yes, madame. Who may I say is calling?’
‘Helena Parker, thank you.’
‘One moment please.’
The switchboard operator put her on hold and Frank’s voice came to her a few seconds later.
‘Helena, where are you?’
She felt herself blush and that was the only reason she was glad he couldn’t see her. It was as if she had gone back in time and could feel Andrés Jeffereau’s shy kiss on her cheek. She realized that Frank Ottobre had the magical power to restore her innocence. And that discovery was confirmation for Helena that she loved him.
‘I’m at home. My father went out with Ryan and Stuart and I’m alone in the house. Mosse locked up all the phones. I’m using the one you left me.’
‘Bastard. Good thing I thought of giving you a mobile…’
Helena had no idea if the police switchboard operator was listening in on Frank’s calls. He had mentioned that he suspected his mobile phone and home phone at Parc Saint-Roman were being tapped. Maybe that’s why his voice was so brusque. Helena didn’t want to say anything that could harm or embarrass him, but she could feel herself coming apart.
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
Now, she said to herself. Say it now or you never will!
‘I love you, Frank.’
It was the first time she had ever said those words. And the first time she was not afraid to be scared.
There was a pause on the other end. Only a couple of seconds, but to Helena it felt like trees could have been planted and grown high in the time she waited. Then Frank’s voice finally emerged from the phone.
‘I love you too, Helena.’
There, simple. As it should be. With that sense of peace that comes from being right. Now Helena Parker had no doubts.
‘Thank God you exist, Frank Ottobre.’
There was no time to say more. Helena could hear the sound of a door closing in the room where Frank was, muffled by the filter of the phone.
‘Just a minute,’ he said, suddenly cold.
She heard a voice that was not his say words that she could not understand. Then a shout from Frank, the sound of something hitting a wooden surface, followed by a curse, Frank’s voice shouting, ‘Christ, not again, fucking sonofabitch!’
Then his voice on the phone again.
‘I’m sorry, Helena. Only God knows how much I don’t want to leave you right now, but I have to go.’
‘What happened? Can you tell me?’
‘Sure. You’ll read about it in the papers tomorrow anyway. There’s been another killing.’
Frank’s voice was gone and Helena was left looking at the display, confused, trying to figure out how to hang up the cell phone. She was so happy that she didn’t even notice that her first declaration of love had been interrupted by the news of a murder.
Frank and Morelli flew down the stairs as if the lives of all mankind depended on them. How many times, Frank wondered, would they have to repeat this same race before waking from the nightmare? He had been on the phone with Helena, a few moments of peace in the midst of a storm, when Claude had burst in and it had all gone up in smoke. No One had struck again and in the worst way, adding insult to injury.
Christ Almighty, when is this massacre going to end? Who is this man? What can he be made ofto do what he’s doing?
They raced through the glass doors of headquarters and saw a group of policemen huddled around a car. There were already police barricades in the street to keep cars and pedestrians off Rue Suffren Raymond and, in the other direction, halfway up Rue Notari.
Frank and Morelli ran down the outside steps. The agents stood to one side to let them pass. Parked right in front of the entrance, in the last space reserved for police cars, was Jean-Loup Verdier’s Mercedes SLK with its boot open.
Inside was a man’s body. It looked like a bad imitation of the Yoshida murder, a botched attempt done earlier as a dress rehearsal. The dead man was curled up in foetal position inside the car boot. He was wearing blue trousers and a white, bloodied shirt. There was a gaping cut at his heart, which was where the blood had stained the shirt. But, as usual, the worst damage was to his face. The corpse seemed to be staring at the carpet in the boot a few inches from its wide eyes. Frank saw the horrid grimace, the flayed face, the blood clotted on the bald head where a mocking tuft of hair indicated that, this time, the work had been done in a hurry.
Frank looked around. None of the agents seemed nauseated by the sight. You can get used to anything, good or bad.
But this wasn’t something to get used to: it was a curse and there had to be some way to stop it. Frank had to do it, whatever the cost, otherwise he’d wind up once again on the bench of a mental institution, staring vacantly at a gardener planting a tree.
He remembered his conversation with Fr Kenneth. If he were with the priest now, Frank would tell him that at last his convictions had changed. He still didn’t believe in God, but he had begun to believe in the Devil.
‘What happened here?’ he asked loudly, looking at a group of police officers standing a little back from the scene.
An agent came over. Frank didn’t know his name, but remembered that he had been one of the men in charge of guarding Jean-Loup’s house, luckily for him not the day they discovered that Verdier was No One.
‘I noticed a car parked in a no-parking zone this morning. We usually have them removed immediately, but with everything going on these days…’
The agent made a gesture that covered a situation Frank knew all too well. He was aware of the overtime shifts they were all working, the constant coming and going of cars, the bursts of movement to check out the inevitable calls coming in. All kinds of lunatics turned up in cases like this. Already No One had reportedly been seen in dozens of locations, and all of them had to be checked, one by one, without results. Yes, he was aware of the situation. He nodded for the agent to continue.
‘I came out again a little later and I noticed that the car was still in the same place. I thought maybe it was a resident who had some business here. Sometimes they try just leaving their cars there. I went closer to check. I was about to call the traffic department when I thought I recognized the licence number. I was at Beausoleil, at the house-’
‘Yes, I know,’ Frank interrupted brusquely. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, I went up to the car, and I noticed there was a red stain that looked like blood by the lock of the boot. I called Morelli and we forced it open. And this is what we found.’
The agent raised the boot lid all the way so that they could see inside, lifting it with a pen so as not to leave fingerprints.
‘And then there’s this…’
Frank knew what he would see. On the metal, words were traced in blood, the usual mocking phrase left as a commentary of his latest exploit.
I kill…
Frank bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted the semi-sweetness of blood. It was exactly what Jean-Loup had announced during the brief phone call the day before. There would be no more clues, only bodies. This poor human being in a car boot was proof that the war was still on and that this man’s battle had been lost. The car parked right there in front of headquarters was the latest travesty of all their efforts. Frank thought back to the voice of Jean-Loup, finally free and unmuffled, with the noise of the traffic in the background. He had made the call on a cheap mobile phone with a card purchased in some discount electronics store. Then he had left it on a bench. The kid they had stopped had been passing by when he had seen it and picked it up. He had started making phone calls and they had got to him as he was telling his older brother what he had found. He hadn’t seen the person who’d left the phone and there were no prints on it except those of the boy.
Frank looked at the body in the boot. He couldn’t even imagine the media’s reaction this time. How could they explain this new crime?
He didn’t give a damn about Durand and Roncaille, or their jobs. All he wanted was to stay on the case until he caught No One.
