The Boy Who Saw: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

by Simon Toyne

  ‘Looks like an Audi. One of those four-by-fours, like a Q3 or something.’ On the screen, the barrier lifted and the car drove away.

  ‘Thank you, Patrice,’ Baptiste said, already heading for the door. ‘Keep this under your hat until I come back with that warrant, OK. I’ll definitely mention you when I write it up.’

  Boudy watched him leave then turned back to the screen with a big grin on his face. This was what he’d always hoped police work would be like, like it was in the crime novels he read. He tapped a new command into the computer to access the Police Alert database, wondering if he could figure out what murder investigation he’d helped with. Ever since the Belgian airport bombings, airport security networks had been linked directly to the police, which meant he could access alerts relating to any new and ongoing investigations.

  A new window opened on the screen, filled with information, every alert for all the investigations currently active. There was a search command to filter the results and Boudy thought for a moment, trying to think like a cop would think. He smiled and set the camera feed running backwards. He watched the black Audi reverse away from the barriers, park back in its space, then the Peugeot did the same, stopping at the barrier as before. Boudy froze the image, copied the Peugeot’s registration into the search field and hit Return.

  The solid mass of information vanished and was replaced by a single alert, issued by the Cordes Commissariat. Boudy read it eagerly, sucking up the details of how the owner of the car (Marie-Claude Engel – 29) was missing with her son (Léo – 7) and was possibly travelling with a man (Solomon Creed – age unknown) wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Josef Engel (89). There were also contact details for any new information. Boudy stared at the phone number and email address. The cop had said to wait but this alert meant he didn’t need a warrant. Boudy could easily have picked the alert up during the normal course of his work. Surely that would demonstrate initiative and alertness and would also look good on his application to join the Police Nationale.

  He reached for the desk phone to dial the contact number and paused. If he spoke to someone he would probably have to lie to cover up for the cop – what was his name? He had seen his ID but had been too flustered to take it in. Either way, he didn’t want to get him in trouble and jeopardize the good word he said he’d put in for him. He stared at the frozen image of the licence plate. There was a better way to do this, one that did not require him to speak to anyone or have to come up with a lie.

  He took a screen-grab of the registration plate then worked through the footage, taking more screen-grabs and building up a photo montage of what had taken place in the car park earlier that day. When he’d finished, he put all the images in a folder, compressed it, and attached it to an email addressed to the Cordes contact email from the alert. In the subject line he wrote the reference number and added a note:

  Dear sirs,

  I spotted your alert, ran a routine registration check and got a hit. I believe your subjects switched cars and are now driving a black Audi. I have attached photos as evidence, along with the registration of the Audi. I hope this helps.

  Yours,

  Patrice Boudy – Blagnac Security

  He re-read it twice before pressing send and watched the large file upload then go.

  He smiled and reset the system, restoring all the real-time camera feeds before heading back out to the desk to give more people directions and help them with their lost tickets. He couldn’t wait to tell his girlfriend about this later.

  58

  Amand glanced up at the soft ping announcing the arrival of a new email. He had spent the last fifteen minutes trawling through reports of Artur Samler’s supposed suicide and making a list of all the unconfirmed sightings there had been of him since, of which there were many. Most of them were posted on Nazi discussion forums dedicated to remembering the ‘heroes’ of the war and keeping the flame of Nazism alive. There were whole sections dedicated to Samler and his son, Günther, who had also worked as a guard at Die Schneider Lager, also been reported as killed at the end of the war, and also been spotted numerous times in the post-war years. There were pages and pages dedicated to sightings of Hitler and all the other Nazi leaders too, and Amand wasn’t taking any of it at face value. But still, they were leads that needed following up and he felt tired at the thought of how much work lay ahead, so the email came as a welcome distraction. It was addressed to the general information account but Amand recognized the alert code in the subject line and opened it. He read the note and clicked the attachment.

