Unholy Ghost Read online

  ‘Alas yes, still Commander. I fear I have reached the limits of both my talent and my opportunity. So, to business, why are you trying so hard to get yourself killed? I ask the question professionally, you understand, if you have a death wish then I will of course respect your decision. Have you developed a death wish, Mr Costello?’

  ‘I thought anything outside Denmark didn’t concern you. If I want to get myself killed why should you care so long as it happens outside Denmark?’

  ‘Because this concerns things that happen inside Denmark. Didn’t you know that? I would have thought you would have known that.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  The comedian manner slipped away for a moment while the man turned over what Jimmy had told him. Then he came to some sort of decision and the act was on again.

  ‘You are not still a member of the Vatican Diplomatic Service I take it?’

  ‘The passport was a fake. I was never employed by His Holiness.’

  ‘No, of course you weren’t, but I had to play my part in that little charade didn’t I? If I hadn’t your Monsignor from Rome would have been gravely embarrassed and in Denmark we take men of the cloth with suitable seriousness, even a Catholic Monsignor from Rome who tells us things that are less than the truth.’

  Jimmy stood up.

  ‘Come on, sunshine, you’re the one who had me picked up and delivered here so either make your point or let me go.’

  The Comedian registered surprise.

  ‘But you are free to go, you are not being held against your will. I have no authority here to arrest, detain, or even question you. Leave as soon as you wish, Mr Costello.’

  And he held out a hand pointing at the room door. Jimmy sat down again.

  His head still ached and he now had a funny taste in his mouth, but if he really was free to go he might as well stay and do his best to find out why the Comedian had picked him up in the first place.

  ‘I could tell the local police you bundled me into a car and filled me full of some kind of dope.’

  ‘By all means, go to the police and make a complaint if you wish.’ He waited a moment to make his point. ‘No? Not keen to involve the police? I thought not. However, if you will answer a few of my questions I will do my best to answer a few of yours and our time together may prove profitable to both of us. What do you say?’

  Jimmy looked at his watch. He couldn’t have been out long, it was only an hour since they’d arrived at Termini. He felt for his phone. The Comedian put his hand in his own pocket, pulled it out, and handed it over to him.

  ‘I switched it off while you were indisposed.’

  Jimmy switched it on, after a second it beeped that he had a message. He opened it, read it, and then put away the phone.

  ‘I’m meeting someone in an hour and I need to get back to my apartment and get myself sorted. If we’re going to have a heart-to-heart about anything make it snappy.’

  ‘I’ll have you driven to your apartment whenever you wish. Your appointment is, I suppose, with Ms Heppert?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let that be my first question. What is your relationship at the moment with Ms Heppert?’

  ‘At the moment?’

  ‘Why are you travelling together and why are you in Rome?’

  ‘Those are big questions, the answers might cover a lot of ground. Try something smaller to begin with.’

  ‘Really, Mr Costello, we shall get nowhere like this. Caution is all very well but mutual co-operation requires a little trust from both parties.’

  ‘Go on then, make me trust you.’

  The act slipped away again. Now the man sitting opposite Jimmy was anything but funny.

  ‘Ms Heppert is a company lawyer, a very good one. She is a woman of intelligence, ambition, and resource. She is currently employed in a senior position in the Paris office of a small but extremely influential firm based in Manhattan. She has an excellent salary supplemented by what some might call an almost obscene expense account. But she wants more, and when she gets what she wants it will still not be enough. For people like her, it never is. At the moment she is manoeuvring to negotiate a promotion with a rival firm, no, not a promotion, a partnership. She is a dangerous woman, Mr Costello, believe me, I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Serge Carpentier told me.’

  The man waited while Jimmy let it sink in.

  ‘Carpentier worked for you?’

  ‘On a casual basis. He came to Denmark a few years ago as part of a European-wide police effort to trace the way Eastern European women were being brought into Western countries to work in the sex trade. The French thought there was a route operating through Denmark. As it happened they were wrong and that left Carpentier with a little time on his hands and unfortunately for him, but fortunately for me, he used it unwisely. A young man died. It was not technically murder, you understand, more a regrettable accident due to an excess of sexual enthusiasm. But it could have resulted in criminal proceedings if it hadn’t been dealt with. It would certainly have got him dismissed from his job if it had got back to his superiors.’

  ‘So you made sure it was swept under the carpet, put the screws on Carpentier, and made him work for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why would you need a tame French copper? I thought we were all on the same side these days?’

  ‘Most of the time we are. But not all of the time. Not, for instance, in the case of the Colmar estate. We knew of the US interest in the estate and that Ms Heppert was acting for that interest so I told Carpentier to get close to her.’

  ‘To become her lover?’

  ‘To become whatever he had to be, but as it happened they did develop a sexual relationship. People who are rich, greedy, and selfish usually do not restrain their appetites so it wasn’t hard for Carpentier to, as it were, fill a vacancy. Ms Heppert has a very strong carnal urge, luckily Carpentier was a man of talent in that line of work.’

  ‘Did he suggest giving Joubert a going over or was it her idea?’

