by AD Davies
Now, I figured, getting around Paris would be a doddle, and although a trail of credit card transactions detailed Sarah’s movements around the city’s retailers, I started in the place that, just maybe, could have been her most impressive stop. Before I dared step into the Shakespeare Bookshop, though, I headed down the embankment a way, hoping to pick up on any tails that may have latched on—either Sammy’s people or those who located me in the Grecian. Spotting nothing suspicious, I headed for the ramshackle bookstore down its narrow street.
Outside, cartons of novels lay spine-up, a simple maze where people mooched about in search of that perfect literary experience. Inside, its shelves heaved under the sheer volume and the musty smell cast me back to that first time I turned up here, got rejected for accommodation, and spent two hours choosing a Stephen King paperback. I requested a moment of the owner’s time, and of the people who worked here, and showed them Sarah’s photo, but they only told me what I already knew: one girl sort-of thought she saw Sarah around, but no Gareth. No additional info or overheard conversation. I thanked them and wandered the shelves for a few more minutes.
I’m not sure what I’d been expecting. Some sort of psychic infusion with the ghost of Sarah’s presence? I got nothing from the ether. No epiphany. No irrational tingle.
I left without buying anything, and checked my mapping app, set it to estimate how long it would take to walk back to the Grecian for my meeting. It said ninety minutes. That would do me good. Trek the streets, gazing at the pretty buildings, maybe stop for a coffee and a croque-monsieur. Figured it might dislodge that question I should have asked Sammy.
I crossed a bridge and rounded a corner into an expansive square with the Cathedral known worldwide as Notre Dame lumped there like a sheer rock face infused with gargoyles and spires and crevices, its massive wheel of stained glass dominating the wall above the entrance. As with all famous monuments, blokes played David Bailey with their swish cameras, less well-prepared types angled iPads and phones, and the craze for selfie-sticks showed no sign of abating. I guessed they were here to stay.
I sat on a bench, and after reading the scant research from Jess I tried to arrange my thoughts. If Sarah obtained a second passport, it was likely she was out of the country by now and I really was chasing her ghost.
I was about to call Jess and ask her to start whittling away at all those credit cards that continued spending in onward destinations, when a man stepped in front of me, casting a shadow. I waited for his gaze to wander back to Notre Dame, but it remained fixed on me.
“Bonjour,” I said.
“You lost us for a short while.” The forty-ish man sat on the bench beside me. “But this was the correct direction. I am surprised you took time out for sightseeing.”
His French-cum-Eastern-European accent marked him as Vila Fanuco himself.
I said, “I’m waiting for my next lead to call.”
“What is this lead?” he asked politely.
“Confidential.”
“You met with Sammy LeHavre this morning. Why?”
I shook my head. “Come on. You don’t need to know that. I’m doing what I’ve been instructed to do.”
“You found a forger.” Fanuco possessed a full head of black hair, but his face had a sheen to it, a plainness that robbed him of any real expression, Botox-like in its rubberiness. “What did Sammy tell you?”
“Very little.”
Fanuco nodded, his eyes on me. “Ambitious boy, Sammy is. Clever. Sometimes, not as clever as he thinks, though, eh? This would not be the first time he made a deal independent of me, but it is disappointing that he lied.”
If Fanuco had already worked out Sammy’s secret I saw no reason to protect him. I said, “He was scared.”
“Still, I perhaps did not emphasize the severity of the situation when I made my inquiries.” A friendly smile creaked onto his face. “How did you find him?”
“I’m clever.”
“No tips from Pierre Bertrand?”
“No,” I said. “The old fashioned way. Bribery. Your old pal didn’t offer anything.”
“My ‘old pal’.” Fanuco chuckled. “Of course. How is dear Pierre?”
“His knee is still stiff, and his wife likes him home on time now Henrietta Dupree is about to move to Interpol.”
“Henrietta Dupree. Young. Pretty.” Fanuco leaned forward. “Like the girl you took from my colleague in England.”
“Yes. And you won’t find her.”
“No, you have done well. But then, we are not actually looking for her.” With the lack of movement on his face, the grin took on a rictus quality, lizard-like, an illusion giving him too many teeth. “Do you know how we maintain such a grasp on our people here?”
“I’d say by making your operation look bigger than it really is. It gives you a god-like presence. You employ teams of private security personnel who have no idea who they’re working for, like your surveillance of me. There are still some small-time operators who fall beneath your radar, but it’s hardly worth pursuing them, so the big guys, the skilled criminals—like the forger—they fall in line. Something like that?”
“Again, I am impressed. First you relieve Mr. Benson of his lovely dancing girl, and then you identify one of my street people without my help, all after making nice with a policeman who would kill me on sight.”
“Why are we talking?” I asked.
“I wanted to look at you. I mean really look at you. Not through a camera or a lens.”
“Who are you? Vila Fanuco? There’s no record of anyone by that name, just rumors, veiled mentions.” As evidenced by the lack of data from Jess.
