268
The Dreamhealer
SET UP
Chapter 1
The music began in his mind as the smallest possible sound wave. So slight that it was possibly less than one sound byte. A wild animal would have heard it long ago, but it took Josef much longer to fully comprehend.
Within a second his signature piano piece became unmistakable—one so often requested of him by the great concert halls of the world yet seldom granted. ‘Opus Clavicembalisticum’, a solo piano piece composed by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji in 1930—one noted primarily for its length and extreme difficulty. The longest piano piece in existence, it’s duration close to four hours, depending on tempo naturally, it remained still one of the most technically demanding solo piano works in existence.
Josef Kafni was one of an elite few international soloists who had truly mastered the piece. It often came to him in his dreams. It was his tour de force—his showpiece.
Yet this night something felt different. Very different.
He could feel the barest sensation of muscle spasms in his left arm, his head was swimming as he began to break through the fog and mist that often separated the unconscious mind from the conscious.
Yet was he still dreaming? Yes. Surely.
But where was he?
Josef found it supremely difficult to open his eyes. It was an experience he’d often had as a child growing up in Prague; dreaming he’d awakened; yet still experiencing some terrible childhood nightmare, unable to move or scream.
The strident piano chords began to build in his head, the volume ramping up in successive waves, each splashing higher than the previous one.
Yes! He was indeed playing his signature piece, but he had never played this extraordinary piece as well! Possibly once at Carnegie back in 2006? Yet now everything felt curiously so very different. Where was he? Why could he not see the keys, nor feel them. Why could he not move? What was happening to him?
His fingers had an effortless will of their own, requiring scarcely any muscle contractions whatsoever to carry them across the keyboard at such breakneck speed. Such dexterity was humanly impossible! It was a miracle!
It was only as the famous intertwined lines moved towards their multiple speeds, each one superimposed over the other, that Josef broke through into consciousness and became aware of the true horror of his situation.
For it was not his rendition of Sorabji’s masterwork that was pounding in his eardrums, but John Ogden’s masterly version—perhaps the finest performance of the work ever. And Josef was not lying in his Fifth Avenue apartment bed, vainly trying to waken from what seemed like some glorious yet heart-stopping dream, he was actually part of an horrific nightmare world in which he was lying supine on a surgical gurney in a windowless cell!
His torso and legs were also strapped to the gurney, both his arms extended at 30-degree angles from his sides. Each was strapped to separate metal extensions attached to the sides of the gurney. Trolleys packed with an assortment of surgical instruments, swabs as well as bottles of fluids and syringes stood on either side of the gurney. A metal stand held a drip that fed down to his arm, attached by a catheter to the flesh at the crook of his elbow.
A brilliant operating light shone a harsh beam downwards, directed at his right hand.
His eyesight was at first a blur. But as it began to clear he tried to focus on a man at his side, dressed from head to toe in olive surgical scrubs. He was wearing specialist spectacles with a bright light shining down between the lenses. He was busy working on the fingers of Josef’s left hand with a scalpel, slicing the skin of each small bone open as if he were delicately filleting some very small fish, such as an anchovy. The room, which looked more like an underground tomb, measured scarcely more yards than a luxury hotel bathroom.
To one side of his gurney stood a pedestal that shone with a bluish light. It slowly became apparent to Josef that atop stood a laptop computer; it was the screen that radiated the blue light. But what was looking at on that eerie screen—it resembed a hooded figure standing on a chair. About to be executed? Hanged?
Josef wanted to scream yet couldn’t. Instead, it was his brain that silently screamed. He tried to fill his almost empty lungs but failed—it was as though his entire body had been anesthetized. Yet he could feel his left hand. Yes! So very acutely.
As the surgeon’s scalpel skimmed into the sinew, separating what remained of the tissue that still held the metacarpal of his forefinger from the trapezium, the pain was like a million needle lances ripping through his nervous system. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before—as keen, extreme and pure as Yehudi Menhuin playing a harmonic on an E string.
There was the slightest pause in the music as Ogden lifted his fingers from the keys for the first time during the piece. Then the music raced on, continuing with the double action of fast-paced stabbing chords.
The music was now deafening. It filled the room with an audible ferocity akin to a drill being inserted in both Josef’s ears; the drill bit held close to both eardrums. Josef knew it would ultimately deafen him, yet he was quite powerless to alter his fate.
It was only then that he became aware that his right hand fingers were still playing along with Ogden; dancing along in a world of their own.
Bewildered, Josef turned his attention to his right arm and immediately his heart stopped still.
His right hand had been completely separated from his arm at the wrist. The veins and arteries had been tied off neatly to avoid too much blood loss, and each finger had been surgically removed, each tiny bone skinned and scraped free of all flesh or tissue; the bones placed like a jigsaw less than half an inch from where they would have still formed part of his arm.
The bones were the pure white.
They lay on a gleaming white cloth.
It was only then that a second man, also dressed in surgical scrubs, entered Josef’s field of vision. He walked up to stand close to Josef’s head, crouching slightly, smiling. There were earplugs in both his ears—there was no way this man was going to suffer hearing loss himself! As the man stared down at him, Josef could tell that he was actually relishing the abject panic and horror being inflicted on the world famous pianist through the tiniest vibrations in the bones that were being skinned.
“Good evening, maestro. Welcome to the land of the living,” the man said. The skin around his eyes creased in an easy smile.
“For now, anyway…” he continued, his voice like slow-moving crude oil. “My friend here,” he said, gesturing to the man who was still busy working on the bones of his left hand, “is a qualified surgeon. He knows his business. You are in good hands.” He laughed lightly. “My small joke.” He looked down at Josef’s severed right hand. “I say! It looks absolutely magnificent! A future collector’s piece, I’d say.”
Josef couldn’t take his eyes off the separated fingers of his right hand. The white bones had been fanned out precisely, like a museum exhibit in London’s Natural History Museum.
