Will leaned forward, clutching his head. He felt like, if he didn’t hang on to it, it was liable to fall right off his shoulders, roll across the room, and bounce down the stairs to the living room where he could now hear Taylor’s admirably calm voice speaking on the phone.
Now things were beginning to make sense.
In a completely insane way.
From the moment he’d regained consciousness, he’d known something was wrong; something vital was missing. Beyond the obvious gaps in his memory had been an uneasy awareness that something crucial was being overlooked. Now he understood why David had been nonplussed and then a little awkward when Will had greeted him. And Taylor…
Will’s heart felt like it was shriveling as he remembered Taylor’s now obvious pain and confusion the night before. The night before? How about five minutes ago?
Poor bastard.
But what the hell had they been thinking? Knowing the score? Knowing the way the world — their world — worked?
They? What had Will been thinking? For God’s sake. Taylor? Taylor, who had the sexual restraint of a young gazelle? Taylor, who changed boyfriends like he changed shirts. Who was on record as saying he believed sexual monogamy was a myth and gay men should reject the romantic mirages and sexual mores of heterosexuals. That Taylor?
Yeah, that Taylor — who was also smart and strong and unfailingly courageous and loyal to the death. Who had absorbed every hard, hurtful bullet Will had fired and somehow managed not to shoot back.
Whatever this mess was, Taylor sure as hell hadn’t gotten into it on his own.
In fact, if Will was going to be absolutely honest with himself, and this seemed like the time for it, when Taylor had walked over and pressed his warm, soft mouth to Will’s…for one dizzy moment all Will had been able to think of was the forbidden thrill of Taylor’s lips touching his. He couldn’t think of a kiss in his entire life that had electrified him like that one.
No wonder he kept having those odd dreams about Taylor.
This wasn’t Taylor’s fault.
Not his fault alone, anyway, and there was no excuse for Will sitting here leaving Taylor to carry the can for him.
He rose from the mattress and made himself walk downstairs. As he reached the ground floor, he could hear Taylor.
“But you could get me in to see her, right? You could pull strings?”
To Will’s great relief, he sounded normal, ordinary. The earth, which had been drunkenly careening like a skipping stone across the universe, suddenly righted itself. If they could just get through the next few hours, next few days, it would all work itself out. No matter what else was going on here, they were still friends and they were still partners, and that was what really counted.
“Merci beaucoup,” Taylor said in his cracked French. “I’ll see you there.” He put the phone down and raised his gaze to Will’s — he must have heard Will coming down the stairs. He said in that same calm, unhurried voice, “Are you okay here on your own for a few hours? I’ve got to get back to work. Bonnet wrangled an interview with Marie Laroche. She’s suddenly decided she wants to talk.”
“I’m fine,” Will replied in the same tone. “But I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Anyway, you’re still officially on sick leave.”
“We’re too shorthanded for me to sit here on my butt thinking about stuff I don’t want to think about anyway. Besides which, as you pointed out, there’s a time factor here.”
Taylor gnawed on his lip, trying to decide — like he really thought he was going to keep Will out of this?
“We’re wasting time we don’t have,” Will observed.
Taylor’s eyes met his, veered away. Taylor gave a curt nod. “Have it your way, Brandt.”
“I intend to,” said Will.
* * * * *
Marie Laroche looked, in Will’s opinion, like a scary grandma. She had a gravelly smoker’s voice and tattooed eyeliner. She looked like she cut her hair herself — with the hatchet she used to decapitate chickens. But she had a deep, surprisingly engaging laugh. She sounded like a woman who had once laughed often and easily.
She was not laughing much that afternoon. None of them were. She took the cigarettes and coffee with a mutter of thanks, lit up, and blew a thoughtful stream of smoke at the soundproof ceiling with the mounted security cameras. She began to speak.
Bonnet translated briskly, “You wish to know about Yann Helloco. Well? Ask your questions. I am Yann’s wife.”
“Is that true?” Will asked Bonnet.
Bonnet shrugged. For the French, shrugging wasn’t merely a gesture. It was its own language. That particular shrug meant It remains to be seen, but we’re checking on it.
