by Allan Folsom
“Hey, I’m going to be a father,” he said, trying to get off it. “No long faces around here. Not tonight.” Michele got up from the table, came around behind him and put her arms around his neck.
“Let’s make love in celebration of life. A great life between young Michele, old Henri and new baby.”
Henri turned around and looked into her eyes, then smiled. How could he not. He loved her.
Later, as he lay in the dark and listened to her breathing, he tried to blank the vision of the dark-haired man from his mind. But it would not go. It revived a deep, almost primal, fear—that no matter what he did, or how far he ran, one day he would be found out.
3
* * *
OSBORN COULD see them talking in the corridor. He assumed it was about him but he couldn’t be sure. Then the short one walked off and the other came back in through the glass door, a cigarette in one hand, a manila folder in the other.
“Would you like some coffee, Doctor Osborn?” Young and confident, Inspector Maitrot was soft-spoken and polite. He was also blond and tall, unusual for a Frenchman.
“I’d like to know how much longer you intend to hold me.” Osborn had been arrested by the Police Urbaine for violating a city ordinance after vaulting the Métro turnstile. When questioned, he’d lied, saying the man he had been chasing had earlier roughed him up and tried to steal his wallet. It was a total coincidence that only a short while later he’d seen him in the brasserie. That was when they’d connected him to the citywide call from the Paris police and brought him to central jail for interrogation.
“You are a doctor.” Maitrot was reading from a sheet stapled to the inside cover of the folder. “An American orthopedic surgeon visiting Paris after attending a medical convention in Geneva. Your home is Los Angeles.”
“Yes,” Osborn said flatly. He’d already told the story to the police at the Métro station, to a uniformed cop in a booking cage somewhere in another part of the building and to a plainclothes officer-of some kind who led him through a series of fingerprintings, mug photos and a preliminary interview. Now, in this tiny glassed-in cell of an interrogation room, Maitrot was going through everything all over again. Particular by particular.
“You don’t look like a doctor.”
“You don’t look like a policeman,” Osborn said lightly, trying to take the edge off.
Maitrot didn’t react. Maybe he didn’t get it because English was obviously a struggle, but he was right—Osborn didn’t look like a doctor. Six feet tall, dark haired and brown eyed, at a hundred and ninety pounds he had the boyish looks, muscular structure and build of a college athlete.
“What was the name of the convention you attended?”
“I didn’t ‘attend’ it. I presented a paper there. To the World Congress of Surgery.” Osborn wanted to say, “How many times do I have to keep telling you this; don’t you guys talk to each other?” He should have been frightened, and maybe he was, but he was still too pumped up to realize it. His man might have gotten away, but the vital thing was that he’d been found! He was here, in Paris. And with any luck, he would still be here, at home or in a bar someplace, nursing his wounds and wondering what had happened.
“On what was your paper? What subject?”
Osborn closed his eyes and counted slowly to five. “I already told you.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“My paper was on the anterior cruciate ligament injury. It has to do with the knee.” Osborn’s mouth was dry. He asked for a glass of water. Maitrot either didn’t understand or ignored him.
“You are how old?”
“You already know that.”
Maitrot looked up.
“Thirty-eight.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Homosexual?”
“Inspector, I’m divorced. Is that all right with you?”
“How long have you been a surgeon?”
Osborn said nothing. Maitrot repeated the question, his cigarette smoke trailing off toward a ventilator in the ceiling.
“Six years.”
“Do you think you are a particularly good surgeon?”
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions. They have nothing to do with what you arrested me for. You may call my office to verify anything I’ve said.” Osborn was exhausted and starting to lose it. But at the same time he knew that if he wanted to get out of there, he’d better watch what he said.
“Look,” he said, as calmly and respectfully as he could. “I’ve cooperated with you. I’ve done everything you asked. Fingerprints, photographs, answered questions, everything. Now, please, I would like to either be released or see the American consul.”
“You assaulted a French citizen.”
“How do you know he was a French citizen?” Osborn said without thinking.
Maitrot ignored his emotion. “Why did you do it?”
“Why?” Osborn stared at him incredulously. There wasn’t a day when, at some point, he didn’t still hear the sound as the butcher knife struck his father’s stomach. Didn’t hear the awful surprise of his gasp. Didn’t see the horror in his eyes as he looked up as if to ask, What happened?, yet knowing exactly what had. Didn’t see his knees buckle under him as he slowly collapsed onto the sidewalk. Didn’t hear the terrible shriek of a stranger’s scream. Didn’t see his father roll and try to reach up, knowing he was dying, asking his son without speaking to take hold of his hand so he wouldn’t be so afraid. Telling him without speaking that he loved him forever.
“Yes.” Maitrot leaned over and twisted his cigarette into an ashtray on the table between them. “Why did you do it?”
Osborn sat up straight and told the lie again. “I came into Charles de Gaulle Airport from London.” He had to be careful and not make any changes from what he’d said to his previous interrogators. “The man roughed me up in the men’s room and tried to steal my wallet.”
“You look fit. Was he a big man?”
“Not particularly. He just wanted my wallet.”
