Doctors did all the time if they felt it was in the patient’s best interest not to know something.
“Well, it’s a big world and a lot of things cross in it,” McVey said. “It’s my job to find that thread where everything meets and try to sort it out.”
Leaning over to the side table, McVey set his glass down beside Osborn’s keys and stood up. There were two sets of keys. One was to Osborn’s hotel room. The other Set were automobile keys with the figurine of a medieval lion on the key chain. They were keys to a Peugeot.
“Thank you for your time, Doctor. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“That’s all right,” Osborn said, trying hard not to show relief. This had been nothing but routine questioning on the part of the police. McVey was only helping the French cops, nothing more.
McVey was at the door and had a hand on the knob when he turned back. “You were in London on October third, isn’t that right?” he said.
“What?” Osborn reacted with surprise.
“That was—” McVey took a small plastic card from his wallet and looked at it. “Last Monday.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You were in London?”
“Yes—”
“Why?”
“I—I was on my way home from a medical convention in Geneva.” Osborn suddenly found himself stammering. How did McVey know that? And what did it have to do with Jean Packard or missing persons?
“How long were you there?”
Osborn hesitated. Where the hell’s this going? What’s he after? “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything he said, trying not to sound defensive.
“It was just a question, Doctor. That’s my business. Questions.” McVey wasn’t going to let go until he had an answer.
Finally Osborn relented. “A day and a half, about—”
“You stayed at the Connaught Hotel.”
“Yes.”
Osborn felt a trickle of sweat run down under his right armpit. Suddenly McVey wasn’t looking like anybody’s grandfather anymore.
“What did you do while you were there?”
Osborn felt his face redden with anger. He was being put into a corner he didn’t understand and didn’t like. Maybe they do know about Kanarack, he thought. Maybe this was some way to trap him into talking about it. But he wasn’t going to. If McVey knew about Kanarack, it would be he who brought it up, not Osborn.
“Detective, what I did in London is my personal business. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Look, Paul,” McVey said, quietly. “I’m not trying to pry into your private affairs. I’ve got some missing people. You’re not the only person I’m talking to. All I’d like you to do is account for your time while you were in London.”
“Maybe I should call a lawyer.”
“If you think you need one, by all means. There’s the telephone.”
Osborn looked off. “I got in Saturday afternoon and went to a play Saturday night,” he said, flatly. “I started feeling ill. I went back to my hotel room and stayed there until Monday morning.”
“All Saturday night and all day Sunday.”
“That’s right.”
“You never left your room.”
“NO.”
“Room service?”
“Ever have a twenty-four-hour bug? I was full of chills and fever, diarrhea, alternating with antiperistalsis. That’s vomiting, in English. Who would want to eat?”
“You were alone?”
“Yes.” Osborn’s reply was quick, definitive.
“And nobody else saw you?”
“Not that I know of.”
McVey waited a moment, then asked softly, “Doctor Osborn, why are you lying to me?”
Tonight was Thursday evening. Before he’d left London for Paris, Wednesday afternoon, McVey had asked Commander Noble to check on Osborn’s visit to the Connaught Hotel. At a little after seven Thursday morning, Noble had called. Osborn had signed in to the Connaught Saturday afternoon and checked out Monday morning. He’d registered as Doctor Paul Osborn of Los Angeles and gone to his room alone. A short while later a woman had joined him.
“I beg your pardon!” Osborn said, trying to cover dismay with anger.
“You weren’t alone.” McVey didn’t give him the chance for a second denial. “Young woman. Dark hair. About twenty-five, twenty-six. Her name is Vera Monneray. You had sex with her during a cab ride from Leicester Square to the Connaught Hotel last Saturday night.”
“Jesus Christ.” Osborn was stunned. How the police worked, what they knew and how they knew it was unfathomable. Finally, he nodded.
“She why you came to Paris?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose she was sick the entire time you were.”
“Yes, she was . . .”
“Know her long?”
“I met her in Geneva at the end of last week. She came with me to London. Then went to Paris. She’s a resident here.”
“Resident?”
“A doctor. She’s going to be a doctor.”
Doctor? McVey stared at Osborn. Amazing what you find out when you just poke around. So much for Lebrun and his “off limits.”
“Why didn’t you mention her?”
“I told you it was personal—”
“Doctor, she’s your alibi. She can verify how you spent your time in London—”
“I don’t want her dragged into this.”
“Why?”
Osborn felt the blood start to rise again. McVey was beginning to get personal with his accusations and, frankly, Osborn didn’t like the intrusion into his private life. “Look. You said you have no authority here. I don’t have to talk to you at all!”
“No, you don’t. But I think you might want to,” McVey said gently. “The Paris police have your passport. They can also charge you with aggravated assault if they want to. I’m doing them a favor. If they got the idea you were giving me a hard time about something, they might look a little differently at the idea of letting you go. Especially now, when your name has come up in conjunction with a murder.”
“I told you I had nothing to do with that!”
“Maybe not,” McVey said. “But you could sit around a French jail for a long time until they decided to agree.”
Osborn suddenly felt as if he’d just been pulled out of a washing machine and was about to be shoved into the dryer. All he could do was back down. “Maybe, if you told me what you were really getting at, I could help,” he said.
“A man was murdered in London the weekend you were there. I need you to verify what you were doing and when. And Ms. Monneray seems to be the only person who can do that. But obviously you’re very reluctant to involve her—and just by doing that you
Up until that moment Osborn had been doing everything he could to keep Vera out of this. But if McVey carried through on his threat, the media would find out. If they did, the whole thing—his link to Jean Packard, his
