Unholy Ghost (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

Two hours later Jimmy stood by the kerb of the main road which passed the Gare de l'Est where any approaching car could clearly see him. Then his phone rang. It was Serge.

‘Hello, Jimmy. Where are you?'

‘I'm waiting for you at the Gare de l'Est. What's the matter can't you find your way here?'

‘Change of plan. Can you meet me at the Gare du Nord instead? It's not far from where I am now and I'm on foot.'

‘Sure, anything you want. I'll see you there in a few minutes.'

Jimmy put his phone away. Somewhere close by Serge was watching him to make sure he was alone, but it didn't matter. Let the bugger think he was on top of things. Let the bugger follow to make sure there was no one else tagging along.

Jimmy joined the early evening crowds heading home. He went up the Rue d'Alsace, across Rue Lafayette, and into the Rue Dunkerque. There he stopped as people poured past into the Gare du Nord behind him.

Serge appeared at his side.

‘Hello, Serge, why no car?'

‘I prefer it that way. Let's just be part of the crowds shall we? Come on.'

They turned and walked back down the Rue Dunkerque, crossed a road, and went into an RER station; Magenta. They joined the line at one of the ticket windows.

‘Where are we going?'

‘Somewhere I'm sure no one will recognise me. I don't want to be seen with you at the moment. I've decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea to listen to you in the first place and a bad idea to get involved after I had.'

Serge bought two tickets and Jimmy followed him until they came to a platform. There was a train waiting, already crowded. They got on and stood; neither could see any available seats.

‘Where are we headed?'

‘Out of town, to the suburbs.'

They stood in silence as more people boarded the train. It was the end of the working day with crowds of workers going home. When the doors closed and the train began to move the carriage was packed in the way that only happens in rugby scrums, subways, and commuter trains the world over. The train travelled quickly through central Paris on out into a landscape of grim suburban sprawl. At the first few stops a miracle occurred and more passengers got on. But the crowding began to ease as at the next few stations as more people got off than got on and after a few more stations they even got seats. A few stops later the pressure had thinned out considerably and at a place called Gagny sous Bois the train stopped and began to empty. Serge got up and Jimmy followed.

Outside the station it wasn't a pretty sight.

This was still Paris and it was still spring, but what Jimmy saw around him was another world, about as different as you could get from anything you might see in the brochures. It wasn't the Paris the tourists saw or would want to see. This was where Paris' immigrant community had settled, urban living on the edge, in every sense of that word. Rising up around them were tower blocks of monotonous, modern flats that had never been a pleasure to look at and now, dirty and in disrepair, were more than just the eyesore they had originally been. It was as if they had contracted a disease from which they were slowly and painfully dying. And beyond the main road they almost filled the skyline, they were everywhere. At street level there were shops, some boarded up, some open but with broken windows, some so busy that the goods, staff, and customers spilled out of the doors onto the street to blend in with the other rubbish which also seemed to be everywhere. This was high-rise, high-density living, and Jimmy guessed that the poverty, crime, and unemployment also came in high density.

Jimmy felt unsettled and he knew it showed. Serge had said he wanted to go somewhere he wouldn't be recognised, but most of the faces that streamed past them outside the station and those filling the street were black and brown. It didn't seem to be such a good place to choose for a couple of well-dressed, white-faced strangers to wander about in. Not unless one of the faces fitted, a face that would be recognised because it was a police face. This had to be somewhere Carpentier knew and was known. 

Carpentier seemed pleased with the effect the place had on Jimmy.

‘Not the Paris our visitors want to see, eh, Jimmy?'

‘No.'

‘We'll walk and you can tell me what it is you're thinking of doing when you get to Munich.'

‘Sure. Why not?'

Serge began to walk so Jimmy fell into step. If this place was his beat then these people wouldn't be foreigners, immigrants, North African or anything else to him. They'd be people trying to get on with their lives, mostly honest, but with enough of the other sort to keep more than one copper busy. No different really from the Irish in Kilburn where Jimmy had been born and had grown up. Where he'd become a copper.

They walked, and while they walked Jimmy talked.

