by Mark Pryor
“All in good time,” Hugo said. “When exactly was this found?”
“About two hours ago. It took a while for the responding officers to connect the dots.”
“They did so through the passport?”
“Correct.”
“Good police work.” Hugo winked at Marchand. “Time for you to do some. What do you make of it all?”
Marchand took a deep breath. “Well, if we can rule out accident, which I think we can, and if we’re sure this is all Drummond’s property, which it likely is given the passport, then I think we have to conclude there has been more foul play, and whoever dumped the bag in the river also put Drummond in there.”
Hugo waved toward the policemen stretched in a line along the riverbank. “Which is why you’ve got those men out here, and a dive team on the way.”
“Exactement.”
“If you’re right, then who exactly do you think put poor Rob Drummond into the river?”
“Well, I suppose our list of suspects just narrowed. It must have been one of three people: Rachel Rollo; her husband, JD; or Josh Reno.”
“I’d agree, they do seem like the best suspects. But which one?” Hugo pressed.
“Was Mademoiselle Alsaffar having an affair with JD Rollo? If so, then his wife did it. Drummond finds out, he needs money so he tries to blackmail her. She lures him out here . . .”
“And if her husband wasn’t having an affair with Alia?”
“Then perhaps that’s why Monsieur Rollo killed her. He was spurned, rejected. He decides that if he can’t have her, no one will. Again, Drummond finds out somehow, and gets himself killed.”
“Does each of your scenarios include Drummond discovering the identity of the killer and being murdered for that?”
Marchand bristled. “You asked for possibilities, and I am giving them.”
“You met and interviewed Rob Drummond. Does he strike you as the detective type?”
“People find things out by accident, by chance. Like I said, maybe he tried blackmailing the killer.”
“I could see him more as blackmailer than detective, I’ll give you that much.”
“Which means it would be one of the Rollos.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Josh Reno wouldn’t make for a great blackmail target, would he?” Marchand said. “That guy has less money than I do.”
“Good point. So which Rollo is it?”
“I don’t know,” Marchand said. His eyes narrowed. “Why do I feel like you’re playing games with me?”
Hugo ignored the question, and asked: “How do you explain the bag of Drummond’s stuff floating in the river? What’s the point of that?”
“Simple. The river is fast, full, and takes everything to the sea. If the killer is trying to get rid of Drummond, of everything to do with him, then the sea is a better dumping ground than a relatively narrow river.”
“For half a passport and two pieces of wool clothing, fire would work much better.”
“Perhaps.” Marchand conceded. “But where are the Rollos going to light a fire without attracting attention?”
“Ah, so you have them working together now?” Hugo asked with a smile.
“Another perhaps.” Marchand shrugged. “Why could it not be two people?”
“Two people,” Hugo repeated, his voice distracted. He picked up the passport and studied it. “Yes, that’s one way to put it.”
“What?” Marchand stared at Hugo. “You know who the killer is?”
“I believe I do.”
“Who? Which one of them was it?”
“It’s like you said.” Hugo smiled at him. “It was two people. Sort of, anyway. And depending on when this clever little duo dumped the bags, we might want to hurry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Two police cars sped from the embankment, tires squealing, and Hugo waved out of the window from the rear seat of the lead car to his boss. For his part, the ambassador stood wide-eyed and his arms apart. Where the hell are you going?
Over the next two minutes, Hugo tried texting to let him know, but the car was jerking too much, swinging from side to side as the diver changed lanes, the firm chassis of the little Renault shaking the phone in his hand. Hugo gave up and looked through the front window. Overhead, the sky had darkened and he hoped it wasn’t about to rain, because Paris had one thing in common with the rest of the world as he knew it: as soon as rain hit the roads, people drove like idiots. And that meant accidents, jams, and maybe their quarry getting away.
“Gare du Nord, you’re sure?” Marchand asked, after Hugo had given the driver directions.
“I am.”
“How do you know we’ll be in time?”
“I have no idea if we will be,” Hugo said patiently. “All I can tell you is I’m pretty damn certain this is the exit plan.”
“You don’t think they’ll try and shake us, take a convoluted route?” Marchand sat beside him and stared intently out of the front window as the rear end of an eighteen-wheeler loomed over them. “Merde, don’t get us killed!” he yelled at the driver, who ignored him.
“No,” Hugo said.
“Then do you mind explaining who we’re looking for, and why they won’t?”
“Be happy to,” Hugo said. “If we’re successful, though, mind if I sit in on the initial interrogation? I think you’re going to want me to, anyway.”
“You are welcome to. Assuming you’re right, and assuming you stop torturing me and tell me what you think is going on.”
“Thank you,” Hugo said. “I have some questions for our quarry.”
“I thought you had all the answers,” the Frenchman said, almost under his breath but not quite.
“Some of them. Most of them. But not all.”
“Well, I don’t have many right now, so if you’ve kept me in the dark long enough, can I hear your theory . . .?”
“Sure thing.” Hugo gave him a sideways glance. “But I only share my thoughts when I’m positive, which means it’s no longer a theory.”
“Fine.” Marchand raised his hands in surrender. “We can call it whatever you want.”