‘Do we know who the guy is?’
Morelli, standing on the other side of the car, came around and joined him. ‘No, Frank. He had no documents on him. Nothing at all.’
‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough. He’s young, judging from the skin. If the bastard followed his usual pattern, he’ll be someone well known, about thirty or thirty-five and good-looking. A guy whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some VIP will be along soon to report a missing person and then we’ll know who it is. Let’s try to figure it out first.’
An agent approached them.
‘Sergeant.’
‘What is it, Bertrand?’
‘Just an idea, sir. Probably wrong, but…’
‘What is it?’
‘His shoes, sergeant.’
‘What about them?’
The agent shrugged his shoulders.
‘They’re sailing shoes, sir. I know, because I have a pair.’
‘There are tons of shoes like that, and I don’t think…’
Frank, who was beginning to see where the agent was headed, interrupted Morelli. ‘Let him finish, Claude. Go on, Bertrand.’
‘Next to the logo, these shoes also have a cigarette brand name on them. It might be a sponsor. And since right now…’
Frank suddenly remembered the regatta. He put his hand on the agent’s shoulder. ‘… Since the Grand Mistral, or whatever it’s called, is on now, he might be involved in that. Nice work, Bertrand. Nice work.’
Frank made the comment in a voice loud enough for the other agents to hear him. Bertrand returned to them as if he were the sailor on the Santa Maria who had cried ‘Land ahoy’ to Christopher Columbus.
‘Claude, it sounds plausible,’ Frank said, taking Morelli aside. ‘Let’s look into it. We’ve played all our other cards already. There’s nothing to lose.’
The blue forensic van turned the corner of Rue Raymond and a policeman moved the barricades to let it through. Frank nodded towards the van.
‘I don’t think I need to tell you, but remind them to get the victim’s fingerprints first. In that condition, it’s the only way we can identify him. His dentist might not be available right away to provide his dental records.’
Morelli looked despondent. It was hard to accept that another murder had taken place. Frank let him give the forensic people instructions and headed up to his office. He thought of Helena, summoning up the sound of her voice on the phone, frightened but so confident when she had told him she loved him. The woman who was his salvation was only a few miles way. The world he was striving for was just within reach, but there were two men blocking his way.
First, there was No One, whose homicidal fury meant that he would keep on killing innocent victims until he was stopped. Second, there was General Parker, who killed everything good that stood in his way, until someone did the same to him.
And Frank wanted to be that someone.
Durand, Roncaille, the Minister of State, the Prince, and even the President of the United States could think whatever they liked. Frank felt like a mere workman, far from the rooms where the plans were made. He was the one who stood before the walls to be demolished and rebuilt, in the midst of the cement dust and the smell of mortar. He was the one who had to see the mutilated, flayed bodies and smell the stench of gunpowder and blood. He didn’t want to write immortal pages. All he wanted to do was write a report explaining how and why the man who had committed so many murders was locked in jail.
Then he would think about Parker. With all his psychotic delirium, No One had taught Frank something important. To be ferocious in the pursuit of his goals. And that is exactly how he would pursue the general. With a ferocity that would surprise even Parker, a master of it.
When he got back to the office, he sat down at the desk and tried to call Helena. Her mobile was off. She was probably no longer alone and didn’t want to risk the phone suddenly ringing and revealing that she had one. He imagined her in the house with her jailers, Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse, and Stuart, her only consolation.
He sat thinking for quite some time, his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. Wherever he turned, he found a closed door. Still, he felt that the solution was right there, within reach. There was no doubt as to the effort they were making, or their capabilities. Every one of the men involved in the investigation had a long record of experience. All they were missing was that tiny speck of luck, that crucial ingredient for success. And it was absurd that their relentless bad luck kept happening right there in Monaco, the city of casinos, where WINNING IS EASY is written on every slot machine. Frank wished he could stand in front of a machine and insert enough coins to spin the wheels until the name of the place where Jean-Loup Verdier was hiding would appear.
The door of the office opened suddenly and Morelli burst in, so excited that he forgot to knock.
‘Frank, a stroke of luck.’
Speak of the Devil and let’s hope it really is the Devil this time and not just a ghost.
‘What is it?’
‘A couple of people have come to file charges – well, not really charges, but to express their concern.’
‘Meaning?’
‘A member of the team of Try for the Sun, a boat in the Grand Mistral, is missing.’
Frank took his hands from behind his head and waited for the rest. Morelli went on.
‘He had a date with a girl last night, at the Fontvieille pier. When she drove by to pick him up, he wasn’t there. The girl is a hardass type and this morning she went back to the sponsor’s yacht he’s on to give him a piece of her mind – he can’t treat a woman like her that way, etcetera… Faced with her female fury, a sailor went to call him in his cabin but it was empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘Couldn’t he have made it before he went out this morning?’
‘Maybe, but not likely. The sailors on the yacht get up early and someone would have seen him. And his clothes from last night were scattered all over the cabin. It was the official uniform of the Try for the Sun team that he had been wearing at last night’s ceremonies, a sign that he had gone back to change…’
‘It’s not conclusive evidence, but we have to follow everything. Compare the prints of the corpse with those in the cabin. That’s the surest way…’
‘I already gave the orders. And I told an agent in the area to isolate the cabin. Someone from forensics is on his way to Fontvieille.’
‘What do you think?’
‘The missing person meets No One’s criteria. He’s thirty-three, good-looking, moderately well-known in the sailing world… an American, Hudson McCormack.’
When he heard the name, Frank started so abruptly that Morelli was afraid he would fall off the chair.
‘What’s the name again?’
‘Hudson McCormack. He’s a lawyer from New York.’ Frank stood up. ‘I know, Claude. I know exactly who he is. That is, I don’t know him at all, but he’s the person I told you about, the one I wanted to have watched.’
Morelli slipped a hand in his back pocket and pulled out the floppy disk Frank had given him the day before.
‘The disk’s right here. I just didn’t have time yesterday. I was going to take care of it today.’
Frank and Morelli were thinking the same thing. They both knew what putting off that surveillance had meant. If there had been a man watching McCormack the day before, he might still be alive and they might have Jean-Loup behind bars.
There were just too many ifs and mights in this business. Every one of those words was a stone that could build a tower of remorse.
‘Okay, Claude. Check it out and let me know.’
Morelli threw the now useless floppy disk on the desk and left the room. Frank was alone. He picked up the phone and called Cooper at home, in America, despite the time. When he answered, his friend sounded surprisingly awake.
‘Hello.’
‘Coop, it’s Frank. Did I wake you?’
