Unione Corse was the Corsican mafia. The kind of guys wholl break your arms and fuck your knees up with hammers. And then some. Abby had no idea of the kind of nasty characters her boyfriend had been borrowing money from. This bunch had moved on from breaking arms and legs well before they got into their teens.
Then maybe its time to get out of town, Ben said. Your buddy here as well. But first, theres something I need you to do for me.
Thierry brightened a little. You mean, like, a job?
You look as though you could do with one.
Its been a while. Works kind of thin on the ground lately.
Are you up for it?
You bet. Just like old times, huh?
Ben said, Then lets talk. But not here. He finished freeing Pierrot and told him, Pack your stuff. One small suitcase. Leave the rest.
This is my place, Pierrot whined.
Not any more, it isnt. When your downstairs neighbours see the blood coming through the ceiling and call the cops, its going to get a little crowded around here. You cant come back any time soon. So hurry it up.
Pierrot didnt look too thrilled about abandoning his rathole apartment, but Thierry was looking more pleased by the second. Oh, Ben?
Yes?
Thanks for, uh, you know, saving us.
I needed the exercise. Now lets go.
The fat guard outside in the corridor was showing signs of recovery, so Ben knocked him out properly and dragged his corpulent bulk inside the apartment by the ankles. Then they pulled the door shut against the shattered frame and hurried downstairs, out of the building, past the Corsican boys Audi and up the street to where the Alpina was parked. Ben tossed Pierrots case in the boot, and they took off.
Thirty minutes later they were back at the safehouse. Pierrot was still sulking and hadnt spoken another word. Ben ignored him, brewed up more coffee, then sat Thierry down at the table in the living room and told him what he needed.
Whose is it? Thierry asked, frowning at Romys phone.
You dont need to know, Ben said. You just need to unlock that video file. Think you can do that for me?
Thierry spent a few moments fiddling with the phone, deep in concentration. Yeah, I reckon I can.
How long?
Twenty minutes, give or take.
Youre still my guy, Ben said.
Thierry Chevrolet might have seen better times and lost his sparkle, but the kinds of skills he possessed didnt fade with age. Ben left him alone to work, and went over to smoke at the window while Thierry hunched over the smartphone at the table. Pierrot was still lurking, silent and morose, in the background. Ben would gladly have sent him out on some errand just to get rid of him, if he could have trusted the idiot wouldnt return with half the Corsica mafia on his heels.
Eighteen minutes and three more cups of coffee later, Thierry leaned back in his chair, looked over at Ben with a sly grin and whispered, Were in.
Chapter 14
Dont get too excited, chief, Thierry said as Ben went over to see. It isnt exactly what youd call cinema quality.
Pierrot was suddenly all interested. What is it? Porno?
Ben gave him a look that made him stay in place and keep his mouth shut. Turning back to Thierry he asked, Did you see any of it?
Youre the client. Its none of my business whats on there. I only looked at the first few seconds. Long enough to see what it isnt. Thierry handed over the phone. Ben took it and sat at the table to look.
The video was less than a minute long. That made each second of its duration seem all the more precious, assuming the clip was of any value at all. After the first five seconds, Bens heart was beginning to sink, because he could hardly make anything out. Everything was dark and jerky, just a confusion of shapes and shadows. All that was clearly visible was the purple time and date stamp in the bottom left corner of the screen, which just confirmed the date on the file label, from three days ago.
Seven seconds in, something appeared on the right-hand edge of the frame, and moved inwards to fill a third of the screen. It was the vertical edge of what appeared to be a concrete wall, pitted and craggy. The cameras focus sharpened on that, making the background even more blurry and indistinct. All Ben could glean from what he was seeing was that the person doing the filming presumably Romy herself, though he had no way to be certain was shooting the video clip in a furtive, clandestine way from behind the wall, not wanting to be seen. She, if it was her, seemed to be trying to angle the camera past its edge, around the corner, to film something happening further away. But the lighting was just too dark to see what.
Ben said, This is terrible.
Thierry shrugged. You get what you get, man.
As bad as the visual quality was, the audio was even worse. All Ben could hear through the phones tinny speaker was a lot of white noise. The phone mic was picking up all kinds of background sounds. He was sure he could hear Romys breathing, which was restrained, like someone trying to remain undetected, but fast and urgent, like someone very afraid of getting caught. He thought back to the one and only time hed seen her alive. Shed been frightened then, too. Clearly terrified of whoever she thought was following her.
