The Woman in the Fifth

Seventeen

‘WHAT DID YOU just say?’ I asked.

‘Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980,’ Coutard said.

‘Very funny.’

‘It is not at all funny. Suicide never is.’

‘You expect me to believe—?’

‘Monsieur, the question should be rephrased: “You expect me to believe that you spent yesterday evening at the apartment of a woman who has been dead for twenty-six years?”’

‘What proof do you have that she died in 1980?’

‘I ask the questions here, monsieur. You tell me you were at her apartment last night.’

‘Yes,’ I said, deciding fast that, under the circumstances, it was better to maintain the lie than to backpedal.

‘How long have you been involved with Madame Kadar?’

‘Several months.’

‘You met her where?’

I explained about Lorraine L’Herbert’s salon. Coutard noted this on a pad and asked for her address.

‘And you’ve regularly seen Madame Kadar since that first meeting?’

‘Twice a week.’

‘And you were “intimate” with her?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You are being serious here?’

‘I am completely serious.’

He looked at me and shook his head. Slowly.

‘Have you suffered hallucinations like this in the past?’

‘Inspector, I am telling you the truth.’

‘Have you ever been hospitalized — committed — for psychotic disorders? I can — will — run a complete check on your medical history and—’

‘I am not delusional, Inspector.’

‘And yet you insist that you’ve been having an affair with a dead woman. That certainly exceeds the definition of “delusional”.’

‘Show me some proof that she is dead.’

‘In time,’ he said quietly. ‘Describe Madame Kadar to me.’

‘Late fifties. Striking face, sharply etched features, not much in the way of age lines, a shock of black hair—’

‘Stop. Madame Kadar was thirty when she died in 1980. So the woman you were allegedly seeing was over twenty-five years older.’

But if she was thirty in 1980, wouldn’t she be in her late fifties now?

‘Do you have a photograph of her in 1980?’ I asked.

‘In time,’ he said again. ‘Anything else you wish to tell me about her physical appearance?’

‘She was — is — beautiful.’

‘Nothing else? No distinguishing marks or characteristics?’

‘She had a scar across her neck.’

‘Did she tell you how she received such a scar?’

‘She tried to cut her own throat.’

Coutard seemed thrown by my answer, but was simultaneously trying to mask his bemusement.

‘Tried to cut her own throat?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘The suicide was not successful?’

‘Well, evidently not, if she was telling me about it.’

He reached for a file in front of him. He opened it. He turned several pages, then looked up at me again.

‘Did she explain why she tried to kill herself?’

‘Her husband and daughter were killed in a hit-and-run accident.’

Coutard stared down at the file again. His eyes narrowed.

‘Where exactly did this accident take place?’

‘Near the Luxembourg Gardens.’

‘When exactly?’

‘1980.’

‘What month?’

‘June, I think.’

‘And what were the circumstances of the accident?’

‘Her husband and daughter were crossing the road—’

‘The husband’s name?’

‘Zoltan.’

‘The daughter?’

‘Judit.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘She told me.’

‘Madame Kadar?’

‘Yes, Madame Kadar told me. Just as she told me the driver of the car—’

‘What was the make of the car?’

‘I forget. Something big and flashy. The guy was a businessman.’

‘Why do you know all this?’

‘Because Margit was my lover. And lovers tell each other their pasts.’

‘Did your “lover” tell you what happened to the driver of the black Jaguar—’

‘That’s right — she said it was a Jag … and the man lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.’

Again he glanced down at the file, then looked up at me. His cool was cracking. He now seemed angry.

‘This game is no longer amusing. You have obviously engaged in some sort of warped research about a dead woman who murdered the man who ran over her husband and daughter and then—’

‘Murdered?’

‘That’s what I said. Murdered.’

‘But she told me he was killed by a burglar.’

‘How was he killed?’

‘Knife wound, I think.’

‘When?’

‘Around three months after the accident.’

‘You’re right. Henri Dupre—’

‘That’s the name she mentioned. A pharmaceuticals executive, right … ?’