‘Wake me? I haven’t gone to bed yet. Just got home and my jacket’s still half on. What’s up?’
‘A mess, that’s what. Something crazy. The man we’re looking for, our serial killer, bumped off a man we think is Hudson McCormack last night and skinned him like an animal.’
There was a moment of silence. Cooper probably couldn’t believe his ears.
‘Christ, Frank. The world’s gone nuts. We’re in utter chaos here, too. We’ve got constant terrorist alarms and we’re on alert 24/7. You wouldn’t believe it. Another brick fell yesterday. Osmond Larkin was killed in prison during recreation. There was a fight and he got caught in the middle.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah, nice. After all our work, we’re left empty-handed.’
‘Everyone’s got their problems, Coop. We’re not much better off here. Another corpse this morning.’
‘How many so far?’
‘It’s incredible. Ten.’
Cooper wasn’t aware of the latest developments. He whistled as Frank updated him on the victims.
‘Shit. Is he trying for the world record?’
‘Seems like it. He’s got ten murders on his conscience. Unfortunately they’re on mine, too.’
‘Hang in there, Frank. That’s what I keep telling myself, if it’s any help.’
‘There’s nothing else I can do.’
He hung up. Poor Cooper. Everyone was in trouble. Frank was puzzled for a moment. While waiting for official confirmation on Hudson McCormack and for Roncaille to come in hopping mad at any moment, he was at a loss as to what to do. Just about then, the solemn Roncaille was probably getting a reprimand that he would then be sure to pass on to his men.
Frank took the floppy disk from the desk, turned on the computer and slipped it in. There were two JPEG files and he clicked one open. There was a photograph on the screen, shot in some restaurant, probably without McCormack’s knowledge. He was in a crowded bar, one of New York’s many long, narrow bars, full of mirrors to make it look larger. Hudson McCormack, the lawyer, was sitting at a table talking to someone whose back was to the camera and who was wearing a trench coat with the collar pulled up.
Then he opened the other file. It was an enlarged, grainier version of the same photo. Frank stared at the all-American guy with his hair cut stylishly short, wearing a blue suit that was perfect for someone who spent his time in court.
So that was what the faceless corpse in the boot had looked like not long ago. How could the poor guy have ever imagined, when he left for Monte Carlo for a regatta on the open sea, that his life would end in the boot of a car? And that the last waterproof garment he would wear would be a body bag…
Frank stared at the photo. Suddenly, a crazy idea came to him, like the point of a drill coming through from the other side of a thin wall.
But it was possible.
He opened the contacts program on Nicolas’s computer. His friend had not been a computer person, but he did have an electronic address book. Frank hoped that the number he wanted would be there. He typed the name into the search bar and the corresponding number leapt to the screen, along with the complete name and address.
Before he made the call, he buzzed Morelli.
‘Claude, did you record Jean-Loup’s phone call yesterday?’
‘Of course.’
‘I need a copy. Right away.’
‘Already done. I’ll bring it over.’
‘Thanks.’
Morelli was a good man, laconic but efficient. As he dialled the number, Frank wondered how things were going with Barbara, now that Morelli was no longer hanging around the station. Actually, Claude seemed anything but laconic with her, though just as efficient. His musing was interrupted by the voice that answered the phone.
‘Hello?’
He was in luck. It was just the person he wanted.
‘Hi, Guillaume. It’s Frank Ottobre.’
The boy was not the least bit surprised by the call. He responded as if they had just spoken ten minutes earlier rather than the day Nicolas was killed pursuing the lead that Guillaume had provided. ‘Hey, Mr FBI. What’s up?’
‘I think I need your services again. Just tell me to go screw myself if you feel you can’t handle it so soon after the funeral. Either way, it’d be good to see you, Guillaume.’
‘Don’t worry. I miss Nicolas terribly, of course I do. But I’m not one to dwell on things. If you have a propostion for me, Frank, I accept. Come over any time.’
‘I’ll come over right away.’
Frank hung up and sat staring at the photo of McCormack on the computer before closing the file and ejecting the disk. As Frank looked at the screen, his expression was that of a seasoned gambler watching the ball spin on a roulette wheel.
Frank stopped his Mégane in front of the gate at the road that led to Helena’s house. He got out of the car, surprised to see the gate half open. His heart was racing at the thought of seeing the woman he loved. But he would also see General Nathan Parker, and that made him clench his fists. He forced himself to calm down before going any further. Rage is a bad counsellor, and the last thing he needed was bad advice.
Frank, on the other hand, could give excellent advice. His meeting with Guillaume that morning had been extremely productive. The day before, he had asked the young man to check something out for him. When he had met Guillaume in the wing of his house where he worked, the room was a complete mess. The boy was working on a job and couldn’t free up his machine right away. He had needed that whole evening and night to do what Frank had asked of him. Guillaume had been forced to improvise, but he had landed on his feet. Which had put Frank Ottobre, FBI special agent, back on his feet as well.
When Guillaume showed him the results of his research, Frank was stunned to see how right his complex hypothesis had been. It had seemed like an unrealistic hunch, a half-baked conjecture. He himself had thought it was crazy. But as it turned out…
He’d wanted to give the boy a hug. Instead, he told himself that he had to stop calling him a boy. Guillaume was a man, and a brave one at that. He had realized it when he was leaving the house and Guillaume walked him silently to the gate. They had crossed the garden together, each deep in his own thoughts. Frank had already opened the gate and was about to get in his car, but the expression on Guillaume’s face had stopped him.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know, Frank. A strange feeling. Like a blindfold has just been taken off.’
‘What do you mean?’ Frank knew what he meant, but he asked the question anyway.
‘All of this. It’s like suddenly discovering that there’s another world, something beyond. A world where bad things don’t only happen to others, but to us. People aren’t just killed on TV but on the pavements that you’re walking down…’
Frank had listened to his epiphany in silence. He knew where it was going.
‘Frank, I want to ask you something and I want you to answer honestly. I don’t need the details. Just clear something up for me. What I did for you the other time, and today, will that help you catch the guy who killed Nicolas?’
Frank looked at him and smiled. ‘Sooner or later, when this is all over, you and I will have a talk. I don’t know when that will be, but when we talk I’ll explain exactly how important you’ve been in all this, especially forme.’
Guillaume had nodded and moved to one side, waving uncertainly as the Mégane pulled away.
You were great, Guillaume.
With that thought in mind, Frank walked through the gate and into Helena’s yard. He was taken aback by what he saw. All the windows on the upper floor and all the French doors overlooking the garden were wide open. Inside, a woman with a blue apron was plugging something into the wall. She moved out of his line of vision but he could hear a vacuum cleaner. He saw her approach the French doors, moving the appliance back and forth. On the upper floor, in Helena’s room, another woman in a similar apron came out on the balcony holding a kilim rug. She hung it over the railing and started hitting it with a bamboo carpet beater.
