The Haunted Detective

by Pirate Irwin

  All the investigating he had to do the next day he could easily do on his own, Gerland was his own business anyway, and Levau would probably prefer to operate solo for a bit. He couldn’t chaperone him everywhere and he just had to trust his partner had been telling the truth and he wasn’t going to find a very dead Vandamme whenever he turned up.

  Before he left the office to return home he jotted down a note and left it on another colleague’s desk, Detective Inspector Florian Riviere, asking him to saddle up with Levau the next day. Riviere was trustworthy and responsible and while he wouldn’t volunteer to be a telltale on his fellow detectives he wouldn’t lie either if pressed by Lafarge.

  To ensure that Levau was aware of this temporary arrangement he also scribbled a note for him and left it on his desk.

  Lafarge couldn’t be bothered to walk home. The metro was closed down again because of yet another strike ‘bloody Communists’ he cursed under his breath, so he took the car and made it back to his flat inside 15 minutes.

  He thought he could have dropped Levau off as Bastille was not out of his way back to Pere Lachaise but then he thought no don’t make life easy for him. He’s going to have to work darn hard to regain my favour.

  He looked at his watch as he climbed wearily out of his car and saw there was still time to have something to eat at his local bistro ‘Presque Mort’ – a name that always made him laugh for the dark humour it being down the hill from the historic cemetery – and decided it was best to get some proper food inside him.

  The proprietor Jean-Luc Giraud and his amiable wife Julie – both as rosy cheeked and rotund as each other which to Lafarge was always a good sign of the quality of the food in an establishment – greeted him fondly and brought him a glass of champagne. Their well fed appearance made him ponder why the waiters and the maître d‘hotel at both the Crillon and the Ritz were so sticklike in appearance, there again he mused they were probably only fed the scraps.

  Champagne had never been his favourite tipple – the bubbles got in the way of the joy of the taste – but he graciously quaffed it. He ordered a ducks liver terrine and then kidneys in wine sauce plus a bottle of red wine from Cahors, the town from where both the Girauds’ hailed, reasoning even if he didn’t finish it by the time coffee and cognac came round he could leave it with them for next time.

  There had been eyebrows raised at quite how Jean-Luc managed to get such great quantities of fresh food when rationing was still very much in place, but despite being closed down briefly once while enquiries were made he was largely left alone thanks to the patronage of Lafarge.

  Indeed if Jean-Luc was ever lacking in anything all he had to do was ask Lafarge and he would pilfer it from his black marketeer. Lafarge couldn’t officially say it but he was in effect a business partner of the Giraud’s or at least it felt that way.

  Lafarge asked if they had a newspaper and Jean-Luc shuffled off to return with a copy of ‘Liberation, which had as its name implied only been operating for the past year. Lafarge wasn’t a great fan as it was left leaning but it was refreshing to read a journal that wasn’t spouting propaganda the whole time and inciting anti-Semitism as the papers had during the Occupation such as Les Nouveaux Temps which was not to be confused with the more moderate Le Temps which had ceased publishing in 1942 but which save the name Le Monde resembled.

  Just being violent on paper wasn’t enough to save you these days reflected Lafarge.

  Brasillach had been executed, Drieu well he had taken care of him but he would surely have been shot as well, whilst Herold-Paquis was not much longer for this world and the media baron of the Occupation Jean Luchaire wasn’t going to benefit from any reprieve either now that he was holed up in Fresnes.

  Lafarge flicked through the paper, there wasn’t much in it as electricity shortages and the expense of the paper it was printed on limited how many pages they could produce. The articles themselves weren’t too bad. There was an interesting appraisal of why Laval had not benefited from a reduction in sentence like the Marshal, it was he himself who had decided not to appeal but the paper indicated that he only did so because he knew it would fail. Quite right too thought Lafarge, regardless of some lawyers protesting that Laval’s trial had been anything but fair.

  The man hadn’t thought much about justice when he had all the Jews rounded up and instructed Darnand to form the Milice and hunt down their compatriots, so it was a moot point to Lafarge whether he had received a fair trial or not.

  “May I interrupt?” came a female voice from behind him.

  He recognized the voice and felt his heart pound a few extra beats a second. He thought it can’t be, and then kicked himself and said to himself you will only know if you have the good manners to turn round and see who is addressing you.

  To his unbridled joy it was who he thought it was Aimee de Florentin, an old flame of two years back although their story was rather more complex than that. Indeed if it had only been because he was married it would have been simple.

  “Aimee blimey this is a surprise!” he mumbled and stood up to embrace her.

  She offered him her cheeks to kiss, which was entirely understandable in the circumstances. Nevertheless he felt a bit deflated she didn’t allow him to kiss her full on the lips.

  “Always the master of understatement Gaston aren’t you,” she said smiling.

  He pulled out the chair opposite from where he was sitting and waited until she sat down before taking his own. She’d aged a bit but still was magnificent looking with her lush blonde hair worn long with the tips curling under her thin face, and she was beautifully dressed as he had always remembered her being.

  She had a fox stole and a black leather coat, which she rested on the chair behind her. Underneath she wore a dark blue dress with a white lace collar. It made her look a bit like a nun thought Lafarge, but that impression was balanced by a necklace that dropped down just above her full breasts with a sparkling ruby hanging between them.

  It was her hazel brown eyes, though, that were different or rather the expression. They didn’t appear on admittedly a brief glance as lively as they used to he felt, but then it was just a quick impression and she had only been sat down for two minutes. Stop being so judgmental Lafarge he said to himself, you’re off duty.

