‘I want your word of honour that Inspector Nicolas Hulot will be considered fallen in the line of duty, and that his widow will get the pension that a hero’s wife deserves.’
Third pause. The most important one. To see who had more balls. When Roncaille answered, Frank knew that he did.
‘Okay. Request granted. My word of honour. Now it’s your turn.’
‘Get the men out and tell Sergeant Morelli to call me on my mobile. And start shining up your uniform for the press conference.’
‘Address?’ And Frank finally said what Roncaille had paid to hear.
‘Beausoleil.’
‘Beausoleil?’
‘That’s right. That bastard Jean-Loup Verdier has been in his house this whole time.’
FIFTY-SIX
Pierrot looked embarrassed as he took the plastic cup of Coke from Barbara and started drinking.
‘Want some more?’
Pierrot shook his head. He handed her back the empty cup and turned, red-faced, to the table where he was sorting through a pile of CDs.
He liked Barbara, but at the same time she made him feel shy. The boy had a crush on her, which explained his secret looks, long silences and quick escapes as soon as she appeared. He turned scarlet every time she spoke to him. The girl had noticed what was going on some time ago. It was puppy love – if that term could be used with someone like Pierrot – and it deserved respect like all feelings. She knew how deeply this strange boy, who seemed so afraid of the world, could love. Such candour and sincerity could be found only in children. It was the expression of a complete, honest affection, without needing to be returned.
Once Barbara had found a daisy on her mixing desk. When she had realized that Pierrot was the anonymous giver of that simple wild flower, she was overwhelmed with tenderness.
‘Do you want another sandwich?’ she asked, from behind Pierrot’s back.
Again the boy shook his head without turning around. It was lunchtime and they had had a tray of sandwiches sent up from Stars’N’Bars. Aside from the voices and the music being sent out over the airwaves, the radio station had become a realm of silence since the revelation about Jean-Loup. Everyone wandered around like shadows. The station was still being assaulted by reporters like the Alamo by the Mexican army. Every employee was followed, chased and spied on. They all had microphones shoved in their faces, cameras pointed at them and reporters waiting for them at their homes. Yet it had to be said that what had happened more than justified the tenacity of the mass media.
Jean-Loup Verdier, the star of Radio Monte Carlo, had turned out to be a psychopath and a serial killer who was still at large. His unseen presence haunted the Principality of Monaco. Thanks to the morbid curiosity of the public and the media onslaught, the number of listeners had practically doubled the day after the identity of the serial killer was revealed.
Robert Bikjalo – at least the Robert Bikjalo of old – would have done triple somersaults at those ratings. But now he went about his work like a robot, smoked like a chimney and spoke in monosyllables. The rest of the staff were no better. Raquel sounded as mechanical as an answering machine when she took phone calls. Barbara could not stop to think for a moment without feeling like she would burst into tears. Even the owner of the station only called in when absolutely necessary, which was seldom.
And that had been the state of things when they had heard the news of Laurent’s tragic death two days earlier, during a street robbery. It had been the final blow for everyone. They were like the crew of a ghost ship drifting at the mercy of evil currents.
But Pierrot was hit the hardest. He retreated into a worrisome silence and answered questions with only a nod or a shake of his head. While he was at the station, he did his job without seeming to be present. He holed himself up in the archive for hours and Barbara went down from time to time to see if he was okay. At home, he spent all his time listening to music with his headphones on, completely isolated. He no longer smiled. And he no longer turned on the radio.
His mother was desperate over the change in his behaviour. For Pierrot, spending time at Radio Monte Carlo, feeling that he was part of something, earning a little money (his mother never failed to point out to him how important his earnings were to their finances, which filled him with pride), was his door to the world.
His friendship with and hero-worship of Jean-Loup had opened that door wide. Now it was slowly closing and his mother was afraid that if it shut completely, he would never be able to find his way into the world.
