by Maggy Diak
Gateway To Heaven
by Maggie Diak
Copyright© 2016 Maggie Diak
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The novel is based on my husband's theories (with his permission of course) of what letters, words and languages can reveal about our past, present and future. His ideas and discoveries are unique, which means that before him they have never been told or discovered by anybody else in the whole world. That's why they make my novel unique as well.
Let mi quote the blurb written for the cover by my Slovenian publisher: " A compelling story that will attract you more than Da Vince's Code …"
Many thanks to my husband Valentin Cundric.
1.
With his hands on his back, his lips curled contemptuously, his eyes staring blankly at the floor tiles under his feet, J.E. nervously paced around the room, his Belgian police office in fact.
Four young officers, standing in a line by the wall, watched each of his movements with fear. He suddenly stopped in front of them, eyed each of them from head to foot and not trying to hide his disdain for them, shouted: “You are the stupidest, the laziest scums I've ever met in my life! You don’t deserve to serve this country!” He paused, pointed at himself with his finger and continued as if he were spitting the words at the officers: “When I was young, I knew what duty was. I knew order and discipline. You don't have the slightest idea about them. You don’t feel any respect for your country. For your own nation! You care a damn if day by day more and more foreigners come trampling on our land, behaving as if it was theirs! Where, for God's sake, is your national pride? When I was young this land was sacred to us, to you it means nothing!”
Taking a deep breath, he pointed with his finger out the window. “As a child I was running up and down the Brussels streets believing they were mine. Ours. Belgian! I was meeting our people. You could hear nothing but our language. But just look at our streets now. No Belgian kid is playing on them anymore. We’ve been driven to the country! Into ghettos! So that here, on our streets, mob, hordes from all over the world can strut like peacocks. Their rags, which they call flags, are hanging from the windows of some of our most gorgeous houses. There shouldn’t be any flags but ours. Our streets resemble runways, closed for us and open to the foreign peacocks. Just have a look at their black limousines. What are they hiding behind the tinted windows? Black faces, yellow faces, slanting eyes, barbarians, who are and will forever remain barbarians despite their shiny limousines. Mob!”
Turning back to the officers, he added with contempt: “But you, the young, have sold your pride. You turned into lackeys. Into the tools of the rabble and thus help them ruin our country. Yours too, not only mine. Step-by-step. However, you are too stupid to be aware of that!”
He paused, knowing that silence would give an additional weight to his words. Then he added scornfully: “But remember! You are not only bad Belgians; you are bad lackeys as well. Do you know what would have happened if I hadn't been here today? Your masters over there,” he pointed to the Grand Palace in which European parliamentary sessions were often held, “would be flying in pieces through the air and you, humble servants would be picking up parts of their bodies all over Brussels, shoving them into black plastic bags! But let me make myself clear. I did not prevent the terrorist attack to save their foreign buttocks, I’m not such a fool. I prevented it to save our beautiful building, our Belgian pride! I saved the building! Belgian property that you fool, are so happy to offer to different skunks from all over the world!”
He resumed pacing the office but soon stopped in front of them again. “And where were you when I was chasing the terrorists all over France and Belgium? Here in the canteen drinking coffee and beer! Laughing. Enjoying yourselves. Giving a damn what’s happening to your country, to your city!”
He was red in the face, his lips trembled, his fists were clenched. I was afraid he would give the nearest officer a slap across his face. But thanks to, I don’t know which thought of his, he didn’t do it, instead he flung himself on a chair, bellowing to the officer he had just restrained from punching into the face, to fetch the Foreigner. “I’ll question him first. All the others out!”
“You, “he pointed to me, “stay here!”
At that moment, I was happy that Kate was no longer with me. Luckily, she had returned home two days ago. The Foreigner that J.E. wanted to question first, was namely her husband. His name was Peter Otrin. He was a professor of linguistics by profession, his students never called him otherwise than Professor, to J.E. he was the Foreigner. The Undesired!
Yes, I was happy Kate was not with us. Not only because she too would have landed at this police station with the threat of staying behind the bars for the rest of her life like we all were, I was happy mostly because I was spared her accusing look saying: “You promised! You said you would rescue my husband but instead you brought us all into the jail.”
And she would be right. I failed. I did promise Kate to bring Peter home. However, things went wrong, but not by my fault and we were all taken captives by the insane Belgian detective J.E.
It looked bad, hopeless, scary, nevertheless, I was firmly convinced that I was going to find a way out. Not only for me, for Peter, Kate’s wife, for Isabelle, Maurice and Mary as well.
2.