“Why have you changed your mind about talking to us?” Taylor asked.
Bonnet translated and then relayed the answer. “I’m too old to go back to prison. The things that once fired my heart no longer warm me.”
Will and Taylor exchanged looks. Will raised his eyebrows.
Taylor asked, “Is Helloco alive?”
“Je ne sais pas.”
They didn’t need a translator for that.
“Did Helloco die in Sarthe?”
Marie seemed to struggle with that one. She said at last, spitting it out for the recorder, “Non. ”
Bonnet and Will looked at each other, well-satisfied. “Tell us what happened?” Bonnet asked.
The story that Marie told unfolded in bits and pieces between long drags on her cigarette and sips of cold coffee.
For some time Yann had been growing less and less invested in the movement. He grew not only cynical about the chances of Breton sovereignty but what Breton sovereignty might ultimately mean. One night he went so far as to say he believed all governments were the same and that Brittany would fare no better under home rule than under French imperialism. This attitude led to increasing tensions within the group. There was even talk of ousting Yann as leader.
Matters grew worse after they blew up the museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze.
At this point in the recital Marie’s story got a little vague.
“Did they mean to blow up the museum?” Taylor asked Bonnet. “Or did they plan to rob it?”
Bonnet translated, and Marie looked alarmed. There was a quick volley of French, and then Bonnet said, “Marie says they did not intend to destroy the paintings. The idea was to close the museum to make a political statement.”
“Did she answer my question? Was the plan to rob the museum?”
Bonnet’s eyebrows rose. She repeated the question. Marie shook her head vehemently.
“Okay. Go on.”
Marie went on. After the affair at the museum went so wrong, Yann was even more disenchanted and began to talk about leaving the movement completely and going underground. He and Marie discussed fleeing the country and hiding out in some part of the world where their faces were not so well-known — and from where they could not be extradited. Unfortunately they both had significant media presence even back in those days when there had been no Internet. Marie in particular, being very photogenic, had had her picture splashed everywhere, including appearances in Hara Kiri and Paris Match. They were forced to conclude that it would be impossible for them to make their escape together. They discussed the option of a separate escape, then living apart for a time, and finally reuniting in six months or so. But this wasn’t a serious plan. Or at least Marie didn’t think so.
After the museum, things were very hot for the group, and they gratefully accepted the offer to stay at the country home of some wealthy supporters of the movement. It was during the stay in Sarthe that everything changed.
It seemed to Will that this part of the story was not so easy for Marie. She had been brusque and businesslike, but now her eyes grew watery and her mouth trembled. She puffed impatiently on her cigarette.
The group had been staying in the country for about a week. One afternoon Marie, Didier, and Roland went to purchase supplies. They returned in time to see the house catch fire. They rushed inside and found the body of a man they believed, at first glance, to be Yann. But examination proved it was the gardener in Yann’s clothes and wearing Yann’s wedding ring. He had been bludgeoned.
It was obvious at once to Marie what her husband had done. He had faked his own death in order to leave Finistère. In doing so he had abandoned her and murdered Guillaume Durand who, unluckily for him, bore a strong resemblance to the reluctant revolutionary.
Once she understood her husband’s purpose, Marie did her best to ensure his plan succeeded. She persuaded the other two to augment the fire and make sure Durand was burned beyond recognition
“Why would you?” Will was skeptical. “After what he did to you. Abandoning you? Why would you try to help him?”
Bonnet translated, and Marie turned her pitch-black gaze his way. Bonnet reported her flat, quiet words. “You would not understand. You are a man and cannot understand love as a woman does. I would have done anything for him. I would have killed Durand myself if Yann had required it. I saw that he had to escape, and I did my best to ensure his escape would be successful.”
Taylor said sardonically, “If you love something, set it free.” To Bonnet, he said, “If that’s true, why has she changed her mind now?”
Bonnet asked the question in French. It was fascinating to see Marie’s expression change, grow dark and bitter.
“She says all these years she believed Yann made the only choice he could, that he left her out of desperation, and that he’s been as lonely as she has. But if he has returned home at last yet has made no attempt to see her, she is no longer willing to protect him at the expense of her own freedom.”
