Stilton didn’t notice any of this. The wine had dulled his senses. He felt secure with Abbas by his side.
He wouldn’t have if he’d known what was going on in Abbas’s head: stay and wait for the car and go for a confrontation? Or turn off?
He turned off. Sideways into a narrow alleyway, too tight for a car. Stilton hardly managed to keep up.
‘Are we going in here?’
‘Yes. Come on!’
Abbas was moving quickly and Stilton followed him. Now all his senses were in gear again. He turned his head and saw a car stop down on the street. Were they being followed? Abbas turned another corner. Stilton ran after him. There were two bins standing against the wall. He had to weave in between them. Then he almost tripped over a black cat that came shooting out from behind one of the bins. He managed to grab hold of a windowsill and stopped himself from falling. He heard a clattering noise a long way behind him.
He had no idea how long they ran between the densely packed houses, but they suddenly emerged through an archway into a small square with some empty vegetable stalls. A young man was wheeling an elderly woman across the square in a wheelchair. The wheels were squeaking loudly. Abbas hailed a taxi that was driving past and jumped in the back seat. Stilton jumped in the front. The driver looked straight ahead and asked: ‘Where are we going?’
Stilton gave the hotel address in his heavy Swedish accent, which inspired the taxi driver to try to do a little detour, until Abbas tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Take the fastest route,’ he said.
In his expressive Marseille dialect.
So the taxi drove straight to Hotel Richelieu. Abbas paid and both of them jumped out. There was a seedy nightclub right opposite the hotel. The music was pounding out onto the street. There were a couple of hefty, drunk Russians standing at the entrance, trying to get in. There’d probably be a fight next. Abbas and Stilton walked in through the hotel doors. They’d already disappeared up the stairs as the black car drove past.
Once it had passed by, the driver put his foot down and disappeared off into the darkness.
* * *
Darkness had fallen outside Olivia’s window too, another kind of darkness, heavy Swedish autumnal darkness. It was probably that that prompted her to light the candles on the table. She sat on the small sofa in her living room with her laptop in front of her, the candles just behind it. They weren’t creating much light, but all she needed to see was the keyboard.
She’d been reading for quite a while already.
It was both interesting and alarming. It was Dagens Nyheter’s series of articles on Albion. A number of journalists had been digging and analysing and checking.
Thoroughly.
They’d turned the company upside down and found some damning information. The cases of negligence at Albion’s nursing homes hit them one after the other. They had escalated in the past year. Three different homes in three places around Sweden were subject to external investigations due to negligent care. Several municipalities were currently reviewing their contracts with Albion. The company had been subject to scathing criticism. Various representatives had defended the organisation in different ways.
These did not include Jean Borell.
He was nowhere to be found in any of the articles.
Journalists all over the world had tried to reach him for comments without success. The only person they’d managed to reach was his closest colleague in Sweden, Magnus Thorhed. On one occasion, a journalist had bumped into Borell in Australia, during the Australian Open, more or less by accident. Borell had agreed to a short interview about Albion after the match and had then disappeared.
Olivia started googling Jean Borell but there was hardly anything about him. Born in Danderyd, living in London – she didn’t find much more. She hadn’t expected to either. It was a typical sign of people at that level, in that world – they were invisible in the media.
So she went back to reading the articles.
What was pretty clear was Albion’s precarious situation. It was a company struggling for survival. They’d generated enormous profits over the years. In 2011 alone, municipalities and county councils had bought services from private companies for 71 billion Swedish kronor. She didn’t know how much of that had ended up at Albion, but it was probably quite a sizeable chunk. So they weren’t talking peanuts. The debate about profits in the welfare sector had hit Albion’s reputation hard. But the company had party-political ties – several leading Moderate Party politicians supported the organisation. A multi-million deal was currently under negotiation with the City of Stockholm. A strongly criticised deal. The critics highlighted all the nursing homes that had been mismanaged by Albion. Instead the politicians talked about Silvergården in Nacka, as an example of an exceptionally well-run organisation.
And that’s where Olivia found the motive.
That’s where her theory crossed the finishing line.
Another scandal, particularly one at Silvergården, would be catastrophic for Albion. It could ruin the entire new multi-million deal.
Olivia leant back on her sofa and rubbed her eyes. She’d been leaning closer and closer to the screen. Now her eyes were really aching.
But it was worth it.
If the material on Bengt Sahlmann’s laptop really was about the scandals at Silvergården and was on its way to a journalist at DN, then that was a clear motive.
A clear motive to silence him and steal his laptop.
The world had witnessed far lesser murder motives.
So what to do now? I still don’t know what Sahlmann’s material was about. It could be something completely different. It could have been about the missing stash of drugs at Customs and Excise.
And then Mette appeared.
Not literally, but in her thoughts. Should she call Mette and tell her what she was thinking? She knew that Mette very much respected her ‘intuition’. But as things were now? ‘Who do you think you bloody are?’ The words still stung.
