Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  As he was grinding a second cigarette out under the sole of his leather loafers his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and listened. After a moment he closed it and walked up a broken pavement to the abbey door. With some effort he pulled at a chain and was rewarded by a hollow ringing deep within the building.

  The wait was longer than he would have wished, considering the urgency of his mission, but he was a patient man; one in his position had to be, after all these years. The flax fields, so tranquil and immutable, reminded him that nature continued its endless rounds, indifferent to man’s trivial distractions. There was no outward change in the world.

  Underneath, though, was an incipient tectonic shift. Those trivial distractions would prove to be earthshaking after all. The old enemy was nearly vanquished. Defago’s mission, and that of the many thousands before him, would soon be over.

  He stroked his cheek in satisfaction. It was an old habit: the scar was nearly invisible and few people noticed it any more, especially since it was neatly concealed under his graying beard.

  Still, that pulling sensation at the corner of his eye had never quite gone away. He felt it now, that downward tug, and dropped his hand with a sigh.

  Almost over!

  The door finally creaked open, and he stepped into the gloom.

  The man who had opened it was in his thirties, stolid, thick-muscled, and hideously ugly. His voice was a whispery rasp. “The Prior General is waiting.”

  “Good morning to you, too, Xavier,” Defago muttered.

  The cavernous interior reflected the condition of the outside. Cobwebs spanned many of the windows and filled the corners. Broken furniture – three straight-backed wooden chairs with woven straw seats, a few tattered modern tapestries, an old sofa against the south wall, and a row of empty bookcases – did little to occupy the hollow space. His footsteps echoed on the stone. He barely glanced at the dark opening to a narrow circular stone staircase that led to the basement.

  Brother Defago opened a door on the far side and entered an antechamber with two doors. One belonged to a small but efficient elevator. The other led him into a short corridor lined with cement. He walked along it, avoiding the deepest of the puddles, and stepped through another door into a narrow, warm room, simply furnished with two modern chairs and a desk against the wall. On the desk sat an older model computer, a bound paper agenda, and a set of Tarot cards laid out as if interrupted in the middle of a reading. There was no one at the desk. Defago sniffed at this apparent breach of security, not to mention theology, until the man who had opened the door followed him into the room, sat down and turned over a card, the four of cups: time to re-evaluate an all too familiar environment.

  This bordered on heresy, but Defago compressed his lips and said nothing.

  The door on the opposite side swung open. He stepped through and carefully closed it behind him.

  A heavyset, middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and neatly pressed designer jeans contemplated the river and the town on the other side through a barred window. The dawn light colored his face gunmetal gray. When the door clicked he turned. His face was wide, with cheekbones that jutted to sharp ridges. His prominent nose bent slightly to the left, clearly broken and badly healed long ago. The dark eyes were nearly lost in their pouches of fat. His lipless mouth twitched into something like a smile.

  He lowered his right hand. Defago dropped to one knee and kissed the plain gold ring. “Well?” the Prior General of the Secret Order of Theodosius purred. His smooth, liquid voice throbbed with power.

  “Consummatum est,” Defago said. “Foix is no more.”

  5.

  Lisa paused on the threshold of Raimond Foix’s apartment. Aside from the detective in shirtsleeves examining the parquet near the stairs the apartment appeared unchanged from the first time she set foot here four years earlier. She had expected disorder, things broken or out of place, blood and destruction, but the expensive reproduction of a Greek amphora near the entry door sprouted three ebony umbrella handles as always. The parquet that Marie, the housekeeper, kept so polished still perfectly reflected the harpsichord in the nook of the window overlooking rue du Dragon. Propped on its music stand was, as before, a facsimile of the 1591 edition of William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevells Book open to Sellinger's Round, one of Raimond’s favorite pieces. Behind it was a collection of Dowland Ayres for voice and lute. Was it only Tuesday she had been standing in this very spot, her hand on his shoulder, singing, In Darkness Let Me Dwell? He played his improvised accompaniment and looked back over his shoulder at her. He had been smiling at her, nodding when she reached for the high notes, when she repeated a phrase and he perfectly adapted to her own improvisation.

