The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense Read online

  In ancient times, these knives were favored by monks, who wore them under their robes. They sharpened only the tips so they could use them in self-defense without causing death.

  The blade of Valentine’s knife was sharpened all the way to the hilt.

  When she saw that it was William, her grip relaxed. She unlocked the doors.

  Once inside, he offered her one of the two cardboard cups of steaming tea. She thanked him. It had been a long night, and the drink was welcome. She opened the tea, and the windows fogged.

  “Has there been a lot going on?” he asked.

  In between sips, she filled him in. It was strange to be with William without François there. Awkward to be two instead of three. She wondered if she should have brought in a third. There were four other members of the team. She could add any one of them.

  “Where do they think Robbie L’Etoile is?” William asked. “Have they said?”

  He was jittery and had circles under his eyes.

  “No, they didn’t. But for a while I think they left and went to find him.”

  “I checked with our men on the way here; no has left the house since they came back from dinner.”

  “They left. They must have used another entrance.”

  “We have both entrances covered. I know how to set up surveillance.”

  “Well, they left.”

  “There isn’t any other way out,” William said. “I’m certain.”

  “That’s impossible. From their conversation, it was clear they went somewhere to look for him. You have to find it.”

  “François wouldn’t argue with me. Valentine, I told you. I know how to do my job.”

  The stress. The sadness. The loss. She knew how he felt. “I miss him too.”

  “What does that mean?” William asked.

  “It’s hard to do your job right when you’re preoccupied. Emotion gets in the way. But no one is going to accept missing him as an excuse for slipping up.”

  “How dare you. I didn’t slip up.”

  “Then where did they go?”

  “You have no idea of how I feel. What do you know about loving someone? A little street whore. If François hadn’t saved you—you’d be dead by now. He told me you’re damaged emotionally. That you’re a sociopath who—”

  Valentine threw what was left of the tea into William’s face. He coughed. Sputtered.

  “You’re out of your mind, you know that?” he growled.

  Valentine pulled her cigarettes out of her backpack. Shook one out. Lit it. “It’s late. Why don’t you go home, William? Cry in your pillow. I’m fine on my own. I’m not going to let your emotional reactions impede the success of this mission.”

  William wiped off the rest of the tea. “If there is an exit,” he said finally, firmly, “I’ll find it.”

  “We’re wasting time. Let’s take the perfumer’s sister. L’Etoile will come out. He’ll do anything he has to, to save her.”

  “How do you know that?” William asked.

  “Isn’t that what family does? Or don’t I know about how families respond to situations, either?”

  “Even if that was the right solution, we’ll never get to his sister. The police are watching her twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Since when is that a problem?” Valentine looked at him. He was facing forward. His profile was toward her. The prominent nose. Receding chin. A little extra flesh where the years were catching up to him. François had been lean. Kept himself hungry. “You sound like a coward.” She inhaled. Drew the smoke into her lungs.

  “Fuck you.” He banged his fist on the dashboard. “You go too far.”

  “People who don’t like to wait are waiting.” She exhaled. “The longer the pottery is out there, the better chance there is of its getting into the wrong hands. Our bosses will hold us responsible for our failures.”

  Smoke had filled the car. Blue smoke. The color of François’s music.

  Thirty-six

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  10:00 P.M.

  In the past hour, Xie had recognized a Beatles ballad and a Green Day song but nothing else. He had no idea what the DJ was playing now. Western music made its way to China, but it took awhile for it to get there. Whatever was blasting must be new. Xie was grateful for the music’s deafening level. It meant he didn’t have to engage in small talk. He could just sit back, sip his beer, and work at appearing relaxed. The cold ale was superior to Yanjing beer. A second bottle would help calm him. But he forced himself to go slow. Be disciplined. He could allow himself only this one bottle.

  He couldn’t take any chances.

  Xie had managed to avoid sneaking out with any of the students for the past two nights, but this wasn’t a clandestine jaunt. This excursion had been arranged by the embassy. The son of the Chinese ambassador was hosting the artists for a night on the town. They’d had dinner in a typical pub and now were enjoying a private club.

  Well, most of them were enjoying it. Xie was preoccupied. The five-ounce electronic device in his inside jacket pocket weighed on his mind. He might as well be carrying a loaded gun. The cell phone was contraband. No other student had one. If found, the phone would—to use one of the slang expressions Cali had learned from watching old American movies on the internet—be a dead giveaway.

  But Xie was as afraid to get rid of it as he was to hold on to it.

  He chugged his beer as a Rolling Stones song blared out of the speakers. Xie knew this one. “I can’t get no . . . satisfaction . . .”

  Did airport security check cell phones? Did you have to put the phone on the tray with your keys and change? It was yet another question he should have thought to ask. But Xie had been so scared when the stranger in the bathroom had clamped his hand over Xie’s mouth, warned him to be quiet, and dragged him into a stall.

  “I’m on your side,” the stranger said as he slapped a phone into Xie’s hand. “In case there is an emergency, the phone is preprogrammed so you can get help fast. Look in the contacts, depending on where you are, just hit London. Paris. Or Rome.”

