The Blood Promise: A Hugo Marston Novel (35 page)

“That his family tree was stunted. No more information.” Hugo held up a finger. “That would have told her to check immigration records. Merlyn said that’s the obvious move when a trail dies, especially if it’s between 1800 and 1900. She also told me that a lot of those records have long since been lost, but a lot still remain.”

“So she found out Lake’s family were immigrants, big deal.”

“Correct, on both counts. Everyone in America is an immigrant, right? But Alexie Tourville had a few suspicions, given her knowledge of history, the timing of the immigration, and the names on the immigration paperwork.”

“Suspicions? About what?”

“I’m not sure, not entirely. I’m coming at this from the opposite end, unraveling what she created so it’s hard for me to know what she knew, and when. But at some point she figured out what I did at Père Lachaise today.”

“Which is?”

“That when people want to hide their past, when they want to bury some part of themselves, one of the first things they do is change their name. Oscar Wilde did it: he even had business cards made up with his new name of Sebastian Melmoth. But, like Oscar Wilde and pretty much everyone else who changes their name, they hang on to some variant of their old one. In Wilde’s case, he picked the names Sebastian and Melmoth after Saint Sebastian and the titular character of
Melmoth the Wanderer
; a Gothic novel by his great-uncle. But it’s the same for everyone, Martin Smith will call himself Mark Simons. Julie-Ann Jones will call herself Anne Johnson. I’ve seen it time and again.” He smiled. “Look at you, Christophe became Camille.”

“That’s true.” She nodded slowly. “But I still don’t get it. Who changed their name?”

“That’s where Merlyn worked her magic. She told me that a family called Fontaine moved to America a couple of hundred years ago. In 1796, I think she said.”

“So?”

“Think about the names,” Hugo said.

Lerens rolled her eyes. “Tom said you did this. Fine, the names. Fontaine, Tourville—”

“Forget Tourville. The other players.”

“Fontaine,” Lerens tried again, “Bassin, and . . . oh my goodness, Lake.”

“Wrong order but otherwise right. A ‘bassin’ can be an ornamental pond, right?”

“Yes, of course . . .”

“Pond, Fountain, and Lake. Same family from start to finish, from then until now.”

“So . . . Senator Lake is descended from the Bassin family?” She thought for a moment. “You know, that would be pretty embarrassing for him. I mean, the man hates foreigners, especially the French.”

“True, although like I said, pretty much everyone in America is descended from somewhere in Europe. But yes, he’d look a little silly if someone proved he was of French descent.”

“Someone like . . . Alexie Tourville.”

“Right.”

“She was blackmailing him?”

“Not about that. Not just about that, anyway. But along those lines, because that first night at the chateau she was pressing Lake about his rich donors, asking what would happen if they suddenly didn’t like him anymore. I thought at the time she was referencing her own past, but I think she was testing him, consciously or not she was showing her hand or obliquely pointing to the writing on the wall.”

“Which said what?”

“That there might come a point where his wealthy isolationist friends would turn their backs on him. And I think that’s where the robbery at the Bassin house comes in.”

“Explain it to me.”

“I can’t,” Hugo said apologetically. “Not entirely, anyway. And without proof, my little theory is going to sound . . . far-fetched. But it has to do with the lock of hair we found in the chest.”

“Hugo, this whole thing is far-fetched. Every step of it has been insane, so try me. And how many times do I have to point out that life has taught me to be a little more open-minded than some people?”

“I keep forgetting, sorry. But since you insist, Merlyn used the family tree and the notes I sent her and saw that one branch of the Bassin family left that house around the time we’re talking about, and some others moved in. Siblings, cousins, I don’t know. But Georges Bassin had mentioned something similar. My theory is that whoever moved out headed to Marseilles where they changed their names to Fontaine, and then moved to America where they, like so many who came, changed their name again. A twofold attempt to cover their tracks. The husband, wife, and their son. I also think they weren’t so much emigrating as escaping.”

“Explain that.”

“Because they didn’t
need
to emigrate. These were people with a big house, money, and who lived far enough from Paris and politics that the craziness of the revolution had passed them by.”

“The revolution?”

“Yes. Bear with me. Merlyn knows plenty about that period and she said it didn’t take much digging to find out that the Bassin family were friends with some powerful people, people who wanted to end the bloodshed and put France back on an even keel.”

“You’re all over the map, Hugo. The historical map.”

“Yes. But I’m trying to connect what was in the chest with Senator Lake, and make sense of it. You remember at the Tourville place, the stranger in his room?”

“The imagined stranger.”

“No, it was real. I realized that he’d been telling the truth when he insisted he’d not been drinking much. And yet he was totally out of it. I think Alexie slipped something into his drink—I do remember that she brought us glasses of champagne right before we sat down. Easy to do.”

“But why?”

“In her apartment we also found buccal swabs, for taking DNA samples.”

“That’s right.” Lerens thought for a moment. “Didn’t Lake say someone was leaning over him?”

“He did, and she was. Taking his DNA.”

“So you think . . . the hair in that chest, whose was it?”

“Ah, now that’s where my theory really does become guesswork. If she was blackmailing him, and I think she was, it had to be someone both French and royal.”

