Kitabı oku: «The Third Woman», sayfa 3
It was slippery underfoot, years of grime given gloss by the downpour. She tried to work out where rue Saint Denis was so that she could head in the opposite direction. It wasn’t obvious from the backs of the surrounding buildings but there was a gap so she headed for that. The roof tapered to a short stretch of crumbling wall that abutted a taller building; apartments from the first floor up, a business at street level, the shutters pulled down over the windows.
She took the drainpipe to the first floor, swiping three potted plants from a window-ledge, then lowered herself on to the roof of a white Renault Mégane that was parked on the pavement.
Now she was in a small triangular square: rue Saint Spire, rue Alexandrie, rue Sainte Foy. She took Sainte Foy.
Five-past-two, the sirens now a long way behind her. She was still walking, the rain still falling. And helping. Under the circumstances, better to be drenched than dirty. Which was all the logic she could handle.
Head for Gare du Nord. Use the return ticket. Go home, have a shower, catch the plane. Worry about it over a cocktail on the beach.
She was sorely tempted yet knew she couldn’t. Stations were out. So was home. Which meant Marianne Bernard’s integrity was suspended. And it was Marianne’s name on the air ticket.
How had the police got there so quickly? How had they identified her so quickly? And the order to shoot – because she was armed – what did that mean?
One part of her wanted to stop and think. To collate. But another part of her wouldn’t let her. She had to keep moving. That was the priority.
Never stop. The moment you do …
Three-thirty-five. The cinema provided a temporary sanctuary of darkness. The film was a Hollywood romantic comedy, predictably short on romance, utterly devoid of comedy. Stephanie waited until the main feature had started before going to the washroom. She peeled off her denim jacket and the black polo-neck. Both were soaked. The long-sleeved strawberry T-shirt beneath was stuck to her skin. She filled a basin with warm soapy water, rolled up the sleeves to the elbow, scrubbed her face, hands and arms, rinsed, refilled the basin with clean warm water and dipped her head into it, before trying to claw some order through her hair.
A little cleaner but still dripping, she locked herself into one of the stalls, hanging the jersey and jacket on the door-peg. She lifted the T-shirt, examined her torso and ran her fingertips over as much of her back as she could. Nothing but a few cuts and grazes. She pulled down the toilet lid, sat on it, pulled off a dark grey Merrell shoe and checked the right ankle; swollen, tender to the touch, but no significant damage. When she envisaged Béatrice it seemed little short of a miracle. And all because of Petra; Stephanie would have stayed at the table for Jacob Furst.
She pulled on her wet clothes and checked her possessions; the return portion of her train ticket, Marianne’s credit-cards, a Belgian driving licence, flat keys, six hundred and seventeen euros in cash, mobile phone, cinema ticket.
Stephanie returned to the comforting dark of the auditorium, taking a seat near the back, and was grateful for the stuffy warmth. First things first, a plan of action. The primary urge was to run. And she would run. As she had in the past. That was the easy part. Nobody ran as effortlessly as Petra. But she couldn’t allow fear to be the fuel. Before that, however, there were questions.
She rose into the ethnic melting-pot of Belleville. The pavement along the eastern flank of the broad boulevard de Belleville was busy. Stephanie weaved through Afghans, Turks, Iranians, Georgians, Chinese. A group of five tall Sudanese were arguing on the corner of rue Ramponeau. A Vietnamese woman barged past her dragging a bulging laundry bag. Traffic was stationary in both directions, frustrated drivers leaning on their horns.
Stephanie switched on her mobile. No messages and no missed calls since she’d turned it off twenty minutes after clearing Passage du Caire. She return-dialled Jacob Furst’s number. No answer. She switched the phone off again and walked up rue Lémon to rue Dénoyez. The five-storey building was on the other side of the road. At street level, the Boucherie Shalom was closed. The restaurant next to it was open but Stephanie couldn’t see any diners through the window.
The Fursts’ apartment was on the third floor. No lights on, the curtains open. There were weeds sprouting from the plaster close to a fracture in the drainpipe. There was no building to the right. It had been demolished, the waste ground screened from the street by a barricade of blue and green corrugated iron.
She ventured left, away from the building, heading up the cobbled street past graffiti and peeling bill posters, past the entrance to the seedy Hotel Dénoyez – rooms by the hour – until she came to rue Belleville. Then she made a circle and approached rue Dénoyez from the other end at rue Ramponeau.
