The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘You know the château in Vufflens, Marc. The family fortune is substantial, indeed, but you are not part of that fortune. However, your grandmother put aside this property with all its revenues for you and you alone. If there is anything you want, anything you need, you only have to tell me, or my assistant Madame Borel. Do you understand?’

  ‘Oui, monsieur.’

  ‘Is there anything you need, Marc, anything you want?’

  Rochat thought about it. He had a big sitting room, two bedrooms, two large bathtubs with catlike feet. He had a dining room overlooking the lake with lots of light and a big round table he used for drawing things he saw from the windows. He had two fireplaces and the plaster walls were covered with his drawings and the handmade marionettes his father brought from Venice. Harlequin, Pinocchio, Baron Münchausen in the drawing-pictures room. A Venetian Plague Doctor, Peter Pan and Napoleon in the sitting room. Next to his bed he had the photograph of his mother and father standing on the Plains of Abraham. And Teresa came three times a week to scrub the floors and clean the flat. Teresa was from Portugal and did the ironing and cooked lunches and stored them in the icebox. Rochat did his own laundry because he liked to watch the clothes go around in the washer machine. He had a TV that had sixty-seven channels but was always tuned to Cartoon Network so he could watch Tom and Jerry because they were funny. If he wasn’t drawing or watching cartoons, or his clothes in the washing machine, he’d take Napoleon from his hook on the wall and chase Monsieur Booty around the flat shouting, ‘Charge!’ Other than that he spent most of his time at the cathedral.

  ‘Non, I can’t think of anything.’

  But just now, standing in the foyer of his flat, Rochat had another thought. If there was nothing he wanted or needed, why did his flat, full of things, feel so empty? A fat grey cat curled around Rochat’s boots.

  ‘And how are you this afternoon, Monsieur Booty?’

  Mew.

  ‘Yes, yes, I am very late and you’re hungry. And I had a very busy night. I forgot to get some bread on the way home. Can I have some of your cat food?’

  Monsieur Booty dug his claws into Rochat’s overcoat and began to climb.

  Mew.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll see what Teresa left me in the icebox machine. Alors, I’ll feed you, clean my coat and hat and the rest of me. Then I’ll go for fresh bread for my lunch.’

  He was soaking his head when he remembered there would be no fresh bread today. He remembered when the bell in the clock tower above the building rang for three o’clock. It was Sunday, Switzerland was closed.

  *

  ‘Thirty-five minutes shore to shore. 227,000 tons of bateau powered by twin diesel motors below decks. Champagne and fondue Thursday evenings, weather permitting.’

  So read the tourist pamphlet Harper received with his ticket. He was trying to read the damn thing and drink at the same time. Wasn’t easy. Bit of a rough crossing with 2-metre swells. On a bloody lake. Better than the ride over. That was like drifting near the end of the world. Come out of the fog into a patch of nowhere. Grey water, grey sky, thin grey line on the horizon marking the place you fell off and never came back. He set the pamphlet on the next seat, took a swig of Coca-Cola. His diet so far today: three aspirin, packet of crisps, one Chinese lunch, three Chinese beers, one Coke.

  He looked off the stern. His eyes hijacked by the Swiss flag hooked to the rail, flapping in the wind like waving goodbye to France. He looked about the cabin. A few working stiffs from Évian crossing to Lausanne for some extra odd-job cash on the night shift. Harper thought he fit right in. Another odd-jobber entering Switzerland through the tradesmen’s entrance. He pulled the file from his mackintosh, sifted through it.

  The gospel of Yuriev’s life according to Google.

  Poor orphan boy from a village outside Arkhangelsk. Gets a pair of ice skates from a kindly old priest passing through the village. The boy has talent. He doesn’t skate over the ice, he flies. Grows up winning every race he enters. Breaks every world record standing on his way to seven gold medals at Innsbruck. Hero of the Soviet Union at nineteen years old. Glasnost comes to Mother Russia, country falls apart. Yuriev goes pro-hockey in North America, makes a bloody fortune. Plays with the Maple Leafs in Toronto. Garners the nickname ‘Slapshot Sasha’ for his aggressive style of play. Copies of his number 9 jersey worn by every schoolkid in Canada. His face smiles from boxes of breakfast cereal. Leads his club to three successive Stanley Cups. Scores hat-tricks in all three. Rumours. Slapshot Sasha likes to drink. More rumours. Canadian tabloids suggest Slapshot is missing shots in season four to settle gambling debts. Then gambling chits with his signature turn up, courtesy of a mobster on his way to the prison, looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  The press smells blood, hammers away for more.

