The police chief’s words were not just a formality. The man was genuinely sorry, but not for the reasons he wanted them to believe. Now he was in the lion’s cage, and it was up to him to tame the wild beasts.
‘Get some sleep. You both need it. Then I’d like to see you in my office as soon as possible, Frank. There are some details I’d like to discuss with you.’ With the same apparent composure as Durand, Roncaille escaped from the room as well. Frank and Hulot were left alone.
‘See? I hate to say “I told you so,” but I can’t blame them.’
‘Nicolas, I don’t think either Roncaille or Durand could have done any better than we did. This is politics, not reason. But I’m still in it.’
‘You. And what do I have to do with it?’
‘You’re still a police inspector, Nicolas. You were taken off a case, not suspended from the force. And you’ve got something that nobody else on the case has.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Twenty-four hours a day to work on it, without having to account to anyone, without having to waste your time writing reports.’
‘Through the back door, huh?’
‘Right. There’s still something we have to check out, and you seem the best person to do it now. Actually, I don’t think it was I who noticed that record sleeve in the video.’
‘Frank, you’re a son of a bitch. A real son of a bitch.’
‘I’m your friend. And I owe it to you.’
Hulot changed his tone. He stretched his neck to relieve the tension. ‘I think I’ll get some shut-eye. I guess I can now, right?’
‘Yeah, and I can’t have heard Roncaille say he wants to see me “as soon as possible”. I’m practically asleep already.’
THIRTY-SIX
Frank rubbed his eyes and looked up at the blue rectangle framed by the window. When he had returned home to his apartment he had been too tired even to shower. He had collapsed on the bed after peeling off his clothes, leaving the shutters open.
I’m not in Monte Carlo, he thought. I’m still in that house on the beach, trying to pull myself together. Harriet is sunbathing next to me, lying on a towel, the wind in her hair and a smile on her face. Now I’m getting up and going to her, and there will be no one dressed in black. There will be no one between us.
‘No One . . .’ he said aloud.
The two deaths of the night before came back to him and he got up reluctantly. Through the window he could see a strip of sea where gusts of wind had formed whitecaps far offshore. He went over to open the window. A gust of warm air rushed in and swept what was left of the nightmares from the room. He had slept only a few hours and felt as though he could have slept for ever.
He showered, shaved and put on fresh clothes. As he made himself some coffee, he mused over the new developments. Now that Nicolas was out of the game, things would be a lot more complicated. Roncaille wasn’t capable of handling things on his own, at least not from an investigative point of view. He might be a genius at PR and talking to the media, but field investigations were not his cup of tea. Maybe a long time ago they had been, but now he was more politician than cop. However, he had a good team working for him. The Principality’s police force wasn’t considered one of the best in the world for nothing . . . blah blah blah . . .
His own presence in Monaco was becoming a diplomatic necessity. As with everything, it had advantages and disadvantages. Frank was sure that Roncaille would try to maximize the first and minimize the second. He was well acquainted with the methods of the Monte Carlo police. Nobody ever said anything, but they knew everything.
Everything except the name of the killer . . .
He decided not to worry about the police. He had felt that way all along. This was not a joint police investigation. Even if Roncaille and Durand represented authority, it didn’t matter. Neither did America nor the Principality. This was a personal matter between him, Nicolas Hulot and a man dressed in black who collected the faces of his victims in a gory, delirious carnival. All three of them had put their lives on hold, waiting to see how this no-holds-barred struggle between three dead men pretending to be alive would end.
They had to change.
He sat down at the computer and opened an e-mail from Cooper. The attachments held the information he had found on Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse. It wasn’t much use now that Mosse was in jail and Parker was temporarily harmless. Temporarily, he repeated. He had no illusions about Parker. The general was a man you couldn’t rule out until there were worms in his dead body.
There was a note from Cooper in his e-mail.
Give me a call after you’re done sailing the seas with your new cruiser and have a free second. At any time. I need to talk to you. Coop.
He wondered what was so urgent and looked at his watch. At this hour, he could call him at home. He wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. Cooper lived alone in a loft overlooking the Potomac.
His friend’s sleepy voice answered after a few rings. ‘Hello?’
‘Coop? It’s Frank.’
‘Oh, it’s you. How’s it goin’?’
‘A huge oil tanker just crashed and you wouldn’t believe the size of the spill.’
‘What happened?’
‘Two more murders last night.’
‘Oh, man!’
‘You said it. One was killed according to the usual ritual – he’s the fourth. My friend the inspector was politely kicked off the case. The other guy’s dead thanks to our dear friend Ryan Mosse. They’ ve got him in jail now and the general is raising hell to get him out.’
‘Jesus, Frank.’ Cooper was fully awake now. ‘What the fuck’s going on over there? Next, you’ll tell me it’s nuclear war.’
‘Don’t rule that out. What did you have to tell me that was so urgent?’
‘There’ve been some new developments here. The Larkin case, I mean. The things we’re finding out make us think they’ve got a good cover somewhere, a joint venture with something big. But we don’t know what it is yet. And Hudson McCormack’s in from New York.’
‘Who’s he? What does he have to do with Larkin?’