“Do you really think I’m going to answer that?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re probably ex-military, maybe Middle Eastern, but with the tinge in your accent I’m going with Eastern Europe. Balkans. You set up your trafficking routes using other military types in the countries whose officials are easiest to bribe. And you rule through fear. Your reputation, as much as actual events. Like murdering a man’s wife to force him to do your bidding.”
Fanuco’s posture shifted so his shoulders aimed squarely toward me. “Recover the things you need to recover, and we will not seek out your dancing girl prize from wherever she is hiding, and return her to Curtis Benson in a bag.”
“Mr. Benson isn’t too high in your organization, then? Otherwise you’d be making absolutely sure she got sent back.”
He sighed. “Mr. Park—Adam—I know this will surprise you. But there is no organization.”
“Right. Okay.”
“No, really.” He sounded amused, but it was hard to tell. “We are not some international gang, like Spectre in James Bond. We are not an evil corporation with a ladder to climb. We are not even like Al Qaeda with firewalls between different cells. We are not an organization.”
I tried the silence trick and stared ahead. It worked.
He said, “We are just businesses. Even to call it ‘we’ is an exaggeration. People in similar lines of work. We agree boundaries, and we agree to help each other when we can. Unite against common obstacles, like border agencies, Interpol, the CIA. But we do not take risks, as one would for a friend.”
“I have to meet my guy in an hour,” I said. “Can I go now? Unless you want to detail your own corner of this … network, or whatever it is.”
Fanuco took a moment. “I would not like to detail it, no. You are free to go.”
I was about to leave, but I had to ask, “What makes a guy of your obvious intelligence get into this game? If it’s money, you’d make a fortune legitimately.”
“It is not just about money.”
“Power, then? You submit women to the most degrading life—”
“I perform a service.”
“I’ve heard that somewhere before. Do all you people justify your actions this way?” I felt Harry in my not-so-distant past telling me to quit, to stop talking, to just shut up, son. I said, “Come on. Why are you di
fferent?”
“Sometimes they suffer, yes,” he said. “But far less than if they remained in whatever hellish country they are running from.”
Considering what little I knew of his background, I took an absolute punt. “The genocide in Bosnia? Or did the Russians do something?”
Fanuco lowered his voice to a gravelly monotone. “You are not here to investigate me. You are here to do as you are told, and nothing more.”
“A daughter?”
His jaw tightened. “Two, actually.”
“And you’d be happy for them to be forced to strip nightly for drunk men? To suck their dicks for fifty quid a pop?”
I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he said, simply, “It is better than what they endured at the hands of Mladić’s kill squads. I know it is better … because they forced me to watch.”
We are the sum of our experiences. Whether in business or potentially physical confrontations, I try not to involve myself in situations without a clear exit strategy. That had been my mistake in Thailand, and it’s why I trained so much, why I over-thought every plan, every move, to the point I frequently made the wrong decision whenever I had to act on instinct. Vila Fanuco must have followed similar rules, but had been better than me at making those decisions, otherwise he never would have risen this high. Whatever those soldiers did to his family, it had closed off a part of his brain. Anything less sadistic than what his daughters experienced stirred nothing in him now.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Really.”
I moved to stand, but Fanuco rested a hand on my leg, implying I should remain seated.
He said, “You are investigating the background to this case instead of focusing on your goal. Including unnecessary curiosity about me. Do not do that.”
His right hand smoothed over my thigh. I heard nothing but his voice, the background noise muffled.
“I will provide whatever support you need to accomplish this goal. You must only ask.”
His fingers touched my left hand.
“You have shown much intelligence and courage. I even think you would do well working for me.”
His hand closed tenderly over mine.
“But do not for one moment think that I will tolerate any interruption to my affairs. Do not scream. This is going to hurt.”
I said, “What is?”
With a subtle but firm movement, he jerked his fist sideways and a wet snap sounded as my little finger broke in half. I obeyed the man and did not scream. Just cradled my hand, not touching the digit that now sat at a forty-five degree angle to the knuckle.
I managed to ask, “W-why?”
“A reminder. Whenever you feel this injury, think about me. Think about what I said. Remain focused.”
He reached again, this time with two hands. He held my wrist with one, and with the other he pulled, twisted the digit back into position. I felt the broken ends touch. When the two halves settled in place, he let go. He’d reset it. Sort of. It throbbed. When I tried to move it, the swelling grated beneath my skin.
“It will hurt for some time,” Fanuco said. “Strap it to your ring-finger and it will mend itself. Take painkillers.” Then he stood, fastened his jacket, and added, “Unlike Sammy, the forger asked my permission to speak with you, and of course I said yes. This is not a person who will volunteer information that might incriminate, but your questions will be answered.”
Finally, he walked away without a care in the world, and I—hurt in the most random of ways—planned how to handle a meeting that could send me in a new direction entirely.
Chapter Seventeen
The Grecian Hotel’s bar was furnished with a couple of leather sofas in one corner, on which a man in a leather jacket leafed through a book, while on a plastic-covered table, a ginger-haired woman with pale skin browsed her laptop, but that was the extent of the Grecian’s custom. Once the older barmaid saw fit to put down her magazine, I ordered a coffee and approached the chap in the leather jacket and asked if he was here from Sammy. He looked at me like I offered him a turd, and in an American accent suggested I go be intimate with myself, then got up and headed for the lobby.
