The Girl on Paper

by Guillaume Musso

  I’d never been so in love.

  I’d never found it so easy to write.

  *

  Greenwich Village

  1 October

  Late afternoon

  Carole was the first to arrive outside the little bookshop on Greene Street.

  Kerouac & Co. Bookseller

  She looked in the window and couldn’t believe her eyes. The book was right there!

  It lay open on a stand, with a label saying ‘only copy’, and shared the window with a collection of Emily Dickinson poems and a poster for The Misfits, signed by Marilyn Monroe.

  She sensed Milo coming up behind her.

  ‘I have to give you credit for keeping going,’ he said as he approached the window. ‘I never thought we’d find it again.’

  ‘Do you think that’s definitely it?’

  ‘Let’s find out,’ he said, walking into the store.

  The shop was about to close. Kenneth Andrews was putting the books he had just dusted back on the shelves. He paused to welcome his customers.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’d like to take a look at one of your books,’ said Carole, pointing out Tom’s novel.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s unique!’ exclaimed the bookseller, taking the book out of the window and handling it as carefully as if it were written on papyrus.

  Milo examined it from every angle, surprised to see how its different readers had made it their own.

  ‘So?’ said Carole nervously.

  ‘This is the one, all right.’

  ‘We’ll take it!’ she said firmly.

  She felt filled with emotion and proud of herself. Thanks to her, Billie was out of danger!

  ‘Excellent choice. I’ll wrap it up for you. How would you like to pay?’

  ‘Um, how much is it?’

  Ever the pro, Kenneth Andrews had sensed how keen these customers were, and quoted an outrageous price.

  ‘It’s $6,000, ma’am.’

  ‘What? Are you serious?’ choked Milo.

  ‘It’s one of a kind,’ the bookseller said by way of justification.

  ‘It’s daylight robbery, that’s what it is!’

  The old man showed them the door. ‘Well, I won’t hold you back.’

  ‘Fine! You can stick your book—’ fumed Milo.

  ‘Very well, sir, and have a wonderful evening yourself,’ retorted Andrews, returning the book to its stand.

  ‘Wait a second!’ pleaded Carole, trying to calm things down. ‘I’ll pay it.’

  She took out her wallet and held out her credit card.

  ‘That’s very kind, ma’am,’ he said, taking hold of the little piece of plastic.

  *

  Paris

  Hôpital Européen Marie-Curie

  The same day

  ‘Can I go home now? I’m so bored of just lying here!’ moaned Billie.

  Professor Clouseau shot her a stern look.

  ‘Does it hurt when I press here?’ he asked, palpating her breastbone.

  ‘A little bit.’

  The doctor was concerned. Billie had a fever. Her scar was inflamed and hadn’t knitted together properly. It might just be a superficial infection, but he ordered some tests just in case.

  *

  New York

  ‘What do you mean, “declined”?’ thundered Milo.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kenneth Andrews, flustered, ‘but there seems to be a slight problem with your wife’s card.’

  ‘I’m not his wife,’ Carole corrected him.

  She turned towards Milo.

  ‘I must have maxed out my credit card buying those flights, but there’s still money in my savings account.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ said Milo, urging her to see sense, ‘you can’t just bankrupt yourself.’

  But Carole wouldn’t be swayed.

  ‘I just have to call my bank and get them to do a transfer, but it’s Friday and it might take some time,’ she explained.

  ‘No problem, call in whenever you can.’

  ‘This book is very important to us,’ she stressed.

  ‘I’ll keep it aside until the end of Monday,’ promised Andrews, taking it out of the window and placing it on the counter.

  ‘Can I rely on you?’

  ‘You have my word, ma’am.’

  *

  Paris

  Hôpital Européen Marie-Curie

  Monday 4 October

  ‘Ow!’ Billie cried out when the nurse placed a heat pad over her breastbone.

  This time, the pain was more acute. She’d had a temperature all weekend and Professor Clouseau had moved her back from the ward to the cardiology unit.

  The doctor stood at her bedside and examined the scar; it was all puffed up and the wound was seeping. Clouseau feared an inflammation of the bone and bone marrow: mediastinitis, a rare but serious bacterial infection that could be a complication of cardiac surgery.

  None of the tests he had ordered had come back with conclusive results. The chest X-ray showed that two steel threads had snapped, but this was hard to interpret because of the bruising caused by the operation itself. Maybe it was nothing to worry about.

  He thought about it, before deciding to carry out one last examination himself. He inserted a fine needle into the cavity between Billie’s lungs to draw off some of the mediastinal fluid. To the naked eye, the sample looked like pus. He prescribed a course of intravenous antibiotics and sent the sample to the lab for urgent analysis.

  *

  Greenwich Village

  Monday 4 October

  9.30 a.m.

  The multimillionaire Oleg Mordhorov stopped at a little café on Broome Street to order a cappuccino, just as he did every morning when he was in New York. He stepped back onto the pavement holding his paper cup and turned down Greene Street.

  The autumn sun cast a gentle light on the buildings of Manhattan. Oleg liked strolling through the streets – but he wasn’t just killing time. On the contrary, these were moments when he could reflect and when he sometimes took life-changing decisions.

