Knaves (16 page)

He sighed.
“Eloise was here.”

She bristled at this, and he could see her beginning to snarl at the thought of La Lupa in the same house.

“It’s not what you think,” he said calmly. “She’s left Valmont.”

“
What’s that got to do with us?” Her words were sharp, but already she was moving to sit beside him, realising that something important had taken place.

“
She brought something.”

“
What? Is she trying to threaten us?”

Shaking his head, he started to explain. Then he realised the laptop was still on the table and he felt more than anything that he didn
’t want Karla to see this. Reaching forward, he began to lift it up but she was faster than him, placing a hand on its aluminium case.

“
What is it, Hayden?” Her voice was calm, consoling, querying.

“
It’s a video,” he started to explain, but the words choked off in his throat.

“
Of us? Is Valmont going to blackmail us? But we were careful, weren’t we? I mean, okay, perhaps I was a little stupid that one night but—”

He shook his head.
“You don’t need to see it,” he said. He tried to take it from her grasp, but all his strength seemed to desert him and she held onto it.

As she flipped open the lid he stood up and went across the side of the room. He heard Karla gasp and, looking over his shoulder saw her raise her hand to her mouth.
“Don’t…” he started to say, but it was her turn to shake her head.

“
I need to see this,” she said, her voice trembling but also filled with a terrible anger.

At least she had the decency to turn the sound down when the screaming began, and Hayden paced back and forth on the other side of the room. The bastard! The sick, evil bastard! He was going to kill him
—he didn’t know how, but he was going to get Valmont if it was the last thing he did.

At last he heard the notebook lid close. Turning, he saw Karla sitting bolt upright, her face white, her features rigid.

“Karla…” he tried to say something, to tell her it was going to be alright, but he couldn’t. He could lie to Eloise, but not to Karla, not now.

“
We’re going to get him,” she said at last, icy and cold. “We’re going to get him, and we’re going to make him pay for what he’s done!”

Coilin Macnamarra sat in a private business room that had been hired for the morning in Monaco. He
’d been somewhat surprised by Karla’s decision to return to the city but, realising her reasons why, he’d also suggested that they avoid one of the flashier hotels in Monte Carlo and instead choose somewhere more anodyne and faceless.

In one corner was a desk, but that always reminded Uncle Coilin too much of the job he was meant to do, either that or sitting beside some defendant in a police cell while they were being questioned. Instead, he
’d slumped into a sofa on the other side of the room next to softer chairs and was struggling to remember enough French to read the newspaper. When he came across one story, he folded the sheets back on each other and scrutinized it more closely.

“
A bad business,” he told himself. “A very bad business.”

At that moment the door opened and Karla and Hayden entered the room. She was dressed smartly but casually in Saint Lauren jeans and a Roland Mouret top, while Hayden wore a Savile Row blazer and slacks, still evidently dressing for the role of Sebastian Rider. Coilin still disliked the English man, but since Karla had contacted her uncle regarding the video that Eloise Bissette had given Hayden, Coilin had begun to perceive a more serious side to the younger man. He still couldn
’t forgive him his good looks, though: perhaps if he was just a little less handsome she wouldn’t be quite so infatuated with him.

“
Thank you for coming, Uncle,” she said, walking over to the sofa and kissing him. Hayden gave him a wary nod and sat down on the other side of the low table.

“
You found more than you expected,” Coilin answered grimly. “We all found more than we expected.”

“
Had you heard anything about this?” Hayden asked.

Coilin frowned for a moment.
“I hadn’t thought so, but when you put pieces together, they take on a very different appearance. I’m pretty sure that video you sent me is not the only time it happened.”

“
Eloise tried to warn me,” Hayden said. “When we were at de Tour.” At the mention of that name, Karla looked at him sharply and he shrugged apologetically. “It was that night when you and Valmont were… playing cards.” Before she could interrupt he continued quickly: “She said that the chateau was like Bluebeard’s castle and the old tower was where he kept his secrets.”

Coilin reclined backwards thoughtfully in his seat, placing his fingers together beneath his chin.
“Bluebeard,” he said. “Now that’s interesting.”

“
It’s not relevant at all!” Karla snapped. “That’s a silly folk tale and this… this is real!”