‘Correct. And Monsieur Dupre — a resident, as you said, of Saint-Germain-en-Laye — was murdered at his home on the night of September 20, 1980. His wife and children were not at home at the time. In fact, his wife had just filed for divorce. The man was a hopeless alcoholic and the hit-and-run accident which killed Madame Kadar’s husband and daughter also ended Dupre’s marriage. However, Dupre was not killed by a burglar. He was killed by Madame Kadar.’

‘Bullshit.’

He reached into the file and pulled out a faded Xerox copy of a newspaper article. It was from Le Figaro and dated September 23, 1980. The headline read:

EXECUTIVE MURDERED

AT HOME IN SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

BEREAVED WOMAN SUSPECTED

This story outlined the facts of the murder — how Dupre had been surprised in his bed in the middle of a Saturday night; how the attack had been very frenzied; how the murderer had used a shower in the house, then left a note in the kitchen: For Judit and Zoltan. A neighbor who had been up early saw a woman leaving the house around 5 a.m. and heading to the metro — and the police now wanted to question Margit Kadar, whose husband and daughter had been killed by Dupre in a hit-and-run accident several weeks earlier.

‘This is unbelievable,’ I said.

Coutard reached into the file and pulled out an eight-by-ten photograph and pushed it across his desk. It was a police photo — black and white, but still shockingly lurid. Dupre was shown strewn across a bloodstained bed — huge black blotches surrounding him — his chest ripped open in several places; his face and head gashed horribly.

I sucked in my breath and pushed the photograph back to Coutard.

‘To call this attack “frenzied” would be to exercise understatement,’ Coutard said. ‘This was a murder committed in white-hot rage; the killer unable to desist even after the fatal blow was struck. What most intrigued the investigating inspector at the time were two interrelated aspects to the case: its meticulous planning and the fact that the murderer clearly wanted the police — and the public — to know that she was responsible. The police checked Madame Kadar’s phone records after the attack. It seems she had rung the Dupre household the night before the attack. In his report, the inspector presumed that she was calling on a pretext — perhaps using a false voice to ask for his wife and simultaneously finding out that he was at home that weekend. How did the police work this out? Because Madame Kadar’s phone records also show that she called Madame Dupre on the same Friday evening at the apartment in Saint-Germain-en-Laye to which she had moved with her son, having first obtained this new number from Directory Enquiries. Madame Dupre remembered the call when she was questioned by the police — a woman, sounding very French, telling her that she got this number from her husband, and that she was working for a company selling holiday apartments near Biarritz and she would like to send Madame some information, and should she use her husband’s address? Madame Dupre then informed her that she no longer lived with her husband, and that she wasn’t interested in a holiday apartment near Biarritz, and hung up the phone.

‘So Madame Kadar now knew that Dupre lived alone and was at home that weekend. The attack happened the following night around four. Madame Kadar had visited Saint-Germain-en-Laye earlier that day. The same neighbor who spotted her leaving the Dupre home at five that morning saw someone looking carefully at the house the previous afternoon — walking around it, inspecting every aspect of it. But as Dupre had it on the market, the neighbor thought it was just a prospective buyer. When Madame Kadar returned that night, she entered through a window that had been left open on the ground floor. She evidently made no noise, as Dupre was surprised by her in bed. We have no idea whether she briefly woke him before beginning the attack or murdered him while he was asleep … though the medical examiner postulated that Dupre must have woken up as soon as the first blow was struck and was therefore aware of his assailant. The police were fairly certain that Madame Kadar wanted Dupre to see it was her — as this was an obvious act of revenge.

‘Afterward, Madame Kadar stripped off her clothes and used Dupre’s bathroom to have a shower. She left her blood-splattered clothes on the bathroom floor and the knife by the bed. She had evidently arrived with a small suitcase containing a change of clothes — and after dressing, she went down to the kitchen and made coffee and waited—’

‘She made coffee after knifing him like that?’

