The Memory Man

by Steven Savile

  Her phone rang.

  Frankie checked the screen, but there was no caller ID and she didn’t recognize the number.

  ‘Varg,’ she said.

  ‘Agent Varg?’ an apologetic English voice asked, though for all the supposed English politeness didn’t wait for an answer. ‘This is Peter Ash.’

  She knew the name. It was hard not to, given his partner had died during an active investigation just a few weeks ago. Everyone in Division knew that. She had worked one case with Mitch Greer. They’d connected. He was a good man. In that way the death of one of them hurt them all. It certainly rammed home the point that it could just as easily happen to them next.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ash. How are things in London?’

  ‘Pete, please, and I’m sure it’s wet and cold in London, but I’m not there. I’m in Paris.’

  ‘The joys of EU membership, my Brexiting friend. Make the most of it while you can.’ To be fair, the dust around the colossal clusterfuck that was the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Union, the Single Market, and all of the concomitant bodies, including the Eurocrimes Division, was a long way from clearing. Right now, no one knew how things were going to fall one way or the other, but it was obvious that the easy cross-border cooperation was going to suffer. There was no way it couldn’t. Hell, there was no way of knowing if Ash’s part of the organization would be lost to the rest of Europe, or if they would continue to honour their commitment to the Continent’s safety and cooperate in its blanket policing and protection.

  ‘Luckily, we’ve already dug the tunnel,’ Ash laughed. It was a kind laugh, an honest laugh.

  ‘So, what can I do for you, Pete?’

  ‘Actually, it’s more what I can do for you. I think I have something that might belong to you. A tongue,’ he said. ‘I understand you’re missing one.’

  Frankie felt a chill chase up her spine.

  ‘You did say a tongue?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘My tongue is in Paris? How?’

  ‘It was delivered by courier to a priest.’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling your life is more interesting than mine, Pete? I don’t suppose you have any idea why he might have been sent it?’

  ‘The sixty-four-thousand-euro question. I wish I knew. And it’s not like I can ask him, given he’s been reported missing. No one has seen him since he received it.’

  ‘Coincidence?’

  ‘No such thing. And we’re not talking some run-of-the-mill clergy, we’re talking a bishop. Now, if it is Anglemark’s tongue, what I’d want to know is why he’d be sent the tongue of a Swedish politician? There has to be a reason. I’m not buying random act of terror. Does your man have a connection to the Church?’

  She thought about it for a moment but couldn’t recall any mention of organized religion in his file. ‘Not that I know of. But it’s reasonable to assume anyone with political ambitions greases the palms of the Church one way or another. What is it they say, it’s easier to elect a criminal than an atheist?’

  ‘Why vote for anyone who believes in fairy tales? I like my stories grounded firmly in reality. Stuff I can understand. Like why would a cleric in Paris be sent the tongue of a Swedish politician? I want to know the story there.’

  ‘And you’re worried about your guy?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘Statistically speaking, yes, and with good reason,’ she said. ‘But I would rather be working a missing persons case than a murder. I like the illusion of hope.’

  ‘I’m all for catching a killer,’ Ash said. ‘My white-knight days are over. As far as I see it, this story plays out one of two ways, either the priest has met up with the tongue guy or he’s gone into hiding from him.’

  ‘Any leads?’

  ‘A note, but hardly informative. The packaging, note, and tongue are on their way to the lab for processing. Maybe we’ll learn something from them,’ he said.

  He walked her through it, right up until the point where he told her that he was about to visit the cafe where the priest had been instructed to meet the mysterious gift-giver.

  ‘Remember to check the CCTV in the neighbouring streets, not just the cafe. Look for cars coming and going. Anything you mark as out of the ordinary.’

  ‘I have done this kind of thing before.’ He laughed again.

  ‘Sorry. But this might actually be the break I’ve been looking for, it’s hard not to give orders.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it. We’re all on the same side. Laura my office administrator’s just the same, she thinks she runs the show.’

  ‘Are you sure she doesn’t?’ Frankie laughed. This was different. Easy. She wasn’t used to talking to strangers beyond the brusque day to day of getting the job done. There was something oddly flirtatious about this connection she was sparking up with a comparative stranger. It was decidedly not her.

  ‘You could be right,’ he conceded. ‘Anyway, thought you should know, so you can stop looking for it. Because I doubt very much that there’s more than one tongue out there without a mouth to go with it.’

  ‘The one thing this job has taught me, Pete, is that anything is possible in this crazy world of ours. Including the existence of some flesh-collector with a tongue fetish.’

  ‘Nice,’ he said, though the image was anything but.

  She was already trying to link her politician and the priest, running through all manner of possible connections, but kept coming back to the most obvious, and frightening, one, that it was random. They had systems in place capable of finding even the most tenuous connections. She had to make use of them. ‘Keep me posted about your missing bishop. You might get lucky with a happy ending.’

  This time his laughter was a sharp bark, and she realized what she’d said. She didn’t bother disabusing him of the image.

