‘Stolen van, Sir. Parked outside. The van owner called it in and a pandore on the beat ran across it forty minutes later. I wish all street crime was as easy to detect.’
Calque stripped off his protective gloves. ‘I don’t understand. Our murderer kidnaps the gypsy from the street, in full public view and in a stolen van. Then he drives straight here, strings the gypsy up on a bed frame that he has conveniently nailed to the wall before the event, tortures him a little, breaks his neck and then leaves the van parked out in the street like a signpost. Does that make any sense to you?’
‘We also have a blood mismatch.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Here. On the victim’s hand. These cuts are older than the other wounds. And there is alien blood mixed in with the victim’s own. It shows up clearly on the portable spectrometer.’
‘Ah. So now, not satisfied with the van signpost, the killer leaves us a blood signpost too.’ Calque shrugged. ‘The man is either an imbecile or a genius.’
6
The pharmacist finished bandaging Sabir’s hand. ‘It must have been cheap glass – you’re lucky not to need any stitches You’re not a pianist, by any chance?’
‘No. A writer.’
‘Oh. No skills involved, then.’
Sabir burst out laughing. ‘You could say that. I’ve written one book about Nostradamus. And now I write film reviews for a chain of regional newspapers. But that’s about it. The sum total of a misspent life.’
The pharmacist snatched a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what you think I meant. Of course writers are skilful. I meant digital skills. The sort in which one needs to use one’s fingers.’
‘It’s all right.’ Sabir stood up and eased on his jacket. ‘We hacks are used to being insulted. We are resolutely bottom of the pecking order. Unless we write bestsellers, that is, or contrive to become celebrities, when we magically spring to the top. Then, when we can’t follow up, we sink back down to the bottom again. It’s a heady profession, don’t you agree?’ He disguised his bitterness behind a broad smile. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Fifty euros. If you’re sure you can afford it, that is.’
‘Ah. Touche! ’ Sabir took out his wallet and riffled through it for notes. Part of him was still struggling to understand the gypsy’s actions. Why would a man attack a total stranger? One he was hoping would buy something valuable off him? It made no earthly sense. Something was preventing him from going to the police, however, despite the encouragement of the barman and the three or four customers who had witnessed the attack. There was more to this than met the eye. And who or what were Samois and Chris? He handed the pharmacist her money. ‘Does the word Samois mean anything to you?’
‘Samois?’ The pharmacist shook her head. ‘Apart from the place, you mean?’
‘The place? What place?’
‘Samois-sur-Seine. It’s about sixty kilometres south-east of here. Just above Fontainebleau. All the jazz people know it. The gypsies hold a festival there every summer in honour of Django Reinhardt. You know. The Manouche guitarist.’
‘Manouche?’
‘It’s a gypsy tribe. Linked to the Sinti. They come from Germany and northern France. Everybody knows that.’
Sabir gave a mock bow. ‘But you forget, Madame. I’m not everybody. I’m only a writer.’
7
Bale didn’t like barmen. They were an obnoxious species, living off the weakness of others. Still. In the interests of information-gathering he was prepared to make allowances. He slipped the stolen ID back inside his pocket. ‘So the gypsy attacked him with a glass?’
‘Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it. He just came in, leaking sweat and made a beeline for the American. Smashed up a glass and ground his hand in it.’
‘The American’s?’
‘No. That was the odd thing. The gypsy ground his own hand in it. Only then did he attack the American.’
‘With the glass?’
‘No. No. He took the American’s hand and did the same thing with it as he’d done with his own. Then he forced the American’s hand on to his forehead. Blood all over the place.’
‘And that was it?’
‘Yes.’
‘He didn’t say anything?’
‘Well, he was shouting all the time. ‘Remember these words. Remember them.’’
‘What words?’
‘Ah. Well. There you have me. It sounded like Sam, moi, et Chris. Perhaps they’re brothers?’
Bale suppressed a triumphant smile. He nodded his head sagely. ‘Brothers. Yes.’
