He had missed his chance when the exchange was over and the two of them had separated. A group of people heading towards the casino had been coming down on the right. Rémy had wondered if he should go for it anyway. Even if his victim cried for help, which he doubted, nobody usually got involved in things like that. Whenever a robbery occurs, people are suddenly obsessed with minding their own business. It wasn’t for nothing that self-defence classes taught students not to yell ‘thief during a robbery. That was a magic word that only made people turn their backs and walk away as quickly as possible. It was much better to yell ‘fire’. Then people would hurry to your rescue. Rémy knew that heroes were few and far between. But there might always be an exception to the rule, and he didn’t want to take that chance.
Rémy started the engine and cut down Avenue des Beaux-Arts, turning left on to Avenue Princesse Alice to keep the prey in view. His man was turning on to Avenue de Monte Carlo, which merged into Avenue d’Ostende. If he hadn’t been gipping his handlebars Rémy would have rubbed his hands together in delight. That stretch of road was practically deserted: the ideal place for people like him to earn their daily bread.
Rémy drove slowly in second gear with his visor up and the zipper of his light weight leather jacket half open, like a regular tourist on his motorcycle, lazily enjoying the warm summer breeze. He spotted his victim not far off, walking leisurely and smoking a cigarette. Excellent.
At the beginning of Avenue d’Ostende, the man crossed the street to the same side as Rémy. He was even carrying the briefcase in his left hand. Rémy could scarcely believe it. He couldn’t have chosen a better setting himself. His man had obviously used up all his luck at the Café de Paris.
Rémy decided to make his move. He took a deep breath, raised the front wheel, and with a push upwards on the handlebars, went on to the pavement.
He was behind his victim, just as he was tossing away his cigarette butt, the briefcase clasped tightly in his hand. Rémy accelerated suddenly and came right up to the man, who turned his head when he heard the noise. Rémy’s fist hit him on the left side of his face, between his nose and mouth.
More from surprise than from the blow, the man fell to the ground, still holding the briefcase tightly. Rémy stopped the motorcycle with a skid of the back wheel. He leaned the bike on the stand and got off as quickly as a cat. He’d modified the bike to meet his needs so that it wouldn’t turn off automatically when he put the lever down.
He went over to the man on the ground, his left hand in his pocket, pushing out his leather jacket.
‘Don’t move or you’re dead!’
Rémy got down on his knees, slipped a hand into the man’s inside pocket, and pulled out the wad of euros. The operation was clumsy and the light material of the lining ripped. Without even looking, he thrust the wad of money into his jacket. Then he stood up and held a hand out to the man.
‘Hand over the briefcase.’
Rémy looked at the guy’s sickly face and weak body. Now, with his nose all bloodied, he looked all the more ready to give out. So it was even more of a shock when the guy suddenly reacted violently. Once he understood that the biker in the leather jacket was mugging him, the guy leapt to his feet and whacked Rémy on the helmet with the briefcase.
Rémy could tell that the man was not really very tough; his reaction was more from instinct than an ability to defend himself. The guy had panicked, that’s all. If, instead of hitting him on his crash helmet, he’d shoved the briefcase between Rémy’s legs with that same force, the man would have broken his balls.
Rémy was a fit young man, in much better shape than his victim. He punched the man in the face and heard a tooth break. If he hadn’t been wearing gloves, he would have hurt his hand.
Luckily, there was still nobody else around, although a car passed on the other side, going uphill. One of the passengers turned around to look. If he realized what was happening and reached the Place du Casino, where there were always a few cops around, things might end badly. He had to hurry.
The man was still not letting go of the briefcase in spite of the second blow, but the two punches had done their job. His nose was pissing blood now, spurting it on to his jacket and shirt. He had tears of pain and rage in his eyes.
Rémy grabbed the handle of the briefcase and pulled with all his might. He managed to tear it out of the man’s hand but as he turned and headed towards the motorcycle, his victim found the strength to reach up and grab Rémy around the neck. Rémy tried unsuccessfully to shake him off. He jabbed him in the stomach with his elbow and felt the man gasp and deflate like a balloon.
He felt the man’s weight leave him, looking down to see him bent double, holding his stomach. To avoid any more surprises, he kicked him in the shoulder. The man slipped backward off the kerb on to the street, just as a large dark sedan was rounding the bend from Avenue d’Ostende at fairly high speed.
Laurent Bedon was hit straight on and the impact threw him to the other side of the street. His head struck the pavement. He died instantly.
He had no time to hear the sound of the motorcycle rushing off, a woman’s hysterical scream, the screech of brakes as another car tried to avoid hitting his inert body on the street. A pool of blood was slowly spreading on the asphalt under his head.
FIFTY-ONE
Frank looked at the pile of dispatches on the desk in Nicolas Hulot’s old office. He couldn’t sit in that room without feeling his friend’s presence. All he had to do was turn around and he would see Hulot standing behind him at the window. He leafed through the papers as if shuffling a deck of cards, examining them hurriedly. There was nothing important. They were still up to their ears in shit.
Once the elation of establishing No One’s identity had passed, nothing had really changed. Forty-eight hours after discovering who he was, they had yet to discover where he was.