  A series of photographs appeared in a new window and his skin went cold when he saw the first one. Marie-Claude’s Peugeot. Parked by a barrier. Solomon Creed standing next to it. His biggest fear confirmed. They were together.

  He scanned the rest of the photos, looking for any sign that Marie-Claude and Léo were in any distress, while everything Magellan had told him about Solomon came screaming back to him. The final image showed the registration plate of the car they were now driving. Amand picked up the desk phone and was halfway through dialling Henri’s number when the photos vanished from his screen. He checked his inbox. The email had gone too. Panic rose up at the thought that this slender thread connecting him to Marie-Claude had snapped. He remembered it was an Audi but he hadn’t written down the new registration number. He refreshed the inbox. Checked the trash. Nothing.

  His heart started to race and he reached into his pocket, took out a glycerine tablet, popped it under his tongue and forced himself to calm down and think. He couldn’t remember the details of the email but he remembered where it was from. He opened a new window, found the website for Toulouse–Blagnac Airport and a number for Parking Services, dialled it and opened up his personal Gmail account while it connected.

  ‘Blagnac Stationnement?’

  ‘Hi, my name’s Commandant Benoît Amand from the Cordes Commissariat. I need to talk to whoever’s in charge of the security cameras that cover the car parks.’

  ‘I can help with that.’

  ‘Did you send an email with some photographs of a missing car – a Peugeot?’

  ‘Yes … that was me.’ Amand detected a hint of suspicion in his voice.

  ‘Great, I was hoping to get hold of you. Your message was very helpful but I wondered if you could send it again to another email address. We’re having a few issues with our servers today and the attachment isn’t downloading.’

  ‘OK, sure. Where do you want me to send it?’ Amand gave him his own Gmail address and listened to the tap of fingers on a keyboard. ‘It’s gone. Let me know if you have any more problems.’

  Amand refreshed his Gmail account and the email appeared. He opened the attachment to make sure the photographs had come through and stared at the grainy image of Solomon standing by the car again. ‘Got it. Thanks.’

  ‘Pleasure. And if you need hard copies, I can print them off and give them to the other guy when he comes back.’

  Amand froze. ‘What other guy?’

  ‘The cop,’ he sounded defensive again.

  ‘Did you get this guy’s name?’

  ‘No … he showed me his badge, but I didn’t catch his name … He said not to make it official until he came back with a proper warrant, but I saw the alert on the police database and figured he wouldn’t need one. That’s why I sent the email. I hope that was OK.’

  ‘Absolutely. You did the right thing.’ Amand’s mind raced with this new information. ‘Actually, hard copies would be helpful. What did this guy look like? I might be able to figure out who it was and get him to swing back to pick them up.’

  ‘About medium height, quite fit, like a boxer or something. He had black hair and a scar on one side of his face.’

  Amand felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I know who that is. I’ll call him right now. Thanks again.’

  He hung up and stared at the screen. He had been worried about Marie-Claude before: now he was ter
rified. Not only was she travelling with a known killer who was most likely becoming increasingly unstable, but her ex-husband was actively looking for her too. He started to redial the Cordes number to inform Henri and get him to upgrade the alert, then stopped. The email had been sent to Cordes and it had vanished. The cane had vanished too. Two key pieces of evidence, both now missing. There was probably a simple explanation for it – the bamboo cane was held up in transit, there was some kind of glitch in the mail server – but there was also another possibility, and Amand felt sick at the idea. There was a way to test it, though.

  He dialled the number for the Commissariat and Henri picked up on the second ring. ‘Henri, it’s Ben. How’re you getting on with the bamboo cane?’

  ‘Someone at the morgue’s gone in search of it, in case it’s in dispatch or something.’

  ‘So it hasn’t arrived.’

  ‘No, but I’m on it. It’ll turn up.’

  ‘What about the Lansky and Schwartzfeldt cases?’

  ‘Still waiting for people to get back to me.’

