The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [6]
“You were in London today. This morning.” Suddenly Osborn was aware that Maitrot was still talking to him.
“Yes.”
“You said you came to Paris from Geneva.”
“Via London.”
“Why were you there?”
“I was a tourist. But I got sick. A twenty-four-hour bug of some kind.”
“Where did you stay?”
Osborn sat back. What did they want from him? Book him or let him go. What business was it of theirs what he had done in London?
“I asked you where you stayed in London.” Maitrot was staring at him.
Osborn had been in London with a woman, also a doctor, an intern at a Paris hospital, who he later found out was the mistress of a preeminent French politician. At the time she’d told him how it was important for her to be discreet and begged him not to ask why. Accepting it, he’d carefully selected a hotel known for maintaining its guests’ privacy and checked in using his name only.
“The Connaught,” Osborn said. Hopefully the hotel would live up to its reputation.
“Were you alone?”
“Okay, enough.” Abruptly, Osborn pushed back from the table and stood up. “I want to see the American consul.” Through the glass Osborn saw a uniformed patrolman with a submachine gun over his shoulder turn and stare in at him.
“Why don’t you relax, Doctor Osborn. . . . Please, sit down,” Maitrot said quietly, then leaned over to make a notation in the file.
Osborn sat back down and stared deliberately off, hopeful Maitrot would pass on the London business and get on with whatever was next. A clock on the wall read almost eleven. That made it three in the afternoon in L.A., or was it two? This time of year, time zones in Europe seemed to jump by the hour, depending where you were. Who the hell did he know there who he could call in a situation like this? He’d only had one encounter with the police in his life. That had been after a particularly grueling day when he’d accosted a careless and remorseless parking lot attendant outside a Beverly Hills restaurant for crushing the front fender of his new car while attempting to park it. Osborn had not been arrested but merely detained and then released. That was all, one experience in a lifetime. When he was fifteen and in boys’ school the police had arrested him for throwing snowballs through a classroom window on Christmas Day. When they asked him why he did it, he’d told them the truth. He’d had nothing else to do.
Why? That was a word they always asked. The people at the school. The police. Even his patients. Asking why something hurt. Why surgery was or was not necessary. Why something continued to hurt when they felt it shouldn’t. Why they did not need medication when they felt they did. Why they could do this but not that. Then waiting for him to explain it. “Why?” seemed to be a question he was destined to answer, not ask. Although he did remember asking “Why?” twice, in particular: to his first wife and then to his second, after they said they were leaving him. But now, in this glassed-in police interrogation room in the center of Paris, with a French detective making notes and chain-smoking cigarettes in front of him, he suddenly realized that why was the most important word in the world to him. And he wanted to ask it only once. To the man he had chased down into the subway.
“Why, you bastard, did you murder my father?”
As quickly, the thought came to him that if the police had interviewed the waiters at the brasserie who reported the incident, they might have the man’s name. Especially if he was a regular customer or had paid with a check or credit card. Osborn waited until Maitrot finished writing. Then, as politely as possible, said, “Can I ask a question?” Looking up, Maitrot nodded.
“This French citizen I’m accused of assaulting. Do you know who he was?”
“No,” Maitrot said.
Just then the glass door opened and the other plainclothes inspector came back in and sat down opposite Osborn. His name was Barras and he glanced at Maitrot, who vaguely shook his head. Barras was small, with dark hair and black, humorless eyes. Dark hair covered the back of his hands, and his nails were cut