‘That’s what we want to know. Officially, he’s a lawyer, defence counsel for Osmond Larkin. That surprised us because the bastard could get himself someone better. He has done in the past. This McCormack’s a mediocre thirty-five-year-old attorney from the Big Apple. He’s better known for being on the Stars and Stripes ocean yachting team at the Louis Vuitton Cup than for his legal success.’
‘Checked him out?’
‘Sure. Turned him inside out. Nothing doing. Lives within his means, not a penny more. No vices, no women, no coke. All he cares about besides work is sailing. And now he comes out like a jack-in-the-box to show us what a small world it is.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean that right now Hudson McCormack is on his way to Monte Carlo.’
‘Great. This isn’t the best time to visit.’
‘Apparently he’s going for a pretty important regatta. But . . .’
‘But?’
‘Frank, doesn’t it seem strange that a modest New York lawyer, unknown and unproven, gets the first important case of his career and takes off, even for a few days, to go sailing in Europe? Anyone else would have thrown himself into it 24/7.’
‘When you put it that way . . . But what’s it got to do with me?’
‘You’re there and you know the story. Right now this guy is Osmond Larkin’s only link to the rest of the world. Maybe he’s just his lawyer, but it might be more than that. There’s a lot of money and a lot of drugs at stake. We all know what goes on in Monte Carlo and the money that goes through there, but in cases of terrorism and drugs we could get a few safes opened. You’re in with the police there – it wouldn’t be difficult for you to have McCormack watched, discreetly and efficiently.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He didn’t tell Cooper that in Monte Carlo almost everyone, including him, was being discreetly
and efficiently watched.
‘I attached a photo of him to the e-mail, and there’s some other info on McCormack’s visit to Monaco.’
‘Okay. Go back to sleep. Guys with low IQs need sleep so their brains can function in the morning.’
‘Thanks, asshole. Break a leg.’
Another lap, another race, another mess. He saved the Hudson McCormack attachment on to a floppy disk without even opening it. He found a label in the drawer and wrote ‘Cooper’.
His brief conversation had taken him home for a moment, although home was an elusive concept. He felt displaced from the ruins of his existence, like an invisible ghost who sees without being seen.
He closed his eyes and in his mind returned to a conversation he had once had with Fr Kenneth, a priest who was also a psychologist at the private clinic where Frank had been admitted after Harriet’s death. When Frank had been pulled down as far as he could go. The time when, if he hadn’t been in therapy or analysis, he’d sat on a bench in the park of that luxury asylum, staring into the void and fighting the desire to follow Harriet. One day, Fr Kenneth had walked silently across the grass and sat down next to him on the bench, wrought-iron with dark wooden slats.
‘How’s it going, Frank?’
Frank had looked at him carefully before answering. He’d studied his long, pale face, that of an exorcist, aware of the contradiction between his role as man of science and man of faith. He hadn’t been wearing his collar and could easily have passed as a relative of any of the patients.
‘I’m not insane, if that’s what you want to hear.’
‘I know you’re not insane and you know that’s not what I was asking. When I asked you how it was going, I really wanted to know how things were going.’
Frank had spread out his arms in a gesture that could mean many things.
‘When do I get out of here?’
Fr Kenneth had answered his question with a question. ‘Are you ready?’
‘If you ask me, I’ll never be ready. That’s why I asked you.’
‘Do you believe in God, Frank?’
He’d turned to the priest with a bitter smile. ‘Please Fr, try to avoid clichés like “Seek God and He will hear you.”’
‘Stop offending my intelligence and, most of all, stop offending yours. If you insist on assigning me a role to play, maybe it’s because you’ve decided to play one yourself. There’s a reason that I asked you if you believe in God.’
Frank had raised his eyes to stare at a gardener who was planting an oak sapling.
‘I don’t care. I don’t believe in God, Fr Kenneth. And that’s not to my advantage, whatever you might think.’ He’d turned to look at him. ‘It means there’s no one to forgive me for the evil that I do.’
And I never thought I had done any. But it turns out, I did a great deal. Bit by bit, I took life away from the person I loved, the person whom I should have protected more than anyone else.
As he slipped on his shoes, the ring of the phone brought him back to the present.
‘Hello.’
‘Frank, it’s Nicolas. Are you out of bed?’
‘Awake and ready for action.’
‘Good. I just phoned Guillaume Mercier, the kid I was telling you about with the video analysis skills. He’s waiting for us. Want to come?’
‘Sure. It might help me face another night at Radio Monte Carlo. Have you read the papers yet?’
‘Yes. They went wild. You know the sort of thing.’
‘Sic transit gloria mundi. Who gives a shit? We’ve got other things to do. Come pick me up.’
‘I’ll be there in two minutes.’
Frank went to put on a clean shirt. The intercom rang as he was unbuttoning the collar.
‘Monsieur Ottobre? There’s someone here to see you.’
At first Frank thought that Nicolas was being literal when he said two minutes. ‘I know, Pascal. Tell him I need another minute and to come up if he doesn’t want to wait downstairs.’
As he slipped on the shirt, he heard the lift stop at his floor. He went to open the door and found her outside.