  ‘OK. Anything else?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Amand let the silence stretch, giving Henri the chance to say something about the email, anything. He must have seen it, he was the dispatcher, everything went through him. He’d known Henri for years. Respected him. But the silence continued to stretch.

  ‘Anything else you need?’ Henri said finally.

  ‘No,’ Amand said, and hung up. He stared at the phone, thinking back through all the things he’d asked Henri to do that morning, wondering now if any of them had been done. His head felt like his brain was swelling inside his skull, and he forced himself to breathe deeper. Verbier had warned him to take it easy or he would force him to step down, but he couldn’t, not now. Who would look out for Marie-Claude and Léo then? He wondered who else might be involved. LePoux, Belloq, the Laurent family too most probably, senior and junior. The local mafia, closing ranks, but for what? Had they killed Josef Engel? Had their right-wing nationalism evolved into murder now? He thought of the swastika on the Jewish memorial that morning and how Herman Lansky’s memoir had talked about the same thing happening right before the Nazis seized power. That was how it started. Words of hate written on a wall. He had to keep everyone thinking he was still in the dark and gather evidence himself. Find Marie-Claude before they did. At least she was out of the area. The Belloqs and Laurents might own Cordes, but they did not own France.

  He opened the internal directory on the computer, found the number for the Gendarmerie Nationale, the division in charge of traffic, and dialled it.

  ‘Dispatch!’

  ‘Hello, I’m calling from the Cordes Commissariat. We’re urgently looking for a suspect in relation to a current murder investigation and have received information that they’re driving a black Audi Q3 out of Toulouse–Blagnac Airport. Can you run the registration through the péage camera database and see if any of the barrier cams have picked it up?’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

  Amand read the registration number from the photograph and listened to keyboard taps.

  ‘That car passed through the Porte de Montauban heading north out of Toulouse on the A20 a little over an hour ago. There are no other hits.’

  ‘So it’s still on the motorway?’

  ‘Has to be. They’d have to pass through another barrier to get off. I would say they’re somewhere around Souillac by now, if they haven’t stopped.’

  ‘OK, thanks. Can you put out a level one alert for me. There are three people in the car – a man, a woman and a seven-year-old boy, I’ll forward you photos and details. The man is potentially extremely dangerous and the woman and child are in immediate danger. They must be apprehended and approached with extreme caution.’

  ‘I’ll issue the alert now and put your name as contact. Who am I speaking with?’

  Amand paused. If he gave his own name, they’d know he was operating independently of the investigation. ‘DuBois,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Henri DuBois. I’ll give you my mobile number and email the additional information. Our phone system is playing up, so that’s the best number to get me on.’

  ‘OK, sure. I’ll wait for your email and add your details to the alert.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Amand hung up and opened a new window. He created a Gmail account in Henri’s name and copied the photos from Blagnac into a new message, attached the Interpol alert for Solomon and added a few lines about Marie-Claude and Léo, then sent it.

  Somewhere near Souillac, the dispatcher had said.

  He opened Google Maps and studied the thick orange line of the A20 snaking up through the middle of France. Marie-Claude was on it somewhere with a killer in her car and Baptiste on her tail.

  59

  Jean-Luc Belloq was serving coffee to a group of Dutch tourists when the cheap mobile phone buzzed in the pocket of his apron. He moved into the café, checked the number and summoned Mariella. ‘Watch the bar,’ he said, and headed into the small back office, closing the door behind him before answering.

  ‘Tell me you have good news.’

  ‘I have news, but I wouldn’t call it good. That guy Baptiste spoke to at Blagnac emailed screen-grabs from the security cameras to the Commissariat. Fortunately, I was at my desk and deleted it as soon as it appeared. I don’t think anyone else saw it.’

  Belloq fished a skinny dark cigarillo from the pack on his desk and fitted it into his mouth. ‘What about Amand, is he still being a pain in the ass?’

