The man is back.
He carefully closes the sealed door in the metal wall behind him. Silent and alone, as always. Now, he is once again closed off from the world, just as the world is closed off from him.
He smiles as he delicately places a black backpack on the wooden table against the wall. This time, he is certain he has made no mistakes. He sits down and turns on the light over the table with the solemn gesture of a ritual. He clicks open the bag with the same ceremonial movements as before, taking out a black wax-board box. Placing the box on the table, he sits for a moment looking at it, as if it is a present and he is delaying the pleasure of discovering what’s inside.
The night was not spent in vain. Time gently lent itself to his needs. Another useless man has given him what he needs. The music is free now, and in his head a triumphant victory march is playing.
He opens the box and puts his hand carefully inside. The lamp illuminates Allen Yoshida’s face as he gently lifts it from the wax board. A few drops of blood fall to join those at the bottom of the box. The man’s smile broadens. This time he was very careful. He used the head of a plastic mannequin to support his trophy, the kind hairdressers use for wigs. Looking carefully at the funeral mask, he has more reason to smile as he thinks about how nothing has changed. From the emptiness of a human mannequin to the inert plastic of another.
He runs his hands gently over the taut skin, caressing the hair whose light has been taken by death. No cuts, no abrasions. The circle of the eyes is cut clean. The lips, the most difficult part, are full and fleshy. Only a few drops of blood mar the beauty of that face.
Excellent work. He relaxes an instant and folds his hands behind his neck. He arches his back to stretch. The man is weary. The night was rewarding but extremely tiring. The tension is gradually dissipating and the price has to be paid.
The man yawns but it is not yet time to sleep. First, he must finish his work. He gets up and goes to open a cabinet. He takes out a box of Kleenex and a bottle of disinfectant and sits back down at the table. He carefully cleans the spots of blood from the mask.
Now the music in his head is quiet, a New Age piece with the delicate counterpoint of an ethereal choir. An ethnic instrument, panpipes perhaps, caresses his mind with the same delicate movement with which he caresses the man’s face. Now he is finished. On the table, next to the mask, there are tissues stained pink. The man admires his masterpiece with half-closed eyes.
Since coming in, he has made almost no sound, but the voice still comes, filled with apprehension.
Isthatyou,Vibo?
The man raises his head and looks at the large door that is open next to the desk where he sits.
‘Yes, it’s me, Paso.’
Why were you so late? I felt lonely, here in the dark.
The man starts nervously but it is not noticeable in his voice. He turns to the open door in the shadows to his left.
‘I wasn’t out having fun, Paso. I was doing it for you.’
The tone is one of slight reproach, and it quickly provokes a remorseful answer.
I know, Vibo, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that time never passes when you’re away.
The man feels a wave of tenderness and his slight anger fades. He is suddenly a lion remembering the infantile games of his litter. He is a wolf defending and protecting the weaker members of his pack.
‘It’s all right, Paso. Now I’ll go to sleep here with you. And I brought you a present.’
Surprise. Impatience.
Whatisit,Vibo?
The man smiles again. He returns the face to the box and closes the lid. He turns off the light in front of him. This time it would all be perfect. Still smiling, he takes the box and goes to the door where there is darkness and the voice.
He uses his elbow to turn on a light switch to his left. ‘You’ll like it, you’ll see.’
The man goes into the room. It is a room with grey metal walls, the colour of lead. On the right there is a metal bed, and next to it a simple night table with just a lamp on it. The blanket is pulled tight, without a wrinkle; there is a perfectly clean pillow and a clean sheet folded neatly over the blanket.
Parallel to the bed, about a yard away, is a crystal case about ten feet long, held up by two trestles like the ones supporting the table in the other room. The back of the case has a hermetic gasket set in a hole and the rubber tube connected to it leads to a small machine on the floor between the legs of the trestle nearest the door. A cord connects the machine to a socket in the wall.
Inside the crystal case lies a mummified body. It is the body of a man about six feet tall, completely naked. The dried-out limbs indicate that his build must have been very similar to that of the man, although the wizened skin now shows ribs and is taut over the knees and elbows, which protrude sharply.
The man places a hand on the case. The warmth draws a halo on the perfectly clean glass. His smile is broader now. He raises the box and holds it up over the body, at the height of the shrivelled face.
Come on, Vibo. Tell me what it is.
The man looks at the body affectionately. His gaze runs over the face and head from which someone, with surgical ability, has completely removed the skin. The man returns the mysterious smile of the cadaver, seeking its lifeless eyes with his own, anxiously examining the fixed expression as if he can perceive a movement of the dried muscles, the colour of grey wax.
‘You’ll see. You’ll see. Want some music?’
Yes. No. No, afterwards. First, let me see what you have there. Let me see what you have brought me.
The man steps back as if playing with a baby whom he wants to restrain to protect it from its own impatience.
‘No, the moment is important, Paso. We need some music. Wait here. I’ll be right back.’
Come on, Vibo. Afterwards. Let me see.
‘It’ll only take a second. Wait.’
The man places the box on a wooden folding chair next to the transparent case.
He disappears through the door. The body lies there alone, motionless in its tiny eternity, staring at the ceiling. Moments later, the mournful notes of Jimi Hendrix playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock float through the air. The American anthem no longer sounds triumphant on that distorted guitar. There are no heroes and no flags. Only longing for those who went off to fight a stupid war and the sobbing of those who never saw them return.
The light in the other room goes off and the man reappears in the doorway.
‘You like this, Paso?’
Of course. You know I always liked it. But now, let me see what you brought.
The man goes to the box on the chair. He is still smiling. He raises the lid with a solemn gesture and puts it on the ground, next to the chair. He picks up the box and places it on top of the case over the chest of the body lying inside.
‘You’ll like it. You’ll see. I’m sure you’ll like it.’
With a regal gesture he removes the face of Allen Yoshida wrapped around the mannequin’s head like a plastic mask. The hair moves as if it has a life of its own, ruffled by a wind that would never reach them there, below the ground.
‘Here, Paso. Look.’
Oh, Vibo. It’s beautiful. Is it really for me?
‘Of course it’s for you. I’ll put it on you right now.’
Holding the mask in his left hand, with his right he presses a button at the head of the case. He hears the slight whistle of air filling the transparent coffin. Now the man can open the cover by rotating it around hinges on the right.
Holding the mask with two hands, he carefully places it on the body’s face, moving it delicately to match the eye openings with the dead man’s glassy eyes, nose with nose and mouth with mouth. With infinite care he tucks a hand behind the nape of the corpse’s neck and places the mask carefully over the back of the head as well, bringing the ends together to avoid wrinkling.
The voice is impatient and fearful at the same time.
How does it look, Vibo? Let me see.
The man takes a step back and looks hesitantly at the results of his work.
‘Just a minute. Just one minute. There’s still something missing.’
The man goes to the night table, opens the drawer and takes out a comb and a mirror. He returns to the body’s side like an anxious artist putting the last brushstrokes on his masterpiece.
He combs down the hair, which now looks dull and dry. The man is both mother and father at this moment. He is pure dedication, without time or limit. There is infinite tenderness and affection in his gestures, as if he has life and warmth enough for them both, as if the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs were equally divided between him and the corpse lying without memory in the crystal coffin.
He raises the mirror in front of the body’s face with an expression of triumph.
‘There!’
A moment of stupefied silence. The strings of Hendrix’s guitar unravel in the battle cry of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. It contains the wounds of every war and the search for meaning behind all those deaths performed in the name of empty values.
A tear rolls down the man’s cheek and falls on the face of the masked corpse. On the dead man, it looks like a tear of joy.
Vibo, I’m handsome now, too. I have a face like everyone else.
‘Yes, now you’re really handsome. More than all the others.’
I don’t know how to thank you, Vibo. I don’t know what I would have done without you. Before… The voice is touched. It contains gratitude and regret. The same affection and dedication as in the man’s eyes. First, you freed me of my illness and now you’ve given me… You’ve given me this, a new face, a beautiful face. How can I ever thank you?
‘Don’t say that, do you understand? Not ever. I did it for you, for us, because the others owe us and they have to give back what they stole. I’ll do everything I can to repay you for what they did. I promise.’
As if to underline the threat in that promise, the music suddenly transforms into the electric energy of ‘Purple Haze’, with Hendrix tormenting the metal strings in his tumultuous race towards freedom and annihilation.
The man lowers the lid of the box. It slides silently along the rubber runners. He goes to the compressor on the floor and presses the button. The machine turns on with a hum and starts extracting air from inside the coffin. With the vacuum, the mask adheres even more closely to the dead man’s face, making a small fold on one side, giving the body a satisfied smile.
The man goes over to the bed and removes the black shirt he is wearing. He throws it on to a stool at the foot of the iron bed. He continues removing his clothes until he is naked. He slides his athletic body between the sheets, lays his head on the pillow, and stares up at the ceiling in the same position as the body inside the shiny coffin.
The lamp goes out. The only light comes from the red and green of the electronic displays on the equipment in the next room, furtive as the eyes of a cemetery cat.
The song is over. In the tomblike silence, the living man slips into a dreamless sleep, like that of the dead.
Frank and Hulot reached the main square of the village of Eze. Passing the Fragonard perfume boutique, Frank remembered with a stab in his heart that Harriet had stocked up on perfume there during their trip to Europe. He could see her body under the fabric of her light summer dress as she held out the inside of her wrist to test the scent. He saw her rub it against her other wrist and wait for the liquid to evaporate before smelling the combined scent of skin and perfume. She had been wearing that perfume on the day…
‘Are you here, or millions of miles away?’
‘No, I’m here. A little tired, but here.’ Nicolas’s voice dispersed the images running through Frank’s mind. He realized that he had been completely absent.
Actually, Nicolas was the more tired of the two. He had dark circles under his reddened eyes and was in desperate need of a warm shower and a cool bed, in that order. Frank had gone up to Parc Saint-Roman and slept a few hours in the afternoon, but Nicolas had stayed at the office to catch up on all the paperwork that comes with every police investigation. When Frank had left him at headquarters, it was clear to Frank that the police could probably save a lot more ordinary people and maybe even the rainforests if only they didn’t have to waste half their time writing reports and filling in forms.
Now he was going for dinner at the home of Nicolas and his wife Céline. They drove past the restaurants and souvenir shops, turning left on the street leading to the upper part of the town. The Hulots lived not far from the church overlooking Eze. Their house was built right on the edge of the valley, and Frank often wondered what the architect had done to keep it from obeying gravity and sliding to the bottom.
They parked the Peugeot in the reserved spot and Frank waited as Nicolas opened the front door. They went inside and Frank stood and looked around. Nicolas closed the door behind them.
‘Céline, we’re home!’
‘Hi, darling.’ Mme Hulot’s brunette head peeked out of the kitchen door at the end of the hall. ‘Hello, Frank. I see you’re still as handsome as I remember. How are you?’
‘Exhausted. The only thing that can revive me is your cooking, judging by that delicious smell.’
Mme Hulot’s smile lit up her suntanned face. She came out of the kitchen drying her hands on a towel. ‘It’s almost ready. Nick, give Frank something to drink while you’re waiting. I’m running a little late. It took me longer than usual to clean Stéphane’s room today. I’ve told him to tidy it thousands of times but it’s useless. He leaves it in a mess every time he goes out.’
She walked back to the kitchen, her skirt swaying. Frank and Nicolas exchanged glances. Stéphane, Céline and Nicolas twenty-year-old son, had died in a car accident a few years before, after a prolonged coma. In her mind, Céline had never accepted her son’s death. She remained the woman she had always been: gentle, intelligent and sharp-witted, losing nothing of her personality. She simply behaved as if Stéphane were still somewhere in the house instead of in a grave in the cemetery. The doctors who examined her gave up after a few sessions, suggesting that Hulot simply go along with his wife’s harmless fantasy. They saw it as a relatively healthy solution that was protecting her psyche from worse damage.
Frank knew about Céline and had adjusted to her problem when he had come to Europe the first time. Harriet had done the same when they had holidayed together on the Côte d’Azur. After Harriet’s death, Frank and Nicolas had grown closer. Each of them knew the other’s suffering and it was because of this bond that Frank had accepted the invitation to come back to Monaco.
Hulot took off his jacket and hung it on a coat rack on the wall. The house was decorated in a modern style that blended pleasantly with the period in which it was built. He led Frank into the living room, which had double French doors that opened on to a terrace overlooking the coast.
Out on the terrace, the table was exquisitely set, with an arrangement of yellow and purple flowers in a vase placed at the centre of a pristine tablecloth. The Hulots’ manner was relaxed, with carefully chosen yet simple objects and a love of the peaceful life, without ostentation. Nicolas and his wife shared an indissoluble bond: pain for what they no longer had and regret for everything that could have been.
