Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  He imagined the stolid driver at the wheel of the van carefully maintaining forty kilometers per hour. In the back would be the nun with her nervous rosary and Defago wearing his dour expression.

  Though they were responsible for a number of deaths, Hugo had seemed more interested in catching the Emmer woman. Guardian of the Peace Dupond had to wonder why. It was almost as if Hugo really had dropped the investigation of the murders. Was he really so convinced the woman was responsible, despite all the evidence to the contrary?

  All right, he thought, Quai d’Orsay and the Americans both wanted the Emmer woman. Good. An opportunity like this seldom came along. Despite the menace of the nun and her keeper, Dupond would seize it. If it was something physical and he could get his hands on it, he could sell it to the highest bidder. If it was information, he might extract something from all three clients.

  He regretted losing the Emmer woman Saturday at the Bastille but traffic had been bad and there had been others pursuing her. She had disappeared in the confusion.

  He hoped he could find her before tomorrow morning, but it didn’t seem likely unless the monk and nun did it for him. He would have her tomorrow for Hugo, or he wouldn’t. He had to report to Lacatuchi, and he would have to give the Americans something, too. Well, he’d just have to improvise.

  The van stopped and the driver walked to the river’s edge.

  Dupond continued on to the bridge. The van, now out of sight behind him, would catch up. There was no other road.

  Once he had crossed the river he backed among some trees to wait. A few minutes later his patience was rewarded. The van swept by and he eased onto the road behind it.

  It was easy to follow. By mid-afternoon they had passed through desolate outskirts and deep into the heart of Paris, stopping on a side street near the Place de la Bastille. His quarry went into a bland nineteenth century apartment building. Dupond parked two cars behind the van and checked the address on his police computer: the owner was the Dominican Order.

  He called Lacatuchi, who told him to keep watching. “I’ve been on duty since early this morning,” he complained.

  “Five hundred euros extra,” Lacatuchi snapped, terminating the call.

  With a grin Dupond tilted his seat back, pulled his hat over his eyes and made himself comfortable. It could be another long wait.

  40.

  By 16:35 local time Lisa, Steve and their guide were looking up at the Camondo Stairs.

  From the narrow street on which they stood, twin flights of white concrete steps bracketing a tall planter ascended to a single flight of four steps, which in turn led to another set of semicircular flights cupped around another smaller planter. Four more steps led up to a third pair of staircases to the street above. People flowed up and down the street, the stairs, and the street above. Cars honked, boys carried hanging trays with glasses of tea or small cups of Turkish coffee. A line of hardware shops stretched off to their right.

  It was Monday and thirty-four degrees centigrade in Istanbul, with scattered clouds and a light breeze out of the southwest off the Sea of Marmara. The Citation had landed at Sabiha Gökcen Airport on the Asian side. Despite the fearsome traffic Ilkay, the slim, elegantly dressed guide Alain had arranged for them, made record time bringing them over, sweeping across the Bosphorus and down to the old European town of Pera just north of the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn. Now he stood to one side with an amused expression, as if anticipating something pleasant. The breeze ruffled his thin, graying hair and he smoothed it down.

  “Not that impressive,” Steve observed. “A one block flight of concrete stairs. They just build moulds and pour. Not even carved.”

  “But they’re charming, Steve. Lovely curves, balanced, harmonious, serene, don’t you think?”

  “Right.” His expression was sour. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know.” Lisa looked at Ilkay, thinking he must be hot and uncomfortable in his dark business suit, starched white shirt and red tie, but he met her gaze openly with raised eyebrows and clicked his tongue. He must be used to it. “All right, let’s take a look.” She started up the right-hand flight, examining the treads and risers and sliding her hand along the balustrade. She stopped to read the plaque on the middle planter. In Turkish and English it informed her the stairs had been built between 1870 and 1880.

  At the top was a street called Kartçinar Sokak and the Sankt Georg Austrian School. Otherwise the area seemed to be mostly residential.

  When they had descended the other side and crossed the street she murmured, “It is lovely.”