“But I thought you said everyone in America was descended—”

“Yes, but imagine it from his point of view. He has French blood, royal blood in his veins. He’s descended from kings. The people that keep him in power, that would have financed his presidential run, even if they might have looked the other way, he couldn’t be sure of that. And think about his personality. Think about how he’d suddenly see himself and the paranoia we’ve all seen in him that would, surely, convince him his political coffers would soon be empty. You know Claudia Roux?”

“Yes, I do. For a reporter, I like her very much.”

“She covered a story recently. A man who tried to kill his wife because he believed she was having an affair, convinced himself of it. This reminds me of that, where someone’s reality doesn’t mesh with the truth.”

“Yes, I read that.” Lerens nodded. “And similarly, it didn’t matter to Alexandra whether or not his donors would withdraw support. She’d be pretty safe betting on Lake’s paranoia, that he’d be convinced they would.”

“Right. This is a man who’s suspicious and insecure enough to bug his phones, his own office. He wouldn’t think about this the way you or I would because he already assumes his political career is teetering on the brink. His reality isn’t yours or mine, and in his fragile world his all-American image brings him power. And, like I said, money. Without an image or money, it’s over.”

“And so Alexandra decides to claim some of that political money, most likely, and maybe even a hold over the most powerful man in the world.”

“If he became president.”

“Right. And that’s the beauty of it. He might survive as a senator if all this came out, but no way he’d make it to the presidency. This anti-Europe thing is his shtick, it’s defined his political career and so this revelation would make that a joke. In Washington, and I’m sure it’s the same for you in Paris, there’s always someone waiting to pounce on stuff like this. He probably wouldn’t make it through the primaries. Even more than that, there’s his blue-collar image. He basically told me that if that was undermined his grass-roots following would not only disappear, but take the deep pockets with them. He called it a double-whammy.”

“If you’re right about this . . .” Lerens shook her head. “Then Lake is the one who killed her.”

Hugo nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

They sat in silence for a full minute, then Lerens shifted in her seat and said, “One thing, though. Who exactly is it you think he’s descended from?”

Hugo gave a sad smile. “That’s the other beautiful part of her scheme. If I’m right about this, he’s descended from the one French royal every American has heard of. The royal responsible for making one of the most callous and reviled statements toward the working people of France. The person who’s image, even today, is the polar opposite of his own.”

The lieutenant’s eyes widened. “You think . . . you think he’s descended from Marie Antoinette?”

They both jumped at a knock on the car window. Lerens opened the door, muttering under her breath at the uniformed officer.

“Lieutenant, I found her phone but we’ll need the code to get in, if you have it. Otherwise the forensic people will have to work on it.”

“
Merci
. Bag it, please, and make sure you note exactly where you found it.”

“
Oui,
Madame.”

When he’d gone, Lerens turned back to Hugo. “We’re missing something, aren’t we?”

“Yes. There was something else in that chest, the answer to all of this. The proof that connects the Bassin family to French royalty.”

“Good, because I’m not sure I understand the implication of the name-changing and sudden moving.”

“I don’t think . . .” Hugo frowned. “Me neither, not completely. It’s like I’m seeing shadows moving through the fog and I can’t quite make sense of everything.” He looked at Lerens. “But I’m convinced there is more evidence, something that solidifies that connection.”

“You think Lake has it?”

“I do,” Hugo said. “I think Alexie Tourville confronted him with it and he killed her for it.”

“And Natalia Khlapina?”

“You heard what Bruno Capron said when I interviewed him.”

“I did. When he called Natalia, she was with Alexie, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’m betting Natalia really did steal that necklace and resell it on her own. She probably confessed it all to Alexie and maybe asked where the hell it came from.”

“Which meant,” Lerens said, “Natalia made herself a new and very direct link from the Bassin robbery to Alexie Tourville.”

“And for self-preservation, Alexie had to kill her.”

Silence descended, as did the darkness of the evening. As the sun bled red on the horizon, the crime scene team arrived and set up their flood lights, painting the bizarre image in Hugo’s mind of an outdoor operating theater. Men and women in scrubs, faces covered and moving with deliberate speed, circular lights on wheels being adjusted as gloved fingers probed and tugged at the body, emptied the car. The starkest difference was the ceremonial five minutes devoted to the first of the professionals, the photographer, who leaned in close then wandered further away, angling and zooming as his soft shutter-clicks marked the start of the preservation of evidence, which was itself the formal acknowledgement of the demise of Alexandra Catherine de Beaumont Tourville.

Tom provided little information, just a vague cover story relating to potential threats, a suspect passenger, and national security (British and American, to cover all angles). It was a story easily swallowed by Captain Youree McBride of the
Queen Mary II
, and made more palatable by Tom’s deliberate reference to the captain’s beloved US Navy, and his own dramatic arrival in a Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter, familiar to McBride from his navy days as a “Huey.”

Tom’s descent onto Deck 13, the highest on the ship, was less than impressive, however. Despite being made of steel, the upper decks were not built to cope with the stress of helicopter landings and take-offs, something the pilot informed his passenger a little too late in the proceedings, as far as Tom was concerned. Fortunately, the ship’s flight deck officer was there to guide his visitor’s feet to the floor and unhook the cable that had dropped the twisting and cursing visitor from the Huey.