  ‘Hers. Ms Heppert wanted to remove the lawyer Joubert from his role on behalf of the sisters. She didn’t want that complication to get in her way. With Joubert suitably scared off it was easy to take over from him. The sisters needed a replacement lawyer, she came highly recommended, and they took her at face value.’

  ‘So Carpentier hired a couple of thugs and had Joubert put in hospital for her.’

  ‘For her? For me? Let us say it was something that needed doing so I told him to help her do it. When you turned up I was really quite surprised. I shouldn’t have been of course, once the matter of the Colmar estate became entangled with the sisters in Paris I should have anticipated that Professor McBride might take an interest, which she did as soon as it was drawn to her attention. I didn’t, however, know what it was you were sent to Paris to do, but you were a nuisance at a delicate point in time so I had Carpentier eject you from the country with a warning not to return. With you and Joubert out of the picture all of our energies could be focussed on the Heppert woman. All I wanted, you understand, was to avoid unnecessary complications.’

  Jimmy didn’t like the way this story was unwinding. He’d had Carpentier down as on Heppert’s payroll, a bent copper and, if pushed, a potential killer. If what the man seated opposite was telling him was true he’d been wide of the mark, miles bloody wide.

  ‘Carpentier was your man alongside Heppert?’

  ‘Was being the operative word. Serge Carpentier’s body was found in an alley in a Paris suburb yesterday. He had been savagely beaten then shot though the side of the head with his own gun. Would you know anything about that, Mr Costello?’

  The man sat back and Jimmy’s mind raced trying to think of what, if anything, he should do or say.

  ‘Why should I know anything?’

  It was a poor stall and got what it deserved, a pitying smile.

  ‘Because unless I’m very much mistaken you were the one who shot him
.’

  And that was that, if he knew, he knew. He was a clever bastard and he didn’t piss about. He used that bloody comedian act to put you off your guard but his mind never left the job in hand once it had locked on.

  ‘I thought he’d set me up. I thought he’d got me there to finish me off.’

  ‘No, Mr Costello. I wanted you out of the way, not in the morgue. Nothing more would have happened to you than happened to M. Joubert. A few knocks and bruises, enough to put you in hospital so I could have visited you and put you in the picture. I’m afraid your killing of Serge Carpentier was based on an error of judgement, in fact I’m surprised that you could have made such a mistake, more than surprised, disappointed and extremely annoyed. I spent time and effort to put Carpentier alongside the Heppert woman and, thanks to your blundering, you have undone all of that work.’

  Somehow, he didn’t quite know how, Jimmy felt he ought to apologise.

  ‘Sorry.’

  It didn’t help.

  ‘Sorry! That hardly covers what you have done. You have murdered a policeman in cold blood. I doubt any judge would dismiss the case against you on the grounds that you were sorry, that it was all a mistake.’

  Jimmy felt confused by the unreality of the situation, by the conversation he was having. Maybe it was the dope in him or maybe it was the Comedian’s technique working. This man was too clever for him so he gave up.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The man’s manner relaxed again and he gave Jimmy a smile of encouragement.

  ‘I want you to replace Carpentier.’

  ‘What, as Heppert’s sex machine? You must be …’

  Jimmy’s outburst got a laugh.

  ‘Good heavens, no, Mr Costello, nothing like that. Up to a point he was trusted by her, the work he did on Joubert ensured that. Now I want you to be trusted by her. Have you told her that it was you who killed him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I’m sure she took it in her stride?’

  ‘She cried a bit. I thought they were lovers.’

  ‘Oh no, not lovers. All the rooms of Ms Heppert’s heart are fully occupied by Ms Heppert herself. She used him, that was all. If she cried then it was entirely for your benefit, probably to give herself time to adjust to the news and decide what to do. I’m sure she became herself again very quickly.’

  ‘She did.’

  Jimmy was feeling out of his depth. He’d got Serge wrong and he’d got Heppert wrong. He was on a losing streak as wide as Piccadilly Circus and had been ever since they gunned McBride. It was slowly dawning on him that he was still only detective sergeant material, a clever plodder who could only work out the little things, like who did the actual job, pulled the trigger, used the knife, or whatever. On his own, without someone pointing him in the right direction, it all sailed over his head and if he tried to figure it out he did more harm than good. No, not just harm, he bloody well killed people. The wrong people. He needed to be pointed in the right direction by one of the grown-ups. By someone who really did know what they were doing. Someone like the Comedian.

  ‘If I stick alongside Heppert how do I report to you?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can easily arrange that. All I want you to do is watch and listen. But be careful, she’s as sharp as she is greedy and that is saying a great deal. Don’t take any risk that might lead her to suspect you’re working for me.’

  ‘It won’t work.’

  ‘Won’t work?’

  ‘No. I can’t act. If I try to pretend I’m on her side in all this she’ll spot it. McBride used to hide things from me, tell me half the story and I used to think she was being devious, that maybe she didn’t trust me. But now I can see that she knew I had to believe in what I was doing so that anyone I talked to would see I believed it. I can’t act. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

  The man stood up and walked slowly round the room and then came back and sat down.