She wasn’t going to call Mette.
Not yet.
Not before she knew what Sahlmann’s material was about.
She blew out the candles.
Chapter 12
Abbas woke up long before Stilton, for once. It was only half past three and his mouth was all furry. He showered, the whole procedure, and left the hotel. He wandered around for hours, with heavy clouds in the sky, and watched the city come to life. He watched bakeries getting ready for a new day of business, vegetable stalls rolling up to the market near the port, fishing boats coming in to deliver the night’s catch, and tired waiters putting out the first tables. But he didn’t really see any of it. He was deep in thought. He knew what he had to do and he hated it. But there was no other way right now. He had to move forward.
He had to find out more.
So when the time had come he went into the shop, a porn shop. The man behind the till was quite young. That bothered Abbas. But he could go to more such shops – there were plenty of them in the area where he’d ended up.
‘Le Taureau?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never heard of him.’
So Abbas went to the next shop. There was an older man who had considerably more filth on his conscience. He’d been running the shop for fifteen years.
‘What? You mean a porn actor?’
‘I don’t know, but he’s involved in making porn films.’
‘Sorry, no one I know of, but there are quite a few people involved in this business.’
The man moved towards the shelves behind Abbas, stuffed full of porn, one of the world’s most lucrative industries.
‘Why not look to see if you can find something?’
Abbas started perusing the DVDs, hundreds of them. There was hardly any difference between the covers. Naked women, naked genitals, dead eyes. But he carried on looking. He knew what he might find and hoped that he wouldn’t.
But he did.
After about fifteen minutes.
A porn film with a cover like all the others, but one clear difference.
The woman on the cover was Samira.
Abbas looked on the back of the DVD. There was a small picture of an oiled man, but no names.
‘Have you seen this one?’ he asked the man behind the till.
‘No, I don’t like porn. I mainly watch stuff like Buñuel, Haneke and Kurosawa.’
Abbas bought the film.
Stilton sat on the hotel terrace and wondered where Abbas was. No note. Nothing on his mobile. He’d called but there was no answer. He looked out across the bay and sipped his coffee. It was drizzling, or rather sprinkling. Light, warm sprinkling rain. Stilton didn’t take any notice of it. He felt that he was running out of steam and wondered how much longer the trip would last. He’d fulfilled his primary task – making contact with Jean-Baptiste. He hoped that the large policeman would get back to him soon.
But what then?
How long would he have to stay here looking for The Bull? A person they didn’t even know existed.
Abbas would stay for a long time, he knew that. And he understood it. This was Abbas’s major trauma. But how long did Abbas want him to stay? He could probably go home as soon as he’d been in touch with Jean-Baptiste, if it wasn’t for one thing.
Philippe Martin.
And what Abbas had done to him.
Which made Abbas fair game here.
Stilton had come to know that much about this city – Jean-Baptiste had told him enough about it. And he knew that Jean-Baptiste would not be keeping an eye out for Abbas, particularly not after the knife attack on Martin.
So?
A guardian angel?
Was he going to stay as some kind of bodyguard for Abbas?
‘Come!’
Stilton turned his head. Abbas was on his way to their ‘suite’ with a DVD player under his arm. The hotel porter had managed to get hold of one in exchange for some cash. Stilton got up and followed him.
Abbas rigged up the DVD player with the rather outdated television in the room. All this in complete silence. Stilton sat on the edge of the bed.
He sensed what it was about.
When Abbas pulled out the DVD from his jacket it was confirmed.
‘It’s a film with Samira,’ Abbas said.
He put the DVD in and sat on a chair next to Stilton, holding on to the remote control. He didn’t turn it on directly. First he took off his shoes and socks. His feet weren’t sweating at all even though he’d been walking around for hours. Stilton sat and waited.
Quite a while.
‘Do you really want to see this?’ Stilton finally asked him.
‘No.’
Abbas put on the film.
It was a porn film just like most other porn films. A pokey room, harsh lighting, poor sound. A woman egging a man on, giving him a blow job, playing with herself, before the man finally starts fucking her, in this case from behind against an armchair.
It was a routine.
Or it would have been if it hadn’t been for the beautiful Moroccan woman bending over the armchair.
Samira.
Suddenly Abbas stopped the film and wound back a bit. The camera had zoomed in on Samira’s face. That’s when he saw it. The thin gold necklace. A necklace that he’d once given her at the circus, secretly. Now she was wearing it. He put the film back on. The act continued.
Stilton found it quite uncomfortable to watch, considering the circumstances. What was most uncomfortable is that he got a hard-on, a biological reflex that he couldn’t control. He held his hands over his groin so that Abbas wouldn’t see.
Suddenly Abbas paused the film again, during a close up of the naked man: robust build, oiled, quite muscular, dark hair.