The music was now so deafening that Josef felt it might soon cause his head to explode. Prior to his concerts he’d often quipped that the harmonies now pounding his eardrums were should “bite like nitric acid”. At this moment, those words held a particularly grizzly relevance.
Of course the real horror was that the receptors in his brain stem were still giving him phantom stimuli; the barest muscle sensations in both his arms informing some place deep in his stem that it was he who was playing the Opus Clavicembalisticum—when Josef knew full well it was Ogden!
“Good work, Jean,” the second man said, turning his attention to the surgeon; tapping him on the shoulder as he examined the handiwork.
The surgeon jolted briefly at the touch; then looked up from his work to focus on the second man. He’d been startled—he too was wearing earplugs.
They locked eyes with each other for several seconds, then the surgeon broke the silence. “Will you kill me too?” he asked; his voice the barest reed. “I mean, eventually? How can I be sure you won’t?”
“You should be thinking of your wife, Jean. Not yourself. Tut tut! Do as I say and she will live. That’s enough for now. Surely.”
The second man nodded towards a computer screen that was set on the stand close to the surgeon. It showed a young woman—one could only tell because of the bulge of breasts through the upper clothing—a noose was hanging around her hooded head, her hands were bound behind her. She was standing on a bentwood chair, finding it increasingly difficult to maintain her balance. The room she was in was in every way the same as the windowless surgery where Josef lay.
“The sooner you finish, the sooner I will cut her down, Jean. I have no reason to kill her—she has not seen me. So consider her future rather than your own.”
The surgeon stared blankly. “So you do intend killing me.”
“We shall see, Monsieur Ballon. We shall see,” the second man cooed. “But hesitate one more time and you both will die.”
The surgeon hurriedly returned to his work, made one final cut, then selected a different, preferred, surgical instrument from a wooden box. He then began scraping the bones clean.
Waves of horror and agony coursed through Josef’s body as the phantom concert continued in his brain like a mad fandango.
Finally the surgeon began to lay out the fingers of Josef’s left hand in a decorative arrangement, similar to that of Josef’s right hand. It was as if he were conducting a very odd autopsy.
“I have never seen fingers so slender and delicate,” the second man muttered to himself. “They are superb. Quite magnificent.”
He turned to the surgeon. “When the amputation is complete, tie off the blood vessels, or whatever they are called. Properly, though. He must not die. I will not make a murderer of you. Does that make you feel better about what you do?”
The surgeon did not reply, but his expression, even under the facemask, betrayed relief. He returned to his work with renewed care, staunching any flow of blood.
The second man again crouched down close to Josef’s head. The music was swelling to its violent climax; the piece was almost at an end now.
“A music critic once told me this, but I feel sure you’ll know this quotation…” the second man whispered softly into Josef’s ear. “’the occasional excursions into tonal regions of this passage provide massive relief.’ An interesting observation, though possibly not so in your case.”
He turned back to the surgeon, placed an arm around his shoulders and talked to him softly, so that his patient could not hear.
“I reiterate. I do not want this man dying on me. Am I absolutely clear?”
“Very clear,” the surgeon replied stonily. “But I cannot guarantee there will be no infection. These conditions are appalling.”
“I have done everything possible. I have given you the necessary equipment to sterilize the equipment. Now finish things off properly and bandage my patient. Then we will go visit your sweet wife.”
The surgeon continued with his post-operative clean-up work.
As he did so, the second man yet again bent down close to Josef’s ear, this time so that it was the surgeon who could not hear.
“Sadly my friend, in a short while we must leave you alone. I have errands to do. I have to make sure this man’s wife is safe and sound; after all, I made a deal, and I honor all my deals. We will leave you to your music. It is on a continuous loop. Wunderbar, eh? I wish I could have seen you play in person, but you’ve been overly long in America recently. Anyway, you’ll have the pleasure of listening to a real master until I return. I feel sure you don’t consider yourself in Ogden’s league. No matter. I am off! I have some games to play.”
So saying he injected more of his wonder drug of choice —Succinylcholine—into each of Josef’s limbs. It had been his favourite drug for some time now. A precise dose was a must; any more and one risked heart failure.
Twenty minutes later the surgeon was finished, and the second man opened the reinforced steel door.
Josef strained to see through the opening but all he could make out was a dark corridor.
“Oh, by the way, my friend here has been kind enough to tie off the blood vessels at your wrists in an attempt to make you as comfortable as possible. You will not die. We shall return soon, to check your condition. Oh, and relieve any pain!”
He beckoned the surgeon. “Come, Monsieur Ballon. Let’s see your wife released.”
The surgeon pulled off his gloves, cap and mask and walked to the door. As he reached it, the second man gestured him to go first. “Please…”
The second man held up a syringe for the surgeon to see. “I am sure we won’t be needing this today, Jean. I think we understand how we stand, don’t we?
The surgeon ‘s eyes flicked to the syringe—he knew he could try his luck, but the odds were not good.
The second man, known to Interpol as Nick Hoyle, followed the surgeon into the black corridor, locking the door behind him. He had embarked on a fresh era of horror, and he felt he was doing himself justice.
CHAPTER 2
A strong south westerly was blowing hard, whipping up a mist of moisture from the Pacific that billowed like a thin cloud around Dermot Nolan’s face. But neither the chill nor the spray registered—he wasn’t simply lost in his thoughts, he was bereft of any. He’d been sitting in his wheelchair for over an hour in a mentally numbed state on the cliff top staring out into the ocean, oblivious to the fact the earth was continuing to spin on its axis, that there’d be his favorite pot roast waiting for him when he returned home, that his wife Neela loved him with an enduring passion.
A gull swooped down low, flashing across his field of vision, bringing him sharply back to reality. His right hand clenched the wheelchair’s brake as he considered his options; to release the mechanism would cause it to roll forward, ultimately propelling him into oblivion; to leave it as it was would confirm his life of emptiness.