“
Ah, but Bluebeard wasn’t fiction, or rather, the person who he was based on was very real.” Both Hayden and Karla looked at him peculiarly, waiting for an explanation.

“
Have you ever heard of Gilles de Rais?” he asked. Hayden shook his head but Karla frowned, searching her memory. “Joan of Arc!” she exclaimed at last. “He fought the English and then…” her voice trailed away.

“
Gilles de Rais was once one of the most important men in the country,” Coilin explained. “The Marshal of France, and one of the bravest by all accounts. He did indeed support Saint Joan, but that didn’t stop him after her death from performing black magic, as part of which he would murder children to offer up their body parts.”

Hayden scoffed at this.
“That’s preposterous! No one would ever believe such a thing.”

“
Nor did Gilles, it seems,” Coilin continued calmly. “Apparently he gave up after a few attempts to raise a demon. But he had, so the stories go, got rather a taste for sexually abusing and then killing his victims.”

Karla
’s face was stern, granite like. “Charles Perrault turned him into a fairy tale, an evil nobleman who kills his wives and locks them in a secret tower. You don’t mean to tell me…” Her eyes widened as she looked at her uncle. “He couldn’t get away with that.”

“
I don’t know,” Coilin admitted, parting his hands and shrugging. “I do know there are a lot of secrets around this Marquis, though. From what little I’ve been able to gather, any girls who would have visited his chateau were poor—immigrants. Not the kind to be missed. Children like that disappear all the time.”

“
She knew,” Karla hissed. “Eloise knew and yet she did nothing.”

“
Wait, wait,” Coilin said, waving his hand in the air to attract his niece’s attention, to calm her down. “She may not have known, not exactly, but from the sound of it she suspected something.” Hayden sat silently, his face grave.

“
We can find her!” Karla suddenly burst out. “We can make her testify. She’ll be able to prove it was Valmont!”

Coilin blew the air from his cheeks and lifted the newspaper he
’d been reading when they arrived. He tossed it across to Karla.

“
This morning a woman was found dead at an apartment in Clichy-sous-Bois,” she translated. “Marianne Lambert, more commonly known as Eloise Bissette, or La Lupa, had been an actress in many adult films before retiring two years ago. The cause of death was a heroin overdose, but police are not treating the incident as suspicious.” She let the paper fall into her lap and stared blankly into the air. “Poor woman,” she said at last.

“
I thought you hated her,” Coilin remarked.

“
I did hate her. But that doesn’t matter anymore, does it.”

“
I guess not,” Hayden intervened, his own face stern at that news. “What does matter is getting Valmont. I still think we should go to the police.”

“
And I agree with you,” Coilin replied, “which a year ago I never thought I’d hear myself say. But you know that it won’t do much good.”

“
I don’t see why not,” Hayden grumbled. “This other way is madness.”

“
And I agree with that as well. Bloody Nora, I don’t think I’ve agreed so much with an Englishman since that slimy bastard Blair apologised for the Potato Famine.”

“
I think you’ll find he was born in Scotland,” Hayden growled.

“
Oh, that’s right. How could I forget? The grandson of a fecking Orangeman. That makes me feel so much better.”

“
Will you two shut up!” Karla hissed. “A woman is dead and this… pervert is still doing unspeakable things.” Her face had flushed with anger and she made an effort to control herself. “Uncle, you said that going to the police won’t help.”

Coilin slumped in his seat, ashamed of his bickering.
“They might arrest him, but they’ll never convict,” he grumbled.

“
But we have evidence!” Hayden exclaimed. “You’ve seen the video, haven’t you?”

“
As much as I could stomach. He never removes that weird hood he’s got on.”

“
So?” Karla was staring at her uncle intently. “We know it’s him.”

“
And how do you
know
it’s him?”

“
Well, he’s wearing his ring—the emerald one—for a start.”

“
I could wear that ring,” Coilin replied, “but it still wouldn’t make me the Marquis de fecking Valmont.”

“
There has to be some way to link him,” Hayden said, staring away into the window as looking for inspiration.