Hugo looked out of the side window as he spoke. “It’s funny, despite being such a gifted artist and sweet person, everyone had a motive to harm Alia. It could’ve been a lover’s jealousy, a friend scorned and left behind, or revenge for destroying a money-making venture. And a marriage. Any one of those could’ve fit.”
“Let me guess, it’s none of those.” The impatience in Marchand’s voice was plain.
“Correct.”
“Instead it was . . .?”
“A combination of greed and desperation. Mostly greed.”
“And the killers?”
Hugo looked out of the window for a moment, then turned to Marchand. “Our killer is Rob Drummond. And my guess is, he’s on his way to England right now.”
“Which is why we’re going to Gare du Nord, for the Eurostar. In that case, I should also alert the border agents, and have our people look out for him at ferry ports and airports.” Marchand had his phone in his hand.
“You can, but it’d be a waste of resources. He won’t try to fly anywhere.”
“Because he has no passport?”
“He does have one. A British one. So start with Gare du Nord, then other train stations, and finally the ferries. If his little plan gets held up, it’s easier to turn and run from those places than from deep inside an airport.”
Hugo sat quietly while Marchand called Lieutenant Lerens and started the process of stopping up the city’s escape routes. When he hung up, he looked at Hugo. “Who is the second person? You said there were two.”
“No, you did. I agreed. Sort of.”
“Please, Hugo, this is no time for games. You should tell me everything.”
“Fair enough. The first sign, and one that I missed completely at the time, was the book Rob Drummond was reading at the museum.”
“A book? What does that have
to do with anything?”
“It was called The Paper Trip,” Hugo said. “At the time I thought it a good name for a novel, but it’s not.”
“Not a good name?”
“No, it’s not a novel. It’s an expression, one that I’ve come across a few times, but it’s not well known. It basically means you disappear from your own life by creating a paper trail that belongs to someone else. You take a paper trip.”
“To a new identity?”
“Precisely. You need one or two key documents, and from there it’s just a matter of patience and attention to detail.”
“Drummond faked his own death—is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. Think about what we found. Bright clothing and half a passport, all of it double bagged. The bright clothing and bright book cover were designed to make sure someone spotted the bags. And he used two bags, of course, to make sure his little distraction didn’t sink to the bottom of the river or otherwise get damaged.”
“Why half a passport?”
“I’d be willing to bet there’s another bag out there floating its way down the Seine containing the other half.”
“You mean as a backup?”
“Right. The gold chain that we can’t find him wearing suggests he bought it recently and, I suspect, put it in the bag to ensure someone fished it out, the promise of reward or perhaps more valuables inside. And the bloody passport, well, who wouldn’t call the police on seeing that?”
“It makes sense,” Marchand conceded.
“Much more sense than the idea that some other killer double-bagged his victim’s clothing . . . some of his clothing, sprinkled in a piece of jewelry and half a passport. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why anyone else would do that—can you?”
“I admit, my theory of floating his belongings out to sea sounds a little . . . well, unrealistic now.”
“Again, note how only bright clothing made it into the careful bagging, for visibility.”
“Makes sense,” Marchand said again. He frowned. “If you’re right and it’s him, even if we get fingerprints from the bags or the contents, since Drummond refused to give us his, we’ll have nothing to compare them to. That’s frustrating.”
“Actually, not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have an old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottle in a plastic bag in my fridge,” Hugo said. “It has his prints on it, and I can authenticate they are his in a court of law if I need to.”
Marchand’s eyebrows rose. “How did that happen? And why?”
“Sleight of hand. And because I don’t like not having everyone’s prints in an investigation. He had a right not to give them, sure, but he also had a right not to hold the Coke bottle when I handed it to him.”
“I see.” Marchand laughed gently. “You said he has an English passport, thanks to his English father. He’ll be using that to get across the Channel.”
“He will.” Hugo almost toppled onto Marchand as the driver took a last-second swing off the road they were on, arrowing them through an intersection with a blare of lights and noise.
“Put your seatbelt on,” Marchand said, as he pushed Hugo upright and back into his own seat.
“Good idea.” Hugo did so. “Thanks.”
“Lerens will have flagged his name; the customs people will stop him.”
And then it hit Hugo, the wash of certainty, the pistons in his brain firing and slotting all the moving parts into their rightful place. The tenant in London, the book in the bag, and the advice from The Paper Trip. “No, they won’t,” he said.
“What? Why not?”
“The passport he’s using. It’ll be in a different name, not Rob Drummond.”
“Then who?”
Hugo’s mind worked overtime. “Drummond broke into Josh Reno’s room after Alia’s death, but Reno said nothing was missing.”
“Right, I know.”
“So either Drummond didn’t find what he was looking for, or he did and Reno just didn’t know.”
“Go on,” Marchand said.
“At the time, I was thinking in terms of a piece of art, something obvious.”
“But now?”
“Paperwork. Rob told me that he killed his father, Alia’s father. He was abusive, but when he died he left her an apartment. Rob Drummond got some cash, and she got an apartment in London.”
“Wasn’t Drummond living in London before he came over here?”
