Blood tests run by the FBI had shown that Lucien Folter was clean. Hunter knew that.
‘So when did you finally kick it?’ he asked.
‘Several years ago,’ Lucien said, being deliberately vague. ‘By then, I had lost all hope of a career in psychology or in anything decent, really. I went through a series of odd jobs, most of them awful, some of them not quite legit. In the end, I hated what I had become. Even though I was clean, I just wasn’t the person I once was anymore. I wasn’t Lucien Folter. I had become someone completely different. A lost soul. Someone I didn’t recognize. Someone no one recognized. Someone I really didn’t like.’
Hunter could guess what was coming next.
‘So you decided to change identities,’ he said.
Lucien looked straight at Hunter and nodded.
‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘You know, being a junkie, living life as “scum” for as long as I did, puts you in contact with some very colorful folks. People who are able to get you anything you want . . . for a price, obviously. Getting hold of a new identity was as easy as buying a newspaper.’
Hunter knew Lucien wasn’t lying because he understood the reality of the world they lived in. All one needs to obtain whatever documents one likes in a different name is to know the right people, or wrong people, depending which way you look at it. And these people aren’t even that hard to find.
‘Once I became Liam Shaw,’ Lucien said, ‘I then concentrated on getting healthy again. It took me quite a while to manage to put weight back on . . . to regain focus. With all the drugs, I had the body of an anorexic. My stomach had shrunk. My mouth was full of ulcers. My health had deteriorated to a hair away from death. I had to keep on forcing myself to eat.’ He paused and looked at his arms and torso. ‘I look OK on the outside now, but my insides are royally fucked up, Robert. I’ve caused a lot of damage to my body. Much of it irreversible. Most of my internal organs are so damaged, I’m not even sure how they’re still working.’
Despite his words, Hunter picked up no self-pity in Lucien’s tone of voice or in the look in his eyes. He had simply accepted what he had done to himself. He had acknowledged his mistakes, and he seemed OK with paying the price.
‘Tell me about this car delivery thing,’ Hunter said.
Eighteen
Lucien’s eyebrows bobbed up and down once, as he looked back at his old friend.
‘The problem with getting involved with the kind of people I got involved with, is that they get their claws very deep into you right at the beginning. And once they do that, they never really let go. They own you for life. I’m sure you understand that these people can be very persuasive when they want to be.’
Hunter said nothing.
‘It started about a year and a half ago.’ Lucien moved on. ‘The way it happens is, I get a call on my cellphone telling me where to pick up the car from. They give me a delivery address and a time-frame. No names. When I get there, there’s always someone waiting to collect the car. I hand the car over, he gives me enough money for a ticket back . . . maybe a little extra, and that’s all. Until the next phone call.’
‘I’m guessing you don’t always deliver the cars to the same place,’ Hunter said.
‘Not so far,’ Lucien agreed. ‘A different pick-up and delivery address every time.’ He paused and looked at Hunter. ‘But I’ve always delivered to the same person.’
That came as a surprise.
‘Can you describe him?’ Hunter asked.
Lucien pulled a face. ‘About six-foot tall, well built, but deliveries were always made at night, in some dark field. The person receiving the car was always wearing a long coat with its collar up, a baseball cap, and dark glasses.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s as good a description as I can give.’
‘So how do you know it was the same person?’
‘Same voice, same posture, same mannerisms.’ Lucien sat back on his chair. ‘It wasn’t hard to tell, Robert. I’m telling you, it was the same person every time.’
Hunter saw no reason to doubt Lucien. ‘How about the person who delivered the car to you?’ he asked.
‘As I’ve said, the instructions came over the phone. Car was left in a car park. Keys, car park ticket and delivery address were left inside an envelope in a safe place for me to collect. No human contact.’
‘And you had no idea what you were delivering?’ Hunter asked. ‘I mean – you didn’t know what was in the trunk?’
Lucien shook his head. ‘It was always part of the instructions – don’t ever look in the trunk.’
Hunter pondered over that for a second or two, but Lucien anticipated his next question, and offered an answer before Hunter could even ask it.
‘Yes, I was curious about it. Yes, I thought about taking a quick peek many times, but like I said, these are the kind of people you simply don’t fuck with. If I’d opened that trunk, I’m sure they would’ve had a way of knowing it. Curious or not, that was one stupid mistake that I wasn’t prepared to make.’
Hunter had a quick sip of his water.
‘You said that this all started about a year and a half ago?’
Lucien nodded.
‘How many deliveries were there?’
‘This was supposed to be my fifth car delivery.’
Hunter held steady, but alarm bells started ringing everywhere inside his head. Five deliveries. If Lucien was telling the truth, and he was delivering the same or very similar cargo every time, then this whole thing had just escalated into a serial-murderer investigation. And judging by what he’d seen, a very brutal and sadistic one.
Lucien paused and looked at Hunter differently, like a rookie poker player who’d just gotten a great hand and was unable to disguise it. ‘My trump is – I know who the person over the phone was.’
Hunter’s eyebrows arched.
Lucien took a moment before speaking again. ‘For now, I’ll keep that information to myself, together with all the previous pick-up and delivery locations.’
That answer caught Hunter completely by surprise and he frowned.
‘I know you’re not running this show, Robert,’ Lucien explained. ‘The FBI is pulling all the strings here. The only reason you’re here is because I asked for you. I know they’ve probably told you that you’re only here as a guest . . . a listener. You have no authority over anything. You can’t guarantee me anything because here you have no bargaining powers. My only bargaining power, on the other hand, is information.’
‘I understand that,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But I don’t see how withholding it can help you, Lucien. If you are innocent, you have to help the FBI prove that, not play games with them.’
‘And I will do that, Robert, but I’m scared. Even a child can see that the evidence against me is overwhelming. I know that I’m facing death row here, and I’m petrified. Yes, I’ll admit that paranoia has set in in here.’ Lucien lifted his shackled fists and hit them three times against his forehead before looking straight into Hunter’s eyes. ‘I didn’t tell them anything so far because I didn’t think they’d believe me.’
It was easy to see how paranoia and fear could’ve easily distorted Lucien’s vision of reality. Hunter had to reassure him. ‘It doesn’t quite work like that, Lucien. Why wouldn’t the FBI believe you? They’re not out to send you, or just anyone to prison. They want to find the person who’s responsible for those murders, and if you can help them, of course they’ll listen to you. Of course they’ll follow up on what you tell them.’
‘OK, maybe they would, but I panicked.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Then I thought of you. I have no family left, Robert, everyone’s gone. There’s no one on this earth who even cares if I live or die. I met a lot of people in my life, but you’re the only real friend I’ve ever had. The only one who knew the real me, and you were also a cop. So I just thought that maybe . . .’ Lucien’s voice was filled with emotion one more time. His toughness cracked again. ‘I didn’t do this, Robert. You have to believe me.’