Frank went up to the house. He wasn’t happy. A man walked out the front door. He was elderly and wearing an elegant, light-coloured suit. His Panama hat was in perfect keeping with the house. The man saw him and came over. Despite his youthful air, Frank could tell by looking at his hands that he had to be pushing seventy.
‘Hello, may I help you?’
‘Good morning. I’m Frank Ottobre, a friend of the Parkers, the people who live here…’
The man smiled, showing off a row of white teeth that must have cost him a fortune. ‘Ah, another American. Nice to meet you.’ He held out a firm hand covered with spots. It was more than his age, Frank thought. There was probably something wrong with his liver. ‘The name’s Rouget, André Rouget. I’m the owner of this little place.’ He waved towards the villa with nonchalance. ‘And I’m afraid your friends have left, young man.’
‘Left?’
He seemed genuinely sorry to have to corroborate the bad news.
‘That’s right. Left. I negotiated their lease through an agency, though I usually do it in person. This morning, I came with the cleaning ladies to meet my tenants and I found them in the courtyard with their suitcases ready, waiting for a taxi. The general – you know who I mean – told me that something urgent had come up and they had to leave immediately. A shame, because they had already paid another month’s rent. To be fair, I said I would reimburse them for the amount he overpaid, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Fine man.’
I could tell you exactly how fine he is, you mummified ladies’ man.
‘Do you know where they were headed?’ asked Frank, trying hard to sound only mildly surprised.
Monsieur Rouget had a sudden coughing fit, with enough phlegm to indicate a few cigarettes too many. Frank had to wait for him to pull a handkerchief from his pocket and wipe his mouth before he continued.
‘They were going to Nice. To the airport, I think. They had a direct flight back to the States.’
‘Shit.’ The word escaped Frank before he could stop himself. ‘Pardon me, monsieur.’
‘Don’t worry. It can be liberating to let yourself go.’
‘You don’t happen to know what time their flight was leaving?’
‘No, I’m sorry. Can’t help you there.’
Frank’s expression was not one of joy and Monsieur Rouget, a man of the world, noticed. ‘Cherchez la femme, eh, young man?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I understand your dilemma. The woman, I mean. You’re thinking of the general’s delectable daughter, if I’m not very much mistaken? If I had been expecting to meet a woman like that and found an empty house instead, I’d be disappointed, too. I could write several books about the adventures that went on in this house when I was a young man.’
Frank was extremely agitated. All he wanted to do was leave old Rouget to his Don Juan memories and race to Nice airport. The man grasped his arm and Frank would gladly have broken it. He didn’t like people to touch him under normal circumstances, never mind at a moment like this when he could feel the passing of each second like a bell pealing in his head.
Rouget escaped Frank’s wrath only through what he was saying. ‘I lived a good life, that’s for sure. Completely different from my brother, who lived in the house next door, over there. You can see the roof through the cypresses.’
He took the attitude of someone about to tell a secret that only he knew, which was hard to believe. ‘It’s the home of that crazy sister-in-law of mine who left the house to a young man just because he’d saved her dog. A mutt not even worth the tree he peed on, if you like. I don’t know if you heard about that crazy business. And you know who the young man turned out to be?’
Frank knew exactly who he was, in the greatest detail. And he had no desire to hear it again.
Rouget grabbed Frank’s arm once more. ‘He’s a murderer, a serial killer, the one who killed all those people in Monte Carlo and skinned them like rabbits. Just think: my sister-in-law left a house of that value to a…’
And you rented yours to a real humanitarian. If there was a Nobel Prize for stupidity, this old fart would win.
Oblivious to what Frank was thinking, Rouget let out a deep sigh. A wave of memories was coming.
‘That woman really pulled the wool over my brother’s eyes. Not that she wasn’t beautiful. She was attractive as an en plein in roulette, if you’ll allow me the comparison, but just as dangerous. She made a man want to play again and again, if you know what I mean. We built these houses together, in the mid-sixties. Twin houses standing side by side, but that’s where it ended. I was over here and they were over there. We led separate lives. I considered my brother a prisoner of his wife’s every demand, every little whim. And boy did she have them, bon Dieu. To think that she even…’
Frank wondered why he was still listening to the boasts of an old playboy who could no longer get it up, rather than jumping into his car to get to Nice. For some strange reason, Frank had a hunch that the man was about to say something of significance. And that was exactly what happened. In the middle of his pointless rambling, he said something so important that it threw Frank into a state of both excitement and deep dejection, as he imagined a jet plane taking off with Helena’s sad face at the window, watching France disappear below her.
He closed his eyes. He had grown so pale that the old gentleman was concerned.
‘Is something wrong? Don’t you feel well?’
Frank looked at him. ‘No, I’m fine. Really.’
Rouget expressed his doubt with an appropriately worried look. Frank flashed him a grin that the man misunderstood. The old idiot didn’t realize that he had just revealed where Jean-Loup Verdier was hiding.
‘Thank you, Monsieur Rouget. Goodbye.’
‘Good luck, young man. I hope you find her… but if you don’t, remember, the world is full of women.’
Frank nodded vaguely as he walked away. He was at the gate when Rouget called out to him. ‘Young man?’
Frank turned back, wishing he could tell him to fuck off. He was held back by a sense of gratitude for what the old man had unwittingly shown him. ‘What is it?’
The old man grinned. ‘If you should ever be in need of a lovely house on the coast’ – he waved with a gesture of triumph at the house behind him – ‘this is the place!’
Frank went through the gate without answering. He stopped next to his car, his head hanging down, studying his shoes against the gravel. He had to make a choice, and fast. Finally, he decided to do what was right. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t try, or at least make one attempt, to do both. He pulled out his phone and called the Nice police and asked for Inspector Froben. Moments later, he was connected.
‘Hi, Frank. What’s up?’
‘Christophe, I need a favour, a huge one.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best.’
‘At Nice airport there should be some people departing. General Nathan Parker, his daughter Helena and his grandson Stuart. There’s probably someone else with them, a certain Captain Ryan Mosse.’
‘That Ryan Mosse?’
‘That’s right. You have to stop them. I don’t know how; I don’t know what excuse you can use, but you have to keep them from taking off until I get there. They’re transporting the body of one of No One’s first victims, Arianna Parker. Maybe that could be the excuse. Some bureaucratic red tape or something. It’s a question of life or death. For me, anyway. Can you manage it?’
‘For you, anything.’
