by Adrian Speed
“She has a bottle of rosewater in her drawer,” I said. “She clearly prefers their scent.”
“So perhaps they were not bought by her,” Sir Reginald said. He shrugged, and returned to the tablet and its research.
I packed the make-up back in its hiding space in the periodicals feeling more bewildered than I had done before.
“Let’s get back to the examination room.” I got back to my feet. “This investigation still has a long way to go.”
Chapter VIII
When I returned to the Examination Room I felt like I’d travelled back to my university interview. Six pairs of eyes stared at me from the moment I entered, waiting for me to impress them. Most of them had run the gauntlet of my questions, they’d seen me inspect the meagre evidence, and now they wanted closure. They wanted to know what I’d done.
I tried to read their expressions. Would the guilty show themselves? Would they be the hungriest to know? The eyes glowed like lamplights in the dark. Adélie’s twitching fingers caught my eye. Her lips hungrily pressed against them. A thought struck me, a way to diffuse the tension.
“Does anyone need a smoke break?” I asked. Relief flooded Adélie, Beauregard and, to my surprise, Sylvain’s faces.
“About dang time,” Walter murmured in English. His hands slid into his pockets to draw out a zippo lighter and a packet of American cigarettes.
“Can we get to the courtyards so they can smoke?” I asked the director.
“Blow that,” Walter growled, cigarette already between his lips and half-way out of the room. “I’m headed to the smoking lounge.”
“We have a smoking room on the ground floor,” the director said. “There is a door to the interior courtyard there if anyone wants me to unlock it.”
“I wouldn’t mind a breath of fresh air with my cigarette,” Adélie said with a smirk.
“I’ll join you,” I said, and held out my hand for the key from the Director. “Sir Reginald could you... could you er...” I tried to think of an excuse for him not to follow. I felt Adélie would open up better alone.
“I’ll study the alarm bypass,” Sir Reginald suggested. “See if I can identify the manufacturer of the components.”
“Good, thank you, yes that will be helpful,” I nodded and Sir Reginald swept into the archive room where he would, in all likelihood, simply sit and read. “Could you lead the way, Adélie?” I offered and we started down the corridor. Sylvain followed us teasing a long panatela cigar between his fingers.
The woman led the way through the building, down a few sets of stairs and into a small room full of ash trays and chairs. There was a double set of doors to make sure the smoke did not escape into the rest of the archive and a nearby rumbling suggested it had its own ventilation system to make sure the grimy, tar-filled smoke did not get near the documents the archivists were trying to preserve for the future.
Walter and Sylvain lit up once they were inside and settled down into two of the chairs while I opened up the door to the outside world. Despite the best attempts of the cleaning staff the windows were permanently stained with smoke, so it surprised me how bright and airy it was out in the courtyard.
Adélie retrieved a packet of cigarettes from her sleeves. She tapped one out for herself, and then another she offered to me.
“Oh, no thank you, I don’t smoke.”
“I know,” Adélie said in English. She spoke through the cigarette, but it was still English almost as good as my French. She waved the cigarette at me. “But you wanted an excuse to get me out here, alone, to talk. I’m holding you to that excuse.” The cigarette bobbed back and forth. “No smoking, no talking.”
“These things kill, you know,” I took the cigarette from her all the same, and held it out for her to light.
“So does the bus that takes me to work, so does the power station that lights my flat, so does the wine I drink each night,” Adélie sucked on the cigarette as if it was an oxygen mask. “If it’s necessary enough, or enjoyable enough, I put up with the risk. Life is nothing but a thousand cuts. Now smoke.” She urged me with her eyebrows.
I took a drag. My mouth dried out instantly, and the back of my throat all the way to my nose seemed to seize up, like a fizzy drink going down the wrong way. I coughed, spluttered, and then sneezed.
“Still better than my first time,” Adélie smirked. I think perhaps she liked seeing me reduced to a spluttering mess, but it did seem to get her to open up. “I ended up vomiting into my shoes.”