  He had a meeting at 11 a.m. to finalise a real-estate transaction. The group he headed was about to buy up office buildings and warehouses in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Coney Island to turn them into luxury homes. The locals weren’t all that keen on the idea, but that really wasn’t his problem.

  Oleg was forty-four, but his slightly chubby face made him appear younger. Wearing jeans, a cord jacket and a hoodie, he didn’t look like one of the richest men in Russia. He didn’t go in for displays of wealth, he didn’t drive around in the limousine of an oligarch, and his bodyguard knew how to keep his distance and stay out of sight.

  At the age of twenty-six, while teaching philosophy in Avacha Bay, Oleg had been approached to join the council of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a port city in eastern Russia. He’d become very involved in local life, until perestroika and Yeltsin’s reforms led him into business. He’d become involved with some rather shady businessmen who had helped him profit from the policy of privatising state-owned assets.

  At the beginning, he didn’t have much in the way of business credentials, and his rivals had been taken in by the fact that he appeared to be a harmless dreamer, but this impression belied his cold, hard determination. He’d come a long way since then, cutting loose a few bothersome acquaintances in the process. He had property in London, New York and Dubai, a yacht, a private jet, a professional basketball team and a Formula 1 team.

  Oleg stopped outside the window of the little bookshop Kerouac & Co. The autographed Misfits poster had caught his eye.

  A gift for Marieke maybe. Why not?

  He was dating Marieke Van Eden, a twenty-four-year-old Dutch supermodel who for the last two years had been on the cover of every fashion magazine.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, walking into the shop.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’ Kenneth Andrews greeted him.

  ‘That Marilyn autograph. Is it genuine?’

  ‘But
of course, sir. It comes with a certificate of authenticity. It’s a fantastic piece—’

  ‘What’s it worth?’

  ‘Three thousand five hundred dollars, sir.’

  ‘OK,’ said Oleg, without trying to haggle. ‘It’s a present – could you wrap it for me?’

  ‘Right away.’

  While the bookseller carefully rolled up the poster, Oleg took out his Platinum card and put it down on the counter, just next to a book with a blue leather cover.

  Tom Boyd – The Angel Trilogy.

  That’s Marieke’s favourite writer.

  He opened the book and flicked through it.

  ‘How much for this?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that’s one’s not for sale.’

  Oleg smiled. In business, the only things he was interested in buying were those which were supposedly not for sale.

  ‘How much?’ he asked again.

  His round face no longer looked so good natured. There was a worrying intensity in his eyes.

  ‘It’s already sold, sir,’ Andrews explained calmly.

  ‘If it’s already sold, what’s it still doing here?’

  ‘The customer’s coming back to collect it.’

  ‘So it hasn’t been paid for yet.’

  ‘No, but I gave the customer my word.’

  ‘And how much is your word worth?’

  ‘My word, sir, is not for sale,’ the bookseller replied firmly.

  Andrews suddenly felt uncomfortable. There was something threatening, something violent about this guy’s manner. He put through the credit card and handed the Russian his package and receipt, relieved to be concluding the exchange.

  Only Oleg didn’t see it that way. He didn’t leave, settling instead in a tawny leather armchair facing the counter.

  ‘Everything has a price, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir.’

  ‘What was it Shakespeare said?’ Oleg asked, trying to remember the quotation. ‘“Money makes foul fair, old young, wrong right, base noble …”’

  ‘You must admit that’s a very cynical view of mankind.’

  ‘Name something money can’t buy,’ Oleg challenged him.

  ‘Well, it’s obvious: friendship, love, dignity—’

  Oleg swept his argument aside.

  ‘Humans are weak and corruptible.’

  ‘Surely you’d allow that there are some moral and spiritual values that escape self-interest.’

  ‘Every man has his price.’

  This time, Andrews showed him the door.

  ‘Have a good day, won’t you.’

  But Oleg didn’t move an inch.

  ‘Every man has his price,’ he said again. ‘What’s yours?’

  *

  Greenwich Village

  Two hours later

  ‘What the hell is this?’ railed Milo, arriving outside the shop.

  Carole couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only had the shutters been pulled down, but a hastily scrawled sign informed potential customers:

  ANNUAL CLOSURE

  BEFORE CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT

  She felt tears welling up. She sat on the kerb, despondent, letting her head drop into her hands. She’d just cashed the $6,000. A quarter of an hour earlier she’d been on the phone to Tom telling him the good news. And now the book had slipped through her fingers once again.

  Milo shook the shutters, enraged, but Carole stood up to try to reason with him.

  ‘You can break whatever you want – it won’t change anything.’

  She took out the $6,000 in bills and handed most of them to him

  ‘Listen, I need to get back to work, but you should go and help Tom in Paris. That’s the most useful thing we can do now.’

  And that was that. Downbeat, they shared a taxi to JFK airport and went their separate ways: Carole to Los Angeles and Milo to Paris.

  *

  Newark

  Late afternoon

  A few miles away at another New York airport, multimillionaire Oleg Mordhorov’s private jet was taking off for Europe. He’d decided to make a flying visit to surprise Marieke in Paris.

