Bloodline (19 page)

Paris.

Monday, November 5.

Six p.m.

The instant Charles Martel arrived home he knew he was in trouble. Hélène was waiting for him, and with her was Pierre Richaud, the jeweler who had made the replicas of her stolen jewelry. Charles stood in the doorway, in shock.

“Come in, Charles,” Hélène said. There was an undercurrent in her voice that terrified him. “I believe that you and M. Richaud know each other.”

Charles stared, knowing that whatever he said would hang him. The jeweler was studying the floor in embarassment, obviously ill at ease.

“Sit down, Charles.” It was a command. Charles sat down.

Hélène said, “What you’re facing,
mon cher mari,
is a criminal charge of grand theft. You have been stealing my jewelry and replacing the pieces with clumsy imitation paste, made by M. Richaud.”

To his horror Charles found himself wetting his
pants, a thing he had not done since he was a small boy. He blushed. He wished desperately that he could leave the room for a moment to clean himself. No, he wanted to flee and never return.

Hélène knew everything. It did not matter how she had found him out. There would be no escape and no mercy It was terrifying enough that Hélène had discovered he had been stealing from her. Wait until she learned his motive! Wait until she found out that he had been planning to use the money to run away from her! Hell was going to have a new meaning. No one knew Hélène as Charles did. She was
une sauvage,
capable of anything. She would destroy him, without a moment’s thought, turn him into a
clochard,
one of those sad bums who sleep on the streets of Paris in rags. His life had suddenly turned into an
emmerdement,
a shower of shit.

“Did you really think you could get away with anything so stupid!” Hélène was asking.

Charles remained miserably silent. He could feel his pants getting wetter, but he did not dare look down.

“I have persuaded M. Richaud to give me all the facts.”

Persuaded. Charles dreaded to think how.

“I have photostatic copies of the receipts for the money you stole from me. I can put you in prison for the next twenty years.” She paused, and added, “If I choose to.”

Her words only served to increase Charles’s panic. Experience had taught him that a generous Hélène was a dangerous Hélène. Charles was afraid to meet her glance. He wondered what it was she would demand from him. Something monstrous.

Hélène turned to Pierre Richaud. “You will say nothing of this to anyone until I have made up my mind what I wish to do.”

“Of course, Mme. Roffe-Martel, of course, of course.” The man was babbling. He looked hopefully toward the door. “May I—?”

Hélène nodded, and Pierre Richaud scurried out.

Hélène watched him go, then swung around to study her husband. She could smell his fear. And something else. Urine. She smiled. Charles had pissed himself out of fear. She had taught him well. Hélène was pleased with Charles. It was a very satisfying marriage. She had broken Charles, then made him her creature. The innovations he had brought to Roffe and Sons were brilliant, for they had all come from Hélène. She ruled a small part of Roffe and Sons through her husband, but now it was not enough. She was a Roffe. She was wealthy in her own right; her earlier marriages had made her even wealthier. But it was not money she was interested in. It was the control of the company. She had planned to use her stock to acquire more stock, to buy up the interest of the others. She had already discussed it with them. They were willing to go along with her, to form a minority group. First, Sam had stood in the way of her plan, and now Elizabeth. But Hélène had no intention of allowing Elizabeth or anyone else to keep her from getting what she wanted. Charles was going to get it for her. If anything went wrong, he would be her scapegoat.

Now, of course, he must be punished for his
petite révolte.
She watched his face and said, “No one steals from me, Charles. No one. You’re finished. Unless I decide to save you.”

He sat there, silent, wishing her dead, terrified of her. She walked over to where he sat, her thighs brushing against his face.

She said, “Would you like me to save you, Charles?”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. She was stepping out of her skirt, her eyes vicious, and he thought,
Oh, my God! Not now!

“Then listen to me. Roffe and Sons is my company. I want the controlling interest.”

He looked up at her miserably and said, “You know Elizabeth won’t sell.”

Hélène slipped out of her blouse and pants. She stood there, animal naked, her body lean and magnificent, her nipples hard. “Then you must do something about her. Or spend the next twenty years of your life in prison. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you what you will do. But first, come here, Charles.”

The following morning, at ten o’clock, Elizabeth’s private phone rang. It was Emil Joeppli. She had given him the number so that no one would be aware of their conversations. “I wonder if I could see you,” he said. He sounded excited.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Kate Erling looked up in surprise as Elizabeth came out of her office wearing a coat. “You have an appointment at—”

“Cancel everything for the next hour,” Elizabeth said, and walked out.