‘The woman in Munich must be tied in to whoever killed the old Nazi. The best guess is they killed him to get at what they wanted through the daughter. But the Paris thing happens, the convent gets closed, and McBride gets involved and suddenly there's a problem for them, a new player. Then I turn up asking the daughter questions. They're not expecting me so I'm gone before they can do anything. But they do their homework and decide to gun McBride. Dead or not she's out of it, but they're not taking any chances so when someone else turns up asking the daughter questions they're ready. Your journalist throws himself under a train and their tame witness tells the police it's suicide. It's well planned, neat, and professional, just like with McBride. If I'm right the woman who stooged as their witness can tell me enough to get a line on who they are. I can also try to use what I know to scare Young Hitler's daughter to find out what they're after. Once I've got that I can do a deal with Heppert.'

‘A deal?'

‘I think she doesn't know who the other lot are, if I turn up enough I'll be able to help her find out. Also I'll know what she's after and maybe help her get it.'

‘Help her how?'

‘By giving her a better claimant than the two clowns she was going to put up for it.'

‘Are you sure yours is better?'

Jimmy snorted a laugh.

‘She can't be worse. No, she'll be better all right. My boss doesn't cock things up. If our woman isn't actually the real thing she'll be close enough to do the job properly.'

Serge stopped and stood looking into the window of a dingy café. It was busy. Several faces turned and looked at him and, having looked, quickly turned back to whatever they were doing. His face was known all right.

He turned to Jimmy who stood waiting.

‘You know where this woman is?'

‘No, but it's in a dossier in my boss's desk. Everything Heppert will need will be there for her.'

Serge walked on and Jimmy walked on with him but with the distinct feeling that he'd just been put on display, that Serge's casual pause in their walk had not been so very casual. Jimmy also felt that before they had gone very far a couple of those brown faces would come out from the café and take a slow walk themselves. He didn't look back, he didn't need to. 

‘And can you get your boss's dossier?'

‘Sure. I have a letter back at the hotel which gives me full access to her records. All I do is wave it at the girl on reception and go right on up.'

‘And in return for all this Heppert will give you what?'

‘Money, and lots of it. She's a corporation lawyer working for some outfit in the US and although she's up to paying a friendly copper to get me bounced out of Paris and maybe arranging for a local lawyer to get a small smacking she won't want to go up against anyone who goes in for multiple murder. She'll want my help all right and she'll be prepared to pay for it, pay well. I could finish up very well off and maybe I won't even need to kill anyone and can stay on the side of the angels.'

‘No one?'

‘No one that anyone will notice. See, nothing criminal or, at least, hardly criminal at all. A straight business proposition, or as straight as any business proposition ever is.'

They walked on. The place didn't get any better as you got away from the station, it stayed pretty much the same. Litter-strewn, run-down streets with shabby shops and lines of grey tower blocks behind them which seemed to taint the perfect blue of the sky. The people going home or doing the shopping looked run down as well, they had that tired, defeated air of poverty, that greyness which wasn't failure but was very close to it. The only exceptions were the young men who walked together or stood about in small groups, talking and laughing. That was youth, still believing in today and looking forward to tomorrow. Hope or stupidity? Jimmy thought probably both.

‘All right, Jimmy. Like you say there's nothing there that would bother me, if it all stays like you say it will.'

‘So how about the info on the woman in Munich?'

Serge slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

‘It's all there.' Jimmy took it and read it. ‘Satisfied?' Jimmy nodded and slipped the paper into his pocket. ‘Good. Now let's get away from this
pissoir
of a place to where we can have a drink.' They were by a narrow passage, no more than a back alley running at right angles to the buildings they had passed. ‘This way, it's quicker and the quickest way out of this dump is the best. Come on.' Serge led the way. Even though there was still bright sunshine in the street this back alley was a gloomy place of shadows, strewn with filth that smelled of decaying rubbish. ‘They are animals out here, Jimmy, animals. Look at all of this filth. They …'

Jimmy's fist hit him hard on the side of the head.

Serge staggered away but stayed upright and managed to turn so Jimmy hit him full on the face twice. The first punch knocked him back and the second sent him hard against the high, blank, concrete wall that was one side of the alley. Serge's head bounced off the wall and he sagged but remained upright. Jimmy stepped up and hit him hard under the heart. Serge gasped and folded and the gun he'd managed to get into his hand fell with a clatter to the floor. Jimmy bent down and picked it up. He stood up, turned looked back down the alley. The two dark-skinned men who had come in stood looking at him. Jimmy pointed the gun at them.

‘Fuck off or I'll kill you.'

They didn't need to understand English to know what he'd said, but they didn't move.

Serge was propped against the wall bending down holding his stomach, struggling to breathe. Jimmy went to his side and kicked out his legs from under him and Serge collapsed to the ground with a stifled cry. Jimmy kicked him hard in the face. It jerked his head back and bounced it once more hard against the wall. Serge slumped sideways, unconscious.