  The lyrics came back and she froze: “Thus, wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb/O, let me, living, living, die, till death do come.”

  He was gone, leaving only this eerie stillness: no music, no bustle from the kitchen. She would never again hear the modest cough he made when he wanted her attention. The twinkle in his eye was extinguished; his spirit had left the apartment. There would be no more tricks, no more wordplay, no more – love was the only word she could find.

  It was a place of death, and it returned, black opening in her heart, the ache in her belly. She had been Foix’s student, colleague and friend for nearly half her life. That emptiness, knowing he was gone…. Thirty-two years old and she felt like an abandoned child.

  Yet she wondered: had he known? Had he chosen that particular song?

  No, it was ridiculous. She was imagining it. He couldn’t have known.

  She wanted to dismiss the thought, send it away. She tried, while at the same time she found she was not surprised, as if she had known all along it was coming. This must be why she had wandered so far from her apartment this morning, why she had left her bed in the darkest hours of the night.

  No, it couldn’t be. She shook her head. “It seems normal,” she said aloud, her voice tight.

  “Yes,” Captain Hugo agreed, and there was something soft in his tone that showed he understood what she was feeling. “No sign of forced entry. Perhaps someone let them in, someone he knew?”

  Ignoring his sharp look she snapped, “Impossible! No one would want to kill him.”

  Hugo spread his hands. “The impossible happens, Mademoiselle, more often than you might think. Please look again. Anything you notice would help us.”

  “There’s nothing, I tell you. He might have just left, though there would be sounds. Where’s Marie?”

  “The housekeeper? She arrived at seven-thirty. I’m afraid she’s taken this pretty hard. I had someone take her to the station for a statement.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Raimond?”

  He lifted his eyes. “Mademoiselle, I’ve been here since around four o’clock this morning. We’ve been conducting the preliminary investigation. I thought it best to let you see things as they were – you might notice something we would miss, as you are familiar with the victim and the room.”

  Again his look was sharp, and though she managed to ignore it again, a suspicion flooded her. Was she a suspect? Was he only interested in her reactions, what she would do when she saw Raimond’s body?

  “So you said. Upstairs?”

  Hugo nodded. “The study.” He led the way. The staircase turned left at the landing and ended up facing the door to the study. To the left along the landing was the door to his bedroom with its view of the street, and at the far end, the guest room. Both these doors were closed; only the shattered study door gaped open. A short, stocky policeman stood beside it scribbling in a small notebook. He snapped to attention and saluted when Hugo stepped onto the landing. Hugo nodded. “Anything?”

  “Le médecin légiste vient d’arriver, Capitaine.”

  “Très bien, Bernard.”

  Hugo stood aside.

  Lisa paused at the threshold. “I don’t know that term,” she said. “Médecin légiste.”

  “The médecin légiste is the
– I believe you would say medical examiner? He will determine cause of death, and whether a crime was committed. He will do the autopsy.”

  “Is that really necessary?” To cut up Raimond’s body like so much meat! She tried to keep the horror from her voice.

  Hugo dipped his head. “I’m sure you know it is customary in cases of violence.”

  The floor just inside the door was littered with wood chips and dust. A fan-shaped spray crossed the precious Sarouk to the bookcase opposite. Some of the spines of his beloved leather-bound sets bristled with splinters.

  The stocky policeman said, “Please be careful of the dust.”

  She stepped into the room. Dr. Foix’s desk, with its high gallery, looked at first glance the same as always. She didn’t want to see him, so she turned her gaze away. Along the right wall floor to ceiling bookcases filled the space on either side of the window looking onto the court behind the building. Its dark crimson drapes were closed. No light leaked in, which meant the outside shutters were also closed. The glass doors that protected his valuable rare editions were open and several books were scattered on the floor. One was his 1744 edition of Hesiod’s Theogony, an Italian translation by Conte Gianrinaldo Carli. “Someone pulled these out.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Not a love of literature, I suppose. They were looking for something?”

