by Mark Pryor
“Hugo, all ok?” Jameson asked. He nodded a greeting at Marchand.
“It is now.” Hugo gestured to Drummond’s bag. “Can you have someone take possession of his belongings? Treat everything as evidence, not inventory.”
“Aye, will do it myself, sir.”
“Thank you.” Hugo let Marchand know what he’d asked of the Scotsman, and Marchand nodded but gave Hugo a look that seemed to suggest the American shouldn’t be giving orders.
“We’ll take him straight for questioning,” Marchand said, a hand on Drummond’s cuffed wrists. “Assuming he’ll want to cooperate.”
“I’ll have to notify the ambassador, since he’s a US citizen,” Hugo said. “He may want to send legal counsel to the prefecture.”
“Fine by me,” Marchand said. “And you should call the British Embassy, too, since he’s a UK citizen. With any luck, they’ll get into a turf war and give us a few moments alone with him.”
Rob Drummond sat slouched in the chair, and he barely looked up as Hugo entered the interview room and sat across the steel table from him. A red mark spread across Drummond’s lip from where the fake mustache had irritated it, or, more likely, from Hugo’s ripping it off. Drummond’s sat with his elbows resting on the table, and his wrists shackled to a metal rail atop the table.
Hugo turned to the jailer who’d let him in. “Can we take the cuffs off him? He didn’t run when he had the chance, so he’s not going to now.”
The jailer looked uncertain for a moment, then said, “Oui, monsieur.”
His wrists free, Drummond rubbed them and mumbled a thank you to Hugo. Then he glanced up and asked, “Can I get some water or something?”
Hugo nodded. “I think Lieutenant Intern Marchand is bringing you a bottle.”
“He’s the French guy, the main detective?”
“He is.”
“Why isn’t he here already?”
“He’s putting a couple pieces of the puzzle together, at my request.”
Behind Hugo, the door opened and Marchand appeared with a bottle of Évian in his hand. He stopped short when he saw that Drummond’s hands were free but handed him the bottle before sitting beside Hugo.
“Merci,” Drummond said. He unscrewed the cap and gulped a third of the water. He then put the cap back on and placed the bottle on the table. He stared at it, as if afraid to lift his eyes to his interrogators.
“You understand this interview is being recorded, right?” Hugo said.
“Yes.”
“And you have been told what your rights are.”
“I have.”
“Mind if I ask you some questions, then?”
“Sure,” Drummond said sulkily. “Ask what you like. Doesn’t mean I’m going to answer.”
“True. Thing is, this isn’t the usual situation where you’re a suspect and we’re trying to find out if you did it. We know you killed Alia Alsaffar, so the only question left is what happens to you.”
“You don’t know anything, because I didn’t kill her.”
“Oh, come on now.” Hugo sat back. “You can’t possibly expect me to swallow that.”
“I didn’t,” Drummond insisted.
“Right. You were just fleeing the country under an alternative passport, and wearing a fake mustache, for giggles.”
“I owe some people some money is all.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that, so let’s talk about it. You’re prepared to admit you have a gambling problem, right?”
“I guess.”
“I mean, who else, what other American, would go to the sunflower bar, an obvious gambling den, unless they had a problem?”
Drummond looked up. “How did you know that’s what it is?”
“I went there. Jesus, Rob, this isn’t rocket science, and you’re not a very sophisticated criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal at all; I didn’t do anything.”
“You gambled at the sunflower bar, and lost all your money, right?” Drummond didn’t respond, so Hugo went on. “That’s why you got beat up—you couldn’t pay your debt to whoever you’d been betting with.”
“No, they robbed me.”
“Problem is, your gambling addiction runs a lot deeper than a few hundred euros in a Montmartre bar.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, your stepfather was a jerk, and you killed him in self-defense. Right?”
“That’s right, so what?”
“ We got some information from the executor of his estate that indicated he left you more than four hundred thousand pounds in his will.”
Drummond’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. Hugo glanced at Marchand, who said quietly, “I am understanding things so far. Go on.”
Hugo did. “So I got to wondering. Why were you in Paris? Why were you staying in a flea pit of a hotel miles from the tourist areas? More specifically, why would someone who has a phobia about germs stay in a place like that? Simple answer is you had no money. And why else would you go to a run-down, filthy bar known for gambling if the idea of just touching a fingerprint pad grossed you out? Not because you wanted to, but because you needed to. And then I wondered, well, how did you manage to live in London, in one of the most expensive cities in the world, with no money?”
“What did you come up with?” Drummond asked, his tone still petulant.
“I came up with your stepsister’s flat.”
Drummond’s eyes closed, and after a moment or two his shoulder sagged, which told Hugo he’d hit the mark. A quick glance to Marchand showed that the French detective was still understanding, and was as captivated as their prisoner.
Hugo went on. “You’ve been living there as John Smith, right? I’d guess you were late on payments to your sister, who had no idea you and Smith are the same person. Him being a hermit and all, refusing to meet in person. Of course, in reality there was a good reason for that.”
Drummond’s breathing deepened, and a film of sweat covered his brow, but he stayed quiet.