Jimmy stood away from him and began to walk towards the two men. They stood for a second then turned and ran off. Jimmy waited for a moment then turned and went back to Serge. He felt through his pockets until he found his mobile phone. He slipped it into his own pocket. Then he took out his handkerchief and gently rubbed down the gun, enough to smear any prints. He pulled up Serge's left arm, took his hand, and wrapped it around the butt of the pistol. Then he held the hand so the gun was touching Serge's temple and manoeuvred a finger onto the trigger and pressed. The shot rang out around the alley and Serge's head jerked sharply sideways. Jimmy let the hand fall, stood up, and waited. It was only seconds but to Jimmy it was a long time. No one came or looked into the alley so he walked across to some rubbish piled against a large bin and picked up a couple of half-soggy cardboard boxes. He went back to what was left of Serge, broke the boxes apart, and draped them over the body. He hunted round the rubbish and collected what he wanted and soon the body was pretty much hidden from view to any casual passer-by of the alley entrance. He stood up and waited. Still no one. The body would be found soon enough but not before he was on his way back to Paris. He walked back to the road, turned left, and began to re-trace his way to the station. There would be plenty of trains bringing the workers home which meant plenty of empty ones going back. He should be in his room at his hotel in almost no time at all.

He passed the café where Serge had let the two brown faces see their man; he didn't pause or look in. If Serge's friends were going to do anything it would have been done by now. He walked on. 

Shit, he thought, he'd left his ticket in Serge's pocket. Oh well, the police wouldn't have it down as suicide anyway. No one beats himself up before he shoots himself in the head, do they?

Jimmy arrived at the station, bought his ticket, and was soon on a train back. The carriage was empty so he took out Serge's phone and went through the address book, found the number he wanted, and made a call.

Chapter Twenty-five

Jimmy had his story all worked out by the time Nadine Heppert arrived at the bar in the Gare de l'Est station. She came to the table where he was waiting and sat down. Everything about her was impatient and dismissive. She refused anything to drink.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Ms Heppert.'

Jimmy had called her on Serge's phone and told her that Serge had a problem, that he was in trouble and it wasn't the sort of trouble you could discuss over the phone. Also he had a message from him for her.

‘Just give me the message, Mr Costello.'

Jimmy leaned forward and spoke distinctly but quietly.

‘Serge Carpentier is dead.'

That took the look of superiority off her face.

‘What?'

It was shock in her voice that made it too loud. The rush-hour was about finished and the bar wasn't busy, but nor was it empty.

‘Can we keep this quiet please, Ms Heppert? I chose a table where we could talk without being overheard but we will have to keep our voices down or go somewhere else.' She nodded. ‘You understand? Carpentier is dead.'

She looked at him half stupidly, half disbelievingly, but when she spoke she leaned forward and her voice was low.

‘Dead?'

‘Shot in the head in an alley at a place called Gagny sous Bois.'

The shocked stupidity stayed but the disbelief evaporated and although she managed to keep her voice low Jimmy noticed the tremor of fear.

‘Did the police tell you? Who told you? How do I know you're telling me the truth?'

‘No one told me and, believe me, I am telling the truth.'

‘How can I be sure?'

‘Because I shot him.'

Jimmy watched as she visibly deflated. Tears came into her eyes. It was as if he had just told her that her husband or child had been killed.

And then it hit him.

Oh my, God, they weren't just cronies in this scam. They were bloody lovers. The silly cow was sleeping with the bastard. Shit. The bugger swung both ways, Jules at home and Heppert on the side.

He had to get her out of the bar, away from anywhere public. He couldn't have her fall apart with Paris goggling at her. He stood up and went round to her chair and took her arm. She looked up at him, bewildered, as if he was a stranger. There were tears on her cheeks but she got up when Jimmy lifted her arm.

‘Come with me, we'll go somewhere quiet, private, where we can talk and I can get you a drink. Come on.'

And to his surprise she came.

He managed to get her across the road, into his hotel, and up to his room where he sat her on the bed.

‘Want a drink?'

She shook her head. She was getting a handkerchief out of her handbag.

Jimmy waited.

She found the hanky after some fumbling and wiped her eyes then looked at him.

‘He's really dead?'

Jimmy nodded.

‘And you shot him?'

‘Yes.'

She looked down at her hanky.

‘Why?'

‘He'd set me up. I had no choice.'