I took the case because of my wife. She wouldn’t leave me in peace. I kept telling her that I wasn't a criminologist but a retired police officer, however, it was all in vain. Stubbornly, she insisted on getting my police badge back, at least for this case. For, she kept arguing with me, one ought to help his friends in need, oughtn't he? Moreover, if those friends trust you, which her friend did. She trusted me more than anybody had ever trusted me. I should be grateful for that!
“How on Earth can she trust me if she doesn’t even know me!” I exclaimed.
“Because she knows me,” was her answer. So I learned that my wife was a guarantee for my quality!
“Okay,” I gave in, believing that a fictitious yielding was the fastest way to get rid of her and her friend, “I am ready to listen to you and give my opinion but that's all. I won’t take the case.”
Her face lit up. And when she said, with a foxy expression in her eyes, 'of course, my dear', it became clear to me that I had let myself be caught in a snare. It again slipped my mind that if you give a woman an inch, she'll take a mile.
“Kate's husband, you know Kate, my friend, don’t you,” she started, sitting opposite me, and I nodded although as far as I knew I have never met her friend Kate, “traveled to France a few days ago. The first three days he answered her calls regularly. But two days ago his cell phone went dead. She can’t call him and he does not call her. She is dead worried …”
I burst into laughter. “He hasn’t called, or rather answered her calls for two days and you start panicking? Are you out of your mind, woman? Let him breathe, for God's sake!”
“You don't understand, Tibor, Kate is convinced that something bad must have happened to him. He is not that kind of a man, “with ‘that kind of a man’ she meant me, of course,” who doesn't bother to call his wife when he is away. Or who even turns the phone off! He didn’t turn his cell off, Tibor, somebody else must have done it!”
“But two days don't mean any danger!” I insisted.
She looked at me in disgust. “How can you be so merciless? So … so … inhuman? Just imagine I disappeared suddenly! How would you feel if nobody wanted to help you? How?”
I'll never be so lucky to find that out, I thought to myself. “Tell me more,” I said loudly.
“Peter was invited to lecture at the Sorbonne University. He's such a great scientist, you know. He has written many books. On the other hand, he, like all scholars, gets completely lost in
everyday life. Kate must guide each of his steps.”
Another henpecked husband I thought but kept this to myself too. I must say that after forty years of marriage I’m stuffed with suppressed remarks.
“They were in touch as I have told you,” she continued and then corrected herself, “I mean she called him every ten minutes to check on him. To ask him if he was all right and that sort of things, you know …”
She fell silent for a moment, her mouth twisted in anxiety. I have never seen her to be so worried about me. “He is used to being watched over by her day and night and now he was suddenly left completely alone,” she resumed. “Kate felt she had to give him exact instructions over the phone, where he should go, what he should say, what he should do. You know, Peter has never traveled anywhere by himself and ...”
I stopped listening. I knew enough. If I were Peter, I would have done the same. I'd dump the phone somewhere or trample it so that she could not reach me.
“What will you do?”
My wife's worried voice brought me back to her.
“Nothing,” I said. “Because there is nothing wrong with your friend's husband. He probably needs peace to prepare his lectures. When he's ready, he'll call her. Tell her to wait for his call and stop worrying.”
She wasn’t even listening to me! Leaning across the table, fixing her gaze upon my face, she said sweetly: “You probably know somebody who could contact somebody in France and ask him to go and find Peter and tell him his wife was worried?”
I’ve always known that women had fewer brains than chickens, but not as few!
“Do you think that people here and over there in France do nothing but wait to be ordered by me to run to a Mr. Otrin to tell him how worried his wife is? You are completely crazy!”
“But you must have some connections,” she insisted. “You’ve been working with important people for all your life. I’m sure they’ll help you if you ask them.”
“I’m not going to ask anybody anything,” I yelled. I completely lost my temper. “I told you I'll not act! All I want is peace! Peace to enjoy my deserved retirement! Peace to do what I have always wanted to do: make figures of wood!”
As a child I used to chisel a lot, later there was no time for that and now I should give up my hobby for an Otrin?
In vain! All my yelling, all my excuses, reasonable arguments were in vain!
“Talk to her at least,” she pleaded. “Listen to her and then decide!”
“No! I have listened to you and I know your friend's husband is just fine. Tell her that and leave me alone!”
Two hours later Kate was at our door and a few minutes later she was sitting in our sitting room opposite me!
She had a tall, slim, as far as I could see still, despite her age, firm figure. In my opinion she might be quite pretty if her eyes were not red with weeping and if she were not so nervous.
“What worries me,” she said without being invited to say anything, “is that Peter's suitcase was stolen.” Her voice was mild, quiet, almost whispering.
