Home.
Simon eased the Peugeot off the highway, taking the first exit into the city. The road narrowed to a single lane and led down a long, gradual hill, dumping them out at the western edge of the new port, a kilometers-long maritime freight depot with towering cranes, freight elevators, and gleaming steel warehouses. Traffic was sparse, and he sped along the coast past the tankers and freighters, a steady wind scalloping the sea’s surface, filling the cabin with tangy sea air.
“How long since you’ve been back?” Nikki asked.
“A while. I got out when I was twenty-three. That makes it—”
“Ages ago. Eons.”
“Glaciers have come and gone.”
Nikki dodged the invitation to make light of his extended absence. “You never visited?”
“Smarter not to.”
“Your mom? Stepbrothers?”
“Like I said.”
Simon considered this, turning his head and gazing out the window toward the expanse of blue running to the horizon. It was a view as familiar as any he’d known.
He’d promised himself never to come back. Yet here he was.
Business, he told himself. It’s different.
He’d imagined this moment too many times to count, unsure what memories might surface that he’d kept hidden, what recollections would sway him most. The truth was, there had been plenty of good times to go with the bad. He was honest enough to admit that he’d enjoyed his days on the wrong side of the law. He did not regret them. The peril and opportunity they brought, the betrayal that followed, had forged his independent nature and solidified his will to dictate life according to his own terms.
He also knew that despite his time in prison, the years in solitary confinement, the acts he’d committed, and those committed against him—all the events he wished most to expunge from his past—part of him would forever be an outlaw. He needed no more proof of this than the quicksilver flash of desire and regret he’d felt walking the scene of the hijacking and conjuring images of Coluzzi and his crew taking down the prince. For a few moments there, the longing for his old life had won him over. False visions of ill-begotten glory and bloody lucre had swum before him, beckoning him with a harlot’s wanton smile.
It’s all still here, Simon. Ripe and ready for the taking. Up to you…
But like a long-recovering alcoholic who one evening smells his favorite whiskey and asks “Why not?,” Simon had quashed any misguided notions about his past or what might be gained from returning to it. Seeing the Château d’If sparkling beneath the midday sun and the twin forts guarding the entry to the old port, he felt solid and at ease, satisfied of what he’d made of himself and eager to continue in the same vein. He’d left Marseille as a prisoner and returned a free man.
The American author was wrong. The past might not be dead. But it was definitely past.
A modern commercial development had sprung up adjacent to the new port. There were boutiques and wine merchants and a slew of small restaurants with tables and chairs set out front. A parking space opened and he grabbed it.
“Hey,” said Nikki. “Why are we stopping?”
Simon pointed to a chalkboard advertising the day’s specials. “Bouillabaisse, fifteen euros.”
“We have time?”
Simon opened the door. “Eat quickly.”
Back in the car, Nikki said, “So where do we start?”
“City of a million. Should be easy.” Simon eased into traffic, driving through the tunnel that ran beneath the port, then up the hill into the center of the city. “How are your contacts at Marseille PD? Any old pals that owe you a favor?”
“One or two.”
“Anyone you can trust?”
“One,” said Nikki. “Maybe.”
“I need anything you can find on Coluzzi. If there’s a piece of paper with his name on it, I want to see it.”
The headquarters of the Marseille police department was located in a block of white concrete across the street from the Cathédrale la Major. Simon pulled to the curb a block away. Nikki jumped out and ran to a nearby kiosk. She returned five minutes later carrying two cellphones in their packaging. After activating both, Simon called her phone so that both had the other’s number.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The old neighborhood.”
Nikki looked both ways, then slipped him her pistol. “Just in case they don’t like you any better than Falconi and his friends.”
He looked at it, immediately thinking of where to stash it. “No,” he said, catching himself falling into old habits. “I don’t work that way.”
“Sure?”
“I’ll try and be more careful this time.”
“Do that.”
“How much time do you need?”
“Depends on how much I’m going to find.”
“If you don’t find a lot, you’re not looking hard enough.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Someone high up recommended Coluzzi to Neill. We’re talking cooperation between intelligence agencies at an international level. They didn’t pick Coluzzi’s name out of a hat.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s been doing this for a while.”
“You think he started with you?”
“September 1999. Look me up while you’re at it.”
“Count on it.”
“Call me when you’re done.”
Nikki nodded, then leaned into the car and kissed him. “Be careful.”