“Fine,” said Hugo. “Sounds very sensible.”
Ambassador Taylor looked at him and nodded imperceptibly, a sign between friends. Hugo rose, passing the unspoken message to Tom who also stood, and the two men left the room.
They took the stairs down to the security offices, walking in silence, the scuff of their feet on the steps the only sound. They passed through the front office, not seeing Emma who was away from her desk, and went straight into Hugo’s office.
About half the size of the ambassador’s, it still had plenty of room for a large oak desk on the right, a round table in the center of the room, and a sofa and two armchairs on the left. Hugo ran an eye over his phone, saw no blinking lights, and gestured Tom to the armchairs.
“Can’t blame him,” Hugo said, following his friend and taking a seat. “Bad enough to lose your only son. To lose him to random murder makes it … meaningless.”
“But make it an act of international terrorism, somehow it’s not as bad,” Tom nodded. “Not to mention the practical side. I meant what I said, if we call it terrorism, we get a blank check and the help of every security agency in the Western world. But if it’s just plain old murder, Senator Holmes gets the French police and that’s it.”
“They’re pretty damn good, you know.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Tom grinned. “Just not as good as us.”
Chapter Seven
The Père Lachaise cemetery had opened for business again, the Paris police having been informed that its value as a tourist attraction was greater than its value as a crime scene. A brief afternoon conversation between Hugo, Taylor, and Tom had resolved to keep the matter as low-key as possible, temporarily, despite the terrorist connection. Tom’s theory, which both men agreed with, was that publicly treating Maxwell’s death as an ordinary homicide might keep Al Zakiri’s defenses down. As a result, Ambassador Taylor had called Hugo early Wednesday morning and asked him to meet a detective at the cemetery, a public relations and political gesture as much as it was a matter of criminal investigation.
“One other thing,” the ambassador had told Hugo. “We’re playing this terrorism very close to our chests.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we’ve only shared what information we have with some very senior people in the French government. The rank and file doesn’t know and doesn’t need to know just yet. So be your usual polite and friendly self because, in theory, if this is plain old murder, we’re on the outside looking in.”
The ambassador was right on that point, Hugo knew. The Holmes boy wasn’t an embassy employee and, other than professional courtesy, nothing required the French to even communicate with his department, let alone give them a role in a murder investigation.
Hugo took the metro to the cemetery, the eight o’clock rush forcing him to stand. He held onto a metal rail with one hand and looked around the car at his fellow commuters, playing the old game, looking for clues or oddities.
Facing him, two young men sat quietly, their faces grimy, their bodies slumped in the plastic seats as if exhausted from a long night’s work. Yet despite their body language, their expressions were not those of overworked minions; rather, there was contentment in their tiredness, in the way their elbows and shoulders brushed and their bodies rocked languidly to the rhythm of the train. He drew a story around them, even more curious when he realized that, under the dust and dirt, these faces belonged to boys, not men, and were surely too young to have jobs that would keep them up all night in dirty conditions. So where had they been that left them looking so tired but happy? And where were they going?
He was starting to ponder this conundrum when he felt a hand on his arm. He turned and saw a familiar round face looking up at him, eyes twinkling and white teeth visible under a perfectly manicured mustache. Hugo smiled.
“Capitaine Garcia, what a coincidence. Comment ça va?”
“Bien, mon ami. And not such a coincidence.”
“No?” Hugo thought for a moment. “Don’t tell me that you’re the policeman meeting me at Père Lachaise?”
“Exactement. When I heard the US Embassy was involved, I asked to be assigned the case.” Garcia winked. “I hoped to work with my friend Hugo again.”
“Merci,” Hugo smiled. “That’s good news. And you are too kind.” Hugo patted the smaller man’s shoulder and held him steady as the train slowed at their stop.
It was good news, he wasn’t merely being polite. They’d worked a case together recently, one that had put a bullet in Raul Garcia’s shoulder and seen the disappearance of Hugo’s good friend, Max, a bookseller who’d plied his trade beside the Seine. The relationship between Hugo and Garcia had been prickly at first, the Frenchman jealously guarding his territory and skeptical of Hugo’s profiling techniques and experience. But he’d looked at the evidence as Hugo had explained it, opened his mind, and together they’d captured one of Paris’s most cold-blooded killers.
When they walked out of the metro onto Boulevard de Ménilmontant, Hugo was surprised at the warmth of the air, the July heat already rousing itself from a short night, warming up to bake the city’s streets and buildings for another day. They walked slowly together, as if it were the height of noon already, and Garcia filled a brief silence with the question Hugo knew had been coming.
“And Claudia, how is she? I trust you two are still …”
“A long story, mon ami. But we are still good friends and do see each other when time allows.” It was an accurate, if superficial, answer. He’d met Claudia while looking for his friend Max, and they’d bonded quickly. Claudia, the hard-nosed investigative reporter, at once helped Hugo and pushed him for the story of Max’s disappearance. For whatever reason — her green eyes, her willing body, her honest smile — he’d let her get too close to the action and she’d nearly been killed. She’d never blamed him, she was too independent to even think it was his fault, but the incident had scared them both and a distance had crept between them, one they’d not bridged in the months since.
“Ah, that is good. She is a special lady,” Garcia said, and left it at that.
They entered the cemetery on the west side, Garcia leading the way. They walked side by side, slowly, both men eyeing the names on the monuments lining the wide cobbled walkway. It was not as Hugo had imagined, nothing like the sprawling grassy cemeteries of home or the higgledy-piggledy graveyards he’d seen in England. Neat rows of tombs lined sweeping pathways, some simple slabs of marble, others like narrow stone houses with their own front doors. Angels and the faces of those who lay in repose sat atop many of the grave sites, and the cemetery had the feel of a small city, carefully platted and maintained, neat, tidy, and clean.
And in here the air was noticeably cooler. Stands of oak, ash, and maple trees draped their greenery over the monochrome of the tombs, providing relief for the eyes as well as protection from the sun, breathing fresh air into a city of the dead and sustaining the cemetery’s weary visitors.
“You’ve been here before?” Garcia asked.
“No,” Hugo said. “Actually, never. I think it’s the most famous Paris tourist site I’ve never seen.”
“Let me guess,” Garcia said. “You’ve seen too much death in your job, you have no place for it in your leisure time.”
“Something like that. I guess I’ve never really seen the appeal of a few acres of stone, marble, and hidden-away bones.”
“Fair point,” Garcia said. He angled them down a narrower path. “Most who come see more than that, though. To them, this place holds not just the mortal remains of people they love and admire, but their spirits. A place where so many gifted people, so many …” He waved his hands as he sought the right word. “So many geniuses lie sleeping. It’s as if death could not possibly destroy all they have to offer, as if a reduction to mere bones in a tomb is impossible.”