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‘Let’s sit,’ Ben said a few yards further on, motioning towards a green park bench under the shade of the trees.
Roberta nodded. She sat on the bench beside him and gazed across the park in the direction of the kiddies’ roundabout and swings in the distance. They could hear the child’s gurgling laughter as his mother began to swing him gently back and forth.
Ben said, ‘Start from the beginning.’
‘Claudine and I went back a long way. When I was teaching in Paris years ago, she used to lecture at the Sorbonne. We met through some mutual acquaintance I don’t even remember now. We hit it off, became friends, stayed that way ever since. After I went to live in Canada she used to call me every so often, birthdays, Christmas, and emailed me now and then to keep me updated about her work projects. Some of them were real fascinating. I hadn’t heard from her in a little while, just assumed she must be busy at work or something. Then yesterday, I get this letter from her by registered mail.’ Roberta glanced anxiously at Ben. ‘I thought it was strange that she’d write me that way, instead of the usual email. When I opened it I saw it was more like a note, real short, and you could see it was written in a hurry. She said she was in deep trouble, that she was certain she was being followed and that something bad was going to happen to her. Said not to contact her by email or phone because they’d know. They were watching every move she made.’
‘Who was?’ Ben asked.
‘If she knew, she didn’t say.’
‘Have you got the letter with you? Can I see it?’
She shook her head. ‘The Paris cops have it now.’
‘Did it say any more than that?’
‘She asked me to go to Paris to help her. To hurry before … before it was too late.’ Roberta gave a bitter laugh.
‘No indication what it was about?’
‘No, she said she’d explain everything once I got there. Said I was one of just two people in the world she could turn to.’
‘Why not the police?’
‘Something else was going on, Ben. Something that meant she couldn’t go to the police. The last line she wrote was this rushed scrawl that just said “If something happens”. That was it. Underneath were a bunch of figures. She didn’t even sign her name.’
‘Figures?’ he asked.
Roberta dug a crumpled sheet from her handbag and handed it to him. ‘I copied them out before I passed the letter on to the cops. Still have no idea what they mean, though.’
Ben looked at the paper and studied the three lines of what appeared to be some kind of cipher.
4920N1570E
6982
2715651291
Codes weren’t his favourite things. He stared at the sheet for a few moments, completely baffled, until the two letters in the top line suddenly flew out at him and he realised what they were. They stood for North and East.
‘I don’t know about the rest,’ he said, ‘but the top line’s definitely a set of GPS co-ordinates, scrambled together. If you teased it apart it’d pinpoint a geographical location.’
‘You’re sure? What location?’
‘I’m sure. But that’s something we can come back to afterwards. Keep talking.’
‘What could I do?’ Roberta continued. ‘She was my friend. I cancelled everything. Managed to get on a late flight to Paris. I was so worried, all I could do on the plane was sit there trying to understand what those goddamn numbers meant, but it was no use. I got into Paris just after seven this morning and took a cab straight to Claudine’s apartment in Montmartre. She lived alone on the top floor of this crumbly old building in Rue des Trois Frères. When I arrived, there was a police car and a van parked outside but I didn’t think anything of it at first. Then as I was heading up the stairs, these cops and forensics people were coming down, with the concierge who looks after the building. I asked if everything was okay. They asked me who I was coming to see. I said “Claudine Pommier”. They told me what happened.’
Roberta paused for a moment to compose her emotions. ‘It was her neighbour, Madame Lefort, who found her the morning after she was killed. The door was open, and there she was on the bed. Old lady had to be hospitalised for shock. It’s so … so horrible.’
‘It’s bad,’ Ben said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Roberta sniffed, dabbed away a tear and went on. ‘It happened on the same day as the postmark on the letter. She must have posted it just a few hours before she died.’
‘Did she have family?’ Ben asked.
‘She lived alone. Lost touch with her relatives a long time back. Parents were a couple of religious assholes who disapproved of her career in science … oh, shit, Ben. I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s okay.’ He smiled.
