Priceless (44 page)

C
ontrary to Yasha’s predictions, the police were back, and very quickly. Less than a week after she’d left Yasha’s bed, they were on Serena’s doorstep again. Different officers—in uniform. And this time they did ask to come in.

“Is your daughter here?” asked DC Arnold.

“She’s with her father in London,” said Serena.

“That’s a good thing.” He nodded. “Mrs. Macdonald, I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to come with us into Truro. For questioning.”

It was worse than Serena could ever have imagined. Julian Trebarwen had been found at last. But he was dead. He’d been discovered floating facedown in the Thames. Of course, the circumstances were suspicious, given the fact that the police had already been keen to question him in connection with a series of fakes. Suicide was what they thought at first. It was a possibility, but not much of one. He’d been found with a bloody nose that the forensic scientists soon decided was not due to the impact of a fall from a bridge. He’d almost certainly been punched in the face before he’d taken his dive.

A yellow police board was placed on Hammersmith Bridge, asking members of the public whether they had seen anything suspicious on the night Julian had gone into the drink. So far no one had called the hotline.

“I don’t understand,” said Serena, standing in the door to the cottage and feeling her body temperature rise quite uncomfortably. “What has all this got to do with
me? I told you I met him once, at his mother’s funeral. Oh, and he came round for some milk one night after that, but that’s all. Why are you here?”

The older policeman gave her a wan smile. “Because shortly after two officers paid you a visit to inquire about his whereabouts—that very night, in fact—you used your credit card to place a call to Julian Trebarwen’s mobile from the phone booth in Old Trelawney.”

Oh God. She was finished. Julian Trebarwen had been murdered, and the police knew for certain that she had been closer to the dead man than she’d claimed. There was no way to save her skin but to tell the truth about the paintings and hope that they would believe she had been coerced into collaborating with him. She just had to make them believe that she would not have murdered him. Surely, she thought, they couldn’t consider her a murder suspect? Julian was a good seventy pounds heavier than she was. She could never have pitched him over the side of Hammersmith Bridge and into the Thames. Though she knew someone who did have the strength. She thought of Yasha and Leonid, with his arms as big as thighs.

“We need to know everything about your involvement with Julian Trebarwen. We need to know everything he ever told you. You might hold the key to the mystery of who killed him.”

Thank God Katie was with her father that weekend, Serena thought as she watched the countryside stream by en route to the main station in Truro.

“I think I’d like to have a solicitor present,” she said to the officer sitting in the back of the car with her.

And so a solicitor was called and Serena found herself in the type of room she had only ever seen on television. It
was a dark room, painted a shade of green that had probably been proved to calm the criminal mind. No decoration. Just a table and four chairs. One for her, one for her lawyer, and one each for the two police officers conducting the interview. DC Arnold placed a recording machine in front of Serena and adjusted the microphone.

She was brought hot tea and biscuits. She didn’t touch them. How could she eat right then? Every minute that passed intensified the horror. Julian was dead, and Serena was going to have to put her own head in the noose to absolve herself of any suspicion.

She weighed a fast way out of the interview room against the possible cost of implicating Yasha. If she sent the police to his door, would she be the next to die? His promise to “take care” of her took on a sinister tone.

At last the solicitor, a woman, arrived. She seemed terribly young but was reassuringly matter-of-fact. She assured Serena that there was nothing to fear. All she had to do was explain where she’d been when Julian Trebarwen had died.

“Julian and I were lovers,” Serena confirmed as the tape began to roll.

Despite her worst fears, Serena was back at home in her own bed that night. The interview had not gone as she’d expected. The first question DC Arnold asked was whether Serena was aware that Julian had also been seeing a girl called Annabel. It was clear that DC Arnold hoped for an explanation as simple as a woman scorned. The paintings did not come up. And Serena decided against offering the information. Julian was dead. She couldn’t bring him back with a confession of fraud. She was released without charge, though told to keep the police appraised of her whereabouts. But the landscape of her world had been irrevocably changed. She knew that
much. She would have to tell Tom, because if she didn’t and her being questioned under caution came to the attention of his lawyer at a later time, it could present problems with the divorce. Serena had to get her side of the story to Tom first and make sure he knew that Katie had never been in any danger. Serena could almost convince herself that was true. But it wasn’t how she really felt.

Someone had taken Julian’s life. Someone had gotten angry enough to beat Julian to a pulp and then throw him into the river. Was he unconscious when it happened? Serena wondered. Did he try to swim to the shore? Was he already dead when he hit the water? Serena hoped so. The mythology of death said that drowning was a nice way to go, but Serena had never believed that. Just thinking about it made her heart begin to pound. She imagined the muddy water of the Thames in her own nostrils, filling her lungs. She could almost feel that burning sensation that comes with inhaling liquid. How could breathing in water make you feel like you were on fire?

There was only one explanation. Apart from Yasha and his associates, Julian had been the only person who’d known that Serena was the artist behind a painting that was about to go on sale for millions. What more motive did anyone need to get rid of him? Was this what Yasha had meant when he’d promised to “sort things out”?

CHAPTER 62

M
athieu Randon was in his apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris. He’d just finished a very simple dinner. Plainly cooked lamb chops and boiled potatoes, water instead of wine, of course. And now he had retired for a moment of quiet contemplation. He chose his library, as he always had done when he’d wanted a moment to himself, though these days the only book he read was the Bible. Many of the others in his collection had been burned in the huge stone fireplace flanked by his favorite reading chair and another chair that was always empty.