That information took me by surprise. My wife had not mentioned a stolen suitcase. “Stolen? Where? How?”
“At the Paris airport. The woman who was sitting next to him in the plane had stolen it.”
“A woman who was sitting next to him?” I repeated. “How does he know? I mean, if he knows, why doesn’t he take it from her? Or call the police …?”
“He did,” answered Kate crestfallen. “The police have been looking for her since then, but she seems to have disappeared in thin air! Together with the suitcase.”
“Disappeared?” I asked unbelievingly. “When did your husband find out that his suitcase was stolen?”
“When it didn’t appear on the luggage belt.”
“Did he immediately report it to the airport authority?”
“Of course he did!”
“And they didn’t run after her and catch her? She couldn’t have been very far at that time!”
“I don’t know. Peter was so upset that I hardly understood what he was saying.”
I looked at my wife exclaiming triumphantly: “Haven’t I always been saying that policemen in other countries were nothing but amateurs? Haven’t I? You don’t know whether to laugh or cry or be angry when watching them dancing on a crime scene, not knowing what to do, destroying the evidence …”
“Tibor, stop,” warned me my wife with angry look in her eyes. “Kate doesn’t need your boasting, she needs help.”
“But I’ve told you, I’m not going! Don’t you ever listen to me, woman?”
“Tibor, please.”
Two pairs of eyes, women’s eyes, were drilling into my heart.
I sighed, scolded myself for being such a fool to let them make me give in and asked: “Okay, tell me, Kate, how he knows that it was the woman who stole the suitcase and not somebody else?”
“Because he told her about his Prophecies.”
“About what?”
“His Prophecies. You know, he wrote a book of Prophecies that he took with him to Paris to read to his students. There was a woman on the plane sitting by his side, a real chatterbox, putting questions to him that he did not want to answer but had to, and so it slipped out of his mouth that he had written a book of prophecies. She immediately wanted to see it. When he lied to her that he had it down in the suitcase, she decided to accompany him to the luggage belts after the landing, because she was really interested in it and simply had to see it. Having no intention to show it to her, and god forbid, let her touch it, it is his last copy, the most precious thing in the world that he would not allow anybody to take into their hands, including me, he impolitely, he can become terribly impolite when angry, told her to leave him in peace.
She was hurt, no doubt, who wouldn’t be. But he said, he didn’t care. She didn’t talk to him or even look at him anymore, which was okay, for he was then able to indulge in his own thoughts again. An occupation he loves most.
When the plane landed, she grabbed her bag and hurried out and he never saw her again.”
“When he came to the airport and found out that his suitcase had vanished, he was not worried but angry. He turned around to return home right away, but the police did not allow him. He had to wait to identify his suitcase in case they found it.” Uttering a short laugh, she added: “As if it was a corpse! You identify a corpse, don’t you?”
“When there is a crime you have to identify many things. Did they find any traces of the suitcase?”
“I don’t know; we didn’t discuss the suitcase anymore.”
I frowned: “You didn’t discuss the stolen suitcase anymore?”
I expected people to discuss stolen suitcases for the rest of their lives!
“Peter didn’t want to. The mere mentioning of the suitcase made him nervous. I have told you already that he hates nosiness. He told me to stop molesting him! I think he blames me for all the troubles. You know, he didn’t want to go to Paris. I made him go.”
Of course! Who else?
“And why did you want him to go?” I asked not without some sarcasm in my voice.
“Because it was a unique opportunity for him! Do you know what it means to be invited to the Sorbonne? How many Slovenians have been given the honor? No one! My husband is an artist,” she said, “and a good one, but in our country he’s not getting the recognition he deserves! I was convinced that he should accept the invitation. It will benefit him. I didn’t have the slightest idea that things will change into a nightmare! How could I? Isabelle and Maurice offered to take care of him after I'd told them how afraid he was of unfamiliar surroundings. I know that it is my fault, for I always take care of all his needs instead of teaching him how to take care of them himself.” That was more a self-praise than a self-scold.
“Who are Isabelle and Maurice?”
“The students who invited Peter and organized his lectures.”
“Then you should call them,” I suggested. Only a woman could go on r
unning around like a headless chicken looking for her husband instead of turning directly to the person who knows the answer. “They must know where your husband is!”
“Do you think I didn’t? It was what I did first. Moreover, do you know what?” She lowered her voice to a panicked whisper, “that girl that Isabelle disappeared, too!”
At this point, I decided that time for politeness was over. If I went on handling Kate with kid gloves, I’d be merely prolonging her agony. Truth was the best cure even though sometimes painful.