“
The way I see it,” Coilin began to say wearily, leaning forward and clasping his hands together, “the only person who could make a positive identification of that man, the kind of positive identification a jury
might
accept, is dead. And to be honest, she was never going to be much of a witness. I know I’d have made mincemeat of her in court. Look, I hate to say this, but the last purpose of the law in a case like this is to protect the innocent. Valmont is going to have lawyers crawling all over this, and they’re going to get him off scott free.”

“
That’s assuming he can afford the lawyers,” Karla said calmly. Hayden turned to face her and started to slowly shake his head.

“
No,” he said. “It can’t be done.”

She looked at him levelly.
“That’s not what you said before,” she replied.

“
I was angry, I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s impossible. Okay, okay, it’s not strictly speaking impossible, but it’s so bloody complicated it might as well be.”

“
I presume you two lovebirds are planning on telling me what this is all about at some point,” Coilin said. Hayden turned away, his eyes expressing his infuriation. Karla faced her uncle.

“
That video—which none of us wished we’d ever see—isn’t the silver bullet we hoped it would be. But it’s enough to start an investigation, but there’s more. If the police do their job—”

“
Which is a big if,” Coilin murmured.

“
If the police do their jobs, they’ll find that Valmont has connections with prostitution rings that involve underage girls, I’m sure of it.”

“
And his lawyers will be able to tie the case in knots forever. The evidence is too circumstantial.”

“
Which is why we have to strip him of his assets.”

“
Oh, yes, of course,” Coilin snorted. “Why didn’t I think of that? We just have to impoverish one of the richest men in the country. Piece of fecking cake. With cream. And jam on it. Lots of fecking jam. How in the name of all that’s good and holy do you propose to do that?”

Hayden let out a long sigh.
“Valmont’s not as secure as you think,” he said at last. “Sure, he’s rich, but he’s led one of the craziest lifestyles you’ve ever seen. His… tastes are expensive. He thinks nothing of losing five million at the tables, and he nearly bankrupted himself ten years ago.”

“
Ten years ago doesn’t help us today,” Coilin observed caustically.

“
No, but to make as much money as he needs, he’s taken some very risky investments. I mean, really risky. There are a lot of speculative derivatives in emerging markets that have made him rich but could collapse at any moment, credit default swaps, leveraging margin debts, that kind of thing.”

“
I’m going to pretend I know what you’re talking about, but go on. How do you know all this kind of stuff, anyway?”

“
His brother,” Karla interrupted. “He’s quite a financial wizard. He was the one who first put Hayden onto Valmont.”

“
So we’ve got that bastard to blame for all this, have we?”

Hayden looked pained.
“He has a talent for spotting gamblers. He knew that I needed money and…” He shrugged.

“
His original suggestion would have been better, if you’d listened to him,” Karla added.

“
Oh?” Coilin was both intrigued and confused.

With another sigh, Hayden realised that he was not going to be let off without an explanation.
“Valmont takes incredible risks—I mean, unbelievable ones. Some of these investments he’s got make Lehman Brothers look like a safe bet. He’s greedy, almost psychotically so—”

“
Definitely psychotic,” Karla murmured.

“
In any case, he pushes investors into taking gambles that you’d have thought would be impossible after the big crash, but which aren’t. People forget quickly, especially when there’s that much money at stake.”

“
And…?”

“
And plenty of his investments could be ready to fall. If people could be convinced to hold on when they should sell, the Marquis de Valmont could lose a lot of money. A
lot
of money.”

“
I don’t get it. How was this going to help you?”

Hayden grimaced.
“My brother would short sell, betting against the investments: as Valmont’s shares went down, we’d reap the rewards.”

“
What would you get out of this?” Coilin was still struggling to see the bigger picture. “Why was he going to help you? Brotherly love?”

“
Sibling rivalry, more likely,” Hayden muttered. “Valmont’s investors are greedy, and they’re blind to their greed, but in the end it’s not their money. My job was to keep Valmont occupied so that he wouldn’t know what was going on.”

“
Which is where I was to come in,” Karla said. “I’d be the bait so that Valmont’s attention would be elsewhere.”

“
But it was all too complicated. In the end, it just seemed easier to go for ten million. That way I wouldn’t have to give my brother anything either.”

“
Ah,” Coilin said, leaning back with his hands behind his head. “I do love how you English families look out for each other.”

“
Like I said, sibling rivalry.”

Coilin frowned.
“This sounds way too complicated.”