The Black Art of Killing

by Matthew Hall

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Mr Johnson, I am sure, will inform his next of kin. I will do my best with the judge – cause of death is very clear. We hope to release the body next week.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Johnson said, wiping cold beads of sweat from his lip.

  ‘Good day to you both,’ Valcroix said, dismissing them. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have a few more formalities to attend to.’

  Johnson remained silent as they exited the building. Black half expected him to vomit, but the young official managed to regain his composure and after a few deep breaths the blood returned to his face.

  ‘I do apologize, Major –’

  ‘No need,’ Black said, almost as relieved as his companion to taste fresh air.

  ‘The police warned me that he had met a violent end, but I had no idea –’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any more information about who Finn was working for?’ Black said, keen to change the subject.

  Johnson hesitated long enough for Black to conclude that he did, but that he had been told to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘Is it sensitive?’ Black pressed.

  ‘I believe it may have been a government contract,’ Johnson confessed. ‘I really don’t know any more than that. The French authorities will investigate thoroughly, I’m sure.’

  ‘He was employed by the Security Services to protect a British scientist?’

  ‘If I could tell you any more –’

  ‘I understand,’ Black said, sparing him the trouble of repeating himself. ‘And there’s no need for you to call Finn’s wife. It’ll be better coming from me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They shook hands once more.

  Black turned to go.

  ‘Just one thing, if I may,’ Johnson said.

  Black looked back.

  Johnson swallowed. ‘The business with the fingers. What does it suggest to you?’

  ‘In this case …?’ He dismissed the possibility of prolonged torture. Finn’s injuries were consistent with a far more sudden and explosively violent encounter. ‘I’ve got an outlandish idea.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Agincourt. The French chopped the fingers off captured British bowmen. These things stick in soldiers’ minds.’

  Johnson looked baffled, as if Black had taken leave of his senses. ‘Soldiers?’

  ‘As I told the commandant – this wasn’t the work of amateurs.’

  ‘So … a sign of some sort?’

  ‘Or a mark of revenge. Finn went down fighting. He’ll have done a lot of damage on the way.’

  ‘I see,’ Johnson said. ‘Well, I suppose things will become clearer in due course.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  They parted company at the hospital gate. Black declined the offer of a lift in Johnson’s taxi and instead made his way back to the Métro. Passing along the quiet suburban street he was aware of the sky seeming to darken and of ugly and violent impulses stirring somewhere in the primitive depths of his being. He paused at the station entrance and told himself to be rational, to trust the police and go directly back to the Gare du Nord. No good could come from acting out of anger, no matter how righteous.

  Then he thought of Finn – not merely killed but slaughtered. And of Kathleen and her children, and of the faceless official who would in due course arrive on her doorstep. He would make sympathetic noises over tea and biscuits but tell her nothing at all about why her husband was cut to pieces during a routine job for Her Majesty’s Government.

  Later, Black would remember this moment as the one that changed everything.

  8

  The bare facts. That’s all a dead soldier’s family ever wanted. Just to know where, when and how. Black’s instinct already told him that the circumstances of Finn’s death were not of the kind that governments liked to publicize, even to close relatives. And in this case there were two governments involved, each, no doubt, with their own pressing reasons to keep the truth to themselves. Black was only too aware of the number of suspicious deaths that even on British soil go entirely unreported or investigated – he had been personally responsible for a number of them. He had also seen how the blanket of secrecy that covered the disappearance of war criminals, terrorist assassins and spies was readily extended to shroud the occasional accidents that befell their executioners. Kathleen Finn deserved better. Black was determined to return home with something to answer the endless questions that would otherwise haunt her day and night.

  The journey north-west to the George V Métro station involved two changes and eighteen stops but it passed in what seemed like seconds, as if Black had entered that trance-like state that overcomes late-night drivers who arrive at their destination with no recollection of how they got there.

  He emerged from the Métro into the cacophony of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Cars, scooters and buses jockeyed crazily with one another on the broad boulevard leading to the Arc de Triomphe. He turned right on to the Avenue George V and took a seat on a public bench close enough to a crowded tourist café to connect his phone to its Wi-Fi. He searched for any reports of the abduction of a British scientist in Paris and the murder of her bodyguard. There were none, which immediately made him suspect that the juge d’instruction had ordered a news blackout and that in response to a request in the UK a minister had issued a D-notice requesting media silence. In Britain such steps were only taken in cases involving perceived threats to national security.

  A search on recent scientific gatherings in Paris, however, instantly bore fruit. Within seconds he had ascertained that the International Association of Nanotechnology had held its annual conference at the Académie des Sciences during the previous week. Helpfully, a copy of the programme was posted on the association’s website. He scanned through it and found two speakers from Oxford: one male computer scientist and a female biomechanical engineer, Dr Sarah Bellman. Her presentation was entitled Developments in Nanoscale DNA-Based Delivery Mechanisms. It was clearly cutting edge, but far outside Black’s sphere of knowledge. The last item on the itinerary was the closing reception, which had been held at the Four Seasons George V Hotel the previous Thursday evening.