Frank could feel it in the air. It was a state of mind he knew perfectly well, that sense of loss that inevitably comes to places that are touched by the harsh hand of suffering. Yet, strangely enough, instead of being frightened, Frank found some solace here in the lively eyes of Céline Hulot, who had the courage to survive the loss of her son by escaping through innocent delusion.
Frank envied her and was sure that her husband felt the same. For her, the days were not numbers crossed off one after another, time was not an endless wait for someone who would never come. Céline had the happy smile of a woman in an empty house, who knows that her loved ones would soon be home.
‘What can I get you to drink, Frank?’
‘It feels so French here tonight. How about a French aperitif? Pastis, even.’
‘Coming up.’
Nicolas went to the bar and started taking out bottles and glasses. Frank went out on the terrace to admire the view. A long stretch of the coast was visible, with coves and inlets and cliffs that jutted into the sea like fingers pointing to the horizon. The red of the sunset was a promise that tomorrow would be another beautiful day, blue skies for everyone but them.
Frank knew they would be marked by this story for ever. He started thinking of a Neil Young record, Rust Never Sleeps. All the colours of paradise were before him. Blue water, green mountains emerging from the sea, the red gold of the sky in a sunset that could break your heart. But they were men of this earth who, just as in a hundred other places, were at war over everything and could only agree on their desperate desire to destroy it all.
We are the rust that never sleeps.
He heard Nicolas behind him. He held two glasses of opaque, milky liquid. The ice clinked as Nicolas handed him the aperitif.
‘Here, feel French for a sip or two. Then go back to being American. For now, that’s how I want you.’
Frank brought the glass to his lips, tasting it and taking in the pungent flavour of anise. They drank calmly, in silence, standing side by side, alone and resolute in the face of something that seemed endless. A day had passed since Yoshida’s body had been discovered and nothing had turned up. A useless day spent looking for a clue, a trace. Frenetic activity that felt like racing at breakneck speed along a road that stretched to infinity.
‘What do we do now, Frank?’
‘I don’t know, Nicolas. I really don’t know. We’ve got nothing. Any news from Lyons?’
‘They finished analysing the first tape, but their findings are no different from Clavert’s in Nice. So I don’t expect anything more from the second tape. Cluny, the psychiatrist, told me I’d have his report tomorrow. I sent over a copy of the video to see if they can get anything from the measurements, but if things are the way you said, we won’t find anything there either.’
‘Any news from Froben?’
‘No,’ replied Hulot with a sigh. ‘They didn’t find anything in Yoshida’s house. All the prints in the room where he was killed are his. The footprints on the floor are the same size as the ones on Welder’s boat so we have the dubious consolation of knowing that the killer wears a size nine. The hair on the chair belonged to the victim. The blood is his too, type O negative.’
‘Did they find anything in the Bentley?’
‘Same thing there. Lots of Yoshida’s prints and other prints on the steering wheel that we’re comparing with those of the bodyguard who occasionally drove the car. I ordered a handwriting test on the words on the seat. But you probably noticed it was very similar to the first writing. Probably stencilled again, I’d say.’
‘Yeah.’
‘The only thing we have is the hope that he keeps on calling Jean-Loup Verdier and that he’ll make a mistake that leads us to him.’
‘Think we should put Verdier under protection?’
‘I already did, just to be sure. He called me and said his house was overrun by reporters. I asked him not to talk to them and I sent a car and two officers to keep an eye out. Officially, it’s to take him back and forth to the station without letting him fall into the clutches of the press. Actually, I feel safer that way, though I decided not to say anything that would alarm him. Otherwise, all we can do is keep the station under close watch. Which is exactly what we’re doing.’
‘Good. Anything on the victims?’ Frank asked.
‘We’re looking into it with the German police and your pals at the FBI. We’re digging into their lives but nothing’s come up so far. Three famous people, two Americans and a European. They all had intense lives but nothing aside from what we already know. The only common factor is the guy who killed them.’
Frank finished his Pastis and placed the glass down on the wrought-iron balustrade. He seemed puzzled.
‘What is it, Frank?’
‘Nicolas, do you ever feel like you have something on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t know what it is? Like when you want to remember the name of an actor you know well, but just then, try as you might, it won’t come to you?’
‘Sure, quite often. At my age, it’s normal.’
‘There’s something I saw or heard, Nicolas. Something that I should remember but I can’t think of it. And it’s driving me crazy because I can feel that it’s important.’
‘I hope you remember soon, whatever it is.’
Frank turned his back on the magnificent view and crossed his arms over his chest. Fatigue and the feverish nervous energy that kept him going were etched on his face.
‘Let’s see. We have a killer who likes music. A connoisseur who calls the deejay of a hit show on Radio Monte Carlo to announce his intentions to murder. He leaves a musical clue that nobody recognizes and then kills two people, a man and a woman, right after. He leaves them for us to find, in a horrible state, as if he is laughing at us. He signs the crimes “ I kill…” written in blood. He leaves absolutely no trace. He is cold-blooded, cunning, expert and ruthless. Cluny talks about above-average intelligence. I would say way above average. He’s so sure of himself that he gives us a second clue in the next call. Again, it’s music-related and again we don’t get it. And he kills again. Even more ruthlessly than the first time, and now the crime has a sense of justice about it. But he’s even more contemptuous. The tape in the car, the video of the murder, the same writing as the last time. None of the victims shows signs of sexual violation, so he’s not a necrophiliac. But in each case he removes all the skin of the victim’s face. Why? Why does he do that to them?’
‘I don’t know, Frank. I hope Cluny has some ideas. I’ve been hitting my head against the wall, but I can’t even come up with a plausible idea. How can you fathom the mind of a psycho?’
‘We have to try, Nicolas. If we manage to figure out why he does it, I’m sure we can find out who and where he is!’
‘Now you two stop talking shop.’ Céline’s warm voice and the aroma of her cooking suddenly penetrated their dark speculation. She set a steaming tureen on the table. ‘Here’s some bouillabaisse for you. Only one course tonight, but there’s lots of it. Frank, if you don’t have at least two helpings I’ll be personally offended. Nicolas, you’ll take care of the wine, please?’
Frank realized that he was starving. The sandwiches he had eaten in the office without even tasting them were a distant memory. He sat down and unfolded his napkin.
‘They say that food is the true culture of the people. If that’s true, then your bouillabaisse is immortal poetry.’
‘You’re a shameless flatterer, Frank.’ Céline laughed, illuminating her dark, lovely Mediterranean complexion. The tiny lines around her eyes only heightened her charm. ‘But it’s nice to hear.’
Hulot looked at Frank across the table. He knew what his friend was holding inside, but in spite of it all, his affection for Céline and for Hulot made him behave with a natural kindness that few people shared. Nicolas didn’t know what Frank was looking for, but he hoped that he would find it soon, whatever it was, so that he could find some peace.
‘You’re made of gold, Frank,’ said Céline, raising her glass to toast him. ‘And your wife is a lucky woman. I’m sorry she couldn’t make it tonight. But she’ll come next time. And I’ll take her out shopping, to cut into your retirement fund.’
Frank didn’t flinch and his smile didn’t change. A brief shadow passed quickly over his eyes and then disappeared in the warmth around the table. He raised his glass and responded to Céline’s toast.
‘Sure. I know you’re not serious. You’re a cop’s wife, so you know that after three pairs of shoes it’s grounds for divorce.’
Céline laughed again and the moment passed. One by one, the lights along the coast lit up the border between land and sea. They sat eating the excellent food and drinking good wine in the shadow of the terrace, with darkness all around them.
Frank stood at the taxi rank in the main square of Eze, but there were no cabs in sight. He looked around. There were people on the street despite the fact that it was almost midnight. Summer was coming and tourists were beginning to flock to the coast, searching for picturesque images to take home with them.
He saw a large, dark limousine drive slowly through the square and head towards him. The car pulled up beside him, the door opened, and a man got out. He was at least a few inches taller than Frank, powerful but agile in his movements. He had a square face and fair hair in a crew cut. The man walked around the car and stopped in front of him. Frank could tell that he was carrying a gun under his well-cut jacket. He had no idea who the man was, but he already seemed dangerous.
The man looked at him with expressionless brown eyes. He seemed more or less Frank’s age, maybe a year or two older. ‘Good evening, Mr Ottobre,’ he said in English.
‘Good evening. I see you already know my name.’ Frank showed no surprise. A flash of respect passed over the man’s eyes and then they returned to neutral.
‘I’m Ryan Mosse. American. Like you.’ Frank thought he could detect a Texas accent.
‘Nice to meet you.’ The statement contained an implicit question.
‘If you’d be so kind as to accept a ride to Monte Carlo,’ said Mosse, pointing to the car, ‘there’s someone inside who’d like to talk to you.’
Without waiting for an answer, he opened the back door on his side. Frank saw someone else in the back seat, on the other side. He could see the legs of a man in dark trousers, but not his face.
Frank looked Mosse straight in the eye. He, too, could be dangerous and he thought he should let the other man know.
‘Is there any special reason I should accept your invitation?’
‘There are three. The first is that you’ll avoid a long walk home since it’s pretty hard to find a cab at this hour. The second is that the person who wants to talk to you is a general in the United States Army. The third is that you might find some help solving a problem that’s been bothering you lately.’
Without showing the slightest emotion, Frank stepped over to the door and got in the car. The man sitting inside was older but of the same military appearance. He was more heavily built, given his age, but he emitted the same sense of strength and authority. His hair was completely white but still thick and crew cut. In the car’s dim light, Frank saw himself observed by a pair of blue eyes that were strangely youthful in the tanned, lined face. They reminded him of those of Homer Woods, his boss. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the man told him he was Homer’s brother. He was wearing a white open-collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. On the front seat, Frank noticed, lay a jacket that matched the trousers. Mosse closed the door and got in behind the wheel.
‘Hello, Mr Ottobre. May I call you Frank?’
‘Mr Ottobre’s fine for now. Monsieur...?’ Frank purposely said the word in French.
‘I see the information they gave us about you is true. Drive on, Ryan.’
The car pulled out gently and the old man turned back to Frank.
‘Forgive me for stopping you so rudely. My name is General Nathan Parker, US Army.’
Frank shook the hand he held out. The man’s grip was firm, despite his age. He probably exercised daily to keep that physique. Frank sat silently, waiting.
‘And Arianna Parker’s father.’
The general’s eyes sought an instant of surprise in Frank’s but did not find it. He leaned back against the seat and crossed his legs in the narrow space of the car.
‘You can probably guess what I’m doing here.’ He averted his eyes as if he were looking at something out the window. Whatever it was, only he could see it. ‘I came to put my daughter’s body in a coffin and take her back to America. The body of a woman that someone flayed like an animal.’
Nathan Parker turned back to him. In the intermittent light of the passing traffic, Frank saw the glitter in his eyes. He wondered whether it was more from anger or grief.
‘I don’t know if you’ve ever lost someone close to you, Mr Ottobre Frank suddenly hated the man. The information he had about Frank certainly included the story of his wife. He realized that for Parker this was not a moment of shared sadness but simply an exchange of goods. Parker continued his speech in a casual tone. ‘I’m not here to cry over my daughter. I’m a soldier, Mr Ottobre. A soldier doesn’t cry. A soldier settles the score.’ The general’s voice was calm, but it held a lethal fury. ‘No maniac bastard can do what he did and hope to get away with it.’
‘There’s an investigation going on for exactly that reason,’ said Frank, gently.
Nathan Parker turned sharply.
‘Frank, aside from you, none of these people would know where to stick a suppository, even if they had detailed instructions. And you know what things are like in Europe. I don’t want this killer caught and put in a mental institution because he’s soft in the head, and then let out in a couple of years, with an apology.’
He paused and looked out the window again. The car had reached the road out of Eze and was turning left towards Monte Carlo.
‘Here’s what I suggest. We’ll organize some top guys and continue the investigation ourselves. I can have all the help I want. The FBI, Interpol, even the CIA if we need it. I can bring over a group of good, trained men, better than any cops. Quick boys who ask no questions and just obey orders. You’ll be in charge.’ He nodded towards the man driving. ‘Captain Mosse will work with you. You’ll continue the investigation until you catch him. And when you do catch him, you’ll hand him over to me.’
The car had reached the city in the meantime. They’d just passed the Jardin Exotique after turning down Boulevard Charles III. Continuing on Rue Princesse Caroline, they were now nearing the harbour.
The old soldier looked out at the place where his daughter’s mutilated body had been found. He squinted as if trying to see better. Frank figured that his vision had nothing to do with it; it was an instinctive reaction caused by the man’s violent anger. Parker continued speaking without turning his head. He could not tear his eyes away from the quay where the illuminated boats waited for another day at sea.