  “Yes,” Steve agreed. “But we’ve come a long way and we’re not getting anywhere.”

  “Not true, sir! We’ve climbed to the top and come down again.”

  He had to laugh. “Full circle.”

  “What do you see when you look at them?”

  Steve tilted his head and squinted. “I don’t know. A child’s drawing of a dog, perhaps. Or a four-legged spider.”

  “How about a spiral?”

  “That too.”

  “A caduceus — two snakes twined around a baton?”

  “OK, maybe, but that’s a symbol for medicine. What would it have to do with the Camondos, or the Pythos?”

  “The caduceus was also the symbol for Hermes, messenger of the gods. It was his job to lead the dead and protect thieves and merchants.”

  “Very good, then, Greek mythology might be appropriate. But the Camondo were bankers. Don’t you think it might be a bit insulting to say they were thieves? Merchants, perhaps, but even that seems a stretch.”

  “Sensitive about bankers, are we? And still dubious.” She started up the left stair again and stopped so suddenly Steve bumped her. “A helix!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A double helix. Oh, it’s obvious once you see it.” She looked back with a smile and started up again.

  He followed, shaking his head.

  “Don’t you see?” she continued, leaning over the balustrade to examine the outside edges. “This stairway was built a century before the discovery of DNA.”

  “You’re daft.”

  “If the Camondos were connected with a Pythos, this would be announcing the most important discovery of the twentieth century. Or a way of stressing the importance of genetic heritage.” She paused on the four steps in the middle and, balancing on her stomach over the banister rail, she examined the outside of first one side, then the other. “I wonder,” she murmured.

  “Daft,” he repeated, leaning over beside her. “What are we looking for?”

  “Probably this.” She rubbed her fingertip over one of the aggregate pebbles in the outside edge of the capstone.

  He breathed, “I’ll be damned.”

  “Very likely, M. Viginaire.”

  He was dubious. “You’re saying the Camondos had this symbol carved on one of the pebbles? That’s insane.”

  “Delta enclosing a Phi: Delphi.” She was irritatingly smug.

  He straightened. “It’s not possible. First of all, it’s so small you can barely see it. Second, why is it still there? The plaque says the stairs have been repaired.”

  “Ask him why it’s still there,” Lisa suggested.

  Ilkay’s smile had grown even wider. “It has been our responsibility to assure it was always there. Those instructions have been standing for over a hundred years.”

  Steve frowned. “OK, OK, but in the end this doesn’t bring us any closer to the disk.”

  “Of course it does,” she said. “The Camondos were keepers of the disk.”

  “Fine. So where is it?”

  Her smile was strange. “In a bank. Right, Ilkay?”

  “A bank is most correct.” The Turk swept his hand along the row of buildings across the street below them, all banks. “This is the street of banks. In one of the banks I work.”

  Lisa grinned at Steve. “You see? And what do they have in banks, M. Viginaire?”

  “Besides money? Vaults.” Stev
e made an effort to look angry but couldn’t help laughing. She was right.

  “You work for M. Alain?” she asked the guide.

  The Turk nodded.

  “And?”

  “You are to discover the number, Mademoiselle Emmer. If you find the sign and the number, I am to take you to the bank.”

  “The account number, I suppose.” She looked around wildly, calmed herself and took a deep breath. “All right, then, let’s find it.”

  Cars honked, jockeying for position. Some came dangerously close, passing one another on the narrow street. Conversations started up, moved away. Several men paused to shout into their cell phones.

  Suddenly she grinned and crossed the street to the stairs, ignoring the cars. Steve and Ilkay followed.

  She made a rapid circuit of the staircase. When she had returned to the bottom she said, speaking to herself, “Ten up, then four, fifteen, ten, same coming down, with one extra riser on the right side for the slope of the street.” She smiled brightly.

  Steve looked his question: so?

  "The account number is 20-4-30-4-21,” she said.

  Ilkay’s smile broke wide open. “Very good, Miss Emmer. Now, if you don’t mind, time is getting short. The bank closes at five.”