“Kate, I hope you know what that means,” I said as tactfully as possible.
She frowned. She did not understand at first what I meant. Then a faint smile appeared on her face: “No, no, Tibor, it’s not what you think. He’s not having an affair with her.”
“How do you know?” I asked more than a little surprised. If somebody gave my wife only a gentle hint that I might be having an affair, she would, without any hesitation, attack me like a mad tigress. She would accept no explanation from my part at all. I might even get a dishcloth into my head. And I believe that most women would react like that. But not Kate. She remained calm and convinced: “Because, he’s not interested in other women!”
I managed to suppress laughter, yet I couldn’t suppress the remark: “Well, when men reach their ripe age, they usually become interested in young women. Not that they mean anything bad …”
“Not Peter! “Her voice was sharp. “His only interests are books and his writing! Furthermore, Isabelle is engaged to Maurice and about to marry!”
As if an engagement were an obstacle, I chuckled deep inside me. “Have you called that student, Maurice?”
“Yes, I have. He told me about the disappearance of my husband and Isabelle.”
“Give me his number. I want to talk to him personally.”
She gave me her mobile phone and I called Maurice. I introduced myself, apologized for bothering him, explained that Peter’s wife was worried because Peter did not answer her calls and added that I would be grateful for any information.
“I’m afraid,” said a young, scared male voice, “that FBI or CIA or more likely Scotland Yard arrested them.”
That took my breath away! Arrested by FBI, CIA, Scotland Yard? Have Kate’s husband and his student committed a crime of some kind?
“What for? What did they do?”
“I can’t explain it on the phone,” he answered and disconnected the phone.
I stared speechlessly at the silent device in my hand.
“What is it?” asked Kate shyly, reading bad news on my face. “What did he say?”
“Kate, “I said, discomfort probably showing on my face, “is your husband engaged into anything which could bring him difficulties? I mean, is he dealing with something that governments would not approve of?”
Kate looked at me as if I were mad. “Of course not! How did that come to your mind?”
I told her what I’d heard from Maurice. About Scotland Yard, FBI and CIA. She turned pale.
“Oh, my god,” she groaned, “that can’t be true! That can’t be true!”
“Think it over, Kate. Is there anything about your husband that seems odd or …?”
She vigorously shook her head. “No, Tibor, no! I swear to God that he has never in his life done anything against the law. On the contrary! He sees prohibitions even where there are none, he is full of mustn’t, shouldn’t, prohibited, not allowed … I often wonder how he can live with so many threats around him. We have been arguing about that for all our lives. No, Tibor, he would never break a law! It must be a mistake! A terrible mistake, or …”
“Or what?”
“Or somebody planted something on him!”
“Somebody planted something on him? What do you mean?”
She told me what had happened to him at our airport after he had checked in. “They nearly stripped him naked,” she said shuddering. “He had to go through those metal detectors three or four times and each time the alarm shrilly went off. He had to take off his jacket, shirt, shoes, even socks! Peter was sure somebody was pressing a secret knob or was secretly waving with a piece of metal exactly when he was going through those metal detectors.”
I had to laugh. As a police officer, I was used to all kinds of stupidities with which people tried to justify their actions, but this one outdid all.
“Believe me, Kate, no one planted anything on him. Why, on Earth would he do that?”
“Because of envy,” she said firmly. “Somebody did not want him to go to the Sorbonne! “
She was not joking. She believed it.
“Listen, Kate, “I started patiently, “if anybody wanted to stop your husband from going to the Sorbonne, he would have done it an easier way. Do you really think the airport police, security guards, and customs inspection officers would let people press buttons or wave with metal pieces around them? Now that security has drastically tightened because of terrorism?”
“Peter believes the police conspired against him,” she answered. This remark made me furious. “Kate,” I said, “if you intend to discredit police or anybody else without any proof, then you’ll have to find your husband alone! It’s not how I work. I’m interested in proofs and facts, not in paranoiac cock-and-bull stories.”
She looked at me with a twinkle of hope in her eyes. “So, you are going to help me?”
Ninety per cent of me was against taking up the case which did not concern me in the least. Ninety per cent longed for peace, isolation from everything I professionally had to be doing in my lifetime. But ten per cent became curious. After what Maurice and Kate told me, it became clear to me that Peter’s disappearance was more than a love adventure. And these ten per cent won the battle.
“I will if we play by my rules,” I answered and seeing that she intended to throw herself around my neck out of gratitude, I quickly stepped back saying: “But I cannot promise you anything. I’ll call some people; I’ll see what they can tell me. Then we’ll decide what to do. “I opened the door. “Go home, Kate, and wait for my call or Peter’s.”