  He tipped his head.

  “You know Victor Hugo once lived just down the street?” she murmured irrelevantly, staring at the books. “At number 30, when he was young.” She straightened abruptly. “Why am I here, Captain Hugo?” Her voice trailed off and she put her hand to her forehead. Not again! Not now! A wave of nausea swept through her, and, for just a moment, she forgot who she was.

  When she opened her eyes again the policeman was leading her to a small love seat near the bedroom door. “Please sit, Mademoiselle,” he began. “As I said, Foix left instructions. And your name….”

  My name is Lisa Emmer, she told herself. I live at 35, rue de l’Esperance. I’m thirty-two years old. She took a deep breath. “Yes, I know, the acrostic.” She looked up at him. “But it may not refer to me at all. It could just as well stand for ‘Elmer Aims’ or ‘Real Mimes!’ And even if it does point to me, and even if you had my home address, I don’t see how you knew I was going to take the Metro at Corvisart. You were waiting for me. How did you know?”

  “We are the police, Mademoiselle.”

  “No!” She stood and with an effort controlled her tremor. “That’s not good enough, Captain Hugo. Someone knew where to find me. You knew where to find me. I want some real answers.”

  “The banker, Mademoiselle, had instructions, as I told you.”

  “Écoutez, Capitaine Hugo.” She switched to formal French. “This is not real. You knew I would be there. Why would Raimond give my name to this banker…?”

  The memory of her sense that meeting Foix the first time was not an accident rose up and she stopped. “What’s going on?” she asked softly.

  Captain Hugo interrupted, gesturing toward the door. “Please, Mademoiselle. If you feel up to it, we need you to look.”

  She took a deep breath. “Of course Raimond knew I had a meeting this morning with the foundation. It’s logical.” She tried a smile. “All right.”

  From the doorway she could see the back of Foix’s desk and the silver railing of the gallery. “The cupid on the left looks wrong.” She pointed. “Something’s happened to it.” She scarcely noticed the other two men in the room.

  “Yes,” Hugo agreed solemnly. “A wild shot, apparently. It does give us some idea of the killer’s state of mind and a chance to determine where the gun was when he or she fired it.”

  She looked at him curiously. “He or she?”

  “We must consider all possibilities,” he said dryly. “All we can say now is that one shot went wild, ricocheted off the cupid and hit the glass of the window behind the desk, glass that, by the way, is triple-paned and bulletproof, unusual for a professor of Greek, wouldn’t you say?”

  Lisa stared. “No, I wouldn’t say since I have no idea what you’re talking about. Bulletproof glass?”

  “Ah, well, never mind; this is Paris, after all. To continue, a wild shot suggests either carelessness or tension, n’est-ce pas? And we know the shots were angled down, so the killer must have been about your height. Or perhaps a little taller,” he added.

  She stepped over the debris and advanced toward the desk until she could see Foix’s head lying against the back in his chair as if he had fallen asleep. His eyes, behind the rimless lenses of his glasses, were closed. The dark spot in the middle of his forehead seemed innocuous enough, like the decorative red or black painted bindi some south Asians affected. It seemed such a small sign to mark the end of a man’s life.

  A short, plump man was bent over Foix’s body, hands clasped behind his back. He straightened as she approached. He had dark hair slicked forward and a dapper moustache. His brown eyes regarded her sympathetically. “I am Dr. Viètes,” he said in soft, British-French accented English, taking her hand between his and pressing it warmly. “I am sorry, Miss Emmer. I understand the deceased was a close friend.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Yes, he was.”

