Third Voice (19 page)

And that’s where Olivia found the motive.

That’s where her theory crossed the finishing line.

Another scandal, particularly one at Silvergården, would be catastrophic for Albion. It could ruin the entire new multi-million deal.

Olivia leant back on her sofa and rubbed her eyes. She’d been leaning closer and closer to the screen. Now her eyes were really aching.

But it was worth it.

If the material on Bengt Sahlmann’s laptop really was about the scandals at Silvergården and was on its way to a journalist at
DN
, then that was a clear motive.

A clear motive to silence him and steal his laptop.

The world had witnessed far lesser murder motives.

So what to do now? I still don’t know what Sahlmann’s material was about. It could be something completely different. It could have been about the missing stash of drugs at Customs and Excise.

And then Mette appeared.

Not literally, but in her thoughts. Should she call Mette and tell her what she was thinking? She knew that Mette very much respected her ‘intuition’. But as things were now? ‘Who do you think you bloody are?’ The words still stung.

She wasn’t going to call Mette.

Not yet.

Not before she knew what Sahlmann’s material was about.

She blew out the candles.

Abbas woke up long before Stilton, for once. It was only half past three and his mouth was all furry. He showered, the whole procedure, and left the hotel. He wandered around for hours, with heavy clouds in the sky, and watched the city come to life. He watched bakeries getting ready for a new day of business, vegetable stalls rolling up to the market near the port, fishing boats coming in to deliver the night’s catch, and tired waiters putting out the first tables. But he didn’t really see any of it. He was deep in thought. He knew what he had to do and he hated it. But there was no other way right now. He had to move forward.

He had to find out more.

So when the time had come he went into the shop, a porn shop. The man behind the till was quite young. That bothered Abbas. But he could go to more such shops – there were plenty of them in the area where he’d ended up.

‘Le Taureau?’

‘Yes.’

‘Never heard of him.’

So Abbas went to the next shop. There was an older man who had considerably more filth on his conscience. He’d been running the shop for fifteen years.

‘What? You mean a porn actor?’

‘I don’t know, but he’s involved in making porn films.’

‘Sorry, no one I know of, but there are quite a few people involved in this business.’

The man moved towards the shelves behind Abbas, stuffed full of porn, one of the world’s most lucrative industries.

‘Why not look to see if you can find something?’

Abbas started perusing the DVDs, hundreds of them. There was hardly any difference between the covers. Naked women, naked genitals, dead eyes. But he carried on looking. He knew what he might find and hoped that he wouldn’t.

But he did.

After about fifteen minutes.

A porn film with a cover like all the others, but one clear difference.

The woman on the cover was Samira.

Abbas looked on the back of the DVD. There was a small picture of an oiled man, but no names.

‘Have you seen this one?’ he asked the man behind the till.

‘No, I don’t like porn. I mainly watch stuff like Buñuel, Haneke and Kurosawa.’

Abbas bought the film.

Stilton sat on the hotel terrace and wondered where Abbas was. No note. Nothing on his mobile. He’d called but there was no answer. He looked out across the bay and sipped his coffee. It was drizzling, or rather sprinkling. Light, warm sprinkling rain. Stilton didn’t take any notice of it. He felt that he was running out of steam and wondered how much longer the trip would last. He’d fulfilled his primary task – making contact with Jean-Baptiste. He hoped that the large policeman would get back to him soon.

But what then?

How long would he have to stay here looking for The Bull? A person they didn’t even know existed.

Abbas would stay for a long time, he knew that. And he understood it. This was Abbas’s major trauma. But how long did Abbas want him to stay? He could probably go home as soon as he’d been in touch with Jean-Baptiste, if it wasn’t for one thing.

Philippe Martin.

And what Abbas had done to him.

Which made Abbas fair game here.

Stilton had come to know that much about this city – Jean-Baptiste had told him enough about it. And he knew that Jean-Baptiste would not be keeping an eye out for Abbas, particularly not after the knife attack on Martin.

So?

A guardian angel?

Was he going to stay as some kind of bodyguard for Abbas?

‘Come!’

Stilton turned his head. Abbas was on his way to their ‘suite’ with a DVD player under his arm. The hotel porter had managed to get hold of one in exchange for some cash. Stilton got up and followed him.

Abbas rigged up the DVD player with the rather outdated television in the room. All this in complete silence. Stilton sat on the edge of the bed.

He sensed what it was about.

When Abbas pulled out the DVD from his jacket it was confirmed.

‘It’s a film with Samira,’ Abbas said.