‘That’s where they found Arianna. She was beautiful as the moon and she had a first-class mind. She was a fine girl. A rebel. Different from her sister, but a fine girl. We didn’t get along so well, but we respected each other because we were equals. And they killed her like an animal The man’s voice trembled slightly. Frank sat in silence, leaving Arianna Parker’s father to his thoughts.
The car skirted the harbour and headed towards the tunnel. The general leaned back against the seat. The yellow lights of the tunnel coloured their faces.
When they emerged again in the open air of the night, near Larvotto, and the car turned down Rue du Portier, the old man finally broke the silence.
‘Well, what do you say, Frank? I’m a personal friend of Johnson Fitzpatrick, head of the FBI. And I can go even higher. I assure you, you won’t regret it. Your career could take off. If it’s money you’re interested in, that’s no problem. With what I can offer, you’ll be set for life. It’s an act of justice, not just revenge.’
Frank remained silent, as he had been throughout General Parker’s speech. He, too, paused to look out the window. The car was turning down Boulevard des Moulins, about to turn up the hill towards Parc Saint-Roman. The list of things they knew about him obviously included his address.
‘General, nothing is as easy as it seems. You’re acting as though you think all men have a price. Quite frankly, so do I. There’s a price for everything. You just don’t know what mine is.’
‘Stop playing the hero with me, Mr Ottobre.’ The general’s cold rage shone brighter than the lights in the lobby of Frank’s building. The words Mr Ottobre echoed in the small space of the car like a threat. ‘I know who you are. We’re two of a kind.’
The car pulled up smoothly in front of the glass doors of Parc Saint-Roman. Frank got out and stood outside the car, leaning against the door. He bent down so that his face could be seen from inside.
‘That may be, General Parker. But not quite. Since you know all about me, you must know about my dead wife. Yes, I’m perfectly aware of what it’s like to lose someone close. I know all about living with ghosts. We may be two of a kind, but there’s one difference between us. I cried when I lost my wife. I guess I’m no soldier.’
Frank gently closed the car door and walked away. The old man lowered his eyes a moment as he considered his reply. When he raised them again, Frank Ottobre was gone.
As soon as he woke, without even getting out of bed, Frank dialled the direct line to Cooper’s office in Washington. He hoped he’d be there, in spite of the time difference. Cooper answered on the second ring.
‘Cooper Danton.’
‘Hey, Cooper. It’s Frank.’
‘Hey, kiddo, how’s it going?’ If there was surprise on the other end, Cooper didn’t show it.
‘Shitty.’
Cooper said nothing. Frank’s voice had changed. There was a new energy that hadn’t been there during the last phone call. He waited in silence. ‘They’ve put me on a serial killer case here in Monaco. You wouldn’t believe it!’
‘It’s all over the papers here. CNN too. They’re majoring on the American celebrities angle. But Homer didn’t tell me you were involved. Is it that bad?’
‘Worse. We’re hunting shadows. This guy’s made of air. No trace. No clues. And he keeps egging us on. He’s making us look like complete fools. And we’ve got three bodies already.’
‘So things like that happen in good old Europe too, not just here.’
‘No patent on it. How’re things going over there?’
‘We’re still on Larkin’s trail. Jeff is dead and nobody misses him. Osmond’s in the cooler and he’s keeping his mouth shut. But we’ve got some good leads. One goes to South-east Asia, a new drug racket. We’ll see what happens.’
‘Cooper, can you do me a favour? I need all the information you can get on a certain General Parker and a Captain Ryan Mosse, US Army.’
‘Parker? Nathan Parker?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘He’s big time, Frank. And that’s an understatement. Vietnam hero. The real mastermind behind the Gulf War and Kosovo, that kind of thing. A member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Very close to the White House. When he talks, everybody listens, including the President. What does Nathan Parker have to do with you?’
‘His daughter was one of the victims. And now he’s here with a knife between his teeth because he doesn’t trust the local police. I’ve got a feeling he’s organizing a posse for his own little war.’
‘What’s the other guy’s name?’
‘Mosse. Captain Ryan Mosse.’
‘Don’t know him. I’ll find out and let you know what I dig up. How can I get it to you?’
‘E-mail it to me. Don’t send anything to the Monaco police. I’d rather keep this out of the official investigation. We’ve got enough trouble. I want to handle it myself.’
‘Okay, I’ll get to work.’
‘Thanks, Cooper.’
‘Don’t mention it – anything I can do to help, man. I’m happy for you.’
Frank knew what his friend meant by that. He didn’t want to disappoint him.
‘I know, Cooper. Bye.’
‘Good luck, Frank.’
He walked into the bathroom naked, not looking at himself in the mirror. He got in the shower and crouched on the floor, letting the cold water run over his head and shoulders. Shivering, he waited until the water warmed up, and then mechanically started to soap himself. As the suds washed away, he tried to open his mind, step outside his own body and become someone else: that formless, faceless someone who was waiting to attack.
The germ of an idea was forming. If what he suspected was true, Arianna Parker had been one of the unluckiest women on earth. A pointless death, except in the twisted mind of the assassin.
Frank turned off the jet of water and stood there for a moment, dripping wet, watching the water gurgle down the drain.
I kill…
The dots of the ellipsis, three deaths. And it wasn’t over. In some part of his brain, something was trying desperately to come to the light. There was a detail locked away, banging against a closed door, trying to make itself heard.
As he put on his bathrobe he ran through his conclusions one more time. Nothing was certain, but it was very plausible. And it restricted the field of investigation. He still did not understand how or when, let alone why, but at least he could conjecture who.
That was it. That must be it.
Frank went into the study, sat down at the desk, and turned on the computer. He sat and stared for an instant at the French keyboard, and then logged on to the Internet. Luckily for him, Ferrand, his host, had nothing to hide, at least not on that computer, and the password entered automatically. He sent Cooper an e-mail from the address where he wanted his friend to send the information. Then he shut down the machine and went to get dressed, still mulling over his thoughts from different viewpoints to see if they would still hold water. The phone warbled just as he passed the table.
He answered on the first ring.
Frank, it’s Nicolas.’
‘I was just about to call you. I’ve got an idea. Nothing much, but it’s a start.’
‘What?’
‘I think I understand what he’s after.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘It’s the men he’s interested in. Jochen Welder and Allen Yoshida. They were his victims.’
‘Then what does Arianna Parker have to do with it?’
‘She was a guinea pig. It was the first time he’d done it. The guy wanted someone to practice on before he did the real job, Jochen Welder’s face.’
‘If that’s true,’ Hulot said, after a silence as he evaluated the theory, ‘then we can exclude women, and we have a smaller circle of potential victims.’
‘Precisely, Nicolas. Men. About thirty or thirty-five. Famous, wealthy and good-looking. It’s not much, but it’s something. There aren’t millions of people like that.’
‘It’s worth considering.’
‘We don’t have anything better. Anyway, why did you call?’
‘Frank, we’re in deep shit. Have you seen the papers?’
‘No.’
‘The story’s on the front page of every paper in Europe. There are TV crews here from all over. Roncaille and Durand are on the warpath. They must be facing terrible pressure, from the Interior Ministry to the Prince himself. And now the Americans are getting involved.’
‘I’m not surprised. Allen Yoshida wasn’t just anybody.’
‘Exactly. All hell broke loose. Roncaille told me that the American Consul called him from Marseilles on behalf of your government. If we don’t produce something, I’m worried my head’s on the block. And we have another problem.’
‘What?’
‘Jean-Loup Verdier. His nerves are shot. If you consider the position he’s in, you can understand why.’
‘We can’t risk losing him. If the murderer has no one to talk to, he might stop calling. He won’t stop killing, but there will be no more clues. And if he decides to find someone else, at another radio station or something, it’ll take time until we get things under control again. Which means more people might die.’
‘We have to talk to him, Frank. I want you to do it.’
‘Why me?’
‘I think you have more influence on him. It’s just a feeling, but the letters FBI have more of an effect than the words Sûreté Publique.’
‘Okay. I’ll get dressed and be right there.’
‘I’ll send a car. See you at Jean-Loup’s.’
Frank was already heading towards the bedroom. He dressed hurriedly, and as he returned the things to his pockets that he had put on the dresser the night before, he thought about what he should say to Jean-Loup Verdier. The kid was scared stiff and that was hardly a surprise. Frank realized that he was calling Jean-Loup a kid when he was really only a few years younger than himself. Frank felt much older. You aged faster as a cop. Or maybe some people were just born old.
He got in the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. They would get the killer; that was certain. Sooner or later, he would slip up and they would catch him. But how many victims with mutilated faces would there be between now and then?
The lift stopped with a slight jolt and the doors opened on to the elegant marble lobby of Parc Saint-Roman. Frank went out through the glass doors and saw a police car waiting for him. They’d got there fast; they had probably been nearby. The doorman saw him and nodded through the glass guard box.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Ottobre,’ the doorman said, addressing him in French.
‘Bonjour.’
‘They left this for you after you got back last night.’ The man handed him a plain white envelope with nothing on it except his name written in ink.
‘Thanks, Pascal.’
‘Pas de quoi. A pleasure, Monsieur.’
Frank took the envelope and opened it. Inside was a sheet of paper folded in three. He opened it and read the message, written in shaky but clear handwriting.
Real men are not afraid to change their minds. Don’t make me change my mind about you. You’ll find me at this address and phone number.
Nathan Parker
At the bottom of the page there was an address and two phone numbers. As he got into the car, Frank could not help thinking that now there were two bloodthirsty maniacs on the loose in Monte Carlo.
The police car left Monte Carlo behind and took the uphill road to Beausoleil and the A8, the highway linking Monaco to Nice and Italy beyond. Sitting in the back seat, Frank opened the window to let in some fresh air. He read the general’s message a second time and slipped it into his pocket. Then he continued looking out the window. The scene outside unfolded before his eyes like one long, indistinguishable rush of colour.
Parker was a complication he didn’t need. Although this was a private matter, the man represented power with a capital P. He was not simply boasting. Not in the least. He really did have access to all the things he claimed. Which meant that, along with the police, there would be others around with unofficial methods of investigation. People who were not required to stay within the law.
The niceties of the justice system in the Principality of Monaco wouldn’t deter Nathan Parker’s thirst for vengeance. He was old enough and determined enough not to give a damn about the possible effects on his career. And if things were the way Cooper said, Parker was powerful enough to protect the men with him, too. If he captured the killer, the press would turn it into the romantic account of a distraught father seeking justice, succeeding where others had failed. He would be turned into a hero and become untouchable. The United States desperately needed heroes just then. The government and public opinion would back him all the way. Principality authorities would gag on it for a while, but then they would have to swallow their pride. Game over.
And then there was Jean-Loup. Another problem.
Frank had to find a way to dissuade Jean-Loup from a decision he couldn’t blame him for. The fame you get from hosting a hit radio show is one thing, but having your name in all the papers because you’re the only person a serial killer will talk to is quite another. It was enough to make anyone run for cover. He had every right to be scared.
And time was running out, ticking away minute by minute, marked by the chronometer that senior Principality officials were holding up to them.
The car slowed down beside a large house built into the hillside. Frank could make out the roof behind a row of cypress trees on the other side of the road. It overlooked all of Monte Carlo. A great view. That was the deejay’s house, for sure. There were a number of cars parked outside and a couple of satellite trucks from the TV stations. A small crowd of reporters and cameramen were laying siege to the house. There was also a police car nearby. The reporters quivered with excitement when they saw the car arrive – even though, as yet, they didn’t know who Frank was or what his role was in the investigation. The policeman in the front passenger seat picked up the mike.
‘Ducros here. We’re coming up.’
The iron gate started to open. As the car slowed down to drive in, the reporters came right up to Frank’s window. Two policemen got out of the parked car to keep them from following inside the gate.
They drove slowly down a paved ramp and found themselves in the driveway in front of the garage. Hulot was already there, waiting. He greeted Frank through the open window.
‘Hi, Frank. Seen the chaos?’
‘Hi, Nicolas. I see it. Typical. It’d be strange if they weren’t here.’ Frank got out of the car and checked out the building. ‘Jean-Loup Verdier must make quite a salary to afford this.’
‘There’s a story to this house,’ Hulot said with a smile. ‘Haven’t you read the papers?’
‘No, that’s something I gladly leave to you.’
‘They’ve all written about it. Jean-Loup inherited this house.’
‘Nice relatives.’
‘It wasn’t a relative. Sounds like a fairytale, but he inherited it from a rich old widow. He saved her dog.’