The thought of eternal peace was so tempting. The months in rehab, the chronic pain, the black dog depression and the despair that had gone along with it had shrouded his every waking hour, as a vampire’s wings might in the night. Worst of all was the total lack of any recall. That was the hardest pill to swallow. What had happened?
He’d regained consciousness in the ECU—come back from the very rim of eternity—to find himself lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to an impossible numbers of life-saving machines.
Blip, blip, blip.
The relentless sound of a monitor thrumbed in his brain as he came to. What had happened? Where was he? More to the point, who was he? And who was the woman sitting in a chair at his side, reading a book?
She was beautiful.
Her dark hair cloaked her lean, structurally perfect face. The eyes looked kind, yet thoughtful. Yet there was an all-pervading veil of sadness about her aura.
Had he undergone some terrible illness? Was this woman his wife? His lover? Could she be his sister? He preferred to think of this beautiful woman as his lover. That she loved him. It was a blessing that someone did. He wasn’t alone in his nothing-world of monitored sensations; one which held no reality.
“Honey?”
The word came out of the breeze, like a pin prick.
He was back on the cliff-top. The beautiful woman he’d seen that day in the ICU ward was at his side, a baby in her arms, a Cairn terrier on a lead at her side—one he’d been told bore the name of ‘Scary.’
The breeze had picked up. A giant tanker was making it’s way to harbor, as yet well out to sea.
The beautiful woman smiled. “It’s getting cold, darling. Let’s go home, shall me? Dinner’s ready.”
The woman, Neela, kissed the top of his head. Dermot uncurled his lean fingers from the brake lever and held out the hand to her. She held it in hers, squeezing, then lifted his palm and placed it on his daughter’s warm flawlessly chubby cheek.
Neela watched as Dermot’s face flooded with joy as he stared at his little angel. He’d been told he was her father. Perhaps life would one day regain some semblance of normality.
Neela had always known Dermot’s recovery would be a very long road. For weeks he hadn’t even known who she was. Then when the synapses of his brain had finally begun to function, it had come to him in an instant. She was ‘Neela’—the love of his life. The baby in her arms was their daughter, Virginia. Yet everything else remained a mystery; a former life shut out of his conscious mind by a granite wall of emotional self-protection.
Ever since regaining consciousness he’d insisted on sleeping with the lights on. Darkness was anathema. The psychiatrist had advised, despite the protestations of the investigative authorities, that he be asked no searching questions regarding ‘the incident’. He should be allowed to rest; to find his own way back to the present.
Neela understood that it was most likely that Dermot had no desire to come to terms with what had happened to him. The shrink had agreed. Re-living the horror of his abduction and incarceration might drive him into an even deeper psychosis. The remembrances should be allowed to surface in their own good time, rather than be stimulated too forcefully.
Of course, this strategy did not sit well with the detectives charged with the task of setting straight the exact circumstances of Dermot’s abduction. The torture. The coffin. Enquiring minds at the LAPD needed to have Dermot clearly state who had placed him in his sarcophagus. Such a statement from the victim himself was essentail; though there was absolutely not reason to believe that anyone other than the most obvious suspect was guilty of the crime. It was a formality; but nevertheless paperwork that needed to be attended to. Police work was all about the paperwork.
At that early stage of Dermot’s rehabilitation, Detective Hansen, at the North Hollywood Precinct, knew he was a long way off a face-to-face interview with the victim—Dermot’s mental mechanisms of self-preservation had closed the vault doors to remembrances as tightly as possible, locking the past away, so as to cling to sanity.
It had taken several months to raise Dermot’s body weight to an acceptable, yet still very meager, level. There had been an almost catastrophic degeneration of bone and muscle tissue during his time lying flat on his back in his coffin. Survival, after all those months, had been no less than a miracle. The day they lifted Dermot’s unconscious body from his grave, there remained the barest muscle tissue clinging to his bones. An elderly Jewish doctor, on duty at Cedars Sinai hospital the night Dermot was unearthed, was graphically reminded of the terrible photographs taken of Jews who had failed to survive the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps; so shocked he’d spontaneously burst into tears while treating Dermot.
Now, eight months later, still well under an acceptable weight, his limbs were just able to function properly. The doctors had recommended that Dermot continue to use his wheelchair as often as possible; the bones in his legs desperately needed time to regain some strength. But he was making progress; now capable of eating solid food.
Back home from the cliff-top, Neela turned the key in the lock, walked through the living room. While she continued on up the stairs to the nursery to change baby Virginia, Dermot wheeled his way into the kitchen, opened the fridge and spooned some dog food into a bowl. Scary had obediently remained by the door. When called inside, the dog wagged his tail, licked Dermot’s hand and began to eat.
Dermot reached for the fixings of the ritual evening margaritas. Mr. and Mrs. T mix; the busy man’s miracle helper.
“Esther called while you were out,” Neela called from upstairs, where she was now putting Virginia to bed.
“Any messages?” Dermot asked.
“No, she was simply checking on you. She loves you.”
“Doesn’t look as though any of the houses have bitten,” Dermot muttered.
His literary agent, Esther Bloom, had been doing her best to resurrect his career. Not such an easy task because of Dermot’s former notoriety; more particularly because of the shame of plagiarism. Added to which Dermot was still being blamed for being ‘the man who had known where all the bodies were buried but had never granted closure to the families.’ Of course, when word had spread of the horrific retribution ‘The Dreamhealer’ had meted out on the once bestselling author, to some extent the public had forgiven Dermot.
Esther felt now was the time to start Dermot’s career afresh; there was a slim chance that the literary world might also be in the mood to forgive Dermot his previous misdemeanors and accept him back into their community. It wouldn’t be exactly easy to sell Dermot’s essays, but she saw it as a personal challenge. She’d try.
Initially she’d suggested a series of one-on-one interviews with high achievers in the arts community; a series she’d suggested should be titled ‘Pinnacles’. It would be a modest start.
