Dupree and Landru were drinking coffee in the lounge. It was late afternoon, and Dupree had just taken a pot of coffee out to the two police officers who had just started their shift. ‘Someone at the door,’ said Dupree. He got up, walked through the kitchen and opened the front door.
‘If you don’t do anything stupid, you will live. Make a noise and you will join these two out here,’ said Petrinko pointing his gun at Dupree. Dupree could see the dead police officer lying in a pool of blood on the ground behind Petrinko.
His mind racing, Dupree was assessing the situation. Pros, he thought, processing the enormity of what he had just seen. Two dead police officers. Mon Dieu! These guys mean business. As a retired senior detective used to dealing with extreme violence and the unexpected, Dupree knew there was only one way to get through a situation like this: follow instructions to the letter, and show no fear. If they had wanted to kill him, they would have done so by now.
‘First we say hello to Monsieur Landru, then we go over to the chateau and say hello to the others, clear?’ said Dragan, who was standing behind Petrinko, holding a small submachine gun. Dupree noticed that both men were wearing gloves.
If Landru was in any way surprised or shocked when two armed men wearing clown masks walked into the room with Dupree, and one of them pointed a gun at him, he certainly didn’t show it. He put his coffee cup calmly on the table in front of him and looked at the two men. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’ he said.
He’s good, thought Dragan, appreciating Landru’s presence of mind and self-control, and was therefore dangerous. ‘Get up!’ he said.
Landru stood up.
‘Now, we’ll go over to the chateau together and have a chat with Mr Rogan and his friends. Clear?’
‘Clear,’ said Landru and locked eyes with Dupree watching him.
‘Let’s go,’ said Petrinko.
François was in the kitchen eating a sandwich with cook when he heard the front doorbell. He pushed his plate aside, stood up, and walked upstairs to answer the door.
‘Good afternoon, François,’ said Petrinko. He stood behind Dupree with a gun pointed at François, who looked shocked. ‘I know who’s in the building. What I don’t know is where everybody is right now, but I’m sure you can help me with that.’
‘Cook’s in the kitchen downstairs; the others are in the music room having afternoon tea.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Yes.’
Petrinko smiled. So far, everything was going exactly as planned. ‘Please take us to the music room,’ he said.
‘This way,’ said François and turned around.
Jack was sitting in front of the fireplace with Tristan. They were playing chess. Darrieux and Bartolli sat on a lounge near the grand piano, chatting and drinking tea. Jack was about to move a pawn when François walked into the room, followed by Dupree and Landru. Jack looked up in surprise, and froze when he saw two men with guns pushing past them into the room.
‘Nobody move,’ said Dragan, speaking calmly, which made the words coming out of the mouth of a clown even more chilling. Dragan held up his gun. ‘This is an Israeli Uzi submachine gun. It can fire six hundred rounds per minute and could kill everyone in this room in seconds. And in case you’re wondering,’ continued Dragan, ‘the two police officers outside are no longer on duty.’
There was stunned silence in the room as everyone struggled to digest what had just been said.
Dragan turned to François standing next to him. ‘Please take my friend into the kitchen and fetch the cook. That way, we’ll all be nicely together in here.’
No-one spoke until François and Petrinko returned with a frightened-looking Antoinette, the cook.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Rogan,’ said Dragan, speaking softly. ‘I’ve seen you once before, you know. In 2016. You were standing next to Chief Prosecutor Grimaldi in front of the Chiesa di San Marco in Florence after Mario Giordano’s funeral. Admittedly, I saw you through the scope of my rifle, which isn’t quite the same as seeing you in the flesh. It was a really difficult shot.’
Good God, it’s the same man, thought Jack, remembering the Gambio assassination two years earlier, but he didn’t respond.
Dragan took off his backpack, pulled out a laptop and placed it on top of the piano. He did all that without putting down his machine gun. Only after he had made sure that Petrinko, who was standing at the door, had everyone in the room covered, did he put the weapon down.
‘Ah, Venice, such a beautiful city, especially when you see it from a boat,’ said Petrinko, carefully watching Tristan.
Tristan froze without looking at Petrinko, a strange feeling of dread washing over him.
‘You look different close up, Tristan,’ continued Petrinko. ‘Younger, more vulnerable. Last time I saw you was through binoculars. You were leaving the palazzo and went shopping to the market behind the Accademia. That was the day before Lorenza ... unfortunate—’
Dragan glared at Petrinko and held up his hand, the gesture obvious.
Jack reached across the table and squeezed Tristan’s arm without taking his eyes off Petrinko, well aware that he was looking at Lorenza’s killer hiding behind the mask of a clown.
‘Then why don’t you kill me now,’ asked Tristan, his voice barely audible, ‘and rectify your blunder?’
‘Because I work for a different master now,’ replied Petrinko calmly. ‘And I only do what I’m paid to do.’
Well aware of the mounting tension in the room, Dragan opened his laptop, switched it on, and turned the screen towards Jack. ‘Can you see the screen, Mr Rogan?’
Jack nodded.
‘Excellent, because I’ve someone who would like to meet you.’
‘Care to enlighten me as to who that might be?’ asked Jack. ‘Or will this turn into another big mistake?’