‘Her dog?’
‘That’s right. In the Place du Casino a few years ago. This lady’s dog escaped and ran into the middle of the street. Jean-Loup jumped out to save it just as it was about to get run over by a car. He was almost killed, too. The woman hugged and kissed him, crying with gratitude, and that was that. A few years later, a notary called him and told him he was a homeowner.’
‘Not bad. I thought that kind of thing only happened in Disney movies. It’s just a rough guess, but this place must be worth a couple of million.’
‘Make it three, with the property values around here,’ said Hulot.
‘Pretty nice. Okay, should we go and do our duty?’
Hulot nodded. ‘He’s over here. Come on.’
They crossed the courtyard and passed some bushes with red flowers on the right of the house. There was a patio beyond and a swimming pool. It wasn’t huge, but no bathtub either.
Jean-Loup and Bikjalo were sitting at a table under a bower covered with vines. The remains of breakfast were still on the table. The manager’s presence was a clear indication of Jean-Loup’s state. So much attentiveness meant that Bikjalo was worried about his golden egg.
‘Hello, Jean-Loup. Mr Bikjalo.’
Bikjalo got up with an expression of relief. Reinforcements had arrived. Jean-Loup seemed embarrassed and couldn’t look them in the eye.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. I was saying to Jean-Loup-’
Frank interrupted brusquely. He wanted to avoid the subject for a while so that Jean-Loup would not feel under pressure. It was a delicate moment and Frank wanted him to feel at ease before he mentioned it.
‘Is that coffee I see?’
‘Yes…’
‘Only for the household, or may we have some?’
As Hulot and Frank sat down, Jean-Loup went to get two cups from the shelf behind him. The deejay poured coffee as Frank watched him intently. It was obvious that he hadn’t slept. He was under a lot of pressure – Frank could see that. But he must not – he could not – give up. He would need to understand that.
Hulot brought the cup to his lips. ‘Mmm. Good. I wish we had coffee like this at headquarters.’
Jean-Loup smiled listlessly. He avoided looking at them, Frank especially. Bikjalo sat down again, on the chair furthest away. He was showing that he wanted to keep his distance and leave the problem to them. The tension was palpable and Frank knew he had to take the bull by the horns.
‘Okay, what’s the problem, Jean-Loup?’
The deejay finally found the strength to look at him. Frank was surprised that there was no fright in his eyes, as he had expected. There was fatigue, concern and perhaps the worry that he was unable to play a role that was too big for him. But he was not frightened. Jean-Loup looked away and started saying something he’d probably rehearsed many times.
‘The problem is very simple. I can’t take it.’
Frank sat in silence and waited for Jean-Loup to continue. He didn’t want to make him feel he was being interrogated.
‘I wasn’t ready for all this. Each time I hear that voice on the phone, I lose ten years of my life. And the thought that after he talks to me, that man goes… and…’
He paused as if talking about it were an enormous strain. No man likes to show weakness, and Jean-Loup was no different.
‘… does what he does. It’s tearing me apart. And I keep asking myself, why me? Why does he have to make those calls to me? I have no life any more. I’m locked indoors like a criminal. I can’t even go to the window without hearing reporters scream my name. I can’t go outside without being surrounded by people asking me questions. I can’t take it any more.’
‘But Jean-Loup,’ Bikjalo interrupted, putting in his two cents. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. You’re incredibly popular right now. You’re one of the most famous men in Europe. Every TV station wants you. All the papers are talking about you. We’ve even had proposals from movie producers who want to make a film-’
A sharp look from Hulot brought the station manager to a halt. Frank looked at him with utter contempt. Money-hungry prick.
Jean-Loup got up from his chair with an imperious gesture. ‘I want to be appreciated because I talk to people, not because I talk to a killer. And I know reporters. They’ll keep on with the questions I’m asking myself. And if they don’t find an answer, they’ll make up one. I have to drop out now or they’ll destroy me.’
Frank knew the media well enough to agree with him. And he respected Jean-Loup too much to lie to him.
‘Jean-Loup, that’s exactly the way things are. You’re too intelligent for me to try to convince you it’s any different. I know you’re not ready for all this. But who would be? I’ve spent half my life chasing criminals, but I’d have the same concerns and the same reaction if I were in your shoes. But you are our only contact with this man. You can’t give up. Not now.’ Frank anticipated a possible objection and continued: ‘I know this is partly our fault. If we were better at this, it would probably all be over. But that’s just not the way it is. This maniac is still at large and as long as he’s out there, he has only one aim: to go on killing. And between us we have to stop him.’
‘I don’t know if I can sit there again in front of the mike pretending nothing has happened, waiting for that voice.’
Frank bowed his head. When he raised it, Hulot saw a different light in his eyes.
‘There are things you look for in life. And sometimes there are things that look for you. You don’t choose them and maybe you don’t even want them, but they come and you’re never the same again. At that point, you have two choices. You can run away, try to leave it all behind you, or you can stand and face it. Whatever you choose, you and only you are able to decide whether it’s for better or for worse. There are three people dead now, killed horribly. There’ll be others if you don’t help. If you decide to continue, it might tear you to pieces, but after it’s over you’ll have the time and the strength to put the pieces together again. If you run away, you’ll be torn apart just the same, but the remorse will pursue you for all the time you have left. And every day, the pieces will get smaller and smaller.’
Jean-Loup sat down slowly. Nobody spoke. They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity.
‘Okay, I’ll do whatever you say.’
‘You’ll go on with the show?’
‘Yes.’
Hulot relaxed in his chair. Bikjalo was unable to repress a slight smile of satisfaction. And Frank heard the first tick of a clock that had just started running again.
Frank walked Hulot back to his car while Jean-Loup and Bikjalo remained sitting by the pool. When they had left, the manager of Radio Monte Carlo, still anxious over what he had almost lost, put his arm around Jean-Loup. He wanted the radio host to feel his presence and he whispered advice like a boxing coach during a losing fight, cajoling him to hold up for just another couple of rounds.
Hulot opened the door of the Peugeot but remained standing outside, staring at the magnificent view below. He had no desire to return to the investigation. He turned to Frank. The American could see in his eyes that he needed a long, uninterrupted, dreamless sleep. Without figures in black, without voices whispering I kill… in his ear, waking him to a reality worse than his worst nightmares.
‘You were great with that kid… with him and with me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know I’m leaning on you a lot in this investigation. Don’t think I don’t realize it. I asked for your help and acted like I was helping you out; when I was really the one who needed the help.’
‘That’s not true, Nicolas. Not exactly true. Maybe this guy’s psychosis is contagious and we’re going crazy, too. But if that’s what we have to do to catch him, then we’ve got to keep going till it’s over.’
‘There’s just one danger in what you said.’ Hulot got into the car.
‘What’s that?’
‘Once you accept madness, you can’t get rid of it. You said so yourself, remember, Frank? We’re little dinosaurs, nothing but dinosaurs…’
He started the engine. The automatic gate opened for Hulot to pass through. Frank stood and watched the car drive up the ramp. He saw the brake lights go on as Nicolas turned into the street and then drove away.
Throughout his conversation with Hulot, the cops who’d brought him to Jean-Loup’s house had stood off to one side, talking to each other by their car. Frank got in the back seat and the cop in the front turned to look at him inquisitively. ‘Parc Saint-Roman. There’s no hurry,’ said Frank, after thinking a moment. He needed to be alone and collect his thoughts. General Parker and his plans had not been forgotten, just put aside. He needed to know more about him and Ryan Mosse before he could decide what to do. He hoped Cooper had already sent the information he needed.
The car pulled out. Up the hill, through the gate, down the street. More winding through the throngs of reporters waiting in ambush. Frank looked them over carefully. They seemed to him to shake themselves like dogs when another dog passes. The same guy with red hair who’d stuck his head into the inspector’s car the other day was there. As Frank passed, a reporter standing next to a Mazda convertible exchanged glances with him, thoughtful.
Frank knew they’d soon be chasing him once they found out who he was and what he was doing there. There was no doubt that they would soon figure out his role in this business. They all had contacts in the police department – what their articles called a ‘reliable source’. The reporters paraded in front of the car as the vanguard of a world that wanted to know the truth. And the best journalist among them was not the one who found it out. It was the one who sold the best story.
As the car went down the hill, a woman and a young boy ran out from an unpaved road just a few hundred yards from where the reporters were stalking the house. Frank noticed them because she was holding the boy’s hand and seemed frightened. She stopped at the junction and looked around like someone who didn’t know where she was or where she was going. As the car passed them, Frank felt certain that she was running away. She looked just over thirty and was wearing a pair of blue sweatpants and a shiny dark-blue shirt that perfectly set off her magnificent blonde shoulder-length hair. The fabric and the hair seemed to be competing for the reflection of the May sun. She was tall and fit; her movements graceful in spite of her haste. The boy was perhaps about ten years old but seemed tall for his age. He was wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt. He looked up with big, bewildered blue eyes at the woman holding his hand.
As he turned his head and leaned against the car window to keep them in view, Frank saw Captain Ryan Mosse, US Army, run up and stop the woman and the boy by stepping in front of them. He grabbed their arms and forced them to follow him back down the unpaved side road. Frank turned and placed a hand on the driver’s shoulder.
‘Stop.’
‘What?’
‘Stop here a second, please.’
The driver touched the brake and the car rolled gently to the side of the road. The two cops looked at him. The one in the passenger seat shrugged, as if to say, ‘Americans…’
Frank got out and crossed the street. He walked down the unpaved road that led to a house with a gate, set back from the houses either side. The three were just ahead of him. A strong man pushing a woman and a boy.
‘Part of your investigation, Captain Mosse?’
The man stopped at the sound of Frank’s voice, and forced the woman and the boy to stop, too. He turned and saw Frank, but his face showed no surprise.
‘Ah, here he is, our FBI special agent. What’s this, Boy Scout, your good deed for the day? If you stand in the Place du Casino and wait awhile, you might find a little old lady to help cross the street…’
Frank went over to the group. The woman looked at him with a mixture of hope and curiosity. Her eyes were beautiful.
The boy wrenched himself free.
‘You’re hurting me, Ryan.’
‘Get in the house, Stuart. And stay there.’
Mosse let go. Stuart turned to the woman who nodded at him. ‘Go on, Stuart.’
The boy took two steps back and went on looking at them. Then he turned and ran to the green gate.
‘You too, Helena. Go in the house and stay there.’
Mosse twisted the woman’s arm. Frank saw his muscles tighten under his shirt. The woman was still staring at Frank, but Mosse made her turn to face him instead.
‘Look at me. Do you understand, Helena?’
The woman whimpered in pain and nodded. As she left, Helena shot a last, desperate glance at Frank before turning and following the boy. The gate opened, then closed behind them, like the gates of a prison.
The two men faced each other. Frank could tell he was of the same school of thought as Parker. You were either a friend or an enemy. Anyone who didn’t follow them and love them had to accept the consequences.
A brief gust of wind rustled through bushes at the side of the road. Then everything was still again. Frank felt the blood pulsing in his temples.
‘You’re great with women and kids. But that doesn’t seem like much for someone who came here with higher goals. Am I wrong, Captain Mosse?’
Frank smiled. He got the same smile in return. A smile of contempt.
‘You do pretty well yourself with women and children, don’t you, Frank? Oh, I’m sorry, Frank’s too familiar for you. What is it you want to be called? That’s right … Mr Ottobre.’
As Mosse paused to admire his own words, he stepped slightly to one side, shifting his weight like someone expecting to be attacked at any moment. ‘That’s right, Mr Ottobre. You apparently think that women are a good excuse for shirking, don’t you? Nothing doing for Mr Ottobre. Can’t expect anything from him. Closed for mourning. Maybe your wife…’
Frank lunged at him in spite of himself, so fast that the other man didn’t see him coming, even though he was expecting it. The blow hit him in the face and knocked him to the ground. Mosse was flat on his back, a trickle of blood coming from the side of his mouth. Otherwise, Frank’s blow had had no effect on him. He smiled again and there was a light of triumph in his eyes.
‘I’m just sorry you won’t have much time to regret what you just did.’
He arched his back and was on his feet. Almost simultaneously, he kicked his left leg. Frank deflected the kick with his forearm and slightly lost his balance. He realized his mistake immediately. Mosse was a tough opponent and had kicked only to throw him off. The soldier slipped to the ground and with his right leg swept Frank off his feet. As he fell to the pavement, Frank managed to turn to the side, easing his fall with his shoulder. There was a time when he would not have been caught off guard.
