Nicholas Marten 01 - The Exile

by Folsom, Allan

  Ford’s cell phone chirped in the kitchen and he got up to answer it.

  “Dan Ford,” Marten heard him say. Then, “Comment? Où?” What? Where? Ford’s voice was suddenly filled with surprise and alarm. Marten and Nadine looked toward the kitchen. They could see Ford standing there, the phone in his hand, listening.

  “Oui, merci,” he said finally and clicked off. A moment later he came back into the room.

  “That was Inspector Lenard just back from Monaco. Halliday was found dead in his hotel room.”

  “What?”

  “He was murdered.”

  27

  HÔTEL EIFFEL CAMBRONNE, RUE DE LA CROIX NIVERT. 9:20 P.M.

  Dan Ford pulled the Citroën into a parking space a half block down the street from the hotel. From where they sat they could see uniformed police and a number of emergency vehicles at the hotel entrance. Among them was Lenard’s unmarked maroon Peugeot.

  “Nick,” Ford warned quietly, “right now nobody knows who you are. If the LAPD hasn’t been informed yet, they will be soon enough. You go in there, Lenard will want to know who you are and why you’re there. You’ll be asking for all kinds of trouble.”

  Marten smiled. “Use your charm. Just tell him I’m a friend from the States.”

  “You’re determined to get yourself killed, aren’t you?”

  “Dan, Jimmy Halliday was a friend and a partner. Maybe I can get some sense of what happened. Maybe better than the French police. At least I can try.” Suddenly Marten paused. “He would have done the same for me.”

  Lenard was there when they came in. Another detective was with him. A small tech crew worked both the bedroom and the bathroom just off it. A police photographer took pictures wherever he was asked.

  Halliday’s body was on the bed. He wore a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. The T-shirt and the bedding around his upper torso were soaked in blood. The curious thing was the way his head was twisted back on the pillow. Another step and they could see why. His throat had been cut, nearly through to the spine.

  “Qui est-ce?” Who is he? Lenard was looking at Marten.

  “Nicholas Marten, un ami américain,” Ford said. An American friend. “D’accord?” Okay?

  Lenard studied Marten for a moment, then nodded. “As long as he doesn’t get in the way or touch anything,” he said in English.

  Ford nodded gratefully. “Any idea who did it or how it happened?”

  “There is blood on the carpet by the door. I would think perhaps he was resting or in the toilet and someone came. He went to answer the door and whoever it was cut him the moment he opened it, then carried him to the bed. It was done very quickly, the murder weapon very sharp, a razor, I would think, or some kind of attack knife.”

  “What was it, robbery?” Ford asked.

  “At first glance, it doesn’t seem so. His wallet appears untouched. His luggage was not yet unpacked.”

  Marten took a careful step toward the bed, trying to get a better look at Halliday. As he did so a bearded man in a baggy suit stepped from the bathroom.

  He was about forty, a little overweight, and had big brown dog-eyes that almost made him look sleepy.

  “This is Inspector Kovalenko, Russian Ministry of Justice,” Lenard said to Ford. “He’s helping us with the Alfred Neuss murder. Neuss was a former Russian citizen.”

  “I knew Russian investigators were in L.A. following up shortly after the Raymond Thorne incident,” Ford said with a brief glance at Marten. Here was the answer to Marten’s wondering if anyone had been in touch with the Russians. “I didn’t know that Neuss was Russian.” He looked to Kovalenko. “I’m Dan Ford, Los Angeles Times.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Ford,” Kovalenko said in heavily accented English. “I understand Detective Halliday was a friend of yours. My deepest condolences,” he said genuinely.

  “Thank you.”

  Kovalenko’s eyes went to Marten. “And you are a friend of Mr. Ford.”

  “Yes, Nicholas Marten.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Marten?”

  Kovalenko nodded slightly. This was the man in the park who had so quickly turned away when he had seen the police; and here he was walking straight into their midst with no hesitation whatsoever.

  Ford looked to Lenard. “Who found him?”