  ‘Then tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘Everything. I had you picked up, drugged, and brought here. We had this talk, tell it all to her, word for word as you can remember it. I wanted you to replace Carpentier and as I had you over a barrel because of his killing you had to agree. Tell her everything. It won’t change our arrangement and there will be no need for any act on your part and nothing for her to find out, you will have told her everything.’

  There was a flaw in there somewhere, it was just out of sight, but Jimmy was certain that it was in there somewhere.

  ‘But it will still be a lie, I’ll be working for you not her, so it’ll still be a lie, right?’

  ‘No. You will be working for Professor McBride, not for me and not for Ms Heppert. That, after all, is the real truth is it not?’

  Jimmy thought about it and, to his surprise, he found it was. He was working for McBride. He had been all along and he still was. This bloke and Heppert meant nothing to him. He worked for them or against them only in so far as it helped him to do what McBride wanted him to do. Which was …?

  And there it was. That was the flaw. What the bloody hell was he supposed to be doing for McBride? It couldn’t be as simple as she said, get control of the Colmar Estate and check out the convent? Not with all these other high-powered buggers running around.

  ‘I’ll need to know what this is all about. I can’t keep flying blind.’

  The man sat back.

  ‘Professor McBride didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Just to find the heir to the Colmar Estate. If I’m going to do what you want I’ll need to know what it’s really all about. You’ll have to tell me.’

  The man thought about it, but not for long.

  ‘No, I think not. I think you will do very well for me as you are. You can, of course, see if you can get Ms Heppert to tell you, but I have to say I think her attitude will prove to be the same as mine. You may have a certain limited use to both of us but it is, I assure you, very limited indeed.’

  ‘So what exactly is it I’m supposed to be looking for if I stick with Heppert? I have to have some idea. I’ve made too many mistakes already because I don’t have any idea of where I’m going or why, and your turning up hasn’t made anything clearer. I’m not going to risk killing some other poor sod because I don’t know what everyone else seems to know. Give me something or you can go fuck yourself, Commander.’

  The outburst got a gentle smile.

  ‘Very well, seeing as how you ask so nicely I will give you something, a direction, a purpose. Ms Heppert represents one powerful party which is interested in the Colmar estate. I will call them Group A. There is another party which is also interested, let us call them Group B. Heppert is with A and wants to move over to B taking with her what she knows. That is the partnership she seeks, the one I mentioned earlier. She wants to sell out her employers. But Group B have proved to be a very violent proposition, not something Ms Heppert is used to dealing with. She needs a scout to lead the way, someone through whom to make contact, someone who is used to violence. She needs a stooge to do the dangerous work of locating someone from the top of Group B. She was considering using Serge Carpentier but, as I said, she is clever and she wasn’t convinced he was exactly what she wanted. I think she sensed he was, how shall I put it? He was not someone she could use and dispose of. However, your little bit of back-alley work closed that avenue to her rather suddenly. It did, however, open up a new and better one. She has chosen you to be her scout.’

  ‘She doesn’t rate me as difficult to dispose of?’

  ‘Apparently not, although I doubt she sees herself as the actual disposer.’

  ‘So what will she want me to do?’

  ‘You will be in the middle of this affair. Ms Heppert will be able to see you but stay at a safe distance from the opposition. If they react badly it is you who will die and Ms Heppert will withdraw and try again in some other way. That is your position, Mr Costello, you are in the middle. At some point you will be able to see both Group B and Ms Hep
pert, although they will not be able to see each other. When that happens you will either set up a safe meeting for her or you will be eliminated. There will be no third way.’

  It made sense, in so far as anything in this affair made sense. But it didn’t sound like it would have a happy ending.

  ‘And if I set up this meeting I’ll be eliminated anyway. I’ll have served my purpose and be a loose end.’

  ‘I would have thought so.’

  ‘So why should I go ahead? What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Group B killed the man in the wheelchair in Munich. They also killed the journalist you sent. More importantly they tried to kill Professor McBride and, if she survives, will undoubtedly try again. That is what is in it for you, Professor McBride’s life. Believe me, they won’t miss a second time.’

  ‘And you. Which group are you?’

  ‘I represent another group unattached to either A or B. We wish to stay invisible to both sides until we can move in and take the Colmar estate from whichever one remains standing at the end of their struggle.’

  ‘I see.’

  He didn’t, of course, but he saw enough. He saw how he could get at the bastards he was looking for. At some point, when he had the time, he would have to come to terms with what he’d done to Serge, but that was for later, if he survived. For the moment he knew where he stood. Or, more accurately, he knew where he was going to stand. In the middle, between Heppert and what this comedian called Group B. And if he did get a clear look at any of them, then fuck Heppert and fuck the Comedian, he’d kill them. And this time there’d be no mistake.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  They were sitting across the desk from Professor Scolari in his office.

  ‘This is Ms Heppert. She is a lawyer with Parker and Henry in their Paris office. She is acting for the Sisters of Bon Secours in the disposal of their convent. Professor McBride was asked to assist by the superior of the order and sent me to Paris to look into the matter. I liaised with a lawyer, M. Joubert, who was then acting for …’

  ‘Professor Scolari.’

  The Professor turned his attention away from Jimmy to Nadine Heppert.