Will commented, “If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it.”
Taylor’s laugh was short. “Ask her why they targeted the museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze?”
Bonnet looked skeptical, but she recited the question.
Marie looked confused. She said something to Bonnet, who said, “They wished to make a political statement.”
“In Bagnols-sur-Cèze? It’s out in the middle of nowhere. How would blowing up a small, mostly unknown museum make a statement?”
“She doesn’t understand the question.”
“She understands all right.” Taylor studied Marie. Will knew that expression very well. Taylor keeping a suspicious watch on the mouse hole.
“What are you thinking?” Will asked him.
“Not sure.”
Will said to Bonnet, “If Helloco lost interest in the movement, why is he back targeting American tourists and French landmarks?”
More back and forth. “She says she doesn’t know.”
After that, the interview was not as productive. Marie denied knowing where Helloco was — or whether he was alive at all — what his motives might be, and whether his brother was knowingly involved in passport fraud.
“Are there any final questions?” Bonnet looked from Taylor to Will.
Will shook his head. It was clear to him that Marie had been, at best, hedging for the last fifteen minutes. They’d got all they were going to get out of her.
Taylor said suddenly, “Why did Helloco only paint graveyards?”
Marie seemed surprised by the question. “Yann was interested in the existential flux and flow.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Taylor turned to Will, who shrugged.
“For Yann, art was a philosophical problem,” Bonnet supplied from Marie.
“And death was the answer?”
The look Marie delivered relegated Taylor to the category of philistine. Or possibly pill bug.
“There’s one graveyard he seems to paint over and over. Which one is it, and why is he so fascinated by it?”
Marie replied that Helloco mostly painted Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Will and Taylor turned to Bonnet, who explained, “It’s the largest cemetery in Paris. Certainly one of the most visited cemeteries in the world. It is also said to be one of the most haunted.”
“Jim Morrison is buried there,” Will said.
“I kind of doubt that was a big factor for Helloco.”
“It is where Yann wishes to be buried,” Marie replied with finality.
* * * * *
“Helloco came back here for a specific reason,” Will said as they headed back to the embassy. “And it wasn’t any sentimental journey.”
“Agreed.”
Will eyed Taylor curiously. “Any idea what?”
“Working on it.” Taylor was frowning at the road ahead, but Will suspected the problem wasn’t the relatively light Parisian traffic.
“What is it about that museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze that bothers you?”
“Hm?” Taylor shook off his preoccupation. “It doesn’t make sense as a political target. It was a small, obscure museum. The only reason I can see it being targeted is it would have been easy to hit. Which doesn’t change the fact that hitting it would be politically meaningless.”
“Who knows what something means or doesn’t mean to fanatics like Finistère.”
“I’m starting to wonder how much of a fanatic Helloco was.”
Maybe Helloco had tired of terrorism, but his girlfriend — wife, whatever she’d been — was a fanatic through and through. Even in her loyalty to Helloco. Not that Will couldn’t, on one level, understand. Laroche was wrong about that, wrong about men not understanding love.
Anyway, most of the romantic poems and songs and paintings in the world were by men, so what was she talking about?
She’d just hitched her wagon to the wrong star. Helloco hadn’t deserved that unswerving loyalty. He’d been willing to abandon her for his own safety — hell, he’d been willing to blow up the house of the people giving them shelter and murder a man. Abandonment had been the least of his sins.
The problem with love was you didn’t always get to choose who you loved.
And sometimes the people you loved didn’t love you back.
He glanced at Taylor. All through that interrogation — in fact ever since they’d left Will’s apartment — he’d seemed withdrawn. Polite, professional, pleasant — and about as distant as you could get and still be in the same room. Or car.
“Look,” Will said abruptly, awkwardly. “I just want to say —”
“I know. It’s easier if you don’t.” Taylor glanced his way, and he seemed so cool, so composed that Will felt foolish for bringing it up again. Especially when they were supposed to be on the job.
But he had to — wanted to — say it anyway. “There isn’t anyone who means more to me than you.”
Taylor said in the same calm voice, “Will, if you say you still want to be friends, so help me God I’m going to shove your teeth down your throat.”