Had Romy witnessed something, Ben wondered. What were you doing? What did you see?
Somewhere in the middle of the white noise, barely audible, was the sound of muffled voices. Two of them, Ben thought. Both men, judging from the low-range tones. He strained his ears to catch what was being said, but it was impossible to make out.
Is there anything you can do to make the sound clearer? he asked Thierry.
Hey, Im a genius, not a bloody magician. You might be able to clean it up a little, but not without access to some decent audio editing software. Even then, no guarantees. You cant bring out what isnt there to start with.
Ben said nothing, and went on watching what he couldnt see and listening to what he couldnt hear. Then, eighteen seconds in, Romy must have shifted position slightly because the vertical edge of the wall suddenly slid out of shot towards the right. The cameras autofocus was suddenly able to latch onto more of the background and suck more light from the murky shadows. The audio was still bad, but now Ben could make out more visual detail.
The scene had taken place inside some kind of warehouse or industrial building, or it could have been a cellar: a large, dimly-lit space with concrete pillars holding up the roof. Ben realised it was another of the same pillars, not a wall, that Romy was hiding behind to film the clip on her phone. She was doing her best to keep the camera steady, but the picture kept jerking and wandering and made it hard to see. Ben started freeze-framing the clip to get a better look.
At the far end of the warehouse, or cellar, rows of strange whitish objects were lined up against a wall. Some seemed to be covered with shrouds or tarpaulins, others were more clearly visible. Ben realised that they were statues. Old ones, he guessed by the look of them. Some were human figures, others of animals and mythical beasts. Some smaller in size, others so tall and large that they loomed up towards the ceiling of the warehouse. Ben let the playback roll for a few more seconds, then paused it again to catch a clear view of a massive stone creature that appeared to have the head and face of a man, the body of an elephant. Or maybe a bull. Either way it was an enormous piece of sculpture that stood nearly as high as the rafter beams, several metres tall.
It looked oddly familiar to him. Where had he seen something like it before? He thought back, then flashed on a memory of the one time hed ever visited the Louvre museum, right here in Paris, years ago, and seen similar exhibits on display. Those had dated back several millennia, he remembered. Brought to France within the last couple of centuries, from some ancient part of what was now the Middle East.
Then Ben recalled a more recent memory, of his conversation with Romys colleague Jeanne at the Institute, and Jeanne telling him that Romy had recently returned from a field trip overseas. He wished he knew more about where shed gone. He could only guess that, since her work involved the preservation of ancient works of art like these, her field trips might take her to places where such objects were kept warehoused between being salvaged from their original homes and being relocated to museums in Europe and elsewhere. That much made sense but what didnt make sense was why she was filming this so secretively, as though she wasnt supposed to be there. Who was she hiding from?
Ben unpaused the image and let the video play on. Nearly half a minute into the clip the image shifted again, panning a few degrees to the left. Ben realised that Romy was keeping so carefully hidden behind her pillar that she couldnt actually see what she was trying to film, and was just taking pot luck at aiming the camera. The picture went wildly jerky for a few moments, then steadied again.
And that was when Ben saw the two men whose indistinct voices he could hear garbled in the background. It was just a brief glimpse, and he had to pause, rewind and pause again until he was able to freeze the frame just right. The pair were standing about midway between where Romy was hiding and the statues lined against the far wall. The angle of the shot captured them both in profile, side-on to the camera. From their body language it was clear that the conversation was intense and serious. One man was taller and darker than the other, but they were too small to make out their faces.
He asked Thierry, Can I zoom in on this?
Thierry tutted at Bens lack of expertise. How can a guy be so damn good at some things, and so completely hopeless at others? He leaned over and showed Ben how to make the image bigger.
The zoomed-in shot of the two men was a little blurry, but clear enough.
The shorter man on the right was older, thicker around the middle and wearing the sort of light-coloured suit that well-to-do Europeans used to wear in tropical countries. He had a full head of silver hair and a craggy face, deeply tanned. Ben recognised him from his photo on the Institute website. It was Julien Segal, the archaeologist, Romys employer.
Which still didnt explain why Romy was hiding from him and filming the conversation in secret. But the identity of the man on the left explained a great deal.
Taller, more powerfully built, dressed all in black and seemingly doing most of the talking, the man on the left was Nazim al-Kassar.