Erasing Memory (29 page)

“Me. Why? I don’t—”

“When we apprehended your son, he was in possession of several documents and photographs. Do you know what I’m referring to?” MacNeice asked.

Again Petrescu’s eyes drifted off to the garden. “You know, I was just trimming the lilac … such a pretty tree for two weeks. After they bloom, they’re just a dreary green till autumn. Beauty is so fleeting.”

“The photographs and documents appear to be yours. You haven’t told us that you were a microbiologist in Romania, or that your daughter’s father was Ceausescu.”

The older man stared at them, then clearly gave up at the effort to hide his secrets. “I was her real father. I loved her as if she were my own. I gave her everything I had and encouraged her in every way I could. My joy—my only joy—has been in protecting her and watching her flower into this extraordinary creature. She was magnificent, do you understand?”

“There are many things I’m uncertain about, but I do know how magnificent your daughter was. But you left your son when you fled Romania, even though he could have joined you then or after the fall of the regime. You could have brought him out—but you didn’t.”

Petrescu stood up, stepped behind Aziz and stood in the bay window with his arms crossed as if he were keeping his torso from coming apart.

“The photographs.…”

“The photographs!” Petrescu snapped, turning around to face MacNeice. “I know those photographs. I took them!” He was shaking with rage. “You think you know something now, and perhaps you do, but I suspect not.” The blood was back in his face and his stance was combative.

“Did you release poison into the Danube?” Aziz asked.

“Did I? Oh, my dear, what a tragic diversion this is.…” He sat down again and looked from MacNeice to Aziz and back again. “I developed chemicals, yes. I pointed out that they would be devastating to use—not just for our neighbours along the Danube and the Black Sea, but also for Romanians.”

“But you did release them into the waterway—the industrial effluent and your fertilizer formula?” MacNeice’s tone was pressing.

“Yes, both. The first flight followed by the test barrels, all twelve of them. Then I waited—fourteen days. I drove down the river and saw the dead fish and waterfowl, the lesions and exploding flesh on children and fisherman, on a dead dog’s legs and jaw.… I photographed it all.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to show him—Ceausescu—that if he wouldn’t stop it, I would show the world what I had been forced to do on his orders.”

“Your wife was having an affair with him. Was that why you turned against him?”

“You are an ugly man to ask such a question.”

“I am short of time, sir, and I am desperately trying to find the killer of your daughter. I apologize for being abrupt.”

“I alone knew how to make what went into those barrels. Yes, my wife was pregnant with Lydia, and yes, I hated the man who had impregnated her, but I loved my wife very much.

I don’t know that you can understand such love, Detective. Half of the daughter who would be born to my wife was hers, hers alone, and I could live with the other half because of the love I had for her.”

“Why didn’t you bring Gregori with you?”

“Gregori … even at that young age he was already a stranger. He had been indoctrinated as a communist, one of a virulent breed that mixed ancient beliefs about Romania and destiny into their politics. Even so, I wanted to take him. I believed I could deprogram—I think that’s the word—remove the stain of communism from him. But he was told who Lydia’s father was—not by me, but by someone over there—and after that he thought I was a coward, a weakling who had been cuckolded by Ceausescu. Instead of seeking revenge, I simply ran away.”

“And did that hate find its way to Lydia?”

“I don’t think he hated her. I don’t recall ever hearing him speak of her. As far as I know, he never accepted that he had a sister.”

“Were you prosecuted for what you did to the water systems?”

“No. I was charged but I was never prosecuted.”

“Why is that? You admit that the twelve barrels mutilated hundreds, killed dozens and had a devastating effect on the Danube and Black Sea that lasted for years.…”

“Because I was forced to do it and I had the documents to prove it.”

“Was that all?”

“What do you mean?”

“You left Romania with that formula. Did you use it as insurance in the event that you were going to be prosecuted?
Unless you went free, you would release it to any psychopathic despot in the world to recreate?”

“He threatened to kill all of us, did you know that?”

