The Exile

by Allan Folsom

Gentle spill from a streetlamp outside the window gave just enough illumination for him to remember where he was—on the couch in Dan Ford’s living room. He listened again, but there was nothing. Then he heard the distant slam of a car door and a moment later an engine start up. Quickly he threw back the blankets and went to the window. Twenty yards down he saw Ford’s white Citroën pull away from the tight parking space Ford had squeezed into when they had come back from the Hotel Eiffel Cambronne.

  He looked at his watch again.

  2:16 A.M.

  No, not 2:16. It was 3:16. His watch was still on Manchester time; Paris was an hour later.

  Seconds later he pulled on the robe Ford had lent him and walked the short distance to Dan and Nadine’s bedroom.

  “Nadine?”

  There was a long silence, and then the door opened and a sleepy Nadine Ford stood there. She wore a long white nightdress, and her right hand rested on her very pregnant belly.

  “Did Dan go out?”

  “It is not a problem, Nicholas,” she said quietly and a little awkwardly in English. “He got a telephone call, and then put on his clothes and went.”

  “Was it the police?”

  “No, not the police. It was a call he had been waiting for, something he was working on, he didn’t tell me.”

  “So you don’t know where he went.”

  “No.” Nadine smiled. “He is alright, don’t worry.”

  “I’m sure,” Marten said. L.A. or Paris, married or not, nothing had changed. It was how Dan Ford worked and always had—a tip, an informant, the hint of a story, and he was gone. He was usually working on a dozen articles at once, and time of day or where he had to go to get information made no difference. It was why he was Dan Ford and as good as he was.

  “Go back to bed,” Nadine said. “I will see you in the morning.”

  She smiled and closed the door, and Marten padded back down the hallway to the couch. He didn’t like the idea of Ford going out alone. Too much was still going on with too many questions still unanswered. He supposed he could call Ford’s cell phone and ask him to come back and pick him up. On the other hand, if Ford had thought he was in danger, he would have taken Marten with him to begin with. Moreover, Nadine had not been alarmed, not the way she had been earlier at the dinner table when they were talking about Halliday. After all, Ford was a correspondent for a major newspaper and this was his job. French cooking or a dinner party or whatever, insiders had information that could lead to an important story or just frothy gossip, and either was news, and that was Dan Ford’s business. So, if Nadine had seen this as everyday business and was not concerned, why should he be?

  Marten glanced out the window once again, then went back to the couch and pulled the blankets up around him. The street outside was quiet; Nadine was asleep and unconcerned about her husband. Yet something troubled him. It was as much a feeling as anything—that Ford was going somewhere he shouldn’t and wasn’t aware of it.

  Marten rolled over and scrunched up his pillow, trying to get comfortable and to shake the unease he felt inside. Purposely he let his thoughts go to Halliday’s battered, overstuffed appointment book crammed with loose pages, which contained last year’s calendar inserts as well as this year’s (it was only mid-January, the year had barely started). Its pages were filled with Halliday’s small, hard-to-read reverse-slash handwriting Marten remembered from L.A. It was a book that seemed more of a personal journal with appointments and accompanying notes concerning himself and his children than a revelation about the squad or Raymond. And at first glance, it appeared to hold no significant information at all.

  Slowly the thoughts of Halliday’s book faded to visions of Lady Clem, the scent of her, the sensuous feel of her body against his, her smile and her droll, if sometimes raunchy, humor. He grinned at the memory of his terrifying conversation with Lord Prestbury in the secretive tavern in the bowels of Whitworth Hall in the moments before she’d rescued him by pulling the fire alarm.

  Clem.

  Abruptly his smile faded, pushed aside by the echo of what Dan Ford had said. 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.

  Raymond.

  The disquiet in him grew stronger.

  Like a whispered voice it told him that Neuss was dead because of Raymond. So was Fabien Curtay. So was Jimmy Halliday. And now Dan Ford was somewhere out there alone in the rain and dark.