‘Thanks, man, you’re the best. Talk to you in a bit.’
Frank then dialled another number, Sûreté headquarters. He asked to speak to Roncaille and they put him on immediately. ‘Chief? Frank Ottobre.’
Roncaille, who had probably been through a hellish two days, came down on him like a tornado. ‘Frank, where the fuck are you?’ Foul language in the mouth of the chief of police was not an everyday occurrence. It meant the storm of the century. Frank held the phone away from his ear. ‘All hell breaks loose here and you disappear? We put you in charge of the case and instead of getting any results, we have more dead bodies on the street than birds in the trees. Before long there won’t be anyone working at Sûreté at all! I’ll be lucky to get a job as a night guard.’
‘Calm down, chief. If you haven’t lost your job yet, I don’t think you will. It’s all over.’
‘What does that mean, it’s all over?’
‘Just that. I know where Jean-Loup Verdier is hiding.’
Now there was silence after the storm. A pause, for reflection. Frank could almost hear Roncaille doubting him. To be or not to be, to believe or not to believe…
‘Are you sure?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent.’
‘That’s not enough. I want 100.’
‘There is no such thing as 100 per cent. Ninety-nine seems more than adequate to me.’
All right, where is he?’
‘First I want something in exchange.’
‘Don’t push it, Frank.’
‘Chief, maybe I should clarify the situation. I don’t give a damn about my career. You’re the one worried about yours. If you say no to what I’m asking, I’ll end this call right now and I’ll be on the first plane out of Nice. And to be perfectly clear, you and your friend Durand can go screw yourselves for all I care. Have I made myself understood?’
Silence. An endless pause. Then Roncaille’s voice again, full of suppressed rage. ‘What is it you want?’
‘I want your word of honour that Inspector Nicolas Hulot will be considered fallen in the line of duty, and that his widow will get the pension that a hero’s wife deserves.’
Third pause. The most important one. To see who had more balls. When Roncaille answered, Frank knew that he did.
‘Okay. Request granted. My word of honour. Now it’s your turn.’
‘Get the men out and tell Sergeant Morelli to call me on my mobile. And start shining up your uniform for the press conference.’
‘Address?’ And Frank finally said what Roncaille had paid to hear.
‘Beausoleil.’
‘Beausoleil?’
‘That’s right. That bastard Jean-Loup Verdier has been in his house this whole time.’
Pierrot looked embarrassed as he took the plastic cup of Coke from Barbara and started drinking.
‘Want some more?’
Pierrot shook his head. He handed her back the empty cup and turned, red-faced, to the table where he was sorting through a pile of CDs.
He liked Barbara, but at the same time she made him feel shy. The boy had a crush on her, which explained his secret looks, long silences and quick escapes as soon as she appeared. He turned scarlet every time she spoke to him. The girl had noticed what was going on some time ago. It was puppy love – if that term could be used with someone like Pierrot – and it deserved respect like all feelings. She knew how deeply this strange boy, who seemed so afraid of the world, could love. Such candour and sincerity could be found only in children. It was the expression of a complete, honest affection, without needing to be returned.
Once Barbara had found a daisy on her mixing desk. When she had realized that Pierrot was the anonymous giver of that simple wild flower, she was overwhelmed with tenderness.
‘Do you want another sandwich?’ she asked, from behind Pierrot’s back.
Again the boy shook his head without turning around. It was lunchtime and they had had a tray of sandwiches sent up from Stars’N’Bars. Aside from the voices and the music being sent out over the airwaves, the radio station had become a realm of silence since the revelation about Jean-Loup. Everyone wandered around like shadows. The station was still being assaulted by reporters like the Alamo by the Mexican army. Every employee was followed, chased and spied on. They all had microphones shoved in their faces, cameras pointed at them and reporters waiting for them at their homes. Yet it had to be said that what had happened more than justified the tenacity of the mass media.
Jean-Loup Verdier, the star of Radio Monte Carlo, had turned out to be a psychopath and a serial killer who was still at large. His unseen presence haunted the Principality of Monaco. Thanks to the morbid curiosity of the public and the media onslaught, the number of listeners had practically doubled the day after the identity of the serial killer was revealed.
Robert Bikjalo – at least the Robert Bikjalo of old – would have done triple somersaults at those ratings. But now he went about his work like a robot, smoked like a chimney and spoke in monosyllables. The rest of the staff were no better. Raquel sounded as mechanical as an answering machine when she took phone calls. Barbara could not stop to think for a moment without feeling like she would burst into tears. Even the owner of the station only called in when absolutely necessary, which was seldom.
And that had been the state of things when they had heard the news of Laurent’s tragic death two days earlier, during a street robbery. It had been the final blow for everyone. They were like the crew of a ghost ship drifting at the mercy of evil currents.
But Pierrot was hit the hardest. He retreated into a worrisome silence and answered questions with only a nod or a shake of his head. While he was at the station, he did his job without seeming to be present. He holed himself up in the archive for hours and Barbara went down from time to time to see if he was okay. At home, he spent all his time listening to music with his headphones on, completely isolated. He no longer smiled. And he no longer turned on the radio.
His mother was desperate over the change in his behaviour. For Pierrot, spending time at Radio Monte Carlo, feeling that he was part of something, earning a little money (his mother never failed to point out to him how important his earnings were to their finances, which filled him with pride), was his door to the world.
His friendship with and hero-worship of Jean-Loup had opened that door wide. Now it was slowly closing and his mother was afraid that if it shut completely, he would never be able to find his way into the world.
It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Yet if she had been able to read his thoughts, she would have been astonished by what was going through his mind. Everyone thought that he was submerged in sorrow and silence because he had discovered that his friend was really a bad man, as he said – the man who called the radio station with the voice of the Devil. Perhaps his simple soul had reacted the way it did because he had been forced to realize that he had placed his trust in someone who was undeserving.
But that was not the case. Pierrot’s faith in and friendship with Jean-Loup had not been diminished in the least by recent events and the revelations about his idol. He knew him well. He had been in his home and they had eaten crêpes with Nutella together and Jean-Loup had even given him a glass of delicious Italian wine called Moscato. It was sweet and cool and had made his head spin a little. They had listened to music and Jean-Loup had even lent him some records, the black ones, the valuable ones, so that he could listen to them at home. He had burned his favourite CDs for him, like Jefferson Airplane and Jeff Beck with the guitar on the bridge, and the last two by Nirvana.
He had never, in all the time they had spent together, heard Jean-Loup speak with the voice of the Devil. On the contrary… Jean-Loup had always told him that they were friends for life, and he had always shown that to be the truth. So, if Jean-Loup always told him the truth, that meant only one thing: the others were lying.