  Hockey Commissioner under pressure, suspends Yuriev for the rest of the season. End of endorsements. Yuriev hits the bottle for real. Begins the long fall from hero to drunken clown. Press can’t get enough of the flameout. He’s chased by tabloids and TV crews. Yuriev shows up pissed at a championship match, jumps out on the ice, demands to play. Punches out a referee, sends him skidding into the net like a hockey puck. And the crowd goes wild.

  End of career.

  Starts gambling big, loses bigger.

  Word is he owes bags of money to the wrong people. Then comes the car wreck. Lets a hooker drive his SUV. She’s whacked on crystal meth, Yuriev’s blind drunk. SUV crosses the median at two hundred klicks per hour, smashes head-on into a Volkswagen Golf. The woman and her three kids in the Golf crushed to death. Eight-year-old boy next to Mommy wearing Yuriev’s number 9 jersey.

  Spends the last of his fortune on a high-priced lawyer.

  Lawyer gets him off with six months’ probation.

  Not enough for the Canadian press, they want Yuriev crucified.

  Heads back to Russia. Selected as coach to the Russian national Olympic hockey team. Holy row in the press one more time. USA gets in on the act and threatens to pull out of next winter games citing ‘our moral imperative to protect family values’. The Doctor bans Yuriev from any contact with the Olympic movement. He drops out of sight for twenty years, then turns up in Switzerland. A matter of life and death, wants to give something to the Doctor, drops from sight again.

  Find him before the goddamn press does.

  Where to start?

  Check in with the Port Royal in Montreux. Another clerk, another accent, same message. Yuriev still as gone as he was yesterday, still hasn’t called in for messages.

  ‘By the way, would there be a casino anywhere near your hotel?’

  ‘A casino? Are you kidding?’

  Casino Barrière. Slots, roulette, blackjack, a slapshot from Yuriev’s hotel.

  Flashback from Friday.

  Harper stopped into LP’s Bar at the Palace Hotel for a few drinks before the Yuriev meet. A woman was at the bar with some friends. She walked over, said he looked as if he could use a friend. Turned out she’s a Londoner living across the lake in Évian. She had auburn hair and nice legs, wore black kid gloves on her hands. Said she worked in Casino Barrière, came to LP’s now and then but she’d be coming more often, if he did too. Wrote her number in a matchbook.

  Harper dug through the deep pockets of his mackintosh. Fags, lighter, scraps of paper, matchbook from LP’s Bar. ‘Lucy Clarke’, and a number with a French dialling code written inside. He punched the number into his mobile.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jay Harper. I met you in LP’s …’

  ‘I remember. Moody sort at the bar. You work at the IOC. I tried to pick you up but you turned me down. You were nice about it, though. Did you find who you were looking for?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That was your excuse, you were looking for someone.’

  ‘Still at it. Good memory though.’

  ‘I never forget a face. So, Jay Harper, where are you?’

  ‘In Lausanne, staring at the fog, thinking ab
out what to do next.’

  ‘Clearing up this side of the lake. Look, I was just on my way to a late lunch. It’s Sunday, so it must be Chinese.’

  ‘Sorry, don’t mean to keep you from your mates. Could I ring you later, something I’d like to ask you.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I was going alone. Why don’t you hop on the ferry and come over? When you get to Évian, ask anyone to point you to Jardin des Thés.’

  Kid gloves on her hands again, light blue this time. They ordered Tsingtao beers, talked about the weather over sweet and sour soup. Progressed to her current situation over steamed dumplings.

  ‘I made pit boss three months ago. Two more years then I’m off to Monte Carlo, if I’m lucky.’