In the Development Building an armed guard examined Elizabeth’s pass. “Last door to the left, Miss Roffe.”

Elizabeth found Joeppli alone in his laboratory. He greeted her with enthusiasm.

“I finished the final tests last night. It works. The enzymes completely inhibit the aging process. Look.”

He led her to a cage holding four young rabbits, alert and filled with restless vitality. Next to it was another cage containing four more rabbits, quieter, more mature.

“This is the five hundredth generation to receive the enzyme,” Joeppli said.

Elizabeth stood in front of the cage. “They look healthy.”

Joeppli smiled
.”That’s
part of the control group.” He pointed to the cage on the left.
“Those
are the senior citizens.”

Elizabeth stared at the energetic rabbits, frisking around in the cage like newborn bunnies, and she could not believe it.

“They’ll outlive the others by at least three to one,” Joeppli told her.

When you applied that ratio to human beings, the implications were staggering. She could barely contain her excitement.

“When—when will you be ready to start testing it on people?”

“I’m getting my final notes together. After that, another three or four weeks at the most.”

“Emil, don’t discuss this with anyone,” Elizabeth warned.

Emil Joeppli nodded. “I won’t, Miss Roffe. I’m working alone. I’m being very careful.”

The entire afternoon had been taken up with a board meeting, and it had gone well. Walther had not appeared. Charles had again brought up the subject of selling the stock, but Elizabeth had firmly vetoed it. After that, Ivo had been his charming self, as had Alec. Charles seemed unusually tense. Elizabeth wished she knew why.

She invited them all to stay in Zurich and have dinner with her. As casually as possible, Elizabeth brought up the problems that had been mentioned in the report, watching for a reaction of some kind,
but she could detect no sign of nervousness or guilt. And everyone who could have been involved, except for Walther, was seated at that table.

Rhys had not attended the meeting or the dinner. “I have some urgent business to take care of,” he had said, and Elizabeth had wondered if it was a girl. Elizabeth was aware that whenever Rhys stayed late at night to work with her, he had had to cancel a date. Once, when he had been unable to reach the girl in time, she had appeared at the office. She was a stunning redhead, with a figure that made Elizabeth feel like a boy. The girl had been furious at being stood up. and she had not bothered to hide her displeasure. Rhys had escorted her to the elevator and returned.

“Sorry about that,” he had said.

Elizabeth could not help herself. “She’s charming,” she said sweetly. “What does she do?”

“She’s a brain surgeon,” Rhys had replied earnestly, and Elizabeth had laughed. The following day Elizabeth had learned that the girl
was
a brain surgeon.

There were others, and Elizabeth found herself resenting all of them. She wished that she understood Rhys better. She knew the gregarious and public Rhys Williams; she wanted to meet the private Rhys Williams, the self he kept hidden. More than once, Elizabeth had thought, Rhys should be running this company instead of taking orders from me. I wonder how he really feels about it?

That evening after dinner, when the members of the board had dispersed to catch trains and planes
back to their homes, Rhys walked into Elizabeth’s office where she was working with Kate. “Thought I ought to give you a hand,” Rhys said lightly.

No explanation of where he had been. Why should there be? Elizabeth thought. He doesn’t have to account to me.

They all set to work and the time flew. Elizabeth watched Rhys now, bent over some papers, rapidly scanning them, his eyes quick and alert. He had found several flaws in some important contracts, that the attorneys had missed. Now Rhys straightened up, stretched and glanced at his watch.

“Oops! It’s afetr midnight. I’m afraid I have an appointment. I’ll come in early tomorrow and finish checking these agreements.”

Elizabeth wondered if his appointment was with the brain surgeon or with one of his other—She stopped herself. What Rhys Williams did with his private life was his own business.

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t realize it was so late. You run along. Kate and I will finish reading these papers.”

Rhys nodded. “See you in the morning. Good night, Kate.”

“Good night, Mr. Williams.”

Elizabeth watched Rhys leave, then forced her mind back to the contracts. But a moment later her thoughts were on Rhys again. She had been eager to tell him about the progress that Emil Joeppli was making on the new drug, to share it with him, yet she had held back. Soon, she told herself.

By one o’clock in the morning, they were finished.

Kate Erling said, “Will there be anything else, Miss Roffe?”

“No, I think that’s all. Thank you, Kate. Come in late tomorrow.”

