The Confessor (22 page)

“My thoughts exactly,” Casagrande said. “Is our business concluded?”

“One more item, actually.” The cardinal told Casagrande about the reporter from
La Repubblica
who was investigating the Holy Father’s childhood. “Exposure of a Vatican deceit, even a harmless one, would not be a welcome development at this time. See if there’s something you can do to put this meddlesome reporter in his place.”

“I’ll work on it,” Casagrande said. “What did you say to the Holy Father?”

“I told him it might be helpful if he prepared a memorandum summarizing the unhappy details of his childhood.”

“How did he respond?”

“He agreed, but I don’t want to wait for him. I’d like you to pursue your own investigation. It’s important that we learn the truth before it’s printed in the pages of
La Repubblica
.”

“I’ll put a man on it right away.”

“Very well,” the cardinal said. “Now, I believe our business is concluded.”

“One of my men will be trailing you. At the right moment, the van will appear. It will take you back to the Vatican—unless you’d like to walk back to the Via Veneto. We could have a glass of
frascati
and watch Rome go by?”

The cardinal smiled, never an encouraging development. “Actually, Carlo, I prefer the view of Rome from the windows of the Apostolic Palace.”

With that, he turned and walked away. A moment later, he vanished into the darkness.

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
, Eric Lange crossed the English Channel on the Newhaven-to-Dieppe ferry. He parked his rented Peugeot in a public lot near the ferry terminal and walked to the Quai Henri IV for breakfast. In a café overlooking the harbor, he had brioche and
café au lait
and read the morning papers. There was no mention of the murder of British investigative journalist Peter Malone, nor had there been any news on the radio. Lange was quite certain the body had not yet been discovered. That would take place at approximately ten o’clock London time, when his research assistants arrived for work. The police, when they launched their investigation, would have no shortage of suspects. Malone had made many powerful enemies over the years. Any one of them would have been more than happy to end Malone’s life.

Lange ordered more brioche and another bowl of coffee. He found that he was in no hurry to leave. The long night of driving had left him drowsy, and the idea of spending the day traveling back to Zurich depressed him. He thought of Katrine, her secluded villa on the edge of a dense Norman forest, the pleasures that could be found in her enormous canopied bed.

He left a few euros on the table and walked along the quay to the
Poissonnerie,
Dieppe’s old covered fish market. He moved from stall to stall, carefully examining the catch, chatting easily with the fishmongers in perfect French. He selected a pair of lovely sea bass and an assortment of shellfish. Then he left the market and headed for the Grand Rue, Dieppe’s main shopping street. He bought bread from the
boulangerie
and several fresh farm cheeses from the
charcuterie
. His last stop was the
cave,
where he purchased a half-dozen bottles of wine and a Calvados, the famed apple brandy of Normandy.

He loaded the food into the backseat of the Peugeot and set out. The road hugged the edges of the cliffs, rising and falling with the contour of the coastline. Below lay a rocky beach. In the distance, a line of fishing boats was motoring in to port. He passed through a string of quaint fishing towns, devouring one of the baguettes while he drove. By the time he reached St-Valeryen-Caux, the car smelled strongly of shrimp and mussels.

A mile before St-Pierre, he turned onto a narrow local road and followed it inland through apple orchards and fields of flax. Just beyond the village of Valmont, he turned onto a narrow track lined with beech trees and followed it for a kilometer or so, until it dead-ended at a wooden gate. Beyond the gate stood a stone villa, concealed in the shadows of tall beech and elm. Katrine’s red jeep was parked in the gravel drive. She would still be asleep. Katrine rarely found a reason to get out of bed before noon.

Lange climbed out, opened the gate, then drove onto the grounds. Without knocking, he tried the front door and found it locked. He had two options: bang until Katrine woke up or begin his visit with a bit of fun. He chose the latter.

The villa was shaped like a
U
and surrounded by a tangled garden. In summer it was a riot of color. Now, in the last days of winter, it was somber green. Beyond the garden rose the outer edges of the forest. The trees were bare, and the limbs lay motionless in the still of the morning. In the center of the house was a stone courtyard. Lange picked his way through a minefield of broken flowerpots, careful to make no sound, and started trying the latches on each of the six sets of French doors. The fifth was unlocked.
Silly Katrine,
thought Lange. He would teach her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget.

He let himself inside and padded across the shadowed sitting room to the staircase, then climbed up to Katrine’s room. He peered inside. The curtains were drawn. Lange could see Katrine in the half-light, her hair strewn across the pillow, her bare shoulders poking from the top of a white duvet. She had the olive skin of a southerner and the blue eyes and blond hair of a Norman girl. The red highlights were a gift from a Breton grandmother, as was her explosive temper.

Lange eased forward, hand reaching for the spot beneath the blanket where her foot appeared to be. Just as he was about to seize her ankle, Katrine sat bolt-upright in bed, eyes wide, hands wrapped around a Browning nine-millimeter pistol. She squeezed off two quick shots, just as Lange had taught her. In the confines of the bedroom, the explosions sounded like cannon fire. Lange fell to the floor. The rounds sailed overhead, shattering the mirror in Katrine’s stunning two-hundred-year-old armoire.

“Don’t shoot, Katrine,” Lange said, laughing helplessly. “It’s me.”

“Stand up! Let me see you!”