“I struggle to see the enjoyment,” I gasped and held the cigarette at arms reach. Hopefully I wouldn’t be forced to prove my fidelity again. I coughed again and tried to lick the inside of my mouth free of the taste of burnt broccoli. “Your English is very good.”
“My father was in the East Riding Yeomanry, met my mother during the war.” Adélie shrugged and took a drag on her cigarette. “They didn’t want to get married, but I came along and my mother was a good catholic...” Bitterness hung in Adélie’s voice but it had been textured by time. It was the memory of bitterness, rather than fresh irritation. “A few failed years in France, a few failed years in England, and eventually a boarding school. Et voila.” Adélie had turned away during her explanation but now she fixed me with dark, wide eyes. “Everyone’s been telling you bad things about me, haven’t they?”
“Some,” I granted. “But Madeleine said you were funny. And Etienne only mentioned your temper.”
“How kind of them,” Adélie sneered. “I didn’t have anything to do with that treaty. Those academics spend too much time in the past. For all they pretend the old troubles are behind us, they’re still not used to dealing with a woman in trousers. If Etienne loses his temper and kicks the million franc microfilm machine, he’s overworked. If I lose my temper and say so much as a curse word I’m a sulky little girl who needs to grow up.” Adélie brought her fingers together around the cigarette and her voice grew huskier. “They don’t mind women in their archive as long as they’re never threatening. They want us to be perfect little dolls with plastic smiles and empty heads. And when I say something so earth-shattering, so controversial, so horrendous as that maybe I deserve respect as an academic because I am one, they label me a communist. Not that communism wouldn’t be an improvement over their... their... patriarchy.” Adélie bit her lip and closed her eyes down. She’d started shouting. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it must be the same for you,” she put her hand over her eyes. “But I just get so angry.”
I said nothing. Anything I said, anything I did, might upset the flow.
“They won’t even respect me in politics, you know? I can vote, same as them, but if I don’t support de Gaulle and Pompidou I’m just a ‘man-hating lesbian’ or a ‘stupid little girl’, even Etienne thinks that way sometimes even though he hides it. No-one takes me seriously, and then they wonder why I lose my temper!” Adélie threw herself against the wall, sliding down it until she was squatting just above the ground. Half her cigarette had burnt up and blown away in her arm gesticulation.
I pressed against the wall and slid down beside her.
“I don’t even know... half of what that’s like,” I said, to fill the silence. “I’ve been lucky. Sir Reginald... he acts like he’s from a different century sometimes... but when it comes to... things like this... it’s like he’s from a century in the future.”
“Really.” Bitterness filled Adélie’s voice, this time fresh from the oven. She puffed on what was left of her cigarette.
“I don’t really care about what the others think about you,” I said, after a few moments. “I care about three things. Motive, opportunity, and evidence. You have no motive to steal the treaty, you had little opportunity away from Etienne and as for evidence, according to Etienne you reported the melted lock. I know you didn’t steal that treaty.”
“Who has motive to steal a treaty a hundred and fifty years old?” Adélie’s laugh carried a cruel edge of desperation. “Watch out, Napoleon was secretly Drac
ula and when he rises from his slumber he’ll invade France again. He’ll have to fight de Gaulle for it of course.”
“I don’t know who has motive, but I know who had opportunity, and the evidence is knocking down the remainders piece by piece,” I said. It all came down to control of the alarms, I thought. Walter, Etienne and Sylvain all had the knowledge to bypass the lock on the door, but only Madeleine could shut down the alarms to the entrance to pass the treaty out.
I didn’t want to have to suspect Madeleine. I sighed, and ground out the remainder of my cigarette on the concrete courtyard.
“Do you know much about Madeleine?” I asked. Adélie instantly stiffened.