“Did he get it?”
“No. He ran away.”
“Did you report it to airport authorities?”
“NO.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t steal anything and I don’t speak French very well, as you can tell.”
Maitrot lit another cigarette and flipped the spent match into the ashtray. “And then later, by sheer coincidence, you saw him in the same brasserie where you had stopped for a drink?”
“Yes.”
“What were you going to do, hold him for the police?”
“To tell you the truth, Inspector, I don’t know what the hell I was going to do. I just did it. I got mad. I lost my head.”
Osborn stood up and looked off while Maitrot made a note in the folder. What was he going to tell him? That the man he had chased had stabbed his father to death in Boston, Massachusetts, the United States of America, on Tuesday, April 12, 1966? That he saw him do it and had never seen him again until just a few hours ago? That the Boston police had listened with great compassion to the horror tale of a little boy and then spent years trying to track the killer down until finally they admitted there was nothing more they could do? Oh yes, the procedures had been correct. The crime scene and technical analysis, the autopsy, the interviews. But the boy had never seen the man before, and his mother couldn’t place him from the boy’s description, and since there had been no fingerprints on the murder weapon, and the weapon nothing more than a supermarket knife, the police had had to rely on the only thing they had, the testimony of two other eyewitnesses. Katherine Barnes, a middle-aged sales clerk who worked at Jordan Marsh, and Leroy Green, a custodian at the Boston Public Library. Both had been on the sidewalk at the time of the attack and each had told slight variations of the same story as the boy. But in the end, the police had exactly what they had in the beginning. Nothing. Finally Kevin O’Neil, the brash young homicide detective who’d befriended Paul a
nd been on the case from the start, was killed by a suspect he’d testified against, and the George Osborn file went from a personally handled homicide investigation to simply another unsolved murder crammed into central files alongside hundreds of others. And now, three decades later, Katherine Barnes was in her eighties, senile and in a nursing home in Maine, and Leroy Green was dead. That made, for all intents, Paul Osborn the last surviving witness. And for a prosecutor, any prosecutor, thirty years after the fact, to expect a jury to convict a man on the testimony of the victim’s son who had been ten at the time, and had glimpsed the suspect for no more than two or three seconds, would be lunatic. The truth was the killer had simply gotten away with it. And tonight in a Paris jail that truth still reigned because even if Osborn could convince the police to try to track the man down and arrest him, he would never be brought to trial. Not in France, not in America, not anywhere, in a million years. So why tell the police? It would do no good and might only complicate things later, if by some twist of fortune, Osborn was able to find him again.
“You were in London today. This morning.” Suddenly Osborn was aware that Maitrot was still talking to him.
“Yes.”
“You said you came to Paris from Geneva.”
“Via London.”
“Why were you there?”
“I was a tourist. But I got sick. A twenty-four-hour bug of some kind.”
“Where did you stay?”
Osborn sat back. What did they want from him? Book him or let him go. What business was it of theirs what he had done in London?
“I asked you where you stayed in London.” Maitrot was staring at him.
Osborn had been in London with a woman, also a doctor, an intern at a Paris hospital, who he later found out was the mistress of a preeminent French politician. At the time she’d told him how it was important for her to be discreet and begged him not to ask why. Accepting it, he’d carefully selected a hotel known for maintaining its guests’ privacy and checked in using his name only.
“The Connaught,” Osborn said. Hopefully the hotel would live up to its reputation.
“Were you alone?”
“Okay, enough.” Abruptly, Osborn pushed back from the table and stood up. “I want to see the American consul.” Through the glass Osborn saw a uniformed patrolman with a submachine gun over his shoulder turn and stare in at him.
“Why don’t you relax, Doctor Osborn. . . . Please, sit down,” Maitrot said quietly, then leaned over to make a notation in the file.
Osborn sat back down and stared deliberately off, hopeful Maitrot would pass on the London business and get on with whatever was next. A clock on the wall read almost eleven. That made it three in the afternoon in L.A., or was it two? This time of year, time zones in Europe seemed to jump by the hour, depending where you were. Who the hell did he know there who he could call in a situation like this? He’d only had one encounter with the police in his life. That had been after a particularly grueling day when he’d accosted a careless and remorseless parking lot attendant outside a Beverly Hills restaurant for crushing the front fender of his new car while attempting to park it. Osborn had not been arrested but merely detained and then released. That was all, one experience in a lifetime. When he was fifteen and in boys’ school the police had arrested him for throwing snowballs through a classroom window on Christmas Day. When they asked him why he did it, he’d told them the truth. He’d had nothing else to do.
Why? That was a word they always asked. The people at the school. The police. Even his patients. Asking why something hurt. Why surgery was or was not necessary. Why something continued to hurt when they felt it shouldn’t. Why they did not need medication when they felt they did. Why they could do this but not that. Then waiting for him to explain it. “Why?” seemed to be a question he was destined to answer, not ask. Although he did remember asking “Why?” twice, in particular: to his first wife and then to his second, after they said they were leaving him. But now, in this glassed-in police interrogation room in the center of Paris, with a French detective making notes and chain-smoking cigarettes in front of him, he suddenly realized that why was the most important word in the world to him. And he wanted to ask it only once. To the man he had chased down into the subway.