Everyone kept asking what was wrong and trying to make him talk. He didn’t want to tell anyone why he was sad, not even his mother: the main reason was that, since everything had happened, he hadn’t been able to see Jean-Loup. And he didn’t know how to help his friend. Maybe Jean-Loup was hiding somewhere, hungry and thirsty, and there was no one to bring him anything, not even bread and Nutella.
Pierrot knew that the policemen were looking for him and that if they caught him they would put him in jail. He didn’t really know what jail was. He only knew that it was where they put people who did bad things and that they didn’t let them out. And if they didn’t let the people who were inside go out, that meant that people outside couldn’t go in either and he would never see Jean-Loup again.
Maybe policemen could go in and see the people in jail. He used to be a policeman, an honourable policeman. The inspector had told him so, the one with the nice face who didn’t come any more. Someone said he was dead. But now, after the mess he had made, maybe he was no longer an honourable policeman and maybe he would have to stay outside the jail like everyone else, without being able to see Jean-Loup.
Pierrot turned his head and saw Barbara walking towards the director’s booth. He looked at her dark red hair that swayed as she walked, as if it were dancing on her black dress. He liked Barbara. Not the way he liked Jean-Loup. When Jean-Loup’s friend spoke to him or put a hand on his shoulder, it was like that warmth that rose from the pit of his stomach as if he’d drunk a cup of hot tea in one gulp. With Barbara it was different; he didn’t know why, but he loved her. One day, he had secretly given her a tiny flower to tell her. He had even hoped at one point that she and Jean-Loup would get married so that he could see both of them when he went to visit his friend.
Pierrot picked up the pile of CDs and headed towards the door. Raquel clicked the lock open as she usually did when she saw his hands were full. Pierrot went out on to the landing and pressed the lift button with his nose. The others would laugh at him if they saw, but since his nose was doing nothing, it might as well be useful when he had both hands full.
With his elbow he pushed open the lift door and closed it the same way. Inside, he couldn’t use his nose because the buttons were different. He was forced to juggle things, pressing the stack of CDs against his chin so that he could reach the button with his finger.
The lift started to descend. Pierrot’s mind descended as well, following a logic that was linear in its own way. He had reached a definite conclusion. If Jean-Loup couldn’t come to him, then he would go to Jean-Loup.
He had been to visit his friend many times. Jean-Loup had told him that he kept an extra key to the house in a secret place and from then on, only the two of them would know about it. He had told him that the key was stuck with silicone underneath the mailbox inside the gate. Pierrot didn’t understand the word silicone, but he knew what a mailbox was. He and his mother had one at their house in Menton, and their house wasn’t as nice as Jean-Loup’s. He would recognize it when he saw it.
Downstairs, in the room, he had his Invicta backpack that Jean-Loup had given him. Inside it was some bread and ajar of Nutella that he had taken that morning from the kitchen shelf. He didn’t have any Moscato at home, but he had taken a can of Coke and a can of Schweppes and thought that would be okay. If his friend was hiding somewhere at home, he would certainly hear him call and would come out. Where else could he be? They were the only ones who knew about the secret key.
They could sit together and eat chocolate and drink Coke and this time he would say things to make Jean-Loup laugh.
And if Jean-Loup wasn’t there, he would take care of his records, the black vinyl ones. He would clean them, make sure that the covers didn’t get damp and line them up in the right direction to keep them from getting warped. If he didn’t, they would all be ruined when Jean-Loup came home. He had to take care of his friend’s things. Otherwise what kind of friend was he?
When the lift reached the bottom floor, Pierrot was smiling.
Libaud, a mechanic for the motorboat showroom on the floor below the radio station, was waiting for the lift and opened the door. He saw Pierrot inside, his tousled hair sticking up over the pile of CDs. Seeing his smile, he smiled too.
‘Hi there, Pierrot. You look like the busiest person in Monte Carlo. I’d ask for a pay rise if I were you.’
The boy did not have the slightest idea of how to ask for a pay rise. And anyway, that was the last thing that interested him right now.
‘Yes, I will tomorrow,’ he answered evasively.
Before stepping into the lift, Libaud opened the door on the left that led down to the archives. ‘Watch your step,’ he said, as he turned on the light.
Pierrot gave one of his standard nods and started going down. When he reached the archive, he leaned the CDs on the table near the wall, in front of rows of shelves full of records and CDs. For the first time since he had started working for Radio Monte Carlo, he didn’t put away the CDs he had brought down. Instead, he took his backpack and put it on his shoulders, like his friend Jean-Loup had taught him, then turned off the light and locked the door as he did every evening before he went home. Except that now he was not going home. He climbed back up the stairs and found himself in the lobby, the large hallway that ended at the glass doors. Beyond those doors lay the harbour, the city and the world. And hidden there somewhere was the friend who needed him.
Pierrot did something he had never done before in all his life. He pushed open the door, took a step and went out to face the world all by himself.
Frank waited for Morelli in his Mégane at the construction site outside Jean-Loup Verdier’s house. It was a hot day and he kept the engine running so that he could retain the benefit of the air-conditioning. He kept glancing at his watch as he waited for Morelli and Roncaille’s men.
His head was full of images of Nathan Parker and his group at Nice airport. The general was probably sitting impatiently with Helena and Stuart next to him while Ryan Mosse checked them in. He could see the massive figure of Froben, or someone like him, telling the old general that there was some bureaucratic difficulty and for the moment he would not be able to leave. Frank couldn’t imagine what Froben would invent, but he could easily guess the old man’s reaction. He wouldn’t want to be in the inspector’s shoes.
The absurdity of the cliché made him smile. Actually, that was exactly what he wanted. Just then, he wanted to be at the airport, doing in person what he had asked of Froben. He wanted to take Nathan Parker aside and finally tell him what he had always wanted to say. He was dying to. No inventing, just clearing a few things up.
Instead, he was sitting there, tasting each passing moment like salt on his tongue, checking his watch every thirty seconds as if thirty minutes had passed.
He forced himself to put those thoughts out of his mind. He focused on Roncaille instead. And that was another problem. The chief of police had put his men in motion with reasonable doubts. Frank had been categorical on the phone, but he had expressed a certainty that he didn’t really possess. He couldn’t admit to himself that he was bluffing, but he knew that he had placed a risky bet. Any bookie would have given him thirty to one without thinking twice. When he had claimed to know No One’s hiding place, it wasn’t a certainty but a reasonable supposition. No more than that. If his theory was off, there would be no serious consequences, just another dead end.