‘The first train doesn’t leave Saint-Germain-en-Laye until 5.23 a.m. She didn’t want to be waiting outside the station — so, yes, she made coffee and wrote that simple note, For Judit and Zoltan. It sounds like a book dedication, doesn’t it? Besides being an act of revenge perhaps she considered this murder to be a creative act. Certainly her planning was most creative. She left the house around five. It was a fifteen-minute walk to the station. She boarded the first train and changed for the metro at Chatelet. There she proceeded to the Gare de l’Est and bought a first-class ticket to Budapest. She even paid for a separate sleeping compartment. She had to give her own name when booking the first-class compartment. This she did. But she evidently gambled that no one would be stopping by the Dupre house on Sunday … or that if it was discovered, it would still take the police most of the day to figure out she was the murderer, and to alert Interpol that she was now on the run. In other words she had, at a minimum, a clear twenty-four hours to get to Budapest. As it turned out, she gambled right. Dupre’s body wasn’t discovered until late Monday afternoon when he failed to show up for work, and his employers called his wife. She went back to his house and came upon the crime scene. Of course, she was immediately considered the prime suspect — the spouse always is in a case of a murder in the home — until the forensics showed that Madame Kadar’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon and that the bloodstained clothes left behind were not Madame Dupre’s.’

‘How did you have her fingerprints on file?’

‘All resident aliens are fingerprinted. Also, in 1976 Madame Kadar became a French citizen — so she was re-fingerprinted. However, as she was traveling as a Frenchwoman, she had to apply for a visa at the Hungarian Embassy here in Paris. At the time, the Communist regime didn’t allow foreigners to obtain an entry permit at their border … especially former citizens. Madame Kadar applied for this visa fourteen days before she murdered Dupre, stating that she wanted to visit family members there.’

‘But she hated Hungary … especially after what had happened to her father.’

‘What had happened to her father?’

I told him everything Margit had told me. Several times during this recitation, he looked down at the file, as if he was comparing the story I was telling with that which he had inside this battered, thick manila folder. When I finished, I asked, ‘Does that correspond with the information you have?’

‘Naturally the Hungarian police — who cooperated with us during our investigation — also informed us of the findings of their investigations into the two murders that Madame Kadar committed on her return to Budapest.’

‘She killed Bodo and Lovas?’

Long silence. Coutard glared at me. He put down the file. He lit a cigarette. He took several deep thoughtful drags, never once taking his eyes off me. Finally: ‘I am trying to discern the game you are playing, monsieur. You are under investigation for two murders, and you simultaneously show extensive knowledge of a sequence of murders carried out here and in Budapest by a woman who killed herself in Hungary shortly after murdering her second victim there.’

‘She cut her throat after killing Bodo?’

‘No, after killing Lovas. But let us not digress from the issue of concern to me: why you know so much about this case. Please do not repeat that preposterous alibi that she told you all about this. I will not accept such absurdities. So how and why did you garner all this information? You are a writer, yes? Perhaps someone told you about this case — it got quite a bit of publicity at the time. You were intrigued, and using the Internet, you found out all the details of the case. And now, under suspicion for two murders yourself, you spin this absurd tale of an affair with a dead woman in an attempt to—’

‘Were there any reports in the Hungarian papers about the reason why she returned to Budapest to murder Bodo and Lovas?’

‘You interrupted me again.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You do that once more, I’ll send you back to the cells for twenty-four hours.’

Won’t you be sending me back there anyway?

Coutard reopened the file and spent several minutes studying some more old photocopied pages.

‘We have a selection of the Hungarian press clippings about the case, and a French translation provided for us. Given the nature of the regime back then, the official reason given as to why she murdered Bodo and Lovas was, “These two brave defenders of Hungary had arrested Madame Kadar’s father when he was spreading ‘seditious lies against the homeland’” … that’s an exact quote. According to the State media, he subsequently killed himself while in prison after it was revealed he was an agent working for the CIA. There is no mention in any report — either police or in the press — of the incident you describe, in which Madame Kadar was forced, as a seven-year-old girl, to watch her father’s hanging. Then again, the Hungarian police in 1980 would never have shared such information with us. Instead, in their reports — and in the State press — Madame Kadar was depicted as a mentally unbalanced woman who, having recently lost her husband and daughter in a tragic accident, was on a rampage of revenge. The State newspaper printed all the French reports about Dupre’s murder. They also intimated that the attacks on Bodo and Lovas were savage ones.’