‘The only person in her life was a bum of an ex-boyfriend, Fabien. But he was never around even when they were together. The cops couldn’t trace him, had to get a work colleague to identify the body in the morgue. Thank Christ I didn’t have to do it. You can imagine …’ Roberta shook her head, as if trying to clear the horrific picture from her mind. ‘Meanwhile, they were still combing through her apartment for evidence, DNA. Nothing was stolen, apparently. The cops asked me all these questions, who I was, what I was doing there. I gave them the letter she’d sent me, but they didn’t seem interested that Claudine had known beforehand she was in danger. All they could talk about was this bricoleur. Then I talked to the concierge, Madame Bunuel. Gave her my card and said to call me right away if there were any developments. That was when I noticed him the second time.’
Ben narrowed his eyes. ‘Noticed who?’
‘About thirty, tall, dark hair. I thought he was a plain-clothes detective at first. He was hanging around in the background while I was talking to the other cops. Then while I was talking to the concierge, there he was again. Looking at me kind of strangely. But I didn’t think much about it at the time. I left there soon afterwards and just started walking. I was so badly shaken up about what happened to Claudine, I barely knew where I was, let alone where I was going. Before I know it I’m heading into a metro station. Abbesses, I think. Then I noticed the guy from the apartment building again, following me down the escalator, through the tunnels, hanging back like he didn’t think I’d spotted him and didn’t want me to. I kept walking. Tried to lose myself in the crowd. By the time I got to the platform I couldn’t see him anymore. I was thinking I must have imagined it. But then as the train pulled into the station, there he was again, just a few steps away. Staring at me. It totally freaked me out, Ben.’
‘He didn’t do anything?’
‘Not then,’ she said. ‘He never came any closer, didn’t speak to me. I got on the train and he boarded the same carriage. I didn’t look at him directly but I could see his reflection in the window. Just standing there at a distance, still watching me in this real creepy way. He had his arm up to hang onto the safety strap, and his jacket was hanging open. He had a gun in there, a black handgun, like a Glock or something. I didn’t imagine it.’
Ben felt like pointing out that French plain-clothes detectives routinely carried concealed sidearms in shoulder holsters on, or even sometimes off, duty – but he kept quiet and let her go on talking.
‘I was terrified the carriage would empty and I’d be left alone with him. I waited a couple of stops, then at Saint-Georges I got off. He did the same. Then just as the doors were about to close I pushed through the crowd and jumped back on again – like the trick they do in movies? Worked. I left the sonofabitch standing there on the platform.’
‘And then?’
‘Then nothing. I stayed on the line all the way to Concorde and then ran like hell back up to the street and hailed the next cab I saw.’
Ben was silent for a moment. ‘You mean that’s all that happened?’
Roberta stared at him. ‘What did you want to hear? That he abducted me at gunpoint? Tried to punt me onto the electrified rail in front of all the crowds?’
‘I thought perhaps—’
‘Ben, you weren’t there,’ she said imploringly. ‘It was obvious what was happening. I was so scared. That’s when I had the idea of calling you.’ She paused, blushed a little. ‘I … I’ve looked you up a few times. Maybe more than a few times. So I knew you were in France. At least, I thought you were. When I called, this Jeff person told me you’d moved to England. Gave me an address in Oxford but said you’d been spending a lot of time at this village called Little Denton. Anyway, I didn’t know what else to do except jump on the next Eurostar. Arrived in London a couple of hours ago, rented that car and drove like crazy all the way to Oxford. Took me forever to find your place, then you weren’t home, so I found this place on the map and came out here hoping I’d find you. Ben, please. I’m exhausted and I’m terrified. You’ve got to help me.’
Ben was silent for a minute as he tried to put the breathless rush of details together in his mind. ‘I’m confused about this man who followed you from your friend’s apartment,’ he said. ‘You told me before you thought he was a detective. Now it sounds like you’re trying to imply he’s the murderer.’
‘Maybe he is,’ she said. Her expression was intense.
‘Roberta, think about it,’ he protested. ‘The serial killer? You really believe this “handyman” would linger about the scene of his own crime pretending to be a plain-clothes detective, hoping to knock off his victim’s friends as they came to visit? He might be a maniac, but nobody’s that crazy.’
She shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. That would be a little far-fetched, even for me. That’s why I’m totally certain that this serial killer thing is a blind alley. It wasn’t the “handyman” who killed Claudine. Don’t you see? It’s just been set up to appear that way. Some bullshit story to lead the cops off the track while … Oh, Ben, don’t look at me like that. Like I’m some kind of paranoid conspiracy loon.’
‘I don’t think that about you.’
‘You mean, you don’t want to think it. But you’re thinking it.’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t this sicko who killed her, then who did?’
‘How can I know that? Nobody does, that’s the whole idea. They do this kind of thing all the time, when they want to rub someone out who gets in their way.’
‘They do it all the time?’
‘Yes, they,’ she snapped.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Leave that to one side. Next question: who came after you on the metro with the apparent intention of doing you harm?’
‘I don’t know that either.’
‘Roberta, if you don’t know these things, isn’t it simpler just to accept what the police say?’
‘Since when did you ever take a cop’s word for a single damn thing, Ben Hope?’ she demanded hotly. ‘You trust them even less than I do. Besides, the letter proves it’s not that simple.’
‘The letter we don’t have any more,’ Ben said. ‘And even if we did, it proves nothing.’
‘Hold on. She knew she was in danger. That’s the whole point.’
‘If this murderer hasn’t been caught yet, maybe it’s because he’s careful,’ Ben said. ‘Psychopaths are often extremely cunning and devious. Sick, but smart. They’ve been known to plan their attacks, weeks, months in advance.’
‘So?’
‘So he might have been watching your friend for some time before he struck. But maybe he wasn’t so careful that she didn’t spot him and somehow sensed that something wasn’t right about him. That could easily explain how she knew in advance that something was about to happen. She panicked.’
‘Oh, so you’ve got this whole thing figured out,’ Roberta snapped. ‘Then you tell me who the guy was on the train.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe your first impression was the right one. He could have been a detective. You know the way their minds work. He might have wanted to ask you more questions. About the letter, perhaps. Or else maybe the whole thing is just …’ Ben checked himself from saying more. He’d already said too much, and could see the fire in her eyes.
‘Just what?’ she said fiercely.
‘All I’m saying, Roberta, is that maybe you need to think again. That maybe, for once in their lives, the police are right about this terrible thing that’s happened to your friend.’
‘And the rest I just cooked up in my imagination. That what you’re saying, Ben?’
‘You told me yourself you felt dazed, disorientated, after you left Claudine’s place. It would be understandable. People can suffer from all kinds of confusion at a time of great emotional stress.’
‘You’re so sure about this, aren’t you? In one way you haven’t changed at all, Ben Hope. You’re still just as much of a pigheaded bastard as when I first met you.’
‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘Remember, you came to me. You’re not giving me much of a chance here.’
‘What about the numbers?’ she demanded. ‘The GPS location and whatever else is there? You got a theory for those too? I have. If something happened to her, she intended for me to figure it out. There’s more to this, and I’m going to find out what.’
Ben leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, gazing at the ground between his feet and trying to understand. He knew Roberta well enough to know there was absolutely no point in trying to convince her to go home and wait for the police to do their job. And he couldn’t ignore the voice in his head reminding him of all the times he’d seen the cops botch everything up.
‘All right, then explain it to me,’ he said. ‘Someone murdered your friend, and now they’re coming after you, and it has something to do with this letter and a coded message. Who are they? What’s it about?’
Roberta paused to brush away a strand of dark red hair that had fallen into her eyes. Her brow was creased with strain. ‘Fact is, Ben, I think I know. Something tells me this all has to do with Claudine’s research.’
While they were deeply involved in their conversation, a hundred yards away at the other end of the park, a sleek black Audi saloon purred to a halt next to Roberta’s rental car. Its front doors opened and two men silently got out. Neither of them looked out of the ordinary. The one who’d been driving was in his early-to-mid thirties with nondescript brown hair and sunglasses, the other about ten years older, more heavily built, with a receding stubble of grey and eyes narrowed to slits against the early afternoon glare. They were casually dressed in jeans and lightweight jackets.
