House of War. Scott Mariani

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СКАЧАТЬ ago, with the exception of one brief call two days ago and another even briefer one just that morning. The last call had happened just minutes before Ben’s encounter with her in the street.

      Ben wondered if the call had had something to do with the fact that she seemed so distraught. Out of curiosity he used his burner phone to call Michel’s number, but got no reply and didn’t leave a message. Then he listed the other numbers she’d called that weren’t stored in her address book, and called each in turn. There was a television repair man, a home insurance company and other assorted useless stuff that he crossed off his list one by one until there was nothing left.

      Moving on to received calls he went through the same process. The mysterious Michel had also phoned her often, though not in the last month or so. Her parents phoned her from time to time, less often than she called them. The rest of it was just as inconsequential. This kind of detective work was seldom very exciting.

      Next, texts and emails. Which were all work-related and concerned various dull administrative matters that Ben couldn’t make head or tail of. The outgoing mails bore an automatically added text at the foot of the message, which said ‘R. Juneau, Research Development Officer, ICS’, with the Institute’s address in the eighth arrondissement of Paris. A fairly swanky location, even though it was probably knee-deep in riot wreckage these days.

      Ben keyed the Segal Cultural Institute into his search engine. It was a private organisation founded in the early nineties and run by a top French archaeologist called Julien Segal. Ben had never heard of him, though there was no reason why he should have. The Institute’s website described its mission as the preservation and protection of ancient art treasures, specialising in the ancient Middle East. They were one of the leaders in the development of new technologies to digitally reconstruct art treasures damaged by war, natural disaster or the ravages of time, and restore them using 3-D printing.

      Middle East. War. Ben thought, Hmm.

      Then he thought, Middle East. War. Nazim al-Kassar. ISIL.

      Hmm again. Tantalising. Not exactly what a detective would consider hard evidence of an actual connection. But enough to make Ben curious to know more.

      The website featured a little ‘About Our Founder’ bio of Julien Segal. A small photo showed a man in his early fifties, with a full head of silver hair and a craggily handsome face with striking, penetrative eyes like a hawk’s. He had spent decades travelling the world and been personally responsible for the rescue of countless ancient artifacts that otherwise would have been lost. He supplied museums, private and corporate collections, gave lecture tours and worked closely with international cultural heritage groups such as UNESCO and ECCO, the European Confederation of Conservation Organisations.

      Ben dialled the Institute’s number on his burner phone and was put through to a female receptionist. He could tell right away from her tone of voice that the police must already have been in touch. She sounded as if she’d been crying, and might be about to burst into tears again at any moment.

      Ben asked to speak to Monsieur Segal. The woman replied, ‘I’m afraid he’s currently out of the country. He travels a great deal. Can I be of any—?’ She’d been about to say ‘assistance’, but before she got that far her emotions got the better of her and she choked up. It took her a few moments to regain her composure. ‘Please forgive me. We’ve just received the most awful news. In fact the Institute is closing early for the day. One of our colleagues was found dead this morning. It’s … it’s just so heartbreaking. Romy was so loved by everyone here. She had only recently returned from a field trip overseas. And now …’ Her voice trailed off with a sigh.

      ‘That’s shocking. My sincere condolences. I’m so sorry if I called at a bad time.’

      She’d sounded at first as though she wanted, or needed, to talk, which Ben was pleased about because the more information he could fish for, the better. But now the woman seemed to compose herself and tighten up, as though suddenly conscious that she was blurting out her heart to a total stranger. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.’

      ‘Dubois,’ Ben said. ‘Bernard Dubois. And you must be—?’

      ‘Jeanne.’

      ‘Of course, that’s right,’ he said, bluffing like hell. Sometimes you could win them over with a little charm. ‘Jeanne, I wonder if you can tell me when Monsieur Segal is expected back in the country?’

      ‘Not for several more days at least.’

      Ben didn’t know whether she was telling the truth or giving him the brush-off. She sounded as though she wanted to get off the phone, so he pressed a little harder. ‘Is there another number I could reach him on? It’s really rather important.’

      ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t help you there. It would be better to call back in a few days.’

      ‘I’ll do that, thanks.’

      She sniffed and said, ‘I really must go. Everyone here is very upset.’

      ‘Just one more question, Jeanne. Was Romy expected at work today?’

      She hesitated, obviously finding the question weird. The information would help Ben piece together Romy’s movements that morning, which might come in useful as he learned more. But Jeanne wasn’t taking the bait. ‘I’m sorry, but who exactly are you?’

      ‘Don’t worry about it. Apologies for having called at this difficult time.’

      Ben ended the call before she could say more. So much for winning them over with charm.

      He went back to examining Romy’s phone. Address book, call records, texts, emails; he was running out of options and didn’t have much to show for it so far. All that remained for him to check out was the folder containing image files.

      Lots of folks went about snapping anything that moved, subscribed heavily to the selfie craze and had thousands of photos crammed into their phones, but Romy wasn’t one of those people. She had only five files stored in the images folder. They were arranged in chronological order. Ben opened the oldest one first, dating back to January.

      The image was a self-taken shot of Romy and a young guy about the same age as her, slightly built, who looked like he might be Moroccan or Algerian. Ben wondered if this was Michel, the boyfriend. They were hugging each other and grinning cheesy grins for the camera on a cloudy beach somewhere, maybe the north coast up near Calais. They were dressed for winter, hats and coats and woolly scarves, and the sea breeze was blowing her hair across her face. She looked happy. The young guy, too. It was a sad picture, in retrospect.

      The next photo had been taken three months ago, inside what appeared to be a bar. Ben could see tables covered with glassware and bottles, and red vinyl bench seating and other people in the background. Another image taken not long afterwards the same day showed the two of them posing outside the bar, pulling silly faces. Ben could see the faded lettering painted on the bar window that spelled out backwards the words LE GERONIMO.

      Ben laid down Romy’s phone for a moment and tried Michel’s number again on his burner. Still no reply.

      He returned to her phone. The fourth photo was a blurry shot of an older couple, taken in the dining room in a middle-class family home a couple of months ago. It looked like someone’s birthday, though the older couple didn’t seem to be having a great time. They both bore a faint resemblance to Romy: her parents, he assumed. Her father had the pasty complexion of a chronic cardiac sufferer СКАЧАТЬ