The Golden Calf (17 page)

Before Irene had even consciously made the decision, she began to relate a somewhat censored version of the day’s events. Lucy listened, enthralled.

“So, you are a police officer? And you did not intend to stay in Paris?” Lucy said, after taking a moment to reflect on Irene’s tale of woe. “I know! One of my friends can help you! You need a change of clothes, right?”

“Right. I mean, thank you. And I also have a prescription.…” Irene said, her thoughts tumbling. She managed to find the doctor’s piece of paper from her backpack. “Where’s the nearest pharmacy?”

“
Madame
Huss, please give me your prescription. Go upstairs and relax in your room for a while. I’ll come by with your medicine, your coffee, and some clothes. Your room number is 602. Please have a good rest.”

Overwhelmed, Irene took the plastic card key and headed for the small elevator. It felt wonderful to let someone else worry for once, even though she’d always considered doing so a dangerous weakness. She’d never caved in to this temptation before. Maybe now was the time. Lucy’s heartfelt sympathy had dissolved the lump of rage she felt at Inspector Verdier’s ice-cold eyes and dismissive attitude.

The room was small, but it was clean and attractive. Actually, it looked as though the entire hotel had been renovated recently. A clean, inviting bed—what more could a person ask for?

I
RENE WOKE UP
at the knock at the door. The clock showed she’d slept for forty-five minutes. She didn’t even remember lying down on the bed. She’d probably fallen asleep before her head hit the pillow—she was still fully dressed and on top of the bedcovers.

Lucy was waiting when Irene opened the door. She carried in a tray, and from her wrist dangled a large wax paper shopping bag in dazzling colors.

“Here you go,
madame
,” she said with her shining smile. “My friend would like thirty-eight euros and the prescription cost eighteen.”

Irene had only fifty euros in her wallet, but was relieved to see she had even that much. “Take this for now,” she said. “I’ll go and get more money. Thank you very much.” Irene really did feel incredibly grateful.

“Don’t rush. There’s an ATM around the corner on the way to Montparnasse. Hardly more than a hundred meters from here.”

On the bag, the words
GALERIES LAFAYETTE
were written in an elegant script. There was an attractive pale lilac cotton top and a few pairs of cotton underwear. At the bottom of the bag was a clear plastic makeup bag with small testers of cleansers and skin cream. There was even a mini mascara wand.

F
INDING THE
ATM was not a problem. Irene took out one hundred euros and went directly back to the hotel, where she paid her debt to Lucy.

Rothstaahl’s apartment was almost directly across the street from Hotel Montparnasse Raspail. Feeling like she was taking her life in her hands, Irene jaywalked through the heavy traffic. When she got to the other side in one piece, she swore to herself she’d keep to the lights and crosswalks on the way back.

Irene put the key into the apartment’s front door, then hesitated before she turned it. What if the man who’d attacked her and Kajsa had returned? She decided it was unlikely, but as she opened the door, she still had a knot of worry in her stomach and all her senses on high.

There was no scent of men’s cologne. If only she’d
understood what that strong scent had meant before! She opened the bathroom door to notice that the grooming kit was gone. Had the attacker remembered to take his toiletries with him or had the French police come to investigate and taken it for technical examination? She walked back into the hallway and surveyed the scene. The large bloodstain in the doorway was still there. She took a quick look into the kitchen, bedroom, and living room, and her suspicions were confirmed—there was no sign that the French police had been on the scene. She had locked the apartment door as the ambulance was leaving, and Inspector Verdier had not requested the key—which she wouldn’t have given him anyway. Perhaps he realized that.

The kitchen was tiny and a window opened to the interior courtyard. This side of the apartment building was not as well kept as the street-side façade. Plaster was missing. Obviously the most important thing was the public appearance on the side of the boulevard.

