Unholy Ghost (15 page)

‘And where is it you think I'm going?'

But Jimmy was finished with the game. He delivered the message like the Comedian had told him. Now he wanted to get on.

‘Back to McBride's office to get the address where we can find our candidate, then we go and see her, find out if she's any good. That'll be for you to decide.'

‘And if she is any good?'

‘Then to Munich to find out who the witness woman is and see if, through her, we can get a line on the opposition. Locating the opposition, that's where I think you're going and that's when things will start to turn nasty if they're going to. But it's just my opinion. You might be going straight back to Paris and tell them that I confessed to murdering Serge Carpentier and try to wash your hands of this whole mess. That would be the safe thing to do.'

The smile came back, but not the same one. This was a predatory sort of smile, like a sexy young lioness might give a tired old antelope who wasn't so quick any more. It said she wanted him, but not for any good reason.

‘You're cute, you know that? Innocent cute. Oh, you're a tough guy all right and that's what makes it interesting. A tough innocent. That's a big turn on, you know that?'

Jimmy looked at his watch. Two suits had arrived and were ordering coffee to take out.

‘It's not something I think about at ten fifty in the morning. Are we going back to Scolari or are you going to seduce me in here, take my body by force on the table?'

She laughed out loud and the suits at the counter turned and looked at them.

‘Damn you, Costello, I hate men who can make me laugh.' She got up. ‘Come on, let's go and get what we came here for.'

Jimmy got up.

‘Are we still together on this?'

‘For now, until I decide otherwise.'

‘And do I report to the Dane like he asked?'

‘Sure, only you check your report with me first, OK?'

‘Any way you like it.'

She stopped and gave him the look again.

‘Oh you'd be surprised at the way I like it.'

‘No I wouldn't, I'd be shocked and embarrassed.'

And she laughed out loud again as they left.

‘Damn you, Costello, damn and blast you. You make that plastic table-top back there look almost tempting.'

Was she flirting with him, laughing at him, or getting ready to squelch him like she'd done to Scolari? Jimmy decided it didn't matter because she had made another mistake about him. He wasn't a tough guy, not any more, if he'd ever been. When he'd put that gun to Serge's head his hand was shaking so much he'd have missed if the barrel hadn't been touching. And when he stood up and looked at the two blokes in the alley he'd been about ready to throw up and piss his pants at the same time he was so scared. She thought he'd kill again, easily, kill her if it was necessary. She admired that in him, that ruthlessness. The problem was, it wasn't there, she was wide of the mark again. He couldn't do to her what he'd done to Serge even though, with her, he was damned sure it wouldn't be any mistake.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Nadine paid for the tickets so they travelled business class and at Genoa airport she hired an Alfa Romeo sports model. She gave Jimmy the map, he would navigate, she would drive. At first he was worried that she'd try to kill them both by seeing what the car could do once they'd cleared the clutter of city traffic, but she drove steadily and well as they travelled down into Liguria. The place they were looking for was on the coast, well away from anywhere. The nearest town was La Spezia, which was also a big naval base, so the road from Genoa was fine. Once past La Spezia they left the main highway and travelled along winding country roads through fields and woodland and began to get views of the blue Mediterranean beyond the fields and trees. Jimmy checked the map and told Nadine to take the next left turn and then take it easy. She turned and drove slowly along the road until Jimmy told her to stop beside a five-barred gate. On the gate was a big sign in Italian. Jimmy didn't need to have it interpreted – ‘Keep Out. Strictly Private'.

Nadine punched the horn a couple of times and an old man came out from a small cottage that stood near the gate behind the flimsy wire fence that had run the length of the road. He spoke no English but Nadine soon made him understand that they were expected and they were coming in. He opened the gate and watched them drive through. Jimmy looked back as the man slowly closed the gate. An old woman came out of the cottage wiping her hands on her apron and looked at the car as it travelled away up the concrete road. The road cut through a big field that had something small and green growing in it. It might be Keep Out and Strictly Private but if the old couple and the wire fence were an example of the security then it would keep out rabbits perhaps, but not anything more aggressive or determined.  They drove along the concrete road towards a wood. Once among the trees they came to a gate. This time it was a real gate and it was set in a steel fence which was three meters high. Here, nicely out of sight among the trees, was where the serious security began. At the gate Jimmy got out and went to a box set at about head level. He pressed the button. A voice answered in Italian.

‘I'm sorry, I don't speak Italian. I …'

‘Is that Mr Costello?'

‘Yes.'

‘Very well. Return to your car please.'