Mosse was behind him in a flash. He immobilized Frank’s legs with his own and grabbed his neck with his right arm. A military knife suddenly glimmered in his left hand and now it was pointed at Frank’s throat. The two of them were locked together in a grim embrace. The captain’s eyes were shining, excited by the brawl. Frank realized that he liked it, that fighting was his reason for living. He was one of those people who believed that an enemy was worth his weight in gold.
‘Well, Mr Ottobre, what do you think now? Funny, they said you were good. Didn’t your scout’s instinct tell you not to play with kids who are bigger than you? Where’s your sixth sense?’
The man holding the knife moved and Frank felt the tip enter a nostril. He was afraid Mosse might slice it. He thought of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown and smiled at the memory, which annoyed his adversary even more. He felt the blade push at the cartilage of his nose.
‘That’s enough, Ryan.’
The order was barked from behind them and the tension of the blade lessened immediately. Frank recognized the voice of General Parker. Without turning, after one last thrust of his arm against Frank’s neck, Mosse let go. That last twist meant that it was not over between them. Just postponed.
A soldier never cries. A soldier never forgets. A soldier settles the score.
The captain got up, brushing the dust off his light summer trousers. Frank lay there a moment, looking up at the two of them standing over him, one next to the other. They were so alike physically because, in fact, they were the same. Frank remembered his Italian grandfather and his endless flow of proverbs.
Like attracts like.
It was no accident that the general and the captain stuck together. They had the same goals and probably the same means of accomplishing them. What had just happened made no difference, win or lose. It was just for show. Mosse was pissing around to mark his territory. Frank was worried about what would happen later on.
‘You should use a different command for your Doberman, general. They say platz works best.’
Mosse stiffened, but Parker stopped him with a gesture. He held out his hand to Frank. Without deigning to look at him, Frank got up on his own, brushing off his clothes. He stood before the two men, breathing heavily. He looked into Parker’s cold blue eyes, then caught the gaze of Captain Mosse, which had lost its gleam and was again a mere reflection.
A seagull circled slowly overhead. It was flying out to sea in the blue sky, its jeering cry reaching them from high above.
Parker turned to Mosse.
‘Ryan, could you go inside and make sure Helena is not planning any more foolishness? Thank you.’
Mosse shot one last glance at Frank. His eyes flashed for a moment.
A soldier never forgets.
The light faded instantly. Mosse turned and headed towards the house. He would probably walk the exact same way if his path were strewn with corpses. If Ryan Mosse found the words I kill… written in blood, he would probably write in the same blood underneath: So do I…
Mosse was a man without pity and Frank would not forget it. ‘Please forgive Captain Mosse, Mr Ottobre.’
There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice, but Frank had no illusions. In other circumstances, if necessary, he knew very well that things would end differently. There would be no command from Parker and Ryan would not stop.
‘He’s… what can I say? Sometimes he worries too much about our family. Sometimes he goes overboard, but he’s reliable and trustworthy and cares for us a great deal.’
Frank had no doubt about that. He only wondered about the limits of Mosse’s enthusiasm, which seemed to depend on the lines drawn by the general. ‘The woman you saw earlier is my daughter Helena, Arianna’s older sister. The boy with her is Stuart, my grandson. Her son. She…’
Parker’s tone of voice softened. There was a hint of sadness.
‘To be quite frank, she’s suffering from a serious nervous breakdown. Very serious. Arianna’s death was the last straw. We tried to hide it from her, but it was impossible.’
The general’s head dropped. Nonetheless, Frank found it hard to see him in the role of a broken-hearted old father. It had not escaped him that the general defined the boy first as his grandson and then as Helena’s son. Hierarchy and discipline were probably as much a part of his private life as his public one. Cynically, perhaps, Frank saw the presence of his daughter and grandson in Monte Carlo as a cover for his real intentions.
‘Arianna was different. She was made of steel. She was my daughter. Helena is like her mother, fragile. Very fragile. Sometimes she does things without realizing, like today. A few times, she’s gotten out and wandered around for a couple of days until we find her. You can imagine her state. That’s what would have happened this time, too. She has to be watched so that she won’t be a danger to herself or to others.’
‘I’m sorry about your daughters, general. Helena, but especially Arianna. However, that doesn’t change my opinion of you and what you’re doing. Maybe I’d do the same thing in your place, I don’t know. I’ve been put on this case and I’ll do everything I can to catch this killer, you can count on that. But I will also do everything I can to keep you from whatever road you’re planning to take.’
Parker did not react angrily, like the night before. Frank’s refusal to collaborate was probably filed away as ‘tactically irrelevant’.
‘I’ll remember that. You’ve got character, Frank, but then so do I. So I would suggest you be very careful when you cross that road, if I’m on it, Mr Ottobre.’
This time, the sarcasm leaked out and Frank noticed. He smiled. Like Ryan, like Parker.
‘I’ll keep your advice in mind, general. But I hope you won’t hold it against me if I continue the investigation my way. But thanks, Mr Parker...’
Irony for irony, an eye for an eye, like the jeering cry of the seagull overhead, like a killer torn between justice and revenge.
Frank turned and walked slowly back to the main road. He could feel the general staring at his back. To his right, over the bushes, he could make out the roof of Jean-Loup’s house. As he crossed the road to get to the waiting car, Frank wondered whether the fact that Parker had rented a house so close to the deejay’s was coincidental.
From the balcony of his Parc Saint-Roman apartment, Frank watched the car that had brought him home turn right on to Rue des Giroflées, then on to Boulevard d’Italie. The guys had probably started their wisecracks about the situation, about him in particular. He was aware of the general opinion of his role in the affaire, as they called it. The bigshot FBI man, come to show them how it’s done. Except for Nicolas and Morelli, there was a dose of understandable chauvinism where he was concerned. Not that anyone at police headquarters was against him. Basically, they all had the same goal. But there were definitely some misgivings. His friendship with Hulot and his FBI qualifications were enough to earn everyone’s cooperation, but not necessarily their camaraderie. The doors were only half open to their American cousin.
Too bad. He wasn’t there for show, but to get a killer. It was a job, and he didn’t need any pats on the back.
Frank looked at the clock. It was two thirty in the afternoon. Realizing that he was hungry, he went back inside to the tiny kitchen. He’d asked Amélie, the housekeeper who came with the apartment, to do a little shopping. He used whatever was in the fridge to make himself a sandwich, opened a Heineken, and went back to the terrace to eat his lunch in the sun. He removed his shirt and sat bare-chested. For once, he didn’t worry about his scars. It was different now. He had other things to think about.
Frank looked up at the cloudless sky. The seagulls circled high above, white specks in the clear blue sky. It was a beautiful day. Ever since this whole thing had started, the weather had decided not to reflect human misery and had headed instead towards summer. Not a single cloud had covered the sun, not for an instant. Someone, somewhere, had decided to leave the handling of light and darkness to human beings, the lords and masters of their own eclipse.
He let his eyes run along the coast.
Monte Carlo under the sun was a small, elegant hive with too many queen bees, and even more who just played the part. They propped up a flimsy image of elegance, like phony buildings on a movie set. The only thing behind them was the faraway line of the horizon. But the killer, in a long dark coat, was opening the doors, one by one, with a scornful bow, pointing to the void behind them with a black-gloved hand.
Frank finished his sandwich and took the last sip of beer from the bottle. He looked at his watch again. Three o’clock. If Cooper wasn’t out on another case, he would be at the office in that huge stone building that was FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. He picked up his cordless phone and punched in the number.
‘Cooper Danton,’ he answered at the third ring in his usual dry tone.
‘Hi, Cooper. Frank again.’
‘Hey, man. Getting a tan on the Côte d’Azur?’
‘No sun on this Côte d’Azur. Our friend has us living the nightlife. I’m white as snow.’
‘Yeah, right. Any progress?’
‘Totally in the dark. The few lightbulbs we had are blowing out, one by one. And if that wasn’t enough, this General Parker and his sidekick are complicating things. I know I’m being a pain in the ass, but have you found anything on them?’
‘Lots, if the big time doesn’t scare you. I was about to send you an e-mail with a file attached. You beat me to it.’
‘Send it anyway but tell me a little first.’
‘Okay. Just a summary. General Parker, Nathan James, born in Montpelier, Vermont, in ’thirty-seven. Family not incredibly wealthy, but very well-to-do. Left home at seventeen and forged papers to get into the army. First in his class at the Academy. Brilliant officer with a fast-track career. Decorated in Vietnam. Brilliant operations in Nicaragua and Panama. Wherever they needed to flex muscles, use some fists and some brains, that’s where he’d be. He was Army Chief of Staff very early on. Secret mastermind of Desert Storm and the war in Kosovo. A couple of presidents later, and he’s still there. Which means that when he talks, people listen. And his opinion counts in Afghanistan now, too. He’s got money, power and credibility. He can wet the bed and say he was sweating. He’s tough, Frank. Real tough.’
Cooper stopped to take a breath and let him process the information.
‘What about the other one?’
‘Who? Mosse?’
Frank remembered the knife against his nostril. He scratched his nose to banish the memory.
‘Yeah. Did you get anything on him?’
‘Sure did. Captain Mosse, Ryan Wilbur. Born 2nd March ’63, in Austin, Texas. There’s less on him. And a lot more.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘At a certain point, Mosse became Parker’s shadow. If you got one, you got the other. Mosse would give his life for the general.’
‘Any special reason, or is it just Parker’s charm?’
‘Mosse’s loyalty is tied to the reason that Parker was decorated in Vietnam. One of the things he did was cross the Charlie line with a wounded soldier on his back, saving his life.’
‘Now you’re going to give me a name.’
‘Right. The soldier was Willy Mosse, Ryan’s father.’
‘Perfect.’
After that, they became friends. Or rather Mosse’s father became a subordinate of Nathan Parker. And Parker took care of the sergeant’s son. He helped him get into military academy, had him promoted, and covered his ass when necessary.’
‘Meaning?’
‘In short, Frank, Mosse is a bit of a psycho. He goes in for meaningless violence and gets himself in trouble. At the Academy, he once almost killed a classmate with his fists and later stabbed a soldier over a woman at an amy party in Arizona. During the Gulf War, a soldier was tried for threatening him with an M-16 to stop him from going ballistic on a group of defenceless prisoners.’
‘Quite a guy!’
‘A creep is more like it. But things were smoothed over every time. Thanks to guess who?’
‘General Nathan Parker, I presume.’
‘Correct. That’s why I told you to be careful, Frank. Those two are the Devil squared. Mosse is Parker’s henchman. And I’m sure he wouldn’t think twice about using him.’
‘I know, Coop. Thanks. I’ll be expecting your e-mail.’
‘It’s already sent. Take care, my friend.’
Frank hung up and stood in the middle of the room, his head leaning to one side. The information from Cooper added only names, dates and facts to what he already thought about those two. They were bad enough in broad daylight. They would be vicious at night.
The intercom buzzed. He got up, turned off the radio and went to answer.
‘Mr Ottobre, there’s someone coming up to see you.’ The doorman was speaking English and sounded embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier but… please understand… I…’
‘Don’t worry, Pascal. It’s okay.’
Who could it be that had so upset the doorman?. Someone knocked just then. He wondered why they didn’t ring the bell. Frank went to open the door.
He found himself in front of a middle-aged man, about his height, clearly American. He bore a vague resemblance to Robert Redford, with darker hair. He was tanned and elegant but not pretentious. The man was wearing a blue suit and his shirt was open with no tie. He wore a Rolex but the strap was leather, not one of those massive blocks of gold so common in Monaco. The man flashed him a natural grin. He was a real person, not a celebrity. No PR at any price. Frank liked him on sight.
‘Frank Ottobre?’
‘Yes?’
‘Glad to meet you, Mr Ottobre. I’m Dwight Bolton, United States Consul in Marseilles.’
Frank stopped a second in surprise, then shook the outstretched hand. This was an unexpected visit. His face probably betrayed his thoughts, because the envoy’s eyes lit up in amusement. And his grin shot up on one side, creasing his face.
‘I’ll leave, if you’d rather. But if you can get over my title and invite me in, I’d like to speak to you.’
Frank collected himself. The man was certainly charming. He pointed to his bare chest. Strangely enough, he was not ashamed of showing his scars to a stranger. And in any case, Bolton gave no sign of noticing them.
‘Sorry. You took me by surprise, but that’s okay. As you can see, I always receive my country’s diplomatic corps dressed like Rambo. It’s patriotic. Come on in, Mr Bolton.’
The consul stepped forward. He turned to someone in the hallway behind him, a tall bluff man with a gun under his jacket and letters stamped on his forehead – FBI, CIA or DEA, but certainly not the Salvation Army.
‘Could you wait for me here please, Malcolm?’
‘No problem, sir.’
‘Thanks.’
