"And obviously robbery was not a motive, not with the total destruction of the house."
"Unless the thieves didn't want anyone to know what was stolen."
"Possible," Patrick agreed," but Madame Barkman had an extraordinary alarm system with interior burglar bars. Part of having lived in your New York, I suppose. The place was like, like… like the place where Americans keep their gold."
" Fort Knox," Lang supplied.
" Fort Knox. I would guess the intent was to destroy rather than steal."
"Destroy what?"
"When we know that, we will be close to knowing who these criminals are."
The two men stared at each other across the desk, each unable to think of something appropriate to say, until Patrick leaned forward. "I know it is small comfort to you, but the fire was intense. They would have died instantly from having the air sucked out of their bodies if the explosion did not kill them first."
Lang appreciated the thought behind the effort and recognized it as a well-intentioned lie.
"The case is actually within the jurisdiction of the police," Patrick went on. "I don't know how long I can continue to convince them we have reason to believe it was the act of terrorists."
Lang wanted the case in the hands of the DGSE for two reasons. First, his friendship with Patrick was likely to evoke more than the routine effort to see the case solved. Besides, the French security force was one of the world's best. Second, the Paris police was a morass of political infighting. Peter Sellers's Pink Panther rendition of the inept Inspector Clouseau had some basis in fact.
Mistaking Lang's thoughts for uncertainty, the Frenchman continued, "Of course, every resource…"
"I'd like to go to the scene," Lang said.
Patrick held up his hands, palms outward. "Of course. My car and driver are yours for as long as you wish."
"And do you have any idea what they did the day before…?" Patrick touched the folder. "It is routine to check such things." Lang pulled the file over and opened it. With eyes stinging from tears as well as lack of sleep, he began to read.
3
Paris
The same day
Lang left his friend's office to go directly to the Place des Vosges. Being here, the last place Janet and Jeff had been alive, somehow brought him closer to them. He paused a long time in front of the blackened cave that was number 26. Head bowed, he stood on grass that had been scorched brown. With each minute, his resolve to see the killers exposed and punished increased. He was deaf to the sound of the grinding of his own teeth and unaware of the scowl on his face. Residents, delivery men and the curious increased their pace around him as though he were potentially dangerous.
"I'll get them myself if that's what it takes," he muttered. "Fucking bastards!"
A uniformed nanny behind him broke into a trot to get the pram and its cargo as far away as possible.
His next stop was to a mortician recommended by Patrick. The service was professional, cool and devoid of the oily faux sympathy dispensed by American funeral directors. He paid for two simple metal caskets, one only half-size, and made arrangements to have the bodies shipped back to the States.
He tried hard but unsuccessfully not to think about how very little of Janet and Jeff those European-shaped boxes would contain.
There was no rational reason to track his sister's last hours other than a curiosity he saw no reason to deny. Besides, his flight didn't leave till evening and he didn't want to impose on his friend's hospitality. Credit card receipts electronically summoned by Patrick provided a road map of Janet's last day. She had visited Hermes and Chanel, making relatively small purchases: a scarf, a blouse. Probably more interested in souvenirs than haute couture, Lang decided. He did little more than peer through windows at mannequins too thin to be real and draped in outfits that exceeded the average annual American income. The number of Ferraris and Lamborghinis parked curbside dispelled any doubts he might have had as to the extravagance of the goods inside the-shops.
The last credit card receipt led him to the Ile St. Louis. Overshadowed literally and economically by the adjacent Ile de la Cité and its towering Notre-Dame cathedral, the St. Louis was a quirky neighborhood in the middle of the Seine. Lang remembered eight blocks of tiny hotels, twenty-seat bistros and small shops filled with oddities.
Leaving Patrick's car and driver in one of the parking spots so rare along the narrow streets, Lang climbed out of the Peugeot in front of a patisserie, inhaling the aroma of freshly baked bread and sweets. He walked southeast along Rue St. Louis en L'IIe until he came to an intersection where the curbs were even closer, Rue des Deux Points. He was trying to match the address on the receipt but street numbers were either hard to see or nonexistent. Luckily, there was only one shop displaying the sign magasin d'antiquités, antique shop.
An overhead bell announced his entry into a space crowded with the accoutrements of civilization from at least the past hundred years or so. Oil lamps as well as electric ones were stacked on sewing tables along with piles of dusty magazines and flatware tied in bunches. Bronze and marble statues and busts of goddesses and emperors paraded up and down aisles covered in shag carpet and oriental rugs. Lang resisted the image of cobwebs his imagination created.
The single room smelled of dust and disuse with a hint of mildew. Careful not to dislodge a record player and recordings that Lang guessed dated from the 1950s, he turned around, looking for the proprietor.
"Salut!" A head popped up in front of an armoire. "Can I help you?"
Like most Parisians, the shopkeeper had an unerring ability to recognize Americans on sight.
Lang held up the copy of the receipt. "I'm looking for information."
An androgynous figure in black limped to the front of the shop. A wrinkled hand took the receipt and held it up to a light speckled with dust motes. Spectacles appeared from a pocket. "What do you wish to know?"
Lang thrashed around for a convenient story and decided upon at least part of the truth."Janet Holt was my sister. She was killed in that explosion over in the Marais a few days ago while she was visiting here. I'm just trying to find out what she bought while she was in the city."
"I'm very sorry." The tradesman pointed to the wall, or rather to a gap between two dark pictures of people in nineteenth-century dress. "She bought a painting."
"A portrait? Of who?" That would have been unusual.
The shopkeeper shook a gray head. "No, a painting of shepherds, of a field, perhaps some religious scene." That was more in keeping with Janet's taste. Lang started to ask another question and thought better of it. What did it matter what happened to the painting?
Judging from its source, it was doubtful it had either artistic or monetary value.
"That painting," the figure in black continued, "it had not been here long. In fact, a man came in right after your sister and was very upset it had been sold."
Years of searching out the unusual, of recognizing anomalies, sent up antennae long unused. "This man, do you remember anything about him?"
"Near eastern, perhaps Arab, dressed in nice but inexpensive clothes. He spoke very good French." Lang ignored the implicit accusation. "Did he say why he wanted the picture?" "No, but as you can see, I have many beautiful things for sale." Lang thought a moment. "You said you hadn't had the picture long. Do you remember where you got it?"
Again the shuffling of papers. "From London, Mike Jenson, Dealer in Curios, Antiquities, Etcetera, Ltd. Number 12 Old Bond Street, London WIY 9AE We buy inventory from each other."