  Suddenly he heard himself speak out loud. “The pieces,” he said, “the pieces.”

  Quickly Marten got up. Fumbling to find his cell phone in the faint light, he dialed Ford’s number. The call rang through but there was no answer. Finally a recorded voice came on speaking French. He didn’t understand the language, but he knew what was being said—the caller was either away from the phone or out of the calling area, please try again later. Marten hung up and redialed. Again it rang through; again he got the same message.

  His mind racing, his first thought was to call Lenard, but then he realized he had no idea where Ford had gone; even if he did reach the French policeman, what would he tell him? Slowly he clicked off and stood there in the dark. Dan Ford was on his own and there was nothing he could do about it.

  31

  3:40 A.M.

  Yuri Kovalenko switched on the rented Opel’s cruise control, purposely staying a half mile behind Ford’s white Citroën as the reporter drove southeast along the Seine, passing the Gare d’Austerlitz and continuing on through Ivry-sur-Seine, still following the river.

  Kovalenko had no idea where Ford was going, but he was surprised that his friend was not with him. But then he had been equally surprised to see Marten walk into the hotel room in the midst of the police.

  From their brief encounter at the murder scene it had been hard to get a grip on who Marten was or why he was there. Or what his relationship was with Ford, or had been with Halliday. The one thing he had learned was that from the bold way Marten had questioned Lenard, it was not the inspector he had turned away from in the park, it had been Halliday. So at least that question was answered.

  In the morning, when Ford came to Lenard’s office, Kovalenko would learn more, and when he did—when he had Marten’s full name, his employment, and the address where he lived—he would begin a thorough background check. In doing so, he would find answers, or at least the beginnings of answers, to some of these uncertainties. To Kovalenko, Nicholas Marten was more than simply the reporter’s “un ami américain,” an American friend.

  Ahead, the Citroën’s taillights suddenly brightened as Ford touched the brakes; then Kovalenko saw him change lanes and accelerate again, crossing the Seine at Alfortville and taking the N6 Autoroute south toward Montgeron.

  Kovalenko shifted the position of his hands on the Opel’s steering wheel. He was not a man who slept well when he was in the middle of a murder investigation, and the fact that there was now a second murder only added to his suspicion that Ford probably knew more than he was telling. Marten’s staying at the reporter’s apartment only added to the intrigue and was why Kovalenko had decided on the surveillance long after everyone else had gone home and to bed. He had no idea what he hoped to gain from it, nor had he brought it up to Lenard, because there was no point in trying to make it official. It was simply an undertaking he thought prudent.

  He’d found a parking space just down and across from Ford’s residence at ten minutes past midnight and snuggled the Opel into it. Then, on the chance that even at this hour some pertinent information might be exchanged, he took a small Kalinin-7 micropak from his briefcase, put on its headset, and fixed its tiny parabolic antenna on Ford’s front window. A call on Ford’s landline phone would be impossible to intercept without a physical wiretap. But Kovalenko had seen Ford with a cell phone twice, giving it to Halliday to use in L’Ecluse and then later on the street when Ford left, so there was every chance that was the device he used primarily. If
a call came in on it, the Kalinin-7 would pick up the conversation almost as clearly as if Kovalenko were on the line himself.

  At twelve-fifteen Kovalenko had settled in to listen and watch and wait. Once, about two-thirty, he thought about calling his wife, Tatyana, in Moscow but realized she would still be sleeping. At that point he must have dozed off because at five minutes past three a steady beep through his headset woke him, alerting him to an incoming call. The phone rang three times before someone clicked on. “Dan Ford,” he heard the journalist answer sleepily.

  Next came a male voice speaking French. “This is Jean-Luc,” the voice said. “I have the map. Can you meet me at four-thirty?”

  “Yes,” Ford said in French, then immediately clicked off, and the Kalinin-7 went silent.

