Chapter 25
“It’s an engineering failure.” A man whose mournful eyes betray his stoic expression points out the areas where the floating concrete walkway failed.
He says a bunch of other technical things that Inge and I don’t understand.
But his points are clear enough. One, this walkway to the enormous globe was built months ago.
And two, no amount of tampering would have caused it to fall.
The tragedy was set in motion when they didn’t reinforce the concrete properly.
The bodies they’re just beginning to dig out of the rubble are victims of hasty progress. This was a man-made disaster, not one created by the Watcher.
But…I take a deep breath again, and, there—there it is.
Just a hint of ice. Not the one that haunts my dreams and lingers on my skin like perfume, but the one from the cave.
Diavola smells like winter: life, sleeping.
The Watcher smells like a void. Like the absolute absence of light and warmth and life.
That’s why his scent lingers so long at the scenes of his carnage.
“He’s here,” I whisper to Inge.
She straightens, looking at me with alarm.
“Not right now,” I add. I don’t think so, at least. I scan the crowd of onlookers, but no one sets off alarms for me. They were all drawn to the spectacle of death and pain, as he no doubt was, too. “I don’t think he caused this. But he definitely visited it. He’s in Paris. You were right.”
“This is going to work,” Inge says, squeezing my hand.
She stays to gather any last information about the accident, in case it ends up being relevant, and also so we can prove to the local officers that we’re fully committed and available whenever they need us.
They’ve begun calling the police here Swallows, named after the bicycles they patrol on.
I envy their freedom zipping in and out of crowds as I take a horse-drawn cab to a café near Notre Dame.
Every time I visit Paris, I feel as though I ought to love it more than I do.
But coming from Amsterdam, it feels so cold here.
The white stone buildings, the curved gray rooflines beneath leaden skies.
I miss my city on sticks, the improbable houses with their posts drilled down deep into solid ground, the canals reflecting all the life back up at us so every street seems twice as colorful and vibrant.
I also miss Mama, and I wish she were here with us.
She’s been invaluable, and I’ve come to depend on her more than ever.
I’ve also been careful not to underestimate her again and wary of further sabotage.
But I think she’s at last accepted I won’t give up until this is over.
And because of our newfound understanding, for the first time in my life home isn’t somewhere I stay between adventures or a place I escape before being dragged back by guilt and duty.
It’s where I want to be. Where I hope to return sooner rather than later.
When I find the café, a charming spot tucked in with a great view of Notre Dame’s iconic outline—whatever Diavola says, I can appreciate beauty, and Paris is not without its charms—my contact is already waiting.
Edmond Locard is exactly as I remember him.
Serious and handsome, with a head of thick hair and a hawklike nose over a trimmed mustache and thin lips.
I do my best to seem normal as we chat about forensic developments.
He, too, can’t stop thinking about the cases in Argentina solved through fingerprints.
Then we get into the specifics of what I’m looking for here.
The detectives with him, polite but formal, speak highly of Chief Lépine and his efforts to modernize police work in the city.
I present them with my folders of images and evidence, put together by Inge as an introduction to the horrors we’ve been chasing for five years.
Even the detectives look a little green as they go over the information.
This is why I wanted to speak to them in person, even though Chief Lépine has already agreed to work with us, as evidenced by the Swallow’s visit earlier.
I need everyone on the police force on high alert.
“And you really think he’s here?” Locard asks, scratching his cheek thoughtfully.
“This is exactly the type of atmosphere he hunts in.”
The detectives agree to direct anything that seems suspicious or inexplicable my way, while warning that with such an influx of visitors—tens of millions expected—there will be many ways for clever killers to evade notice.
“We have our own plans to lure him out,” I say, giving them a tight smile in place of an explanation.
“But the more eyes we have looking for him, the better.” It’s true that we need any information they might find.
But it’s also true that if these detectives do notice one of the Watcher’s crimes, it means we’ve failed.
Every delay to our plan comes with the risk of more victims, and I can’t abide that thought.
