The Blood Promise: A Hugo Marston Novel (32 page)

“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?”

“No, the Bassin family.”

“Tell me why you’re sure it’s her. I have to be honest, Hugo, I have a hard time believing it, despite her past.”

“I know. And this reminds me of Senator Lake, the way everyone was judging him.”

“Deservedly, no?”

“I’m beginning to think so. But when it comes to character flaws and personality defects, people’s judgments go from zero to one hundred in a flash. Like with him, and maybe with most politicians, you either love them or you hate them. And if you hate them, you pounce on some aspect of their personality and magnify it. We all do it, all the time. The same way new lovers ignore each other’s defects until they can’t anymore.”

“You’re losing me. I thought we were talking about Alexie Tourville.”

“We are. See, her behaviors before she supposedly turned her life around are pretty telling. She was selfish, in constant need of stimulation, and irresponsible with money. Now she’s broke and resentful that she has to rely on her brother. How else would you describe her?”

“Charming when she wants to be. Sexually promiscuous, if we’re to believe what we read.”

“The photos help on that score,” Hugo said. “And related to that, she has this ability, or drive, to reinvent herself.”

“I get the feeling those traits mean something.”

“They do. And bear in mind, she doesn’t exhibit them to a sharp degree, but they are all behaviors exhibited by someone with sociopathic tendencies. When we talked to her about Natalia’s death, she acted sad but I didn’t see any tears, no real sorrow.”

“Wait, that sounds like you’re justifying her being the bad guy.”

“And that’s because she’s not your psychopathic killer from Hollywood. Sociopathy is a continuum. It exists in corporate CEOs, politicians, people who are successful but who have enough empathy to fit right in with the people around them. Forget the idea that every sociopath or psychopath gets off on killing, they don’t. You and I live alongside them, they can be our neighbors and our bosses. Most are relatively harmless, getting off on furthering their careers, making money, or achieving positions of power.”

“So what’s her motive in life, what’s her goal?”

“That,” Hugo said, “is where I’m not caught up yet.”

“Personality aside, go back to why you think she killed Madam Bassin.”

“Well, there’s the chest. It was found in Natalia’s apartment but Alexie obviously has access to it: she’s the landlord. And she said Natalia only went there a couple of times a month, so getting in unseen would have been easy. The whole apartment building is practically deserted.”

“OK, what else?”

“No one can definitively say Alexie had possession of the chest, not yet, and it’s true that Natalia could have taken it to the Tourville Chateau. But Natalia doesn’t make sense as the killer, and I think Alexie lied to me about her.”

“How?”

“She belabored the fact that Natalia was a thief, essentially a kleptomaniac with a shoe fetish. But those things don’t necessarily go together. And the jewelry in Natalia’s apartment, it was older. Beautiful, but old. Kleptomaniacs are like magpies, they like shiny new things. They don’t steal objects that are old, used.”

“Camille told me that she had a lot of new shoes.”

“A lot of women own a lot of shoes. Which brings us to the shoes that were the wrong size, that would likely fit Alexie.”

“She stole them from her boss?”

“That’s what Alexie told us, what she wants us to think. But again, someone stealing new shoes doesn’t also steal almost-new ones that are the wrong size. I think Alexie either kept shoes at the apartment for when she stayed, or piled some in to make her thief story stronger.”

“Fingerprints on the chest?”

“None, and as I told Tom, that tells me it wasn’t Natalia who put it up there. Someone else did, and the only someone else I can think of, the only someone else who we can put at the Bassin residence, is Alexie Tourville.”

“Is it killing you, not knowing what was in that chest?”

“Of course.” Hugo grimaced. “But I’ll figure it out.”
That is, figure out what else was in the chest.

He stood and stretched, looking around. He realized that he’d not paid attention to the direction they were walking and, looking for markers, his eye settled on a tomb across the pathway, no more than thirty feet away.

It belonged to Oscar Wilde, and Hugo remembered the discussion he’d had with Alexie Tourville and Lake about Hugo’s hobbies, his love of books. She’d asked which authors he liked, and Oscar Wilde had been one of the first to come to mind. Now here he was, a few steps from the man’s grave.