Elizabeth stood up, and realized how stiff her body felt from sitting so long.

“Thank you. I’ll have everything typed up for you tomorrow afternoon.”

“That will be fine.”

Elizabeth got her coat and purse, waited for Kate, and they walked to the door. They went out into the corridor together and headed toward the private express elevator that stood there, door open, waiting. The two of them stepped inside the elevator. As Elizabeth reached for the lobby button, they heard the sudden ringing of the telephone from the office.

“I’ll answer it, Miss Roffe,” Kate Erling said. “You go on ahead.” She stepped out of the car.

Downstairs the night guard on duty in the lobby looked up at the elevator control board as a red light at the top of the board flashed on and began descending. It was the signal light for the private elevator. That meant Miss Roffe was on her way down. Her chauffeur was sitting in a chair in a corner, drowsing over a newspaper.

“The boss is coming,” the guard said.

The chauffeur stretched, and started lazily to his feet.

An alarm bell suddenly shattered the peace of the lobby. The guard’s eyes flashed to the control board. The red light was moving in a quick plunging pattern, gathering speed, marking the descent of the elevator.

It was out of control.

“Oh, Jesus!” the guard mumbled.

He hurried to the board, jerked open a panel and
pulled the emergency switch to activate the safety brake. The red light continued its downward plunge. The chauffeur had hurried over to the control panel. He saw the look on the guard’s face.

“What’s going—?”

“Get away!” the guard yelled. “It’s going to crash!”

They ran from the bank of elevators toward the farthest wall. The lobby was beginning to vibrate with the speed of the runaway car inside the shaft, and the guard thought,
Don’t let her be in it,
and as the plunging elevator shot past the lobby, he heard the terrified screams from inside.

An instant later, there was a loud roar, and the building shuddered as though it had been hit by an earthquake.

Chief Inspector Otto Schmied of the Zurich Kriminal Polizei was seated at his desk, eyes closed, taking deep yoga breaths, trying to calm himself, trying to control the fury that filled him.

In police procedure there were rules that were so basic, so obvious, that no one had thought it even necessary to put them in the police manual. They were simply taken for granted, like eating, or sleeping, or breathing. For example, when an accident-related fatality occurred, the first thing the investigating detective did—the
very
first thing a detective did, the simple, obvious, you-don’t-have-to-draw-it-on-a-fucking-blackboard thing he did—was to visit the scene of the accident. Nothing could be more elementary than that. Yet staring up at Chief Inspector Otto Schmied from his desk was a report from Detective Max Hornung that violated every element of police procedure. I should have expected it, the Inspector told himself bitterly. Why am I even surprised?

Detective Hornung was Inspector Schmied’s albatross, his bête noire, his—Inspector Schmied was an ardent admirer of Melville—his Moby Dick. The inspector took another deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Then, only slightly less agitated, he picked up Detective Hornung’s report and read it again from the beginning.

I began an immediate investigation. By 1:35
A.M
. I obtained the name of the superintendent of the Roffe and Sons administration building and from him got the name of the chief architect of the building.

2:30
A.M
. I located the chief architect. He
was celebrating his birthday at La Puce. He gave me the name of the company that had installed the elevators in the building, Rudolf Schatz, A. G.

At 3:15
A.M
. I telephoned Mr. Rudolf Schatz at his home and requested him to immediately locate the plans for the elevators. I also requested the master budget sheets along with preliminary estimates, final estimates and final costs; I also requested a complete inventory of all mechanical and electrical materials used.

At this point Inspector Schmied could feel a familiar twitch starting in his right cheek. He took several deep breaths and read on.

6:15
A.M
. The requested documents were delivered to me here at police headquarters by Mr. Schatz’s wife. After an examination of the preliminary budget and fianl costs I was satisfied that:

1. no inferior materials were substituted in building the elevators;
   
2. because of the reputation of the builders, inferior workmanship could be ruled out as a cause of the crash;
   
3. the safety measures built into the elevators were adequate;
   
4. my conclusion therefore was that the cause of the crash was not an accident [Signed]
   Max Hornung, CID
   

N.B. Since my phone calls took place during the course of the night and early morning,
it is possible that you may receive one or two complaints from some of the people I might have awakened.