  ‘He’s over at the morgue in Albi, checking in on the autopsy and forensics results.’

  ‘And where’s the bamboo cane?’

  ‘In my locker, but Amand is chasing it hard. I can probably hold it back for a few more hours, that way the test results won’t come back until tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. Keep hold of it as long as you can.’ Belloq lit the cigarillo and breathed in smoke. ‘As soon as they realize it’s pig’s blood on that cane they’ll have to let the Arab go and all efforts will be refocused on Solomon Creed. We need to get to him first and find out what he—’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A new alert just popped up from the central traffic division.’ Belloq heard tapping on a keyboard. ‘It’s got the Engel case number on it and the screen-grabs from Blagnac.’

  Belloq blew out smoke. ‘Can you delete it?’

  ‘No. It’s on the national database. Every commissariat in France will have got it. Wait a second. They’ve already got a hit on the Audi too, it passed through the péage barrier at Montauban an hour ago heading north on the A20.’ There was a pause and more keyboard clacking. ‘The next toll booth is at Vierzon, so unless they pull off beforehand, that’s where they’ll get picked up.’

  ‘OK, keep watching. Do your best to keep it contained and let me know as soon as anything new crops up.’

  He hung up, unlocked his computer and input Vierzon and Montauban into Google Maps while dialling LePoux’s mobile. The map loaded, a thick blue line joining the two dots. The distance between them was four hundred and sixteen kilometres – three hours and forty minutes’ driving time – but Marie-Claude had already been on the road for an hour. The phone clicked and LePoux answered, the hiss of motorway in the background.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We just passed Montauban.’

  Belloq shook his head. ‘Then we have a problem. Put me on speakerphone and I’ll explain.’

  LePoux obliged and Belloq ran through the new information he’d received.

  ‘We can still catch them,’ Baptiste said.

  ‘They’re more than an hour ahead of you.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re bound to stop for lunch, and they’ve got Léo with them so they’ll probably have to stop a few more times. He gets car sick. We can catch them.’

  ‘But what if they don’t stop? What if they turn off before they get to Vierzon? It’s too risky. We need to pick them up before the police do. I’ll call the leadership. The
y’ll have someone local they can trust. Stand down, Jean Baptiste, this is no longer your responsibility.’

  ‘Léo will always be my responsibility. I want to continue. I think we can catch them.’

  Belloq stubbed his cigarillo out in an overflowing ashtray. ‘Carry on if you want to, but I think you’re wasting your time. I’ll call the leadership now and see what they say.’

  He hung up before Baptiste could object any further and dialled the direct number the Leader had given him earlier. ‘We have a problem,’ he said, the moment he answered.

  ‘An insoluble one?’ the desiccated voice replied.

  ‘Depends. Does the party have anyone in the Vierzon area?’

  ‘Of course. We have soldiers suited to every task in every corner of France. What kind of person do you need?’

  Belloq thought about what needed to be done. ‘Someone serious,’ he replied.

  60

  Thommé Terrau, known as Bull for reasons obvious to anyone who met him, knocked on the battered blue door for the second time. He was on the third floor of an ugly apartment block in the centre of Vierzon. He knew someone was home, he’d seen movement through the rippled glass door panel when he’d first arrived. He also knew they weren’t going to open the door because if they were, they would have done it already. But he knocked a second time anyway because that was his ritual, something he’d started after one of his longer stints in jail where an American cellmate had taught him the rules of baseball and the notion of ‘three strikes and you’re out’. Bull liked the neatness and fairness of that: first chance, last chance, then no chance at all.

  ‘We doing this or not?’ Roberto said behind him, his voice tight with the same energy that made him twitch and fidget as he wound himself up for what was coming. This was another reason Bull liked the three strikes rule. It enforced a degree of discipline. Any idiot could go charging into a place and start breaking heads. That was what he used to do himself, which was why he’d ended up in jail learning the rules of baseball from a crazy American. Now he stuck to his ritual.