  “A housekeeper came to turn down the bed. There was no answer when she knocked, so she let herself in with her passkey. She saw him and immediately called the manager. It was then about seven-twenty.”

  The police photographer moved in to photograph the bed from a different angle, and Marten stepped back. It gave him a chance to look at Halliday more carefully. His face was more lined than he’d remembered. And he was thin, too thin really. And there was something more. For somebody still in his early thirties, he seemed almost old. Whatever he looked like now, or had before he was killed, he was still the man who had been instrumental in getting him into the squad in the first place, who had been with him through the Donlan crises and through all the horror and bloodshed with Raymond. And finally, the man who, in the most crucial moment of his life, had come over to his side and saved Rebecca and himself from the crazed Len Polchak.

  Suddenly an enormous wave of anger and loss washed over Marten. Without thinking, he looked to Lenard.

  “The housekeeper. Did she call the manager or go get him?”

  Dan Ford shook his head, warning him off.

  “You mean did she call from here or from somewhere else?” It was too late, Lenard was already involved.

  “Yes.”

  “As you might suspect, she was horrified. She ran from the room and used a house telephone at the end of the hallway near the elevators.” Lenard glanced at Ford. “I believe your friend is suggesting the murderer might have still been somewhere here, perhaps in the bathroom or closet, and then left when the housekeeper went for help.” He looked back to Marten. “Yes?”

  “I only asked what happened.”

  Ford swore under his breath. It wasn’t just Lenard who had Marten’s attention. Kovalenko did, too. He didn’t give it time to go any further.

  “I know Halliday’s wife.” He stepped between Marten and Lenard. “Would you like me to make the call?”

  “If you wish.”

  At their exchange, Marten stepped back and looked around the room. Halliday’s suitcase was open on a luggage rack at the foot of the bed and filled to the top with his clothes. Even his shaving kit was there, tucked to the side. It looked as if he had barely opened it before whatever happened, happened.

  “Nick, let’s go, let these guys do their work.” Dan Ford was standing by the door, and Marten could tell he wanted him out of there and quickly.

  “Do you know of any reason someone would have wanted to kill him?” Lenard asked Ford as Marten reached them.

  “No. None.”

  “Perhaps you will come and see me in the morning. Maybe together we can shed some light on this.”

  “Of course,” Ford said, and he and Marten turned for the door.

  “Mr. Ford.” Kovalenko stood blocking it. “You knew Detective Halliday when you were working in Los Angeles, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe he was a member of the legendary Five-Two Squad, yes?”

  “Yes, he was.” Dan Ford was cool and matter-of-fact.

  “The reputation of the Five-Two is very well known to policemen around the world. Russia is no exception. Its late commander, Arnold McClatchy, I have a picture of him in my office. He was a hero, yes? Like Gary Cooper in High Noon.”

  “You know a lot about America,” Ford said.

  “No, just a little.” Kovalenko smiled slightly, then looked to Marten. “Were you acquainted with Detective Halliday as well, Mr. Marten?”

  Marten hesitated. He’d known that by staying in Paris and getting involved in Neuss’s murder, then wanting to meet Halliday, and finally going to the murder scene where the French police were, he was taking on more and more risk, as Ford k
ept reminding him. That risk-taking had led to his questioning Lenard the way he had, and unfortunately the Russian detective had picked up on it. Bearded and pudgy with his big brown eyes, Kovalenko looked soft and professorial, but that was a cover. In truth he was sharp and highly perceptive. Moreover, he’d done his homework. He knew about the 5-2 and he knew about Red. Whether he actually had a photograph of him was beside the point. What Kovalenko was doing was looking for a recognition factor, some indication that either Marten or Dan Ford knew more about what happened here than they were letting on.

  Or, Marten suddenly thought, maybe the question was really about Neuss and what Ford and Marten might know that Kovalenko, the French police, and the Russian investigators who had gone to L.A. earlier did not.

