by Simon Toyne
‘The bus!’ Léo shouted, pointing across the car park.
Marie-Claude spun round, saw the shuttle bus coming down the access road and experienced a moment of sudden panic, like she was running out of time. Maybe they should wait. She glanced in her mirror and saw a dark figure moving between the cars in the row behind her. It was only there for a second then slipped from sight but it made her mouth go dry. She twisted the key in the ignition and the engine of the Peugeot turned and coughed but refused to catch.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Monsieur Creed?’ Léo said.
She looked in the mirror, searching for the shadow and saw nothing but cars. She stamped her foot on the clutch to free the gearbox up, pumped the accelerator pedal a few times and turned the key. ‘I don’t think he’s coming back,’ she said, twisting the key again. She didn’t want to tell Léo about the shadow. She wasn’t even sure now she’d seen it herself. ‘I think Monsieur Creed has gone and it’s time we went too.’
She twisted the key again and the car shuddered into life. She rammed it into gear and lurched out of the parking spot, glancing in her mirrors to try and catch a glimpse of the figure but seeing nothing. It was probably only a passenger on their way to the bus. She was jumpy, that was all. It didn’t matter, she was committed now. They were leaving and that was that.
She pulled up at the barrier as the bus reached the stop and searched around for her ticket. She thought she’d tossed it into the passenger seat but it wasn’t there now and she started frantically sifting through the snowdrift of receipts and wrappers on the floor.
‘Look,’ Léo said.
She sat up and looked in her mirrors, convinced that the dark figure had appeared behind them again. But there was no one there.
‘He did come back,’ Léo said. She realized he was looking forward at Solomon, who was walking towards her with a neutral expression that could have been surprise or disappointment or any number of things. She sat back in her seat, feeling like a kid who’d been spotted sneaking out of school, and waited for him to arrive. He stopped by her window, his expression as unreadable close up as it had been at distance. He held up a small white card and Marie-Claude’s mild shame flared into anger when she saw what it was. ‘You took the ticket!’
‘I borrowed it.’
Marie-Claude snatched it back from him. ‘Why – to make sure we couldn’t go anywhere?’
Solomon shook his head. ‘I wanted to make sure you were here when I got back so I could give you this.’ He held out an electronic key fob with an Audi logo on it. ‘You really won’t get very far in your car, especially now your registration plate has been picked up by the barrier cameras. I also wondered if you might be having second thoughts about travelling with me.’ He looked at the car parked by the barrier. ‘Clearly you did. I don’t blame you. This whole situation is … unconventional. I don’t want you to feel compelled to continue travelling with me if you don’t want to. So take the keys and go, if that’s what you want.’
‘What about the waistcoat? Will you hand that over too, if I decide to leave?’
Solomon smiled. ‘No.’
She glanced in her mirrors, looking for the figure that had spooked her earlier, but saw nothing except Léo’s eyes staring back at her, wide and imploring. She knew what he would say on the subject. She looked again at Solomon, the waistcoat snug on his slender frame, and remembered what her grandfather had written:
… take this waistcoat to my old friend Otto Adelstein …
Do not trust this task to anyone else. You must deliver it yourself.
She owed it to him to do as he asked; it was the least she could do. And if that meant delivering it with a person inside it, well, that was what she would do.
‘Get in,’ she said, and forced the car into reverse with a harsh grinding sound that exactly matched her mood.
45
Amand was sweating and his chest felt tight by the time he made it back to the Commissariat. He entered by the rear entrance to avoid the journalists and found the office had quietened considerably. Henri looked up as he entered.
‘Where’s Magellan?’ Amand asked.
‘In your office drinking the finest stewed police coffee, as requested. You also had a couple of messages …’ He peered at his notebook: ‘The court has appointed a juge d’instruction and he wants to see you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Jacques Laurent.’
Amand groaned inwardly. He didn’t know Laurent senior particularly well, but he knew his son Edmond. He was a member of the PNFL and was heavily involved in Jean-Luc Belloq’s political campaign. Rumour had it that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Amand had hoped to get a more liberal judge, particularly given the nationality of the new suspect. ‘Can’t I just call him?’
‘He said he wants to see you. You also got a call from Madame Zimbaldi.’
Amand took out his phone, found the number for the morgue and dialled.
A woman’s voice answered after the first ring. ‘Zimbaldi!’
‘Madame Coroner, it’s Benoît Amand at Cordes.’
‘Oh yes, thank you for getting back to me. I looked at the wounds as you requested and there is something odd about them – not only the lash marks, all of them.’
‘Odd in what way?’
‘It would be easier to show you. I’m sure you probably don’t have time but—’
‘I’m on my way to Albi to see the juge anyway. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’ He hung up and glanced out of the window at his Citroën, looking even more battered alongside the gleaming black Range Rover parked next to it. ‘Is there a spare car I could use?’
‘They’re all out looking for Marie-Claude and Solomon Creed.’
‘What about yours?’
‘I walked in today.’
‘Great.’ He looked over at the door to his office. ‘Did you check Magellan out?’