“Why, you bastard, did you murder my father?”
As quickly, the thought came to him that if the police had interviewed the waiters at the brasserie who reported the incident, they might have the man’s name. Especially if he was a regular customer or had paid with a check or credit card. Osborn waited until Maitrot finished writing. Then, as politely as possible, said, “Can I ask a question?” Looking up, Maitrot nodded.
“This French citizen I’m accused of assaulting. Do you know who he was?”
“No,” Maitrot said.
Just then the glass door opened and the other plainclothes inspector came back in and sat down opposite Osborn. His name was Barras and he glanced at Maitrot, who vaguely shook his head. Barras was small, with dark hair and black, humorless eyes. Dark hair covered the back of his hands, and his nails were cut to perfection.
“Troublemakers are not welcome in France. Physicians are no exception. Deportation is a simple matter,” Barras said flatly.
Deportation! God no! Osborn thought. Please, not now! Not after so many years! Not after finally seeing him! Knowing he’s alive and where! “I’m sorry,” he said, covering his horror. “Very sorry. . . . I was upset, that’s all. Please believe that because it’s true.”
Barras studied him. “How much longer had you planned to stay in France?”
“Five days,” Osborn said. “To see Paris. . . .“
Barras hesitated, then reached into his coat pocket and took out Osborn’s passport. “Your passport, Doctor. When you are ready to leave, see me and I’ll return it.”
Osborn looked from Barras to Maitrot. That was their way of taking care of it. No deportation, no arrest, but keeping tabs on him just the same and making sure he knew it.
“It’s late,” Maitrot said, standing. “Au revoir, Doctor Osborn.”
It was eleven twenty-five when Osborn left the police station. The rain had stopped and a bright moon hung over the city. He started to wave at a cab, then decided to walk back to his hotel. Walk and think about what to do next about the man who was no longer a childhood memory but a living creature, here, somewhere within the sweep of Paris. With patience, he was a man who could be found. And questioned. And then destroyed.
4
* * *
London.
THE SAME bright moon illuminated an alley just off Charging Cross Road in the theater district. The passageway was L-shaped and narrow and sealed off at both ends by crime scene tape. Passersby peered in from either end trying to see past the uniformed police, to get some idea of what was going on, of what had happened.
The faces in the leering crowd were not what had McVey’s attention. It was another face, that of a white male in his early to mid-twenties with the eyeballs bulging grotesquely from their sockets. It had been discovered in a trash bin by a theater custodian emptying cartons after the closing of a show. Ordinarily Metropolitan homicide detectives would have worked it, but this was different. Superintendent Jamison called Commander Ian Noble of Special Branch at home, and Noble, in turn, had phoned McVey’s hotel to wake him from a restless sleep.
It wasn’t just the face, it was the head to which it was attached that had been the primary source of the Metropolitan detectives’ interest. First, because there was no body to go with it. And second, because the head appeared to have been surgically removed from the rest. Where the “rest” was anybody’s guess, but the burden of what was left now belonged to McVey.
What was all too clear, as he watched scenes-of-crime officers carefully lift the head from the trash bin and set it into a clear plastic bag and then place it into a box for transportation, was that Superintendent Jamison’s detectives had been right: the removal had been done by a professional. If n
ot by a surgeon, at least by someone with a surgically sharp instrument and a sound knowledge of Gray’s Anatomy.
To wit: at the base of the neck where it meets the clavicle or collar bone is the juncture of the trachea/esophagus leading to the lungs and stomach and the inferior constrictor muscle (which) arises from the sides of the cricoid and thyroid cartilages. . . .
Which was precisely where the head had been severed from the rest of the body and neither McVey nor Commander Noble needed an authority to confirm it. What they did need, however, was someone to tell them if the head had been removed before or after death. And if the latter, to ascertain the cause of death.
To perform a postmortem on a head is the same as autopsying an entire body except there is less of it.
Laboratory tests would take from twenty-four hours to three or four days. But McVey, Commander Noble and Dr. Evan Michaels, the young, baby-faced Home Office pathologist called from home by beeper to do the job, were of the same opinion. The head had been separated from the body subsequent to death and the cause of death was most probably the result of a lethal dose of a barbiturate, most likely Nembutal. However, there was a question as to what made the eyes bulge out of their sockets the way they did, what caused the slight trickle of blood at the corners of the mouth. Those were symptoms of a lethal breathing of cyanide gas, but there was no clear evidence of it.
McVey scratched behind an ear and stared at the floor.
“He’s going to ask you about the time of death,” Ian Noble said dryly to Michaels. Noble was fifty and married, with two daughters and four grandchildren. His close-cropped gray hair, square jaw and lean figure gave him an old-school military bearing, not surprising in a former colonel in army intelligence and graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Class of ’65.
“Hard to tell,” Michaels said.
“Try.” McVey’s gray-green eyes were locked on Michaels’. He wanted some kind of answer. Even an educated guess would do.