She thanked me with tears in her eyes and left. Finally, I called Frank, a friend in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and asked him to find out if any of intelligence services, CIA, FBI or
Scotland Yard arrested a man named Peter Otrin. Frank was surprised.
“I thought you were retired,” he said.
“So did I,” I answered with a slight uneasiness. “But as long as you live with a woman you are never really retired. She does everything to find you work.” He laughingly agreed with me and then I told him about my wife’s friend Kate, about how worried she was.
“I am sure the chap is quite okay. He’s probably enjoying the company of a young student, which I, honestly, envy him.” We both giggled at this. “As for his suitcase, I am not really worried. You know how forgetful professors are. But until I reassure the women that he is fine, they will not leave me in peace.”
Frank promised to do his very best. I was calmed down. For me, the case was closed. So I thought. Wrong!
3.
It was two days later that Frank called me. “The Intelligence service says they know nothing about any Peter Otrin, but to tell you the truth, I don’t believe them. We both know, don’t we, that they are informed about each and single person who crosses the border anywhere in the world. So if they say they have no idea, it means they are hiding something.”
He sounded excited. “Are you suggesting that Otrin was arrested?”
He said it was possible. “If they arrested him for some political reason, they would not admit it,” he added. “Not until things have been clarified.”
“So we can do nothing but wait,” I said. “I think so,” he answered.
When my wife found out what Frank had told me, she said relentlessly: “Tibor, you must immediately go to Paris to see for yourself.”
“Forget it!” I said through my teeth. “I’ll go nowhere!”
Well, to cut a lon
g story short, after many hours of heavy arguing, I visited the Head of the police office where I had been working. I explained to him the whole situation and asked him to ‘rehabilitate’ me for this case. That meant that he would have to give me my officer’s badge back. And of course, I would have to get permission to act in the name of the Slovenian police.
He looked at me with amusement. “I knew you were not going to rest in your retirement. Not you.”
With a faint, sour smile on my face I nodded not wanting to tell the truth. To tell him that it was my wife who could not rest, not me. I wanted to spare myself from mocking looks of my colleagues.
And so it happened that the first Saturday morning to come, we left for Paris. Yes, we! Kate insisted on going with me although I put all the efforts into persuading her to stay at home.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I get some information,” I kept promising her, but she wouldn’t listen.
“I want to be there when you find him,” she answered. He’ll need me.”
That I doubted, yet had no right to prevent her.
I started my investigation at the airport. After having checked in, I had enough time for a chat with the airport staff. One passport control officer remembered the funny old man, who nearly had a breakdown because he had to go through the metal detectors three times and in the end had to take off his shoes to silence the alarm. They hardly convinced the furious man not to run back home. So, what Kate had told me, was true. And it was true that one of the seats beside him was occupied by a woman named Marija Doval. His story confirmed my assumption that she couldn’t have taken Peter’s suitcase. She was a retired professor of English and French
languages who used to travel a lot and had never caused any trouble. She was small, plump, according to the officer a motherly looking person, kind, considerate, a person who would not harm a fly. She simply was not strong enough to carry two suitcases, her own, being as heavy as hell and Peter’s, also heavy because of the books. No, said the officer, it’s absurd to even think of that.
The flight lasted an hour. I asked Kate to tell me everything she remembered about Peter. The more I knew about his character, his way of thinking, his occupations and his looks, the easier it would be for me to look for a trace. A clue. As for his looks, he was not, as much as I was able to gather from Kate’s description, exactly a man, who women, especially young women, students, for example, would fall for. Middle height, bony, bespectacled, grey-haired. By character, he was nervous, shy, and always deep in his thoughts that gave him a look of absent- mindedness. He was abnormally afraid of people, believing everybody wanted to hurt him. He felt safest at home. But despite all this, he obviously was a man of immense intellect.
“You know,” said Kate, pride shining in her eyes, “his students never call him by his name. They call him Professor. They respect him. He is the cleverest person I have ever met.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that if he was really so clever as she wanted me to believe, he wouldn’t have got lost in Paris after just three days. I swallowed the words. The other thing that I wanted to say to her yet didn’t, was that in my opinion schools do not equip you with the knowledge you need for life in the real world. During my professional career, I have met dozens of the so-called learned men who were able to recite whole books by heart, but were, when it came to solving their everyday problems, simple problems, completely at a loss. Don’t get me wrong, I do respect highly educated people and I do not envy them. Yet I prefer useful knowledge to the theoretical one. Knowledge that can help people out of their difficulties. Knowledge, which no school can give you. Life gives it to you. Experiences.