  Seven minutes later the front door to Ford’s apartment building opened and the reporter stepped out into the rain and walked to his car. Kovalenko wondered who this Jean-Luc was and what map he was talking about. Whoever he was and whatever the map was, it was obviously important enough for Ford to get out of bed at that hour, dress, and drive off alone in the rain.

  THE N6 AUTOROUTE.

  The Opel’s windshield wipers beat gently back and forth, the wet roadway ahead pitch-black except for the distant Citroën’s taillights. Kovalenko looked at his watch.

  4:16 A.M.

  It was 6:16 in the morning Moscow time. Tatyana would be up and beginning the lengthy process of getting their three children ready for school. They were eleven, nine, and seven, and each was more independent than the other. He often wondered how they could be the children of employees of the Ministry of Justice and of RTR, the state-owned television network, where his wife was a production assistant. Yuri and Tatyana Kovalenko lived their lives following orders. Much of the time their children did not, especially when those orders came from their parents.

  4:27 A.M.

  Again he saw the Citroën’s brake lights flare up. They had just passed a forested area about fifteen minutes south of Montgeron, and Ford was slowing.

  Now he turned, taking an off-ramp and leaving the N6.

  Kovalenko slowed as well, then shut off his headlights and took the same exit. In the rain and dark it was difficult to see anything, and he was afraid he might go off the tarmac and into a ditch, but his car and Ford’s had been the only two on the highway and he didn’t dare risk letting Ford think he was being followed.

  Straining to see, he reached the bottom of the ramp and stopped. Then he saw the Citroën moving away in the distance as Ford accelerated west. Immediately Kovalenko clicked the Opel’s headlights back on and sped after him. A mile later he slowed, holding his speed.

  One minute passed, then two. Suddenly Ford turned right onto a secondary road, moving north along the forested banks of the rural Seine.

  Kovalenko followed, watching as the Opel’s headlights illuminated thick woods on either side of the road with occasional breaks to his left, which suggested some sort of access to the river. Abruptly the trees to his right gave way to a golf course and a turnoff for the village of Soisy-sur-Seine.

  4:37 A.M.

  The Citroën’s brake lights shone in the distance, and Kovalenko slowed once again. Ford slowed even more, then suddenly swung the Citroën left, off the highway and toward the river.

  Kovalenko continued at speed. Twenty seconds later he was at Ford’s turnoff point and moving past it. Through the dark and rain he saw Ford bring the Citroën to a stop beside another car and abruptly shut off the lights.

  Kovalenko drove on. A quarter mile later the road veered sharply right through a thick stand of conifers. Again he switched off his headlights, then made a sharp U-turn and came back.

  Slowing, he rolled to a stop fifty yards from where Ford had turned off the highway, and stared into the dark, trying to see the parked cars. It was impossible. In the blackness, he opened the Opel’s glove compartment, took out a pair of binoculars, and scanned the area where the Citroën had stopped. There was nothing but the same pervasive black he had seen with the naked eye.

  32

  Kovalenko put down the binoculars and ran his hand over the Makarov automatic in his belt holster, cursing himself for not bringing a night-vision scope.

  Once again, he tried the binoculars. If there was movement near the parked cars, he couldn’t see it. He waited. Sixty seconds, ninety, then three full minutes. Finally he dropped the binoculars on the seat, turned up his collar, and stepped out into the rain.

  For a moment he did nothing but listen. All he could hear was the sound of the rain and the deep-throated wash of the river rushing past in the distance. Slowly he lifted the Makarov and moved forward.

  Forty paces and the ground under his feet went from roadside mud to the crushed gravel of the turnoff. He stopped and peered into the black, listening again. It was the same as before, the drum of the rain with the muted roar of the river behind it. He went forward another twenty paces and stopped. He didn’t understand; he was nearly to the river’s edge and there was nothing.