Henri angled his screen so Amand could see it. It was filled with a series of overlapping documents, academic articles mostly. The top one was from a French psychology journal detailing advances in the field of criminal psychology. It carried a photograph of a distinguished-looking man with long silver hair swept back from a widow’s peak and a matching full beard that gave him a leonine appearance. The caption identified him as Dr Cezar Magellan of the ICP – Institute of Criminal Psychology. ‘Is that him?’
Henri shrugged. ‘Either him or his identical brother.’
Amand scrolled through the article, skim-reading about Magellan’s work in the field of psychopathic studies and rehabilitation. Towards the bottom of the article, another photograph showed what looked like a nuclear bunker surrounded by high fences and desert and dusty mountains. According to the caption, it was the main, high-security facility of the ICP in the Sonoran Desert, Mexico. There was also an impressive list of the criminals being treated there, a rogues’ gallery of monsters whose crimes had been exotic enough to afford them a macabre kind of international celebrity. Amand had heard of all of them and reminded himself that Solomon Creed had been one of Magellan’s patients too and was probably out there somewhere with Marie-Claude and Léo.
‘Do I pass?’ a deep voice rumbled behind him.
Amand turned to discover the man from the photograph standing behind him wearing a slightly crumpled, grey linen suit. ‘We have to confirm you are who you say you are.’
Magellan smiled, showing neat American teeth. ‘Of course.’ His low, therapy-smooth voice sounded deeper than it had on the phone. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
They shook hands. Magellan’s grip was strong and firm and he studied Amand with eyes that had some sparkle in them, like he was amused at something. Amand had a thought. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a car, would you?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘I need to go somewhere. If you drive me, we could talk at the same time.’
‘Of course.’ Magellan pointed out front at the black Range Rover parked alongside Amand’s wrec
ked Citroën.
Amand headed to the door. ‘Don’t say anything until we’re in the car,’ he said, then stepped through the front door and into the sun. One of the journalists spotted him and surged forward holding his phone out. ‘You’ve arrested an Arab,’ he said. ‘Do you think the murder was racially motivated?’
‘No,’ Amand replied. ‘And if you print that I’ll arrest you.’ He got into the car and slammed the door shut. Magellan got in too and the engine purred to life.
‘Drive,’ Amand said, ‘straight up here then take a left.’
They rumbled away across the cobbles and Amand took in the dark leather interior, the walnut dashboard, the whisper of the powerful engine. ‘The psychiatry business has clearly been kind.’
Magellan shrugged. ‘I have a lot of extremely wealthy clients who pay me obscene amounts of money to help them with their banal, self-induced ailments. It’s a perfect symbiotic relationship: I help them cope with the psychological fallout of their ridiculous lives, drug addiction and the like, while they help fund my more serious research. They also grant me access to their resources, if I need them. I flew to La Rochelle on a private jet, for example – small compensation for having to listen to their grotesque, first world, privileged problems. Where are we going?’
‘Albi. It’s a twenty-minute drive, plenty of time to talk. Let’s wait until we get off these cobbles and on to the main road. Then I want you to tell me everything you can about Solomon Creed.’
46
Marie-Claude parked the Peugeot back in the space she had recently vacated and the car shuddered and coughed before falling silent.
‘Anything you want to bring, grab it,’ Solomon said, scanning the car park. ‘And switch off your phone and take the battery out.’
Marie-Claude took her phone from her pocket and stared at it. Right now she could drive home with Léo and say she’d gone for a drive to clear her head if anyone asked where she’d been. But if she switched off her phone, took the battery out, and drove away in someone else’s car, she would be crossing a line.
‘You can go home, if you like,’ Solomon said, picking up on her hesitation.
Marie-Claude nodded. The mother in her was telling her to return home and let the police deal with everything, but the granddaughter part felt that all of this was her fault, that if she hadn’t started digging into her family’s past her grandfather might still be alive. But it was too late now. She couldn’t undo what had been done, all she could do was try to find out who did it and why. She owed him that.
‘OK,’ she said, prising the back off her phone and pulling the battery out. ‘But I’m driving – and I warn you, I’m going to hound you with questions the whole way down.’
‘Fine.’ Solomon handed her the keys. ‘In truth, I’m not sure I can drive.’
Marie-Claude stared at him. ‘You don’t know if you can drive or not?’
‘There are lots of things I’ve forgotten about myself. Maybe if I get behind the wheel it will come back to me. Maybe it won’t. Now is not the time to find out. So you drive, and ask your questions as we go. But first, you both need to do exactly as I say.’
He watched the Peugeot and the pain in his head shifted and moved. He had been so close until she’d seen him in her mirrors and he’d had to hide. Or maybe she hadn’t seen him at all. No matter. They were back in the car now. Waiting for something. He could wait too.
The shuttle bus departed and returned again, and he prepared himself to move if they went to catch it. But they didn’t. The passengers disembarked, found their cars and drove away. The bus left again. The car park was silent.
A plane took off and banked overhead, the roar of its engines like the ominous growl of something big and wild coming his way, like another omen. Everything seemed to be an omen to him now, the ordinary stuff of everyday life shining with fresh colour and meaning as he saw things through different eyes, Wotan’s eyes. The plane climbed higher, disappearing into the clouds, dragging the sound of thunder with it.