  Whatever it was, and whatever Kovalenko was trying to find out, Marten knew he had to be careful. If he said the wrong thing or gave any hint at all of familiarity with the case, it would only make the Russian push harder, and that was the last thing he wanted.

  “Yes, I knew him, but not well,” he said evenly. “What little there was came mostly from Dan’s stories about him.”

  “I see.” Kovalenko smiled pleasantly and eased up a little but not completely. “You are in Paris visiting Mr. Ford, are you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask where you are staying?”

  “At my apartment,” Ford answered for him.

  “Thank you.” Kovalenko smiled again.

  “My office at nine tomorrow morning,” Lenard said to Ford.

  “Nine, yes. Au revoir.” Ford nodded and then hustled Marten out the door.

  28

  “Why did you have to start with the questions?” Ford sounded like Marten’s father, an older brother, a wife, and a boss all rolled into one, ripping him under his breath as they walked fast down the hallway and toward the elevators. Uniformed police were everywhere, cordoning off the entire area around Halliday’s room. “Lenard might have let it go for now, but tomorrow morning he’s going to be asking me who the hell you are and what you were up to.”

  “Alright, so I said something.”

  “Nick,” Ford warned him, “just keep your mouth shut.”

  They reached the end of the corridor and turned toward the bank of elevators.

  “Ask one of these cops to point out the house phone the housekeeper used,” Marten said abruptly. “I want to see where it is.”

  “For God’s sake, stay out of this.”

  “Dan, Jimmy Halliday had his throat cut.”

  Ford stopped, took a breath, and went up to the closest uniform. He told him in French that Inspector Lenard had spoken of a house telephone the hotel housekeeper used to call the manager and asked him where it was.

  “Là-bas.” Over there.

  The uniform pointed to a simple white hotel house telephone mounted on the wall across from them. Marten glanced at it, then back down the hallway the way they had come. The phone was eighty, maybe a hundred feet from the open door to Halliday’s room. A housekeeper, horrified and rushing toward it, would have had her back to the door the whole way, giving anyone in the room more than enough time to go to the fire stairs at the opposite end unseen.

  “Merci,” Ford said, and turned Marten back toward the elevators.

  As they reached them, the doors to the nearest elevator opened and two ambulance attendants came out pushing a gurney with a silvery gray body bag folded on top. They passed without a glance and turned down the corridor toward Halliday’s room.

  “Dammit,” Marten said out loud. “Damn it to hell.”

  29

  Both men stared at the floor as the doors closed and the elevator started down.

  “I don’t understand how somebody with Halliday’s training and experience could let himself be taken out like that,” Ford said quietly.

  Marten tried to replay what happened. “You’re in a seemingly safe hotel, depressed, jet-lagged, a little drunk, and maybe taking a nap, and somebody knocks on the door. You have no reason to expect trouble, so you answer it. Or if not, you at least ask who it is. The person outside replies innocently enough and in French, like hotel staff. What’s to even think about? So you open it. And whoever’s there knows exactly what they are going to do the moment you do. The instant slice of a razor or knife across your throat.” Marten’s eyes glistened in anger as he thought about it. The ease, the simplicity of it.

  “It was a deliberate murder, Dan. So the question is why? What did the perpetrator think Halliday knew or did or was going to do that he had to be killed for it? And Neuss was Russian? We never knew that. Did you?”

  “No.” Ford shook his head. “Obviously the Russian investigators who came to L.A. kept it to themselves. I tell you something else,” Ford said, “Fabien Curtay, the Monaco diamond merchant, was a Russian expatriate, too.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t make the connection until Lenard talked about Neuss. Curtay was one of the world’s top diamond traders. Neuss was a wealthy Beverly Hills jeweler. Both were Russian. So were the Azov brothers Raymond allegedly killed in Chicago.”

  “You’re thinking diamond traffic, the Russian mafia?” Marten said. “That’s what this is all about? What Raymond was about? What was supposed to have gone on in London? And maybe what Halliday was onto and why he was killed?”