“I do. But hundreds of lives were ruined and you were left to walk free.”

“Walk free! I see those pictures in my sleep, I see them when I’m in the garden, when I’m—when I was watching Lydia play. I see them now, with you. I am not free!”

“Did they drop the case because you still held the secret to what was in those barrels?”

“Yes.”

“And they kept the details from getting out to the media and the families of Romanian and Bulgarian victims by making it appear that it was Ceausescu’s doing.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have those documents here?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re gone.”

“Gone with Gregori?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why he came back?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he want them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Romania is a member of the European Union, on the verge of collective prosperity—”

“Romania has a deeply rooted siege mentality. It knows only conflict and impending conflict.”

“Meaning Gregori wanted your documents as a potential weapon?”

“A weapon of defence. Gregori told me that it was the Bulgarians who killed Lydia, that it was an act of retribution against me, and against Ceausescu.”

“How did you support your wife after you left Romania?”

“You have asked a very good question. How did I pay for the German lawyer, how did I make a living, who would hire a disgraced microbiologist? You know, even though the case was thrown out of court, the scientific community is very small … with a long memory.”

“Who paid the bills?”

“Ceausescu. Not for me, no. He believed the time was coming when he’d leave Romania, and he looked forward to it—yes, he did. He was convinced that his baby—my Lydia—was part of a new future for him. I would disappear. You know, many still remained loyal to him. He put two million American dollars in a Swiss bank account in my wife’s name to ensure that Lydia would have the best of everything, paid for by her father.”

“Did she know who her father was?”

“
I
was her father!” He slapped his chest hard with the flat of his hand. His eyes welled up, then he turned away. “I was her father.… No, she never knew.”

“She had a ticket for a flight to Turkey. Why do you think she’d go there?”

“She wanted a vacation after graduating, and like many young people, she wanted to get back to her roots. I told her she wouldn’t be safe in Romania because of my role in the communist government, so she settled on Turkey and being able to put her feet in the Black Sea, to breathe the air of her ancestors. She was a romantic, like her mother. Her best friend from childhood, Margaux Deviers, is in Istanbul on a fellowship. Lydia was planning to stay with her.”

“Have you been threatened before?”

“Have I.… Ah, I see—your question is have I been hunted by the Bulgarian state?”

“Yes, or for that matter, by the Romanian state?”

“Four years ago a brick was thrown through the front window of my shop. The police said it was vandals, but I thought it was a warning, a reminder that I wasn’t forgotten. The brick had three dots on it—red, green and white, the colours of the Bulgarian flag.”

“Yes. Or someone wanted you to believe it was Bulgarian.” MacNeice took out his camera and handed it to Aziz, saying, “Find the images you took in the hotel room.”

“Give me a minute,” Aziz said.

“Why didn’t you destroy those documents when you left Romania?” MacNeice asked.

“I don’t understand your question.”

“If you were opposed to deploying the chemicals and took the time to record their impact on the people and the environment, why didn’t you burn them when you escaped?”

“They were my insurance against Ceausescu.”

“But soon after you got out he was executed. Why didn’t you destroy them then, or after the case was dropped?”

“I had created something evil, but I had created it. It’s difficult to destroy a creation. I also thought that one day someone would come after me and I could use them to trade for Lydia’s life.”

“And your own?”

“I was for the most part dead already. I was only alive when I was with her.… Now I am truly dead.”

“Your son persuaded you that a Bulgarian killed Lydia. How did he do that?”

“The syringe. He showed me documents about the individual who had created it. He’s a KGB weapons engineer from Nessebar, a town on the Black Sea—a specialist who designs lethal instruments for torture and espionage. He was avenging the spill, but Gregori said it was just the beginning. This Bulgarian, he said, was acting on behalf of the state.”

“But, as a former KGB man, isn’t it possible he’s a free lancer?”

“Entirely.”

“Here you go, sir—this one and the next nine images.” Aziz handed the camera to MacNeice, who carried it over to the older man and held it so he could see the display.