That night, however, Randon was not reading. Instead he sat in his chair and stared into the empty grate. It was too warm for a fire. And yet he thought he could see some kind of light there. He stared without focusing.

What was real and what was not? Since Randon had awoken from his coma, the dark-eyed girl had been trying to tell Randon something important. He’d assumed she was a messenger sent from God. Now he realized with sickening clarity that the woman he’d thought was an angel was merely a shard of the shattered glass globe that was his memory.

Getting up, he crossed the room to his desk and opened a locked drawer. He took out the bag of items that Carrie had brought to him at Claridge’s. Looking at the three locks of hair, he remembered everything. Worse still, as the memories became clearer, he reacted in the
way he used to. That anguished look still excited him. It made him hard.

Oh God. He slammed shut the drawer and turned to his rosary. He needed to know what to do next. He prayed for God to give him guidance.

He had his driver take him to the Domaine Randon office on the Champs-Elysées. The building was empty but for a security guard. Randon locked himself in his office and spent the night reading and rereading all the press cuttings on Domaine Randon from the period he’d spent in a coma. There was a lot about one man in particular: Axel Delaflote. The young man was one of the people Randon didn’t remember so well, but Bellette had explained that Delaflote had risen very suddenly through the ranks to head up Maison Randon. His fall had been equally sudden, unexpected and dramatic, resulting as it did not from a professional mistake but from a murder charge.

“Is This the Face of a Serial Killer?” asked the newspapers. Axel Delaflote looked out, wide eyes and white cheeks, stricken. He had claimed that he’d had nothing to do with the murders of two young prostitutes, but his card had been found in the handbag of one of them. He had been seen leaving a hotel with the other on the night of her death. His DNA was found on her body. That had been more than enough for the jury.

Randon knew what he would see when he turned the page. It was the face of his angel. Gina Busiri. A prostitute from London. Twenty-two years old when she died. Beside her a French girl, Odette. Dark-haired, dark-eyed. Could have been Gina’s sister. In the photograph, Odette was wearing a heart-shaped locket.

For a short while, Randon tried to convince himself that it was coincidence. He must have heard about the murders of these girls before he’d gone into his coma.
His doctor had warned him that real memories could and would get mixed up with things he had seen on television or read. It happened often. Sometimes people recovering from a head injury would start to talk about past lives in incredibly convincing detail, only to discover that their former life as an Egyptian princess was actually based on a diorama they’d seen on a childhood visit to a museum. But the mementoes from the inro suggested that Randon’s memories were very real. It was practically impossible that Axel Delaflote could have gained access to Randon’s erotic collection and hidden the jewelry and hair in the little Japanese box. There really was only one good explanation.

And lately, in the past few days, the “visions” had been getting clearer. And now he knew that the house by the river was not where he should set his retreat but a place he had once hired for the weekend to host a grand party for the launch of a new clothing line. The girl had been at the party. Randon had asked Axel Delaflote to arrange for several girls to be brought out to the country from Paris. And this was the one that Randon had chosen for himself. He had fucked her in a boathouse at the bottom of the house’s sweeping lawn, taking her from behind so that he didn’t have to look at her eyes. And then he had ended her life. He’d rolled her body into the water and said nothing more about it. No one had asked. The party had been full of people who shouldn’t have been there, doing things that could have sent them to jail. Randon had learned early in his career that encouraging people to act upon their basest desires could buy their complicity. Providing a busload of prostitutes and enough drugs to kill a horse guaranteed it.

Randon shuddered as he thought of that girl. Her family. He had taken her life as easily as he had given Bellette a job. He had assumed she didn’t matter, but she
must have mattered to someone. It had all been a game to him. A compulsion he’d given in to like some people give in to an extra cookie. He must have known that no one would come looking for him. They wouldn’t dare. Even if he had been a suspect, Randon held too many secrets of powerful men.

It crossed Randon’s mind that he himself might have set Axel up to take the fall. Whatever the real story was, an innocent man was in prison and Randon held the key to his escape.

But God’s instructions were not forthcoming in as clear a fashion as Randon had hoped for.

Obviously, no one was looking for him with regard to the deaths of those women. The police had long since put their suspect in jail. As far as they were concerned, the case was closed. They wouldn’t be in any hurry to reopen it. Apart from Carrie Klein, no one knew about the mementoes inside the inro. There was no reason why Carrie should start to question their origin. Gina and Odette were long dead, and so was their story.

And Randon knew what would happen if he gave himself up. With two murders, possibly three, to confess to, he would go straight into custody. That was okay. It was right and proper. His due. His penance. But Randon had so much work to do before he could let that happen. If he went to prison now, his dream of building a church fit to glorify God would be over. His property would be impounded. His bank accounts frozen. First he had to find the land he needed and hand the money over to a serious group of believers who could complete his mission.

“I am sorry, Monsieur Delaflote,” he said to the young man in the photograph. “It seems you must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will get you out of your predicament, but first, God’s work is to be done.”

Randon took the file containing cuttings regarding Axel Delaflote with him back to his apartment. There he put the file inside the safety box with Gina’s glossy hair and Odette’s necklace and locked the box with the combination that only he knew. He crossed himself as he heard the bolts slide into place.

“Forgive me,” he prayed. To God. To the girls.