Frank had never seen such a huge deployment of police. All the forces in the bordering countries and all their special sections for the apprehension of violent criminals, with acronyms that corresponded to ViCAP of the FBI, were on alert. There wasn’t a cop in Europe who didn’t have a series of pictures of Jean-Loup, actual photos as well as computer mock-ups showing possible changes he might have made to his appearance. Streets, ports and public and private airports were full of roadblocks. No car went unexamined, no plane took off without all passengers being searched, no vessel left port without being inspected.
Practically every inch of southern Europe had been searched by every means possible in the manhunt. A demonstration of overwhelming authority was necessary to combat a criminal who had made such a deep impression on the public. The Principality of Monaco had a lot of influence. Some still considered it a Ruritanian state, but that judgement was both hasty and misleading.
Still, however, they had found nothing.
Jean-Loup Verdier, or whoever he was, had disappeared into thin air, which actually made the Monte Carlo police appear less of a failure. If he had managed to elude everyone, if nobody had been able to handcuff him, he was obviously of much higher intelligence than the norm, which justified their failure to that point. The philosophy of ‘a trouble shared is a trouble halved’ could apply even to hunting criminals. Frank thought they might as well try consulting a psychic – they were that desperate.
Jean-Loup’s house in Beausoleil had been turned upside down without finding even the slightest clue. They had managed to get some information about his past by following through with Hulot’s investigation, thanks to the phone number Morelli had found for him. The caretaker at the Cassis cemetery had confirmed that he had told Nicolas the story of La Patience and what had happened there. They concluded that Hulot had most probably been caught and kidnapped by his murderer right at the cemetery.
Their inquiries about Marcel Legrand through the French police had ended up hitting a dead end. Legrand had been a member of the intelligence service at some time in the past and his file was top secret. All they managed to unear
th was that at a certain point, Legrand had abandoned active duty and retired to Provence in complete isolation. There was some complicated manoeuvring of diplomatic and state secrets to try to move certain obstacles and open certain doors. Legrand was just a skeleton, but it was still very difficult to get anyone to open the closet. On the other hand, no leads could be neglected, whether they came from the past or the present. No One was dangerous and his freedom threatened the lives of anyone who crossed his path.
Until then, he had killed his prey in delirious attacks that followed scrupulous patterns. Now he was fighting to survive and everyone was the enemy. The ease with which he had disposed of the three agents showed what he was capable of doing. This was no mere radio deejay, a good-looking guy who could play music and answer phone calls. When necessary, he was a top-level fighter. The dead bodies of three highly trained policemen were proof enough.
In the midst of all that, Frank was trying unsuccessfully to push the thought of Helena to the back of his mind. He missed her so much, and knowing that she was a prisoner in the hands of her unscrupulous father was agony. His feeling of helplessness was slowly loosening all his inhibitions. The only thing that kept him from running to the house and strangling the general to death was the certainty that it would only make things worse.
Here I am. This is who I’ve become. A man at a desk who doesn’t know where to start hunting ghosts.
He opened a drawer and stuck the dispatches inside, though he was tempted to throw them in the bin. In the open drawer he saw the floppy disk that he had put there when he had first taken over the office. The label said COOPER in his own handwriting. In the chaos of the last few days, he had completely forgotten Cooper’s phone call and the lawyer, Hudson McCormack, whom Cooper had asked him to check on.
It wasn’t the moment to ask for something like that, but he had to try. He owed it to Cooper and everything they had been through to try to lock up Jeff and Osmond Larkin. He buzzed the intercom and called Morelli.
‘Claude, could you come in here a moment?’
‘I was just about to. Be right there.’
The sergeant walked in the door a moment later. ‘Before you start, there’s something I have to tell you. Laurent Bedon is dead.’
‘When?’ Frank sat up in his chair.
‘Last night.’ Morelli hurried to give him the details, in order to avoid a predictable series of questions. ‘Nothing to do with us. The poor guy was killed during a robbery. He won a bunch of money at the Café de Paris last night and some chicken thief tried to steal it from him, right behind the casino. He fought back, fell into the street, and was hit by a car. The thief got away on his motorcycle. If the licence number a witness gave us is correct, we should catch him in a few hours.’
‘Yeah, but it’s one more death to add to the others in this mess. Christ, it’s beginning to feel like a curse.’
Morelli answered by changing the subject.
‘Aside from that bad news, what was it you wanted?’
‘I need a favour,’ Frank said, remembering why he had called him in.
‘What is it?’
‘It has nothing to do with this. Is there anyone free to trail a suspicious character?’
‘You know what things are like. Right now, we’re even using dog catchers.’
‘Here’s the photo and name of someone who might be involved in a case my partner is on in the States.’ Frank threw the floppy disk on the desk. ‘He’s a lawyer who’s officially here in Monaco for a regatta.’
‘Must be the Grand Mistral. That’s top-class yacht racing. The port of Fontvieille is full of boats.’
‘The guy’s the lawyer of a big-time drug dealer we caught some time back. The theory is that he’s more than just a lawyer and that he’s not here in Monaco just for a sail around the bay, if you know what I mean.’