  Black made an educated guess that such a gathering of intellectual capital would have required protection by a professional security company of the sort that employed so many of his former colleagues. With a little luck, if he could find out which it was, he might discover a friendly ex-soldier prepared to share a few confidences. He looked up the contact details for the association and saw that they were based in California, seven time zones behind. The chances of the office being manned at six on a Saturday were slim, but there was no harm trying. He tapped the phone number highlighted on his screen. After a short pause there followed several rings before a voicemail message started to play. Black was about to ring off when the message was interrupted by a female voice.

  ‘Hello. This is Maria at the IANT. How may I help you?’

  ‘Good morning,’ Black said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find anyone home.’

  ‘The phone calls usually start about now. We’re a global association. What can I do for you today, sir?’

  ‘You’ll be aware of an unfortunate incident at the Paris conference last week.’ He paused. She didn’t respond. ‘The man who died was a close colleague of mine. I have some important information that I’d like to pass to the conference’s head of security. I wondered if you might have contact details.’

  ‘Right … umm –’

  ‘I imagine it was a local firm in Paris.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid this is way above my pay grade. Can I take your name and number and get someone more senior to call you back?’

  ‘It’s extremely urgent. Could you put me in contact with whoever might have that information?’

  ‘You mean now?’

  ‘Yes, please. My name is Major Leo Black. I was Ryan Finn’s commanding officer – he was the man who was killed.’

  He had fluste
red her. He could hear the tension in her voice as she tapped on a keyboard. ‘The problem is … my boss, Dr Goldberg, he and his colleagues are on their way back at the moment. I believe their flight’s due in later this morning.’

  ‘There must be an email trail. Can you not try searching “security”? I don’t want to compromise you, but it’s critical I make contact immediately. All I need is the name of the company – I can take it from there.’

  Another pause. He sensed her weighing the consequences of denying his request.

  ‘OK. It’s Major Leo Black, right?’

  ‘Correct. I also happen to teach at Oxford University. I suppose that makes Dr Bellman a colleague of sorts.’

  ‘Oh –’

  He heard her hurriedly searching his name. He knew precisely what she would be looking at: his profile on the history faculty’s website. A benign academic. Smiling and innocuous.

  ‘I’m sorry to hurry you –’

  ‘It’s OK. I think I found it … Yes, here we are. The company is called ICPS and our contact’s name is Mr Sebastian Pirot.’

  ‘Based in Paris?’

  ‘The address on my screen is in San Diego.’

  ‘Do you have a number for Mr Pirot?’

  ‘I think so … Yes, here it is. Can I read it out to you?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Black jotted the number for a French mobile phone on to the corner of his return train ticket, thanked Maria for her help and dialled it. After a single ring he was greeted with a generic voicemail message. He left his name and asked Pirot to call him as soon as possible.

  He switched back to the web browser and searched ICPS. International Close Protection Services had a website with high production values but with very little information beyond a list of key services, including the provision of ex-military bodyguards and security for high-end events. The contacts section contained an enquiry form and the number for a San Diego landline. No names. No email address. He tried the number and got through to a message inviting him to leave his details with the promise that a representative would get back to him shortly. He did so, though with no expectation of being called back during the weekend.

  A final search on Sebastian Pirot returned a number of results, but none relating to a French security executive. It was frustrating but not surprising. Security was one of the few remaining professions whose practitioners valued their anonymity.

  Accepting that his search for Pirot had come to a temporary dead end, Black made his way south along the Avenue George V towards the hotel, sticking to the shade of the plane trees that punctuated the pavement at regular intervals. After a short distance he found himself among the shopfronts of the avenue’s many plush boutiques and became aware that he had left the tourists behind. He was now in the heart of wealthy Paris, where the shoppers looked as if they had come straight from the pages of a magazine and the stone façades of the buildings gleamed in the afternoon sun. Surrounded by such opulence it was impossible not to feel like an interloper.

  After a further quarter of a mile Black approached the entrance of the George V as a large, sleek Mercedes drew up. He hung back as two doormen stepped out from under a canopy to meet the occupants: a portly middle-aged man in sunglasses and his much younger and very beautiful female companion. She moved gracefully in her four-inch heels, poised and erect, gently swaying her hips on each carefully placed step. Trailing in her perfumed wake, Black followed them inside, barely noticed by the two accompanying doormen hungry for a tip.

  Black came through the entrance to find himself in a marbled reception hall filled with the smell of freshly cut flowers. While the wealthy couple was shepherded to the desk, he made his way unobtrusively in the opposite direction.

  There were only a handful of patrons scattered among the tables in the elaborately decorated wood-panelled room, all of them deeply immersed in each other’s company. Black took a seat on one of the high stools at the bar, behind which a steward with a shiny bald pate was polishing champagne glasses with a virgin-white napkin.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘Bloody Mary, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Of course.’ The steward smiled politely.

