The door closed behind Cemil.
For a moment, Fox was left alone, the room still echoing with that Ottoman-British coldness. Two empty chairs, two half-brothers, two plausible motives, and still no clear lead. Moreau had entrenched himself behind French elegance. Arslan behind that sort of calm which was less a character trait than a form of survival: both had despised Franklin, they’d had reason not to help him, and they’d known all too well that the dead man had been more than just a sponsor.
Fox looked down at the tabletop.
Dana’s sample container was gone, as was her folder. That didn’t make the room emptier, but more uncertain. Without Dana, interrogations always felt a bit like a tightrope walk without a safety net. On the other hand, you could sometimes fall faster. The door opened again.
Shane Hollander came in.
He didn’t enter hesitantly. More like someone who’d decided that too much hesitation in rooms like this looked like a confession. Nevertheless, the game was still in his body: tension in his shoulders, breathing a touch too fast, the kind of alertness that didn’t come from tiredness, but from too many things that could go wrong at once.
Fox gestured towards the chair.
“Captain Hollander.”
Shane sat down immediately this time.
Fox remained standing. He didn’t want to balance out the hierarchical dynamic. Not with Shane. Shane was a player; players understood positions. So he was given one.
“You’re currently the only one of the four captains without a dead father figure, a noble family history or a Franco-Ottoman marital drama.”
Shane looked at him. “That almost sounds like a compliment.”
“It’s just an observation.”
“Then it’s probably imported from Aruba.”
Fox ignored that. “You just said you’d heard voices in the corridor. Franklin. The doctor. Tense. Nothing more.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a bit like a private detective, isn’t it?”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
Fox accepted that, because Shane was one of those people who, under pressure, often only became useful when they believed you were heading in the wrong direction.
“Right,” said Fox. “Let’s put it another way: you’ve never met Franklin before?”
“Not consciously.”
“And yet you’re not reacting to his death like a man who’s merely experiencing a sponsorship problem at the wrong moment.”
Shane held his gaze. No evasive movement. With him, that wasn’t necessarily honesty, but rather discipline.
“Someone died right before my eyes. That’s not normal. I’m not a soldier or… a secret agent.”
“You’re right about that. For me, corpses are part of everyday life,” said Fox. “You get used to the dead. Dying is more terrifying than death. In death, no one is tense anymore, no one is hiding anything. In dying, on the other hand, many still want to say something with their last breath. A legacy. A blessing. A curse or a confession.”
Silence. Fox waited, just as Shane did.
Then Fox deliberately pushed the first ruby in the wrong direction.
“Were you worried that Franklin might say something about you before he died?”
A tiny twitch crossed Shane’s face, a mixture of guilt, surprise and a desire to escape.
“About me?”
“You’re the British star attraction of the evening.”
“I’m captain of the British team.”
“Born in Ottawa, shaped by sport in Montreal, marketable in US, Confederate and Mexican media, highly connectable with international sponsors.” Fox tilted his head. “Sometimes nationality is easier on posters than in biographies.”
Shane’s mouth narrowed.
Fox continued: “If Franklin wanted to control money, influence or the outcome of the evening, you would have been useful. Perhaps even blackmailable.”
Shane snorted briefly, dryly. “If you’re going to pin doping on me now, at least come up with something with a bit more style.”
Fox took note of the word immediately, not because it proved Shane had been thinking about doping, but because his brain was too quick to supply the kind of threat he himself considered plausible.
“I didn’t say doping.”
“No. You’ve just unfairly levelled a suspicion at me because you’re jealous of my newspaper coverage compared to yours.”
“You weren’t so snappy before. It could also be,” said Fox, “that Franklin wanted to push you into a secret deal with Rozanov to influence the outcome of the final.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Shane’s breathing became more frantic, however much he tried to rein it in.
“And why with Rozanov? He’s a Soviet captain. What was I supposed to discuss with him?”
There was the first real movement.
Fox took a step closer.
