Deceptions by Anna Porter (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

Helena told him she would be gone for a day or two, and that she would contact him when she returned. “Meanwhile, could you ask Mrs. Vaszary the name of the man who she says sold them the painting.”

“Someone in Budapest, she said.”

“About a year ago, and the man was a friend in need of ready cash. She couldn’t remember his name. I don’t know about you, but I tend to remember my friends’ names.”

Chapter Eight

Attila loved the idea that the main police station in Strasbourg was called Hôtel de Police — police hotel. Not as grand a name as Budapest’s own Police Palace, but cozier. The address on Hébert’s card also included the words Commissariat de Police à Strasbourg à 34 Route de l’Hôpital, 67000 Strasbourg. It was an imposing, modern white building, with a long white staircase and a parking lot full of police cars. At the top of the stairs some dispirited-looking demonstrators held up a banner with demands to free four people arrested after another “manifestation.” They were chanting “libérez nos camarades,” lifting the heavy banner to their shoulders, dropping it with a thud, lifting it again, and dropping it. They made no move to hinder Attila as he passed by and entered the glass doors festooned with photographs of the missing. Many of them were months old, fly-splattered, smudged.

When Attila asked at the desk whether Lieutenant Hébert was in, he was rewarded with a broad smile and a vigorous nod by the blonde policewoman. Her attitude and her snug uniform were a pleasant change from the bad-tempered Margit in Budapest. Not that Margit’s uniform wasn’t snug, it was just snug in the wrong places, whereas this French police uniform fitted its wearer in a way that made Attila wonder if it had been made to measure. The dark blue pants were a perfect fit despite the extra pockets, and the top button on her blue shirt was undone. She picked up the phone and said Attila’s name into the receiver, then they both waited.

Hébert arrived with a file under his arm. “In your country,” he asked, “people don’t bother making appointments? First at Magoci’s office, now at mine. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. I assume Mr. Vaszary sent you?” He offered to shake hands.

“Is there some place we could talk?” Attila asked, ignoring the question.

“D’accord,” Hébert said, and indicated the electronic gate and the x-ray machinery. He watched as Attila unloaded the change from his pockets, his belt, the short-barrelled police-issue handgun, and the long object wrapped in newspaper that came last. “Intéressant,” Hébert remarked when the wrapping arrived at the other end of the screening process. Then he indicated that Attila should follow him.

The interview room was small, hot, and humid, with opaque glass walls that separated it from the rest of the squad room. There was a table in the middle, four chairs (two on each side), a decanter of water, a small computer, and four glasses. That Hébert brought him here and not to his own office indicated that he was still under suspicion and that their conversation was not going to be private. One of the glass walls was undoubtedly a one-way mirror. Attila, in his previous life, had conducted interrogations of suspects and witnesses in rooms just like this.

“Do you mind if I record?” Hébert asked, settling into a chair across from where Attila stood.

Nicely done, Attila thought without responding. He placed the newspaper package on the table, unwrapped it carefully to avoid contact with the bow, and stood back from the table.

Hébert looked at it, looked up at Attila, then down again. Then he flicked the switch on the recorder, said his own name and Attila’s, and asked with just a hint of a smile: “You are here to confess?”

“Of course not,” Attila said. “I came to deliver something that could be of assistance in your investigation. Unless, of course, you have already arrested the killer but didn’t want to release the news . . .”

“In this country, we are always grateful for assistance from the public,” Hébert said, his eyes on the bow but his hands not touching it. “How did you get this?”

“It was found in the cathedral after the lawyer was killed.”

“Found?”

“Yes.”

“How exactement was it found ?” Hébert pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and prodded the bow to turn it on its side. “Aluminum,” he said. “Light, very expensive.”

“Yes, I could see that,” Attila said. “What I can’t see without the proper equipment is fingerprints. I assume you have someone here who could dust for prints?”

Hébert called to the mirror for Georges, who appeared a minute later, sweaty and ruddy faced, to pick up the bow with its newspaper wrapping and take it away.

“So, you were in the cathedral saying your prayers and happened to notice a package under your seat, took a closer look, and what a surprise, it happens to be this bow, the one that was perhaps used by the man who perhaps killed our lawyer. Is that right?”

Attila grinned. “Brilliant,” he said. “How did you know?”

Hébert affected a well-practised Gallic shrug. “Ce n’est rien,” he said. He then opened the large envelope he had been carrying and spread its contents on the table. They were all enlarged photographs of Helena Marsh. A couple of them were a little blurry, but the rest must have been taken by tourists who had brought high-quality cameras or iPads with them on the cruise. One had captured Helena flying over a man sitting nearest the side of the boat and leaping onto the escarpment. Another showed her running full tilt over the bridge, in pursuit of a figure wearing a long beige coat and a grey hat. At the far end of the bridge, she had stopped and looked back, a motion that had been caught by the camera in a photograph that didn’t do justice, Attila thought,