Toggling slowly through the images, MacNeice asked, “Are these the documents you’re referring to?”

“Yes, but how—?”

“These are photographs taken of the contents of Gregori’s luggage.” He turned the camera off and tucked it back into his pocket.

“I see.”

“I still don’t understand why you gave him the documents you’d protected for so long.”

“He convinced me that Romania remains vulnerable to threats from the former Soviet satellites to the north, west and south, as well as from the south and east, where Muslim nations are intent on solidifying and expanding Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region. And, of course, Russia never forgave Romania for going its own way with communism. Gregori convinced me that they will be his insurance policy, just as they have been mine.”

“How would they provide him with insurance?”

“As a microbiologist, he’s been researching various crop
enhancement programs—increasing yield and so on. He discovered certain properties of plants that, when enhanced by exotic chemical formulae, could become lethal—”

“For chemical warfare, you mean.”

“Of course. But before you get too self-righteous, Detective, this is a nation threatened on all sides. Gregori had created a deterrent for any land incursion but still needed one for the sea. He pointed out that, God willing, neither would ever be used.”

“What had you originally intended to do with the documents?”

“They are in my will, bequeathed to the United Nations for safekeeping. I now have two reasons to change my will. There is also a missing link, a critical component of the formula that I’ve kept separate for safety.”

“Did Gregori take that document too?” MacNeice asked.

“No. What he has is incomplete, but he doesn’t know that.”

“You don’t trust him.” MacNeice didn’t expect a response, and he didn’t get one.

“Mr. Petrescu,” Aziz said, “did Gregori show you the portfolio of images of your daughter?”

“No. Why would he have images of my daughter?”

“They were photographs taken by her boyfriend. Intimate photographs. He never mentioned them?”

“What do you mean, ‘intimate’? My daughter was a good girl.”

“Nude photographs, with her violin. They are beauti—” Petrescu interrupted her. “I want no more of this, please. I want you to leave my house.” He lifted his head, staring directly at MacNeice.

“One last question, sir, and then we’ll go. Do you know when your son is leaving?”

Standing up to indicate that the interview was truly over, Petrescu said, “He called to say that his original schedule had unexpectedly changed and that he was catching the 1:30 p.m. flight to New York.”

“Why was he calling?” MacNeice asked.

“He wanted to know if the formula was complete.…”

MacNeice picked up the recorder and turned it off. No further words were spoken until they were on the other side of the front door, where MacNeice turned to say goodbye. Before he could get a word out, the door slammed with such force that the bronze knocker jumped and clacked twice. He caught Aziz’s eye and shrugged, and she briefly put a hand on his shoulder.

B
ACK IN THE
C
HEVY
, MacNeice hit the speed-dial for his boss. “Sir, here’s the situation. We have a growing body of circumstantial evidence that Gregori Petrescu and his two bodyguards are responsible for the girl’s death and that of her boyfriend, as well as the dealer in the boat.”

“How circumstantial?”

“The strongest evidence we have is that the pathologist has identified the marks on Marcus Johnson’s head and shoulders as being consistent with the sticks the two bodyguards were carrying. Forensics haven’t processed the sticks yet, but Richardson’s evidence is pretty sound.”

“That’s it?”

“We have a portfolio of images of Lydia Petrescu taken by her boyfriend. It was in the Range Rover with Gregori Petrescu, and I believe his fingerprints and those of his bodyguards will be on it. The only way he could have gotten that portfolio was from Johnson himself. We believe it was just before or after throwing the boy off the balcony.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Three hours before their flight.”

“You have my backing. Get it done.”

MacNeice got Swetsky on the two-way radio. “Get the New York flight schedules from the international, regional and Buffalo airports. Find out which flight Petrescu and his bodyguards are booked on.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Aziz and I are going back to the Chelsea Manor. If the Range Rover is there we’ll sit tight near the entrance to the hotel. I’ll call you when we get there. Grab Williams and come over as soon as you can.”

“We’ll be there.” Swetsky broke off contact and the car fell silent for a moment.