‘Did the Hungarian police let you know how she tracked the two men down?’

‘Of course not. According to the inspector’s report at the time, the police in Budapest only nominally cooperated with us. And no, they didn’t inform us that Bodo and Lovas were members of the security services — though in all the Hungarian press reports, they constantly referred to the two men as “heroes” who had “given their lives to protect the security of the homeland” … which is usual State doublespeak for members of the Secret Police.’

‘And Margit killed herself after murdering the two men?’

He opened the file and found a document, glanced at one page, then turned to those stapled beneath it.

‘This is a translation of a telex — remember the telex? — sent to us from the police in Budapest. First victim, Bela Bodo, aged sixty-six, was found dead in his apartment in a residential district of Buda on the night of September 21, 1980. He was found bound and gagged to a chair in front of his kitchen table. His hands had been taped to the table using heavy duct tape, of the type generally employed for patching leaky pipes. The victim’s ten fingers had been severed from his hands, his eyes had been gouged out, his throat cut.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered.

‘There was nothing frenzied about such an attack. One must surmise that the murderer was very slow and deliberate in her maiming of her victim, in order to inflict maximum pain and terror on him. The coup de grace when his throat was cut must have been a desperate relief to him.’

‘Did the police tell you how she had managed to bind and gag Bodo in the first place?’

‘No, but like us, they too intimated that she must have entered his apartment carrying a firearm — thus forcing him to “assume the position” at the kitchen table while she bound and gagged him. Had he known what was awaiting him, I’ve no doubt he would have tried to escape. Being shot to death is so much cleaner than the torment he suffered.’

‘And Lovas?’

‘The same treatment. Only in this instance, a neighbor heard Lovas scream something — probably before Madame Kadar gagged his mouth — and decided to call the police. They took their time arriving — maybe thirty minutes after the call. When they got there, they banged on the door and announced themselves and insisted whoever was there should open the door immediately. There was no reply. So they got the concierge to open the door. As the door swung up, a spray of blood hit the officers. Madame Kadar had just cut her throat … and judging from the blood still pumping from Lovas, Madame Kadar had sliced his jugular right before her own.

‘They tried to save them both. They both died.’

He reached into the file, pulled out two aging black-and-white photos and pushed them across the table to me. The first showed the bloodied head of a man lying limp, his torso also covered in blood, his hands taped to a table and so mutilated that they appeared to be gory stumps.

The second showed a woman sprawled on a linoleum floor, lying in a pool of blood, her clothes sodden, a kitchen knife in one hand, a gash across her throat. I studied the face. Without question, it was a younger version of Margit. I looked at her eyes. Though frozen, they seemed to glow with an exultant rage — the same sort of heightened fury that I saw in her eyes when she talked about the death of her father, or the accident that took Zoltan and Judit from her. I stared at her post-mortem eyes again in the photograph. It was as if Margit had taken this rage with her from the past life into eternity.

The past life? But she was here, in this life. Now.

I pushed the photograph back toward the inspector. I bowed my head, not knowing what to say, what to think.

‘Given the monstrousness of the attacks,’ Coutard said, ‘it is obvious that the murderer was not of sound mind. Yet she might not have committed suicide if the police hadn’t shown up while she was slowly maiming Lovas to death.’

‘But she is not dead,’ I said.

He tapped the crime-scene photograph of Margit.

‘You insist that the woman shown here is alive?’

‘Yes.’

He handed me another document from the file. It was in Hungarian and looked official. Toward the top of it was a space in which Margit’s name had been written.

‘This is the death certificate from the medical examiner in Budapest — signed after he performed the autopsy on Madame Kadar. The investigating inspector in Saint-Germain-en-Laye closed the case on the murder of Monsieur Dupre upon receiving this certificate from the Hungarian authorities, as he had proof that the individual who perpetrated this crime was dead. But you still insist that Madame Kadar is alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you understand the seriousness of your position, Monsieur Ricks?’

‘I didn’t kill Omar. I didn’t kill Yanna’s husband.’

‘Even though all the evidence points to you. Not just evidence … but motive as well.’

‘I had nothing to do with their deaths.’

