Hugo took the cobbled Avenue de l’Ouest toward the heart of the cemetery, feeling the calm of the place settle about him. He wasn’t a man of faith like Raul Garcia, and much of the time they’d spent at this cemetery together, on the case of the crypt thief, had been passed in good-natured banter, their jousts and jests a thin disguise for a probing interest in the other’s beliefs.
But a belief in God or the afterlife wasn’t necessary for a conversation with the dead, not in Hugo’s book. Just as funerals were staged to indulge and assuage the sadness of the living, so could a quiet talk to a stone cross or a mound of earth provide balm for a mourner’s grief. A few minutes alone just sitting might be enough, a time for some memories of a short but distinct friendship to wash over him, to dilute the sorrow that Hugo was afraid to let himself feel too deeply.
But when he got to Raul’s tomb, a waist-high stone casket garnished with a hundred bouquets, he saw that he wasn’t alone. On a bench opposite, a woman sat looking up at him. Her eyes were dry but the tissue in her hand said she’d been crying, and because it was Claudia, Hugo was very glad to see her.
“How are you?” he asked gently.
“Very happy you’re here.” She took his hand as he sat. “There were too many people this morning, too much fuss. I can’t help thinking that he’d have hated most of it.”
“True, but it wasn’t just for him.”
“I know. Even so, I wanted just to sit with him for a while.” Her voice quavered but she threw Hugo a sharp look. “And don’t you dare give me some nonsense about how he’s not here anymore. Don’t you dare.”
“How could I?” Hugo squeezed her hand. “I’m here too, aren’t I?”
“I suppose so.”
They sat quietly for a moment, then Hugo said, “I think he’d have liked it that we were here together.”
“He would.” Claudia turned slightly to face him. “Hugo, I know what happened, how it happened. I want to know that you’re not blaming yourself.”
“Then I have to disappoint you, because I am. Not … all the time, or too much. But I wish people would stop pretending that those bullets weren’t intended for me.”
“They were intended for anyone who got in the way. You, Raul, whoever.”
“Nice try, and I’ll get over it, Claudia, so please don’t worry. I think for me it’s just part of the grieving process.” He gave her a small smile. “I call it the blaming process.”
“Then blame the person who shot him, who wanted to shoot you.” Claudia slumped on the bench and sighed. “And tell me you’re doing OK, truly OK.”
“You know me, I’ll be fine. This sucks, all of it, and I don’t have the words to say how much but …” He shrugged.
“I know. But remember what I said. Blame the right person, and that’s not you.”
“That’s the thing about feelings and emotions, they aren’t always logical. And I’m a police officer at heart, so I’m always going to wonder what I could have done to stop it from happening. I can’t help that, and part of it is wishing I’d been there instead of him. And I could have been, should have been.”
“Stop, Hugo. Please.” She entwined her fingers in his. “He wouldn’t like it that we’re arguing.”
Hugo chuckled. “Are you kidding? He’d love it. He’d come right over and put his arm around you and tell me I’m a fool. He’d love it.” By the time he’d stopped talking, Hugo realized she was crying again, so he put his own arm around Claudia and pulled her tight. “We were lucky to have known him. Let’s stick with that for now.”
She sniffled and nodded, then straightened up. “My derriere is sore, I’ve been here almost an hour,” she said. “Can we go for a walk in here, then I’ll let you two boys have some alone time.”
“Sure, that sounds wonderful.” They stood up and strolled up a slight hill toward Avenue Feuillant, not paying attention to anything but the feel of the stones under their feet and the soft rustle of the trees overhead. “You know, the last time I was here, it was with Raul. We were trying to find the scarab, figure out what that murderous little bastard was up to.”
“I know, I was with you one of those times. And kept bugging you both for the story.”
“Like I could forget. Of course, you ended up in the story, which you have a habit of doing, don’t you?”
“Tough to get rid of me.”
They walked on in silence, eyes passing over the names of the long-dead and a few belonging to the more recently interred. It was its own city, this place, with its rows of miniature houses in differing states of repair, some gaping open thanks to rusted gates, others sealed tight and impenetrable. They approached a young man who’d tucked himself inside a weathered sepulcher like a sentry, his pen at the ready and a rough blond beard pointed down at the notebook in his hand. As they passed, he showed them the lines of poetry that he’d scratched across the stark white paper in blood-red ink. Hugo and Claudia exchanged soft smiles at the exchange, and he knew she loved this aspect of Paris, the convergence of death and art that appeared in front of your eyes like a very real ghost, the inspiration that came to those who sought it, art springing to life on the hallowed ground filled with the dead.
“He believed in God, didn’t he? Raul, I mean,” Claudia said finally.
“Yes. But if you’re going to tell me he’s in a better place, I’ll throttle you.”
She gave a gentle laugh. “No, I wasn’t going to say that. I was just going to ask you to see it from his perspective, to understand the way he would have seen it.”
“Which is?”
“That God, his God if not yours, had some sort of plan in mind.”
“Killing a good man is a shitty plan.”
“I agree. But remember that Raul may not have.”
Hugo didn’t feel like arguing. He felt like sitting on someone else’s grave holding Claudia’s hand, drawing comfort from her and sharing a grief that he suppressed just as much as Tom did, letting it out in dribs and drabs for Claudia to soak up or wipe away. They sat in silence for a minute, then Claudia asked, “So you found who killed him?”
“We’re looking for her.”
“I can’t believe it’s Alexandra Tourville.”
Hugo looked at her sharply. “Who told you that?”
“Camille Lerens.” Claudia smiled. “Don’t worry, she told me unofficially. We’re friends, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I wrote an article about her when she joined the force from Bordeaux. She liked that I wrote as much about her career as her gender.”
“I had no idea you even knew her.”
“Yep. She’s fed me stories now and again, she trusts me not to write things I shouldn’t.”
“Smart woman,” Hugo said.
“Me or her?”
“Both, as far as I can tell.”
“Why did Tourville kill Raul? Try to kill you?”
“I think for the same reason she killed her assistant, Natalia Khlapina. She was tying off loose ends, severing all connections between herself and the Troyes robbery, the murder of Collette Bassin. Self-preservation, pure and simple.”
“But why did she rob that house? What was in the chest that she needed so badly?”
“I’m not sure.” He couldn’t tell her about the lock of hair, for some reason it seemed like the key to this. If Camille Lerens hadn’t told Claudia about it, Hugo felt he shouldn’t, either. “I’ve been thinking about it, though, and I’m sure it has to do with the family’s history.”
“The Tourvilles?”