  ‘Such a thing as luck in a casino?’

  ‘Sure, just ask Santa Claus, he’s one of our best customers.’

  ‘You like living on the French side of the lake?’

  ‘Liking France and affording Switzerland are two different things. But, yeah, I like it over here. Switzerland’s a bit too planet fucking perfect for my taste.’

  After the dumplings, Harper took out a photo and laid it on the table with the moo goo gai pan.

  ‘Ever seen this chap?’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The man I’m looking for. Was wondering if he’d surfaced in the casino.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t come over to sweep me off my feet?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Well, in that case, croupiers are like Swiss bankers. We don’t discuss clients. And since when did the IOC become a detective agency?’

  ‘Just asking a simple question.’

  ‘No such thing. And there’s more than one casino on the lake, Jay. There’re bags. There’s one a few steps from that steamed dumpling on your plate. You planning to finish it?’

  ‘Help yourself. He was staying in a hotel near the casino. He has a gambling problem.’

  ‘Anyone walking through the door of a casino has a gambling problem, it’s just a matter of degree. So who is he? Is he a problem? Another crooked Olympic delegate on the take, scamming property options at the next venue?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen him. But I’m not in the casino 24/7.’

  ‘Right. End of discussion.’

  ‘That’s it? Not even an attempt at any chit-chat that doesn’t include the weather?’

  ‘Chit-chat?’

  ‘Come on, Jay, give it a go.’

  ‘All right. How’s a girl from east London end up dealing cards in Montreux?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Three years on a Sainsbury’s checkout in fucking Copers Cope, Bromley. You’re not big in the chit-chat aisle, are you, Jay?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Look, since you came all this way I’ll tell you this. If your Russian friend in that photo was counting cards, marking cards or cheating the dice in any casino anywhere on the planet, his face would be known in every casino in the world. Casinos live in the land of Big Brother. Cameras in the ceilings, cameras in the walls, cameras you’d never find if your life depended on it. All connected to computers scanning faces from a worldwide network of known problems. There are microphones at the tables listening to conversations, scanners listening to phone calls, eagle-eyed spotters on the floor. And there are very scary men in a back room keeping tabs on everyone who comes and goes, with particular interest in what they do in between. Believe me, problems are dealt with quickly. And those very scary men are always on the lookout for new problems. So I’ll ask you again, is he a problem?’

  ‘How did you know he was Russian?’

  ‘See, you are a detective.’ She leaned forward, tapped Yuriev’s photo with a kid-gloved finger. ‘First lesson in dealing cards is reading faces. No way this guy could be anything but Russian, not with that mug.’

  ‘You get many Russians in the casino?’

  ‘Loads. Montreux’s a bloody Moscow suburb. That’s why they both begin with the letter M.’

  Harper rolled up the photo, stuffed it in his mackintosh.

  ‘He was an Olympic champion ages ago. One of the greats. His life became something of a nightmare. Booze, drugs, gambling. We heard he was in town, that he might’ve fallen off the wagon. IOC likes to help its own.’

  Lucy rolled her eyes.

  ‘You’re utter crap at telling porkies, Jay. Stick to chit-chat. Where’d you go to detective school anyway?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘When I get back to Lausanne, I’ll look one up.’

  ‘Or you could sail over again sometime. I give private lessons in reading faces, especially to cute guys with nice green eyes.’

  He checked his watch, almost six.

  ‘I should head back. Need to send a report to the boss.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  The ferry’s horn whistled twice as the twin diesel motors below decks reversed and the 227,000 tons of bateau shuddered and slowed. Another winter’s night spreading its shadow over Port d’Ouchy like a woven thing. The lights of Lausanne flickering above the port marking the seven hills of planet fucking perfect. All topped with one drab excuse for a cathedral, even in the bright light of floodlamps. Harper picked up the tourist pamphlet. Picture of Lausanne Cathedral on the cover. Set in the quaint charm of the old city blah blah blah. Overlooking Europe’s largest and most beautiful lake blah blah blah. Open to tourists in the daylight hours with special tours of the belfry in the afternoons. Wonderful views from 100 metres above the ground.

  Harper felt a blast of vertigo.