Jimmy returned to the car and as he did so the gates quietly swung open. Nadine drove the car on and the gates noiselessly swung closed behind them. They entered a well-maintained, park-like place which, though apparently empty, gave Jimmy the distinct impression that they were being watched. They drove on without seeing anyone until they came to a T-junction beyond which were six big houses, set well apart, surrounded by well-kept gardens. Beyond the houses was a dark strip of woods, fir trees through which you could just make out the blue of the sea. Jimmy looked at two small boards set on either side of the T. They both had numbers on.

‘We go left.'

They drove on slowly until they came to the drive of the last house.

‘This is it.'

Nadine turned and they drove up the gravel drive to the front door. They got out of the car and the front door opened.

It was a youngish, rather pretty woman. Certainly not anything like the Veronique Colmar of the dossier.

‘Welcome.'

Nadine prepared to go into her act.

‘We've come …'

‘I know why you are here. Please come in.' She led them across the hall to a door, opened it and stood to one side. ‘Please wait in here.'

They went in and the door closed behind them. It was a big living room, elegant in decoration and design. The furniture, however, what there was of it, looked cheap and practical and they'd been sitting in the car long enough for neither of them to be attracted by the hard, upright chairs. They waited until the door opened and the pretty young woman came into the room followed by another woman.

Veronique Colmar did ample justice to her photo. Her hair was still cut in the same way but was lighter because of more grey in it. She still wore glasses. The frames were modern but they made no difference to the overall effect which might best be described as a sort of super-drab. She was wearing a cardigan, plain blue blouse, tweed skirt, and thick shoes. But the overriding impression she had on Jimmy was of a woman with a sort of trampled air about her. It was as if a life spent having people walk over her had led her to expect nothing more than to be used as a doormat. She came straight to the middle of the room and stood looking at the floor until the pretty young woman left and had closed the door behind her. Then she raised her head and looked at them. Nadine was taking her in, the clothes, the figure, the general awfulness of her, but Jimmy was looking at her eyes. Clothes only told you what someone wanted you to know. With Nadine it was, “look how smart and successful I am, how much better than you”. With Veronique someone was saying, “this is a failure, a nobody” but Jimmy thought he saw a look flit through Veronique's eyes as she, in her turn, looked at Nadine. It was a certain slyness, as if she was quietly laughing inside herself because she had a secret which gave her an edge, something you didn't know about. The look was there, then it was gone, and Veronique's eyes went down to the carpet as she waited patiently to be walked on yet again.

Professor McBride had been very careful with Veronique. She had hidden her away in a remote, lay spiritual house run by one of those Catholic Church movements that spring up. The sort that hold out the promise of re-igniting pious passion in the faithful, flourish for a while, then slowly merge into the general melting-pot of the Catholic Church's life.

The house was one of six which made up a private and exclusive estate, each different, but not so very different. They were all substantial affairs and all spoke of wealth and comfort of a high order. They all stood well apart from each other but there were no walls creating boundaries. This was a collective, here no one was could be seen to be better off than their neighbour. Behind the high security fence in the wood all were equals in their wealth. Behind the houses, beyond the narrow pine wood, was a long, empty, sandy beach whose white sand sloped down to be gently lapped by the blue sea of the Gulf of La Spezia. Genoa was eighty kilometres away to the west and Milan one hundred and sixty to the north. In those two ancient and wealthy cities lived the owners of these houses. The men came for a few short weeks in summer, their wives and children stayed for a longer period, especially those from Milan where, being well inland, the annual heat of the summer sun was regarded as a vulgar intrusion to be avoided by the better element of society. The one which housed the lay community had once been the summer retreat of a prominent Catholic Milanese banker who, at the age of sixty-two, ran off with his twenty-three-year-old secretary. He had taken with him a great deal of the bank's money, only to finish up committing suicide after he had killed his pretty young mistress and her secret lover when he'd found them in bed together.

The banker, when still a pillar of both society and Church had, of course, made sure that his property was in the name of his wife while the bulk of his personal wealth was carefully salted away in foreign accounts where the tax people would never get a sniff of it so, although his wife lost a husband, that was about all she lost. The summer retreat had been the banker and his secretary's love nest so the wife decided to dispose of it in such a way that distanced herself, in the eyes of her fellow Milanese Catholics, from her husband's spectacular fall from grace. Having removed anything portable of any value she donated it to the latest popular Church movement. This generous act of Christian charity was very much appreciated by the lay movement and by the Church but loathed by the owners of the other five houses, which is exactly why she had done it. It was the perfect place to keep a valuable but delicate commodity like Veronique Colmar.