The Furst family had a Parisian lineage stretching back two centuries. In that time, there had been two constants: a family business centred on the garment industry and active participation within the Jewish community. Which included living among that community. And here was the proof. On rue Ramponeau, Stephanie stood with her back to La Maison du Taleth, a shop selling Jewish religious artefacts. Restaurants and sandwich shops all displayed with prominence the Star of David.
She returned to boulevard de Belleville. From the France Télécom phonebooth by the Métro exit she rang the police. An incident to report, some kind of break-in, she told them. She’d heard noises – screams for help, breaking glass, a loud bang – and now nothing. Please hurry – they’re an old couple. Vulnerable …
When they’d asked for her name, she put down the phone.
She watched from the bright blue entrance to Hotel Dénoyez. When the patrol car pulled up a pair of officers emerged and she noticed two things. First, they looked casual; from the way they moved she guessed they were expecting an exaggerated domestic disturbance. Or a hoax. The second thing was the dark blue BMW 5-series halfway between her and the patrol car.
It had been there as long as she’d been loitering by the hotel entrance. She’d assumed there was no one in it. But when the patrol car pulled up, the BMW’s engine coughed, ejecting a squirt of oily smoke from the exhaust. She peered more carefully through the back window and now saw that there were two people inside. The car didn’t move until the police officers had entered the building. Then it pulled away from the kerb, tyres squeaking on the cobbles, turning right at rue Ramponeau.
She continued to wait. A third-floor light came on. Stephanie pictured Miriam Furst in the kitchen at the rear of the flat. Making coffee for the policemen, taking mugs from the wooden rack above the sink. That was how she remembered it. Beside the rack, a cheap watercolour of place des Vosges hung next to a cork noticeboard with family photographs pinned to it: three children, all girls, and nine grandchildren, none of whom had been inclined to steer the Furst textile business into its third century.
Fifteen minutes after the arrival of the first police car, a second arrived. Followed within forty-five seconds by an ambulance, then a third police car and, finally, a second ambulance. Three policemen began to cordon off the street.
Now it was no longer just Stephanie’s fingers that were going numb.
We pull into Tuileries, in the direction of La Défense. I’ll probably change at Franklin D. Roosevelt and head for Mairie de Montreuil, then change again after a dozen stations or so. It’s five-to-eleven and I’ve been riding the Métro for more than two hours. There’s no better way to make yourself invisible for a short while than to ride public transport in a major city late at night. Later, they’ll see me on CCTV recordings, drifting back and forth. But by then I’ll be somewhere else. And someone else.
Above ground, in the bars and restaurants, in private homes, there is only one topic of discussion tonight. The bomb blast in Sentier. Many dead, many wounded, many theories. There’ll be grief and outrage on the news, and plenty of inaccurate in-depth analysis from the experts.
I know that Jacob and Miriam Furst are dead. Nobody will read about them tomorrow. They will have died largely as they lived; unnoticed. I also know that I should be dead too.
The men who chased me through the smoking wreckage in Passage du Caire were there to make sure. They were there so quickly. And they weren’t looking for anyone else; they recognized me.
I try to fix a version of events in my head. Furst is held against his will until he’s made the call to establish that I’m in place. He’s surprised that I’m there. Did he think I wouldn’t come? He tells me he’ll be with me in fifteen minutes, then two. Why the difference? To arouse my suspicion? To warn me?
How did he get the number? And why wasn’t I more vigilant? Perhaps, mentally, I was already halfway to Mauritius.
After our conversation is over, the explosion occurs within a minute. But the more I consider it, the more perplexing it becomes. They – whoever ‘they’ are – needed to be sure that I’d be in Paris today. That I’d be in La Béatrice at one o’clock. How could they be confident that I’d make the trip from Brussels? And if I’m to assume that they knew I was in Brussels, which as a matter of security I must, shouldn’t I also assume that they know I’m Marianne Bernard? And if they know that, where does the line of enquiry stop? Whether they knew about Marianne Bernard or not, it’s obvious who they really wanted. Petra Reuter. She’s the one with the reputation.
So why the elaborate deceit? Nobody who knew anything about her would risk that. They’d take her down the moment they found her. At home, for instance, in a run-down apartment in Brussels. They’d catch her with her guard down. Simpler, safer, better.