‘And your alibi — at least in the case of the murder of Monsieur Attani — is that you were at the apartment of the woman whose death certificate you have just read?’

‘You have heard me tell you, in detail, essential aspects of her life—’

‘And these details could have been easily researched by you using a search engine …’

‘Ask yourself, Inspector, please, the same question you posed to me: Why would I be interested in such an old murder case? How would I have found out about it in the first place? And how would I know more intimate details of Madame Kadar’s past than you do?’

‘Monsieur, I have been doing this job for over twenty years now. And if there is one thing I comprehend about human behavior, it is this: the moment you think you can predict its pattern is the moment when it changes, and you discover that other people’s realities are often divorced from the one you exist in. You say a dead woman is alive. I say, the man sitting in front of me seems rational and lucid and intelligent. And yet, when shown proof that his lover left this life twenty-six years ago …’

He opened his hands, as if to say, And there it is.

‘So you must understand, monsieur … I am not interested in why you have created this invention in your head, or how you gleaned your facts, or whether or not you embellished the story with tales of your lover being forced to watch her father’s execution. Naturally, I am intrigued by such detail. Naturally, I am curiously impressed by your forceful certainty that Madame Kadar exists. But as a police inspector, such interest is overshadowed by empirical facts. And the empirical facts of the case are profoundly empirical. The facts point to your culpability. Just as the fact that you use a dead woman as an alibi …’

Another shrug.

‘I do suggest that you reconsider your story, monsieur.’

‘I am telling you the truth,’ I said.

He let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

‘And I am telling you that you are either a compulsive liar or an irrational liar or both. I am now sending you back to the cells so you can reflect on your situation, and perhaps come to your senses and end this mad self-deception.’

‘Am I not allowed some sort of legal representation at this stage?’

‘We can hold you for seventy-two hours without contact with the outside world.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘No, monsieur … that’s the law.’

He picked up the phone and dialed a number. Then he stood up and went over to the window and peered out.

‘This morning we visited the address you gave my colleague of the apartment where you were having your “assignations” with Madame Kadar. The concierge said that he wasn’t aware of your visits. So how did you gain access to it?’

‘Madame Kadar let me in.’

‘I see.’

‘How else would I have gotten inside? I mean, the apartment I described to you is exactly the one you saw, isn’t it?’

Coutard continued to stare out the window as he said, ‘Madame Kadar did live in that apartment until her death in 1980. Since then, it has been empty … though it has remained in her estate. A small trust that was left behind after her death continues to pay, by prelevement automatique, the service charge. But no one has occupied it in over twenty-five years. Can you describe the apartment to me, please?’

I did. In detail. He nodded.

‘Yes, that is the apartment as I found it … including the 1970s decor. There was one major difference, however. The apartment I saw hadn’t been cleaned or dusted in years.’

‘That’s nonsense. It was always spotless when I visited it.’

‘I’m certain that’s how you saw it, monsieur.’

A uniformed officer knocked on Coutard’s door and came inside.

‘Please take Monsieur Ricks back to his cell. He will be spending some more time with us.’

The officer approached me and took me by the arm. I turned to Coutard and said, ‘You have to try to believe me.’

‘No, I don’t,’ he said.

They locked me up in the same cell. I was left alone there for hours with no reading material, no pen or paper on which to write, nothing but my thoughts to preoccupy me.

Am I insane? Have I been imagining all this? During the past few months, have I been acting out a strange, warped reverie? And if it is true that Margit has been dead for all these years, what sort of alternative reality have I been living in all these months?

A tray of cold tasteless food arrived around seven that evening. I was famished, so I ate it. Around nine, sleep began to overtake me. I stripped off my now rank jeans and crawled under the grubby blanket and quickly drifted into unconsciousness. Only tonight I did not sleep the dreamless sleep I craved. Tonight the nocturnal screening room in my mind played out a horror show where there was a trial, and I was in the dock, and everyone kept pointing fingers at me and shouting in French, and there was a judge calling me a danger to society and condemning me to life imprisonment with no chance of parole, and being locked up in this cell for twenty-three hours a day, and me continuing to swear blind that they had to find this woman Margit … that she would explain it all … and the walls of the cell closing in around me … and me huddled in a corner on the concrete floor, my head leaned up against the toilet, my eyes as frozen as Margit’s in the crime-scene photograph … and …

That’s when I jumped awake, my body drenched, my teeth biting in the filthy pillow. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then the realization hit: You’re incarcerated.