8
The barman tossed his hands up melodramatically. ‘But I’ve just talked to one of your officers. Told him everything I know. Do you people want me to change your nappies for you as well?’
‘And what did this officer look like?’
‘Like you all look.’ The barman shrugged. ‘You know.’
Captain Calque glanced over his shoulder at Lieutenant Macron. ‘Like him?’
‘No. Nothing like him.’
‘Like me, then?’
‘No. Not like you.’
Calque sighed. ‘Like George Clooney? Woody Allen? Johnny Halliday? Or did he wear a wig, perhaps?’
‘No. No. He didn’t wear a wig.’
‘What else did you tell this invisible man?’
‘Now there’s no need to be sarcastic. I’m doing my duty as a citizen. I tried to protect the American…’
‘With what?’
‘Well… My billiard cue.’
‘Where do you keep this offensive weapon?’
‘Where do I keep it? Where do you think I keep it? Behind the bar, of course. This is St-Denis, not the Sacre-Coeur.’
‘Show me.’
‘Look. I didn’t hit anybody with it. I only waved it at the gypsy.’
‘Did the gypsy wave back?’
‘Ah. Merde.’ The barman slit open a pack of Gitanes with the bar ice-pick. ‘I suppose you’ll have me up for smoking in a public place next? You people.’ He blew a cloud of smoke across the counter.
Calque relieved the barman of one of his cigarettes. He tapped the cigarette on the back of the packet and ran it languorously beneath his nose.
‘Aren’t you going to light that?’
‘No.’
‘ Putain. Don’t tell me you’ve given up?’
‘I have a heart condition. Each cigarette takes a day off my life.’
‘Worth it though.’
Calque sighed. ‘You’re right. Give me a light.’
The barman offered Calque the tip of his cigarette. ‘Look. I’ve remembered now. About your officer.’
‘What have you remembered?’
‘There was something strange about him. Very strange.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Well. You won’t believe me if I tell you.’
Calque raised an eyebrow. ‘Try me.’
The barman shrugged. ‘He had no whites to his eyes.’
9
‘The man’s name is Sabir. S.A.B.I.R. Adam Sabir. An American. No. I have no more information for you at this time. Look him up on your computer. That should be quite enough. Believe me.’
Achor Bale put down the telephone. He allowed himself a brief smile. That would sort Sabir. By the time the French police were through with questioning him, he would be long gone. Chaos was always a good idea. Chaos and anarchy. Foment those and you forced the established forces of law and order on to the back foot.
Police and public administrators were trained to think in a linear fashion – in terms, of rules and regulations. In computer terms hyper was the opposite of linear. Well then. Bale prided himself on his ability to think in a hyper fashion – skipping and jumping around wherever he fancied. He would do whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it.
He reached across for a map of France and spread it neatly out on to the table in front of him.
10
The first Adam Sabir knew of the Surete’s interest in him was when he switched on the television set in his rented fl at on the Ile St-Louis and saw his own face, full-size, staring back at him from the plasma screen.
As a writer and occasional journalist, Sabir needed to keep up with the news. Stories lurked there. Ideas simmered. The state of the world was reflected in the state of his potential market and this concerned him.
In recent years he had got into the habit of living to a very comfortable standard indeed, thanks to a freak one-off bestseller called The Private Life of Nostradamus. The original content had been just about nil – the title a stroke of genius. Now he desperately needed a follow-up or the money tap would turn off, the luxury lifestyle dry up and his public melt away.
Samana’s advertisement in that ludicrous free rag of a newspaper, two days before, had captured his attention, therefore, because it was so incongruous and so entirely unexpected:
Money needed. I have something to sell. Notre Dame’s [sic] lost verses. All written down. Cash sale to first buyer. Genuine.
Sabir had laughed out loud when he first saw the ad – it had so obviously been dictated by an illiterate. But how would an illiterate know about Nostradamus’s lost quatrains?