  “I’m not—”

  “No time to talk. Hide the phone. Be careful. There are people like me all along the way. To help you. Now, wash your hands and try to get some of that red wine out of your shirt so it looks like you were here for a reason.”

  And then the man walked out of the stall and left Xie there.

  Even now, in a room packed wall to wall with people and smoke and music and liquor, Xie felt as if the phone sucked all the air out of the space. It could save his life. He knew that. But it could also be the thing that got him killed before he ever got to Paris. If his roommate was spying on him and found the phone . . . If airport security found it and someone from the school noticed . . .

  “You look so serious,” Lan said as she sidled up to him. Usually so quiet, her flirtatiousness was out of character. But then so were her three beers.

  “I’m just watching. Listening.”

  Lan moved a few inches closer. He could smell her hair. It reminded him of a fruit, but he couldn’t place it.

  Strains of another Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun,” flowed out of the speakers. Xie knew this one too. And he liked it. Cali would want to know if the consulate asked the club to play some older tunes to make the students comfortable or if this was a typical mix. He was surprised by how her inquisitiveness had become second nature to him. He kept imagining how she’d react to what he was seeing, and all the questions she’d ask. This was the first time in the past two years they’d been separated for any length of time. He’d spent years without having a close friend—and only now, on the eve of losing her, did he understand how much he’d come to care about her.

  Even though he knew, without doubt, that he was on the path he was meant to follow, he was going to miss his friend.

  “I think I’d like to dance,” Lan said shyly.

  He could smell the beer on her breath.

  “With you,” she said even more softly. �
�I’ve never danced with anyone before.”

  He didn’t mind dancing, but she was half drunk. What if she got too close to him and felt the phone? What if he slipped or bent over, and it fell out of his pocket? But what possible reason could he give for not dancing with her? What if he said no and she made a scene? Sober, she was a quiet sensitive girl, but half drunk?

  No matter what he chose to do, it could be the wrong choice. So he would do what he had always done. Take the path of least resistance. Avoid attracting attention. Acquiesce.

  Following Lan out onto the dance floor, Xie felt Ru Shan’s eyes on him. Was it his imagination, or was Shan always looking at him? The calligrapher was one of the best there were; a prodigy who had been singled out when he was only twelve for his work. Xie had admired his work long before this trip. And told him so when he’d been assigned to share a hotel room with him. Shan had nodded, took the compliment, didn’t react to it. Cali was always asking Xie to describe things to her in far more detail than he was naturally inclined to deliver. Xie could hear her asking him about Shan. Slim. Short. Lithe. His hands were full of grace, even when he opened a door or held a glass. Small eyes blazing with intelligence. And he liked to talk. Not about art—which would have pleased Xie—but instead about women in the most pornographic ways.

  “They told me you’re quiet,” Shan complained when Xie didn’t contribute much to the scatological one-sided conversation about the British girl Shan had picked up in the hotel bar the first night.

  “Who told you I was quiet?” Xie wanted to ask. Had Shan slipped? Or had he just meant the other students on the trip who knew him from school? But Xie couldn’t ask. Couldn’t do anything with his suspicions but be plagued by them.

  Once Xie and Lan started dancing, he maneuvered so that she was facing Shan.

  Lan leaned closer into him. He was vaguely aware of thighs and breasts pressing into him. But it was the phone he was most conscious of. Her head was right up against it, pressing it into his chest.

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were half closed.

  “You’re a nice dancer,” she said, smiling. “At least I think you are. Since I’ve never danced before.” And she giggled.

  “Thank you,” he said and turned, hoping if he kept moving, he’d keep her distracted. Could she feel the plastic rectangle? And if she did, would she question him about it? What would he say?

  Looking up, Xie saw Shan had danced his partner around too, so he was once again facing Xie. Just a coincidence. Or was his roommate watching him?

  Xie didn’t know.

  Thirty-seven

  PARIS, FRANCE

  11:15 P.M.

  It was a ritual of sorts. His first night in Paris, Malachai always visited the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Hotel. On his eighteenth birthday, his father had brought him here to introduce him to his first drink and his first cigar. It was one of the very few good memories Malachai had of the distant figure who was always finding fault with his youngest son. That night his father somehow resisted invoking the name of the sainted other son who had died too early. Until it was time to leave. “Your brother would have appreciated it here.”

  Tonight the bar wasn’t as crowded as usual. The recession, Malachai thought as he sauntered into the wood-paneled room. It was small and cozy with the feel of a genteel club. Copies of Hemingway’s novels sat on shelves. Press clippings and photographs of Papa, as the author was called, hung on the wall. A shrine of sorts, not just to the man but also to his love of a good drink. Colin Field, the head bartender, who’d been here for more than two decades, was famous for his offerings—one being a cocktail made with rare cognac that actually cost more than most people pay for an entire meal at a three-star restaurant.

  Malachai slid onto one of the black leather stools and greeted Field.

  “Dr. Samuels, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  “You, too, Colin.”

  “What can I get you?”

  “I started out with Krug at my hotel,” Malachai said. “So I’ll leave it to you.”