“He investigates languages,” she said luckily unaware of what was going on in my mind. “Words and letters.”
Words and letters? Why, for God’s sake, do words and letters need to be examined? They tell you something or they don’t! It is as simple as that! But I kept this thought to myself too.
“I was so glad when he got that call from the Sorbonne,” she added and still deeply moved by that act of the Paris University, looked down at her hands in her lap.
I looked out. I got lost for a moment in the white, curly clouds on the other side of the plane window. Then I turned back to Kate again. “Tell me more about the Prophecies, “ I demanded.
Embarrassment showed on her face. She answered apologetically: “I can’t. I haven’t read them.”
“You haven’t read them? I thought you knew all his writings.”
“Most of them,” she answered, “but not the Prophecies. I have already told you, remember, that he had only one copy that he wouldn’t let anybody in the world merely touch let alone take it into his/her hands. He did not show me the text, he just told me he had written it.”
O my, o my, what a bastard, ran through my mind. If I was his wife …. After a while I asked, half mockingly: “If he was a prophet then he must have foretold you your future. Did he not mention his disappearance and his reappearance?”
Amusement showed on her face. “Some months after we had met, he looked at the lines on my palm and told me I would never ever get married.”
“What a prophet!” I laughed. Then I decided to have a chat with the plane staff.
“Come with me,” I invited her and she obediently got up without even asking me where we were going. We went to the front of the plane where stewardesses and stewards had their private place. I showed my police badge and they let us in. We were lucky. One stewardess was on duty when Peter traveled to Paris. She remembered him.
“A nervous and strange man,” she said. “He must have had some precious things in his bag, for he was holding it tightly with his both hands in his lap, throughout the whole flight. He even refused food and drinks because he did not want to take his hands off his bag. We were a little bit worried at first for he could have a bomb or other weapon in it, but we came to the conclusion that detectors would have detected it, and so we left him in peace. Nevertheless, we kept an eye on him all the way long.”
“I know what he had in the bag and why he was pressing it so tightly to himself,” said Kate with a certain uneasiness in her voice.
“He had his cell phone. I forced him to take it with him, even though he did not want to. But I would feel calmer if I knew he could call me in case he was in trouble. The fact is that he is a terribly non- technical type of a person. To make things worse, he is not only non- technical but also afraid of modern technical devices.” Kate looked at the stewardess. “When you told your passengers to turn off their mobile phones, he did not know how to do it, he forgot my instructions and he panicked. He was sure that somebody would call him exactly at the time when phones were forbidden and he would be thrown out the plane. So he wrapped it in a few handkerchiefs, put it into the bag, which he pressed to himself to prevent the ringing to be heard. In the evening, he called me, yelled at me that I had put him into life danger.”
We spontaneously burst into laughter. Then I asked the stewardess:
“Do you remember the woman who sat beside him?”
The girl frowned. After a few seconds she nodded. “In fact, I do. A lady in sixties or more, stout, so that she and her extraordinary big handbag, you know, some women carry around in their handbags all their possessions,” here she uttered a short, scornful laugh, “occupied not only her seat but also a part of the gentleman’s, which made him even more nervous. But we could not help. No law forbids heavy people …” She fell silent in embarrassment. It came to her mind that she was not supposed to talk like that about their passengers. I quickly encouraged her to continue.
“She was very talkative. She kept asking him questions, which he, as I noticed, did not answer or if he chose to answer, he did it most unwillingly.”
“What questions?”
“I don’t know. We are not allowed to eavesdrop.” After a short pause she continued: “You know, some people talk and talk when they are scared of the flight.” She paused again, trying to picture
the woman in her mind and added: “Though the woman did not seem to be scared at all.”
“Poor soul,” sighed Kate. “I can imagine how he must have suffered.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about this woman? Besides her talkativeness, of course.”
After thinking for a few moments, she shook her head. “No. No, nothing unusual.”
I was turning the information she gave me over and over in my mind. The woman’s handbag was big and heavy, heavy was also her suitcase and she was probably awkward, not young and strong, so how on earth would she manage to carry Otrin’s suitcase beside her own luggage? She should have been a mule not a human being to carry such weight!
We returned to our seats.
“I can’t understand people who steal,” said Kate, anger showing on her face. “I have never, never in my life stolen a thing! What kind of a man must you be to steal somebody else’s suitcase? He could have in it things of greatest importance! Vital importance! Medicines, for example. He could be dangerously ill and would die without them! Do those people have no heart?”