Normally, I’d ask Locard to stay and talk forensic theories with me all afternoon as a way to relax a little after so much stress, but I can’t. Because this entire time we’ve been observed.
You should look up more often, Diavola whispers in my mind.
Perhaps she thinks herself stealthy, but she trained me to notice her.
I bid Locard and the detectives farewell with a series of firm handshakes and then set off down the rue.
I’m not certain of my destination until I’ve walked nearly a mile and see a sign for it.
When at last I arrive in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, I stroll along the walkways, marveling at this miniature city for the dead.
Mausoleums sit shoulder to shoulder with each other, beautiful edifices to hold memories.
Occasionally I come across one with the iron bars twisted out of shape. Did something break out, or break in?
A year ago, that thought would have been made in jest. Now, though, it makes me uneasy.
I keep going, lower to where there are fewer old mausoleums. Though I’m looking for a place to sit and wait, I pause in front of a statue of a woman.
She’s draped in cloth coaxed from metal by an expert artisan.
Her hands cover her face as she weeps over a grave.
The bronze has turned to a blue-green, making it feel almost as natural a part of the cemetery as the trees.
I’m oddly jealous of her. I want to weep in public, to feel my emotions without reproach or structure.
Then again, she’s a statue. She’s nothing but structure.
With a sigh, I move on. The cemetery goes on for what feels like blocks and I’m already regretting walking all the way here. The fair is enormous, and we haven’t even started properly searching it yet. My feet ache in anticipation of the miles we’ll log.
At least this walk is beautiful. In many places, moss and plants have crept over the headstones, obscuring names and dates, a gentle reclamation by time. Thick vines blanket final resting places, and fresh flowers mark those whose memories are still held by the living.
Such a lovely green place always has a few visitors, but I find a vacant bench beneath a weeping willow. I sit, lower my head, and imagine becoming yet another statue. But who would I weep for? Dávid? Myself? Or the monster I’m awaiting?
“I know you’re there,” I say. “Surely we’re past this stalking routine by now. Or must I wait for a letter?”
The branches don’t so much part for Diavola as they gently sigh out of her way, as though they can feel that terrible cliffside wind she carries with her everywhere she goes.
I catch myself breathing in as deeply as I can, trying to fill my lungs with the scent of her.
My eyes, too, scour her face, lingering on every detail but her eyes.
Her bold nose, so similar to Eleni’s and Thomas’s now that I’ve met them.
Her hair, long and tumbling down her back, always loose and windswept.
Her hands—I’ve never looked at them, not really, but they’re narrow, with long, slender fingers ending in almond-shaped nails.
I’ve tried to figure out how I feel about her, now that I know she isn’t the killer we’ve been hunting all these years.
But she still is in a way, isn’t she? I started out wanting to find the woman who murdered my father.
The fact that she didn’t kill all those others doesn’t change her status as a murderer.
But I can no longer cling to righteous anger and simple hatred.
Every feeling I have about Diavola is complicated and painful and even more full of aching questions than before she gave me so many answers.
She, too, is frozen, and I wonder what her black eyes take in as she studies me. It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since Lesvos.
Well, the first time I’ve seen her. I suspect the reverse isn’t true. I fight against a low, warm flush of pleasure at knowing she told me to give up on her, but never gave up on me in return.
“You followed us,” I say without preamble.
She stares at me for an eternity of seconds before shrugging her broad, elegant shoulders. “I followed him.”
“Really.”
The marble of her face shifts a little and she almost smiles. “I might have peeked at Inge’s maps while you were all still in Amsterdam. But only because I’d lost his trail. You’ve been so relentlessly quiet, I knew you were up to something.”
“You told me to quit.”
Diavola looks to the side as though avoiding my gaze. “That’s why I was in Amsterdam. I wanted to make sure you’d actually quit.”
“Liar.” The confirmation shouldn’t please me so much.
I think this was a test for both of us. She let me glimpse her.
I let her follow me. We both wanted this meeting.
But why? And where do we go from here? And how do I admit to myself how much I’ve missed chasing her over the last year, how much I’ve longed to open my door and find a creamy white envelope waiting?