  Minutes later the bartender placed a flute in front of Malachai, who raised it to his lips and sipped the concoction.

  “Grapefruit juice, champagne, and . . . I’m stumped.”

  Field smiled. “A splash of gin.” He gave Malachai a small plate of olives, nuts, and potato chips.

  “What brings you to Paris? Business or pleasure?”

  Over the years, Malachai had learned that Field was exceptionally well read; in addition to keeping track of his clients’ drink preferences, he kept up with them in the press.

  “A client.”

  “A child?”

  “A little girl with strange memories.”

  “Past-life memories?” Field asked.

  “She doesn’t think so . . . but I do.”

  “I thought about you a couple of weeks ago. I read about that Chinese ban on reincarnation. What did you make of that?”

  “It’s an absurd law. Political posturing. A power grab.” Malachai ate a few nuts. “What’s happening to Tibet and its traditions is a tragedy that only gets worse.”

  Malachai finished his drink, paid Field, and left. Walking through the long corridor filled with glass vitrines, he examined the displays of costly antiques, china, and fashion accessories. There were silk ties and gold cuff links. State-of-the-art phones. Top-of-the-line watches and pens. Women’s jewelry, scarves, lingerie and gloves.

  He stopped in front of a display of gold and what he assumed were white-gold or platinum women’s bracelets. Some plain. Others diamond encrusted. There was one on the bottom shelf. Blackened gold links. No stones. Just big links—almost two inches wide. He was seeing it on Jac, accenting her delicate wrist.

  Passing through the lobby, he smelled something he hadn’t noticed before. He stopped. Sniffed. It was spicy and warm. Welcoming. Ha. She was right. The more you thought about scent, the more you developed a language for it.

  “Are you burning incense?” Malachai asked the doorman.

  “Non, monsieur. It’s the hotel signature scent. It’s called Ambre. It is for sale in the gallery during the day.”

  Malachai thanked him and strode outside.

  “Un taxi?” another doorman asked.

  “I believe a car was supposed to meet me . . .” As if on cue, a black Mercedes sedan with darkened windows pulled up.

  The doorman leaned in, asked the driver who he was picking up, and then turned back to Malachai. “Dr. Samuels?”

  Only after they’d left the Place Vendôme and the driver turned right on the Rue de Rivoli did either of the two men speak.

  “Thank you for being so prompt, Leo.” He looked into the rearview mirror. The driver met his eyes. He was wearing a black uniform, white shirt, and black chauffeur’s cap, with thick wavy dark hair curling out the back. He had on glasses and appeared to be in his early thirties, but it was hard to tell.

  “No problem, sir,” Leo answered in an Italian accent.

  “Winston gives you high marks. You worked with him at Interpol?”

  “I did.”

  “How long have you been on your own?”

  “A few years.”

  Leo wasn’t chatty. That was fine with Malachai. He didn’t require conversation. Just results.

  “Have you been able to gather any new information?”

  “Yes. A bit more than we reported to Winston this morning.”

  Malachai was hoping they’d been able to locate Robbie. “About L’Etoile?”

  “No. The police still don’t have a lead on where he might be and are—”

  “What’s the news?” Malachai interrupted.

  “They’ve identified the man who was found dead in the perfume store on Rue des Saints-Pères. He wasn’t a reporter; he was a jazz musician. A well-respected one.”

  “Masquerading as a reporter? Why?”

  “It’s beginning to look like he had another career, too.”

  Malachai understood. “Who was he working
for?”

  “The local Chinese Mafia.”

  How curious that earlier that evening, Colin Field had just brought up that newspaper story about the Chinese government outlawing reincarnation without obtaining a license.

  “That’s very bad news for us,” Malachai said, more to himself than to the operative. “That means they know what L’Etoile found. I would imagine now they will spare no expense to get it.”

  Thirty-eight

  FRIDAY, MAY 27, 8:30 A.M.

  The bellman from L’Hotel delivered Malachai Samuels’s letter to the residence at L’Etoile Parfums the next morning just as Jac and Griffin were leaving. She took the envelope, opened it and glanced at the letter. As she maneuvered Robbie’s Citröen out of the courtyard and onto Rue des Saints-Pères, she told Griffin what it said.

  “He believes that the pottery is real; that the fragrance is real,” she said. “He’s a brilliant scientist, but . . . we’re such a sad, desperate species, aren’t we?”

  “That we search for something to believe in?”

  She nodded. “Mythology is what we call someone else’s religion.”

  “Ah, your old friend Joseph Campbell.”

  She laughed, but instead of joy it was with defeat.

  “Hope dies last,” Griffin said. Now the defeat was his.

  It was an overcast morning, slightly too cool for the end of May. Melancholy. But melancholy fit Paris. The city wore gray skies with the insouciance of a French woman in high couture. Jac rolled down her window. The air smelled of the river a block away, early morning traffic, the buckets of roses in front of the corner florist, and the fresh bread from the baker down the street.

  Like different instruments all contributing to a symphony, the strains created a unique odor that was unlike that of any other city—or even this city at any other time of day.

  “There’s a dark-blue car following us. It’s been with us since we left,” Griffin said.