There can be only one answer: they needed me to be at La Béatrice.
Day Three
The Marais, quarter-past-five in the morning, the streetlamps reflected in puddles not quite frozen. Rue des Rosiers was almost empty; one or two on the way home, one or two on the way to work, hands in pockets, chins tucked into scarves.
It had been after midnight when she abandoned the Métro. Since then, she’d stopped only once, when the rain had returned just before three. She’d found an all-night café not far from where she was now; candlelight and neon over concrete walls, leather booths in dark corners, Ute Lemper playing softly over the sound system.
Stephanie stretched a cup of black coffee over an hour before anyone approached her. A tall, angular woman with deathly pale skin and dark red shoulder-length hair, wearing a purple silk shirt beneath a black leather overcoat. She smiled through a slash of magenta lipstick and sat down opposite Stephanie.
‘Hello. I’m Véronique.’
Véronique from Lyon. She’d been awkwardly beautiful once – perhaps not too long ago – but thinness had aged her. And so had unhappiness. Stephanie warmed to her because she understood the chilly solitude of being alone in a city of millions.
They talked for a while before Véronique reached for Stephanie’s hand. ‘I live close. Do you want to come? We could have a drink?’
Petra considered the offer clinically: Véronique was an ideal way to vanish from the street. No security cameras, no registration, no witnesses. Inside her home, Petra would have options; some brutal, some less so. But it was after four; there was no longer any pressing need for a Véronique.
Stephanie let her down gently with a version of the truth. ‘It’s too late for me. If only we’d met earlier.’
She turned left into rue Vieille du Temple. The shop was a little way down, the red and gold sign over the property picked out by three small lamps: Adler. And beneath that: boulangerie – patisserie.
Stephanie knocked on the door. Behind the glass a full-length blind had been lowered, fermé painted across it. A minute passed. Nothing. She tried again – still nothing – and was preparing for a third rap when she heard the approach of footsteps and a stream of invective.
The same height as Stephanie, he wore a creased pistachio shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a black waistcoat, unfastened. A crooked nose, a mash of scar around the left eye, thick black hair everywhere, except on his head. The last time, he’d had a ponytail. Not any more, the close crop a better cut to partner his encroaching baldness. There was a lot of gold; identity bracelets, a watch, chains with charms, a thick ring through the left ear-lobe. As Cyril Bradfield had once said to her, ‘He looks like the hardest man you’ve ever seen. And dresses like a tart.’
‘Hello, Claude.’
Claude Adler was too startled to reply.
‘I knew you’d be up,’ Stephanie said. ‘Four-thirty, every day. Right?’
‘Petra …’
‘I would’ve called, of course …’
‘Of course.’
‘But I couldn’t.’
‘This is … well … unexpected?’
‘For both of us. We need to talk.’
It was delightfully warm inside. Adler locked the door behind them and they walked through the shop, the shelves and wicker baskets still empty. The cramped bakery was at the back. Stephanie smelt it before she saw it; baguettes, sesame seed bagels, apple strudel, all freshly prepared, all of it reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since Brussels.
Adler took her upstairs to the apartment over the shop where he and his wife had lived for almost twenty years. He lit a gas ring for a pan of water and scooped ground coffee into a cafetière. There was a soft pack of Gauloises on the window-ledge. He tapped one out of the tear, offered it to her, then slipped it between his lips when she declined.
‘Is Sylvie here?’
‘Still asleep.’ He bent down to the ring of blue flame, nudging the cigarette tip into it, shreds of loose tobacco flaring bright orange. ‘She’ll be happy to see you when she gets up.’
‘I doubt it. That’s the reason I’m here, Claude. I’ve got bad news.’
Adler took his time standing. ‘Have you seen the TV? It seems to be the day for bad news.’
‘It is. Jacob and Miriam are dead.’
He froze. ‘Both?’
Stephanie nodded.
At their age, one was to be expected. Followed soon after, perhaps, by the other. But both together?
‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘How?’
‘Violently.’
He began to shake his head gently. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘It is true.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw the police. The ambulances …’
‘You were there?’
‘Afterwards, yes.’
‘Did you see them?’
Stephanie shook her head.
‘Then perhaps …’
‘Trust me, Claude. They’re dead.’
He wanted to protest but couldn’t because he believed her. Even though she hadn’t seen the bodies. Even though he didn’t know her well enough to know what she did. Not exactly, anyway.