She looked at him again but now with a trace of hate in her eyes and a sneer in her voice.

‘Self-defence?'

‘No. Self-preservation. I killed him in cold blood before he could have me murdered.'

She looked down at her hands again. Jimmy couldn't make it out. She was crying for the death of a bloke who was presumably her lover and sitting in a hotel room talking to the man who'd killed him. He'd come across many strange reactions to sudden, violent death in his life but this was a new one and he wasn't sure how to handle it. He sat down on the bed beside her. She turned to him but the hate and the sneer had gone.

‘Why?'

‘Why what?'

‘Why did you kill him?'

‘I told you, he was …'

‘Yes but why? Why was he going to kill you?'

Jimmy could see she didn't doubt him. He'd told her Carpentier was going to kill him and she believed him, she didn't seem to need any convincing, so he began to tell her the story he'd prepared. It wasn't too far from the truth and he'd softened her up with the way he'd broken Carpentier's death to her. All things considered Jimmy felt she was ready to swallow his version without many questions.

‘He wanted to get on the inside of this thing that's going on, this Colmar estate thing. He knew there was a lot of money involved and he wanted a part of it. I showed him how to do it and as soon as I did that he wanted me out of the way so he arranged a little meeting with a couple of friends of his. Maybe the same two he hired for you, the ones who put Joubert in hospital.'

She didn't try to deny it.

‘I see.'

She sat on the bed looking at her hands. Jimmy decided it would be best to get her talking while she seemed willing.

‘Did you pay him to kick me out of Paris as well?'

She nodded.

‘We knew Joubert was acting for the nuns and when you turned up it seemed the simplest thing to do. I'd already arranged with Serge to have Joubert removed from the case.' Jimmy was surprised. Even in shock he hadn't expected her to unbutton so easily. She was, after all, a lawyer and here she was admitting to an almost total stranger counts of bribing a police officer and complicity in theft and an aggravated assault. Still, he thought, as I've just admitted to her what the police would certainly count as murder, maybe it all makes some sort of sense. She was looking at him again. ‘What now?'

The tears were gone now and so was the shock. The lover was gone, the lawyer was back and was at work. Jimmy changed his tone to suit her new mood.

‘Now you'll have to work with me.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘Yes. Carpentier was on the make and was a ruthless bastard. You two may have been lovers but he was …'

She managed a sort of laugh.

‘My God. You make it sound like a romance from a cheap novel. We weren't lovers, we had sex, magnificent, wonderful sex.' Jimmy's face must have shown he had no idea what she meant and she did the laugh again. ‘You simpleton, you stupid, naïve, innocent simpleton. You don't think love had anything to do with it. He was … oh, God, what does it matter now and what would be the point of trying to explain it to you?'

She almost spat the last words at him and somehow, he didn't understand how, Jimmy felt he deserved her contempt. In some ways he
was
innocent and naïve and, when it came to magnificent, wonderful sex that had nothing to do with love, he probably
was
a stupid simpleton. He stood up, she looked up at him, still with tear-streaked cheeks but also a sneering smile. He smacked her hard across the face. She fell sideways onto the bed and he reached down and pulled her back upright.

‘Now listen and listen well or I'll throw you over that fucking balcony.'

There was fear now in her eyes, real fear. That was good because he didn't have much time and certainly no time for any crap about sex, magnificent or otherwise.

‘I killed Carpentier because he was going to kill me. He was also going to take you for whatever he could get and he meant to get a shed-load. If you got in his way or wouldn't play along he'd have killed you and gone on to whoever would play along. He was a bastard, understand, a ruthless bastard and now he's dead and we're stuck with each other so let's not fuck about any more and do what has to be done. All right?'

The fear was almost gone. She was coming round, thank God. She nodded slowly.

‘All right.'

‘Sorry I had to hit you but we don't have much time. Gagny sous Bois didn't look like a place where people run for the cops too quickly but a dead body with a hole in the head will get noticed and reported, especially when they find it's a copper. The best thing to do is assume police already have the body now and any idea that it might have been suicide will have lasted as long as it took a detective to look at his face. We need to get things straight. OK?' She nodded again. ‘Carpentier told you about my boss, that she'd been shot?'

‘Yes.'

‘What else did he tell you?'

‘You had another claimant to the estate, a good one, maybe even the real one. He told me what you'd said about the marriage in Florida, how you thought it ruled out the brothers.'

‘And about the journalist?'

She shook her head.

‘No, he never mentioned any journalist.'