“Do you have a problem with the Soviet Union? Or with Rozanow personally?”
Shane realised immediately that it was too late to back down. He ran his hand over his mouth once, as if he wanted to take back his last word.
“I have no problem with Rozanov. I have nothing to do with Rozanov. This is about the dead philanthropist, isn’t it, not him.”
“What?”
Shane looked down at the tabletop to keep his face calm.
“I heard the doctor talking to Franklin. In the room down the corridor. Something about old records and payments.”
Fox nodded very slowly.
“And your first thought was?”
Shane said nothing.
Fox took no chances with warmth.
“Not: how terrible. Not: what sort of sponsor? Not: hopefully the tournament won’t be cancelled. Your first thought was of someone specific.”
Shane looked up.
Fox said, “So you didn’t want corruption to be brought up?”
“I didn’t want the scholarship programme to get dragged through the mud because of some old man and some rotten bit of state history.”
“That’s remarkably considerate. Even towards your four opponents.”
Shane looked at him. This time, completely straight.
“Perhaps, as captain, I’m naturally considerate.”
“And what did you think when Franklin then collapsed on the ice?”
Shane answered immediately this time.
“That it wasn’t a coincidence anymore.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because even before that, he sounded as if there was something clinging to him that wasn’t meant to die with him.”
Fox now adopted the tone he used for those moments when truth was lightly disguised as loyalty.
“Did you think Rozanow had killed him?”
Shane fell silent.
The silence lasted too long for a ‘no’, too short for a carefully crafted lie.
“Why Rozanow?” Shane said at last. “Franklin’s sons are Arslan and Moreau. That’s the crazy family history, not Ilya. All I know is that family histories drag people into things they never signed up for.”
Fox heard the shift.
“You’re not talking about the other three. You’re talking about yourself.”
Shane gave a short laugh, but without any humour.
“You like doing that, don’t you?”
“You’re asking little questions here! Do you know I was in Latvia in August? I’ve got no problem with the Soviet Union. At least not with the one today.”
Shane leaned back, for real this time. He didn’t look any more comfortable. Just more tired.
“I’m not related to the man. I owe him nothing. I don’t owe any of them out there anything. But when I see everyone here suddenly throwing around talk of ancestry, names, France, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and all sorts of old rubbish, then I know pretty well who’s next in line if no one’s paying attention.”
“Rozanov.”
“Yes. Because people like you always blame everything first on the Russians, then on the Chinese, and finally on the aliens, just to distract from your own helplessness. Solve the murder instead of accusing us.”
Fox raised an eyebrow. “People like me?”
“The FBI.”
“I thought you meant tennis players.”
Shane stared at him.
“Bad timing for a sports joke,” said Fox. “I know.”
Then he turned serious again. “You seem to be standing in the way of Rozanov’s problems becoming dangerous rather often.”
Silence. That was the point where another man would have got angry. Shane just became even more alert.
“I haven’t killed anyone. And I stand on the ice where people like Rozanow stand too.”
He hastily added: “And Arslan. And Moreau. And Takamura.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Shane said nothing.
Fox tapped his finger on the table.
“Did you touch Franklin before he collapsed?”
“Yes. As he was falling, but not otherwise.”
“The trophy?”
“No.”
“The doctor?”
“No. Why would I touch the doctor? Or the trophy? I hadn’t won, after all.”
“Did you make any arrangements with Rozanow? Before the match, during the match, after the match?”
Shane shook his head.
“Never.”
“No agreement about who would win?”
“No.”
“No agreement about who would lose?”
Now Shane looked genuinely annoyed.
“Agent Mulder, I don’t lose on purpose in a hall full of cameras just so some sponsor can have a nice evening.”
That sounded true.
Especially because his pride was too genuine for that. Fox tried a different angle.
“And if Franklin had offered you money?”
Shane’s mouth barely twitched.
“That’s not who I am. I’m not for sale. Neither is Arslan. Nor Moreau. Nor Rozanow.”