Inspector Schmied savagely slammed the report down on his desk. “It is possible!” “Might have awakened”! The chief inspector had been under attack the entire morning by half of the officials of the Swiss government. What did he think he was running—a gestapo? How dare he awaken the president of a respectable building corporation and order him to deliver documents in the middle of the night? How dare he impugn the integrity of a reputable firm like Rudolf Schatz? And on and on and on.

But the thing that was so stunning—that was so incredible—was that Detective Max Hornung had not even
appeared
at the scene of the accident until
fourteen hours
after it was reported! By the time he arrived the victim had been removed, identified and autopsied. Half a dozen other detectives had examined the scene of the accident, had questioned witnesses and had filed their reports.

When Chief Inspector Schmied finished rereading Detective Max Hornung’s report, he summoned him to his office.

The very sight of Detective Max Hornung was anathema to the chief inspector. Max Hornung was a dumpy, wistful-looking man, egg-bald, with a face that had been put together by an absentminded prankster. His head was too large, his ears were too small, and his mouth was a raisin stuck in the middle of a pudding face. Detective Max Hornung was six inches too short to meet the rigid standards of the Zurich Kriminal Polizei, fifteen pounds too light,
and hopelessly nearsighted. To top it all off, he was arrogant. All the men on the force felt unanimously about Detective Hornung: they hated him.

“Why don’t you fire him?” the chief inspector’s wife had asked, and he had almost struck her.

The reason that Max Hornung was on the Zurich detective force was that he had single-handedly contributed more to the Swiss national income than all the chocolate and watch factories combined. Max Hornung was an accountant, a mathematical genius with an encyclopedic knowledge of fiscal matters, an instinct for the chicanery of man, and a patience that would have made Job weep with envy. Max had been a clerk in the Betrug Abteilung, the department set up to investigate financial frauds, irregularities in stock sales and banking transactions, and the ebb and flow of currency in and out of Switzerland. It was Max Hornung who had brought the smuggling of illegal money into Switzerland to a standstill, who had ferreted out billions of dollars’ worth of ingenious but illicit financial schemes, and who had put half a dozen of the world’s most respected business leaders in prison. No matter how cunningly assets were concealed, mingled, re-mingled, sent to the Seychelles to be laundered, transferred and retransferred through a complex series of dummy corporations, in the end Max Hornung would ferret out the truth. In short, he had made himself the terror of the Swiss financial community.

Above all things that they held sacred and dear, the Swiss valued their privacy. With Max Hornung on the loose, there was no privacy.

Max’s salary as a financial watchdog was meager.
He had been offered bribes of a million francs in numbered bank accounts, a chalet at Cortina d’Ampezzo, a yacht, and in half a dozen instances beautiful, nubile women. In each case the bribe had been rejected and the authorities promptly notified. Max Hornung cared nothing for money. He could have become a millionaire simply by applying his financial skills to the stock market, but the idea never even occurred to him. Max Hornung was interested in but one thing: catching those who strayed from the path of financial probity. Ah, yes, there was one other wish that consumed Max Hornung, and in the end it proved to be a blessing to the business community. For reasons which no one could fathom, Max Hornung wanted to be a police detective. He envisioned himself as a kind of Sherlock Holmes or Maigret, patiently following a labyrinth of clues, relentlessly stalking the criminal to his lair. When one of Switzerland’s leading financiers accidentally learned of Max Hornung’s ambitions to be a sleuth, he immediately got together with a few powerful friends, and within forty-eight hours Max Hornung was offered a job on the Zurich police force as a detective. Max could not believe his good fortune. He accepted with alacrity, and the entire business community breathed a collective sigh of relief and resumed its arcane activities.

Chief Inspector Schmied had not even been consulted about the matter. He had received a telephone call from the most powerful political leader in Switzerland, had been given his instructions, and there the matter had ended. Or, to be more accurate, there it had begun. For the chief inspector, it was the beginning of a Gethsemane that showed no sign
of ending. He had honestly tried to get over his resentment at having a detective—an inexperienced and unqualified one at that—forced upon him. He assumed that there had to be some strong political motivation for such an unheard-of move. Very well, he was determined to cooperate, confident that he could handle the situation easily. His confidence was shaken the moment Max Hornung reported to him. The detective’s appearance was ridiculous enough. But what stunned Inspector Schmied as he looked at this lump of, humanity was the man’s attitude of superiority. He exuded an air that said: Max Hornung is here—now you can all relax and stop worrying.