  Steve shook his head. “How did you do that?”

  “Add the number of steps for each flight, starting at the top, descending to the street of banks.”

  “How do you know it’s right?”

  She shrugged. “Everything points to it.”

  She looked at Ilkay, who bowed graciously and said, “Shall we go?” He gestured for them to accompany him to the bank less than fifty meters down the sloping street.

  A painted green and white sign worn nearly illegible by rain and sun identified it as Revabank. It was a narrow, three story brick structure dating from the early nineteenth century. Its modesty made it easy to overlook, dominated as it was by its taller and more impressive neighbors, one a bank with a newly renovated marble façade, the other an even more imposing national financial institution.

  An ancient man inside was just lifting a hanging sign in the glass door that said “Açık” when they knocked. He nodded, turned the sign and let fall against the glass. Though it now read “Kapalı,” he opened the door with a stiff bow. “Ilkay Bey,” he murmured.

  Revabank was dark and narrow and devoid of other customers. Sallow light fell through dusty front windows. The ancient shuffled to the single teller window, lifted the barrier and led them to an even smaller room with a steel grated door. This he opened with an enormous key suspended from a ribbon around his neck. Inside was a wall of grimy safety deposit boxes, each identified by a long, hyphenated number. They looked as if they predated the First World War, if not some more ancient, long forgotten conflict. An antique wooden file cabinet stood in a corner.

  Ilkay searched through the drawers. The paper folders threatened to crumble to dust as he leafed through them, reading their labels aloud. With a grunt of satisfaction he pulled one from a drawer and held it up. “You see? 20-4-30-4-21.”

  It contained a key wrapped in a sheet of paper with the number 2214-506 written on it in a spidery cursive hand. “That figures,” Lisa muttered. “Raimond’s door code and the Procroft number.”

  Ilkay nodded at the ancient, who shuffled to another cabinet mounted on the wall and unlocked this with another enormous key. A rack of safe deposit box keys hung there, looking as if they had been undisturbed for decades, if not centuries. He pored through the keys, a fingertip darting between his thin lips and the ranks of keys. Finally he selected one.

  He and Ilkay inserted their keys into box number 2214-506, turned them, and very solemnly removed the dark gray metal box inside. This they placed on a square of green plush on a shelf. The ancient bowed once again and retreated to the front room. Ilkay stepped back as well.

  Lisa tugged at the latch, but it had rusted shut. She looked helplessly at Steve and he also tugged. The box slid across the plush but refused to open.

  Ilkay rummaged in a drawer and produced a screwdriver, which proved effective.

  The box was packed with shredded brown newspaper. They found a date on one fragment of an English language newspaper: February 17, 1843. Other dates, even earlier, appeared in many languages.

  Cradled inside was a bronze circle with a partial Latin alphabet inscribed in lower case characters around the outer edge.

  Steve turned it over. The inner rim was recessed to retain a disk. Equidistant around the edge were three inverted Vs creating the tips of a triangle. A vertical line scribed through one of the Vs and continued on the opposite rim to the edge. Inside all three Vs were tiny bronze catches to hold the inner disk in place.

  Beside one were the letters: MCDLXII. “Same date as the other,” Steve murmured. “I think it’s the outer part of the real Alberti.”

  Ilkay said, “This item has been in the possession of this bank some time. Before that,” he spread his hands, “it resided elsewhere.”

  “This is good, Ilkay,” Lisa said. “You see the triangle, bisected by a line, Steve? It will complete the same symbol, a Phi inside the Delta. This is it, all right. I think it’s time we go back to Paris.”

  41.

  A little after six-thirty the door to the Dominican’s lodging opened and Brother Defago came down the parking ramp and turned toward the van. Sister Teresa’s elaborate wheelchair rolled smoothly alongside him.

  They passed the van and approached Dupond’s car parked behind it. He watched surreptitiously, feigning sleep, hat over his face. The monk was saying, “…where they are, but the Emmer woman must have at least part of the disk, and the real message as well.”