He moved closer, the first time he’d seen the glass wall that enveloped the tomb, a measure implemented to keep the red-glazed lips of fans away from the crypt itself. Their kisses had become a headache to clean and had even started to erode the flying nude angel wrought by sculptor Jacob Epstein. Hugo stood in front of the sculpture, as snippets of Wilde’s work and his life history drifted through his mind.

Claudia walked up behind him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Wilde, eh?”

“In every sense of the word. It came back to haunt him, of course, and the poor man died penniless here in Paris. In fact, the first time around he was buried somewhere else, Bagneaux cemetery just outside the city, and was moved here almost ten years after his death.”

“I didn’t know that. How long did he live in Paris?”

“Two or three years, I think. Prison ruined him,” Hugo said, “he was never quite the same after that. You know, to try and escape that time, to get past it, he even . . .” Hugo straightened, his eyes wide.

“What, Hugo? He even what?”

“He’s just given me an idea.” A slow smile spread over Hugo’s face.

“What idea? All this has something to do with Oscar Wilde?”

“Yes. But mostly no.” Hugo took out his phone. “Thanks to old Oscar, though, I think I might know what’s going on.”

They shared a taxi back into the city center, Hugo impatient and Claudia frustrated. He’d left a message with Merlyn but she’d not responded, and he spent the car ride deflecting Claudia’s questions, her demands for an explanation.

“No, you’re in reporter mode,” he said finally.

“I’ll turn that off. Stay in Claudia mode.”

“Nice try, but we’ve been through this before. Cops and journalists don’t have that on–off switch.”

Hugo stopped the cab on Rue de Rivoli and kissed Claudia on the cheek. “I need to stop in at the embassy, but I’m out of cash. Would you mind?”

“Seriously?” she said, and he was unsure if her indignation was real or feigned. “Are you turning into Tom now?”

“It’s a cab, not a call girl,” Hugo said with a wink. “Have the driver take you home, I’ll pay you back later.”

“You better. And, seriously, call me when you can.”

“I will, I promise.” As he climbed out of the taxi his phone buzzed and he waved it at a departing Claudia before answering. “This is Hugo.”

“Hey, it’s Merlyn. S’up?” Merlyn, the friend he’d made out of the blue in England while trying to keep track of the movie star he was assigned to protect. The beautiful yet waiflike goth girl who was more worldly than most people twice her age. Her directness had caught Hugo by surprise back then, and she’d accorded his position of authority no automatic respect but helped him because she was a good person, and because she believed that Hugo was, too.

“S’up yourself. I’ve been trying to call.”

She chuckled. “You might want to remember what I do for a living before you get too stroppy with me, Marston.”

Hugo grinned despite himself. “Not my cup of tea, as you might say, but fair point.” He cleared his throat and adopted as formal a tone as he could. “So, lovely Miss Merlyn, does your wonderfulness have anything for me?”

“Oh, Hugo, you’re such a dork sometimes. I do miss you.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Welcome. Anyway, as far as this little task goes, it would’ve helped if I’d known what I was looking for. But I found out a few things, so how about I info dump and you use what you want?”

“That’d be perfect, thanks.”

“Sure. Tell you now or email it?”

“Give me the highlights, then email whatever else you have. And thanks, Merlyn, I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do. Coming to England any time soon?”

“Not that I know of. Visit me in Paris, it’s prettier than London.”

“Can’t argue with you there. All right, here’s what I know. The Bassin family is as old as the hills. And they’ve lived in that house for a couple of hundred years, exact numbers will be in the email. Nothing out of the ordinary, a kid here and there, marriages and deaths, but only one blip, so to speak. I think that something dodgy happened toward the end of the 1700s.”

“What do you mean, ‘dodgy’?”

“Hard to tell. But if I had to guess, there was some kind of family dispute or something. One branch of the Bassin family up and moved out of the house, and another moved in. No idea why, of course. Anyway, two interesting things related to that. First, the ones that moved out changed their name.”