The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel

  What was he thinking of? Ruses, evasions, deceptions. He was a criminal without a crime, a man who could not tell the truth, because in that truth was the destruction of so much.

  He began to perspire again, and the pain returned to his stomach. He felt weak and disoriented. He lay down on Willie’s couch in Willie’s bathrobe and closed his eyes. The image of melting flesh came back into focus. The face emerged; he heard the cry clearly, and he fell asleep, the plaintive sound in his ears.

  He woke suddenly, aware that someone was above him, looking down at him. Alarmed, he whipped over on his back, then sighed in relief at the sight of Willie standing by the couch.

  “You’ve had some rest, and it shows. You look better, and God knows you smell better.”

  “Did you get my things?”

  “Yes, and you were right. They were anxious to know where you were. When I paid the bill, the manager came out and behaved like a rep-company version of Scotland Yard. He’s mollified, if confused. He’s also got a telephone number where you’re currently in residence.”

  “La residence?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid your reputation hasn’t been vastly improved, unless you’ve had a change of heart. The number’s for a hospital in Knightsbridge that doesn’t get a P from National Health. It specializes in venereal diseases. I know a doctor there quite well.”

  “You’re too much,” said Noel, standing, “Where are my things?”

  “In the guest room. I thought you’d want to change.”

  “Thanks.” Holcroft started toward the door.

  “Do you know a man named Buonoventura?” Ellis asked.

  Noel stopped. He had sent Sam a three-word cablegram from the airport in Lisbon: BELGRAVIA ARMS LONDON. “Yes. Did he call?”

  “Several times. Quite frantically, I gather. The hotel switchboard said the call came from Curaçao.”

  “I know the number,” said Holcroft. “I have to get in touch with him. I’ll put the call on my credit card.”

  It was five minutes before he heard Sam’s rasping voice and less than five seconds before he realized it was not fair to ask the construction engineer to lie any longer.

  “Miles isn’t fooling around anymore, Noley. He told me he’s getting a court order for your return to New York. He’s going to serve it on the owners down here, figuring they’re American. He knows they can’t force you to go back, but he says they’ll know you’re wanted. It’s a little rough, Noley, because you’re not on any payroll.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Only that he thinks you have information they need.”

  If he could get to Paris, Noel thought, he would want Buonoventura to be able to reach him, but he did not want to burden him with an address. “Listen, Sam. I’m leaving for Paris later today. There’s an American Express office on the Champs-Elysées, near the avenue George Cinq. If anything comes up, cable me there.”

  “What’ll I tell Miles if he calls again? I don’t want to get my ass burned.”

  “Say you reached me and told me he was trying to find me. Tell him I said I’d get in touch with him as soon as I could. That’s all you know.” Noel paused. “Also tell him I had to get to Europe. Don’t volunteer, but if he presses, let him know about the American Express office. I can phone for messages.”

  “There’s something else,” said Sam awkwardly. “Your mother called, too. I felt like a goddamned idiot lying to her; you shouldn’t lie to your mother, Noley.”

  Holcroft smiled. A lifetime of deviousness had not taken the basic Italian out of Sam. “When did she call?”

  “Night before last. She sounds like a real lady. I told her I expected to hear from you yesterday; that’s when I started phoning.”

  “I’ll call her when I get to Paris,” said Noel. “Anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Plenty. I’ll be in touch in a few days, but you know where to cable me.”

  “Yeah, but if your mother calls, I’m going to let her know, too.”

  “No sweat. And thanks, Sam. I owe you.”

  He hung up, noticing that Willie Ellis had gone into the kitchen, where he had turned on the radio. One of Willie’s attributes was that he was a gentleman. Noel sat by the phone for several moments, trying to figure things out. His mother’s call was not surprising. He had not spoken with her since that Sunday morning in Bedford Hills nearly two weeks ago.