The first two interviews had already been conducted and written—the subjects, Josef Kafni, the concert pianist, and Galina Yablonskaya, now being celebrated as the new Margot Fonteyn. Dermot was working on the third interview, involving world famous neurosurgeon, Bernard Dutont. Esther’s idea was to offer the interviews, either singly or as a series, to the New Yorker.
Dermot’s house on Cliffside Drive was small yet comfortable, purpose built by an architect who’d developed motor neuron disease late in life and had been confined to a wheelchair for the final fifteen years that preceeded his death. Finding this particular house had been happenstance, since most houses on Point Dume had been out of Dermot’s reach financially. The one he and Neela had found was built of wood and more resembled a weekender than a principal residence. However, it was all they could afford. Their former house in downtown Los Angeles, in Linley Place, had achieved such notoriety that few people felt comfortable buying the property. No one relished buying the house belonging to the missing ex-Booker Prize-winning novelist who had been discovered buried alive in his own garden. It was hardly romantic. And since there was no possible way that Neela and Dermot could ever go back to live there, it was ultimately sold for the land value alone. The house was demolished by a developer, and a small block of units was built in it’s place.
“Is Virginia asleep?” Dermot called up the stairs.
“I think so, not sure. Her eyes are closed. I’ve changed and fed her. I won’t be long.”
While Neela was upstairs, Dermot raised himself out of his wheelchair. He could quite easily support himself on his legs—the wheelchair was simply a convenience when he felt the need to venture outdoors to relax and gaze at the ocean and be alone with his thoughts. It was a time when he could attempt to come to terms with the past and present.
“I wish I had Vig’s capacity for tranquil sleep,” Neela said as she returned to the living room.
Dermot smiled, handing Neela her drink. “I wish for the same thing every day.”
“Have you fed Cheesecake?” Neela asked. Cheesecake was a fat irascible cat with a constant propensity for aggression; an angry fur-ball who’d agreed to a shakey truce with Scary the terrier. She was an urban moggie and had never gotten used to being a Malibu pussycat.
“She’ll come in and eat when she’s ready,” he replied.
“How was today, darling?”
Rather than answer glibly, Dermot considered her question carefully. “It was a good day. No demons.”
Neela wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him gently.
“Time the healer?”
“Time the healer,” Dermot repeated. He had decided not to confide in her just now that the detail of the horrific months interred beneath the ground was suddenly returning thick and fast to his conscious mind. It was as frightening as watching the tide recede on a Pacific Island, knowing that within the hour a Tsunami would be thundering in. He needed time to come to terms with each new recollection. He was hoping for several small waves. One single one, flooding his whole new world would be too much to bear. And there was another thing that deeply disturbed him; he had remembered the face of the man who had placed him in his grave. He could see the face now.
Where was Nick Hoyle now?
CHAPTER 3
Commandant Gassin was tempted by the ganaches with the orange and balsamic vinegar chocolate but feared the strong flavor might not appeal to his granddaughter Solange. She was only five years old.
Depite Gassin delayed window shopping, the counter assistants were thoroughly professional. They knew there was nothing more annoying than to interrupt the languid process of selection. The expectancy was often as sweet as the eating.
Gassin was leaning towards the delightfully elegant box entitled Bonbons Arts Premiers. The chocolates were shaped into heads, faces, les artifacts primatif. Some were dark chocolate, some milk, and others were delicate swirls. He knew the vision of these beautiful chocolates—there were so many shapes to choose from—would be a fantasy for any young girl. And the flavors! The Borneo Mogodar, milk chocolate so very delicately flavored with passion fruit, the Chancay Sensations, black raspberry flavored, and the Danse Magar Chloe with delicious praline leafed through dark chocolate. Pierre Hermé’s chocolatier in the rue Bonaparte in Paris were to Thierry Gassin what the Trianon restaurant had been to Marie Antoinette in late eighteenth century Paris. Gassin was still a small child at heart.
As he drank in the myriad rich aromas of the shop, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he knew it was decision time. He settled on two packages; the box of J’aime les Macarons, a delicious assortment of macaroons he knew to be Solange’s favorites, and a box of Bonbons Arts Premier, Pierre Hermes personal homage to the worldwide origins of ‘chocolat.’
Having given his order to the sales assistant, Thierry Gassin walked out the front door to answer the cell phone on the sidewalk.
There had been a time not so very long ago when the call might have been his darling wife Adelise; but a drunk driver had cheated them both of what were to be the travels of a blissful retirement—voyages they’d been mapping out over many a glass of pastis. Africa, Nepal, China—dream destinations. Adelise had been the driver that evening on the Avenue Daumesnil; he the passenger. They’d lain in the wreckage face to face, just inches apart, for three hours as the Sappeur Pompiers cut them free; the firemen concentrating their efforts on the man—since they could see the woman was already dead.
While they used the cutting tools, Thierry had prayed, begging he might die with her in the wreckage, but his God would not allow that.
He now felt Godless, yet not alone. He had a son, Auguste, a principal at the Conservatoire de Paris, and a granddaughter, Solange, who would soon be opening the box of mouthwatering macaroons to celebrate her fifth birthday.
Thierry raised the telephone to his ear and turned up the volume—his hearing was not what it once was.
“Gassin?” a voice enquired.
“Georges?” Thierry replied. He at once recognized the voice of an old friend at the Quai des Orfèvres; Paris’ equivalent to Parker Center.
“C’est moi. I’m sorry to call you on your day off, Thierry. I know it’s a special day. Solange is five?”
“Correct. You’ve a fine memory. Every year you remember all our birthdays; Solange’s, Auguste’s, mine. You know you can call me any time you wish. However, I hope today you don’t intend asking me for anything more than the advice I can give over the phone.”
Thierry Gassin was the Commissariat Principal of the sixth arrondissement of Paris, and head of La BAC, the local police force. He was based in the SARIJ off the rue Bart, one of the many Paris investigation judiciaries. The station was open to the public seven days a week. Thierry’s rank was Commandant, yet he could have risen far higher had he chosen to ‘play the game’ with elements within the police force who had few ethics.
