Chapter 50: The Photograph After the Funeral

 

Colette Arnaud's face trembled on the screen.

Elara thought she had misheard.

“Julian Hart?”

“Yes.” The old woman adjusted her glasses. “I remember because his father used his full name. He was angry with him.”

Rhys leaned toward the camera.

“Conrad brought the authorization?”

“I didn't see him carry it,” Colette said carefully. “The boy carried the envelope. Dr. Vale took it from him.”

“Was Julian alone?” Brandt asked.

“Conrad stayed by the lift. He told Julian to stop asking questions.”

Elara's stomach tightened. She knew that tone. Conrad had used it at dinners when Julian interrupted him, and Julian had always gone silent.

“How old was he?” she asked.

“A schoolboy. Thirteen, perhaps. I can't be certain.”

A child in a corridor. A sealed envelope. A father waiting beside a lift.

Elara had seen Julian do unforgivable things as a grown man. She would not invent a crime for the boy he'd once been.

“Did you hear what he was asking?” she said.

Colette hesitated.

“He wanted to know if the man in the photograph was really dead.”

Rhys stopped breathing.

“What photograph?”

“I don't know. Conrad took it from him.”

Brandt drew his notebook closer. “And your record of the visit?”

Colette lowered her eyes.

“I kept the notebook. Until last week.”

Elara felt the familiar drop of hope.

“Who took it?”

“No one. I hid it somewhere else.” Colette looked directly into the camera. “After a stranger called and asked whether I still remembered Julian Hart.”

 

Brandt ended the interview only after arranging for local police to check on Colette. He had asked her not to disclose where the notebook was hidden over an unsecured call.

Rhys paced the consultation room.

“Julian knew about my father.”

“He knew there was a photograph,” Elara corrected.

“He worked with Conrad for years.”

“Yes. And we need to find out when he learned what was inside that envelope.”

Rhys stopped pacing.

“You're protecting him.”

“No.” Her voice sharpened. “I am refusing to confuse proof with anger. Julian stole my work. He forged my contract. I won't need to invent another charge to hold him accountable.”

Rhys's expression changed.

“I shouldn't have said that.”

“No, you shouldn't.”

He crossed the room, then stopped an arm's length away.

“Every time I think the ground is solid, it moves.”

Elara looked at the man who ran boardrooms without blinking and heard the boy listening for a car that never returned.

“I know,” she said.

He reached for her hand.

This time, she let him hold it.

 

Priya arrived with an update from Brandt's officers. The stranger who contacted Colette had used an unregistered number. But there was another lead.

“The photograph Colette mentioned,” Priya said, “might be in Julian's possession. He hired an art conservator last month to restore damaged family photographs.”

“Where?” Elara asked.

“A workshop near the Luxembourg Gardens.”

Rhys reached for his coat.

Priya raised a hand.

“The conservator hasn't agreed to speak yet. Her lawyer is contacting Brandt. If we rush her, we'll give Julian warning.”

Rhys set his coat down again.

Elara almost smiled at the effort it cost him.

“Then we wait for the lawful route,” she said.

“Don't sound so pleased,” he muttered.

“I am a little pleased.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

For one stolen moment, the room felt ordinary.

Then Elara's phone rang.

Julian.

She let it ring twice before answering on speaker.

“Ellie,” he said, his voice silky and familiar. “Have you been asking about my childhood?”

Brandt, who had just returned, gestured for everyone to remain quiet.

“Why?” Elara asked.

“Because a woman who worked at Saint-Claire has started receiving threatening calls. I thought you might care.”

“How do you know that?”

“Conrad told me.”

“So he knows you've been named.”

A pause.

“He knows plenty of things. That's the problem.”

Elara's fingers tightened around the phone.

“What did you deliver to Dr. Vale in 2004?”

Julian's breathing changed.

“I delivered what my father told me to deliver.”

“And the photograph?”

Silence.

“Julian.”

“When I was a child,” he said, very softly, “I thought your mother was the woman who ruined my family.”

Elara went cold.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because Conrad told me she was responsible for a man's death.”

“Whose?”

Julian gave a small, broken laugh.

“That's why I called. I found the photograph again.”

A message appeared on her screen.

One image.

A man stood beside a hospital window, his face partly turned toward the camera. On the back, written in a child's uneven hand, were four words.

Marcus Calloway. After the funeral.