He put the DVD in and sat on a chair next to Stilton, holding on to the remote control. He didn’t turn it on directly. First he took off his shoes and socks. His feet weren’t sweating at all even though he’d been walking around for hours. Stilton sat and waited.

Quite a while.

‘Do you really want to see this?’ Stilton finally asked him.

‘No.’

Abbas put on the film.

It was a porn film just like most other porn films. A pokey room, harsh lighting, poor sound. A woman egging a man on, giving him a blow job, playing with herself, before the man finally starts fucking her, in this case from behind against an armchair.

It was a routine.

Or it would have been if it hadn’t been for the beautiful Moroccan woman bending over the armchair.

Samira.

Suddenly Abbas stopped the film and wound back a bit. The camera had zoomed in on Samira’s face. That’s when he saw
it. The thin gold necklace. A necklace that he’d once given her at the circus, secretly. Now she was wearing it. He put the film back on. The act continued.

Stilton found it quite uncomfortable to watch, considering the circumstances. What was most uncomfortable is that he got a hard-on, a biological reflex that he couldn’t control. He held his hands over his groin so that Abbas wouldn’t see.

Suddenly Abbas paused the film again, during a close up of the naked man: robust build, oiled, quite muscular, dark hair.

‘Do you think that’s The Bull?’

‘No idea.’

Abbas turned it off. The screen went black. Stilton felt his erection soften. He looked at Abbas and guessed what was going on in his head.

Then Stilton’s mobile rang. He looked at it.

‘It’s Jean-Baptiste.’

‘Can you take the call out there?’

‘Sure.’

Stilton got up from the bed and left the room. When the door slammed shut, Abbas went over to the window alcove, Stilton’s ‘bedroom’. He pulled back the curtain and looked out over the Mediterranean. He stood completely still and let his eyes close. A couple of minutes later, he raised one hand and slowly moved it around in front of him, back and forth, as though he was stroking an invisible shoulder.

All three of them met up at the Beau Rivage bar down in the port. Jean-Baptiste had been the one to suggest it. He was there on time, unlike Stilton and Abbas. Stilton had waited out in the hotel corridor after the conversation with Jean-Baptiste. He felt that Abbas wanted to be in the room alone. More than an hour passed before he came out. And by then they were almost half an hour late already, but Stilton had called to let Jean-Baptiste know. They scurried towards the bar without noticing the black car pulling over to the pavement just behind them.

Jean-Baptiste stood up as they walked in. He had chosen a table in the corner of the outdoor seating area, protected by a small hedge. It had stopped drizzling and the sun had almost reached the table. As Abbas approached, Jean-Baptise gave him a big hug and a smile.

‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘And it’s ended up on you.’

Both of them smiled and sat down.

‘Le Taureau,’ said Abbas.

He cut straight to the chase.

‘Do you know the name?’

‘The Bull? As the name of what?’

‘Of the man who may have murdered Samira Villon.’

Jean-Baptiste peered at Stilton. He thought that he was the one who was going to provide information. Stilton gestured with his hand, discreetly.

‘No,’ said Jean-Baptiste, ‘I’ve never heard that name. The Bull you say?’

‘Yes.’

Abbas pulled out the porn film he’d bought and pointed at the picture of the oiled man.

‘Could that be him?’

‘That’s Jacques Messon.’

‘Maybe he was known as The Bull?’

‘It’s possible, but he was shot dead about six months ago outside a bar.’

Abbas looked at the cover of the DVD.

‘But I can ask around,’ Jean-Baptiste said.

‘Thank you. Have you got some information?’

Given that Abbas didn’t know Jean-Baptiste very well he was rather forward. But the policeman didn’t react, he knew very well what it was about.

So Jean-Baptiste spent a while updating them how far the French investigation had got. He didn’t reveal too much internal information, just enough for them to get an idea of the status
quo – how she had gone missing during a film shoot, the location of which remained unknown. It could have been a hotel room, a flat, or a house in the countryside – they had no idea. And there was no information about who’d been there at the time either.

And so it went on.

It wasn’t very impressive.

‘Sadly a dead porn actress isn’t really at the top of the agenda right now. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There have been a great deal of internal rumblings of late.’

Stilton saw that Abbas was gritting his teeth.

‘So you have no potential suspect?’ Stilton asked.

‘Not at the moment.’

‘Who told you about the film shoot? That it had taken place?’

‘I can’t tell you that unfortunately.’

‘Did she have drugs in her system?’ Abbas asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What did she die of?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Yes.’