The ‘Crim’, the celebrated if not a little notorious 36 Quai des Orfèvres, was not so far away from the rue Bart. It was the home of major crime in Paris, close to the Palais de Justice on the Isle de la Cité. This was where every aspiring career Parisian cop dreamed of working. This was where one’s rank could rocket upwards in a very short space of time. This was where the famous ex-cop Olivier Marchal had worked before becoming the new prince of French crime films. This was where the toughest cases were investigated; bank robberies, assassinations, gang wars. Those who worked here were a law unto themselves, a cadre often ‘off the limits’. They were crime-busters, who by reason of the burden of work often drank too much, didn’t sleep enough and occasionally found it difficult not to slide into the path of corruption.
Gassin had found himself at ‘36’ after a brief spell with a department that dealt almost exclusively with drugs; nicknamed Les Stups. But his heart had always been in solving homicides. So after a short time with the dope boys he’d asked for a transfer to ‘36’. And because he’d demonstrated he was indeed a brilliant homicide investigator, the transfer had been immediately granted.
However, after five years of backbreaking work, he crossed paths with a cadre of corrupt cops and had been confronted with two options; leave ‘36’, or inform on his fellow officers. Since he’d recently married, and a baby was on the way, he decided not to risk putting his family and career at risk—he was no Serpico at heart. Gassin took the first option and his stellar career stalled.
Yet he wasn’t bitter about the way things turned out. The whole structure of the Paris police force had recently morphed into a quasi-military organization. The ‘Maigret days’ were long since gone. The only things he missed were the big murder cases—he no longer headed up these celebrated homicides now that his patch was ‘the burbs’.
“Thierry, my friend, I’m afraid I shall have to disturb your day,” Georges continued. “But you know better than to blame me. This comes from the top. Barbier.”
Gassin was surprised to say the least. Commissaire Divisionnaire de Police Barbier? Jules? His tough former mentor?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Georges continued. “Surprised? Me too. He asked for you by name.”
“I would have thought he’d forgotten me by now.”
“No, not at all. The Lachaise beheading case? Remember? He fought like a tiger to keep you at ‘36’ after you headed up the case and finally closed it?”
“Yes, I heard. But why does he need me now? Aren’t there enough clever flics at 36?”
“He wants to see you. Today. In his office.”
Gassin took a long breath, noticing through the clear glass of the shop front window that the sales assistant was trying to gain his attention, holding up twin parcels of chocolates.
“Today’s not good, Georges,” Thierry replied. “Solange expects me.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Georges said good-naturedly, “Barbier also expects you. At 2 p.m. I wouldn’t be late. Unless you’re ready to retire.”
He wasn’t. What would he do if he did? Sit and reread Manchette novels in his small apartment in the rue Dauphine? Watch the last Marchal movie? Or the fourth season of “Sur Ecoute”the T.V. show Americans knew as ‘The Wire’? His present job was a pleasure; he answered to no one on a day-to-day level. Very occasionally he was interrupted by a call from a superior at head office; Le Place Louis Lépine. This was clearly such a time.
He glanced at his watch and sighed. Who knew, he could possibly be finished by 4 p.m. and still make it to the party.
“Please tell the Commissaire I shall be there.”
Georges laughed lightly. “No need. He knows you’ll be there. It wouldn’t occur to him otherwise.”
Chapter 4
Dermot held baby Virginia by her arms so that the tips of her feet only just made contact with his knees. She was burbling with joy. Dermot had been free of the wheelchair for several months now, and was beginning to feel less of a cripple. Neela was reading aloud from an article in the American Literary Review, her expression almost as happy as her daughter’s. Scary was asleep on the sofa and Cheesecake was looking up at the dog, debating whether or not to bite the tail that hung over the lip.
“Nolan’s new series of articles in the New Yorker, ‘Pinnacles’, brings new meaning to what has for countless years been dry, elitist and cliquish rhetoric. The series appeals to Everyman as much as to the musical, ballet and painting cognoscenti. Quite simply, Nolan is brilliant. There is no bombast here—simply the fascinating exploration of genius in the arts, in every field imaginable.”
She paused to see Dermot’s reaction. But his attention was still focused on his daughter.
“Pretty gratifying, considering you’re the closest thing to a musical yahoo I’ve ever met,” she said with a wry smile.
Dermot’s first three essays had already been published, all becoming talking points in New York, Boston and Chicago literary circles.
“Hey, easy. They’re merely the insight of an interested amateur; it’s hardly professional criticism. That’s the whole fucking point,” Dermot barked.
Virginia looked up at her father with a look of bemused intensity. Was Daddy cross?
Neela didn’t respond to Dermot. She let the magazine drop to her side, walked over to him, and began stroking the soft fluff on Virginia’s head. She knew it was always better to give Dermot time to apologize for his outbursts. It usually didn’t take too long if she remained silent.
“I’m sorry, darling. I really am,” he said finally, in the barest whisper as he closed his eyes.
“Honey. Be happy. You’ve rediscovered yourself in a surprisingly difficult genre. It’s not just the Review; I’m applauding you. In fact everyone is applauding you. So be happy.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted.”
Neela held out her arms and Dermot passed Virginia over to her.
“How about a glass of wine?”
“Why not?” Dermot replied, cracking a smile.
Dermot stood, reaching for a walking stick that was lying propped up against the side of the sofa.
“Quite an irony, wouldn’t you say? He never needed a cane. Now, thanks to what he did to me, I do.”
He poured white wine into matching glasses. The silence in the room was suddenly palpable. Virginia again started to burble happilyshe had no inkling of how both of them felt.
Since the moment Dermot had been plucked form his pseudo-grave, Neela had done her best to rebuild their lives and move on emotionally. She appreciated that Dermot was doing his very best too. However, for him the task was almost superhuman. How many she ever comprehend what lying several months in a coffin might do to one’s sanity?