It was common knowledge that the sixteenth-century seer had written 1,000 indexed four-line verses, published during his lifetime and anticipating, with an almost preternatural accuracy, the future course of world events. Less well known, however, was the fact that fifty-eight of the quatrains had been held back at the very last moment, never to see the light of day. If an individual could find the location of those verses, they would become an instant millionaire – the potential sales were stratospheric.
Sabir knew that his publisher would have no compunction in anteing up whatever sum was needed to cement such a sale. The story of the find alone would bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in newspaper revenue and would guarantee front-page coverage all over the world. And what wouldn’t people give, in this uncertain age, to read the verses and understand their revelations? The mind boggled.
Until the events of today, Sabir had happily fantasised a scenario in which his original manuscript, like the Harry Potter books before him, would be locked up in the literary equivalent of a Fort Knox, only to be revealed to the impatiently slavering hordes on publication day. He was already in Paris. What would it cost him to check the story out? What did he have to lose?
Following the brutal torture and murder of an unknown male, police are seeking the American writer Adam Sabir, who is wanted for questioning in connection with the crime. Sabir is believed to be visiting Paris, but should under no circumstances be approached by members of the public, as he may be dangerous. The quality of the crime is of so serious a nature that the Police Nationale are making it their priority to identify the murderer, who, it is strongly believed, may be preparing to strike again.
‘Oh Jesus.’ Sabir stood in the centre of his living room and stared at the television set as if it might suddenly decide to break free from its moorings and crawl across the floor towards him. An old publicity photo of himself was taking up the full extent of the screen, exaggerating every feature of his face until he, too, could almost believe that it depicted a wanted criminal.
A death-mask ‘Do You Know this Man?’ photograph of Samana followed, its cheek and ear lacerated, its eyes dully opened, as if its owner were sitting in judgement on the millions of couch-potato voyeurs taking fleeting comfort from the fact that it was someone else and not they, depicted over there on the screen.
‘It’s not possible. My blood’s all over him.’ Sabir sat down in an armchair, his mouth hanging open, the throbbing in his hand uncannily echoing the throbbing of the linking electronic music that was even now accompanying the closing headlines of the evening news.
11
It took him ten frenetic minutes to gather all his belongings together – passport, money, maps, clothes and credit cards. At the very last moment he rifled through the desk in case there was anything in there he might use.
He was borrowing the fl at from his English agent, John Tone, who was on holiday in the Caribbean. The car was his agent’s, too and therefore unidentifiable – its very anonymity might at least suffice to get him out of Paris. To buy him time to think.
He hastily pocketed an old British driving licence in Tone’s name and some spare euros he found in an empty film canister. No photograph on the driving licence. Might be useful. He took an electricity bill and the car papers, too.
If the police apprehended him he would simply plead ignorance – he was starting on a research trip to St-Remy-de-Provence, Nostradamus’s birthplace. He hadn’t listened to the radio or watched the TV – didn’t know the police were hunting for him.
With luck he could make it as far as the Swiss border – bluster his way through. They didn’t always check passports there. And Switzerland was still outside the European Union. If he could make it as far as the US Embassy in Bern he would be safe. If the Swiss extradited him to anywhere, it would be to the US, not to Paris.
For Sabir had heard tales about the French police from some of his journalist colleagues. Once you got into their hands, your number was up. It could take months or even years for your case to make its way through the bureaucratic nightmare of the French jurisdictional system.
He stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall he could find and left the car engine running. He’d simply have to take the chance and get some cash. He stuffed the first card through the slit and began to pray. So far so good. He’d try for a thousand euros. Then, if the second card failed him, he could at least pay the motorway tolls in untraceable cash and get himself something to eat.
Across the street, a youth in a hoodie was watching him. Christ Jesus. This was hardly the time to get mugged. And with the keys left in a brand-new Audi station wagon, with the engine running.
He pocketed the cash and tried the second card. The youth was moving towards him now, looking about him in that particular way young criminals had. Fifty metres. Thirty. Sabir punched in the numbers.
The machine ate the card. They were closing him down.