A cough drew me toward the ginger woman, who was on her feet, looking over a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. “You are late.”
“I’m sorry.” I downed the café-noir. Showed her my bandaged hand. “Minor mishap.”
Once I found a pharmacy open on a Sunday—and very little is open on a Sunday in France—the elderly Persian woman sold me three bandages and strapped me up there and then, recommended some stronger-than-usual ibuprofen, and instructed me to visit an emergency room.
The red-haired woman said, “You want to ask me things that I should not tell. Not in my work.”
“Vila Fanuco has given permission.”
“He has ordered me to,” she said, with clear distaste. “If I had known Sammy LeHavre was acting in a way to harm Monsieur Fanuco, I would not have worked with him.”
“I know. And Mr. Fanuco knows that. I don’t think he blames you.”
I ordered two more coffees and asked the woman her name, but she just sat heavily on the recently-vacated leather couch. I handed her the envelope containing passport-sized photos of myself and a wedge of money.
She checked the pictures over, considered them, and said, “Are you sure this is correct?”
“Yes,” I said. “They’re fine.”
She placed the envelope in a soft, finely-stitched handbag and said, “Go.”
“Go?”
“What is it that I must tell you?”
I took out a notepad and a pen that I’d all-but forgotten about. “Tell me the new identities you supplied for Sarah and Gareth.”
“I do not know those names.”
“They were calling themselves Mister and Missus Gallway.”
“Show me.”
I presented my phone and flicked between the two photos.
She said, “Yes. I made for them two perfect passports. And this man, the photo on your phone, he was willing to pay me five thousand euros extra for a fast result. They became Isabella Laurent and Joseph Coulet.”
I noted the names. “French passports.”
“You are in France, monsieur detective. What else would I make?”
“Right. But they don’t speak French. Or do they?”
“Non, they do not. Creating these passports, it is no longer enough to have artistic talent.”
At the mention of “artistic talent,” I saw Sarah’s pictures in Sanjay’s Bar, how Caroline treated them with such affection. If I failed to bring her home, that’s all that would remain of her—impressions on sheets of paper.
“It is no longer just a reproduction,” the woman went on. “Thanks to jihad, thanks to America, we all must have bio-chips. We must have … what are those…?” She drew a shape with her finger in the air.
“Watermarks,” I said.
“Yes. This. Watermarks. Very inconvenient for me. Two white people is easier than two Africans or Asians, but I still must match person and data on the chips.”
In relation to what Patricia told me in the hotel, it all fit. I asked the forger how I would go about obtaining a passport at short notice.
“If I own a chip in my workshop that matches to your details, I could do it in a few hours. You are easy. Six foot, slim build, dark hair, blue eyes. I have twenty of these.”
I asked her to wait, then checked my phone. The actual telephone functions no longer worked, meaning the SIM card had been disabled, which I had been expecting. Thank you, Mr. Gorman. But as a handheld computer it could still connect to Wi-Fi, so I emailed Jess the names “Isabella Laurent” and “Joseph Coulet.” It took longer than usual; I hadn’t noticed how much I used my little finger before a sociopath broke it in half.
I said, “If I wanted you to do something for me, would you report it to Vila Fanuco?”
She frowned. “You are not going to ask me if I can break into a password are you?�
��
“No. Why would I do that?”
“No reason.” She looked away.
She was willing to tell me something important but felt she had to play this game. She wouldn’t betray the conditions we’d laid out at the start.
I said, “What did they ask you to do?”
“Ask better than that.”
Back at the Angel Inn, Agent Frank claimed to work for MI5, and was more interested in the “other items” Sarah and Gareth might be carrying. Even Benson implied they had taken more than money.
It’s called “organized” crime for a reason.
So maybe Gareth’s photography really was just a distraction.
I said, “Did either of them ask you to help access a computer or hard drive?”
“A what?”
“Or maybe a pen drive. With information—”
“The man. He asked if I knew anyone capable of cracking codes. He used a word. De … something.”
“‘Decrypt’?”
“Yes, ‘decrypt’.”
I was so close to it. Returning this item to Benson could set me free to concentrate on finding Sarah without interference from interested parties like Fanuco.
“And?” I said. “Where did you send him?”
The forger said, “I do not know anyone like that. I could not help.”
I closed my eyes, a moment of optimism dashed on cruel rocks. “So, would you have to report anything I requested to Vila Fanuco?”
“I am independent. I do not work for anyone, and Monsieur Fanuco does not try to keep me for himself. But he is someone I must respect. I do not have to tell him, but if he asks … I dare not lie.”
“I understand,” I said.
I told her I wanted the same service that Gareth had paid for, the quick turnaround. This case was rapidly descending into the sort of story that does not end well. The ability to run from a seriously psychotic criminal would be essential, if I felt the need to betray him.