Nadine began. It wasn't going to be difficult, she could see that at once.

‘Do you know who we are?'

Veronique looked up and nodded.

‘You are from the person who sent me here.'

‘Do you know who that person is?'

Veronique shrugged.

‘A person. She had me sent here.'

‘Do you know why we have come?' Veronique slowly shook her head and her eyes went to the carpet. ‘We want to talk to you. We want to ask you about your mother. When was the last time you saw your mother?' Veronique studied the carpet in silence. ‘What can you tell us about your mother?' No response. ‘We have questions, Veronique, it is important that you co-operate. You know you must co-operate? We have come a long way to ask these questions.' Still no response.

Nadine was good in her world but this was Veronique's world and stubborn silence is not so easy to get round in a hurry, not without some leverage, like pain or fear. And they
were
in a hurry. They were due to fly back to Rome that evening. ‘Veronique. Look at me. Will you look at me? We have questions …'

Jimmy stepped forward.

‘Could we go onto the beach, Veronique? I would like to see the sea.'

Veronique looked up at him and the look flitted through again.

‘The sea is nice.'

‘Will you take us?'

She hesitated for only a second.

‘Yes.'

‘And while I look at the sea could you tell us about your mother?'

This time the hesitation was longer and the eyes went back to the carpet. Nadine was about to say something but Jimmy shot her a look that kept her words unspoken. Veronique's eyes came up.

‘I can't tell you much.'

Jimmy didn't make the mistake of trying to smile.

‘Only what you want to tell, nothing more. Then we'll go away.'

Veronique turned and went to one of the French windows that led out down a few steps into the garden.

‘It's through the trees.' She looked at Nadine's feet. ‘Your shoes are not suitable.'

Nadine looked at Jimmy.

‘That's all right. She likes walking barefoot in the sand.'

Nadine shot him a poisonous look while Veronique thought about it, then opened the door.

‘It's this way.'

Chapter Thirty

Nadine and Veronique walked together along the beach, talking. Jimmy was a few paces behind them. Veronique had kept on her cardigan despite the day being pleasantly warm. Nadine was barefoot and had a pair of flimsy, strapped shoes dangling from her hand. She had on a white sleeveless dress belted at the middle. They looked an odd pair.

‘The more I think about it the more it seems that I never really knew my mother. I remember her, but now it all seems so very vague, as if we were strangers who met for a time then parted.' She shot a worried glance at Nadine. ‘That must be wrong, mustn't it?'

‘Wrong?'

‘A sin. Not to remember your mother means not to love your mother. It means I never loved my mother. That means I was selfish, thought only of myself. That was a sin. I was sinful and ungrateful …'

Nadine cut in.

‘There was no other family.'

‘No, no one but Mother and me.'

‘No father?'

‘Not that I remember and if there was she never mentioned him.'

‘You didn't ask?'

‘No, children take those things for granted I suppose. When I was little we lived in Saigon, that's where I was born.'

‘When would that be?'

‘In 1965. I have no idea how long my mother lived there before I was born.'

‘What was it like?'

‘I think I was happy, I'm not sure. It's hard to remember. I remember the rain when the monsoons came. I remember I loved watching the rain come pouring down, bouncing about and splashing as if it was dancing for me. But that was selfish too, I loved the rain but for the poor people it was …'

Nadine got her back on track.

‘Where did you go to school?'

‘With the sisters. Mother said I must have a good education like she had, a good Catholic education.'

It was Jimmy who asked the question this time.

‘Your mother was a Catholic?'

Veronique turned to answer the question but they all kept walking.

‘A sort of Catholic. She said she was a Catholic, but never seemed to do anything about it. I never remember us going to Mass together but she often sent me to Sunday Mass with neighbours.'

‘But she never went?'

‘Not that I remember, but I do remember what my mother told me when I began with the sisters,' and she spoke as if making a well-learned recitation, “Try to have a vocation, Veronique, try hard, it will give you a safe place to live your life. See if God will look after you.” Even though I was very young, not more than five, her words seemed odd to me. Once I got used to the sisters I told them what Mother had said. They said it was good advice, that I should pray for God to give me a vocation. If I had a vocation God would look after me like Mother said.'

Suddenly Veronique hung her head and stopped. Then she put her face in her hands and started mumbling.

Nadine looked back at Jimmy who shrugged. They all three stood and waited while the mumbling went on. After a short while Veronique slowly removed her hands and made the sign of the cross.