Nothing could change the position he was already in. No One was on the lam and that’s how things would stay. Except that Frank Ottobre’s prestige would plummet in disgrace. Roncaille and Durand would have a weapon against him that he himself had loaded, and they could tell any representative of the US government how unreliable their FBI agent was, despite his undeniable success at identifying the serial killer. And his public defence of Inspector Nicolas Hulot might even backfire. He could already hear Durand’s suave, nonchalant voice telling the American consul Dwight Bolton that, although Frank Ottobre had revealed the identity of the killer, it wasn’t really he who had made the discovery.
If his guess was right, however, if his bet paid off, it would all end in glory. He could rush to the airport and take care of his personal business in the glow of victory. Not that he was particularly interested in glory, but he would welcome anything at all that would help him settle his personal accounts with Nathan Parker.
Finally, he saw the first police car round the curve. This time, as Frank had instructed Morelli, there were no sirens. He noticed that the crisis unit was much larger than the first time they had tried to catch Jean-Loup. There were six cars full of men as well as the usual blue vans with dark windows. When the rear doors opened, sixteen men got out instead of twelve. There were surely others waiting at the end of the road to prevent any possible escape through the garden at the front of the house.
A car stopped, two policemen got out, and then it raced to the roadblock at the top of the road, near the highway. The set-up at the bottom was probably similar. Frank smiled in spite of himself. Roncaille didn’t want to take any chances. Jean-Loup’s easy disposal of the three policemen on guard had finally opened his eyes to the real danger at stake.
Two Menton police cars drove up one after the other, each holding seven heavily armed agents, under the command of Inspector Roberts. The reason they were there was obvious: to ensure that there was a constant collaboration of the Sûreté Publique of Monte Carlo with the French police.
Frank got out of his car. As the men awaited orders, Roberts and Morelli walked over to him.
‘What’s this all about, Frank? I hope you’ll let me know sooner or later. Roncaille told us to rush out here in combat gear but he didn’t give us any details. He was pretty pissed off-’
Frank interrupted with a wave of his hand. He pointed to the roof of the house, half hidden by the vegetation and cypress trees rising above the mass of bushes. He skipped the preliminaries.
‘He’s here, Claude. Unless I’ve made a huge mistake, there’s a 99 per cent chance that Jean-Loup Verdier has been hiding in his own house all along.’ Frank realized that he had just given Morelli and the men the same odds that he had waved under Roncaille’s nose. He decided not to correct himself.
Morelli scratched his chin with the forefinger of his left hand, as he often did when he was puzzled. And this time he was definitely confused.
‘But where in hell could he be? We turned the house upside down. There isn’t a crevice we didn’t examine.’
‘Tell the men to come closer.’
If Morelli was surprised, he said nothing. Roberts, with his natural slouch, waited, unflustered, for something to happen. When all the men were gathered in a semicircle around him, Frank enunciated each word carefully. He spoke French fluently, with almost no foreign accent, but he didn’t trust himself to explain things in a language that was not his own. He looked like a basketball coach instructing his players during a time-out.
‘Okay everyone, listen carefully. I had a conversation with the owner of the other house over there, the twin to this one. They were built by two brothers, a few yards from each other at the same time, in the mid-sixties. The brother who lived here’ – and he pointed towards the roof behind him – ‘in the house that would later belong to Jean-Loup Verdier, was married to a woman who was difficult, to put it mildly. A total pain in the ass, in other words. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction completely terrified her, so she forced her husband to build a bomb shelter under the house. Right here, beneath us.’
Frank pointed to the cement where they were standing. Morelli instinctively followed Frank’s gesture and stared at the ground. He raised his head immediately when he realized what he was doing.
‘But we even examined the plans of both houses. Neither of them showed any bomb shelters.’
‘I can’t explain that. Maybe they didn’t have permits and it doesn’t show up in the land register. If they were building two houses at the same time, with bulldozers digging and trucks coming and going, an underground shelter would be easy to construct without anyone noticing.’
Roberts backed Frank up. ‘If the shelter was built and does in fact exist, it probably happened the way Frank says. There was a construction boom back then and an awful lot of rules were stretched.’
Frank went on telling them what he knew. ‘Rouget, the owner of the other house, told me that the entrance to the shelter is located in an empty room behind a wall covered with shelves.’
A commando raised his hand. He was one of the men who had assaulted the house when the bodies of the three policemen had been discovered, and he had searched it from top to bottom.
‘There’s some kind of laundry room in the basement to the right of the garage. It gets light from a window that looks out on the courtyard. I think there are some shelves on one of the walls.’
‘Good,’ said Frank. ‘I don’t think the problem is finding the shelter as much as opening it and forcing whoever’s inside to come out. Let me ask a crazy question. Does anyone here know anything about tackling bomb shelters? I mean, more than they show in the movies?’
There was a moment of silence and then Lieutenant Gavin, the crisis unit commander, raised his hand. ‘I know a little, though not that much.’
‘That’s a start. More than I know. Once we’re in, how do we get the guy out of there, if he’s inside?’ As he spoke, Frank mentally crossed his fingers in hope.
Roberts lit another cigarette and took a long draw. ‘He’s got to be able to breathe down there, right? If we find the air holes, we can get him out with tear gas.’
‘I don’t think that’s feasible.’ Gavin shook his head. ‘We can try, but if things are the way Frank said and the guy has done the maintenance, it won’t work. If he’s kept up with the latest technology, forget it. Modern bomb shelters have an air-purification system that uses filters with normal or activated carbon acting as absorbers. Activated carbons are used as filtering agents in gas masks and high-risk ventilation systems, like in nuclear power plants. They’re used in tanks and military planes too. They can resist hydrocyanic acid, chloropicrin, arsine and phosphine. So tear gas wouldn’t do anything.’
Frank looked at Lieutenant Gavin with greater respect. If this was something he knew only a little about, what would he say if he was an expert? Frank raised his arms. ‘Okay, we’re here to solve a problem. Sometimes you solve problems by making stupid suggestions. Here’s mine. Lieutenant, what’s the chance that we could open the door with explosives?’
‘Well… it’s possible,’ Gavin said, shrugging with the apologetic expression of someone forced to keep giving bad news. ‘I’m not an expert, mind you, but logically a shelter like that is built to resist an atomic bomb. You’d need to make a lot of noise to get it open. But, and here’s the good news, keep in mind that this shelter is more than thirty years old so it’s not as efficient as the ones they build now. If there’s no alternative, that might be the best idea.’
‘If we opt for explosives, how long would it take?’ This time, the lieutenant’s scowl led to a positive conclusion.
‘Not long. We’ve got an explosives expert, Brigadier Gachot. If he and his team get to work immediately, all we need is the time it takes to get some C4 or something like that over here.’