‘Do you think that’s The Bull?’
‘No idea.’
Abbas turned it off. The screen went black. Stilton felt his erection soften. He looked at Abbas and guessed what was going on in his head.
Then Stilton’s mobile rang. He looked at it.
‘It’s Jean-Baptiste.’
‘Can you take the call out there?’
‘Sure.’
Stilton got up from the bed and left the room. When the door slammed shut, Abbas went over to the window alcove, Stilton’s ‘bedroom’. He pulled back the curtain and looked out over the Mediterranean. He stood completely still and let his eyes close. A couple of minutes later, he raised one hand and slowly moved it around in front of him, back and forth, as though he was stroking an invisible shoulder.
All three of them met up at the Beau Rivage bar down in the port. Jean-Baptiste had been the one to suggest it. He was there on time, unlike Stilton and Abbas. Stilton had waited out in the hotel corridor after the conversation with Jean-Baptiste. He felt that Abbas wanted to be in the room alone. More than an hour passed before he came out. And by then they were almost half an hour late already, but Stilton had called to let Jean-Baptiste know. They scurried towards the bar without noticing the black car pulling over to the pavement just behind them.
Jean-Baptiste stood up as they walked in. He had chosen a table in the corner of the outdoor seating area, protected by a small hedge. It had stopped drizzling and the sun had almost reached the table. As Abbas approached, Jean-Baptise gave him a big hug and a smile.
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘And it’s ended up on you.’
Both of them smiled and sat down.
‘Le Taureau,’ said Abbas.
He cut straight to the chase.
‘Do you know the name?’
‘The Bull? As the name of what?’
‘Of the man who may have murdered Samira Villon.’
Jean-Baptiste peered at Stilton. He thought that he was the one who was going to provide information. Stilton gestured with his hand, discreetly.
‘No,’ said Jean-Baptiste, ‘I’ve never heard that name. The Bull you say?’
‘Yes.’
Abbas pulled out the porn film he’d bought and pointed at the picture of the oiled man.
‘Could that be him?’
‘That’s Jacques Messon.’
‘Maybe he was known as The Bull?’
‘It’s possible, but he was shot dead about six months ago outside a bar.’
Abbas looked at the cover of the DVD.
‘But I can ask around,’ Jean-Baptiste said.
‘Thank you. Have you got some information?’
Given that Abbas didn’t know Jean-Baptiste very well he was rather forward. But the policeman didn’t react, he knew very well what it was about.
So Jean-Baptiste spent a while updating them how far the French investigation had got. He didn’t reveal too much internal information, just enough for them to get an idea of the status quo – how she had gone missing during a film shoot, the location of which remained unknown. It could have been a hotel room, a flat, or a house in the countryside – they had no idea. And there was no information about who’d been there at the time either.
And so it went on.
It wasn’t very impressive.
‘Sadly a dead porn actress isn’t really at the top of the agenda right now. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There have been a great deal of internal rumblings of late.’
Stilton saw that Abbas was gritting his teeth.
‘So you have no potential suspect?’ Stilton asked.
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Who told you about the film shoot? That it had taken place?’
‘I can’t tell you that unfortunately.’
‘Did she have drugs in her system?’ Abbas asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What did she die of?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes.’
Jean-Baptiste and Stilton exchanged looks again, as though the large policeman was wondering whether Abbas could take this. Stilton nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘She was subjected to serious abuse and then she was strangled. That was the ca
use of death. Then she was cut up into six pieces and buried in a nature reserve.’
‘We’ve been there,’ Abbas said.
As though the horrific details had passed him by.
They hadn’t, Stilton knew that.
‘And you have no idea about a possible motive?’ Abbas said.
‘No.’
‘Clues? DNA? Was there semen inside her?’
‘On her body. But that’s probably not that strange.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, she was murdered during or after the making of a porn film, I just said that.’
Stilton noted that Jean-Baptiste’s tone had changed slightly. Abbas probably shouldn’t push this too far. But he continued: ‘Has the DNA been matched?’
‘Abbas.’
‘Yes.’
Jean-Baptiste leant over towards the frustrated man.
‘I’ve told you what I can. And I’ve done so because Tom asked me to. Don’t push me further.’
Abbas looked at Jean-Baptiste and understood that he needed to back down.
‘But, that said, we have questioned her agent,’ Jean-Baptiste said and leant back again. ‘Philippe Martin. Have you met him?’
Here we go, Stilton thought.
‘Only briefly,’ he said.
‘There’s a rumour flying around that he had his eye gashed with a knife yesterday.’
‘Oh really?’
Jean-Baptiste looked at Abbas.
‘And you had nothing to do with it?’
‘Is that what he’s saying?’
‘I don’t know. It was just a question.’
‘I don’t do things like that any more.’
‘Good, because if you did, you probably ought to leave Marseille quick smart.’
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