‘I didn't pray hard enough, I never accepted the vocation God had ready for me. I sinned. I thought of boys and dresses and music when I should have been praying. I should have …'

Nadine wasn't interested in what Veronique should have.

‘What else do you remember about your mother? Did she have friends?'

They began walking again.

‘Mother mixed with all sorts, Vietnamese, Americans, French. She always seemed to be having a good time. I was never with her when she went out with her friends and if they came to the house I was sent round to a neighbour, but I always got the impression she was having a good time, that she was happy, and of course she was away a lot.'

‘Away?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where?'

‘I don't know, just away.'

‘Who looked after you?'

Jimmy asked the question because it would never occur to Nadine.

‘Neighbours, friends. When Mother was away I stayed in their houses. They were very kind. I was very happy when I went to stay with them. When Mother was at home and we were together I was lonely. When she went away I could play with my friends.'

Once again the talk had slipped away from what Nadine was interested in.

‘Did you have plenty of money?'

‘I think so. We had a nice apartment in a good part of the town but no servants. I don't know why. Most of the Europeans who lived round us had servants.'

‘What did she do, what was her work?'

‘Mother always had money but never seemed to have a job, not one that I could remember. She said she was a freelance journalist. I didn't know then what that was. All I knew was that it took her away from home a great deal.'

‘And what happened?'

‘Happened?'

‘In the end. You left Saigon at some point I guess. It wasn't a healthy place around that time.'

‘No, there were the bombs and there was always talk of fighting …'

‘So how did you both get out?'

‘We didn't, at least Mother didn't.'

‘Tell us about how you got out.'

‘There was a lot of noise, I remember that. A lot of people moving. I was with a neighbour but she got a phone call and said she had to take me back to our apartment. When we got there she said she had to leave me, I didn't know why so I waited. My mother was away. People were saying that the Americans were leaving. That seemed to worry them. I didn't know what it was all about so I waited. Then a man came, an American, and said he was a friend of my mother, that she had sent him to bring me to her. He took me in a car to a place with American soldiers and crowds of Vietnamese people all shouting and trying to get in. A place with big gates. I was frightened but he found a way in, I don't remember how. He took me into a big building and we went up to the roof. He gave me to a woman who was in a helicopter at the top the building. I didn't know the woman, she was Vietnamese. The helicopter took us all to a ship, a very big ship with a big flat deck that the helicopter landed on. Then we went down into the ship. There were lots of people. I went with the woman and we found a space to sit so we sat. I went to sleep, I remember that, and when I woke everyone was sitting. We ate and slept and, well, we lived like that. I couldn't tell whether it was night or day so I don't know how long we were there. Then I was taken off the ship somewhere and given to another woman, an American who wore a uniform. I was put with others and we ate and slept and then we were moved on, first in another ship and then on a plane. I was handed on. I felt like a parcel, a parcel being sent to my mother by friends. Eventually I arrived in America. I was looked after by some nurses and slept in a real bed with sheets in what I think must have been a hospital. From there I was sent to a Catholic orphanage. One day a man came and told me that my mother was dead.'

Veronique stopped and put her face in her hands and began mumbling again. Nadine turned back at Jimmy, her look full of impatience.

‘Leave her. She's praying.'

‘For God's sake, I need to get this done.'

‘Let her pray. She'll get going again when she's ready. She's doing well. It all sounds right to me, but what do I know?'

‘It sounds right to me as well, but I know shit about all that Vietnam stuff.'

Veronique surfaced again and took it up where she'd left off.

‘The man who came said Mother had died in the fall of Saigon. He gave me some papers. He said that they were the papers that had belonged to my mother.'

‘What sort of papers.'

‘My birth and baptism certificates, I'd never seen them before. Some other legal-looking papers. But the name, the surname on the papers was wrong, it wasn't one I recognised.'

‘What was the name?'

‘Bailey.'

‘What was your mother's name? The one you knew.'

‘Colmar, her name was Thèrése Colmar. The name on the papers was Thèrése Bailey. The man who brought the papers explained that Bailey was my mother's legal name – she had been married. They had split up but not divorced. The name my mother had used was her maiden name. He told me that my father was also dead, a US marine officer killed in action in Vietnam, but he had left a will and had left some money to me. After that I was moved from the orphanage to a Catholic boarding school in New YorkState where I used my new name and began a new life. It was run by sisters again but I didn't pray hard enough for a vocation. I began to think about other things, sinful things so God took away the vocation he had for me. I failed him and my mother and all the sisters who had tried to help.'

