Chapter 40: Who made the statement

Luca called at seven in the morning.

Bruno answered before the second ring and put it on speaker and we sat up in bed with the covers pulled up and the window open two inches and the city coming in cold and grey outside.

"Richard's statement was filed at midnight," Luca said. "I have a copy."

"Read it," Bruno said.

"It is forty pages," Luca said. "But the core of it is this. Richard is claiming that the Monaco deal was structured without his knowledge by two people acting independently. He names Bruno as the architect of the shell company. He names you, Phoebe, as the signatory who knowingly authorized the transfers." A short silence. "And he names a third person as his witness to both."

"Who?" I said.

Luca said the name.

I looked at Bruno.

Bruno looked at me.

"Claire Voss," I said.

"Yes," Luca said. "The woman who came to you at the airfield. The woman who told you about her husband. The woman who rode in your car to the city and sat in your back seat and listened to everything you said to each other on the way."

The open window let in a blade of cold air and neither of us moved to close it.

"She was placed," Bruno said. "Richard sent her."

"Her husband was detained at the airfield," Luca said. "Richard needed someone inside your circle immediately. Someone you would trust because she came to you with information and appeared to be on the right side."

"She gave us the grey coat man," I said. "She told us about the photograph. She pointed us toward Rosa."

"Yes," Luca said.

"But Rosa was already compromised," Bruno said. "Richard had already been to see her. He already knew we would go to her." He looked at the ceiling. "He needed us to go to Rosa. He needed us to bring the envelope back."

"The envelope Luca took from us," I said. "Which went straight into the investigation."

"Which Richard's lawyers now claim was fabricated," Luca said. "Planted by Bruno to support a false narrative. Claire Voss's statement says she watched Bruno remove documents from Rosa's house and that Rosa told her afterward she had been pressured into writing what was in them."

The room was very quiet.

Outside a bus went past on the street below and someone on the pavement laughed at something and the ordinary morning went on without any awareness of what was happening four floors above it.

"Rosa," I said. "We need to talk to Rosa."

"Rosa is not answering her phone," Luca said. "I have had someone at her door since six this morning. She is not there."

"He moved her," Bruno said.

"Yes," Luca said. "Sometime last night."

Bruno pushed the covers back and stood and went to the window and looked down at the street.

I sat with my back against the headboard and looked at the ceiling and thought about Claire Voss in the back seat of our car. Her grey coat and her steady voice and the photograph of Richard's ring she had held out to us on the pavement. The way she had described her husband with exactly the right amount of worry in her voice.

"She is good," I said.

Bruno turned from the window.

"Richard only uses people who are good," I said. "Mara was good. Harlan was good. Sara was good enough to fool an entire investigation for fourteen months." I looked at Bruno. "He finds people who can perform convincingly and he gives them a role and he runs them like a director who never appears on stage himself."

"Then we need to find the stage," Bruno said.

"Rosa," I said. "She is the stage. Everything Richard has filed points back to her. If she surfaces with a new statement that contradicts what she gave Luca then everything we have built falls apart."

"Then we find her before she surfaces," Bruno said.

"How?" I said. "Richard moved her last night. He has had twelve hours."

Bruno picked his phone up from the nightstand.

"Rosa has a cat," he said.

I looked at him.

"A large grey cat she carried out of that house herself," he said. "She would not leave it behind. She did not leave it behind when we went to her. She will not leave it behind now." He dialed. "There is a veterinary practice in that town. Rosa has lived there for six years. That cat has been to that practice."

Luca answered before Bruno finished the sentence.

"The veterinary practice in Rosa's town," Bruno said. "I need the name of Rosa's cat and whether it has a microchip registered to an address."

Luca said nothing for a second.

"Bruno," he said. "That is either very clever or a complete waste of time."

"I know," Bruno said. "Find out which."

He ended the call and looked at me.

I was already out of bed and pulling on clothes.

"If the cat is chipped to her current address," I said.

"Then we have wherever Richard moved her to," Bruno said.

"He would not have thought of the cat," I said.

"No," Bruno said. "He does not notice small things. He never has." He picked up his jacket. "It is the small things that finish people like Richard."

The number on the screen was one I did not recognize but the area code was the same as Rosa's town.

Bruno answered and put it on speaker.

A woman's voice came through.

"I have one hour," Rosa said. "He left someone outside but they went to get food and I have one hour." Her voice was low and fast. "I did not sign Claire Voss's statement. Whatever they filed, it is not my signature."

"Rosa," Bruno said. "Where are you?"

She gave an address.

Bruno was already at the door.

I grabbed my jacket and followed him out and we went down the stairs fast and out onto the street and into the car and he pulled out into the morning traffic before I had my seatbelt on.

"She has one hour," I said.

"Fifty minutes now," Bruno said.

"She did not sign it," I said.

"No," Bruno said.

"Which means whatever Richard filed, the signature is forged."

"Yes. Again." He looked at the road. "He has one move and he keeps using it because it has worked every time."

"It is not going to work this time," I said.

Bruno glanced at me. "No," he said. "It is not."

I looked at him driving beside me, this man who had moved into my apartment under false pretenses and brought every problem he had through my front door and stayed anyway and held my hand on a dark dock and booked a studio in Lisbon and made eggs at two in the morning and knew that a woman would not leave her cat behind.

"Bruno," I said.

"Yes."

"After Rosa and Luca, After all of it." I looked at him. "I want to go home."

He glanced at me again.

"Your home or mine?" he said.

"Ours," I said.

He looked at the road and the corner of his mouth moved and he put his hand over mine on the seat and held it there and drove.

Forty minutes later we turned onto a narrow road and the address on my phone told us we had arrived.

But from where we stood to the end there was no house at all.