‘Patience. You’ll find out in a moment,’ said Dragan, ignoring the sarcastic remark.
Facing his favourite window overlooking the mountains, O’Hara sat in front of his large computer screens. While he waited for the encrypted Zoom connection to Dragan’s laptop to be activated, he stared dreamily out of the window as a rare optical phenomenon – alpenglow – illuminated the mountains just after sunset, giving them a stunning, reddish glow.
This rare, mysterious display was usually only visible before sunrise or after sunset, and was caused by light reflected off airborne ice crystals in the lower atmosphere. On this occasion it was particularly strong, and filled the entire room with an eerie, rosy light. O’Hara smiled, as he considered this to be a prescient omen of things to come.
In preparation for the Zoom conference call he had arranged with Petrinko and Dragan the day before, O’Hara had carefully laid out his precious Llanganates treasure items he had collected over the years on the desk in front of him. Apart from these and the amulet, one crucial item was still missing. But not for long, he thought. He took off the Mascarino amulet he wore around his neck, and placed it on the table next to the Rodriguez Letter.
Moments later, the connection crackled into life and the grinning face of a clown appeared on the screen. ‘Good evening,’ said the clown. ‘Everyone’s here, as you can see.’ As the clown stepped aside, O’Hara could see everyone in the room, but no-one could see him because the camera was turned off at his end.
‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Darrieux,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ve followed your exciting life for quite some time. All the way from New Orleans to Paris. What a journey! And thanks to you, the last piece of this fascinating puzzle is about to fall into place.’
Darrieux bit her lip and said nothing.
‘Buona sera, Signora Bartolli,’ continued O’Hara, looking closely at Bartolli sitting next to Darrieux. ‘Your surprisingly accurate insights into the Landru case have fascinated me for years. Pity the French police didn’t find them equally useful, don’t you think so, Monsieur Dupree? But you had your doubts from the very beginning, didn’t you? Yet, you did nothing about it. Un
til now that is. I wonder why—’
‘Are you at least going to introduce yourself?’ interrupted Bartolli, staring at the empty screen. ‘A one-sided conversation is not only impolite, it’s boring.’
O’Hara began to laugh, appreciating the grit and the wit of the remark. ‘I will, in due course,’ he said. ‘But first I would like to meet all of you. Ah, Monsieur Landru. We’ve known each other for almost thirty years now, albeit from a distance, but I’ve actually seen you once before. The night you were arrested in Montmartre and charged with a murder you didn’t commit. I was there, you see, and saw you being taken away by the police.’
Like Darrieux, Landru also remained silent, trying desperately to come to terms with the surreal situation unfolding around him.
‘And that brings me to you, Mr Rogan,’ said O’Hara. ‘What a fascinating man you are. I must congratulate you on your recent success. To find what has eluded me for such a long time, so quickly and with such ease, was quite something. And to do it all by using iridium as the means to find it among all that rubble. I must say, that was ingenious! You can obviously see what others can’t. That’s quite a talent.’
O’Hara paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘In case you are wondering how I know all this, Monsieur Landru has kept me informed of everything that’s been happening, you see,’ he continued, lowering his voice. ‘Just like he’s always done, but at least now I know why he chose you to help him in his quest, Mr Rogan. An excellent choice. And, of course, it was you who helped him crack the cipher code in the first place, and that opened the door to all this and brought us here. Congratulations!’
O’Hara looked around the room.
‘Destiny? What do you think, Tristan? You of all people would know. After all, they say you can hear the whisper of angels and glimpse eternity. Mr Rogan told us all about that in his books. Fascinating. I too believe in destiny, you see. And what is happening here right now, tonight, is an excellent example of destiny at work. Don’t you think?’
O’Hara began to chuckle. In many ways, this was the ultimate chess game. A chess game like no other, with real people he could move around the board at will. It was the culmination of a long journey that was rapidly approaching its destination.
‘I see, no-one has anything to say. No matter. You are no doubt wondering what this is all about and what will happen next. Understandable. Well, let me explain.’
With that, O’Hara turned on his camera, which was trained on his Llanganates treasure collection spread out on the desk in front of him in a way that allowed him to stay in the background and out of sight.
‘I’m sure Monsieur Landru will recognise these items. After all, he was the one who found them. They made him famous, you see, and very rich. It all began with The Navarro Chronicles here,’ said O’Hara, as the camera zoomed in on a bundle of handwritten pages spread out on the table. ‘Discovered by Louis Mendoza in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville in 1991. We all know what happened to him, don’t we?’ O’Hara paused to let this sink in. ‘Such a handsome young man, don’t you agree, Mr Clown?’
Dragan held up his hand and nodded, the gesture chilling.
‘Mr Clown here should know,’ said O’Hara. ‘He was the last one who saw him alive, you see.’
Landru, who stood next to Dupree, let out a gurgling sound and began to shake. Afraid that he might launch himself at the clown, Dupree put his arm around him and held him tight until the shaking stopped.
‘And then came the Morales khipu,’ continued O’Hara, enjoying himself. ‘What a fascinating item, you must admit. Arguably the most important one in the entire collection here because without it, the Llanganates treasure would not have been discovered in the first place.’