  “It would explain the plane sent for Raymond, what happened to his files, even the circumstances of the cremation and what happened to the people involved with it afterward. It would also explain the Russian investigators in L.A. afterward and what Kovalenko is doing in Paris.”

  Marten nodded. “I agree he’s here for more than a murder investigation, but I have yet to see anyone send a private jet to rescue a hit man. The idea might fit with the Chicago killings and with Neuss and with Fabien Curtay, but add Raymond and it doesn’t feel right.

  “I was in too many rooms with him. I watched his face, heard him talk, saw how he moved. He was well educated and fluent in at least three languages, and maybe a fourth, which was Russian. He might have been a highly trained killer, but he was more aristocrat than hired gun.”

  Marten half shrugged. “Maybe Halliday was playing it as Russian mafia, and maybe Lenard and Kovalenko are, too. Maybe they’ll find something in that line, but I doubt it. I was there with Raymond, Dan.” Marten paused. “It’s something else.”

  It was just after ten when Ford steered the Citroën away from the hotel. The clear skies of earlier had become overcast during dinner, and now a light rain was falling. Through it Marten could see the grand spectacle of the Eiffel Tower disappear into low-hanging clouds two-thirds of the way up. Then they were past it and crossing the Seine on the Pont d’Iéna and moving onto the Rive Droite, the Right Bank, where the Arc de Triomphe was and the Parc Monceau and L’Ecluse Madeleine. Minutes afterward they were traveling along the Avenue de New York and heading back along the river toward the Quai des Tuileries and the Louvre. The whole time neither man said a word. Finally Dan Ford spoke.

  “You’re the last of them, you know that.”

  “The last of who?”

  “The squad. Halliday said that this afternoon. A hundred years and you and he were the only ones left. Now there’s only you.”

  “I’m hardly the guy they would want to stand up for it, or who even wants to remember he was a part of it.” Marten looked off and for a long moment was silent. “Halliday was a good guy,” he said finally.

  “That’s why his murder makes it all the worse. You thought all this was dead, but we can both see it’s not.” Ford slowed the Citroën behind a taxi and looked over at Marten, his glass eye behind the black horn-rims revealing nothing, the other, the good eye, deeply troubled and full of concern. “What if I told you to get out of here now and go back to Manchester, like I did before? That I would handle it and let you know what was going on?” Ford looked back to the traffic in front of him. “You wouldn’t do it.”

  “No.”

  “Not for me, not for
Rebecca, not for Lady Clem. Not even for yourself as Nick Marten, student of landscape architecture, somebody who is safe and sane and finally doing something he’s wanted to do all his life.”

  “No.”

  “No, of course not. Instead you’re going after this with all you have and for as long as it takes until you get it or it gets you. And if lovable Raymond is somehow still alive, you won’t know until it’s too late. Because by then you’ll already be in the cave and then—suddenly there he is.”

  Marten stared at Ford and then abruptly looked away. Ahead were the lights of Notre Dame. To the right was the long dark ribbon that was the Seine. Across it, through the rain, were the lights of the Rive Gauche, the Left Bank, where they were headed and where Dan Ford lived.

  “You’re going to do it anyway. Maybe this will help,” Ford said and slid something from inside his blue blazer and gave it to Marten.

  “What is it?” Marten turned over an old, overstuffed, dog-eared, daily calendar, its leather covers and bulging contents held together by a thick rubber band.

  “Halliday’s appointment book. I took it off the night table while you were playing detective with Lenard. Halliday said he wanted to talk to you. Maybe he still will.”

  The slightest hint of a grin crossed Marten’s face. “You are a thief.”

  “It’s what happens when somebody knows somebody else better than he ought to.”

  30

  The sound of a door opening and closing woke Nicholas Marten from a deep sleep. It was dark, and for the moment he had no idea where he was. Had someone come in or gone out? Or had he dreamt it? He pressed the button on his digital watch and for the briefest second the face glowed in the dark.

  2:12 A.M.