“Not much,” Adélie said. She drew out another cigarette and thankfully didn’t offer one to me. “She interviewed me when Etienne and I first applied to photograph the archive. Made sure I knew how often to change my gloves, made sure I knew not to lick the archive, that sort of thing.” Adélie lit the cigarette, sucked in the smoke and tried to relax.
“Do you know how often she wears make-up?” Again, Adélie stiffened. I pressed on. “Do you know why she has a book signed with the letter T?”
Adélie’s dark eyes rolled from me to the sky and back to me again. She huffed for a moment and then started at me with her tongue on the edge of her teeth until she found the right words.
“See, this is a pretty sticky situation,” Adélie said after a moment. She sucked on her cigarette for comfort and pressed on. “See, by my hesitation you know that I know something. So it’s going to seem suspicious if I say nothing. However, I promised never to reveal what I saw. So.” Adélie shrugged. I was about to interject but Adélie cut me off. “On an entirely unrelated topic, do you read Greek poetry?”
“It’s – what?”
“Ancient Greek poetry. It’s a cruel and unfortunate punishment to have to read it, but I went to a boarding school so I know it quite well. There is one poet that really comes to mind at this moment, and it’s Sappho.”
“Sappho?” My train of thought entirely jumped the tracks. “Wasn’t she the poet on the island of Lesbos? The one who kept...” Realisation dawned. “The one who kept writing love poetry to other women. The reason we have the word Lesbian.”
“Can’t think why it came to mind,” Adélie rested her chin in her hand and implored me with her eyes.
“Yes. It does make me... realise... certain things,” I nodded.
The roses on her desk came to mind for a start. Bought for her by someone who didn’t realise she loved roses for the fragrance. M and T in the book, used to hide two female names. Cheap, heavy make-up poorly applied because the woman wearing it had never really cared about it, but now wanted to impress someone.
“Should I assume then,” I pressed on “That you wandered down to the archive entrance sometime last night and saw... an embracing couple?”
“I have very little memory of last night.” Yes, then. So that explained the make-up on the bars of the door. And it explained why Madeleine would want to turn the alarm off. But why the archive entrance? Perhaps Madeleine thought it would be more hidden. It was meant to be locked and alarmed after all, and then Adélie wanders in...
“But why wouldn’t she want to hide it?” I heard myself say, but of course I knew why. Some people wanted to stay closeted even in the twenty-first century. I leant back against the wall and felt all the strength go out of me until I was flopped on the floor. “Poor Madeleine.”
“It’s not easy,” Adélie said and sucked on her cigarette like a straw, filling herself with smoke as if it could drive out the negative feelings.
“In some ways all these riots must have seemed... almost like a godsend. A perfect excuse to go stay with her ‘friend’ every night,” I said, and wondered if she had even lied as to why she stayed.
“Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what Cohn-Bendit had in mind when he started occupying the university,” Adélie sneered. “And it’ll be a great comfort to everyone whose businesses have been ruined.”
“I didn’t mean to make light of it.” I hastily waved my hands to try to placate her, but Adélie didn’t care. “It’s just, we’re so far away from it all here it’s hard to remember...”
“Until you try to buy something, or catch a bus, or do anything except sit here in the archive,” Adélie sighed. “Someday everyone is going to be looking back on this moment and they’ll say to me, you were a student, what did you do during the revolution?”
“You did your job,” I said, echoing Etienne. “That’s more than half the country are doing.”
“Sometimes you have to stop doing your job to build a better world,” Adélie said and looked away from me, staring up at the clouds. Etienne was probably right, I thought. If she lost her temper at the same time as thinking like this... he probably was the only thing that could stop her manning the palisades and proclaiming the sixth republic.
I let the silence hang and listened to the wind rustling across the courtyard. Despite what I said, it really was impossible to believe that the city was tearing itself apart only a few miles from where I sat. In that moment, under the gentle May sun and the warm spring winds... there was peace.
Then a cat yowled, and something slammed.