In one cupboard, Irene found simple white place settings, wine glasses, normal drinking glasses, utensils, and a few serving plates. The pantry held instant coffee and a few dry goods. Three pots and one frying pan were the only cookware she could find. Obviously the current resident didn’t cook much. As Irene took a closer look at the furniture, she realized that the apartment must have come furnished. Nothing had a personal touch. No trendy design here—just run-of-the-mill stuff. This didn’t fit with Irene’s impression of Philip Bergman’s ph.com glory days. This apartment would not be featured in a glossy interior decoration magazine. On the other hand, it was Joachim Rothstaahl’s apartment. Perhaps he had different taste.

The bedroom had not changed since she’d left it a few hours before. An involuntary shudder went through her as she looked at the shattered closet door. Overcoming her hesitation, she entered the room and turned on the light.

Apparently, Philip Bergman and Joachim Rothstaahl shared the closet. Since Philip had been much taller and more athletic than Joachim, his clothes were larger as well. They were hanging neatly on clothes hangers. There were shoe racks beneath the clothes, and Irene couldn’t help counting the pairs. Philip had forty-seven while Joachim had only twenty-two. Irene made a quick mental count and realized that she owned just nine pairs of shoes, if she included her rubber boots and the pair of boat shoes she was wearing at the moment.

The bedroom dressers were not as orderly as the closet: underwear, T-shirts, and socks were tossed in random piles.

Next, the bed. If her attacker had stayed in the apartment for at least a night, there could be traces of him left behind. Irene turned on one of the halogen bedside lamps and aimed it at the bed cover. She inspected the surface carefully, and she felt a shiver of excitement when she saw a few strands of hair on a bolster. Irene walked into the kitchen and found a roll of white plastic bags under the sink. She took the whole roll back into the bedroom. Since she had forgotten to bring gloves, she slipped a bag over her left hand. She didn’t dare use the right one yet; every time she moved a finger on that hand, a wave of pain shot to her elbow. She was clumsy with her left hand, and it was difficult to try to pick up the strands of hair and put them into a second bag, but it worked. When she succeeded, she felt elated, but she knew there was still a lot to do. She carefully pulled back the bedcover and repeated the procedure with the two main pillows. There was a lot of hair. She put every strand into another bag. Malm and Åhlén’s job would be to sort through them. It wouldn’t be too difficult. Joachim’s and Philip’s hair could be eliminated immediately. Perhaps the third person’s hair would be detected. And maybe some from the intruder, although there was also the possibility that some could have come from an innocent bed partner. Irene didn’t
expect that. She carefully knotted the bags and put them in her backpack.

In one corner of the room, there was a plain desk with a laser printer and a number of electrical cords, but no computer. Irene pulled open the desk drawers but found nothing of interest. On the wall above the desk there was a bookshelf with some binders. One was marked
APARTMENT
. Irene pulled down that one and began to flip through it. She found the rental contract, signed by Joachim Rothstaahl on April 1, 2001. He’d rented the fully furnished apartment for fifteen hundred euros a month. Irene calculated the exchange rate in her head; fourteen thousand Swedish kroner for an apartment that was only seven hundred square feet. Perhaps that was another incentive to find a roommate.

The next binder to catch her interest was titled Euro Fund in gold lettering on the spine. It contained a number of fat brochures printed on expensive paper. There were graphs and diagrams to give an impression of financial responsibility as well as a number of beautiful photographs of Paris. From the Swedish version of the text, Irene understood that the brochure was meant for investors for a mutual fund with a high rate of return. “Guaranteed to be the best fund with the highest return rates on the market today!” Irene stuffed the entire binder into her backpack.

The only expensive item in the entire room was a wide-screen television that looked brand new. Irene noticed a shelf of videos, mostly American action and horror films. She recognized some of the titles:
Silence of the Lambs
and
Se7en
. As she shifted the video player, she saw a few films hidden behind it. She took them out and read titles like
Lover Boy
and
Beach Boy Sex
. The covers showed handsome, muscular men in provocative positions. She wasn’t surprised, thinking back to her colleagues’ hypothesis.

The apartment gave the impression that its residents had
been in a long-lasting, stable relationship. There was no indication that one of them was there only on a temporary basis. She felt pretty certain that their relationship was sexual.