  He set his glass aside, dropped ice into a shaker, tipped in a large measure of Beluga vodka and a little less tomato juice. Black caught his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar and realized why he might have given the appearance of being in need of a strong drink. His sleepless night and the morning’s ordeal had left him looking haggard. Deep lines creased the corners of his eyes and his face was covered with a dark shadow of greying stubble.

  The steward rolled the mixture just enough to combine the contents without letting the tomato juice lose its viscosity, then decanted it into a tall glass with the practised finesse of a Monte Carlo croupier.

  ‘Santé, Monsieur.’

  Black took a large and appreciative mouthful, the vodka gently burning his throat and warming his stomach. ‘Very good.’

  The steward nodded in gratitude and returned to his polishing.

  Black sat in silence for a minute or two, working his way steadily down the glass and wondering whether to tap the steward for information or to take his chances getting an interview with the hotel manager. He decided on the former. Barmen were used to talking and easier to bribe.

  ‘You probably saw my friend last week,’ Black said. ‘He was the bodyguard – the Englishman.’

  ‘Oh … yes.’ The steward’s eyes instinctively swept the room as if scanning for eavesdroppers.

  ‘We were in the army together. Fifteen years. I’m in Paris to identify his body.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Monsieur. We spoke once or twice. He seemed like a gentleman.’ He reached a fresh napkin from under the counter.

  Black observed the tension in his shoulders, a sudden stiffness in his movements. No doubt he and the other staff had been placed under strict instructions not to say a word on the matter. Murders and kidnaps weren’t good for business.

  ‘I don’t mean to embarrass you; I’d just like to know where it happened – so I can tell his wife.’

  ‘I know very little, Monsieur.’ He cast an anxious glance towards the door as if hoping some superior might come to his rescue.

  ‘You must know where it took place. The hotel will have been filled with police. People can’t have been talking about anything else.’

  ‘You should speak to the manager, Monsieur. Shall I call him for you?’

  Black drained the last of his drink and set the empty tumbler on the bar. ‘I’d rather you just told me where he was murdered so I can pay my respects.’ He fixed the barman with a level gaze. ‘Surely that’s not very much to ask.’

  Pricks of sweat formed on his naked scalp. ‘I understand something occurred in a room on the third floor. A woman was kidnapped, lowered to the ground by ropes. Your friend’s body, it was found in an alleyway at the back of the hotel.’ He gave a nervous shrug. ‘That’s all I know, Monsieur. You have my word.’

  ‘I’m much obliged,’ Black said. He brought out his wallet. ‘L’addition, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Très bien, Monsieur. Vingt-six euros, s’il vous plaît.’

  Black gave him a fifty and told him to keep the change.

  Black took the stairs to the third floor. Long experience had left him with an ingrained aversion to lifts, which in a tight situation were as good as a coffin.

  He arrived on the third floor and looked both ways along the long, carpeted corridor. Aside from a chambermaid’s cart off to his right there was no sign of life. He headed left, checking the doors and walls at the rear of the building for any telltale signs of police activity, reasoning that if forensics officers were anything like soldiers, they were certain to have left their clumsy mark on the George V’s pristine decoration. Finding none, he turned around and went back in the opposite direction. He reached the maid’s cart and found what he was looking for. The door to the right of the room she was cleaning was smeared wi
th greasy fingerprints. On closer inspection he noticed that the vertical left-hand section of the frame was brand new, its mahogany finish a shade darker than the rest of the frame. The door itself might even have been a replacement, the fingerprints those of the carpenters who would have hung it immediately after the police had finished their work.

  He tried the handle.

  Locked.

  Black stepped back and glanced through the open doorway into the next room. The maid was in the bathroom to the left of the short passageway that led on to the bedroom. He could see some personal effects and a suitcase sitting on the stand at the foot of the bed.

  He knocked sharply, startling her.

  ‘Excusez-moi, madame. Police anglaise. Deux minutes?’

  He stepped inside without waiting to be invited, proceeded into the bedroom and made for the set of tall French windows. He opened them and stepped outside on to a small balcony protected by a waist-high iron railing. There was no view to speak of except the rear of the buildings opposite. Three floors below was a pedestrian alley leading to a narrow service road, wide enough for delivery vans and the rubbish truck to pass through with little space to spare. There was a faint smell of chlorine as if the whole area beneath him had been recently sluiced down. The barman had mentioned ropes. He glanced up; there were identical balconies on the floors above. Ropes could easily have been rigged to allow a quick descent to the ground.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  Black turned to see two large, thick-set figures dressed in dark suits entering the bedroom. They gestured to the maid to leave. She hurried out into the corridor. Both were in their twenties and the taller of the two had a bruise that spread outwards from the bridge of his broad, flat nose beneath both eyes. Badges on their breast pockets identified them as SÉCURITÉ.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Black affected a smile. ‘I didn’t mean to cause a problem. I’m a friend of the man who was killed. I was just leaving.’

  He took a step forward. The two security guards barred his way, crowding the space between the end of the bed and the wardrobe.