Mesmerised, everyone in the room kept staring at the laptop screen on the piano as O’Hara continued to describe each piece in his collection, and where it fitted into the puzzle.
‘But as you are obviously aware, one important item is still missing. Your recent find, Mr Rogan. As you can see, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to put this collection together, and it would be a shame if it were to remain incomplete, don’t you think? Well, I will make sure that doesn’t happen because the Mascarino amulet here, and the remnants of the burial mask you found, belong together. Only when they are united will they give up their secrets and you, Mr Rogan, will help me achieve this—’
‘How exactly?’ Jack asked, trying to interrupt the monologue and engage with the speaker.
‘With the help of Monsieur Landru, of course, who, like me, has coveted the golden mask for such a long time, but he knows that it belongs to me, just like all these related items here that he helped me find over the years. And he knows what happens to those who stand in my way, don’t you, Monsieur Landru?’
As the camera swung slowly around, Jack noticed something in the background. It looked like some kind of picture behind glass facing the window. Before the camera zoomed in on the amulet, it came to rest on the picture. Reflected in the glass, Jack saw something that made him gasp. Illuminated by the rosy light of the alpenglow was the familiar silhouette of a famous mountain that he had seen before: the Watzmann, near Berchtesgaden.
49
Kuragin chateau: 8 November
Lapointe, a light sleeper, reached for the mobile on his bedside table and answered the call. It was the duty officer at the Prefecture. The alarm clock next to the phone told Lapointe that it was just after two am.
‘Just to be clear, could you please repeat that?’ said Lapointe, instantly awake, and turned on the reading lamp. ‘Mon Dieu! When?’
‘One of the officers relieving the first night shift just phoned it in,’ said the duty officer.
‘And both are dead?’
‘Yes. Shot in the head, point blank. GIGN are on their way. The Prefect has already been notified. He wants you to take over.’
‘Understood. I want a chopper to pick me up at home ASAP.’
‘Consider it done, sir!’
This is a catastrophe, thought Lapointe, feeling quite ill. What he had just been told was every police officer’s ultimate nightmare: two colleagues killed on duty, on his watch. He stood up and hurried to the bathroom. At least GIGN are already on their way, thought Lapointe. They should get there before I do. He washed his face and then went back into the bedroom to get dressed.
By the time the police helicopter landed on the lawn next to the Gatekeeper’s Cottage, GIGN – the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, an elite police tactical unit – had already secured the site and floodlights had been set up, illuminating the area in front of the cottage. The officer in charge walked over to the helicopter and reported to Lapointe.
‘Forensics are on their way,’ he said.
‘What about the cottage?’
‘Empty.’
Bracing himself, Lapointe asked the question that had been foremost on his mind since the phone call with the shocking news. ‘You secured the chateau?’
‘Of course—’
‘And?’ interrupted Lapointe.
The officer could see the worried look on Lapointe’s face and therefore decided to proceed with caution.
‘The front door was unlocked. We went inside and began to search the premises. The lights were on, but the house appeared empty ...’
My God! thought Lapointe, fearing the worst, but he didn’t interrupt.
‘Then we heard it.’
‘Heard what?’
‘Loud banging on a door. Downstairs in the cellar.’
‘Get to the point, man!’ Lapointe almost shouted.
‘They were in the wine cellar. Locked in.’
‘Who?’
‘Six adults. Three women and three men.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘In the music room.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lapointe and slowly walked over to the police car with the shattered windscreen, preparing himself for what he knew would be a very traumatic scene.
Everyone looke
d up as Lapointe walked into the room. Without saying a word, Dupree stood up, walked to the sideboard and poured some Scotch into a glass. Then he walked over to Lapointe, handed him the glass and just stood there looking at him, his face ashen.
‘What happened?’ said Lapointe and took a sip.
Step by step, Dupree described the extraordinary events of the night, from the moment the two armed clowns had burst into the Gatekeeper’s Cottage until had they locked everyone into the wine cellar two hours later, and left.
‘Where are Jack and Landru?’ asked Lapointe quietly. He lit his pipe and watched the aromatic smoke curl slowly towards the ceiling.
‘They were taken away. No doubt in that black van I mentioned earlier.’
‘This is unbelievable,’ mumbled Lapointe, well aware of the huge problems he was facing as he tried to piece together the various parts of the brazen, yet extremely well-planned and executed crime. Two dead police officers and two high-profile individuals abducted, thought Lapointe, while under police protection. All hell would break loose in the morning. He knew they had better get ready for the media storm and a desperate Prefect under pressure.
‘Is there anything else any of you can remember that could be relevant here? Please, this is very important. Think, while these events are still fresh in your minds. Even the smallest detail could be significant here.’
‘There was something,’ said Bartolli.
‘Yes?’ said Lapointe.
‘Something the mysterious man who spoke to us, but never introduced or showed himself, said about one of the clowns.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He remarked that one of the clowns in the room was the last one to see Louis Mendoza alive.’
‘What? The very first murder victim?’
‘Yes. The clown even identified himself by raising his arm.’
The Death Mask Murders Page 30