  Miles was something else again. Holcroft did not think of the detective as a person; he had no face or voice. But Miles had arrived at certain conclusions; he was certain of that. And those conclusions tied him to three deaths connected with British Airways Flight 591 from London to New York. Miles was not letting go; if he persisted, he could create a problem Noel was not sure he could handle. The detective could ask for international police cooperation. And if he did, attention would be drawn to the activities of a United States citizen who had walked away from a homicide investigation.

  Geneva would not tolerate that attention; the covenant would be destroyed. Miles had to be contained. But how?

  His unfamiliar forest was lined with traps; every protective instinct he possessed told him to turn back. Geneva needed a man infinitely more cunning and experienced than he. Yet he could not turn back. The survivors of Wolfsschanze would not permit it. And deep in his own consciousness he knew he did not want to. There was the face that came into focus in the darkness. He had to find his father and, in the finding, show the world a man in agony who was brave enough and perceptive enough to know that amends must be made. And brilliant enough to make that credo live.

  Noel walked to the kitchen door. Ellis was at the sink, washing teacups.

  “I’ll pick up my clothes in a couple of weeks, Willie. Let’s go to the airport.”

  Ellis turned, concern in his eyes. “I can save you time,” he said, reaching for a china mug on a shelf. “You’ll need some French money until you can convert. I keep a jarful for my bimonthly travels to the fleshpots. Take what you need.”

  “Thanks.” Holcroft took the mug, looking at Willie’s exposed arms beneath rolled-up sleeves. They were as powerful and muscular as any two arms he’d ever seen. It struck Noel that Willie could break a man in half.

  The madness started at Heathrow and gathered momentum at Orly.

  In London he bought a ticket on KLM to Amsterdam, on the theory that the story he gave MI Five had been checked out and considered plausible. He suspected it had been both, for he saw a bewildered man in a raincoat watch him in astonishment as he raced out of the KLM departure gates back to Air France. There Willie was waiting for him with a ticket for a crowded plane to Paris.

  Immigration procedure at Orly was cursory, but the lines were long. As he waited, Noel had time to study the milling crowds in the customs area and beyond the swinging doors that led to the terminal proper. Beyond those doors he could see two men; there was something about them that caught his attention. Perhaps it was their somber faces, joyless expressions that did not belong in a place where people greeted one another. They were talking quietly, their heads immobile, as they watched the passengers walk out of customs. One held a piece of paper in his hand; it was small, shiny. A photograph? Yes. A photograph of him.

  These were not the men of Wolfsschanze. The men of Wolfsschanze knew him by sight; and the men of Wolfsschanze were never seen. MI Five had reached its agents in Paris. They were waiting for him.

  “Monsieur.” The customs clerk stamped Holcroft’s passport routinely. Noel picked up his luggage and started toward the exit, feeling the panic of a man about to walk into an unavoidable trap.

  As the doors parted, he saw the two men turn away to avoid being noticed. They were not going to approach him; they were going to … follow him.

  The realization gave painful birth to an unclear strategy. Painful because it was so alien to him, unclear because he was not sure of the procedures. He only knew that he had to go from point A to point B and back again to A, losing his pursuers s
omewhere in the vicinity of B.

  Up ahead in the crowded terminal he saw the sign: LIGNES AÉRIENNES INTÉRIEURES.

  France’s domestic airline shuttled about the country with splendid irregularity. The cities were listed in three columns: ROUEN, LB HAVRE, CAEN … ORLÉANS, LE MANS, TOURS … DIJON, LYON, MARSEILLES.

  Noel walked rapidly past the two men, as if oblivious of all but his own concerns. He hurried to the Intérieures counter. There were four people ahead of him.

  His turn came. He inquired about flights south. To the Mediterranean. To Marseilles. He wanted a choice of several departure times.

  There was a flight that landed at five cities in a southwest arc from Orly to the Mediterranean, the clerk told him. The stops were Le Mans, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseilles.

