The Figures of Beauty Read Online Free Page A

this. It was an odd thing for the young man to say. Unless, of course, it was true. Then it was not so odd. He closed his eyes. He massaged his brow.
    “You are under no official obligation,” the inspector finally said. This, he knew, was nothing more than the procedural representation of indecision. He put down his hands. He opened his eyes. “But you may be asked to come back to the prefecture for further questions.”
    Oliver had been raised to be helpful when he could be.
    “That’s fine,” he said. “I can’t get my money out of the bank for three days, anyway.” He even decided to risk a small joke. “And the Louvre probably deserves more than an afternoon.”
    Levy would later wonder if his departure from customary procedure was the result of his being on the brink of some kindof collapse. It was possible. He was exhausted. Every policeman in Paris was.
    Or perhaps he was acting intuitively but responsibly. It may have been that with the city about to burn to the ground, he didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.
    He was tired—tired of barricades, tired of megaphones, tired of crowds, tired of television crews and reporters, and very tired of Danny the Red.
    He was tired of it all. But he was not so tired that he did not notice something revealing in Oliver’s open expression. He was not so exhausted that he could not see something entirely innocent in the way Oliver Hughson said, “That’s fine.”
    Levy prided himself as an investigator. Some aspects of the job he liked better than others, but he had no doubt that his greatest talent was his skill as an interviewer. He was observant. He noted the smallest flickers of expression.
    Inspector Levy had long ago stumbled on a truth that, while not universal, was universal enough for police work. He had discovered that somewhere in a guilty suspect’s story there is something that isn’t a half-truth, or a shaded perception, or an uncertainty of memory.
    Levy had a knack for seeing the slight clenching of jaw, blushing of cheeks, or flitting of gaze that revealed that he was getting close to the part of a story a suspect least wanted to discuss—the part that is entirely made up.
    There was something in the young man’s flat, uncomplicated acceptance of Levy’s request to make himself available for further questioning that struck the inspector as material. He knew at that moment that Oliver was not lying.
    But Inspector Levy also knew that however convinced he was of Oliver’s innocence, his belief was based on nothing but instinct. This would not be something he could pass on to thosewho would read his typed report after he went home later that morning. Reports contained facts, not hunches. There was the business of the knot. There were the curious coincidences of age and geography. What was a young man doing by the river at that hour, alone?
    The officer receiving the file in a few hours’ time would not be likely to inherit Levy’s certainty.
    This was going to be nothing but trouble. Inspector Levy could see that. Useless, unnecessary trouble.
    He made a decision. Possibly, it was rash.
    He stood and walked abruptly around his desk to Oliver. “Monsieur,” he said, “I am going to give you some advice. And I advise that you take it.”
    The gravity in the inspector’s voice made Oliver suddenly anxious.
    “There are many deaths in Paris every night.”
    Oliver turned in his chair and stared with alarm at the surprisingly short, surprisingly slight man. Inspector Levy smelled so strongly of tobacco it was as if what he had been inhaling for the past forty years was seeping from the pores of his skin that night.
    “Some of these deaths are suspicious,” Levy said. “Most are not.”
    Oliver was looking into a pair of sallow eyes, wondering where this was going.
    “And this death …” The inspector gestured back toward his desk and the several black and white photographs. “This death might seem suspicious. To many. It might seem