  They had to work on the assumption that the priest was going to be found alive, even though every hour he went unfound the chances of that diminished. Frankie knew the numbers. The truth was almost always within them, even if you stubbornly refused to see it. There was a statistical likelihood he was already dead.

  ‘I’ll give you a call as soon as I have any news,’ he promised.

  Frankie said goodbye and hung up.

  The murder of one individual was something with very defined parameters. It was something where plans could be put into place and followed through, where mistakes would be at a premium, and hope slim. But once a second victim was added to the equation, everything shifted exponentially, especially the room for mistakes. What if she was looking at a much larger case than she’d originally suspected? A tongue in Paris from a corpse in Stockholm meant throwing the investigation wide open. Everything they had reasonably thought they knew was wrong. Which made it her favourite kind of case.

  FIFTEEN

  Peter Ash left his hotel room a few minutes after ending the call to Frankie Varg.

  He headed to the lobby to wait for Donatti.

  They had agreed to visit the cafe together, though he would have preferred to have gone alone. It was the way he’d always worked with Mitch. Solitude suited his temperament. But he was the stranger in this even stranger city, lost in a language where the only thing he knew to listen out for was a sneer of Roast Beef. The Church man had the advantage of being fluent in the language and maybe it was a relic of when there were two Papacies but being sent by the Vatican still carried a fair amount of weight. The trick was to use Donatti’s position to the best effect.

  He took the stairs rather than the rickety old caged elevator, which looked like it was hanging on by a wing and a prayer – or more pointedly a worryingly thin cable. Pete wasn’t great with heights, or confined spaces, and the fact the caged elevator offered a rather open view of the mechanisms and gears hauling the car up and down didn’t instil confidence. The service stairs were nowhere near as grand as the main staircase. The floral carpet was worn down to the brown thread weave in the middle from the endless up and down of a century’s worth of
cleaners. There were black scuff marks on the wall where carts had banged up against the brickwork.

  Pete pushed open the fire door at the bottom of the stairwell and emerged on the far side of the reception. He wasn’t surprised to find the Italian already waiting for him.

  Donatti sat on a large leather sofa reading L’Équipe.

  He was dressed for business, in an immaculately tailored black suit with a crisp white shirt with buttoned-down collar. The top button was undone, a sole concession to informality. His Italian leather shoes were polished to a shine so perfect the staff manning the reception were reflected in them. Pete felt like a slob in his own wrinkled sports jacket and washed-out denim jeans, and there was no hope of his wine-coloured suede trainers reflecting anything but the crumbs he dropped from his last meal.

  Donatti folded the newspaper and rose, offering a smile as Pete approached.

  ‘Ready to take on the world, my friend?’ Donatti asked, dropping the newspaper onto the mahogany table for the next time-killer to enjoy.

  ‘Ready for a decent coffee,’ he said. ‘Anything in there?’

  ‘The paper? Nothing.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. I’ve just had a chat with my colleague investigating the Jonas Anglemark murder in Stockholm.’

  ‘The owner of our tongue?’

  ‘We have to assume so.’

  Donatti nodded. ‘I am sure he will be delighted to reunite the flesh.’

  ‘She,’ Pete corrected. ‘But yes, even if it opens up a whole slew of new questions, like how a Swedish politician’s tongue ended up here.’

  Donatti raised a hand in apology. ‘The sins of living in my male-dominated world makes it far too easy to make assumptions.’

  ‘It’s all good, Padre.’

  ‘Do we know anything about the victim?’

  ‘Some,’ Pete said.

  He talked as they walked.

  He told Donatti the little he knew. It was a judgement call, and under other circumstances he might have been more circumspect, but he didn’t for a minute think the Vatican had flown his old friend to Paris merely to help find a missing priest. The Church, like the invisible God they served, tended to move in mysterious ways. Maybe he really was just there to do someone a favour? Or maybe he was following a deeper investigation of his own? The only way he’d find out one way or the other was if they worked together.

  The cafe was easy enough to find. They stood across from it for a moment, looking at the wonderfully Parisian windows with their gold lettering, and the plush awning that would come down later if the sun dared show its face. The place looked as if it had last been refurbished in the fifties and worn the same decor since then.

  They crossed the street and went in and were immediately hit by the twin fragrances of coffee and smoke, with an undercurrent of fresh pastries.

  The furniture was worn, the wallpaper sun-faded, but it was welcoming in a way that the faceless coffee chains could never be. The obvious problem, though, was that there was no way this little slice of Parisian culture was the kind of place that would have installed CCTV. He hadn’t noticed any cameras in the street, either.

  They were relying on the unreliable, the memories of the staff.

  Already, half the tables were occupied, and seemed as though they had been for several hours. Pete heard the unmistakable sounds of cooking coming from the direction of the kitchen.

  There was no one at the counter, so the two men took up residence at one of the vacant tables by the window.

  A waitress with her hair pulled back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face bustled out of the kitchen a moment later, balancing a couple of laden plates to the next table.

  Donatti caught her eye and offered one of those smiles that seemed to completely change his face. He spoke to her in fluent French, and without any discernible accent as far as Pete could tell. The exchange was too quick for Pete to follow.

  ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ he interrupted, feeling like a fool.

  ‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘What can I get for you?’

  ‘I’d kill for a coffee so thick and black you can stand your spoon up in it,’ Pete said.

  ‘That we can do,’ she promised. ‘Anything to go with it?’

  ‘What’s good?’

  ‘I ought to say everything,’ she said, ‘but I’m partial to the pastries. Our baker is a magician.’

  ‘Then I shall put myself in your hands, black coffee and pastries sounds like a perfect way to start the day.’

  She jotted a few words down on her pad, then slipped the pen behind her ear. Before she could turn her back, Pete asked, ‘Were you working yesterday?’

  She hesitated for a moment, unsure, then nodded.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, producing his badge. ‘It would be really helpful if we could ask you a few questions?’ The sight of the badge had one of two effects, it either reassured the innocent, freeing them up to talk, or silenced the guilty.

  ‘Of course. Anything to help. I was here all day. Family business,’ she said, which explained everything.

  ‘Ah, well, they’ll work you into the ground, then tell you you’re doing it all wrong,’ Pete said.

  She glanced in the direction of the kitchen and saw a large man standing in the doorway. ‘My father doesn’t like me to spend too long talking. Talking isn’t working.’

  ‘My old man was just the same,’ Pete said.

  Donatti took a piece of paper from his pocket. It was a photograph of the missing man. Not a snapshot. It had been taken during a photoshoot to go with the press release for his new appointment. Even the Church needed to manage its image in this day and age. Or especially the Church. ‘Do you remember this man coming in yesterday? It would have been early afternoon.’

  She took the photograph from Donatti and shrugged. ‘He looks familiar. People come and go all the time. We see maybe one hundred, one hundred fifty faces a day. Sometimes more.’

  ‘He would have met someone here, if that helps,’ Pete said, hoping the gentle prod might help her remember something.

  ‘Man or woman?’

  Pete was suddenly struck by the realization that Donatti wasn’t the only one jumping to conclusions. Tournard could just as easily have come here to meet a woman as a man. He gave the Vatican emissary a glance and saw that he was thinking the same. ‘I want to say man, but the truth is we don’t know, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I really can’t remember.’ Then there was a flicker of recognition. ‘He’s a priest?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Donatti said.

  ‘That explains why I recognize him,’ she said, and Pete felt that little flare of hope drain away. That was the problem with public figures, even if you never met them face to face they inevitably left some kind of false memory behind. ‘Has something happened to him?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Pete said.

  Donatti slipped the photograph back into his pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.’

  She left them.

  ‘We’re going to have to report him missing,’ Pete said.

  Donatti nodded. ‘And at risk. But it would be better if the story was kept out of the press for a little longer. Could you hold off, just a little while?’

  Ash made a face.

  ‘You think he’s dead, don’t you?’

  ‘The truth? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he is. Just because he was told to meet someone here, doesn’t mean that he actually came. Would you in his place?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Donatti admitted. ‘Perhaps if I was feeling guilty.’

  ‘Not me. I’d run. As far and as fast as I could. I wouldn’t want that man catching up with me.’

  SIXTEEN

  It was almost ten.

  A plate of warm croissants joined the coffees.

  ‘My father said to tell you the man you’re looking for was here yesterday,’ their waitress said. ‘He didn’t see him, but overheard someone making a joke about God’s
tool on earth mixing the ordinary people.’ Pete assumed it was a dirty joke, or at least in poor taste given the fact she used the word tool over instrument. ‘They don’t tend to mix, the Church and normal people. But that’s God’s Army for you.’

  Ash couldn’t help but smile as Donatti tried to will himself smaller in his seat. The other man hadn’t needed to reveal his more unearthly employer, and maybe that was just as well. Not that he should be held to account for all the sins of the Church. Or maybe that was his job? Ash never really understood how it worked for people who believed in this stuff. He tried to keep an open mind, but it just didn’t make sense to him that someone would believe in something so obviously made up – and that went for Joseph Smith’s magic underpants and L. Ron’s aliens burning in a volcano as much as it did Moses downloading the ten commandments to his tablets from the cloud … He offered her a smile, and a question.

  ‘I don’t suppose your father remembers who he overheard? That could be a big help.’

  She shrugged. ‘I can ask.’

  She disappeared back into the kitchen only to return a few seconds later. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t a regular.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he saw who the priest was with?’ Donatti asked. ‘Even just male or female would help tremendously right now.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘Would your father recognize the man if he came back?’ Ash asked, reaching for his wallet.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t venture out of his kingdom very often.’

  ‘I understand completely,’ Peter Ash said, teasing out one of his cards. He held it out to her. ‘But just on the off chance the guy does come back, and the stars align and somehow your dad recognizes him, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could ask him to call me.’

  ‘Sure, Peter,’ she smiled as she read his name slowly off the card. ‘It’s the very least I can do for the man who trusted my taste in pastries.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t come back, well you’ve got my number,’ he said, which earned him a laugh.