  Le Mans. The flight time to Le Mans was forty minutes. Estimated driving time, three, three and a half hours. It was now twenty minutes to four.

  “I’ll take that one,” Noel said. “It gets me to Marseilles at just the right time.”

  “Pardon, monsieur, but there are more direct flights.”

  “I’m being met at the airport. No point in being early.”

  “As you wish, monsieur. I will see what is available. The flight leaves in twelve minutes.”

  Five minutes later, Holcroft stood by the departure gate, the Herald Tribune opened in front of him. He looked over the top of the page. One of the two somber-faced Britishers was talking with the young lady who had sold him his ticket.

  Fifteen minutes later the plane was airborne. Twice Noel wandered up the aisle to the lavatory, looking at the passengers in the cabin. Neither of the two men was on the aircraft; no one else seemed remotely interested in him.

  At Le Mans he waited until the departing passengers got off the plane. He counted; there were seven of them. Their replacements began coming on board.

  He grabbed his suitcase from the luggage rack, walked quickly to the exit door and down the metal steps to the ground. He went inside the terminal and stood by the window.

  No one came out of the plane; no one was following him.

  His watch read seventeen minutes to five. He wondered if there was still time to reach Helden von Tiebolt. Again he had the essence of what he needed—a name and a place of work. He walked to the nearest telephone, thankful for Willie’s jar of franc notes and coins.

  In his elementary French, he spoke to the operator. “S’il vous plaît, le numéro de Gallimard à Paris …”

  She was there. Mademoiselle Tennyson did not have a telephone at her desk, but if the caller would hold on, someone would get her on the line. The woman at the Gallimard switchboard spoke better English than most Texans.

  Helden von Tiebolt’s voice had that same odd mixture of Portuguese and German as her sister’s but it was not nearly so pronounced. Too, there was a trace of the echo Noel remembered so vividly in Gretchen’s speech, but not the halting, once-removed quality. Helden von Tiebolt—Mademoiselle Tennyson—knew what she wanted to say and said it.

  “Why should I meet with you? I don’t know you, Mr. Holcroft.”

  “It’s urgent. Please, believe me.”

  “There’s been an excess of urgencies in my life. I’m rather tired of them.”

  “There’s been nothing like this.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “People … people you don’t know, in England, told me where you worked. But they said you didn’t live at the address listed with your employer, so I had to call you here.”

  “They were so interested they inquired where I lived?”

  “Yes. It’s part of what I have to tell you.”

  “Why were they interested in me?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. I have to tell you.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “Not on the phone.”

  There was a pause. When the girl spoke, her words were clipped, precise … afraid. “Why exactly do you wish to see me? What can there be that’s so urgent between us?”

  “It concerns your family. Both our families. I’ve seen your sister. I’ve tried to locate your brother—”

  “I’ve spoken to neither in over a year,” interrupted Helden Tennyson. “I can’t help you.”

  “What we have to talk about goes back over thirty years.”

  “No!”

  “There’s money involved. A great deal of money.”

  “I live adequately. My needs are—”

  “Not only for you,” pressed Noel, cutting her off. “For thousands. Everywhere.”

  Again there was the pause. When she spoke, she spoke softly. “Does this concern events … people going back to the war?”

  “Yes.” Was he getting through to her at last?

  “We’ll meet,” said Helden.

  “Can we arrange it so we … we—” He was not sure how to phrase it without frightening her.

  “So we won’t be seen by those watching for us? Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve had experience. Do exactly as I say. Where are you?”

  “At the Le Mans airport. I’ll rent a car and drive up to Paris. It’ll take me two or three hours.”

  “Leave the car in a garage and take a taxi to Montmartre. To the Sacré-Coeur cathedral. Go inside to the far end of the church, to the chapel of Louis the Ninth. Light a candle and place it first in one holder, then change your mind and place it in another. You’ll be met by a man who will take you outside, up to the square, to a table at one of the street cafés. You’ll be given instructions.”