  He tossed the pamphlet in the bin.

  Rochat finished his dinner of roast chicken and he sat at the kitchen table with a purring Monsieur Booty on his lap. He thought about things. Besides himself, Monsieur Booty, Monsieur Gübeli and Teresa, no one had ever come to his home. Except the occasional hotel guest who lost their way, but Rochat was very sure they didn’t count. He scratched Monsieur Booty behind the ears.

  ‘Monsieur Buhlmann came to visit the tower last night and we made raclette. He says I need a girl in my life. Someone to take care of me. Someone for me to take care of, too.’

  Monsieur Booty fluttered his ears and shook his head as if he was sneezing.

  ‘Bless you. So what do you think, you miserable beast? Would a girl want to come here for dinner with us sometime?’

  Monsieur Booty looked up to Rochat with a questioning tilt of the head.

  ‘You see, the doctors say I’ve grown as tall as I can. Which isn’t that tall, but they say they can begin operating on my leg and foot now and make them straighter. I might be very handsome.’

  Mew.

  ‘You only want les croupions, don’t you?’

  Mew.

  ‘I thought so.’

  He scooped out the two bits of meat from the chicken’s back, dropped them on the floor. Monsieur Booty quickly abandoned Rochat’s lap to gobble the juicy morsels.

  ‘I wonder if the operation would make my brain more handsome. But I suppose my feet are a long way from my brain. What do you think?’

  Monsieur Booty licked his paws. Rochat picked through the bones for more scraps to toss to the floor.

  ‘Here I am, bribing a fat cat to listen to me. It’s worse than talking to Marie-Madeleine.’

  Monsieur Booty proceeded to lick his bottom.

  ‘And this is what happens when you talk to cats instead of bells.’

  Mew.

  He gave the beast a gentle shove with his twisted foot. Monsieur Booty shot out of the room and down the hall. Rochat cleared the table, placing the plates in the dishwashing machine the way Teresa had shown him. He shuffled down the hall to the drawing table. He played with his pencils but couldn’t think of anything to draw.

  Then he remembered something.

  He shuffled back to the hall, saw his freshly scrubbed overcoat and hat hanging on a hook next to
the door. He searched through the inside pocket of the coat for a folded paper, a paper torn from his sketchbook. He took a drawing pin from a box and went back to the kitchen. He carefully unfolded the paper, pressing it flat. He pinned the paper to the top of a chair, sat in the chair opposite and stared at the face of the angel he imagined in the night.

  seven

  Katherine’s cellphone rang as she window-shopped along Rue du Grand-St-Jean. Number one on speed dial calling.

  ‘Hello, Simone, I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Really, what are you doing?’

  ‘Usual Monday-morning routine, window-shopping on my way to the spa at the Palace. And I just happen to be looking at some very expensive Christmas gifts. Can’t decide if you’d like yours in blue or green.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘And spoil the surprise? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Anything the colour of money is fine with me, dear.’

  ‘Simone, Swiss francs come in blue, green and red.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll take one of each.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Have a moment to discuss business?’

  ‘Sure, go ahead.’

  Katherine ducked into a café, she ordered an espresso while Simone talked.

  ‘I’ve booked you for a bit of fun in the sun. At the Taj in Mauritius, with our Chinese friend. You’ll be collected by private jet from Dubai, January twenty-eighth, and he’d like to have you for two weeks. Does that work for you?’

  ‘Lemme check.’ Katherine grabbed her BlackBerry from her bag, crunched the dates of her menstrual cycle. ‘Yeah, perfect.’

  ‘I was thinking, why not leave a few days early? I’ll book you at the Burj Al Arab, my treat. Give you a chance to shop for some nice beach things, work on your tan line.’

  ‘All sounds good.’ Katherine reworked the dates, snapped shut the BlackBerry, lit a cigarette. ‘And you definitely get three of whatever it is I was going to buy.’

  ‘Aren’t you sweet. Listen, dear, something else’s come up. This morning I received a call from a Russian gentleman. Dying to meet you. Staying at the Grand in Gstaad and coming down to Lausanne tomorrow on business.’