‘And you stayed at the school?'

Veronique nodded.

‘I stayed until I was sixteen.'

‘Then you left? What did you do?'

‘I didn't exactly leave. I was sort of taken away.'

‘Taken away how?'

‘I became ill, I heard voices, had memories, said strange things that came into my head. People came to talk to me and I was taken away and spent a lot of time in hospitals. God wouldn't look after me, I had failed him and turned away from him, so he gave me to people I didn't know. God was punishing me because I should have had a vocation but I dreamed of boys and music and dresses.' She did the hands thing again, and again Nadine and Jimmy waited. When she surfaced she looked at Nadine. ‘Will you send me back into a hospital?'

Nadine turned to Jimmy.

‘I've got all I need for the time being.' She wanted to be gone. ‘Let's go back.'

They turned back the way they had just come and Jimmy walked beside Veronique.

‘It's not up to us, it's up to other people. Someone will look after you like they did after Saigon.'

Her face, never joyful, took on a little extra sadness and a fear came into her eyes.

‘Oh, no. No more punishment. I tried to pray, I really did, but the boys and the music …'

‘I know, and the dresses. But that's the way things are, you don't get to choose the people who look after you.'

‘Will God go on punishing me?'

Jimmy didn't answer so she looked at Nadine but Nadine wanted to be gone. Her voice was dismissive.

‘I can't help you. It's outside my field.'

Veronique looked bewildered and turned again to Jimmy.

‘Will He?'

‘He usually does.'

The face went into the hands again and the mumbling was noticeably louder.

Nadine's impatience was stretched as far as it would go.

‘For Christ's sake, why did you say that? Couldn't you have said something helpful?'

‘She didn't want to be helped. She's been helped enough. She wanted the truth.'

Nadine looked at him. Then she gave up. She took Veronique by the shoulder and gave her a shake. The hands went down slowly.

‘Look, I've got to go. Can you get back to the house all right?'

Veronique nodded.

‘Come on, Costello. We have things to do.'

Jimmy took Veronique's arm.

‘Will you be all right here on your own?'

Veronique looked at him and came as close to smiling as Jimmy guessed she could.

‘I'll be all right. I spend a lot of time on my own.'

‘Yes, I guess you do. I guess you've had practice.'

‘Will you pray for me?'

‘Sure, and I'll light a candle, a special candle, one to a secret saint who has a special way to speak to God. One who knows how to get a prayer through.'

The sly look flickered into her eyes.

‘You know about that?'

‘I'm a Catholic, I know about those things.'

Veronique looked at Nadine who was walking slowly through the sand towards the pine trees.

‘She doesn't know?'

‘No, she knows bugger all. She only thinks she knows.'

The almost smile came back to join the sly look. This was as happy as she gets, thought Jimmy. Poor bloody sod.

He turned and walked on after Nadine. God knows how McBride had found her or how much of that story she'd had fed into her but she'd done a good job. Veronique Bailey or Colmar or whatever her name was might be away with the fairies, terrified of a vengeful God whose only purpose in her life was to scare the shit out of her, but as a candidate for the Colmar inheritance she certainly looked a very strong contender. If the paperwork stood up she'd walk through inheriting the Colmar estate. Then the people who would act for her as an adult of diminished responsibility could put her away somewhere where she would get more help with her problems while they got on administering everything for her. You didn't have to be a high-flying company lawyer to see how it would work out.

Poor loony sod. The people God was going to let look after her permanently were closing in and He was going to go on giving her hell. But there you were, what could you do? The way Jimmy looked at it, he hadn't started the Vietnam war, some other stupid buggers had organised that almighty cock-up.

The Alfa Romeo sports model she had hired suited Nadine. She didn't need Jimmy to navigate the journey back to Genoa airport, she knew where she was going and she brought the same attitude to her driving as Jimmy assumed she did to her sex. To someone who enjoyed that sort of thing the driving might have been wonderful, even magnificent, but to Jimmy it was simply stomach-churning. She hadn't wanted to talk while she used the country roads like part of a Formula One event but when they had rejoined the main highway she slipped her driving to auto-pilot and was inclined to discuss their visit.

‘I like her. She's a clever choice.'

‘Will she do?'

‘She's perfect. We don't have to worry if she gets things wrong because she's supposed to get things wrong. If she screws up her story and gets confused or contradicts herself that's exactly what you'd expect of someone like her.'

‘Is a mentally unbalanced woman a good prospect to put before the Swiss authorities?'