  “We don’t have to be that elaborate. Can’t we just meet at a bar? Or a restaurant?”

  “It’s not for your protection, Mr. Holcroft, but mine. If you’re not who you imply you are, if you’re not alone, I won’t see you. I’ll leave Paris tonight and you’ll never find me.”

  14

  The granite, medieval splendor of Sacré-Coeur rose in the night sky like a haunting song of stone. Beyond the enormous bronze doors, an infinite cavern was shrouded in semidarkness, flickering candles playing a symphony of shadows on the walls.

  From near the altar, he could hear the strains of a Te Deum Laudamus. A visiting choir of monks stood in isolated solemnity, singing quietly.

  Noel entered the dimly lit circle beyond the apse that housed the chapels of the kings. He adjusted his eyes to the dancing shadows and walked along the balustrades that flanked the entrances to the small enclosures. The rows of scattered candles provided just enough light for him to read the inscription: LOUIS IX. Louis the Pious, Louis the Just, Son of Aquitaine, Ruler of France, Arbiter of Christendom.

  Pious.… Just.… Arbiter.

  Was Helden von Tiebolt trying to tell him something?

  He inserted a coin in the prayer box, removed a thin tapered candle from its receptacle, and held it to the flame of another nearby. Following instructions, he placed it in a holder, then seconds later removed it and inserted it in another several rows away.

  A hand touched his arm, fingers gripped his elbow, and a voice whispered into his ear from the shadows behind him.

  “Turn around slowly, monsieur. Keep your hands at your side.”

  Holcroft did as he was told. The man stood not much over five feet six or seven, with a high forehead and thinning dark hair. He was in his early thirties, Noel guessed, and pleasant-looking, the face pale, even soft. If there was anything particularly noticeable about him, it was his clothes; the dim light could not conceal the fact that they were expensive.

  An aura of elegance emanated from the man, heightened by the mild fragrance of cologne. But he acted neither elegantly nor softly. Before Noel knew what was happening, the man’s hands were jabbed into both sides of his chest, and strong fingers spanned the cloth in rapid movements, descending to his belt and the pockets of his trousers.

  Holcroft jerked backwards.

  “I said, be still!” the man whispered.

  In the candlelight, by the chapel of Louis IX, in the cathe
dral of Sacré-Coeur, on the top of Montmartre, Noel was checked for a weapon.

  “Follow me,” said the man. “I will walk up the street to the square; stay quite far behind. I will join two friends at an outside table at one of the street cafés, probably Bohème. Walk around the square; take your time; look at the artists’ work; do not hurry. Then come to the table and sit with us. Greet us as if we are familiar faces, not necessarily friends. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  If this was the way to reach Helden von Tiebolt, so be it. Noel stayed a discreet distance behind the man, the fashionably cut overcoat not hard to follow among the less elegant clothes of the tourists.

  They reached the crowded square. The man stood for a moment, lighting a cigarette, then proceeded across the street to a table beyond the sidewalk, behind a planter filled with shrubbery. As he had said, there were two people at the table. One was a man dressed in a ragged field jacket, the other a woman in a black raincoat, a white scarf around her neck. The scarf contrasted with her very dark, straight hair, as dark as the black raincoat. She wore tortoise-shell glasses, framed intrusions on a pale face with no discernible makeup. Noel wondered if the plain-looking woman was Helden von Tiebolt. If she was, there was little resemblance to her sister.

  He started his stroll around the square, pretending interest in the artworks on display everywhere. There were canvases with bold dashes of color and heavy, un-thought-out lines, and bulging wide eyes of charcoal-rendered children … cuteness and swiftness and artificiality. There was little of merit; nor was there meant to be. This was the tourist marketplace, the bazaar where the bizarre was for sale.

  Nothing had changed in the Montmartre, thought Holcroft, as he threaded his way around the last turn toward the café.