It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Yet if she had been able to read his thoughts, she would have been astonished by what was going through his mind. Everyone thought that he was submerged in sorrow and silence because he had discovered that his friend was really a bad man, as he said – the man who called the radio station with the voice of the Devil. Perhaps his simple soul had reacted the way it did because he had been forced to realize that he had placed his trust in someone who was undeserving.
But that was not the case. Pierrot’s faith in and friendship with Jean-Loup had not been diminished in the least by recent events and the revelations about his idol. He knew him well. He had been in his home and they had eaten crêpes with Nutella together and Jean-Loup had even given him a glass of delicious Italian wine called Moscato. It was sweet and cool and had made his head spin a little. They had listened to music and Jean-Loup had even lent him some records, the black ones, the valuable ones, so that he could listen to them at home. He had burned his favourite CDs for him, like Jefferson Airplane and Jeff Beck with the guitar on the bridge, and the last two by Nirvana.
He had never, in all the time they had spent together, heard Jean-Loup speak with the voice of the Devil. On the contrary . . . Jean-Loup had always told him that they were friends for life, and he had always shown that to be the truth. So, if Jean-Loup always told him the truth, that meant only one thing: the others were lying.
Everyone kept asking what was wrong and trying to make him talk. He didn’t want to tell anyone why he was sad, not even his mother: the main reason was that, since everything had happened, he hadn’t been able to see Jean-Loup. And he didn’t know how to help his friend. Maybe Jean-Loup was hiding somewhere, hungry and thirsty, and there was no one to bring him anything, not even bread and Nutella.
Pierrot knew that the policemen were looking for him and that if they caught him they would put him in jail. He didn’t really know what jail was. He only knew that it was where they put people who did bad things and that they didn’t let them out. And if they didn’t let the people who were inside go out, that meant that people outside couldn’t go in either and he would never see Jean-Loup again.
Maybe policemen could go in and see the people in jail. He used to be a policeman, an honourable policeman. The inspector had told him so, the one with the nice face who didn’t come any more. Someone said he was dead. But now, after the mess he had made, maybe he was no longer an honourable policeman and maybe he would have to stay outside the jail like everyone else, without being able to see Jean-Loup.
Pierrot turned his head and saw Barbara walking towards the director’s booth. He looked at her dark red hair that swayed as she walked, as if it were dancing on her black dress. He liked Barbara. Not the way he liked Jean-Loup. When Jean-Loup’s friend spoke to him or put a hand on his shoulder, it was like that warmth that rose from the pit of his stomach as if he’d drunk a cup of hot tea in one gulp. With Barbara it was different; he didn’t know why, but he loved her. One day, he had secretly given her a tiny flower to tell her. He had even hoped at one point that she and Jean-Loup would get married so that he could see both of them when he went to visit his friend.
Pierrot picked up the pile of CDs and headed towards the door. Raquel clicked the lock open as she usually did when she saw his hands were full. Pierrot went out on to the landing and pressed the lift button with his nose. The others would laugh at him if they saw, but since his nose was doing nothing, it might
as well be useful when he had both hands full.
With his elbow he pushed open the lift door and closed it the same way. Inside, he couldn’t use his nose because the buttons were different. He was forced to juggle things, pressing the stack of CDs against his chin so that he could reach the button with his finger.
The lift started to descend. Pierrot’s mind descended as well, following a logic that was linear in its own way. He had reached a definite conclusion. If Jean-Loup couldn’t come to him, then he would go to Jean-Loup.
He had been to visit his friend many times. Jean-Loup had told him that he kept an extra key to the house in a secret place and from then on, only the two of them would know about it. He had told him that the key was stuck with silicone underneath the mailbox inside the gate. Pierrot didn’t understand the word silicone, but he knew what a mailbox was. He and his mother had one at their house in Menton, and their house wasn’t as nice as Jean-Loup’s. He would recognize it when he saw it.