Helena Parker was standing in front of him, with her blue-grey eyes that were meant to reflect starlight, not pain. She was in the shadow of the hallway, looking at him. Frank was holding his shirt open over his bare chest. It was the scene with Dwight Bolton, the consul, all over again, except that the woman’s eyes lingered over the scars on his chest before moving up again to his face. He hurriedly buttoned up his shirt.
‘Hello, Mr Ottobre.’
‘Hello. Sorry I’m not dressed. I thought you were someone else.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Helena’s brief smile resolved any awkwardness. ‘I suspected that from the doorman’s answer. May I come in?’
‘If you like.’
Frank stood aside to let her in. Helena entered, brushing him with one arm and a delicate perfume, soft as a memory. For an instant, the room was filled with nothing but her.
Her eyes fell on the Glock that Frank had placed on the table next to the stereo. Frank quickly hid it in a drawer.
‘I’m sorry that’s the first thing you had to see.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I grew up surrounded by weapons.’
Frank had a brief image of Helena as a child in the home of Nathan Parker, the inflexible soldier whom fate had dared to cross by giving him two daughters.
‘I can imagine.’
Frank felt slightly uncomfortable. The presence of this woman in his apartment was a source of questions for which Frank was unprepared. Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse were his real concern – they were people with voices, weight, feet that left tracks and arms that could strike. Until then, Helena had been a silent presence, nothing more. A mournful beauty. Frank was not interested in the reason she was there and hoped there was no reason in particular. He interrupted the silence with a voice that sounded harsher than he had intended.
‘There must be a reason you’re here.’
Helena Parker had eyes and hair and a face and a smell, and Frank turned his back on her as he tucked his shirt into his trousers, as if turning his back on everything she represented. Her voice came from behind him as he slipped on his jacket.
‘Of course. I need to talk to you. I’m afraid I need your help. That is, if anyone can help me.’
When he turned around again, Frank had shielded himself with a pair of dark glasses.
‘My help? You live in the house of one of the most powerful men in America and you need my help?’
‘I don’t live in my father’s house. I’m a prisoner in my father’s house.’ A bitter smile flitted over Helena Parker’s lips.
‘Is that why you’re so afraid of him?’
‘There are many reasons to be afraid of Nathan Parker. But I’m not afraid for myself. I’m worried about Stuart.’
‘Stuart is your son?’
Helena hesitated a moment. ‘Yes, my son. He’s the problem.’
‘And what does that have to do with me?’
Without warning, the woman went over to him, raised her hands and removed his Ray-Bans. She looked into his eyes with an intensity that pierced Frank harder than the sharpest knife Ryan Mosse could ever find.
‘You’re the first person I’ve ever seen who can stand up to my father. If anyone can help me, it’s you.’
Before Frank could say anything, the cordless phone rang again. He picked it up with the relief of someone who finally has a weapon to wield against an enemy.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Nicolas. I’m downstairs.’
‘Okay, I’m coming down.’
‘This probably isn’t a good time,’ Helena sighed, handing him back his sunglasses.
‘I have to do a few things right now. I’ll be out late and I don’t know—
‘You know where I live. You can come see me whenever you like, even if it’s late.’
‘Do you think Nathan Parker would appreciate a visit from me?’
??
?My father’s in Paris. He went to speak to the ambassador and to find a lawyer for Captain Mosse.’ A brief pause. ‘He took Stuart with him as . . . as a companion. That’s why I’m here alone.’
For a moment, Frank thought she was going to use the word hostage. Maybe that’s what she had meant.
‘Okay. But I have to go now. There are a number of reasons why I don’t want the person downstairs to see us leaving together. Would you mind waiting a couple of minutes before going down?’
Helena nodded. The last thing he saw before he closed the door were her shining eyes and the suggestion of a smile, with all the bitterness gone.
As he rode down in the lift, Frank looked at himself in the artificial light of the mirror. The reflection of his wife’s face was still in his eyes. There was no room for others, for other eyes, other hair, other pain. And, most of all, he did could not help anyone – and no one could help him.
He went out though the glass doors and crossed the marble lobby of Parc Saint-Roman into the sunlight. Hulot was waiting for him in his car. There was a pile of newspapers on the back seat. The top headline read ‘My Name Is No One’, with references to the bluffing game of the night before. The other headlines were probably similar. Nicolas didn’t seem to have slept any better than Frank.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, Nick. Sorry to make you wait.’
‘That’s okay. Did anyone call you?’
‘Total silence. I don’t think your department is dying to see me, even though Roncaille is officially expecting me for a briefing.’
‘You’ll have to check in sooner or later.’
‘Of course. For more reasons than one. But meanwhile, we have some private business to take care of.’
Hulot started the car and drove down the short driveway to the plaza where he could make a U-turn. ‘I stopped in at the office. One of the things I took from my desk was the original videotape, which was still there. I left the copy in its place.’
‘Think they’ll notice?’
‘I can always say I made a mistake,’ Hulot said with a shrug. ‘I don’t think it’s too serious. It’ll be a lot worse if they find out we have a lead and haven’t told them about it.’