Lange slowly got to his feet, hands in plain sight. Katrine switched on the bedside lamp and gave him a long, fiery look. Then she drew back her arm and threw the gun at his head. Lange ducked and the gun fell harmlessly onto the pile of glass shards.

“You fucking bastard! You’re lucky I didn’t blow your head off.”

“I wouldn’t have been the first.”

“I loved that mirror!”

“It was old.”

“It was an antique, you asshole!”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“I don’t want a new one—I want that one!”

“So we’ll get it fixed.”

“And how will I explain the bullet holes?”

Lange put his hand on his chin and made a show of thought. “Actually, that might be a problem.”

“Of course it’s a problem. Asshole!” She pulled the duvet over her breasts, as if aware of her nudity for the first time, and her anger at him began to soften.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

She gazed at his face for a moment. “You’ve killed again. I can see it in your eyes.”

Lange picked up the Browning, set the safety, and dropped the gun on the end of the bed. “I was working nearby,” he said. “I need a day or two of rest.”

“What makes you think you can drop in here whenever you please? I might have had another man here.”

“You might have, but the odds were in my favor. You see, I am aware that, with few exceptions, most men bore you to tears—intellectually and in that grand bed of yours. I am also aware that any man you bring here isn’t likely to last long. Therefore, I felt it was well worth the gamble.”

Katrine was trying desperately not to smile. “Why should I let you stay here?”

“Because I’ll cook for you.”

“Well, in that case, we should work up an appetite. Come to bed. It’s too early to get up.”

KATRINE BOUSSARD
was quite possibly the most dangerous woman in France. After earning degrees in literature and philosophy from the Sorbonne, she had joined the French left-wing extremist group
Action Directe
. While the political aims of the group may have fluctuated wildly, its tactics remained consistent. Throughout the eighties, it carried out a blood-soaked rampage of assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings that left scores dead and a nation terrorized. Thanks to the instruction she received from Eric Lange, Katrine Boussard was one of the group’s most accomplished killers. Lange had worked with her on two occasions: the 1985 assassination of a senior official in the French Ministry of Defense, and the 1986 assassination of a French auto executive. In each case, it was Katrine Boussard who applied the
coup de grace
to the victims.

Lange usually worked alone, but in the case of Katrine, he made an exception. She was a skilled operative, cold and pitiless in the field, and highly disciplined. She and Lange suffered from a similar affliction. Operational stress increased their desire for sex, and they had used each other’s bodies to great effect. They were not lovers—they had both seen too much to believe in something as pedestrian as love. They were more like skilled craftsmen in pursuit of perfection.

Katrine had been blessed with a body that provided her inordinate pleasure in any number of places. As always, she responded readily to Lange’s touch. Only when she was completely satiated did she turn her considerable skills upon Lange. She was a torturous lover, so in tune with Lange’s body that each time he was about to lose control, she released him and left him to suffer without absolution. When he could stand no more, Lange took matters into his own hands, grasping Katrine by the hips and thrusting himself inside her from behind. It was closer to conquest than he would have preferred, but it was exactly how Katrine had planned it. As Lange reached his climax, his head rolled back and he shouted like a madman at the ceiling. Katrine was looking over her shoulder at him, watching him with a look of deep satisfaction, for she had beaten him once again.

When it was over, she lay with her head on his chest and her hair strewn across his stomach. Lange looked out the French doors at the trees on the edge of the forest. A storm had moved in from the channel, and the trees were bent by the wind. Lange toyed with Katrine’s hair, but she did not stir. Because they had killed together, Lange could make love to her without inhibition and without the latent fear that he might reveal something of himself. He did not love Katrine, but he was fond of her. In fact, she was the only woman he truly cared for at all.

“I miss it so,” she murmured.

“What’s that, Katrine?”

“The fight.” She turned her face to him. “Now I sit here in Valmont, living on the trust fund of a father I despise, and wait to grow old. I don’t want to grow old. I want to fight.”

“We were foolish children. Now we’re wiser.”

“And you kill for anyone, as long as the price is right, of course.”

Lange put a finger on her lips. “I never had the benefit of a trust fund, Katrine.”

“Is that why you’re a professional assassin?”

“I have certain skills—skills that the marketplace demands.”

“You sound like such a proper capitalist.”

“Haven’t you heard? The capitalists won. The forces of good have been crushed beneath the heel of profit and greed. Now you can eat at McDonald’s and visit Euro Disney whenever you please. You’ve earned your quiet life and your beautiful villa. Sit back and enjoy the satisfaction of a noble defeat.”

“You’re such a hypocrite,” she said.

“I prefer to think of myself as a realist.”

“Who are you killing for?”

Men we once despised,
he thought. Then he said: “You know the rules, Katrine. Close your eyes.”

WHEN KATRINE
was asleep, Lange slipped from the bed, dressed quietly, and went outside. He opened the trunk of the Peugeot and removed Peter Malone’s lap-top computer, then tucked it beneath his coat and trotted back into the villa through the rain. Inside, he made a fire of apple wood and settled himself on the comfortable couch in Katrine’s sitting room. He lifted the computer’s cover, switched on the power, and waited for it to boot up. Under his agreement with Carlo Casagrande, Lange was obliged to deliver the computer and the other things he had taken from Malone’s office to a safe-deposit box in Zurich. While the computer was still in his possession, he had no qualms about taking a look for himself.