Like the five stages of grief, Dermot had been forced to work through his own private torment. The same rules applied; denial and isolation were absolute when he’d regained consciousness. That was natural since he’d remembered nothing. Then very slowly, as his strength returned, so had the first vestiges of his memory. That’s when anger had kicked in; in a big way. He was angry; with God, the world at large, at his physical condition, the way others had treated him during the months he’d been falsely accused of serial killings, as well as bitter about what had happened to him. There would never be any forgiveness for his tormentor. Yet he never mentioned his nemesis by name.
Then the bargaining period had begun as he tried to rediscover a meaning to life, as well as forging a belief systemas much for Neela and Virginia’s sake as for himself. Though never a deeply religious man, despite being brought up in a staunchly catholic atmosphere in Ireland, he’d always considered himself at worst a lapsed believer. Now he wondered how any god could have left him to suffer in such a way for so long. Why had his desperate prayers remained unanswered for so many months?
So began the next stage of grief—the bargaining. If God would keep his wife and child safe, he’d do his utmost to put all thoughts of rancor and vengeance aside in an attempt to build a better life for them all; one free of bitterness.
This had been the hardest bargain to keep. He knew Hoyle was out there somewhere. It was simply a matter of time before they met up again. Somewhere.
Dermot’s psychiatrist had warned Neela to expect the fourth stage—depression. Yet despite the pills, coupled with her intention to allow the waves of depression simply wash over her, Neela found dealing with Dermot’s sullen mood swings was harder than she’d ever envisaged. She longed for the return of the initial stages of the healing process, when he’d so desperately needed her by his side; needed to have her hold him, tell him everything would be fine, wipe away his tears, feed him and allow him to cherish his darling child.
“Of course the greater irony is that now that I have a hatful of ideas for novels, no one wants me to write. It’s as if I’m a literary leper. Must be the first time no one wants to commission a former Booker Prize winner.”
“Honey, you know the reason they won’t commission you just yet. I keep telling you, time will be the healer. Give people time.”
“Sure,” Dermot replied coldly, “I’ll give them time. But how long? A few years? And meanwhile I’m the dullard magazine essayist.”
“Dermot, writing for the New Yorker on a regular basis is what most writers only aspire to, let alone achieve. It’s not only Esther that thinks you’ll receive awards for the series. They’re fabulous. Incisive. Insightful.”
Neela pulled Virginia close to her heart and began rocking her—as far as she was concerned the conversation was at an end; she hoped Dermot wouldn’t carry it further. But he did. He allowed two minutes of prescient silence to pass, then ranted on.
“How could Dan have done this to me? It’s unbelievable.”
Copies of his notorious best selling novel Worst Nightmares had been withdrawn by Dan Wasserman’s publishing house following his arrest for the serial murders; despite massive worldwide sales, Wasserman had ultimately bowed to universal ethical pressure. In America, political correctness was everything. Had Wasserman been the sole arbitor, he’d have left the books out there in the marketplace; after all, what greater publicity could there be for a book, than to have the author charged with the serial killings of thirteen people, and then have the final melodrama played out live on court TV? If the author were to be found guilty it would be a publishing bonanza! For though Dermot could not profit from his crime, yet Wasserman could.
Of course, deep down Wasserman knew the moral integrity of his publishing house, Fischer & Grothe, would ultimately be called into question if he didn’t act, so he halted all reprints.
It had deeply wounded Wasserman to know that he was sitting on the rights to the most notorious novel of his time; the worldwide sales figures had been the most astonishing in the past ten years.
For weeks the publisher had mulled over his problemhe was sitting on the rights to a literary gold mine. Yet one he couldn’t publish! Then one afternoon, while in bed with his much younger Thai lover the scales had fallen from his eyes.
A biography!
The inspiration was solid gold. He could commission a hack to write Nolan’s biography! True genius! He knew it would be incorrect to ask Nolan to write his autobiography; he suspected the author would refuse anyway. But if someone else were to write a blow-by-blow account of just a five year period in a Booker Prize winner’s life, concluding with the discovery of the author lying in his own grave; that would be dynamite! And the joy was that Wasserman had the rights to the literary integrity of Nolan’s novel. He could justifiably allow sections of Worst Nightmares—if not all of it—to be included in the bio-epic! A ghostwriter could use the material as he saw fit; as ‘illustrative notes’, or subtly disguised as ‘research material’! And best of all, Wasserman could offer a miserly fee to an in-house hack, knowing most would jump at the opportunity. After all, it was a gimme that the book would be an instant best seller.
Wasserman could take the moral high ground by including his instructions in a watertight confidentiality clause in the contract. These would outline exactly how the book should be structured; as an investigative piece, delving into the moral issues associated with serial killings, one that would also include the continuing thoughts of some celebrated psychiatrist who would analyze the motives the fugitive killer, Nick Hoyle. The hack would be instructed to detail the psychological elements of Hoyle’s descent into moral depravity, counter-pointing it with Nolan’s own; one initially caused by depression and despair, ultimately fed by greed and personal vanity.
Wasserman had debated between a flat $200,000 fee, and a one per cent royalty. He’d settled for the former but had found it surpringly hard to attract a decent hack writer. Ultimately a little known B grade movie screenwriter by the name of Ken More had been offered the job and he’d leapt at the opportunity.
“Who the hell is this jumped up Ken-fucking-More monkey, anyway?” Dermot muttered more to himself than to Neela. “What a dumb-ass name. No body of work. A twenty-three-year-old screenwriter of schlock horror movies. Jesus H!”
Neela wasn’t about to inflame Dermot further with argument or comment.
“It was good of Esther to come and bat for me. That’s loyalty for you,” Dermot continued sarcastically, reticent to snap out of his sullen mood.
“There wasn’t a thing she could do about it, honey. You know that. Dan owns the rights; he can allow anyone in the world to use the material. You have no veto. He lost a lot of money when you were charged—this is his way of saving himself.”