‘Who did it?’
‘I don’t know.’
He thought about that for a while. ‘So why are you here?’
‘Because I’m supposed to be dead too.’
Adler refilled their cups; hot milk first, then coffee like crude oil, introduced over the back of a spoon, a ritual repeated many times daily. Like lighting a cigarette. Which he now did for the fourth time since her arrival, the crushed stubs gathering on a pale yellow saucer.
Now that he’d absorbed the initial shock, Adler was reminiscing. Secondhand history, as related to him by Furst: the pipeline pumping Jewish refugees to safety; the false document factory he’d established in Montmartre; 14 June 1940, the day the Nazis occupied Paris; smuggling Miriam to Lisbon via Spain in the autumn of 1941; forging documents for the Resistance and then SOE. And finally, betrayal, interrogation, Auschwitz.
Adler scratched a jaw of stubble, some black, some silver. ‘He always said he was lucky to live. Listening to him tell it, I was never so sure.’ He stirred sugar into his coffee. ‘You survive something like that, the least you expect is to be left alone to die of natural causes. Fuck it, he was nearly ninety.’
‘You’re right.’
‘You know what I admired most about him?’
‘What?’
He drew on his cigarette and then exhaled over the tip. ‘That it never occurred to him to leave. From 1939 on, he could’ve run. But he didn’t. He chose to stay behind, to create false documents to help others escape. He knew the risks better than most. Yet even when they got Miriam out, it never crossed his mind to go with her.’
‘That was the kind of man he was. Silently courageous. Understated.’
‘True. He was a man who believed in community. His community.’
‘Talking of which, did Jacob ever go back to Sentier?’
Adler stared at her. ‘That’s a blunt question on a morning like this.’
‘That’s why I’m asking it, Claude.’
He shrugged. ‘Not so much, I don’t think. Not since he sold the shop.’
‘I saw it yesterday.’
‘What?’
‘The shop. In Passage du Caire. Part of the sign is still above the entrance. At least, it was. It’s not any more.’
Adler’s jaw dropped. ‘You were there?’
‘Moments before the explosion, yes.’
‘My God … why?’
‘To see Jacob. He called me the night before last and asked me to come to Paris. He said it was important. He wanted to meet at La Béatrice. I turned up. He didn’t.’
‘At La Béatrice? That used to be his favourite place.’
‘I know.’
‘A coincidence?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
Adler’s gaze drifted out of the window. ‘We were up all night watching the news. Twelve dead, fifty injured. We were wondering who we’d know.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’d already left?’
‘No. I was just lucky. Everyone around me was dead or injured. I hardly got a scratch.’
‘What about Jacob?’
‘I told you. He never turned up. He died later. At their apartment.’
‘With Miriam.’
‘Yes.’
‘You think there’s a connection?’
‘I don’t want to. But it’s hard not to. When did you last see him?’
‘Thursday. Sylvie and I went over to their place and we went to the street market on boulevard de Belleville. Lately, it’s something we’ve been doing almost every week. The market is on Thursday and Friday mornings. After it, we have lunch. Usually at old Goldenberg’s place – you know it? He and Jacob were friends.’
She shook her head.
‘On rue de Tourtille. Great service, shit food. Jacob and Miriam have been going there since it opened, back in the Seventies. Jacob always used to say he only started enjoying it about five years ago when his taste buds went. He used to lean across the table when Goldenberg was hovering and he’d say to me, “Claude, there are two things that give me pleasure when I’m here. Not tasting the food and watching your face. Every mouthful is a masterpiece.” That was his big joke. Goldenberg has a sign in the front window: every mouthful is a masterpiece.’
Stephanie tried to muster a smile. ‘Did you always go over to see him? Or did he come here?’
‘Usually, we went there. When he sold the business he began to slow down. Recently, he’d become … fragile.’
‘At his age, he was entitled to.’
‘I agree with you. But he wouldn’t have.’
‘You didn’t notice anything on Thursday? He didn’t seem upset or preoccupied?’
‘Nothing like that, no.’
‘What about the last few weeks?’
‘No.’
‘Does it surprise you that he would have arranged a meeting with me at La Béatrice?’
‘Frankly, yes. He was fond of you. They both were. I would have expected him to invite you to their home. That was their way.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘How could he be connected to what happened in Sentier?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I can’t tell yet. I guess I’ll take a look at his place. After that … who knows?’