Inspector Schmied’s thoughts of any easy co-operation vanished. Instead he devised another approach. He tried to sweep Max Hornung under the rug, as it were, by transferring him from department to department, assigning him unimportant jobs. Max worked in the Kriminal-Tech Abteilung, the fingerprint-and-identification division, and the Fahn-dungsabteilung, the division for stolen property and missing persons. But always Max Hornung kept returning, like a bad centime.

There was a rule that every detective had to work as
Brandtour Offizier,
on the night emergency desk, one week out of every twelve. Without fail, each time Max was on duty, something important would occur, and while Inspector Schmied’s other detectives ran around trying to track down clues, Max would solve the case. It was infuriating.

He knew absolutely nothing about police procedure, criminology, forensics, ballistics, or criminal psychology—all the things that the other detectives
were experienced in—and yet he kept solving cases that baffled everyone else. Chief Inspector Schmied came to the conclusion that Max Hornung was the luckiest man who ever lived.

In reality, luck had nothing to do with it. Detective Max Hornung solved criminal cases in exactly the same way that accountant Max Hornung had exposed a hundred ingenious schemes to defraud banks and the government. Max Hornung had a single-track mind, and it was a very narrow-gauge track at that. All he needed was one loose thread, one tiny piece that did not fit into the rest of the fabric, and once he had that he would begin to unravel it, until somebody’s brilliant, foolproof scheme fell apart at the seams.

The fact that Max had a photographic memory drove his colleagues crazy. Max could instantly recall anything he had ever hard, read or seen.

Another mark against him, if indeed one was needed, was that his expense accounts were an embarrassment to the entire detective squadron. The first time he had turned in an expense sheet, the
Oberleutnant
had summoned him to his office and said genially, “You’ve obviously made a mistake in your figures here, Max.”

The equivalent of informing Capablanca that he had sacrificed his queen through stupidity.

Max blinked. “A mistake in my figures?”

“Yes. Several, in fact.” The
Oberleutnant
pointed to the paper in front of him. “Transportation across town, eighty centimes. Return, eighty centimes.” He looked up and said, “The minimum taxi fare would be thirty-four francs each way.”

“Yes, sir. That’s why I used the bus.”

The
Oberleutnant
stared at him. “A
bus?”

None of the detectives was required to ride buses while on a case. It was unheard of. The only reply he could think of was “Well, it’s—it’s not necessary. I mean—we naturally don’t encourage spendthrifts in this department, Hornung, but we do have a decent expense budget. Another thing. You were out in the field on this case for three days. You forgot to include meals.”

“No, Herr Oberleutnant. I only take coffee in the morning and I prepare my own lunches and carry a lunch pail. My dinners are listed there.”

And so they were. Three dinners, total: sixteen francs. He must have eaten at the Salvation Army kitchen.

The
Oberleutnant
said coldly, “Detective Hornung, this department existed for a hundred years before you joined it, and it will exist for a hundred years after you leave it. There are certain traditions that we observe here.” He shoved the expense account back to Max. “You must think about your colleagues, you know. Now take this, revise it, and return it.”

“Yes, Herr Oberleutnant. I—I’m sorry if I did it incorrectly.”

A generous wave of the hand. “Quite all right. After all, you’re new here.”

Thirty minutes later Detective Max Hornung turned in his revised account. He had decreased his expenses by another 3 percent.

Now, on this day in November, Chief Inspector Schmied was holding Detective Max Hornung’s report in his hand while the author of the report stood before him. Detective Hornung was wearing a bright-blue suit, brown shoes and white socks. In
spite of his resolves, and the calming yoga breathing exercises, Inspector Schmied found himself yelling. “You were in charge here when that report came in. It was
your
job to investigate the accident and you arrived on the scene
fourteen hours later!
The whole fucking New Zealand police force could have been flown here and been back home in that time.”

“Oh, no, sir. The flying time from New Zealand to Zurich by jet is—”

“Oh, shut up!”

Chief Inspector Schmied ran his hands through his thick, rapidly graying hair, trying to think what to say to this man. You could not insult him, you could not reason with him. He was an idiot, shot with luck.

Chief Inspector Schmied barked, “I will not tolerate incompetence in my department, Hornung. When the other detectives came on duty and saw the report, they immediately went to the scene to inspect the accident. They called an ambulance, had the body taken to the morgue, identified it—” He knew he was talking too fast again, and he forced himself to calm down. “In short, Hornung, they did everything a good detective is supposed to do. While you were sitting in your office waking up half of the most important men in Switzerland, in the middle of the night.”