“He was. And I’d wager he was living at her place.”
“Did she tell anyone about that?” Marchand asked.
“She did. In a way, yes she did.” Hugo took out his phone and called Lieutenant Lerens. “Camille, this is Hugo. When your people are canvassing the train stations and airports, they’re not looking for Rob Drummond.”
“Wait, what? Jesus, Hugo, I just printed out a hundred or more flyers with his photo on them. So who the hell are they looking for?”
“Use the flyers,” Hugo said. “Just change the name. Your officers are looking for that face still. But the name on his passport will be John Smith.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
They didn’t want him going to ground, so Lerens made sure the dozen uniformed officers at Gare du Nord strolled casually from concourse to concourse and looked as uninterested as they could when they passed through the station’s small cafés and restaurants. They talked quietly into their mics as they went, and by the time Hugo and Marchand arrived, they had cleared half of the public areas. Two men stayed on the platform where the train departing for London would soon be arriving, just to make sure Drummond didn’t sneak aboard.
“Take the northwest entrance,” Lerens told Hugo as they climbed out of the police car. “I have two guys there but most of my men are making their way in that direction, if he spots them he’ll be flushed toward you.”
“Got it.” Hugo relayed the instructions to Marchand and they walked briskly to the heavy glass doors leading into the station. They stopped for a moment to let their eyes adjust to the light, and to roam over the crowds of people drifting every which way around them.
“No idea what he’s wearing, I suppose,” Marchand said.
“I’m guessing gray and black.” Hugo gave him a tight smile. “After all, he disposed of all his colorful clothing, didn’t he?”
“I suppose so,” Marchand said. “You want to wait here or go look around?”
“The latter. The flics by the door will catch him if he tries to get out this way.”
“Did Lerens say if she has people covering the entrance to the metro? If he heads down there, he’s gone.”
“She did. He can’t get through there, or shouldn’t be able to. Come on.”
They started forward, separating slightly so they could cover more ground, but staying close enough to watch each other’s back. Hugo stopped when an older woman in front of him tripped on her own rolling suitcase, sending it to the floor and her on top of it. He helped her up and picked up her bag, too.
“I’m so clumsy,” she said in French, her face red with embarrassment.
“As long as you’re not hurt,” Hugo said.
“I don’t think so.” She patted herself down to check for hidden injuries. “My son always tells me I travel with too many things, that I need to pack more lightly.”
“I think your son may have a good point,” Hugo said, separating himself from her with a friendly smile and wave. He glanced over at Marchand, who’d stationed himself to make sure Drummond didn’t slip by. The Frenchman nodded, and they both set off again.
Somewhere overhead, the station’s PA system announced the imminent arrival of the Eurostar from London, and Hugo felt his stomach tighten. That train was a deadline. It was Drummond’s escape route or, if he spotted the cops before he boarded, it would mark the moment he went into hiding.
“There!” Marchand pointed ahead and to his right.
Hugo stopped in his tracks and looked where Marchand was pointing. He saw several couples an
d a family of four, two priests in earnest discussion as they walked, and . . . Drummond. He was heading right toward Hugo, his head down and half his face hidden by a new fedora and what looked like a gray, drooping mustache plastered to his top lip. Hugo almost smiled at that, because Drummond was the epitome of a man trying not to be recognized, and therefore stuck out like a sore thumb. Hugo gestured for Marchand to stay put, and they waited for the American to get within grabbing distance. Drummond was big, and probably strong, but with every step forward Hugo grew more confident that Drummond would not be able to outrun either him or Marchand. Five seconds later, Drummond looked up to get his bearings, and his gaze passed right across Hugo’s face.
And then returned to it.
Drummond’s mouth opened, and his eyes grew large with surprise. He turned on his heel and began to march back the way he’d come, but he stopped after ten yards when a pair of uniformed flics arrowed in toward him. Hugo was close behind, and when Drummond turned to his left looking for another escape route, Hugo called out.
“Rob Drummond, stay still! Do not move!”
Drummond’s body did remain still, but his head was on a swivel trying to spot a way out. Hugo sped up and in a moment was on him, a strong hand on Drummond’s shoulder, spinning him and putting them face-to-face. Hugo reached up and pulled the mustache off Drummond’s upper lip, and the big man cried out, either from the sting of that or the surprise of Marchand putting a hand on him, too. Drummond stiffened as if squaring himself for a fight.
“Rob, please don’t do anything stupid,” Hugo said. “This place is crawling with cops all looking for you, so even if you get away from us . . .”
“I’m not . . . My name isn’t Rob Drummond,” he said weakly, but from the look in his eye, Hugo knew that he was abandoning any pretense, forgoing the farcical defense of, He must be my doppelganger.
“What did he say?” Marchand asked. He pulled a set of handcuffs from a clip on his belt.
“Nothing,” Hugo said. “He won’t resist. You know it’s over, right, Rob?”
Drummond’s head dropped, and he stared at the ground as four more flics ran over to where they were, surrounding them and at the same time ushering the slowly gathering crowd away. Hugo spotted Paul Jameson making his way toward them, and smiled. He should’ve known Lerens would put her best man on this job.