Neither spoke. As they both gazed impassively at the blue Vauxhall the older man was receiving instructions via a mobile phone. He listened until his instructions were complete, then gave a short nod to his colleague.
The driver opened the boot. He took out the black holdall from inside. It sagged heavily in his hand.
The two men scanned the near-empty park. Within a few seconds they’d located their target on the green wooden bench in the distance and taken note of the unknown male accompanying her. The men exchanged glances when they saw how the target’s companion was dressed.
It was no ordinary camera that was built into the mobile phone the older of the two men was carrying. He quickly, discreetly, used it to snap the figures on the bench, then redialled a number. ‘She’s not alone,’ he said when the voice replied on the line. ‘She’s talking to a priest.’
Pause. ‘Yeah, that’s what I said. I’m sending the image now. Got it?’
‘I’ve got it,’ said the gruff voice on the other end. ‘I see them. Okay, it’s her last confession. His too. Make it quick and quiet.’
The call was over. The two men divided the contents of the holdall. Then moved unnoticed around the edge of the park to their position.
Chapter Five
The word research, from the lips of Roberta Ryder, held certain negative past associations for Ben. After all, it had been some bizarre experimental research of her own that had first not only brought them together but drawn the attention of ruthless people who’d very nearly succeeded in killing them both.
‘You told me Claudine was a lecturer,’ he said. ‘Lecturer in what?’
‘Physics,’ Roberta replied.
‘It doesn’t sound very dangerous.’
‘But then, what do you know about physics?’
He said nothing. Aside from weapons ballistics, the complexities of calculating long-range rifle bullet trajectories, the cold mathematics of war and destruction that he wanted to forget he’d ever learned, he didn’t know much.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘Then I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a guy called Tesla? He was the subject of Claudine’s research, ever since I first knew her.’
‘Of course I’ve heard of him,’ he said defensively. ‘First to experiment with electricity, back in the nineteenth century. Made dead frogs’ legs dance about by passing current through them. I don’t see what—’
‘That was Galvani, Ben,’ Roberta interrupted impatiently. ‘I’m talking about the great Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla, born 1856. Actually I’m not surprised you didn’t know about him,’ she added after a beat. ‘I mean, everyone’s heard of the Marconis and Faradays and Edisons of this world, but Tesla’s the pioneer genius who somehow wound up forgotten. Which is pretty incredible, considering he came up with the principles behind wireless communication, remote control, radar, sonar, robotics, neon and fluorescent light, and foresaw the internet and cell phones as early as 1908. Not to mention his work on—’
‘I get the picture,’ Ben interrupted, knowing she was liable to launch into a whole science lecture if he didn’t break her stream.
‘I don’t know that you do get it,’ she said. She paused a moment. Gazed across the park, where the young mother was still pushing her son to and fro on the swing. The child was howling in delight as the swing’s arc carried him higher and higher.
‘Look at that,’ Roberta said, pointing. ‘That kid’s mother can’t weigh more than a hundred and five pounds soaking wet. She’s even smaller than I am. But see how little force it takes, at just the right moment, to make the swing go up high in the air.’ She looked round at Ben. ‘That’s what Claudine’s research was about.’
‘About shoving a kid back and forth on a swing?’
She tutted. ‘Don’t be so obtuse, Hope. It’s about the principle of resonance, the idea that tiny forces, precisely enough timed and placed, can accumulate to create massive energies.’
‘You’re going to have to be more specific.’
‘Okay, let me put it another way. The Earth’s vibrations have a periodicity of about an hour forty-nine minutes. In other words, if I were to hit something solid against the ground right now, it would send a wave of contraction through the whole planet that would return to the same point one hour forty-nine minutes later in the form of expansion. Follow me?’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ he said.
Missing his sarcasm, she went on: ‘So you see, the Earth, like everything else, is in a constant state of vibration, ever expanding and contracting. Now imagine that at the exact moment when it begins to contract, I detonate a ton of high explosive in the exact same spot. That would accelerate the contraction, so that one hour forty-nine minutes later there would come back a wave of expansion that was equally accelerated. Now, if as that expansion wave began to ebb I set off another ton of explosive, and I kept repeating that pattern again and again … eventually, what do you suppose would happen?’