Bolton closed the door. He took a few steps and stopped in the centre of the room, looking around.
‘Not bad. Great view.’
‘Yeah. I’m a guest in this apartment. I guess you already know why I’m here.’
Frank made his declaration to avoid wasting time. Before arriving, Bolton must have gleaned all the information on him that he needed. Frank could imagine his secretary placing a folder with his name and résumé on the desk.
Frank Ottobre. Square peg, round hole.
The folder must have passed through so many hands by now that Frank no longer cared. All he wanted Bolton to know was that there was no reason for embarrassment and useless verbal gymnastics between them.
The consul understood and seemed to appreciate it. Bolton had the decency not to pretend that Frank was an easy guy to like, knowing that admiration and respect were an acceptable alternative.
‘Please sit down, Mr Bolton.’
‘Dwight. Call me Dwight.’
‘Okay, Dwight then. Call me Frank. Do you want something to drink? Nothing fancy, though. I’m not very well stocked right now,’ he said, going out on to the terrace to retrieve his shirt.
‘Can you manage a Perrier?’
No alcohol. Good. As Frank passed him on his way to the kitchen, Bolton sat down on the couch. Frank noticed that his socks were the same colour as his trousers. The man liked to match. Meticulous but without overdoing it.
‘I think so. No frills, okay?’
Bolton smiled. ‘No frills.’
Frank came back with a bottle of Perrier and a glass and handed them to him without ceremony. As Dwight poured the sparkling water, Frank went to sit on the other couch.
‘You’re asking yourself what I’m doing here, right, Frank?’
‘No, you’re asking. I think you came here to tell me.’
Bolton looked at the bubbles in his glass as if it were champagne. ‘We have a problem, Frank.’
‘We?’
‘Yes, we. You and I. I’m heads and you’re tails. Or vice versa. But right now, we’re two sides of the same coin. And we’re in the same pocket.’
He took a sip of water and placed the glass on the coffee table in front of him.
‘First, I want to say that my visit is only as official as you want to make it. I consider it completely off the record, a friendly chat. I must admit that I expected a different sort of person. Not Rambo necessarily, but Elliot Ness perhaps. I’m glad I was wrong.’
He picked up the glass again, as if he felt more confident holding it.
‘Want me to explain the situation, Frank?’
‘Might not be a bad idea.’
‘Well, I can tell you that Allen Yoshida’s death only accelerated something that Arianna Parker’s had already set off. You know that General Parker’s here in the Principality, don’t you?’ Frank nodded. Dwight continued, showing relief and at the same time concern that he was already informed. ‘We’re lucky you just happened to be here. It kept me from the embarrassment of insisting that one of our representatives be included in the investigation, because you already were. The United States has an image problem right now. For a country that decided to assume the leadership of modern civilization, as the one and only true superpower, we got a sound beating with 9/11. They hit us where we were strongest, where we felt invincible: at home.’
He looked out through the open French doors at the city. The first shadows of evening were starting to settle.
‘And then this mess happens… Two Americans killed just like that, right here in Monaco, one of the world’s safest countries. Ironic, eh? Doesn’t it feel a little like a rerun? And now we’ve got a broken-hearted father who has decided to take matters into his own hands. A US Army general who intends to use the same terrorist tactics we’re fighting elsewhere for his own ends. As you can see, we’ve got the makings of another big international fiasco.’
‘So?’ Frank looked at Bolton, impassive.
‘So, you have to catch him, Frank. The killer. You have to. Before Parker does. Before the local police. In spite of the local police, if need be. Washington wants this case to be the pride and glory of America. Whether you like it or not, you have to take off your Elliot Ness shirt and turn into Rambo.’
Frank thought that in different circumstances, he and Bolton could have been great friends. ‘You know I will, Dwight. I’ll do it, but not for any of those reasons. Heads and tails maybe, but we’re only the same coin in the same pocket by accident. I’ll catch the killer, and you can give it any meaning you like. Just one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t say that your meaning has to be mine, too.’
Bolton didn’t say a word. Either he didn’t understand or he understood too well, but that was enough. He stood up and hitched up his trousers. The conversation was over.
‘Okay, Frank. I think we’ve covered everything.’
Frank stood up as well. They shook hands in the waning light of the late spring afternoon. Night would soon fall. Voices and killers in the darkness. And everyone would try to grope his way to a hiding place.
‘Don’t show me out. I know the way. Bye, Frank. Good luck.’
‘Luck’s not a lady tonight. She’s going down kicking and screaming.’
Bolton went to the door and opened it. Malcolm could be seen standing outside as he closed the door behind him.
Frank was alone again. He decided he deserved another beer. He went into the kitchen to get it and sat down on the couch that his guest had occupied.
We’re the same coin… Heads or tails, Dwight?
He relaxed and tried to forget Bolton and their meeting. Diplomacy, wars, legal battles. He took a swig of beer and began to do something he had not done in a long time. He called it ‘opening’. When an investigation came to a dead end, he sat down by himself and tried to release his mind, letting all his thoughts free-associate, like a mental puzzle fitting together on its own. His only aim was to give free rein to his unconscious. Lateral thinking in images. Sometimes it brought excellent results. He closed his eyes.
Arianna Parker and Jochen Welder.
The boat, wedged into the dock, the masts listing slightly to the left.
The two of them lying on the bed, their faces skinned, their teeth
uncovered in a scowl without rage.
The voice on the radio.
The writing, red as blood.
I kill…
Jean-Loup Verdier. His wide eyes. Harriet’s face.
No, no. Not now!
The voice on the radio again.
The music, the cover of the Santana record.
Allen Yoshida.
His head leaning against the car window.
The light-coloured seat with the red writing again.
The man, the knife, the blood.
The video.
The man in black and Allen Yoshida.
The photos of the room without them.
The video. The photos. The video. The photos. The vid-
Suddenly, with an involuntary jump, Frank Ottobre found himself standing in front of the couch. It was such a tiny detail that his mind had recorded it and filed it away as if it was of no importance.
He had to go over to headquarters immediately and check on what he had remembered. Maybe it was just an impression, but he grasped at that scrap of hope. If he had a thousand fingers, he would have crossed them all.
The sun was setting as Frank reached police headquarters on Rue Notari. He had walked there from Parc Saint-Roman, slipping through the early evening crowds on the streets without even noticing them. He was on edge. When he was chasing a criminal, he always felt that same anxiety. That frenzy. An inner voice pushing him to run faster. Now that the investigation was at a dead end and their leads had gone nowhere, he had a small gleam of inspiration. There was something shining just below the surface and Frank couldn’t wait to dive down and see whether it was a real light or just a mirage.
The cop standing guard let him in without a word. As he climbed the steps to Nicolas Hulot’s office, Frank wondered if they used his name when they talked about him, or just called him ‘the American’. He walked down the corridor to Hulot’s door. He knocked a couple of times and turned the knob. The office was empty. He stood back a moment, puzzled, then decided to go in. He was feverishly impatient to see if his hunch was true. Nicolas wouldn’t mind.
The file with all the reports and papers on the case was lying on the desk. He opened it and looked for the envelope with the pictures of Allen Yoshida’s house that Froben had brought over after they checked the place. He studied them carefully. He sat down at the desk, picked up the phone, and called the inspector in Nice.
‘Froben?’
‘Yes. Who is it?’
‘Christophe, it’s Frank.’
‘Hi, Americano. How’s it going?’
‘Do I have to answer that?’
‘I read the papers. Is it really so bad?’
‘Yeah, really bad. Which means we’re just relieved it’s not worse.’
‘Great. And what can I do for you in this mess?’
‘Answer a couple of questions.’
‘Shoot.’
‘As far as you know, did anyone touch anything at Allen Yoshida’s place? Maybe accidentally move something before you came and took the photos?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Froben. ‘The maid who discovered the crime didn’t go in. She practically fainted at the sight of all that blood and called security right away. Valmeere, the head of Yoshida’s security team, is a former cop, remember? He knows the rules. No one touched anything, for sure. The photos I gave you are exactly what we found at the house.’
‘Okay, Christophe. Sorry, but I needed to be absolutely sure of that.’
‘Any leads?’
‘I don’t know. I hope so. I have to check one detail but I don’t want to raise a false alarm. Just one more thing…’ There was silence on the other end as Froben waited.
‘Do you remember if there were any vinyl LPs in Yoshida’s music collection?’
‘This one I can answer for sure. No, there were not. I can tell you that, because one of my men, who’s into this stuff, mentioned that there was a record player in the sound system but only CDs in the collection. He commented on it.’
‘Great, Froben. I didn’t expect anything less of you.’
‘Okay. I’m here if you need me.’
‘Thanks, Christophe. You’re a great help.’
Frank hung up and was lost in thought for a moment. Now he could find out if that bastard had made one tiny mistake, the first since it had all started. Or if he was the one making the mistake.
He opened the desk drawer. Inside, there was the copy of the video-cassette they had found in Yoshida’s Bentley. Frank knew that Nicolas kept it there with the radio tapes. He took it out of the drawer and slipped it into the VCR. He turned on the equipment and pressed PLAY.
The coloured bars appeared on the screen and the sequence started. If he lived 100 years and watched those images once a day, he would still never get used to them. He saw the man in black wave the dagger in his hand. Frank felt a knot in his stomach and his throat seized up. His rage would not go away until he caught him.
Here we go. We’re almost there… He was tempted to fast-forward, but was afraid that the detail would elude him. The video finally reached the point he was waiting for. He shouted to himself.
Yes, yes, yes…
He paused the image. It was such a tiny detail that he couldn’t have discussed it with anyone, for fear that it might be another false lead. Yet here it was, right in front of his eyes, and it was worth trying to see if it could mean something. Sure, it was so insignificant that it might be nothing. But it was all they had.
He looked carefully at the scene on the monitor before him. The killer was motionless, with the dagger raised over Allen Yoshida. His victim was staring at him, wide-eyed, his arms and legs bound with wire, his mouth covered with tape, a grimace of pain and fear on his face. The man would die anew, whenever someone watched that tape. And from what they knew about him, he deserved his fate each and every time.
Just then, the door opened and Morelli walked into the room. He stopped next to the door, speechless at finding Frank there. But then Frank noticed that Morelli wasn’t surprised, he was embarrassed. Frank felt slightly guilty at the sergeant’s discomfort.
‘Hi, Claude,’ he said. ‘Sorry I burst in, but there was nobody here and I had to check something out right away.’
‘Not a problem. If you’re looking for Inspector Hulot, he’s in the conference room downstairs. The bigwigs are there, too.’
Frank could smell something fishy. If it was a meeting to go over the investigation and coordinate things, it was strange that they hadn’t told him. He’d always been unobtrusive so as not to step on Hulot’s toes. He’d stayed a step behind and only taken the initiative when asked. He didn’t want to lower anyone’s opinion of the inspector, either that of his superiors or, more important, his subordinates.
Nicolas’s state of mind was another story. Frank had been struck by his outburst over Jean-Loup that morning, but it was perfectly understandable, from a personal and professional point of view. He and Hulot understood each other. They felt each other’s pain. There were no problems between them.
He compared that to the almost furtive visit from Dwight Bolton. The Principality authorities probably saw things the same way Bolton did, but from the opposite viewpoint. Now that the US government had intervened, Frank’s presence there was no longer a personal favour, a gentlemen’s agreement. It was official.
Frank shrugged. He had absolutely no intention of becoming mixed up in diplomatic relations. He didn’t give a damn. All he wanted to do was catch the killer, lock him in jail, and throw away the key. He didn’t care who took the credit.
‘I’m going downstairs. You coming?’ said Morelli, recovering from his earlier moment of awkwardness.
‘Think I should?’
‘I know they called you a couple of times but the line was busy.’
That was possible. He had been on the phone with Cooper for quite a while and had turned off his cell phone when Bolton arrived. He didn’t use it much anyway. It was almost always in a drawer in the apartment.
Frank got up from the desk, picked up the photos and removed the videotape from the VCR. He took them with him. ‘Can we look at this downstairs?’
‘We’ve got everything you need.’
They left the office and walked in silence down the stairs. Frank’s expression was hard as stone.
The large conference room was painted in two different shades of grey. There were a number of people sitting around a long, rectangular table. Nicolas Hulot, Dr Cluny, the Sûreté chief Roncaille and a couple of other people Frank didn’t know.
There was a moment of silence at his appearance and the fishy smell grew stronger. It was the classic pause of someone caught red-handed. Frank figured that this was their home and they had the right to have all the meetings they wanted, with or without him. But the tension confirmed his suspicions. Nicolas glanced around, embarrassed, unable to look him in the eye, just like Morelli a few minutes earlier. Hulot probably had other reasons as well. In Frank’s absence, he must have been soundly reprimanded for the negative results of the investigation so far.