  So, he thought, they were looking for a disk of some kind, an object. He could only sell that to one client. But what was the message? That might be even more useful.

  The nun pivoted her chair in a slow circle, scanning the street. She stopped at the Peugeot.

  The monk peered inside. “Some guy,” he said, rapping gently on the window. When there was no reaction he straightened and shrugged. “Asleep.”

  “Good. Nonetheless…” She walked toward the back of the car.

  Dupond didn’t know if she carried her pistol, but even if she didn’t he gave thanks they hadn’t recognized him. He had suddenly felt very vulnerable.

  Defago’s voice was muffled but still audible. “Half of our disk, the part we got from Rossignol, might be real. If the Emmer woman has the other half, the real one, it would be best to reunite the two.”

  “We’d have to bargain, and that would mean sharing the information with our adversaries. His Eminence wouldn’t like that,” she said scornfully. “He wants it all. And he’s right, you know; the only way the Struggle will end is with the destruction of the Pythos’s organization, all of it. That includes getting our hands on the Founding Document we keep hearing about.”

  “What if this Emmer woman proves as resourceful as Rossignol?” the monk reflected thoughtfully. “His Eminence won’t be so easy to satisfy.”

  Though he was out of sight, Dupond could almost see the contemptuous curl of the monk’s lip when he said the name.

  Sister Teresa rolled to the van and back. She stopped beside Dupond’s front fender. She carried a book. “We have to lure them,” she said thoughtfully, biting her lower lip. “But how? We don’t know where they are.”

  Defago moved into view. His eye twitched. “They should be looking for us,” he mused. “They know how Foix died. Maybe we should let them find us, after all.”

  She raised a hand to touch his arm and the book started to fall. She snatched it back, looked at it a moment, then held it up. “You’re right, my priest. Perhaps we should.”

  “What is this?”

  Her veil shook. “It’s an Augustine. City of God, my priest.”

  He weighed it in his hands. “Heavy,” he murmured. “And old.”

  “Oh, yes, very old. I took it from Foix’s apartment after he died.�
��

  “You stole this?”

  She lowered her head. “I confess I did.”

  “You should not have done that.” His voice was carefully neutral.

  “I know, but I could not resist.”

  “If the police…?”

  “How could they? It was on the floor with many others. We entered and left like shadows, my brother, leaving only the chair’s mystery trail.”

  “Yes, but still…”

  “Please, Father. This book would not be missed, except by one who would want it.” She paused and said in wonder, “By one who would want it. I wonder I did not think of this earlier. ”

  He turned thoughtful. “Think of what?” But he knew.

  “The Emmer woman would want it, don’t you think? It’s valuable, full of sentiment. It belonged to the old man. She is his heir. She would want it back.”

  “You would give it up?” Now his voice shook with admiration.

  “If giving it up brings us closer to our goal, my priest, I would. Afterward, perhaps…” Her voice trailed off.

  He replaced the book carefully on her lap. “Very well, perhaps it was God’s will you took this thing.” He gazed into the distance for some time. “I wonder…” he began.

  “Wonder what?”

  “The books were scattered on the carpet. I wonder if that meant something.”

  “What could it mean? There was no order, no purpose I could see. Maybe he was putting them away and the chair alarmed him so he locked the door. We wanted to frighten him. Would he have dropped those books if he weren’t afraid?”

  “Perhaps we should have considered this before.” Defago’s voice was dry, yet tender, still admiring.

  “Think, my priest. If he used the books to send a message and she knows it, she’ll want this one all the more, don’t you see?”

  He came to a decision. “Very well, it’s worth a try. I don’t believe she’s motivated by money. I think she’s a simple scholar, but even if she’s the next Pythos, sentiment might work, indeed, and even better if it has some other meaning for her, but we have to draw them to us. We will leave messages at all the numbers we have. If they take the bait, we will meet somewhere, a place we choose most carefully. A first they will refuse, and perhaps a second, but then we will lure them to the abbey.”