Downstairs, in the room, he had his Invicta backpack that Jean-Loup had given him. Inside it was some bread and ajar of Nutella that he had taken that morning from the kitchen shelf. He didn’t have any Moscato at home, but he had taken a can of Coke and a can of Schweppes and thought that would be okay. If his friend was hiding somewhere at home, he would certainly hear him call and would come out. Where else could he be? They were the only ones who knew about the secret key.
They could sit together and eat chocolate and drink Coke and this time he would say things to make Jean-Loup laugh.
And if Jean-Loup wasn’t there, he would take care of his records, the black vinyl ones. He would clean them, make sure that the covers didn’t get damp and line them up in the right direction to keep them from getting warped. If he didn’t, they would all be ruined when Jean-Loup came home. He had to take care of his friend’s things. Otherwise what kind of friend was he?
When the lift reached the bottom floor, Pierrot was smiling.
Libaud, a mechanic for the motorboat showroom on the floor below the radio station, was waiting for the lift and opened the door. He saw Pierrot inside, his tousled hair sticking up over the pile of CDs. Seeing his smile, he smiled too.
‘Hi there, Pierrot. You look like the busiest person in Monte Carlo. I’d ask for a pay rise if I were you.’
The boy did not have the slightest idea of how to ask for a pay rise. And anyway, that was the last thing that interested him right now.
‘Yes, I will tomorrow,’ he answered evasively.
Before stepping into the lift, Libaud opened the door on the left that led down to the archives. ‘Watch your step,’ he said, as he turned on the light.
Pierrot gave one of his standard nods and started going down. When he reached the archive, he leaned the CDs on the table near the wall, in front of rows of shelves full of records and CDs. For the first time since he had started working for Radio Monte Carlo, he didn’t put away the CDs he had brought down. Instead, he took his backpack and put it on his shoulders, like his friend Jean-Loup had taught him, then turned off the light and locked the door as he did every evening before he went home. Except that now he was not going home. He climbed back up the stairs and found himself in the lobby, the large hallway that ended at the glass doors. Beyond those doors lay the harbour, the city and the world. And hidden there somewhere was the friend who needed him.
Pierrot did something he had never done before in all his life. He pushed open the door, took a step and went out to face the world all by himself.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Frank waited for Morelli in his Mégane at the construction site outside Jean-Loup Verdier’s house. It was a hot day and he kept the engine running so that he could retain the benefit of the air-conditioning. He kept glancing at his watch as he waited for Morelli and Roncaille’s men.
His head was full of images of Nathan Parker and his group at Nice airport. The general was probably sitting impatiently with Helena and Stuart next to him while Ryan Mosse checked them in. He could see the massive figure of Froben, or someone like him, telling the old general that there was some bureaucratic difficulty and for the moment he would not be able to leave. Frank couldn’t imagine what Froben would invent, but he could easily guess the old man’s reaction. He wouldn’t want to be in the inspector’s shoes.
The absurdity of the cliché made him smile. Actually, that was exactly what he wanted. Just then, he wanted to be at the airport, doing in person what he had asked of Froben. He wanted to take Nathan Parker aside and finally tell him what he had always wanted to say. He was dying to. No inventing, just clearing a few things up.
Instead, he was sitting there, tasting each passing moment like salt on his tongue, checking his watch every thirty seconds as if thirty minutes had passed.
He forced himself to put those thoughts out of his mind. He focused on Roncaille instead. And that was another problem. The chief of police had put his men in motion with reasonable doubts. Frank had been categorical on the phone, but he had expressed a certainty that he didn’t really possess. He couldn’t admit to himself that he was bluffing, but he knew that he had placed a risky bet. Any bookie would have given him thirty to one without thinking twice. When he had claimed to know No One’s hiding place, it wasn’t a certainty but a reasonable supposition. No more than that. If his theory was off, there would be no serious consequences, just another dead end.