“Rob, this stuff is really, really easy to prove. A lease agreement here, a neighbor seeing you there.”
“It’s not a crime,” Drummond said suddenly. “Well, it’s not murder. If I did that, it doesn’t prove anything.”
“Oh, come on now, Rob. That’s not all we have.” Hugo turned to Marchand and spoke in French. “Did you hear anything from my embassy?”
Marchand looked directly at Drummond as he replied. “Oui. It’s as you thought. On both subjects.” He smiled at Hugo. “And here’s your apartment key back.”
“Thank you for checking on those so fast.”
“What’s going on?” Drummond asked, confusion on his face.
“Turns out your John Smith passport showed up in America last year,” Hugo said to Drummond. “Why?”
A pause. “Business.”
“What business is that?”
“I forget what exactly. I do a lot of things.”
“Like trying to run down your sister in a rental car that you switched the plates on?”
“What? No!”
“No? You sure? What I’m sure about is that when we go through your belongings at the hotel, we’ll find a key. A key to the padlock on your sister’s chest that’s in Josh Reno’s room, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How’d you manage that?” Hugo pushed him. “Swipe a key from the cleaner’s cart?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“We also have your prints from the room where Alia was killed. Remember, Rob, that room wasn’t open to people yet, so you’re gonna have to come up with an explanation if you keep up this nonsense about being innocent.”
“But . . . but . . . I didn’t give the police my prints.”
“That’s right, you didn’t.” Hugo smiled. “You gave them to me, when you kindly held that Coke bottle for a moment outside the Dalí museum.”
Drummond shook his head in disappointment, but Hugo couldn’t tell whether it was at himself fo
r falling for the trick, or at Hugo for being sneaky.
Hugo continued: “And speaking of prints, I’m sure you wiped down the photos and the envelope you left on my doorstep, but so many amateur criminals make the same mistake. When they open the envelope, they leave a thumbprint inside. Think we’ll find one?”
Drummond visibly paled. “Photos?”
“Yeah, thanks for that. They helped me rule out JD and Rachel Rollo. A clumsy attempt to implicate both of them that had the opposite effect.”
“Explain that to me,” Marchand said.
“The picture suggested, very vaguely I have to say, a relationship between JD and Alia. That gives him a motive, for leaving him; and Rachel one: jealousy. That being the case, JD wouldn’t leave them for me, and neither would she. Which left me with Reno and Rob. Very helpful, like I said.”
“It must have been Reno,” Drummond said, surly again.
Hugo sighed. “You’re not helping yourself here, so let me explain how this works. When we find bad things out about you, have to collect all the evidence ourselves, we put it in a stack, and eventually that stack will collapse on you and bury you. Maybe forever. And in a French prison. Now, I don’t think you speak French very well, and I certainly don’t think you want to be the pasty American who gets a life sentence and has to learn from scratch from a xenophobic cellmate. Do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If, on the other hand, you cooperate, and tell us what happened, things can be made much better for you. For example, we’re not there yet, but I’m betting the car that drove at Alia in Washington, DC, was rented to, or can be connected to, someone called John Smith. Now, we can go to the trouble of getting all that paperwork, doing the legwork, sure. But if you tell us what happened, Rob, I promise it’ll go easier on you.”
Drummond looked back and forth between them. “Easier, how?”
“Maybe you can go home, to America. You’re going to have to face the consequence of your actions, but right now, and only for a short time, you have some leverage. A modern US prison instead of an eighteenth-century French one.” Hugo held up his hands. “Now, I’m not promising anything here and now; I can’t. But I can assure you that we know the truth, and we’ll dig up the details. Being honest now can’t possibly bury you any deeper than you are.” Hugo softened his tone, and reached over to Drummond, putting a hand on his forearm. “Rob. You’re not a psychopath. You’re not some natural-born killer. I have seen evil people, and you’re not one of them.”
“I’m not, I’m really not.” Drummond’s head dropped and his whole body started shaking.
“I know that,” Hugo said. “I know that for a fact. But you have to tell me what happened, and why it happened. Rob, I don’t want to see you locked up here, but I truly can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.”
Drummond raised his head slowly and looked Hugo in the eye. “I don’t even know why. Why I did it.”
“You do, Rob,” Hugo said, his voice almost a whisper. “Tell me what happened.”
“You were right, I do have a problem.” Drummond’s voice turned plaintive. “But it’s not my fault, addiction is a disease, it really is. Anyway, you were right about me spending all the money my father left me. And using Alia’s apartment without her knowing. But she wouldn’t have minded, I’m sure of that.”
“Is that why you broke into Josh Reno’s room?”
Drummond nodded, then he said, “Yes. I figured she had the paperwork with her, since she was going to go from here to London.”
Marchand looked confused, so Hugo took a moment to explain in French. He added, “Reno told me nothing was missing, but he must not have known about the apartment, the papers for that. He looked for material items that might have been taken.” He turned back to Drummond. “When did you legally change your name in England?”
“About two years ago. With dual citizenship, I realized I could be two people, use two different passports to get a second identity. To be Rob, and also be someone completely different.”