“Takamura?”
Shane paused briefly.
“Not him either.”
“You hardly know him.”
“I know athletes.”
“Really?”
Shane looked him straight in the eye. “No. Not all of them. But enough to know that you’re just looking for convenient stories right now. And the Japanese are famous for their determination.”
Fox almost gave him a touch of credit for that. Honesty, when shame would have been easier.
Then the door opened.
Shane turned his head immediately.
Jonathan and Jennifer stood in the doorway, both with folders under their arms. For once, Jonathan looked as though he didn’t know how to make bad news sound charming.
Fox sat up straight.
“Bad timing or good?”
Jennifer stepped inside. “Bad for Franklin. Good for your investigation.”
Shane remained seated, but his full attention was drawn to the documents in Jennifer’s hand. The folders looked old enough to touch on exactly the wrong subjects: thirty years, forty years, sport, money, the Soviet Union, names and payments.
Jonathan closed the door behind him.
“We took the liberty of looking into the financial side of your benefactor.”
Fox said nothing.
Jennifer took over.
Fox, however, raised a hand. “Captain Hollander, wait outside. I’m not finished with you yet.”
Shane stood up.
Too quickly.
“Of course.”
The word didn’t sound natural.
He walked past Jennifer and Jonathan without looking directly at the files. That was precisely why he saw them all too clearly. Then the door clicked shut behind him.
Jennifer waited a moment until his footsteps had faded in the corridor.
“The scholarship money didn’t exist,” she said. “Or at least not in the form Franklin sold to the Hall, the United Nations and the teams. On top of that, there were massively increased demolition costs due to asbestos. And even tonight’s donations had already been earmarked to cover older debts. I’d already told Agent Scully downstairs, but now I have the proof: documents from a dingy storeroom.”
Fox fell completely silent.
“So Franklin needed money tonight instead of being able to spend it.”
“That’s as obvious as the obelisk in St Peter’s Square,” said Jonathan. “And quickly.”
Jennifer placed the files on the table. “If the lads had known about it, however, there would be no good reason to murder him over the alleged scholarship funds. You don’t kill a man to inherit money that doesn’t exist.”
Fox looked at the documents. “Unless you kill him to prevent the non-existence from being exposed.”
“Or,” said Jonathan, “to prevent him from revealing something completely different out of panic.”
“Old documents?” said Fox.
Jennifer nodded. “Payments to Franklin from strange accounts, with no real services listed in return. It’s almost like that ominous flamingo-coloured camel I heard about at the buffet, which apparently charged 1,000 euros for the non-delivery of tulips. But Franklin has been receiving these payments for over 15 years.”
Fox looked up at her.
“Hollander heard that.”
“Then he’s heard more than he’s willing to admit,” said Jennifer.
“Yes.” Fox reached for the top file. “But he’s not protecting Franklin.”
Jonathan crossed his arms. “Rozanow?”
“Perhaps.” Fox leafed through the pages. “Or the idea that Rozanow won’t be the first to be sacrificed, simply because the story is politically more convenient.”
Jennifer placed a second file next to it. “Franklin was financially ruined. That doesn’t mean he had to be killed for it. But it does mean that almost every conversation he had tonight smelled worse than it looked from the outside.”
Fox nodded slowly.
A muffled babble of voices drifted in from the corridor: the waiting captains, a police officer, perhaps a cadet trying to bring new order to old disasters.
Fox closed the folder.
“That’s not a bad interruption.”
Jonathan didn’t sit down. He remained standing at the table with his arms crossed.
“We try to be helpful without coming across too much like people who judge other people’s accounts. Even at Hart Industries, there are payments where you don’t note down what the consideration was.”
Jennifer looked towards the door behind which Shane had disappeared.
“And now?”
Fox looked at the files, then at the window, which showed only the dark courtyard.
“Now we bring Rozanow in,” he said. “And see if Hollander was right to fear him.”