What Neela had said was as true. Yet Dermot had a point too. Despite Esther arguing that the young New Zealand writer was hardly a man of sufficient literary stature to write the story of her client’s life, she was reluctant to forgo her share of the royalties due to Dermot when the new book, ‘Diary of an American Madman’ hit the world’s bookstores.
“Well maybe the kid’ll get a piece of the action that came my way. Some serial über violence. That man’s still out there somewhere. Hoyle might take offense. Who knows? What kind of karma would that be!”
Neela turned to face Dermot and took his hand. “I know you don’t mean that, honey. Ken More was just doing his job. He needed the work. And think of all the good it’ll do those starving kids.” Dermot had insisted any royalties due to him personally would go directly towards the Hunger Project.
“I wonder what genius came up with the title. ‘Diary of an American Madman’? Gogol would turn in his…” He stopped himself, he’d almost revisited his own worst nightmare. “It’s not even clear who is being referred to. Who the hell is the madman? Me? Or him? Hoyle.”
Neela rose and touched Dermot’s cheek lightly with her delicate fingers. “I’m going to check on Vig. I’ll be back. Okay?”
Alone, Dermot had no one to argue with. Despite this, his dark thoughts continued. How could things ever be the same without closure? With his nemesis out there, free as a bird, how could he ever move on?
Closure. Another irony. He hadn’t cared too much about bringing closure to the families of Hoyle’s victims, had he? Because it had suited his own purpose—to have brought the families closure would have signaled the end of his novel, and all the money and fame. Of course later he’d deeply regretted his depraved behavior.
Yet now he knew precisely what it was like to have no closure. The past was the past; move on, that’s what his shrink had advised. Well, he simply couldn’t do that!
What the hell were the police doing to find Nick, anyway? Had they made any progress at all? Were they waiting for him to strike again so that his trail would run hot again? Were they confident that Neela and Vig were safe?
So many questions.
He had to know the answers.
Chapter 5.
Commissaire Divissionaire Barbier rose from his seat as the door opened and Commandant Gassin stepped into his office.
Befitting a Commissaire, the room was five times the size of the cramped space that served as a working area for detectives under the eaves at the Directorate of the Judicial Police Prefecture of Paris—‘36’.
“Thierry,” Barbier opened, with a warm smile, walking around his large desk holding out a hand. “It’s good to see you again. Been some time, no? Do sit down. Is there anything I can ask my assistant to get you? A coffee perhaps. Evian water?”
“No, thank you, Commissaire. Nothing.”
Barbier sat, as did Gassin.
“We go back a long time, Thierry. In the privacy of my modest office, please call me Jules.”
Modest? Thierry wondered how many of the hardworking flics would agree with Barbier’s description. It was probably twenty paces by fifteen. The walls were wood paneled, the furniture antique and expensive, the framed watercolors original and signed. But Thierry didn’t begrudge Barbier the spoils of reaching very close to the top. He deserved it; he was a diligent administrator, and as far as Gassin knew a clean cop.
“I’ve often wondered how you’d adapted to the quieter life in the suburbs, Thierry. I mean no disrespect, but I always picked you as someone who might have been sitting in my seat one day. Why did you make such a choice, I wonder?”
How could Thierry answer the Commissaire’s question? Because he hadn’t been prepared to put his life and career in the hands of an internal affairs investigation? A probe that would have enquired into the corrupt practices of three cops, all of whom were still in the force, now much higher up the ladder than himself.
“I never regretted my move, Jules. Though at the time I appreciated the incentives you offered me to stay, I had a family to consider, and at heart I’m a quiet soul.”
“And a brilliant investigator,” Barbier added. “The Lachaise case. Inspired work.”
“Thank you.”
Barbier pressed a button on his desk and within seconds the door opened and an intelligent looking woman of around thirty opened the door; shortish hair, dark suit, harsh features and prescription glasses. No bimbos here, Gassin noted.
“Une thé Anglaise, s’il vous plaît, Marie. Earl Grey.” Barbier glanced at Thierry. “Anything to drink?”
“No, thank you. Just now, nothing”
The assistant smiled crookedly—she had a crooked face—nodded, and closed the door.
Barbier stood and turned his back on Thierry, looking out over the Seine towards the left bank.
“My detectives need your inspiration, Thierry.” Barbier was loathed to admit he personally needed Thierry’s help; better to suggest his detectives needed ‘inspiration.’
“I’d be happy to help in any way,” Thierry replied, deliberately substituting the word help for inspiration; he suspected the flics at ‘36’ had hit a brick wall on some case. A new perspective was perhaps needed?
Barbier turned and sat himself in his vast chair, eyeballing Thierry. “You have that certain…” he hesitated for a moment, “How shall I say? Instinct? I’ve always preferred to think things through logically—facts, clues, evidence, forensics; they’re my strong suit. But you have a sixth sense about criminal mentality that I’ve always admired. That’s why I was sad to let you go.”
“You’ll make me blush soon, Jules,” Thierry quipped wryly.
Barbier continued as though he hadn’t heard. He didn’t smile. “I would like the benefit of your special instincts about a matter that cropped up two days ago.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Barbier paused, as though he found sharing this particular information somewhat difficult. “What I am about to share with you is confidential. For the moment, it is between you and me alone.”
“Of course, Commissaire,” Thierry replied, using his title to signify that he understood they were now talking formally, rather than between friends.
“A parcel was delivered to me at my home two days ago. As you’ll know, few people outside of the force are aware of my country address. So, to that extent it was a personal, as opposed to an official, delivery.”
Thierry nodded.
“It was a package that measured approximately fifty centimeters square and was quite heavy. Naturally my staff set it aside, informing me that the sender’s name and address were not written anywhere on the parcel. I arranged for my people to take it away to a more a secure environment.
“Within the hour, I received a call from the bomb squad. They told me it was not an IED, but suggested I should visit their section personally because they felt sure I would prefer not to discuss what they had discovered over the telephone—you see. my home line is not yet completely secure.”
