“I am Petit of the Gendarmerie, and you are all under arrest. Give me your passports.”
Lucia handed hers over first and after a casual flick through the pages he stopped and compared the photo inside to the woman standing opposite him. “Seems okay,” he mumbled and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
Petit turned his frowning face to Andrej. “And yours?”
The Czech scientist glanced from Harry and Lucia back over to Petit. “It’s in the bedroom.”
Petit nodded and ordered a young police officer to retrieve it and he returned a few moments later with a Czech passport. He handed it to the superior officer who flicked through the pages and once again paused when he landed on the photo ID page. “Anton Zeman?”
“Yes,” Andrej said anxiously.
Harry realized the Czech had gone to the same lengths as Pablo by getting a fake passport, and he also knew it was only a matter of time before the French authorities got to the truth. His thoughts were interrupted by Petit’s brusque demand to see his own passport. He produced the document from the inside pocket of his own suit jacket and handed it over to Petit. “All yours.”
The Frenchman took the passport and thumbed through the pages in the same way, only this time he stopped halfway and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “I see you are a well-travelled man, Monsieur Bane.”
“I’m just trying to find myself.”
“Very amusing,” Petit said, shuffling through the pages more slowly now. “France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Russia, China, Japan, South Africa, Switzerland, Bahamas, India, Malta, Singapore… the list goes on.”
“What can I say?” Harry said. “Turns out I’m not very good at finding things.”
Petit’s stern frown didn’t move as his eyes locked onto Harry’s. “Why do you travel so much?” As he asked the question, he gestured for an officer to place the three of them in handcuffs.
“That’s between me and my psychotherapist,” Harry said, and turned to the man who was locking the cuffs on him. “Aren’t these more of a third date thing?”
Petit sighed as he rolled the cigarette in his fingers. “So this is how you want to do things?” As he spoke, he slipped Harry’s passport into the same inside pocket. “You will see this again when I have my answers.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“The training of the French police is…” he paused as he searched for the correct English, giving Harry the time to interrupt him.
“Sadly lacking in both finesse and strategic flare?”
Petit’s eyes flicked up and locked on the Englishman. “I was going to say very comprehensive and prepares us well for interrogations. I see you are not taking this seriously. Never mind. I have here a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Madrid Police. It enables me to arrest you both for the murders of Pablo Reyes, Mariana Vidal and two police officers and deport you to Spain to face charges. Take him too,” Petit said, pointing his chin dismissively at Liška who was being held in the doorway. “He could be a conspirator.”
“I am no such thing!”
“Save it for someone who cares,” Petit said.
TWENTY-ONE
In the station, Petit laboriously searched his jacket for a Gauloises Brune, found one and placed it on his lip while he patted himself down for a lighter. Behind a large computer, desk Sergeant Barbier looked at the prisoners glumly for a few seconds and then scratched his head. He opened a file on the computer and turned to the Englishman.
“Name?”
Harry nudged his chin at Petit. “Your friend here has our passports.”
The man yawned and gave Harry a disappointed glance. “Name?”
Harry knew there was no point playing games. “Henry Bane.”
Barbier nodded and tapped the information into the computer.
“Date of birth?”
Harry reeled off his birthday and Barbier turned to the Spanish woman standing beside him.
“Name?”
“Lucia Serrano.”
“Bon. Date de naissance?”
Lucia gave the information and Barbier finally turned to Andrej.
“Et vous?”
“Anton Zeman.”
“Date of birth?”
Zeman gave his real birthday, and Barbier tapped the details into the computer for a few seconds before stopping with a frown. “There is no one of this name on here.”
Petit leaned in. “Hein?”
“At least not with this birthday.”
Petit turned to Andrej. “Are you sure about these details?”
“Of course — I know my own name and birthday!”
Barbier frowned and inputted the data one more time. “Still nothing.”
Petit got the passport out and frowned as he studied it once again.
Barbier leaned over and looked down at it and then Petit began to study it more carefully, bending it back and forth and holding it up to the light.
Both men looked at one another and spoke at the same time: “Fake.”
“It is no such thing!” Andrej protested without much conviction.
“What is your real identity?” Petit asked, much more seriously this time.
“Anton Zeman!”
“If you are lying to us you should know that giving false details to the police is a serious offence in France.”
Andrej refused to talk, and after a short exchange in French, Barbier yawned and rubbed his eyes. “We’re done here.”
Petit gave a shallow nod and turned to Harry. “You will stay here until we have the necessary transport to take you to more secure facilities awaiting your extradition back to Spain. As you are aware, there is an EU arrest warrant out for both of you regarding the murder of several people, including…” he glanced at the sheet. “A man named Pablo Reyes, a woman named Mariana Vidal, a police officer by the name of Sergeant Carlos Rodríguez Alonso, and also a Chief Inspector Cristina Fernandez.”
“We didn’t kill any of those people,” Harry said.
“I loved Pablo!” Lucia protested. “How could I kill him?”
Petit shrugged. “Crimes de cœur are not so unusual…” The French inspector turned to Andrej. “You will stay here in France while we try and work out what your part in all this is.”
“We’re not going back to Spain,” Harry said, fixing his eyes on Petit.
“Not now, no. Not until the morning. Now you go to the cells. Monsieur Zeman will stay and answer more questions.”
Rafael Ruiz was in his office when the telephone rang. Last night had been a disaster, resulting in the murder of two colleagues and the disappearance of the Englishman and Serrano. He swallowed two Norvectans with a gulp of mineral water and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Si?”
“Señor Ruiz?”
“Si.”
“This is Capitaine Arnaud Petit of the Gendarmerie, in Paris.”
Ruiz managed half a smile as he spoke his next words. “Is this about the warrant for the fugitives?”
“It is. We have them both in custody, plus a third man we believe may be a conspirator.”
“His name?”
“He calls himself Anton Zeman, but we believe it’s fake.”
Ruiz breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the gods for the EU Arrest Warrant. The EAW was barely ten years old but it had massively expedited the complicated process of international arrests and prosecutions across the borders of various European countries. There had been a structure in place before, created back in 1957 when the European Convention on Extradition had allowed governments greater ease when moving wanted criminals from one state to another, but the EAW had made the process much simpler. Now it had worked just as it was designed to do and delivered the fugitives back to him after his abysmal failure in Madrid last night. His superiors would be delighted.
But he had to be sure. “Both Henry Bane and Lucia Serrano?”