Roncaille collected himself first. He stood up and took a few steps in Frank’s direction.
‘Ah, Frank, here you are. Come in and sit down. We were just doing a little summing up before you got here. I don’t think you know Alain Durand, the attorney general, who is personally involved in the case.’
He pointed to a short man with a few, sparse blonde curls and tiny, deep-set eyes behind rimless glasses, sitting at the head of the table. He was wearing an elegant grey suit that did not give him the air of importance he probably thought it did. Durand nodded slightly.
‘And Sergeant Gottet of the Computer Crime Unit…’
The man on Durand’s right nodded unmistakably. He was a young man, tanned with dark hair. He probably worked out in his spare time and lay on the beach all summer and a sunbed in the winter. He looked more like a yuppie than a cop.
Roncaille turned to the men he had just introduced. ‘This is Frank Ottobre, FBI special agent. He has joined the Principality police for the “No One” case.’
Frank went to sit down next to Dr Cluny on the left-hand side of the table, almost directly opposite Nicolas. He sought his gaze, but Nicolas continued to look somewhere under the table, as if he had lost something.
‘Okay,’ Roncaille said, returning to his seat, ‘I think we can go on now. Frank, we were about to hear Dr Cluny’s report on the tapes.’
Now it was Frank who nodded silently. Cluny pushed his chair closer to the table and opened his file of notes.
‘After analysing the tapes more closely than I could during the radio show,’ the psychiatrist began, ‘I have reached more or less the same conclusions. The subject is extremely complex, a type that I must say I have never encountered before. There are some details in his modus operandi that are totally in keeping with most case histories of serial killers. The single territory, for example. He only operates in the Principality. The fact that he always uses knives, which allow him direct contact with the victim. Moreover, the fact that he removes the skin can be seen as both a ritual fetish and, literally, as overkill. By mutilating the corpse, the killer demonstrates his total control over the person he attacks. Even the quiet period between one murder and the next is part of the general scheme. So, up to here, it all seems normal…’
‘But?’ asked Durand, with a deep voice that was disproportionate to his size.
Cluny paused for effect. He removed his glasses and rubbed the base of his nose, something Frank had noticed before. Cluny seemed to have a special ability to keep a crowd’s attention. He replaced his glasses and nodded at Durand.
‘That’s right. Here’s where the “buts” begin. The subject has enormous verbal agility and a capacity for abstraction that is absolutely remarkable, unique in my experience. His definition of himself as “someone and no one” is an excellent example. His imagery is even poetic at times, despite the bitterness. Aside from being highly intelligent, he must have an exceptional cultural background. University studies, the humanities, I’d say. That’s different from the average serial killer, who is usually lower class with little culture or education. They almost always have a very low intelligence quotient. There’s one thing in particular that puzzles me…’
Another pause. Frank watched the psychiatrist repeat the pantomime with his glasses and the nose rubbing. Durand cleaned his own glasses in the meantime.
A round of applause, Cluny. Great. We’re all ears but go on. And get yourself some contact lenses, won’t you?
‘The fact that there seems to be a compulsion towards the crime, the murder, during the conversation. Common personal experiences in subjects like this – an oppressive family, a domineering parent or parents, abuse or humiliation and so on – are fairly normal. But there is an attitude that we usually find in cases of split personality, as if the subject were two people at once. Which brings us back to the “someone and no one” mentioned earlier…’
To Frank, this was total bullshit. An exercise in style, nothing more. In this particular case, tracing the killer’s psychological profile might be helpful but would not determine anything. The killer was not only a man who took action; he was a thinking man, and he thought a great deal before acting. His thinking was exceptional, and if they wanted to catch him, they had to get beyond his capacity for lucid thought. Frank avoided saying so, however, because he didn’t want his opinion to be mistaken for admiration of the killer.
Durand interrupted, and from what he said, it was immediately evident that he was far from inexperienced. He knew how to run that kind of meeting.
‘Gentlemen, there’s no one here but us. This isn’t a contest. Please share any doubts you have, no matter how negligible. You never know where an idea may come from. I’ll start. What can we say about the killer’s relationship to music?’
Cluny shrugged. ‘That’s another debatable topic. “Someone and no one” again. His passion is obvious. He seems to know a lot about it and love it. It’s a primary refuge for him, a sort of mental retreat. But the fact that he uses it to leave a clue, a hint as to his next victim, is a way of destroying music, using it as a weapon to challenge us. He feels superior, even though it’s based on a sense of inferiority and frustration. Get it? “Someone and no one.”’
Hulot raised his hand.
‘Yes, inspector?’
‘Aside from the psychological motivation, what do you think his practical goal is in removing a particular part of the victim’s anatomy? Let me make myself clear: What does he do with their faces? Why does he need them?’
There was silence in the room. Every one of them had asked himself that question over and over. Now someone was saying it out loud and the silence meant that nobody had an answer.
‘I can only guess, like any of us. Any guess would be valid at the moment.’
‘Could it be that he’s unbearably ugly and is seeking revenge?’ asked Morelli.
‘That’s possible. But keep in mind that a repulsive or even monstrous appearance is fairly conspicuous. Ugliness is something people notice immediately: ugly equals bad. If there were some kind of Frankenstein wandering around, someone would have reported it. Someone like that doesn’t go unobserved-’
‘But it’s worth a try,’ interrupted Durand in his deep voice.
‘Of course. Anything is, unfortunately.’
‘Thank you, Dr Cluny,’ said Roncaille, turning to Sergeant Gottet, who had been listening in silence. ‘Your turn, sergeant.’ Gottet started speaking on his subject with shining eyes, fuelled by the fire of efficiency.
‘We’ve examined all the possible causes as to why the UnSub’s calls were not intercepted.’ Gottet looked at Frank and it was hard for Frank not to smile. Gottet was obsessed. The term UnSub was an abbreviation of ‘Unknown Subject’, used during investigations in America but uncommon in Monaco. ‘We have a new mobile phone monitoring system, the DCS 1000, known as “Carnivore”. If the phone call goes through that, there’s no problem.’
Frank had heard of it in Washington when it was still in the experimental phase. He hadn’t been aware that it was now operational. But then, there were many things he was unaware of just then. Gottet continued his report.
‘As far as fixed phone lines are concerned, we can enter the radio-station computer, the one that manages the switchboard, directly. We can check on every access with a search for the signal, whether it comes from the phone-company switchboard, or directly or indirectly through the Internet.’ He paused for effect, but without Cluny’s results. ‘As you know, if you have the right software and some wherewithal, you can make calls from the Internet without being traced. As long as there isn’t someone as good as you on the other end. That’s why we’ve got a hacker who turned double agent. Now he’s a freelance consultant helping to protect against hackers. Sometimes he works for the police in exchange for our closing an eye on his past escapades. There’s some incredible technology available for this kind of search. Next time, we’re not going to let him get away.’
Gottet’s report was much shorter than Cluny’s, partly because he had much less to say. The mystery of that untraced call was a stain on the department’s freshly laundered shirt. Everyone would be rolling their sleeves up to their armpits to wash it clean.
‘Anything else?’ Durand looked around the room.
Hulot seemed to have recovered from his embarrassment and was cool and collected.
‘We’re continuing our investigation into the victims’ private lives but we don’t expect much from that. Meanwhile, we’re keeping an eye on Radio Monte Carlo. If the subject calls again from the vicinity and gives us another clue, we’ll be ready to intervene. We have a special plainclothes team, men and women, to check the location. There’s also a sniper unit equipped for night vision. We’ve contacted music experts who are willing to help us decipher the message, if and when it comes. Once the message is deciphered, we’ll put anyone we consider a likely victim under protection. We’re hoping the killer will make a mistake, since up to now he’s been infallible.’
Durand looked around the table. Frank finally managed to see that his eyes were hazel. He addressed no one in particular.
‘Gentlemen, it’s pointless for me to remind you how important it is for us not to make any more mistakes. This is not just a police investigation. It has become much more than that. We have to catch this man soon, before the press tears us to pieces.’
And the Council of State, if not the Prince in person, thought Frank.
‘Let me know anything immediately, whatever the time. Goodbye, gentlemen. I’m counting on you.’
Durand got up and everyone followed. The attorney general headed to the door, followed by Roncaille who probably wanted to take advantage of his presence for a spurt of public relations. Morelli waited until the two of them were far enough away and then he left too, with a glance of support at Hulot.
Dr Cluny was still standing by the table gathering his folders. ‘If you need me at the radio station, just call.’
‘That would be a big help, doctor,’ said Hulot.
‘Then I’ll see you later.’
Cluny left the room, too. Frank and Nicolas were alone. The inspector motioned towards the table where they had all been sitting.
‘You know I had nothing to do with this, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. Everyone’s got their own problems.’ Frank was thinking about Parker. He felt guilty about the fact that he still had not told Nicolas about the general and Ryan Mosse. ‘If you come up to my office, I have something for you.’
‘What?’
‘A gun. A Glock Twenty. I thought you’d be familiar with it.’
A gun. Frank had thought he’d never need one again. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary.’
‘I wish it weren’t, but at this point, we should all be ready for anything.’
Frank stood there in puzzled silence. He rubbed his face where his beard was already a dark shadow.
‘What is it, Frank?’
‘Nicolas, I think I found something.’
‘Meaning?’
Frank went over to pick up the envelope and the cassette he had placed on the table when he came in.
‘I brought this stuff, but at the last minute I decided not to say anything in front of the others because it’s so insignificant. We need to check it first, before we put it out there. Remember when I told you there was something I couldn’t remember? Something that I should have remembered but couldn’t place? I finally figured out what it was. A discrepancy between the video and the pictures of Allen Yoshida’s house, the ones Froben brought over.’
‘What?’
Frank took a photo out of the envelope and handed it to Hulot.
‘Look at that cabinet,’ he began. ‘The stereo cabinet behind the couch. What do you see there?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly. Now, look at this.’
Frank picked up the cassette and put it in the VCR. The tape was still at the point where he had pressed PAUSE. He stopped the image again and moved his hand to a point behind the two figures.
‘Here, this is the same cabinet. There’s a record sleeve there. It’s a vinyl LP. There weren’t any in Yoshida’s house. Froben confirmed it for me. Not even one. There’s no trace of this record in the photos. Which means that with his mania for music, the killer must have brought with him the record for the soundtrack of his new crime. The video copy was made in haste and the picture is out of focus, but I’m sure that, if we work on the original with the right equipment, we could make out what the record is. The fact that he didn’t leave it there means that it has special meaning. For him or in general. It might not be a step forward but it’s the first thing we’ve learned about the killer, in spite of himself. It’s tiny, but it just might be the first mistake he has made.’
There was a long silence. Frank spoke first. ‘Can we examine the video without everybody knowing about it?’
‘Not here in the Principality,’ replied the inspector. ‘Let me think… There’s Guillaume, Mercier’s son. We’re old friends. He has a small production company. Makes video clips and stuff like that. He’s just starting out, but I know he’s good. I could get in touch with him.’
‘Can he be trusted?’
‘He’s a good boy. He was Stéphane’s best friend. He’ll keep his mouth shut if I ask him to.’
‘Good. I think it’s worth checking the tape, but we need to be discreet, Nicolas.’
‘I think so, too. And as you said yourself: small as it is, it’s all we’ve got.’
They looked at each other with a level gaze that told its own story. They really were two sides of the same coin and they were in the same pocket. Life hadn’t been kind to either of them, but each in his own way had had the courage to pick himself up and carry on. Until then, they had been at the mercy of events that were disrupting their existence. Now, thanks to an accidental discovery suspended in the air like a kite in the wind, a small, coloured speck of hope floated through that grey room.
Laurent Bedon turned off his electric razor and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d slept late, but those extra hours had not erased the excesses of the night before. He had staggered home at dawn, blind drunk, and collapsed on the bed, already half asleep before he had hit the pillow. Now, even with the long shower and shave, he still had circles under his eyes and the pallor of someone who had not seen the sun in months. The harsh bathroom light mercilessly accentuated his unhealthy appearance.
Christ, I look dead.
He picked up the bottle of aftershave and splashed some over his face. He overdid it, and the sting of the alcohol burned his lips. He combed his damp hair and sprayed deodorant under his arms. And with that, he thought, he was ready for another night out.
His clothes were strewn all over the bedroom in what he considered an unavoidable mess. He used to have a housekeeper come and tidy up, putting things in precarious order, which he immediately demolished. Now he could no longer afford such luxury. It was a miracle he hadn’t been evicted yet, since he owed four months’ rent.