I had no watch, so I didn’t know what time it was. I had no toothbrush, so I couldn’t rid my mouth of the disgusting aftertaste of my nightmare. I had no change of clothes or access to a shower, so I was now feeling totally ripe. After emptying my bladder in the toilet and finishing what little water was left in the bottle, I stretched out on the bunk and shut my eyes and tried to empty my brain and blank out the present and tell myself to somehow stay calm.

But it’s hard to vanquish negative thoughts when you’re about to be charged with two murders, and when you’re living in a hall of mirrors where nothing is as it seems …

The cell door opened. Morning light filtered in. An officer stood there with a tray of food.

‘What time is it?’ I asked.

‘Eight thirty.’

‘Is there any chance I could have a toothbrush and toothpaste, please?’

‘We’re not a hotel.’

‘How about something to read then?’

‘We’re not a library.’

‘Please, monsieur …’

He handed me the tray. The cell door closed behind him. There was a plastic cup filled with weak orange juice, a hard roll, a pad of butter, a small plastic mug of coffee, plastic utensils. Five minutes later the cell door briefly opened and a hand shot in, holding a copy of yesterday’s Le Parisien.

‘Thank you,’ I said as the cell door clanged shut. Having devoured the breakfast — I was famished — I now devoured the newspaper, reading it cover to cover, trying to lose myself in its reports of petty crimes, of disputes between neighbors, of road accidents, of more internal problems with some local football team, of new movies opening this week and the bust-up of a French popstar marriage. The obituaries, as always, gripped me. How do you summarize an entire life — especially one which doesn’t merit a big journalistic splash? Beloved husband of … Adored husband of … Much admired colleague of … A respected employee of … Sadly missed by … Funeral Mass held tomorrow at … In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to … And that’s that. Another life vanished.

That’s the thing about the obituary page. You always know there is a story behind a story — all the hidden complexities that make a life a life. You also know that, one day, your life too will be summarized in a few hundred words … if you’re lucky. Death is the great leveler. Once you’ve crossed over into that realm of nothingness, your story only really stays in the minds of those closest to you. And when they too vanish …

Nothing matters. And because of that, everything matters. You have to counter the insignificance of what you do with the belief that, somehow, it does have import. Otherwise what can you do but despair and think, When I’m dead, none of the forces that drove my life — the anger, the neediness, the ambition, the search for love, the regrets, the terrible mistakes, the futile pursuit of some sort of happiness — will count for anything.

Unless death isn’t the end of everything.

‘This is the death certificate from the medical examiner in Budapest — signed after he performed the autopsy on Madame Kadar … But you still insist that Madame Kadar is alive? ‘

I didn’t know the answer to that question anymore.

The cell door opened again. A new officer entered.

‘The inspector wants to see you now.’

I pulled on my jeans and ran my hands through my grubby hair. The officer coughed loudly, a signal for me to hurry up. Then he took me by the arm and led me back upstairs.

Coutard was seated by his desk, smoking. My passport was next to the ashtray. Inspector Leclerc was standing by the window, in conversation with Coutard. The talk stopped as soon as I was brought into the room. Coutard motioned for me to take a seat. I did so.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Well, you won’t have to spend another night as our guest.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because you are no longer a suspect.’

‘I’m not?’

‘It’s your lucky day: we found the murderer of Monsieur Omar and Monsieur Attani.’

‘Who was it?’

‘A certain Monsieur Mahmoud Klefki …’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘A diminutive man with what seems to be a permanent scowl. He works for your landlord, Monsieur Sezer. Perhaps you met him?’

Of course I did. Many times. Only I knew him as Mr Tough Guy.

‘Once or twice, in passing.’

‘We found the knife used to murder Omar in Klefki’s chambre, as well as the hammer with which he attacked Monsieur Attani. The blood of both victims matched that found on the respective weapons.’

‘Did Klefki confess?’