Morelli went over to the desk and picked up the disk. ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do, but it’s not a good time, Frank. I don’t have to remind you.’
‘Yeah. A bad time. No news?’
‘No news. Not a peep. After a flash of light we’re fighting shadows again. All the cops in Europe are chasing their tails and, as Inspector Hulot said—’
Frank finished his sentence for him. ‘The only thing attached to a tail is an asshole.’
‘That’s right.’
Frank leaned back in the chair. ‘Still, if you want my opinion . . . and I’m only talking about a feeling . . .’ He stopped, straightened up in the chair and leaned his elbows on the desk. Morelli sat down in the armchair and waited. He had learned that the American’s feelings needed to be examined very carefully. ‘I think he’s still here. Searching for him all over the world is pointless. No One hasn’t left the Principality of Monaco.’
Morelli was about to reply, but the phone rang and Frank looked at it as if it were asking him a question. He picked up on the third ring and was assaulted by the operator’s excited voice.
‘Mr Ottobre, it’s him on the phone. And he asked for you.’ Frank felt like he’d just been punched in the stomach. There was only one person that could be meant by him.
‘Put him on. And record the call.’
Frank pressed the speakerphone button so that Morelli could hear. He pointed to the phone with a slow movement of his right hand.
‘Hello?’
There was a moment of silence and then a familiar voice came through.
‘Hello, this is Jean-Loup Verdier.’
Morelli jumped from the chair as if he had been shocked. Frank rotated a finger in the air. Morelli answered with a fist and a thumbs-up and ran from the room.
‘Frank Ottobre here. Where are you?’
A short pause and then the deep voice of the deejay.
‘No useless chatter. I don’t need someone to try to talk to me. I need someone to listen. If you interrupt, I’ll hang up.’
Frank remained silent. Anything to keep him on the phone so that his men could trace the call.
‘Nothing has changed. I am someone and no one and I can’t be stopped. That’s why it’s useless to talk. Everything is the same. The moon and the bloodhounds. The bloodhounds and the moon. The only thing missing now is the music. I’m still here and you know very well what I do. I kill
The line went dead. Just then, Morelli came racing in. ‘We got him, Frank. He’s calling from a mobile phone. There’s a car waiting downstairs with a satellite dish.’
Frank jumped up and followed Morelli, running down the stairs four at a time. They shot out into the lobby like two bullets, almost knocking two agents to the ground. The car took off with the doors still open, tyres squealing. It was the same expert driver as the morning that Allen Yoshida’s body was discovered. Frank was glad to see him at the wheel. A plainclothesman was sitting in the passenger seat, looking at the monitor with a map of the city. There was a red dot on a wide street running along the coast.
Morelli and Frank leaned forward into the space between the two front seats, trying to see without blocking each other’s view. The agent pointed to the red dot, which was now moving.
‘That’s the mobile phone that made the call. We found it through satellite signals. It’s in Nice, right around Place Île de Beauté. We’re in luck. He’s on this side of the city. He wasn’t moving before, but from the speed, I’d say he’s on foot.’
Frank turned to Morelli.
‘Call Froben and tell him what’s going on. Tell him we’re on our way and get them there, too. Keep contact so you can tell them the subject’s movements.’
The driver was burning the tarmac.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Frank.
‘Xavier Lacroix,’ the agent answered in a calm voice, as though he were taking a walk rather than shooting down the road like an Exocet missile.
‘Okay, Xavier. If things work out, I’ll do all I can to get you into motor racing.’
The agent stepped harder on the gas, perhaps as thanks for the appreciation. As Morelli spoke excited
ly to Froben, Frank turned to look at the display, where the red light was now flashing.
‘What does that mean?’
The agent answered without turning around. ‘He’s making a call.’
‘Can we hear him?’
‘Not with this equipment. All it does is locate the signal.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is knowing where that son of a bitch is.’
They raced along the Basse Corniche at a speed that would have made any Finnish rally champion jealous. The racing driver – Frank thought it was the right thing to call him – drove that fireball through the city traffic with a coolness that comes only with natural talent.
Froben wants to know where—’
‘He’s going up Rue Cassini . . . Now he’s stopped. He’s making another call.’
There was a small traffic jam at the beginning of the square and Lacroix swerved around it by driving in the wrong direction and then raced up Rue Cassini as though qualifying for the Grand Prix. The agent in front of the monitor gave directions and Morelli passed them on to the Nice police.
‘Left here and go up Emmanuel Philibert.’
‘Emmanuel Philibert,’ repeated Morelli.
‘Right on Rue Gauthier.’
‘Rue Gauthier,’ echoed Morelli.
They turned right practically on two wheels, tyres smoking. When they reached the end of the short street with cars parked on either side, there were police cars blocking the junction with Rue Segurane in spoke formation. The uniformed police were standing in a group near by. One of them was replacing his gun in its holster. They stopped their car next to the others, jumped out, and sprinted over. Froben saw them arrive. He looked at Frank and spread out his arms with the expression of someone who has just stepped in a large pile of shit.