Nothing could change the position he was already in. No One was on the lam and that’s how things would stay. Except that Frank Ottobre’s prestige would plummet in disgrace. Roncaille and Durand would have a weapon against him that he himself had loaded, and they could tell any representative of the US government how unreliable their FBI agent was, despite his undeniable success at identifying the serial killer. And his public defence of Inspector Nicolas Hulot might even backfire. He could already hear Durand’s suave, nonchalant voice telling the American consul Dwight Bolton that, although Frank Ottobre had revealed the identity of the killer, it wasn’t really he who had made the discovery.
If his guess was right, however, if his bet paid off, it would all end in glory. He could rush to the airport and take care of his personal business in the glow of victory. Not that he was particularly interested in glory, but he would welcome anything at all that would help him settle his personal accounts with Nathan Parker.
Finally, he saw the first police car round the curve. This time, as Frank had instructed Morelli, there were no sirens. He noticed that the crisis unit was much larger than the first time they had tried to catch Jean-Loup. There were six cars full of men as well as the usual blue vans with dark windows. When the rear doors opened, sixteen men got out instead of twelve. There were surely others waiting at the end of the road to prevent any possible escape through the garden at the front of the house.
A car stopped, two policemen got out, and then it raced to the roadblock at the top of the road, near the highway. The set-up at the bottom was probably similar. Frank smiled in spite of himself. Roncaille didn’t want to take any chances. Jean-Loup’s easy disposal of the three policemen on guard had finally opened his eyes to the real danger at stake.
Two Menton police cars drove up one after the other, each holding seven heavily armed agents, under the command of Inspector Roberts. The reason they were there was obvious: to ensure that there was a constant collaboration of the Sûreté Publique of Monte Carlo with the French police.
Frank got out of his car. As the men awaited orders, Roberts and Morelli walked over to him.
‘What’s this all about, Frank? I hope you’ll let me know sooner or later. Roncaille told us to rush out here in combat gear but he didn’t give us any details. He was pretty pissed off—’
Frank interrupted with a wave of his hand. He pointed to the roof of the house, half hidden by the vegetation and cypress trees rising above the mass of bushes. He skipped the preliminaries.
‘He’s here, Claude. Unless I’ve made a huge mistake, there’s a 99 per cent chance that J
ean-Loup Verdier has been hiding in his own house all along.’ Frank realized that he had just given Morelli and the men the same odds that he had waved under Roncaille’s nose. He decided not to correct himself.
Morelli scratched his chin with the forefinger of his left hand, as he often did when he was puzzled. And this time he was definitely confused.
‘But where in hell could he be? We turned the house upside down. There isn’t a crevice we didn’t examine.’
‘Tell the men to come closer.’
If Morelli was surprised, he said nothing. Roberts, with his natural slouch, waited, unflustered, for something to happen. When all the men were gathered in a semicircle around him, Frank enunciated each word carefully. He spoke French fluently, with almost no foreign accent, but he didn’t trust himself to explain things in a language that was not his own. He looked like a basketball coach instructing his players during a time-out.
‘Okay everyone, listen carefully. I had a conversation with the owner of the other house over there, the twin to this one. They were built by two brothers, a few yards from each other at the same time, in the mid-sixties. The brother who lived here’ – and he pointed towards the roof behind him – ‘in the house that would later belong to Jean-Loup Verdier, was married to a woman who was difficult, to put it mildly. A total pain in the ass, in other words. The Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction completely terrified her, so she forced her husband to build a bomb shelter under the house. Right here, beneath us.’
Frank pointed to the cement where they were standing. Morelli instinctively followed Frank’s gesture and stared at the ground. He raised his head immediately when he realized what he was doing.
‘But we even examined the plans of both houses. Neither of them showed any bomb shelters.’
‘I can’t explain that. Maybe they didn’t have permits and it doesn’t show up in the land register. If they were building two houses at the same time, with bulldozers digging and trucks coming and going, an underground shelter would be easy to construct without anyone noticing.’