‘How will you get in?’
‘I’ll find a way.’
Adler stood up and shuffled past her into the hall. She heard the scrape of a drawer. When he returned he was holding a set of keys.
‘The one with the plastic clip is the top lock, the other one does the main lock. The number for the building is 1845.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It was Miriam’s idea. In case they needed help.’
Stephanie took the keys and put them into the pocket of her denim jacket.
Adler said, ‘Is there something I can do, Petra? I’d like to help.’
‘Then forget this conversation. In fact, forget I was even here.’
I’m sitting at a small circular table beside the window. Outside, the traffic thickens along rue de Rivoli. The street shimmers in the wintry light of early morning. Silver rain streaks the glass. I order some breakfast from the waiter and then spread the newspapers across the table; Le Monde, Libération, International Herald Tribune. The bomb dominates the front pages of the two French papers and shares the lead in the Tribune.
According to the French reports, there are twelve dead and forty-five injured. The Tribune has thirteen dead and forty-nine injured. A spokesman for the Préfet de Police concludes: ‘It’s a tragedy. And a grotesque act of cowardice.’
Much of the coverage is analysis. Since Sentier has a strong Jewish presence, the focus inevitably falls upon anti-Semitic extremists. With all the awkward questions that poses for a country like France. Or even a city like Paris. Libération reports that the Gendarmerie Nationale have two suspects, both men, both seen entering La Béatrice two or three minutes before the explosion. The shorter of the pair is about one-metre-sixty and is twenty to twenty-five years old. He was wearing a Nike tracksuit – dark blue with white flashes. The older one is probably in his mid-thirties, around one-metre-eighty, and was wearing denim jeans, black running shoes and a khaki jacket with a zip. They are Algerians but might be travelling on Moroccan passports. No names are suggested.
I read the descriptions several times. The detail is convincing but false. No such men entered La Béatrice while I was there, which was over a period of about twenty minutes. And if they’d gone in after I’d left, they’d almost certainly be dead.
The name of al-Qaeda is tossed over the coverage as casually as confetti at a wedding. The French papers, in particular, concern themselves with the possibility of an anti-Muslim backlash. Nothing I read is new.
The café is quiet. A crumpled, middle-aged man beneath the menu blackboard nurses a glass of red wine. I can’t decide whether it’s the last of the night or the first of the morning. Three tables away from me, a plump dark-haired woman is smoking a filterless cigarette. Smudged eye-liner draws attention to bloodshot pupils.
The waiter brings me bread, butter and hot chocolate. He stoops to lay them on the table, a lock of greasy grey hair falling from his forehead. He sees the newspapers, shakes his head and clucks his disapproval.
There’s no mention of me anywhere. No female suspect. No chase through the ruins. No gun-shot. I’ve been air-brushed from the picture.
Number 16, place Vendôme. Just inside the entrance, on the wall to the left, was a mirror with the names of the resident institutions picked out in gold letters; R.T. Vanderbilt Company Inc., Lazard Construction, Laboratoires Garnier. Under Escalier B, Stephanie found the name, once familiar, now largely ignored: Banque Damiani, Genève. This was only her second visit in seven years.
Escalier B was at the back of the paved courtyard, past the offices of Comme des Garçons, through a set of black double-doors. Inside, Stephanie took the stairs.
The reception room had been redecorated; a large Chinese carpet laid over a polished parquet floor, heavy curtains of plum brocade, a pair of Louis XIV armchairs either side of a table. There was a collection of oil portraits set in large oval gilt frames, each hung within a wall panel. Stephanie knew that the faces belonged to the original Damiani brothers and their sons.
The receptionist was about the same age as her. But standing in front of her desk, Stephanie felt like a gauche teenager. She wore a beautifully cut suit; navy-blue, simple, elegant. She was sitting in a throne chair, her spine nowhere near the back of it. On her wrist was a gold Piaget watch.
She greeted Stephanie with a warm smile. Elsewhere, that might have been a surprise considering Stephanie’s appearance – perhaps you are looking for some other place? – but not here. The few who made it to the receptionist’s desk at Banque Damiani usually did so intentionally. Regardless of appearance.
‘I have a box.’
‘Of course. One moment, please.’