  It was the first week of October and the young model was strutting her stuff in the French capital for Fashion Week. All the fashion houses fought to dress her in their new collections. A classically beautiful and sophisticated woman, she had a special spark, as if the gods of Mount Olympus had allowed a flicker of the eternal flame to pass down to Earth.

  Comfortably settled in his seat, Oleg flicked through the Tom Boyd book absent-mindedly, before slipping it inside a padded envelope with a ribbon around it.

  It’s an original gift, he thought to himself. I hope she’ll like it.

  He spent the rest of the journey sorting out some paperwork before allowing himself a couple of hours’ sleep.

  *

  Paris

  Hôpital Européen Marie-Curie

  5 October

  5.30 a.m.

  ‘Damned hospital bugs!’ Clouseau cursed as he came into the room.

  Knocked out by fever and fatigue, Billie hadn’t woken up since the previous day.

  ‘Bad news?’ I guessed.

  ‘Very bad indeed. We’ve found bacteria in the fluid we took from Billie. She’s developing mediastinitis, a very serious infection which needs to be treated immediately.’

  ‘Will you have to operate again?’

  ‘Yes, we’re taking her up to theatre straight away.’

  *

  Oleg Mordhorov’s jet landed at Orly Sud at 6 a.m. An ordinary-looking car was waiting to take him to Île Saint-Louis, right in the heart of Paris.

  The vehicle stopped on Quai de Bourbon outside a handsome seventeenth-century mansion. Holding his overnight bag, with the envelope containg the book under his arm, Oleg took the lift to the fifth floor. The duplex occupied the top two floors and had a stunning view over the Seine and Pont Marie. He’d splashed out on the place as a romantic gift for Marieke when they’d first got together.

  Oleg had his own set of keys. He let himself into the apartment. It was quiet, bathed in the pale light of dawn. He recognised Marieke’s fitted pearl-grey coat thrown over the white leather couch, but beside it lay a man’s leather jacket which didn’t belong to him…

  The penny dropped immediately and he didn’t bother going up to the bedroom.

  Outside on the street, he tried to hide his shame in front of his driver. But in his anger he hurled the book into the river with all his might.

  *

  Hôpital Européen Marie-Curie

  7.30 a.m.

  Under Clouseau’s supervision, the intern placed the defibrillator patches on Billie’s body, which was anaesthetised. Then the surgeon took over, carefully removing all the stitches in her chest before debriding the wound, cutting out the dead and infected tissue.

  The wound was oozing. Clouseau decided on closed-heart surgery. In order to drain the fluid, he put in six small drainage tubes attached to suction devices. Then he finished the procedure by stabilising the breastbone, and sewing the wound with fresh steel wire so that the movements of her breathing wouldn’t interfere the healing process.

  At last, the operation seems to have—

  ‘Doctor! She’s haemorrhaging!’ called the intern.

  *

  Protected only by the padded envelope, the book with the midnight-blue cover floated down the Seine, water seeping inside as it went.

  The book had covered some serious ground over the past few weeks, travelling from Malibu to San Francisco, crossing the Atlantic to Rome, continuing its journey as far as Asia before heading back to Manhattan, and eventually landing in France.

  In its own way, the book had changed the lives of all the people who had held it. This wasn’t just any novel. The story it told had been dreamed up in the mind of a teenager traumatised by what his childhood friend was going through.

  Years later, when the author was battling his own demons, the book had flung one of its characters i
nto the real world to come to his aid.

  But that morning, as the river water soaked through its pages, it seemed the real world had decided to fight back, determined to wipe Billie off the face of the earth.

  35

  The heart test

  After looking for something and finding nothing, sometimes you find it without looking for it

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Hôpital Européen Marie-Curie

  8.10 a.m.

  ‘Let’s open her up again,’ ordered Clouseau.

  It was as he feared: the right ventricle had torn, causing a massive loss of blood. It was spurting out from all sides and flooding the area they were working on. The intern and nurse were struggling to contain it, forcing Clouseau to compress the heart with his hands to try to stop the flow.

  This time, Billie’s life was hanging by a thread.

  *

  Quai Saint-Bernard

  8.45 a.m.

  ‘Hey, boys, it’s time for work, not time for breakfast!’ spat Captain Karine Agneli, walking into the staff room at the headquarters of the river police.

  Lieutenants Diaz and Capella were enjoying coffee and croissants, reading the headlines of Le Parisien and listening to comedy on the radio.

  With her short tousled hair and charming freckles, Karine was as feminine as she was no-nonsense. She was having none of this slacking; she switched off the radio and roused her men to action.

  ‘We’ve just had a call come in; there’s an emergency. Some drunk’s thrown himself off Pont Marie. So you’d better pull your fingers out of—’

  ‘OK, we’re going, boss!’ Diaz cut her off. ‘No need to lower the tone.’

  Seconds later all three of them had taken their places aboard the Cormorant, one of the patrol boats used to police the Seine. It sliced through the waves, travelling along Quai Henri-IV and passing under Pont de Sully.