“Not at all. And I hope that we’ll meet again, Mr. Kirk.” Tom nodded as he in turn shook Van Simson’s hand.
They weaved their way through the display cases, the vault entrance a blindingly bright rectangle of light until, just as they were about to step out into the corridor, Van Simson called after them.
“You know, this is where I plan to be buried, one day.” His arms extended to take in the room in front of him. “Down here, sealed inside with my collection. Then I will have them all to myself forever.”
Through the suspended glass sheets Tom could see that Van Simson had stepped up onto the raised platform. Illuminated by a single spotlight directly over his head, his eyes had sunk into dark pools of shadow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Rolfe’s achromatic stare vanished with a shudder as the heavy wooden door swung shut behind them.
“So what do you think?” said Jennifer as they crossed the street and walked back toward the Place des Vosges and the car.
“About what?”
“About what we just saw.”
Tom buried his hands in his trouser pockets.
“You’re the detective, not me.”
She stopped and turned to face him, annoyed. It was one thing to be unfriendly. To be honest, she didn’t expect anything less. But being deliberately obstructive was not part of their deal.
“We’re meant to be helping each other, remember. This is going to be a lot easier on both of us if you play along.”
“I don’t think cop, okay.”
“Fine.” She shrugged in frustration and set off again, shaking her head at his obstinence. “I’ll think cop for both of us then, shall I? We learned that his coin is safe and sound. In fact, it would take a small army to get to it. And… ”
“And?”
“And I think we learned that he already knew there was another coin. He acted surprised when I told him about it but his eyes barely flickered.” Tom nodded, stepping aside to let past a mother pushing a large baby buggy. “He certainly didn’t seem as surprised as I would have guessed he would be.”
“Yeah, but that could mean anything. Like Harry said, Van Simson is well plugged in. It doesn’t prove he was involved in taking them and even if he was, we don’t know how. Or what the link was between him and the priest?”
“Ranieri?”
“Yeah. Where does he fit in to Van Simson’s world?”
“I’ve told you what I know. He stole money from the Vatican Bank and then surfaced here a year ago and set himself up as a fence. He was a small-time player.”
“Exactly. So what was he doing handling an eight-million-dollar coin? That was way out of his league. So what we need to find out is who gave him the coin to sell in the first place.”
“We could go and check out his apartment?” Jennifer suggested brightly.
“Where did he live?”
“Porte de Cling… something.” She reached into her bag for her notebook.
“Porte de Clignancourt. That figures. I hardly expected him to be off the Champs Elysées. Haven’t the police been all over it?”
“Yeah, but how closely do you think they looked?” If there was one lesson she’d learned over the years it was to trust the evidence of her own eyes over the assurances of others, especially local cops. “They probably couldn’t wait to close the file. As far as they were concerned, someone had just saved them the trouble of taking another scumbag off the streets. We might notice something they didn’t.”
They were back at the car now and Tom slid behind the wheel and started the engine.
“It’s your call,” he said as Jennifer got in. “I’ll drive us there if you want to go and take a look. But if you ask me, it’s a waste of time.”
“Lucky I didn’t ask you, then,” Jennifer snapped back, again finding his attitude frustrating. She took her notebook out of her bag and leafed through it. “Rue du Ruisseau, number seventeen. You know it?”
Tom nodded.
“Right next to the flea market. But I’m telling you, it’s a waste of time.”
He pulled out and accelerated down the street, the tires drumming over the worn and rounded cobbles.
Behind him, a dark blue car pulled out from where it had been half-hidden behind a white van and followed them, the passenger talking into his phone.
CHAPTER FORTY
They stopped the car and looked around warily before getting out. The trees that had once lined the handsome street had long since gone, strangled by the thick air and stale light. The graffiti, loud markings of despair and hate, had been sprayed up to head height across the high ashen walls like the inside of a prison cell. The washing hanging at half-mast out of the windows above them flapped limply in the breeze.
They approached number seventeen and pressed the buzzer. A few seconds later a torrent of indecipherable French crackled out from the intercom.
Tom said just one word.
“Police.”
There was a pause and then the door buzzed open. Tom gave Jennifer a smile but she just pushed past him with an angry shake of her head.
“Impersonating a police officer?”
“Got us in, didn’t it?”
They made their way inside, their footsteps echoing in the smooth vaulted passage that had once sheltered horse-drawn carriages but now housed instead two large green wheelie-bins that gave off the sickly-sweet smell of rotting food. The concierge was standing at the foot of the stairs to meet them, a white-haired old woman, her face aged into deep vertical furrows, the game show on her TV flickering through the open door behind her.
“We would like to look around Father Ranieri’s apartment,” said Tom, his French faultless.
“You the police?” Her voice was frail and brittle.
“That’s right.”
“Got a badge?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see it?” Her hands were clasped together, her thin wrists swollen by arthritis, each gnarled finger buckled and deformed into two sets of rigid claws.
“Don’t give me any trouble, old woman.”
The concierge paused and looked Tom and then Jennifer up and down, mumbling under her breath about procedure and bullying.
“What floor?”
“Top. Room B.”
“Is there an elevator?”
“No.” The concierge jerked her thumb behind her into the courtyard. “Stairs.”
Tom nodded and led Jennifer past the concierge, into the courtyard, to the stairs. Five minutes later, their footsteps began to echo back down toward them off the domed glass roof that covered the top of the staircase. They reached the landing and saw that six pallid doors all led off a long, cheerless corridor.
“This must be it,” Jennifer said.
The door on the left was sealed with blue-and-white police tape and an official-looking sign had been stapled to the door. Tom nodded.
“I’ll get us in.”
“No need,” said Jennifer, producing a small lock pick from her bag and bending down. “I can manage.” She fiddled quietly with the lock before gently turning the handle and pushing the door open. The tape ripped away.
They stepped into a small room, the only light coming from a smeared and curtainless window. A narrow bed was placed against one wall, its mattress propped up on the wall next to it. A small refrigerator hummed, the door open but the light clearly broken. Clothes had been pulled out of the dresser and wardrobe and lay strewn across the bed and the floor.
A chipped white sink stood in the far left-hand corner, while next to it a single gas ring, connected to a bright blue gas bottle, had been balanced on a cheap laminate table. Tom tried the light switch, but the bulb was missing. Cobwebs weaved across the ceiling.