“John Smith.”
“Yes. Once I had my English passport, it was so easy to change my name by deed poll. That’s what they call it, the name change.”
“You chose that name because it’s so common, right?”
“Right.” As so often happened, in Hugo’s experience, once that desire to talk, to confess, had been tapped, the words flowed like water. “I knew it’d be easier to hide with a common name like that, knew it’d be harder for people that I owed money to find me.”
“Did you get that from the book you were reading at the coat-check counter?”
“ The Paper Trip, yes, that was one of the things it taught me.”
“Rob, tell us what happened. That night at the museum.”
Drummond took a deep breath and sat back, his head bowed so that his chin almost touched his chest. “It wasn’t premeditated, you have to believe me. I even offered to help with the coat checking. I admit, I did it mostly to get in her good graces because I wanted her help. Needed it.”
“Her help with what?” Marchand interjected.
“Money.” Drummond’s head snapped up. “I mean, come on, for Christ’s sake. She’d hit it big with that show. She was about to get a London exhibition, and you know what it’s like, how it works. Once you’re famous, your shit sells for thousands, millions even. And she had that apartment in London, that’s worth a million, at least. More.”
“And you wanted a share,” Hugo said.
“I wanted my share. It was my father’s after all, not hers. Why did she get the fancy apartment, when all I got was some cash?”
“Four hundred thousand is a lot of money,” Hugo said.
“It’s not a fucking million-dollar flat, though, is it?” Drummond said, his face reddening with anger. “Why should she have that, and not let me stay there while I’m down on my luck? Especially when she’s about to hit the big-time with her stupid art.”
“Is that how you put it to her?” Hugo inquired.
“No, of course not. And, look, don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge her the success she had. I mean, I don’t get it, I’d never pay for her sculptures no matter how rich I was, but if other people want to, good for them.” He sighed heavily. “Anyway, I took her to one side, she seemed happy, and I thought maybe she’d be in a generous mood. She wasn’t. She got annoyed that I was bugging her at her opening. Then she asked me about the money, where it’d gone, and you should’ve seen how condescending she was. Jesus, I was opening up to her, telling her about my problems, and she just acted like I was an idiot, like it was my fault and nothing to do with her. And, yeah, I know you think it wasn’t her business to look after me that way, but when a family member asks for help, you give it. You fucking give it. And all she did was stand there and act like I was a disgrace. A loser.”
“Is that what she said?” Hugo asked gently.
“She didn’t need to. It was written all over that perfect fucking face. And I just snapped. I lost it. I wanted to shake her pristine world, make her see things from my perspective. Just fucking see me, you know?”
“So you hit her,” Hugo said.
“I took the globe from her hand, someone had left it in there and she was irritated because it wasn’t supposed to be in there. It wasn’t a part of her precious display.” He shook his head. “It shouldn’t even have been in there.”
“And when she fell, you put your hands around her neck.”
“Just for a minute. To make her . . .” His voice fell away. “The next thing I knew, she wasn’t breathing.”
“What did you do then?”
“I left her there. Honestly, I couldn’t believe no one had come in, no one had heard anything. I was shocked. I even thought about calling for help, I really did, but I knew no one would believe it was an accident. And then I realized that if she was dead, the apartment would be mine. Her sculptures, too. It just came to me in that room, that there was nothing I could do
to help her, to save her, and if I called for help, I’d get blamed and go to jail. But if I walked away, just turned and walked up the stairs and threw away the globe, my life would be saved. I mean, literally saved.”
“Literally?” Hugo asked, not hiding the skepticism in his voice.
“You don’t know the people I owed money to. You think you do, but you don’t. So, yeah, saved.”
“What else did you take from Reno’s room?” Hugo asked.
“Nothing.”
“Yes, you did. We’ll find it, Rob, so it won’t help if you start lying again.” Hugo waited, but Drummond said nothing. “Her will, right?”
Drummond nodded.
“Where is it?” Hugo tapped the top of the metal table to get his attention. “Rob, you’re not getting anything of hers—not her money, not her art, and not her flat. What happened to the will?”
“I tore it up and threw the pieces away. She had changed it. Recently. She felt bad about Josh, so she wanted the apartment sold and a third of the proceeds to go to him.”
“I figured it was something like that.” Hugo turned to Marchand. “Any questions you want me to ask for you?”
“No,” Marchand said in English. “I think we have everything we need. I will have someone take him to his . . . Comment ça s’appelle? Son cellule . . .”
“His cell,” Hugo said.
“Wait,” Drummond said. “That was me in DC. I tried to run her over there.”
“We know,” Hugo said.
“Yes, but I’m admitting it. I should go to an American jail, right? For that?”
“Eventually, yes. For attempted murder.”
“No, I mean now. Please, Mr. Marston, like you said, I don’t want to go to prison here. I can’t speak their language, I’ll be alone and isolated. I’ll die here.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Hugo said. “You told us the truth, that will help.”
“Tell them, the judge or whoever decides, that I didn’t mean to kill her. It was the anger, the resentment, there was nothing I could do about it. And also . . .” He fell silent.