“Kate, I think that woman did not steal your husband’s suitcase,” I said. “In fact, I’m sure of it.” And I told her what caused my doubts. She frowningly stared at me.” If she didn’t then who did?”
“That’s what we’ll have to find out,” I answered.
4.
After stepping out of the plane, I was immediately overwhelmed by nostalgic reminiscences. Three decades had passed since my last visit to Paris. Standing motionlessly for a moment I gulped in the most famous air in the world. The air of the city of Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Élysées, Pigalle. I got lost in the time I had spent in Paris. In the longings and expectations that were overwhelming me then. Young, newly married, I and my wife came to Paris on our honeymoon. I felt as if the whole world was lying at my feet! I had so many wishes, expectations and I had the most beautiful bride in the world. And now I was here with Kate. The thought brought me back to reality. I glanced at Kate. Her face was wrinkled. But so was mine and so was my wife’s. None of us was young any more.
We picked up our suitcases from the transfer belt and went to the passport desk. The officer asked me for the reason of my coming to France and I lied that I came as a tourist. Even though I was a 'rehabilitated' police officer, I decided not to tell the real reason. Not yet. I did not know who was involved in Otrin’s disappearance. It might be the government. And if that were true, they might forbid me investigating Otrin’s disappearance even before I started. Before we neared the desk, I told Kate to say the same.
A taxi took us to the same hotel in which Kate’s husband was housed. I booked it the evening before and was lucky to get two single rooms. Its name was HOTEL DU LION. I studied the map and saw that it was situated in the immediate neighborhood of the Sorbonne, the church Notre Dame, Pantheon and UNESCO.
“That’s why it is so expensive,” I told Kate, feeling slightly guilty because she was the one to pay the bills, “the tourists have many magnificent monuments at hand. They don’t need taxis and undergrounds to visit them.”
“Peter made clear to the students who were in charge of his stay in Paris that unless he was accommodated in the neighborhood of the Sorbonne, he would not come,” explained Kate. “He hates traveling. Hates transport. Any kind of transport. So they put him into one of the most expensive hotels. Luckily, the University pays all of his bills.”
“It should pay ours too. Look, Kate, we can move into to a cheaper hotel if you want. I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“No, no, we must be accommodated in Peter’s hotel because that way we’ll have better chance to find the truth. There will be more opportunity to talk to the staff, possibly other guests. Don’t worry about the costs. Money is not important now, Peter is.”
When Kate handed over her passport to the receptionist saying that she came to join her husband, I expected a miracle. I expected him to tell her that her husband was in his room and would direct her there. But instead he turned pale and stammered:
“Madam, have they not told you? Your husband has been missing for five days! He suddenly disappeared. The police are looking for him.”
“I want the key of his room,” she demanded bleakly. “I’ll wait for him there.”
“I’m really sorry madam, nobody is permitted to enter the room. It’s been sealed.”
“For God’s sake, I am his wife! I have the right …”
Seeing that she was becoming hysterical, I quickly added: “Sealed? But why?”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s the police order.”
We took our pre-booked rooms. When I was given the key of my room, I showed the receptionist my police ID card. His eyes widened. I asked him for an interview. He rejected my request saying that the case was under the French police investigation. He had already been interrogated by a Criminologist named J.E.
“I have told him everything I know, “he said moodily. “I have nothing to add.”
It was not easy to make him believe that I was sent by the Slovenian government and that he was obliged to answer my questions, too. In the end he reluctantly consented. We sat at a table in the lobby.
“I don’t know much, “he started. “It was last Friday evening. He said he was taking a walk before going to bed …”
“In the evening? In the darkness? “Kate gaped. “He never goes out in darkness! Not even with me, let alone by himself!”
The receptionist cleared his throat. “Well, that evening he said he needed a walk. He was a kind man, very clever. Liked to joke.”
“Why do you keep saying was?” Kate’s voice became shrill and I hastened to tap her arm to calm her down. “He’s not dead!”
Apology flickered across receptionist's face. “Of course not, madam,” he hurried, “I didn’t want to say that. It’s just …”
“When did you discover that he disappeared?” I interrupted him.
“Not until the next morning. When the inspector, the J.E., rushed in. He was in a bad mood because he was sent on the mission which he found scandalously insulting and unworthy of his rank. The Foreign Ministry ordered him to find out what was going on with the gentleman named Peter Otrin, whom his wife could not reach over the phone. He felt degraded. Well in one word, he was furious.”
“Who told the Foreign Ministry that Peter’s wife was worried about her husband?”
“I did!”
I sharply turned to Kate: “You did? How?”
“I called the French Embassy?”