‘Of course not — and he cannot begin to explain why the hammer and the knife were hidden beneath the sink in his room.’

Leclerc came in here: ‘Murderers can often be overconfident — or stupid — when it comes to disposing of the weapons. Especially if they are arrogant enough to believe they can escape detection.’

‘Did he give you any reason for the attacks?’

‘How could he — as he continues to deny them? But we did discover that his employer, Monsieur Sezer, was having a long-running dispute with Attani over the protection that Sezer charged for the bar Attani owned. And in the case of Monsieur Omar, we have heard rumors that he had borrowed a significant sum from Monsieur Sezer — which he was supposed to be paying back, at an exorbitant rate of interest, on a weekly basis. So we will also be charging Sezer with ordering the two murders. With any luck, we can turn Klefki against his employer — in exchange for a fifteen-year sentence, rather than life imprisonment …

‘So, Monsieur Ricks — you are free to leave. But if you could tell us anything else about Monsieur Sezer and his various business enterprises …’

‘Why would I know about such things?’

‘Because we know you work for him.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘There is an alleyway on the rue du Faubourg Poissonniere, near the corner of the rue des Petites Ecuries. You have been spotted going in there most nights.’

‘By whom?’

‘As I told you yesterday, I ask the questions here.’

‘I use the place as an office.’

‘Yes, we found your laptop when we raided it yesterday.’

‘You raided it?’

‘Another question, monsieur. If it is merely your office, why is there a television monitor on the table where you work? A monitor connected to a television camera on the street.’

‘Yeah, that was there when I rented the office.’

‘Rented it from whom?’

‘Sezer,’ I said, knowing full well that if I mentioned Kamal’s name, they would start asking questions about how I knew the late owner of my local Internet cafe and whether I had any thoughts on why his body was discovered some months back in a dumpster near the Peripherique. Anyway, Sezer would back me up here, because he didn’t want it known what went on downstairs … though I was certain that the cops had already raided the place and were now trying to see how much I knew.

‘What did you pay Sezer for the office?’ Coutard asked.

‘Sixty euros a week.’

‘Not much for an office.’

‘Well, it’s not much of an office.’

‘And you worked there on your novel …’

‘Most nights from midnight until dawn.’

‘But on the night that Omar was murdered …’

‘I was having writer’s block, so I went for an all-night stroll.’

‘You didn’t mention this when I first questioned you.’

‘Mention what?’

‘Mention that you were at your “office” before taking your all-night stroll.’

‘That’s because you didn’t ask me.’

Pause. A quick glance between Leclerc and Coutard.

‘It’s rather convenient, you being “out walking” the night Omar was murdered.’

‘I thought you’d found your murderer already?’

‘Yes, we have. It was just a passing comment, that’s all. But I would like to know if you were acquainted with your neighbors in the building where you maintained your “office”.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘Do you have any idea of what sort of business was going on in the “office” on the ground floor?’

‘None whatsoever. Do you?’

Another look from Coutard to Leclerc.

‘We raided the place last night,’ Leclerc said. ‘The downstairs office — it was more like a small warehouse space — was empty. But it looked like it had been cleared out, with haste, only a few hours before we got there. Our forensic team did discover traces of blood in the wood floors and the walls, as well as several large electrical cables … the types often used for cinema lights. There was also a stagelike area in the center of the space, with a few pieces of furniture and a bed. The mattress had vanished, the headboard on the bed had been washed, but there were still microscopic particles of blood imbedded in the woodgrain.’

Coutard came in here.

‘Our belief is that the downstairs premises were used to front several activities — including the making of pornographic and snuff films. You know what snuff films are, don’t you?’

I nodded — and remembered the night the body was dragged out as I peered out of my doorway. But if I had been the night watchman for a snuff film operation, why didn’t I hear other bodies being carted away?

‘We have been aware, for some time, that these sorts of films have been shot in this quartier. We just didn’t know where. Now we have reason to believe it was in the same building where you were writing your novel.’

‘That’s news to me.’

‘And that is bullshit, monsieur,’ Coutard said. ‘You were the guard on the door; the man who vetted everyone who came and went there. That’s why you had the monitor on your desk.’