‘Right. You have to make a choice and you have to make it now.'

‘Or you'll throw me over the balcony?'

‘No. If we work together you have to be willing. We're no good to each other if we don't do this as a team.'

She thought about it, but only for a second.

‘So, what would you say were my choices?'

‘Go with me to Rome and vet our candidate, then go with me to Munich and help me find out who the opposition are.'

‘Or?'

‘Or go to the police and tell them I killed Serge and why I killed him.' She sat looking at him. Damn, the silly cow was thinking about it. ‘Of course if you go to the police you'll have to tell them the whole thing. They'll have to know what this is all …'

‘Shut up.'

Jimmy shut up and waited. When she spoke he realised he was wrong, she'd been thinking, but not about going to the police.

‘Can the police tie you to the killing?'

‘I doubt it. There were two witnesses …'

‘What?'

‘The two blokes he'd arranged to be there. Probably the ones who put Joubert in hospital, so they won't go to the police in a hurry. The police may eventually get some sort of description but it won't be any time soon. The only real connection between me and Carpentier will be from the airport, from the bloke in security who passed the message that I was back. If he sent it straight to Serge we're clear, if not, if it went through channels it'll surface and they'll have a name, my name.'

‘How long do you think we have?'

‘He's one of their own, they pull out all the stops, TV, papers, everything. We need to go now, tonight, and we need to go by train. No airports, it has to be train.'

‘Or car?'

‘No, cars are too easy to pick up. How many people knew about you and Serge?'

‘A few, not many.'

‘He said he had a boyfriend, a partner, Jules?'

‘Yes, but it wasn't exclusive. Jules only liked men, Serge liked men and women. I doubt Jules knows anything about me or would care if he did.'

‘If you left, now, would you be missed?'

‘I could send in something to the office, tell them I've had an urgent call in relation to this case, that it will take me out of town for a few days.'

‘And that won't get anyone thinking?'

‘No, the thing's under wraps, top priority from head office. I deal with it and only me and I answer to New York personally to the head of the firm. If I said I was going to Rome to kill the pope it wouldn't get anyone thinking, not out loud anyway, not if they wanted to keep their job.'

‘So, are we going to Rome to kill the pope?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good, you've made the right decision, Ms Heppert.'

‘Just one thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘You're doing this for your own reasons and now I know how far you'll go to get whatever it is you hope achieve, so I'll make something clear. Don't think for one minute I am prepared to help you except in so far as it furthers the interests of my firm. I will hand you over to the police the moment I think our interests have diverged so if you intend to kill me at any point out of your sense of self-preservation then you'd better do it now.'

‘Why?'

‘Because before I go with you to Rome I will make a full and clear deposition, framed to suit my own interests of course, of everything you have told me or I have learned from Serge. It will be deposited safely at my office with instructions to be handed to the police should anything untoward happen to me in the next few weeks.'

‘Head office in New York won't like it if does get handed to the police.'

‘As I'll be dead then head office can go and …'

And she used an expression the technicality of which escaped him, but was clearly derived from her experience of the magnificent and wonderful.

‘Fair enough. Our train leaves the Gare de Lyon at seven forty-two in the morning. It's the TGV to Milan. I've bought the tickets, I'll see you on the platform.'

She stood up. She was fine. All things considered she'd taken it well and come up smiling. She was all lawyer now, just like Jimmy wanted.

‘I'm glad I seem to be dealing with someone organised.'

Jimmy shrugged.

‘I guessed you'd be sensible that's all.'

‘Then I'm also glad I'm dealing with a good guesser.'

‘Seven forty-two. Does that give you enough time?'

‘I'll be there, Mr Costello, let's hope you're right about the police and you're there as well.'

‘Don't worry. I'll be there.'

She left the room and Jimmy went out onto the balcony and looked down into the street. After a few minutes he saw her come out of the hotel and cross the road. She was on her mobile. Jimmy went back into his room. If she was calling the police there was nothing he could do. He was packed and ready, all there was to do now was wait until it was time to get a taxi to the Gare de Lyon.

He thought about McBride's room at the hospital, all those tubes and gadgets working to keep her alive, if she was still alive. Well, one of the bastards down and more to go. He picked up his mobile and made a call. She was in the operating theatre. There had been a complication and further surgery was necessary. If she survived the surgery her chances were improved but first she had to survive the surgery. Jimmy put his phone down the spoke to the empty room.

‘Hang in there, God, I'm doing the best I can. Don't let her go now.'