“You called … How, on Earth, did that enter your mind?”
Kate blushed: “Your wife advised me to.”
My wife! Of course!
“J.E. feels the governments should be solving other problems, not marital disputes,” added the receptionist, amusement replacing apology now.
Kate answered, offended: “There was no marital dispute! Everyone who knows Peter knows that not answering my calls, not trying to contact me, was strange! In fact, it meant that he was in trouble. That something was wrong. And I was right, wasn’t I? He did disappear!”
I exchanged glances with the receptionist. That did not escape Kate. She shouted angrily: “It’s not what you think! My husband did not vanish because of a love affair, I know him!”
We cautiously remained silent.
“We went to the gentleman’s room,” resumed the receptionist. “I knocked, but nobody answered. J.E. ordered me to unlock the door. I did only to see that the room was empty. There was neither the gentleman nor the woman in the room.”
Kate and I widened our eyes.
“What woman?” gasped Kate. “Isabelle? The student?”
The receptionist shook his head. “No, the other woman. The one from the plane. The one who stole gentleman’s suitcase.”
“Don’t tell me, she was here! In this hotel together with Otrin?” I exclaimed, not believing my ears. “Did she bring back the suitcase or what?”
The receptionist shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t see her, “he admitted. “I never saw anyone accompany the gentleman except the students Maurice and Isabelle. But J.E. insists that this second woman entered the gentleman’s room from the back side of the building. He said she must have entered the room through the balcony door.”
“The balcony door? Isn’t his room on the first floor?”
“It is. But the back side of the hotel, the north side is cut into the hill and the rooms on this side are in fact on the ground floor, not on the first. It’s not difficult to climb the balcony fence and enter the room if the door is not locked. That’s why we warn our guests to lock the windows and balcony doors before they leave their rooms. It seems the gentleman took no notice of our warnings and the consequence was the theft …”
“Theft? What theft? Wasn’t his suitcase stolen at the airport? Was it stolen here? From his room? I thought the woman wanted to return it to Otrin.”
“No, not the suitcase. Somebody broke into the gentleman’s room and left it in complete disorder. I don’t know if he found what he was looking for, in fact, we do not know if it was really a theft, because the gentleman said that nothing was missing, but …” He frowned, then asked surprised: “Don’t you know that? Hasn’t your government informed you? “
Kate and I simultaneously shook our heads. His mouth gave a nervous twitch.
“I think I shouldn’t tell you more,” he said and stood. “Wait for J.E. He is in charge of the case.”
He returned to the desk.
I turned to Kate. She was fighting with tears and I felt pity for her. It would be better for her if she had stayed at home. She would have been at least spared the details, of the women visitors, for example. That must have been a shock. She was so sure that her husband never even noticed other women. What if he, after all, did not come to Paris to lecture, but to have fun? What if the lectures were just an excuse?
But why did somebody break into his hotel room? His suitcase having been stolen, there wasn’t much left to steal. Or did Otrin stage the theft himself? Lied about it? If he did, why?
After asking Kate to join me for dinner and she turned down my offer, saying she was too tired and wanted nothing but go to bed, I escorted her to her room. Nevertheless, I was sure she would not close her eyes the whole night.
Having decided not to give her false hopes or promises, I made no attempts to comfort her. Besides, she would not accept made up stories. She was no fool.
“Thanks for now,” she said bitterly and disappeared into her room. I returned to the reception hall for I had to ask the receptionist one last question. At first he tried to avoid me, pretended he was high over his head in work, yet I am not so easy to be avoided or driven away. So, because of my persistence, he had to notice me. And before I had time to put the question to him, he angrily told me he did not want to discuss the matter with me anymore. I waited, following each of his step and movement with my drilling eyes. In the end, he gave in with a heavy, accusing sigh.
“I want to know if Mr. Otrin was in fact lecturing on the Sorbonne or not. Did he leave every morning to go there?”
“How am I supposed to know that?” he exclaimed indignantly. “Do you think I spy on my guests or what?”
“No, I don’t think you do,” I reassured him, “but if he was lecturing on the Sorbonne you would know! I think the University would inform you.”
“Nobody informed me about anything,” he insisted and disappeared through a door behind the desk.
I went out. After taking a deep breath, and coming to conclusion that there was nothing else I could do this evening, I started to toy with the idea of visiting the city center and have some fun. Yet, the wish left me as suddenly as it came and I returned to the hotel. I felt I needed some physical exercise, so I decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator to my room. On the way, I made a plan for the next day. The first thing I would do in the morning would be visiting the Head of the Sorbonne University.
5.