Ben looked blank.
‘It’s obvious, if you think about it. Given time, Tesla calculated that he could build up enough of an energy wave to split the Earth.’
‘Split the Earth,’ Ben repeated in a flat tone.
She nodded matter-of-factly, as if splitting the Earth were all part and parcel of a scientist’s everyday routine. ‘That’s the idea. See? Small input, big effect. Pretty much all of Tesla’s work was based on those principles, and that’s what Claudine was interested in. She was talking about it when I first met her, and she was still talking about it the last time we had a conversation on the phone, which was about five months ago.’
‘I still don’t understand where this is leading, Roberta.’
‘Let me explain a little more, okay? In the late nineteenth century Tesla invented a small hand-held device called the electro-mechanical oscillator. Based on the same kind of principles, he used it to show that even a subtle vibration, at just the right frequency, could unleash a whole lot of power. I mean enormous, and almost instantaneously. Enough to, say, bring down a building. A house, even a skyscraper.’
‘Sounds more like a bomb to me.’
‘No explosives involved,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘No noise or smoke, nothing chemical, just some basic mechanical moving parts powered by steam.’
‘Steam? What kind of bollocks contraption is that?’
‘A very simple one. Basically a miniature piston engine, with a small on-board boiler heated by internal combustion. In those days, steam was the only power source that could produce enough energy to operate the mechanicals. The whole thing was supposed to have been about six, seven inches long. You could carry it in your pocket.’
‘And use it to bring down a building.’
She nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘But it can’t split the Earth.’
‘Oh no, you’d need a bigger version to do that kind of damage.’
‘I would have hoped you’d do me more credit than to expect me to believe such utter bloody nonsense,’ he said. ‘I mean, come on.’
‘It really existed, Ben,’ Roberta insisted. ‘According to Tesla’s findings its theoretical potential was limitless.’
Ben was losing patience. ‘Theoretical, as in, it’s never actually been done or proved. This is what your friend was into? And you think this is why someone killed her? To do with some pie-in-the-sky notion that you can vibrate a building to pieces with some daft Heath Robinson device?’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Listen, I spent years in the army learning how to blow stuff up. Nobody can do it as efficiently as we did. Millions are spent developing high-tech explosives and training people like me how to use them without getting themselves blasted to smithereens. And a lot of people have been killed or maimed in the process of gathering that expertise. Don’t you think that if there were an easier way, Special Forces units would’ve latched onto it by now? Vibrations and steam,’ he added with contempt. ‘Splitting the Earth. Next thing you’ll be telling me about science fiction death rays.’
She blinked. ‘You knew about the Tesla death ray?’
Ben could see she was being earnest. ‘Now this is really getting crazy.’
‘Check out the evidence,’ she protested. ‘This is historic fact.’
Now Ben had run out of patience entirely. ‘Yeah, and “historic” is the key word here. It’s hardly the stuff that conspiracies are made of.’
‘You got one right here,’ she said fiercely. ‘You just can’t see it.’
‘What’s there to see?’ he said.
‘My friend’s body lying in the morgue, for a start.’
Ben couldn’t argue with that. ‘Okay. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry, but you think I’m full of shit.’
He threw up his hands in frustration. ‘I don’t know, Roberta. You come to me saying you’re in trouble, then you start talking about all this stuff, which, frankly, sounds to me like a load of … what do you Americans call it? Hooey. Just like all that alchemical stuff you were fixated on before.’
‘It is not hooey,’ she said firmly.
‘I can see you sincerely believe that. But what am I supposed to make of it? What can I do?’
She leaned close to him and replied, ‘Help me.’
‘What makes you think I even could?’
‘You’re Ben Hope. What more is there to say?’ She paused, looking entreatingly into his face. ‘You helped me once. It wasn’t so long ago. Won’t you help me again?’
He didn’t reply.
There was a long silence. The young mother had taken her child away from the swings and was holding his hand as they made their way along the tree-shaded footpath into the distance. The park was empty now, apart from just the two of them sitting on the bench.