I looked up just in time to see a window in the far corner of the courtyard open and a black cat slink inside. The cleaner’s arm was visible at the latch and scooping up the cat to bring it inside.
“That window isn’t alarmed,” I said dozily. Then my eyes blazed. “That window isn’t alarmed!” I leapt to my feet in one motion. “You wouldn’t need the employee entrance or the archive entrance to get the treaty out as long as you could reach that window!”
Sylvain or Walter, it had to be one of them. Or both of them? They were the only ones with the electrical knowledge to bypass the door alarm. They knew the treaty was about to be photographed, they melted the lock, stole the treaty and passed it out through the window in the cleaner’s rooms while she was out cleaning. But how could I tell which of them it was?
“Cornstarch,” I said.
“What?” Adélie blinked in incomprehension.
“If I figure out how the cornstarch got there, in the archive room, I have it. It’s the last piece. I nearly have it!”
Chapter IX
I stepped back inside the smoking room. Sylvain and Walter were making small talk.
“Polyester is actually great for me,” Walter was saying in French. “because of my... my... how do you say allergy?”
“L’allergie,” Sylvain corrected.
“Yeah, so, I wear polyester shirts but these are so good you’d never know...” Walter came to a stop as I drew up in front of them. “Want something?”
“I’d like to talk to...” I said. My eyes darted from one to the other. One of them stole the treaty. But which of them? Which do I question first? A crumb of ash fell from Sylvain’s cigar. “Sylvain. Yes, I think we need to talk.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can hardly go anywhere.” He indicated his cigar, it was only half finished. “Not without getting tobacco smoke into the ventilation.”
“No problem, I’m done.” Walter stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, shaking his jacket around him and heading for the door. “Adélie and I can guard ourselves on the way back to the others.” He winked.
I watched them go then turned to Sylvain. He crossed his legs and brought his hands together on his knees, letting the ash fall just beyond his leg. He took great care with his movements, precise and graceful. No wonder I associated him with a bird when I first saw him.
I sat down on a chair to his left, rather than sitting on the other side of the room like Walter. I didn’t want to have to shout to make myself heard. The chair’s leather was stiff with the smoke of countless generations.
“So where were you last night during the theft?” I asked, getting right to the heart of it.
“Working on my academic research in one of the examination rooms.” Sylvain took a puff on his ciga
r. “Room 218.”
“And no-one saw you there?”
“Even when this building is full of academics I prefer to work alone.”
“What is the nature of your research?”
“As I said before, I doubt you will understand it,” Sylvain shrugged. “I am a mathematician not a linguist.”
“And I’m a mechanical engineer,” I said. “I may be more amenable to it than you think.”
“I shall put it very simply,” Sylvain sighed. “I was inspired by Gagné’s hierarchy of learning and it is my desire to create a mathematical model that allows me to express the deterministic dependencies between connected documents. I am unsure if such a technique is viable without a dramatic decrease in the cost of electronic computation but I believe I can, if nothing else, create the model.”
“And you came to the archives for that? Couldn’t you have one that in... in a library?”
“The archive is quieter,” Sylvain said and fiddled with the ring on his hand. It knocked another little pile of ash to the floor. “And books do not as clearly flow into each other. The bodies of law and how they were built up throughout the ages are much more convenient for modelling purposes.”
“That sounds like it would take a lot of time.”
“I find myself with plenty of it,” Sylvain said and fiddled with his ring again. My eyes narrowed on it. The little band of gold had to be a wedding ring, but nothing about Sylvain suggested he was married. Not least his long absence from home, and the lack of concern about the riots. “Prior to the riots the university has been happy to let me continue my work as I see fit provided I deliver lectures and tuition hours. I would rather dedicate my time to something grand that may fail than something safe that will not further the cause of mathematics.”
“That hardly seems to be a compelling reason to stay here when you could ride out the riots at home,” I said. “I haven’t seen your research, but I imagine there are parts you could easily have done on the kitchen table.”