The door opened and Marie brought in a cup of aromatic tea for her boss. As she opened the door to leave, Barbier called to her. “Please, no interruptions whatsoever until I say so. Thank you, Marie.”
She nodded and closed the heavy door.
Barbier reached down, opening the bottom drawer of his desk and pulling out what looked to Thierry like a polished wooden box with a glass top.
“It’s quite beautifully presented—if such things are possible of being presented ‘beautifully.’ He laid the box on his desk and gently pushed it towards Thierry, who leant forward.
It was the closest thing Thierry had ever seen to an articulated display of animal bones—the kind he used to view in the le museum national d’histoire naturalle as a child; the Natural History Museum in Paris. The elegant mahogany box looked store bought, yet was both elegant and strong. Through the glass top Thierry could see the bones of a human hand—the left—each bone bone dry and staked by small metal clips to the base. Each tiny bone was separated from each other. Thierry noticed that the lid of the box had been prized open and the smallest bone of the middle finger—the distal—was missing. As a natural history exhibit of a human hand, belonging to someone long since dead it was, as Barbier had correctly observed, quite beautifully presented.
“Have you any idea why anyone would send this to you, Commissaire? Do you collect such artifacts? Some people do, I know.”
“No, I do not, Thierry. I think you should read the note that was enclosed with the box.”
He passed a sheet of folded paper that was lying under a paperweight on his desk. Thierry opened it up and read. ‘Commissaire. By now you will have enjoyed looking at my exhibit and will be wondering why I sent it to you. So let me get straight to the point and feed your by now intense curiosity. For this is my delightful new game—one I recently invented; one which will bring me much pleasure. You see, the bones of this hand were once attached to a very prominent countryman of yours. World famous, as a matter of fact.
‘The game goes like this. Should you be able to identify the hand, I shall set my hostage free—he, or she, will live. You have one week. Don’t let this celebrated hostage’s worst nightmare become yours, Commissaire. Beware.”
Thierry took his eyes off the letter and was silent for a few moments while he took it all in. Then he looked up at Barbier. “Have forensics begun to…?”
Barbier cut him short. “They are presently working on the bone which is missing from the case. But there are obvious problems with DNA. First up we have no idea with whom to match any sample; secondly there is no tissue left on any of the bones; there’s just the bone material to work with. This makes matters harder. So it would seem that I may have to play this man’s obscene game of attempting to correctly guess who this hand once belonged to. Either that, or risk a madman deciding to kill again.”
“If indeed he killed the first time. Amputation is one thing, a ‘kill’ is another. And the author of this note may or may not be a male.”
“All true. Let me just add that two highly skilled pathologists have already taken a look at these bones and both have concluded that the death of the host body in all likelihood occurred, if it occurred at all, only days ago. A week at most.”
“Isn’t neo-forensics wonderful. That we can be so sure of something so precise.”
“Not wonderful enough, perhaps.” Barbier paused, and sipped his Earl Grey tea. “So, I need the benefit of your instinct before I make any decision. I ask you bluntly—in your opinion, is this threat credible, or simply a stunt.”
Gassin took his time in replying. This was a hard question. Instinct was one thing, but in Thierry’s case a decision of any kind was invariably an adjunct to at least some body of evidence.
“I’m sure it is not a primary concern, but my guess is the author of this note is challenging you personally. He is indicating that you personally will be embarrassed if you fail to guess the identity of the celebrity to whom these bones belonged.”
Barbier said nothing—it was plain to Thierry that it was the personal issue that was paramount at this moment in time.
Gassin filled the silence. “There are some disturbing elements in this note, Commissaire.”
“I wonder if we agree upon which? Continue.”
“The language. It’s a well-crafted intelligent letter. But that simply goes to show that the author has an education; nothing more. Whether this is a prank is anyone’s guess. Which brings me to the next element. Is the host body alive or dead? The author of this letter has gone to a great deal of trouble to present the bones of the hand properly, and if your experts say the body to whom they belonged possibly died less than a week ago, then unless the author had the hand removed from a living person or a corpse we have not yet found, the bones would have had to have been accessed from a morgue.”
Gassin looked up at Barbier and let the words hang in the air.
“I already assigned a large team to this very matter,” Barbier replied as he set down his cup. “Intense investigations yesterday revealed no missing hands, neither in morgues, nor hospitals. All bodies have both accounted for.”
“Then one might have to lean towards the theory that the host body is still alive, or has not yet been discovered. Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean a murder has been committed.”
“Surely it’s more likely the host body is deceased,” Barbier cut in, “than to conclude that the author of this letter stumbled across a corpse in the Bois de Boulogne and thought to himself what a wonderful joke I can play on the Commissionare Divisionnaire. Why would he bother to keep the host body alive?”
It was a good point. While Thierry was debating it, Barbier continued. “There’s something about this letter that bothers me more than anything else. You have not drawn attention to it. Possibly deliberately? I find two words deeply disturbing. It’s the reason I called you in today. It is the reason I would like you to head up a team I have assembled to get to the bottom of this within the time period referred to in the letter.”
“The mention of Worst Nightmares?”
“You have it in one, Thierry.”
Chapter 6.
‘Big’ Detective Sergeant Jim Hansen was keeping a watchful eye out for Dermot Nolan—he was due any minute now—as he pumped the ten kilo hand held weights up and down with the ease a child might have lifting a bag of candy.
As the count reached three hundred, he let both arms drop and lowered the dumb bells to the floor then sat down at his desk.
Seated opposite him was a new partner of several months standing, Chick de Groot; tall, lean, a mop of unruly dark hair. Chick was busy with notes for a murder book.
Hansen pulled a desk drawer open and took out a jar of Novedex Xt; a testosterone booster supplement. He popped a few pills in his mouth, washing them down with pre-mixed Syntha-6, an ultra premium protein that was said to taste ‘ridiculously’ delicious—the flavor de jour was Cookies & Cream. Hansen thought it tasted like shit, but the results were worth it.