The receptionist directed her towards the Louis XIV armchairs, then disappeared through the door to the right, the panels inlaid with antique mirror glass. Alone, Stephanie hoped she’d remember the process accurately; two number sequences and a one-time password to allow her access to the strongroom. She would be accompanied by a senior member of the bank and one security guard. In a private cubicle, her box would be brought to her. Once the door was closed, she would open the box using a six-digit code on the keypad. There were no keys in the process, which was one of the reasons she’d chosen Banque Damiani. Under the circumstances in which she might want access to the box, carrying a key – or even collecting a key – might not be possible.
Inside the box was Helen Graham; a thirty-one-year-old Canadian, born in Vancouver, now living in Chicago. Passport, identity card, driving licence, credit-cards, euros, dollars, a pair of glasses, a small case with two sets of coloured contact lenses (grey), a cheap plastic wallet containing thirteen family snapshots, and an insulin pen. Containing, instead of insulin, a strain of engineered tetrodotoxin, a substance found naturally in puffer fish, designed to act instantly by closing down the sodium channels in the nerves, thus rendering them useless, leading to death by paralysis of the breathing muscles.
Helen Graham was a member of the Magnificent Seven. She was one of five exit identities Stephanie had spread across Europe. The others were in Frankfurt, Valencia, Bratislava and Trondheim. Each was held in a safe-deposit box in an institution where the means of access was carried solely in the memory. Beyond Europe, there were versions of her in Baltimore and Osaka.
Over the years, these identities had been rotated. New ones were established, old ones destroyed, nearly always intact. This was only the third time she’d had to activate one. The last time had been in Helsinki and that had been almost four years ago. Since then, she’d only interfered with the identities once. Two months after the introduction of the euro, she’d visited all the European safe-deposit boxes to swap bundles of condemned deutschmarks and francs for pristine euro notes.
The Magnificent Seven had been established as an insurance policy. Created by Jacob Furst’s protégé, Cyril Bradfield, without the knowledge of her former masters, their existence had, until now, been more of an expensive comfort than a practical necessity.
The door opened and a man in a dark grey double-breasted suit entered, holding in his left hand a leather clipboard. Olive-skinned, black hair flecked with silver at the temples, he stood an inch shorter than Stephanie.
In clipped German, clearly not his first language, he said, ‘Welcome. A pleasure to see you again.’
Stephanie had never seen him before. He was speaking German because she was Stephanie Schneider, although no one at the bank was likely to mention the name in conversation with her.
‘I’m Pierre Damiani. Sadly, my uncle is abroad this week. He will be upset to have missed you.’
She doubted that. She hadn’t met him, either.
‘I hope I can be of some assistance to you. Sophie told me why you are here. Before we proceed, I would just like to take this opportunity to say that this bank and my family regard the interests of our esteemed customers as absolutely sacrosanct.’
Said with conviction, nothing obsequious about it.
‘I don’t doubt that,’ she replied.
He nodded curtly, then gave her the leather clipboard. On it was a cream-coloured card with the bank’s name and crest embossed across the top. Beneath, there were three boxes for the numbers and password.
‘You are familiar with the procedure?’
‘I am.’
‘Please read the sheet below.’
Stephanie lifted the card. The message was handwritten in blue ink: Your safe-deposit box has been contaminated. The front of this building is being monitored. Your appearance here has already been reported. In a moment, I will leave the room. Please do not go until then. Take the door on the opposite side of the room to the one I use. At the far end of the passage, there is a fire-exit. It’s unlocked. Our cameras are recording us – I hope you understand – so could you sign the bottom of the declaration form then fill out the card, as normal. Please understand that it is not safe for us to talk. With our sincerest apologies, your faithful servants, Banque Damiani & the Damiani family.
Ten-forty. The easyInternetCafé on boulevard de Sébastopol was busy. Stephanie settled herself at her terminal and sent the same message to three different addresses.
> Oscar. Need to speak. CRV/13. P.
She’d followed Pierre Damiani’s escape route without a problem. What more could they have done for her? Our cameras are recording us – I hope you understand. A plea more than anything else, meaning perhaps: our cameras are recording us … and who can say who will see this? Some entity with powers to sequestrate such recordings?
Yesterday she’d had security in numbers: Stephanie, Petra, Marianne, the Magnificent Seven. Now she was down to one. But which one? Or was it worse than that? Perhaps she was no one at all.