‘Call the unit and get Gachot on it. Explain the situation and tell him where we are. I want him here in fifteen minutes max.’
The commando raced off without so much as the ‘Yes, Sir’ that Frank would have expected from him. Frank looked at each of the men standing before him.
‘Any other ideas?’ He waited for an answer that didn’t come and then decided to take the bull by the horns. ‘Okay, here’s how it’s going to be. If our man is in there, he can’t escape. Once we locate him, we can hypothesize all we want. First, let’s find this damn shelter and then we’ll decide what to do. From here on in, we improvise. Let’s move.’
The shift from conjecture to action put the crisis unit on much more familiar ground. They removed the seals from the gates and rushed down the ramp leading to the garage. Within seconds they had occupied the house, using a plan that was part of their training. They were silent, fast and potentially lethal.
At first, Frank had considered their presence there a ridiculous and excessive precaution. But after ten deaths, he was forced to realize that they were an absolute necessity.
The soldier who had described the entrance to the bunker led the way through the courtyard. He raised the door and went into the empty garage. There was a mountain bike hanging on a rack on the right wall and in the corner, a ski rack for the roof of Jean-Loup’s car. Next to it was a pair of carving skis, their rackets tied together with bungee cords. There were no snide remarks about the owner’s interest in sports. They also knew that there was a well-equipped gym upstairs. In light of what had happened, they realized that all that physical activity had not just been for fun.
At the back of the garage, they went down a corridor that turned to the right. A door in front of them opened on to a small bathroom. They walked single file, led by a commando aiming an M-16 rifle ahead of him. Frank, Gavin and Morelli took out their pistols. Roberts was at the end of the line, moving with an easy stride, soft as a cat. He felt no need to take out his gun. He simply unbuttoned his jacket so that it would be ready if needed.
They reached the laundry room, probably the cleaning lady’s area. There was a washing machine, dryer, ironing board and iron. To the left, a huge white cupboard took up the entire wall. In the corner next to the doorway, a stairway led down from upstairs. Another commando was coming down just at that moment.
There was a wooden bookshelf against the wall opposite the doorway. ‘That must be it,’ whispered the agent, pointing with his rifle.
Frank nodded in silence and put away his gun. He went over to the bookcase and examined it from the right while Morelli did the same on the left. Gavin and his two men stood in front of them, their weapons aimed as if danger could emerge from behind it at any second. Even Roberts pulled out his Beretta, which looked huge and menacing in his thin hands.
Frank grabbed hold of one of the shelves and tried to push it to one side. Nothing happened. He ran his hands along the wood on the side and found nothing. He raised his head and looked at the top of the shelves a couple of feet above him. He glanced around and then pulled over a metal chair with a Formica seat. He climbed on to it to see the upper shelf. He immediately noticed that there wasn’t a speck of dust. Then, in the corner by the wall, in a groove in the wood, he could see a tiny metal lever that seemed to come from a hinge. The mechanism was well oiled and there was no trace of rust. It seemed to be in perfect working order.
‘Found it,’ said Frank. Morelli turned and saw him carefully examining something on the top shelf that he couldn’t see. ‘Claude, do you see any hinges from where you are?’
‘No, if there are any, they’re concealed inside.’
Frank looked down on the ground. There were no marks on the stone tiles. The door probably opened forwards. If it went sideways and the shelves moved, he would be knocked off the chair. He thought of Nicolas Hulot and all of No One’s other victims and decided that it was a small risk compared with what they had suffered. He turned to the men standing in front of the bookcase with their guns pointed.
‘Keep your eyes open. Here I go.’
The three men got into position, their legs spread apart and slightly bent, holding their guns with both hands pointed at the bookcase. Frank pushed the lever all the way. They heard a sharp click and the bookcase opened outward like a door, silently rotating on well-oiled hinges.
A heavy metal door, mounted in bare cement, appeared before their eyes. There were no visible hinges. The closure was so perfect that the separation between the door and the frame was almost undetectable. There was a wheel on the left to open the door, similar to those in submarine hatches. They stood in silence, spellbound by that dark metal wall. Each man tried in his own way to imagine what or who was behind it.
Frank stepped off the chair and went to the door. He tried grabbing and pulling the wheel, which was also a handle, and met with the resistance he expected. Turning the wheel in one direction and the other, he realized it was pointless to keep trying.
‘Doesn’t budge. It must be locked from the inside.’
As they all finally lowered their weapons and came up to the door, Frank mused over their absurd situation and now visualized not one but two hands with fingers crossed. He stared at the metal as if trying to melt it with his eyes.
You’re in there, aren’t you? I know you are. You’re in there with your eyes glued to this armoured door wondering how we’ll get you out. What’s ridiculous is that we’re wondering the exact same thing. And the most ridiculous part is that we’ll have to do backward somersaults, and maybe some of us will lose our lives in order to drag you out of this prison and put you in another one just as impregnable.
Suddenly, Frank could see Jean-Loup’s face in his mind and he remembered the good impression the young man had made on him from the very beginning. He could see his traumatized face at the station, bent over the table sobbing after one of the phone calls. He could hear the echo of his weeping, and in his memory it sounded like the mocking of an evil spirit. He remembered the friendly way he had spoken to Jean-Loup in his garden, trying to convince him not to quit the radio show, little knowing that he was persuading him to continue his killing spree.
Through the closed door, he thought he could get a whiff of Jean-Loup’s cologne that he had smelled so many times when standing near him, a light fresh scent of lemon and bergamot. He thought that, perhaps, if he placed his ear to the metal, he might hear Jean-Loup’s natural voice, warm and deep. It would seep through the thickness of the metal and again whisper the words that were branded on their brains.
I kill…
Frank felt a terrible rage rise up inside him, fed by a sense of deep frustration for all the victims of that man, Jean-Loup, No One, or whoever he was. It was such a deep anger that he felt he could just grab hold of the metal door with his bare hands, crush it like aluminium foil, and seize the throat of the man standing behind it.
A series of thuds brought him back to the reality that his red mist had momentarily obscured. Lieutenant Gavin was hitting the metal door at various points, listening to the different echoes. Then he turned to them with the expression he used for unpleasant situations.
‘Gentlemen, I hope my colleague who is coming with the explosives will prove me wrong. I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news all the time, but first I’d try talking to the person inside, if he’s in there. We’ve got to convince him that he’s been discovered and that there’s no hope. I’m afraid that if he doesn’t decide to open up of his own accord, it’ll be fairly complicated to get him out. If we want to use explosives to get through these doors, we’d need enough to blow up a half a mountain.’