He chuckles quietly. He asks them to send a copy to the foreign agent as well, since he himself is no longer interested in the matter. He drives as fast as he can to the Hotel Martinez, leaves his car at the entrance, blocking other people's vehicles. When the porter complains, he shows him his policeman's ID, throws him the keys so that he can park the car somewhere else, and runs into the hotel.
He goes up to a private room on the first floor, where a police officer is waiting, along with the duty manager and a waiter.
"How much longer are we going to have to stay here?" asks the duty manager. Savoy ignores her and turns to the waiter.
"Are you sure that the murdered woman, whose picture appeared on the news, is the same woman who was sitting on the terrace this afternoon?"
"Yes, sir, pretty much. She looks younger in the photo with her hair dyed, but I'm used to remembering guests' faces, just in case one of them tries to leave without paying."
"And are you sure she was with the male guest who reserved the table earlier?"
"Absolutely. A good-looking man of about forty, with graying hair."
Savoy's heart almost leaps out of his mouth. He turns to the manager and the policeman.
"Let's go straight up to his room."
"Do you have a search warrant?" asks the manager.
Savoy's nerves snap:
"No I haven't! And I'm not filling in any more forms! Do you know what's wrong with this country, madame? We're all too obedient! In fact, that isn't a problem peculiar to us, it applies to the whole world! Wouldn't you obey if they wanted to send your son off to war? Wouldn't your son obey? Of course! Well, since you are an obedient citizen, either take me to that room or I'll have you arrested for aiding and abetting!"
The woman seems genuinely frightened. With the other policeman, they make their way over to the lift, which is coming down, stopping at every floor, unaware that a human life may depend on the speed with which those waiting for it can act.
They decide to take the stairs instead. The manager complains because she's wearing high heels, but Savoy simply tells her to take off her shoes and go up the stairs barefoot. They race up the marble stairs, gripping the bronze banister so as not to fall and passing various elegant waiting areas on the way. The people there wonder who this barefoot woman is, and what a uniformed policeman is doing in the hotel, running up the stairs like that. Has something bad happened? If so, why don't they take the elevator? Standards at the Festival are definitely dropping, they say to themselves; hotels aren't as selective about their guests as they once were; and the police treat the place as if they were raiding a brothel. As soon as they can, they will complain to the manager, who, unbeknownst to them, is the same barefoot woman they've just seen bounding up the stairs.
Savoy and the duty manager finally reach the door of the suite where the murderer is staying. A member of the "security squad" has already sent someone up to find out what's going on. He recognizes the manager and asks if he can help.
Savoy asks him to speak more quietly, but yes, he can help. Is he armed? The guard says that he is.
"Then you'd better stay here."
They are talking in whispers. The manager is instructed to knock on the door, while the three men--Savoy, the policeman, and the security guard--stand to one side, backs to the wall. Savoy takes his gun out of his holster. The other policeman does the same. The manager knocks several times, but gets no answer.
"He must have gone out."
Savoy asks her to use the master key. She explains that she doesn't have it with her, and even if she did, she would only open that door with the authorization of the managing director.
Savoy responds politely this time:
"No matter. I'll go downstairs and wait in the surveillance room with the security staff. He'll be back sooner or later, and I'd like to be the first to question him."
"We have a photocopy of his passport and his credit card number downstairs. Why are you so interested in him?"
"Oh, no matter."
9:02 P.M.
Half an hour's drive from Cannes, in another country where they speak the same language, use the same currency, and have no border controls, but where they have a completely different political system from France--it's ruled by a prince, as in the olden days--a man is sitting in front of a computer. Fifteen minutes ago, he received an e-mail informing him that a famous actor had been murdered.
Morris studies the photo of the victim. He hasn't been to the cinema for ages and so has no idea who he is. However, he must be someone important because there are reports of his death on one of the news portals.
Morris may be retired, but things like this used to be the equivalent of a chess game to him, a game in which he rarely allowed his opponent to win. It wasn't his career that was at risk now, it was his self-f esteem.
There are certain rules he always liked to follow when he worked for Scotland Yard, one of which was to come up with as many flawed hypotheses as he could. This freed up your mind because you weren't necessarily expecting to get it right. At the tedious meetings with work evaluation committees, he used to enjoy provoking the people present: "Everything you know comes from experience accumulated over long years of work. However, those old solutions are only of use when applied to old problems. If you want to be creative, try to forget that you have all that experience."
The older members of such committees would pretend they were taking notes, the younger ones would stare at him in horror, and the meeting would continue as if he had said nothing. But he knew that the message had been received loud and clear, and soon afterward, his superiors--without giving him any of the credit, of course--would start demanding more new ideas.