Vivien asked for a confirmation of what she already knew. ‘Does that mean I have to take him with me from now on?’
The captain spread his arms as if acknowledging the inevitable. ‘I gave him my word. And I usually keep it.’
As if everything had been said on that matter, it was the captain who changed the subject this time.
‘I’m phoning the 67th immediately to have them send you the file on the investigation into this Ziggy. If you think it’s worth it, you can also search his apartment. How about the guy in the wall, who seems to be a major player in this all of a sudden? Do you have any ideas?’
‘Yes. I have a lead. Not a big one, but it’s a start anyway.’
‘Good. Let’s get down to work. And whatever you need, you only have to let me know. For the moment, I should be able to give you what you want without having to spill the beans to anyone else.’
Vivien didn’t find that hard to believe. She knew that Captain Alan Bellew boasted an old friendship with the Police Commissioner, and unlike Elisabeth Brokens wife of Charles Brokens, he wasn’t just boasting.
‘Okay. I’m going.’
Vivien turned to leave the office. When she was at the door, about to leave, Bellew called her back.
‘Vivien, one last thing.’
With a sly smile, he had looked her in the eyes.
‘As far as Russell Wade is concerned, remember this, if you need to. I gave him my word of honour.’
A pause for emphasis.
‘
Vivien left the room with the same smile on her lips. She found Russell Wade standing with his hands in his pockets in the little room where he had waited some time earlier.
‘Here I am.’
‘Tell me what to do, detective.’
‘If we have to spend a little time together, you can call me Vivien.’
‘Okay, Vivien. What happens now?’
‘Give me your cellphone.’
Russell took his phone from his pocket. Vivien was surprised it wasn’t an iPhone. In New York, every VIP had one. Maybe Wade didn’t consider himself a VIP or maybe he’d used his as a chip in a poker game.
Vivien took the phone and dialled her own number. When she heard it ring, down below on her desk, she hung up and gave the phone back to its owner.
‘There. My number’s in the memory. Just outside this building, on your left, is a silver grey Volvo. That’s my car. Go to it and wait for me.’ She loaded the following sentence with sarcasm. ‘I have things to do and I don’t know how long I’ll take. I’m sorry, you’ll just have to be patient.’
Russell looked at her. A film of sadness passed over his eyes, the same sadness Vivien had caught in them a few days earlier.
‘I’ve been waiting more than ten years. I can wait a little while longer.’
He turned his back on her and left. Standing at the top of the stairs for a few moments, feeling slightly perplexed by him, Vivien watched him descend and disappear on the floor below. Then she descended the stairs in her turn and went back to her desk. Along with her excitement at the importance of the task that had fallen into her hands, the impact of the words she had read in that letter had not gone away. Crazy words carried on the wind like poisonous seeds, which had somehow found the right soil in which to grow. Vivien wondered what kind of suffering the man who had left that message had endured and what kind of sickness afflicted the man who had received it, if he had decided to accept his inheritance and carry out his father’s posthumous revenge.
Maybe in a case like this, it would have been more correct to say that the limits had been completely abolished.
She sat down at her desk and connected to the police database. She typed in the words ‘the only flag’ and waited for the results. Almost immediately, a photograph of a man’s bare back appeared on the screen, bearing a tattoo exactly like the one found on the dead body. It was the emblem of a group of bikers based in Coney Island who called themselves the Skullbusters. There were other photographs: members of the group who had been in trouble with the law. Next to the name of each one, their offences were listed, large and small. The photographs seemed quite old and Vivien wondered if any of them was the person who had rested for years in the foundations of a building on 23rd Street. It would be the greatest of ironies. But she wouldn’t have been too surprised. As the captain had pointed out earlier, their work relied a lot on coincidence. The fact that photographs of the same young man and the same cat had been found in two places so distant in time and space was tangible proof of that.
As she was noting down the address of the bikers’ meeting place, the file on the Ziggy Stardust case arrived by email from the 67th precinct. Bellew had wasted no time. Vivien now had all the available material on her computer: the ME’s initial findings, the report drawn up by the detective in charge of the case, and the photographs taken at the scene of the crime. She zoomed all the way in on one photograph taken from the angle that interested her. There, clearly visible, was a red mark on one of the buttons of the printer, a red mark, as if someone had pressed the button with a bloodstained finger. Something else to support Russell Wade’s story.
The other photographs showed the body of a slightly built man lying on the floor covered in blood. Vivien looked at them for a long time without feeling the slightest pity: the bastard had got what he deserved. For what he had done to her niece and God knew how many other kids. Not for the first time, she was forced to realize how much personal involvement changed your perspective on things.
Vivien took the remote control from her pocket and opened the car doors automatically. By the time Vivien got in, Russell Wade was busy putting on his seatbelt. As she observed him, she caught herself thinking that he was a handsome man. She immediately called herself a fool. None of this was putting her in a good mood.
He looked at her expectantly. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Coney Island.’
‘To do what?’
‘See people.’
‘What people?’
‘Wait and see.’
As the car slipped into the flow of traffic, Russell sat back in his seat and stared at the street in front of him. ‘Are you in some kind of state of grace today,’ he asked, ‘or are you always this talkative?’
‘Only with important guests.’
Russell Wade turned to her. ‘You don’t like me, do you?’
The words sounded more like a statement of fact than a genuine question. Vivien was pleased with such a direct approach. For the sake of their present and future relations, she expressed her opinion without beating about the bush.
‘In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t give a damn about you. People can do whatever they like with their own lives. Even throw them away, as long as they don’t harm anybody. There are a lot of people around who need help because they’ve got into trouble through no fault of their own. Anyone who’s adult and conscious and goes looking for trouble, as far as I’m concerned, can look after themselves. That isn’t apathy, it’s common sense.’
Russell Wade nodded eloquently. ‘OK. At least we know where we stand.’