In the article that she’d read on the plane on the way over, Philip was described as a magnet for young women, but that didn’t mean he was drawn to them.
Perhaps the young women were a cover, especially if he wanted to keep his homosexuality hidden? Or maybe he was bisexual? Perhaps there was a motive for murder in a personal relationship among the people involved?
People’s sex lives were always of interest in a murder investigation, but from experience Irene knew that it was difficult to get to the heart of the matter in such cases. People tried hard to hide the truth when they felt threatened by exposure.

A thought crossed her mind:
the shower. Perhaps there were hairs from the intruder caught in the drain
. She picked up the roll of bags and headed back into the hallway. She opened the door to the small bathroom. In the weak light from the lamp above the sink, she bent down to take a closer look inside the shower. She was disappointed when she saw no hair at all. Her bad knee creaked as she stood back up, but not loud enough to cover the sound of a key turning in the front door lock.

“
M
ERCI
, M
ADAME
L
AUENSTEIN
,”
said a male voice Irene immediately recognized. Relief and irritation swept through her as her fear dissipated. If this had been her attacker, she’d have had a difficult time defending herself with no weapon and an injured arm.

A woman’s voice started speaking a stream of French until it was cut short by
“Oui, merci.”

Irene heard the front door close. She knew her visitor would see the light from the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. She was ready when he opened the door, and the light glinted on the barrel of his gun.

“
Bonjour, Monsieur Verdier
,” Irene said.

At least she’d manage to learn one phrase during her day in Paris.

Inspector Verdier pulled the door open all the way but did not lower his gun. “What are you doing here?” he snapped.

“I’d like to ask you the same question,” she replied.

They glared at each other for a few moments. Irene was ready for his ice-cold stare, and she countered it with her own small, tight smile. He looked away. He was obviously used to people melting before his glare.

“Who let you in?” asked Irene, taking control of the situation.

“
Madame la concierge
 … the woman in charge of the building. I wanted to see the scene of the crime.” A muscle
spasmed beneath one of his ears as he clenched his teeth. He lowered the pistol and put it back in its holster beneath his jacket.

“Why did you want to look around?” Irene asked.

Verdier took his time to reply. “The attack on you and your colleague is just one component of an even greater crime,” he finally said.

“That’s not exactly news to me. It’s connected to the two murders in Sweden. Two Swedish citizens were killed, and the victims happened to be living in Paris—”

“Not that crime,” Verdier interrupted. “A different one.”

Another crime? Have the French police also found financial wizards with a bullet in the brain?

“Come,” Verdier said. “Let’s sit down.”

They sat down in the living room, each in their own plush, beige armchair. The Frenchman moved his to sit directly opposite Irene. Perhaps he did this to avoid straining his neck during the conversation, but Irene suspected it was an old habit. He wanted to look his suspects in the eye. Irene, for her part, no longer felt like one.

Verdier spoke first. “You informed me about two murdered men active in the Parisian financial world, so I contacted a colleague in our department of economic crimes. He called me an hour ago to say that Joachim Rothstaahl was on his list. The owner of a Norwegian company had warned us about an offer to invest money in a mutual fund here in France. He’d had a good friend who’d lost a great deal through Rothstaahl and his friends’ deception. He recognized the name and the brochure. They’re using the same pattern they used in London. England sent us confirmation that Rothstaahl had been part of that fraud, although he wasn’t convicted there. For some reason, the court case was handled in Norway.”

Irene already knew the reason behind that, but she was surprised, partially by how quickly the French police had found
information on the pyramid scheme Poundfix and partially by the fact that Verdier had spoken freely, and apparently truthfully.

At last she could comprehend a little of what Joachim Rothstaahl was really up to in Paris. He wasn’t employed by HP Johnson’s Paris office, as he’d told his parents. He’d just continued his London schemes with a new partner.

“Did your colleague know anything about Philip Bergman?” asked Irene.

“No, but he recognized Bergman’s name. He had no idea that Bergman had come to Paris and was involved with Rothstaahl. Do you have any idea why he was here?”