When the bus came a second time he began to suspect that the sound of thunder had been an omen – one he had failed to heed. More passengers emerged from the bus, dragging their wheelie cases behind them, hard wheels rumbling across the concrete like a reminder of the thunder.
They reached their cars and started to drive away. He joined them, easing out of his spot and heading for the space where the Peugeot was parked. He drove past slowly, head tilted down, eyes straining to look left. When he saw the car was empty, he turned his head and looked properly. He pulled to a stop, the pain in his head expanding as he got out of his car, the bayonet heavy in his hand. They had to be in there. He had never taken his eyes off it. They had to be ducked down, keeping out of sight. The woman must have seen him after all; maybe this was a ploy to lure him out into the open. If that was what they had in mind, they would be sorry. Because here he was – not the man but Wotan – striding towards them with his sword in hand.
He reached the car and felt the boiling rage of the angry god inside him as he moved from front to back, not believing what he was seeing. They had gone, vanished. Another plane took off, filling the world with thunder. He turned and stumbled back to his own car and the flask in the glove compartment with the bitter, honeyed water that would ease the growing pressure in his head, wondering who the pale man was, and what other kinds of magic he might be capable of if he could make people disappear in broad daylight?
47
‘His real name is James Hawdon,’ Magellan said, ‘though I would suggest you continue referring to him as Solomon Creed, if that’s the identity he has adopted. Some of what I’m about to tell you are my own observations and deductions, the rest comes from case notes and anecdotes related and independently verified by either James Hawdon’s family or by individuals who have known him throughout his life.’
He took a deep breath like he was about to dive into a dark ocean, then started to talk, his voice blending with the hum of the tyres along the Albi road.
‘James John Huffam Hawdon is the only son and heir of an extremely wealthy, very powerful and – between you and I – dangerously dysfunctional family. The Hawdons are old money, European aristocracy who moved to the New World when their fortune began to fail and succeeded in making a new one, bigger than the one they had lost.
‘They started by leasing, then building slave ships and used the profits to buy land: sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations in Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina. They still own most of those estates, and tobacco and sugar prices are booming.
‘In accordance with their European aristocratic heritage, they tended to marry within their own narrow social circle and became cursed over time with what might be described as “weak blood”. This manifested itself in congenital health problems such as haemophilia, as well as psychological peculiarities often exacerbated by the excessive lifestyle and opportunities of the idle rich.
‘Jefferson Hawdon, James’s father, is a case in point. He has a long history of psychosis that has been significantly worsened by addictions to both alcohol and narcotics, which was how I first became acquainted with the family. I’m not breaking client confidentiality by revealing any of this to you; it’s been well documented in the tabloid press. I tell you only to give some context about the world James Hawdon was born into.
‘James John Huffam Hawdon was born on 29 February 1980, the only son of Jefferson Makepeace and Honoria Bellefleur Hawdon. He was remarkable from the moment he was born, partly due to a total lack of pigment in his skin – a result of his “thin” bloodline – but also because of his extraordinary intellect. Every single person who knew him as a child – nannies, tutors, school friends – they all said the same thing: James Hawdon was the smartest person they ever met. He started talking when he was only a few months old, had learned to read by the time he was one, and was reading the newspaper and whole books shortly thereafter. He surprised his mother one morning by greeting her in Spanish – he’d picked it up fr
om a Mexican maid. By the time he was four, he was fluent.
‘When he was five they tried to measure his IQ, but all existing tests proved too easy for him. He was beyond the measurable scale. Of course, having a high IQ is one thing, applying it is another. I have treated many incredibly bright people who totally lack any kind of meaningful focus and consequently embark on self-destructive behaviours. James Hawdon was not like this. His interests were boundless: languages, art, science, medicine, physics, philosophy. In a time before the internet, he was like a human Wikipedia. Reading everything. Remembering everything. He was physically gifted too, possessing an extraordinary form of eidetic kinaesthesia, meaning he can see a movement or action once and mimic it perfectly, allowing him to pick up new disciplines as fast as his many private tutors could teach him, everything from ballet to martial arts.
‘His mother encouraged him in everything – the best teachers, unfettered access to the extensive library in the main Hawdon family estate in England, no subject barred, no age-restriction on the material he was allowed to read. Maybe some of his problems started here. Just because a child is able to read anything doesn’t mean they should. And a boy like James Hawdon, with such a ferociously vivid and powerful mind …’ Magellan shook his head. ‘I wonder what he made of such things such as Nietzsche’s nihilism, or Dante’s Inferno, or the works of the Marquis de Sade, or any number of books fathoming the darkest and more venal facets of the human animal? I fear such works would inevitably leave marks on the developing mind. I believe they did.
‘As part of his education, he was taken to see all the great wonders of the world, both ancient and modern, always accompanied by his mother, often staying with distant relatives from the European branches of the Hawdon family. It was like an old-fashioned Grand Tour – all the great cities, all the best sights, all the greatest museums and galleries – and young genius James at the centre of it all, absorbing everything with his loving mother his constant companion.