Things had got really bad over recent months. He had even lost a hefty wad of cash at the Menton Casino last night. Moreover, the money wasn’t his. He’d asked Bikjalo for another advance. The station manager had complained a little, but finally decided to open his purse strings, reluctantly signing a cheque. As he pushed it towards him, he had told Laurent that he’d reached his limit.
The cheque had been enough to patch up a number of critical emergencies within his dire financial situation. There was the rent, for just two crappy rooms in a building in Nice that disgusted even the cockroaches. Unbelievable. The landlord was stalking him like they were in an American B-movie. Or a Laurel and Hardy comedy.
Crédit Agricole had repossessed his car when he had stopped making the lease payments after the third instalment. Fuck them. And fuck Monsieur Plombier, the shithead bank official who had treated him like scum and demanded that he return his credit card and chequebook.
But that wasn’t even his main problem. If only it were. He owed a roll of euros to that thug Maurice, a debt he had contracted when money was still called francs. He had scraped together enough for a few instalments but the bastard wouldn’t be patient for ever. Everyone knew what happened to people who didn’t repay their debts to that bloodsucker. The stories he had heard were far from reassuring. They were just rumours, but in this case, Laurent thought, he should probably take them as the gospel truth.
He sat down on the bed and ran his hands through his hair. He looked around. Everything he saw was disgusting. He still found it impossible to believe that he was living in a dump in Ariane. Maurice had taken his wonderful apartment at the Acropolis in exchange for part of his debt, but the interest had added up so fast that he would soon be taking his balls for the rest, simply for the joy of hearing him sing soprano.
He threw on some clothes, retrieving a pair of trousers and one of the cleaner shirts. He picked up yesterday’s socks from under the bed. He had absolutely no idea how they had got there. He couldn’t remember getting undressed last night. There was a mirror in the wardrobe of the furnished apartment and the reflection it showed was not much better than the one in the bathroom.
Forty years old. And in that state. If he didn’t make some changes, and soon, he would end up a clochard, a homeless bum. There wouldn’t even be enough money for razor blades. Unless, of course, Maurice stepped in to help…
But he had felt it last night: luck. Pierrot had given him the numbers and Pierrot’s numbers were usually lucky. Thanks to ‘Rain Boy’ he’d left the casino more than once with a huge smile on his face. He always squandered the money immediately, like anything earned without effort.
He had cashed Bikjalo’s cheque with a guy he knew who hung around the casino waiting for people like him, men with a feverish look who were used to following a ball around the wheel. He had taken a hefty commission, as that cheat called it, but Laurent had gone into the main room with the best intentions, not knowing that he was about to pave another mile of his road to hell.
A disaster. Not even one win; not one big number. The croupier had mechanically swept up his bets, one after another, with the professional disdain of all croupiers. Just the time of a spin, the launching of a ball, and that bastard’s able hands pushed the chips over with the previous win. Everything had gone up in smoke.
One wisp of smoke after another. If he had burned all the money in the fireplace, it would have been more useful. Except that now he had no fireplace. Maurice, or someone like him, was warming himself by it, damn him.
Laurent got up from the bed and went to boot up his computer, precariously balanced on that desk-like thing in the bedroom. His PC was very fast; he’d assembled it himself. At least he still had that. He would be lost without his computer. It had his notes, his programme schedules, the things he wrote when he was sad. Which meant all the time, right then. And there was the Web to surf, a virtual escape from the reality where he was imprisoned.
When he turned on the computer, he saw that he had an e-mail. He opened it. It was a message from an unknown sender, in handsome Book Antiqua font:
Need money? Your rich uncle’s in town.
He wondered what jerk was making such bad jokes. A friend who knew his troubles, most likely. Who? Jean-Loup? Bikjalo? Someone from the station?
And who was the ‘rich uncle?’ For a moment, he thought of the American, the FBI agent investigating the murders. His eyes were even creepier than that voice calling in to the station. Maybe it was a way of keeping him under pressure. But he didn’t seem like the type who would resort to that. He’d just throw you against a wall and beat it out of you until you vomited up your guts.
That whole business came to mind. The voice at the radio was a godsend for Jean-Loup. He was becoming more well-known than the Beatles. It made him miserable, but in the end, once they caught the guy, he would come out a winner. Jean-Loup would take off and he, Laurent, would stand there on the ground with his nose in the air, watching him soar. And to think that he was the one who had introduced Jean-Loup to the station after first meeting him a few years ago in front of the Café de Paris. He had witnessed the episode that got that arsehole his amazing house in Beausoleil. He had only found out a few years later that saving that mutt for the old biddy had been like finding a winning lottery ticket.
Laurent’s fate was always the same: to observe the luck of others. He never failed to be there to see someone hit by a golden ray of sunshine, which might have hit him if its trajectory had deviated by just a foot.
He had started talking to the guy with the dark hair and green eyes after he had saved the dog. He was looking around, a little embarrassed at suddenly becoming the centre of attention. One thing had led to another. Laurent had been struck by what Jean-Loup exuded, a sense of serenity and involvement at the same time. It was something that he couldn’t exactly describe, but it was strong enough to make an impression on anyone who came in contact with him. Especially someone like Laurent.
Bikjalo, who was no fool, had sensed it as soon as Laurent had introduced him as a possible host for Voices, the programme Laurent had been thinking about for some time. For Bikjalo, Jean-Loup had the undeniable advantage of being a good candidate and of being dirt cheap, since he knew absolutely nothing about radio.
A total beginner. Two birds with one stone. A new hit and a new host at almost zero cost. After two weeks of recorded rehearsals, with Jean-Loup proving the assumptions about him and his talent correct, Voices had finally gone on air. It had started well and carried on improving. People liked the guy. They liked his way of talking and communicating: fanciful, imaginative, with bold metaphors understood by all.
Even killers, thought Laurent, bitterly.
Inadvertently, the watershed episode – when two boys thought lost at sea were saved – had transformed the show into the socially conscious programme it now was. The pride and joy of the radio and the Principality. And honey for the buzzing flies: its sponsors.
And the deejay became the star of a show that Laurent had conceived, a show in which Laurent now had less and less to say and which was pushing him aside, a little more each day.
‘Fuck all of them. It’ll change. It has to change,’ he muttered to himself.
He finalized his notes for that evening’s show and the printer started spitting freshly inked sheets of paper on to the tray. They would change their minds about him. All of them, one by one. Barbara especially.
He thought back to her copper hair spread on the pillow. They had had an affair. It was intense, and he had fallen for her deeply, physically and emotionally, before he had let everything go to hell. She had tried to stand by him, but it was like living with a drug addict. After a lot of back and forth, she had left him, turning her back on him when she had realized that she would never be able to compete with the four other women in his life: spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.
He got up from the unsteady chair and slipped the printed sheets into a folder. He took his jacket from the armchair that he used as a coat rack and went out. The landing was no less a picture of gloom than the apartment. He pulled the door closed and sighed. The lift wasn’t working: a new notch on the building-manager’s belt. He walked downstairs in the dim, yellow light, brushing his hand against the beige wallpaper of the stairwell. Like him, it had seen better days.
He went into the lobby and pushed open the front door, made of glass in a rusted metal frame with chipped paint. Entirely different from the elegant buildings of Monte Carlo or Jean-Loup’s lovely villa. The street outside was submerged in the shadows of evening, that intense blue that only summer sunsets leave behind. It even lent a semblance of humanity to that desolate neighbourhood. Ariane was not the Promenade des Anglais or the Acropolis. The smell of the sea never reached that area. Or, if it did, it was overpowered by the stench of garbage.
Laurent had to walk three blocks to reach the bus that would take him into the Principality. So much the better. A walk would do him good and clear his head, and to hell with Plombier and his shitty bank.
Valentin emerged from the shadows at the corner of the building. He was so fast that Laurent didn’t see him coming. Before he even knew what was happening, he felt himself being raised off the ground and a moment later he was pushed against the wall with an arm pressing against his throat and the man’s breath, stinking of garlic and gum disease, in his face.
‘Well, Laurent? Why don’t you remember your friends when you’ve got a little cash?’
‘What do you mean? You know… that I…’
A thrust against his neck interrupted his protests and he gasped.
‘Stop bullshitting, you wanker. You laid down a whole bunch of dough last night in Menton. You forgot that the money you were playing with belongs to Maurice, didn’t you?’
Valentin Rohmer was Maurice’s bully, his troublemaker, his tax collector. Fat and flabby as he was, Maurice could not pin people’s arms behind their backs until they cried. Or push them against a wall until they felt the rough plaster rip their skin. But Valentin could, the bastard. And that other bastard who had cashed his cheque last night in the bar in front of the casino – he was the one who had ratted on him. Laurent hoped that piece of shit would get the Valentin treatment one day.
‘I…’
‘Shut the fuck up. There are a few things about me and Maurice you just don’t get. Like how he loses patience and so do I. It’s about time I refresh your memory.’
The punch in his stomach left him breathless. He retched, bringing the acid taste of vomit up to his dry mouth. His legs buckled. Valentin held him up effortlessly, grabbing him by the shirt collar with an iron grip. He saw the thug’s right fist and realized that his face was the target and that the blow would be so powerful that his head would smash into the wall behind him. He closed his eyes and stiffened, waiting for the fist to strike.
It never did.
He opened his eyes again as he felt the grip on his neck relax. A tall, strong man with light brown hair in a crew cut had come up behind Valentin and grabbed him by his sideburns, pulling violently upwards.
The pain and surprise made Valentin release his grasp.
‘What the hell…’
The man let go of Valentin’s hair and the thug stepped back to face the newcomer. He looked him up and down. He was all muscle and there was absolutely no sign of fear on his face. He was much less reassuring than Laurent’s harmless, sickly figure. Especially the eyes that were watching him without expression, as if he were simply asking directions.
‘Great. I see help has arrived,’ said Valentin in a voice that sounded less secure than he would have liked.
He tried to use the fist intended for Laurent on the man standing in front of him. The reaction came in a flash. His adversary dodged the punch with a duck of his head and then he stepped forward and wedged his shoulder under Valentin’s. After clutching it with his arms, he pressed down with all his weight.
Laurent could clearly hear the sound of bones breaking with a crack loud enough to make him jump. Valentin screamed and bent down, holding his broken arm. The man stepped back and spun around gracefully, a pirouette to give force to the blow. His foot crashed on Valentin’s face, and blood spurted from his mouth. Valentin fell to the ground without a whimper and lay there motionless.
Laurent wondered if he was dead. No, his unknown rescuer seemed much too skilled to kill by accident. He was the type who killed only when he wanted to. Laurent started coughing, bending over to hold his stomach as acidic saliva trickled from his mouth.
‘Looks like I got here just in time, Mr Bedon, no?’ said the man who had saved him, in very bad French with a strong foreign accent. He helped him up, holding his elbow.
Laurent looked at him, thunderstruck, without understanding. He had never seen him before in his life. But the guy had saved him from Valentin’s fists and knew his name. Who the hell was he?
‘Do you speak English?’
Laurent nodded. The man gave a brief sigh of relief. He continued in English with an American accent.
‘Thank God. I’m not very good at your language, as you’ve just heard. You’re probably wondering why I helped you with this -’ he waved at Valentin’s body on the ground – ‘this… I’d call it… embarrassing situation, if you agree.’
Laurent nodded again in silence.
‘Mr Bedon, either you don’t read your e-mails, or you don’t trust rich uncles. I have a proposal for you.’
Laurent’s astonishment was written all over his face. Now he had an explanation for that strange e-mail. He would surely be getting others. This man hadn’t knocked Valentin out and saved his hide simply to carve a Z like Zorro on the wall and disappear.
‘My name’s Ryan Mosse and I’m American. I have a proposal for you. Very, very advantageous, economically speaking.’
Laurent looked at him for an instant without speaking. He liked the sound of that. Suddenly his stomach stopped hurting. He got up, breathing deeply. He could feel the colour slowly returning to his face.
The man looked around. If he was disgusted by the filth of this neighbourhood, he didn’t show it. He was looking carefully at the building.
‘My apartment’s over there,’ said Laurent, ‘but I don’t think you came to buy it.’
‘No, but if we come to an understanding, you would be able to, if you’re interested.’
As he straightened his clothing, Laurent’s brain raced ahead. He had absolutely no idea who this guy was and what he wanted… what was his name? Oh, yes, Ryan Mosse. But Mosse presumably would now tell him. And he would also name a figure.
A very large figure, apparently.
Laurent looked at Valentin, motionless on the ground. The pig’s nose and mouth were split open and a small puddle of blood was forming on the pavement. At that particular moment in his life, no matter who it was that saved Laurent’s hide from someone like Valentin and then talked to him about money, lots of money, Laurent Bedon would listen.