Jean-Baptiste and Stilton exchanged looks again, as though the large policeman was wondering whether Abbas could take this. Stilton nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘She was subjected to serious abuse and then she was strangled. That was the cause of death. Then she was cut up into six pieces and buried in a nature reserve.’

‘We’ve been there,’ Abbas said.

As though the horrific details had passed him by.

They hadn’t, Stilton knew that.

‘And you have no idea about a possible motive?’ Abbas said.

‘No.’

‘Clues? DNA? Was there semen inside her?’

‘On her body. But that’s probably not that strange.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, she was murdered during or after the making of a porn film, I just said that.’

Stilton noted that Jean-Baptiste’s tone had changed slightly. Abbas probably shouldn’t push this too far. But he continued: ‘Has the DNA been matched?’

‘Abbas.’

‘Yes.’

Jean-Baptiste leant over towards the frustrated man.

‘I’ve told you what I can. And I’ve done so because Tom asked me to. Don’t push me further.’

Abbas looked at Jean-Baptiste and understood that he needed to back down.

‘But, that said, we have questioned her agent,’ Jean-Baptiste said and leant back again. ‘Philippe Martin. Have you met him?’

Here we go, Stilton thought.

‘Only briefly,’ he said.

‘There’s a rumour flying around that he had his eye gashed with a knife yesterday.’

‘Oh really?’

Jean-Baptiste looked at Abbas.

‘And you had nothing to do with it?’

‘Is that what he’s saying?’

‘I don’t know. It was just a question.’

‘I don’t do things like that any more.’

‘Good, because if you did, you probably ought to leave Marseille quick smart.’

‘Because?’

‘Because the man who now only has one eye knows more hitmen in this town than there are flies on a cowpat.’

Abbas shrugged his shoulders, stood up and picked up a few sachets of sugar from the table.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said and left.

When he was out of earshot, Jean-Baptiste looked at Stilton.

‘Were you there at Martin’s?’

‘Yes. Are you going to arrest me?’

‘No, no charge has been made.’

‘Just rumours.’

Jean-Baptiste nodded gently. Stilton was honest. He’d probably done what he could to control the situation. Without Stilton there would probably have been a corpse in the room above the bar near Gare Saint-Charles, something that would have made things much worse. Jean-Baptiste followed that line of reasoning.

‘Martin is an arsehole,’ he said.

‘Yeah, we got that impression too.’

‘But that thing about the hitmen is true. Martin is looking for revenge. I’d prefer it if you didn’t have to fish Abbas out of the port.’

‘Me too, but you know what he’s like. I can’t force him to leave.’

‘No,’ Jean-Baptiste said, rolling his bottle of water between his hands. ‘We’ll just have to hope for the best.’

‘Yes.’

Jean-Baptiste got up. When Stilton reached out his hand, Stilton asked: ‘How well do you know Claudette?’

‘Well. She worked with us for many years, at the office. Now she’s a bit of a drifter.’

‘In what way?’

‘She doesn’t really know what she wants to do. I think she wants to paint. Did you hook up?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s a good girl.’

They shook hands and Jean-Baptiste starting walking around the hedge. Stilton realised that Jean-Baptiste hadn’t smoked, not a single cigarette. Even though he’d said he chose this bar because you could smoke in there.

‘An old colleague called for you.’ Jean-Baptiste had stopped outside the hedge and leant over towards him.

‘For me?’

‘Mette Olsäter.’

‘What did she want?’

‘She wanted to know what you’re doing down here.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I don’t feel comfortable lying, particularly not to people I respect, like Olsäter.’

‘So?’

‘I said it was about a murder down here and that Abbas knew the victim. Something like that.’

‘Was she satisfied with that?’

‘No.’

‘What else did you say?’

‘There wasn’t much more to say. Bye.’

The large policeman crossed the road without looking for cars. Quite a few of them beeped him. Stilton remained seated. His gaze wandered down along the hedge – a large brown rat was busy making its way through the thicket.

He felt it was time to go home.

When Stilton left the bar, he was entirely consumed by the meeting with Jean-Baptiste. It hadn’t resulted in much more, in terms of concrete facts, than they already knew. But they now knew that the perpetrator was still unknown, and that they didn’t even have a suspect.

So far.

He walked past a black car and carried on towards the hotel. Two eyes followed him until he turned the corner, two eyes that belonged to a man with very coarse hands. He’d been sitting in the car the whole time while they had the meeting in the bar. And he’d established something rather disagreeable.