  Though Viètes’ eyes were touched by his sympathetic smile she wondered if the médecin légiste hadn’t put special emphasis on the word friend. Did the police suspect she and Foix were lovers? That she had shot him in some kind of jealous fit? She dismissed the thought as soon as it arose. This was absurd. She was just being paranoid. It was the shock. A familiar state rose up inside her, a desperate separation from the physical world. It had been building since Hugo had apprehended her on the platform at Corvisart.

  She took a step forward and then staggered back. Hugo caught her elbow again. “His throat,” she said in a thick voice.

  “Come, sit.” He guided her to a small sofa.

  She sat and leaned on her elbows, pressing her thumbs to her temples, fighting the rising feeling of unreality, the waves of darkness flowing up from the carpet under her feet. She regarded the pattern, the weave of reds, blues, and greens without really seeing. She coaxed a voice from deep in her mind: Come on, you can handle this.

  Hugo was at her side. “I’m sorry…,” he began.

  She held up a hand. “No, I’ll be all right. It’s the shock. So much blood…”

  She looked up and her gaze landed on the third man in the room, a tall, thin figure with white hair combed up into a wave, standing by the bookcases near the desk. He wore a dark suit of some shiny material, perhaps polyester, perhaps silk, so he was either very poor or very important. One hand was in the side pocket of his suit jacket, the other elbow resting on a shelf. Lisa examined him, carefully avoiding looking at the body behind the desk.

  “This is the banker I told you about,” Hugo said.

  She forced all her attention on this new person. She could take in Raimond’s death later. So, the banker? Definitely not polyester, then. “What bank, monsieur?” She heard how strangled her voice sounded, and sat up with an effort. Her tight expression softened as she warmed to him. A banker was something ordinary, safe.

  His long face twitched. It might have been the premonition of a smile coming to the pouches under his eyes, the prominent cheekbones, and the sunken hollows under them, but the expression faded away as if it had never existed. “A private bank, Mademoiselle.”

  Already the darkness was receding and she could see the silk shimmer of his jacket; she could sense Viètes behind her, feel Hugo’s presence at her side. Reality was returned, isolated from the desolation that waited nearby. She would mourn later. “Private?” she said.

  “Very.” He produced a card from the side pocket, as if he had been holding it just for her. “Allow me to present myself.”

  She read A. Rossignol. A phone number, the only other information, suggested a location just across the river in the First Arrondissement.

  She stared at
the card. It was thick and beige, the name and number deeply embossed in a simple serif font. It spoke strongly of understatement and the self-effacing manner of an extremely powerful man who had no need of publicity. This was the important personage Hugo had said was above suspicion, yet here he was at the murder scene. He was the first to know, and was certainly tall enough to aim a gun down at the dead man. He lived or worked nearby.

  The name seemed familiar: it meant nightingale in French, an old family name, no doubt. Perhaps the name of someone she had met along the way, a butcher or mailman. A name learned, filed and forgotten.

  “Monsieur Rossignol.” She dipped her head and tucked the card into her bag.

  The banker cleared his throat. “We have some things to discuss, Mademoiselle Emmer.” He pronounced her name in the American manner.

  “What could we possibly…”

  He interrupted. “Now is not the time, of course. Dr. Foix made arrangements. They are of some importance.”

  “Important for me?”

  Again the faint intimation of a smile touched his long face. “They do not concern the police, who are now in need of your aid. Please call me this morning at your earliest convenience. I must do some things before we talk.” He bowed to her and shook hands with Hugo. Then he stepped very carefully over the debris by the door and was gone.

  Hugo had been waiting patiently. He took her elbow again in a way that was becoming irritatingly patronizing. “I would like you to look over the desk, if you don’t mind.”

  Two things rested on the gray leather. The list of composers, written in his elegant script, was crushed against the side of the gallery. Now that she could see the original writing she thought Foix must have scrawled a little more hastily than usual. Still, there was nothing much out of the ordinary about that and she remained silent.

  The second item was a copy of Turner’s Greek Papyri. This was pushed back against the lowest bank of small drawers. The dead man’s hand lay palm down on the desk, as if he had just let go of the book, or were just reaching for it.