‘I never knew what was going on downstairs. I never used the television monitor. As far as I was concerned the building was empty.’

‘We also found traces of cocaine and laxative in the kitchen area of the downstairs space,’ Leclerc said. ‘So a drugs operation was also working out of the same premises. And forensics turned up traces of gelignite as well.’

‘Gelignite is a plastic explosive,’ Coutard said. ‘A favorite of bomb makers. And still you had no idea of the activities taking place directly below you?’

‘Absolutely none.’

‘He’s a liar, isn’t he?’ Coutard asked Leclerc.

‘I’ve no doubt he was the night watchman,’ Leclerc said, ‘but he could have been kept in the dark as to what was going on downstairs.’

‘I think he knew everything.’

‘I knew nothing,’ I said.

‘We weren’t speaking to you.’

‘You have no proof I knew anything,’ I said.

‘Monsieur,’ Coutard said, ‘I can legally hold you for another twenty-four hours … which I will be most willing to do if you are disrespectful to us again.’

‘I mean no disrespect,’ I said.

‘Curious man, Monsieur Ricks,’ Coutard said to Leclerc. ‘You know about the circumstances that brought him to a chambre de bonne in our quartier?’

‘I read the dossier, yes.’

‘And do you remember from the dossier that there was a man in authority at the mediocre college who orchestrated Monsieur Ricks’s downfall?’

‘Wasn’t that the same man who ran off with Ricks’s wife?’

‘Absolutely. And during the course of my further investigations into Monsieur Ricks’s background yesterday, I discovered a fascinating new twist to the extraordinary narrative that is Monsieur Ricks’s life. I typed in the name of the college at which Monsieur Ricks used to teach. What was it called again?’

‘Crewe College,’ I said.

‘That’s it. Anyway, among the many entries listed was a news report from a local paper. It seems that the Dean of this college — a Monsieur Robson — was dismissed from his job just a few days ago when it was discovered that he had an extensive child pornography library on his computer at work.’

‘What?’ I said loudly.

‘You heard me. According to the paper, it’s quite the scandale. Your ex-wife must be appalled.’

I put my head in my hands.

‘He looks upset,’ Leclerc said.

I wasn’t upset. I was suffering from a massive dose of disbelief and horror as I recalled the remnants of an exchange I had had with Margit only a few days earlier.

‘So,’ she said to me, ‘what do you think would be an appropriate payback for all the harm he perpetrated?’

‘You want me to fantasize here?’

‘Absolutely. The worst thing that could happen to the bastard.’

‘You mean, like discovering that he had a huge collection of kiddy porn on his computer?’

‘That would do nicely.’

‘Oh my God,’ I said under my breath.

‘I thought he’d be pleased to hear such news,’ Coutard said to Leclerc.

‘Yes, you would have expected him to applaud such a downfall.’

‘Unless he feels guilty about it.’

‘But why would he feel guilty?’

‘Perhaps he himself planted the pornography on the gentleman’s computer.’

‘Unlikely … unless he’s one of those highly skilled hackers who can tap into somebody’s hard drive.’

‘Maybe he asked a friend to do it for him?’ Coutard said.

‘Yes — maybe he has a very malicious friend.’

‘It makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Leclerc said. ‘I mean, the man is also sleeping with a dead woman, so why shouldn’t he also have an avenging angel?’

‘I bet he also believes in Santa Claus.’

‘And the Easter Bunny.’

‘And Snow White … who was once his mistress.’

Coutard began to laugh. Leclerc joined in. I didn’t look up at either of the inspectors. I kept my head in my hands.

‘The man has no sense of humor,’ Leclerc said.

‘Don’t you find any of this funny, Monsieur Ricks?’

‘Am I free to go now?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid you are.’

Coutard pushed my passport across the desk.

‘You need help, monsieur,’ he said.

To which I felt like saying, I’ve got all the help I don’t want.

But instead I picked up my passport and gave the two inspectors a quick nod of goodbye.

‘We’ll meet here again,’ Coutard said as I turned to leave.

‘How do you know that?’ I asked.

‘Trouble is your destiny, monsieur.’