  Nervously he shifted the Makarov from one hand to the other and moved to the river’s edge. Black water rushed past fifteen feet below. He turned back. Where were the cars? Had he misjudged, had they been parked farther down than he thought? At that moment he saw the gleam of headlights as a large truck rounded the bend in the highway. For an instant its lights swept the area and then it was past, vanishing in the distance.

  “Shto?” What? Kovalenko said out loud in Russian. Brief as it had been, the truck’s headlights had illuminated the entire area and there was nothing there. Ford’s white Citroën and the other car were gone. But how? It had taken him less than thirty seconds to drive past, make a U-turn, and come back. Even in the dark and rain, the place where he’d stopped had a clear view of the area where he now stood. If the two cars had driven off, they would either have had to come past him or go the other way; in the other direction the road was straight for at least two miles, and they would not have driven that far at night and in this weather with their lights off. So where were they? Automobiles did not just vanish. There was no explanation. None at all.

  Unless.

  Kovalenko turned and looked back toward the river.

  33

  VIRY-CHTILLON, FRANCE. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15. BRIGHT SUN AND COLD AFTER THE RAIN. 11:30 A.M.

  People lined the banks on either side of the river watching in silence as the tow truck’s winch cable tightened and a white two-door Citroën, its windows open, was slowly pulled from the water and up onto the embankment. There was no need to wonder whether someone was inside. Police divers had already confirmed it.

  Nicholas Marten moved closer, standing just behind Lenard and Kovalenko as the divers pulled open the driver’s door. Muddy water poured out; then a collective gasp went up as the closest people saw what was inside.

  “Oh, God,” Marten breathed.

  Lenard went down the embankment alone and studied the situation; then he stepped back and waved for his tech people, and they and the commander of the Viry-Châtillon police, whose patrol officers had found the car hung up on a rock outcropping in the river below, went down to the Citroën. Kovalenko followed.

  Lenard watched a moment longer and then climbed back up, looking to Marten as he came. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I should have kept you back.”

  Marten half nodded. Below he could see Kovalenko squat down and study the corpse. Several seconds later he stood and came up beside them, the cold breeze off the water whipping his hair. Marten could tell from his expression and that of Lenard that they, like him, had never seen anything like what was in the car. Dan Ford had been all but butchered with some kind of razor-sharp weapon.

  “If it’s any comfort,” Kovalenko said quietly in his heavy Russian accent, “brutal as it was, it seems to have been done very quickly. As it was with Detective Halliday, the throat was sliced straight across and almost to the spinal column. I would think the other wounds came afterward. If there was a stru
ggle, it would have been brief and beforehand, so perhaps he didn’t suffer.” Kovalenko looked to Lenard as the divers moved away and the tech people began their work.

  “It looks as if it was done inside the vehicle and then the perpetrator opened the windows and rolled the car into the river hoping it would sink,” Kovalenko said. “The current picked it up and took it downriver until it became tangled in the rocks and stopped here.”

  Lenard’s radio suddenly crackled, and he turned away to answer it.

  “Brought it down from where?” Marten looked at Kovalenko.

  “The Citroën went into the river a number of miles upstream, near Soisy-sur-Seine. I know because I followed Mr. Ford there from his apartment.”

  “You followed him?”

  “Yes”

  “Why? He was a reporter.”

  “I’m afraid that is my business, Mr. Marten.”

  “Was it your business to let that happen?” Marten’s eyes swung angrily to the Citroën, then back to Kovalenko. “If you were there, why didn’t you stop it?”

  “The circumstance was beyond my control.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes.”

  Lenard clicked off his radio and looked to Kovalenko. “They’ve found the other car at the pullout where you were. The current took it only a short distance before it became lodged between boulders at the bottom.”

  34

  Lenard drove the maroon Peugeot south under puffy white clouds and through the bucolic countryside that bordered the rural Seine. Kovalenko rode beside him; Marten was in the back. All three were silent, as they had been on the drive from Paris, the only sound the hum of the motor and the tires over the road.