  However, he couldn’t help himself and observed she had certainly lost weight and her face now that he looked at it properly was more drawn and lined than he recalled. He thought he would remark on the first observation but best to keep quiet about the second, if he didn’t want her to walk out within minutes.

  He ordered her a glass of champagne, she begged him to join her but he gestured to the cognac and she laughed, although it was a brittle one.

  “So is this serendipity, fortunate timing or know more of my habits than you are letting on,” Lafarge said.

  She smiled, but her eyes didn’t radiate warmth.

  “I’d heard you were still, to my astonishment, in the force so I went by the Quai to see if you were there and was told you had just left. I took a gamble on coming to your apartment, but chanced to walk past here and glancing in saw you were having a cosy little dinner for one and a bottle for two,” she said drily.

  He laughed and tipped his brow to her in appreciation of her remark. However, he was confused as to why she had been so keen to see him so late at night.

  “Ah I know what you are thinking Gaston, why out of the blue and at this unsociable hour of the night, well for most normal people but not for you, should I take the time to chase you down,” said Aimee stroking her chin.

  Lafarge nodded.

  “Well this is because it is a very important personal matter for the two of us. I haven’t been back in Paris for very long and you were top of my list to see,” she said, leaning forward so that her mouth was only inches from Lafarge’s.

  Lafarge was taken aback by this rather forthright gesture so early on in their reunion, and drew back using his glass as an excuse, and not for the first time
when placed in awkward situations.

  “I’m touched Aimee,” he said laughing.

  She grimaced evidently not taking his flippant remark well. However, he couldn’t for the life of him think what could be of such primal importance regarding them. Time had moved on, although there were certain things that held Lafarge back from really leaving the past where it should belong.

  However, that was a separate matter to his relations with Aimee which he thought had been history since he decided to leave Paris and make the ill-fated voyage to Argentina with his family.

  “Sorry that was insensitive of me. Please go on,” said Lafarge wishing to repair the hurt he had evidently caused.

  She took a deep intake of breath and shook her head. Lafarge cursed himself for having provoked her into changing her mind and said so.

  “No, it isn’t that Gaston. It is just I don’t think this is the best place for me to tell you what the personal matter is,” she said, her voice trembling.

  Lafarge looked round the bistro and saw that aside from them there was one elderly couple paying their bill and the Girauds, Jean-Luc was scooping the cash gleefully into his wallet and Julie was behind the bar cleaning the glasses.

  “I think you can safely tell me what it is as we are out of earshot to the others,” said Lafarge.

  “Well I would prefer that I tell you in your apartment,” said Aimee all but pleading with him.

  Lafarge was taken aback by her tone and her insistence, but the necessary alarm bells didn’t ring and he thought she was being over-wrought.

  “Look Aimee seriously you can tell me here, besides this is a more convivial atmosphere than my flat,” said Lafarge.

  Aimee raised her eyes to the ceiling in frustration, or was it anger Lafarge couldn’t tell, but her patience had snapped.

  “Very well Gaston. If you wish I will tell you the reason and then you can decide whether we stay here or go to your flat,” she said.

  Lafarge nodded and spread his hands, palms out, allowing her that at least.

  “We have a child Gaston, a baby boy, Bernard,” she said her eyes welling up with tears and her lips trembling.

  Lafarge’s mouth dropped open in amazement, indeed for a rare moment of his life he felt the air had been sucked out of his solar plexus and he was speechless as he gulped for air. He reached for his glass and downed the contents to try vainly for some resuscitation.

  She was no help in filling in the conversation as she was dabbing at her eyes with a white lace handkerchief. He eventually regained the power of speech. His mind though was in a state of paralysis as he tried to think of the timing and was it possible. Not exactly the most romantic of notions but in times of pressure or shock his immediate reactions seemed to go into detective mode.

  “My god Aimee you are never short of a surprise! Where is he? Why have you waited for so long to tell me and where have you been which prevented you from doing so?” asked Lafarge, his thought process not behaving in its normal way and hence his peppering her with questions as they came to him.

  She didn’t look happy at all with his machine gun like questioning. She flashed him a look of disdain which her being an actress by profession he couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or for show.

  He had to admit perhaps a more obvious sense of joy about the news might have been more appropriate, but he truly was in shock for it appeared that that fellow that he didn’t believe in had taketh away with one hand and had giveth with the other. His son shooting Berenice had robbed him of two children, for she had been pregnant at the time, and now here by some miracle was Aimee emerging from the mist of his dark past to deliver him news that there was a living little Lafarge.

  Of course he should have been delighted but there was something in her manner which alerted him the good news came with a health warning. For a start there was the name.

  It was surely no accident she had named the boy Bernard, nice to have consulted me he thought rather self-indulgently, to remind him of her brother. It hadn’t been one of his most glorious moments when in order to get de Chastelain back to Paris he had informed the brutal leader of the Limoges Brigades Speciales that Bernard, his wife Lisette and Aimee were in the Resistance and were in a farm house outside the town.

  It was all true of course, and they had been harbouring a couple of fugitives, so he had been doing his duty. There again it is not normally the way you thank your hosts for their generosity nor the woman you have seduced. Thankfully Aimee as was obvious had escaped and they had reignited their relationship back in Paris, he apparently forgiven although the name of the boy suggested otherwise.

  Secondly her physical state alarmed him more than it had initially. Now that he had sat opposite her for a while he noticed her face was almost gaunt, which suggested ill health and not a natural loss of weight. Ditto for the weight she had lost round the waistline. It didn’t diminish her beauty but it suggested that not all was well with Aimee and perhaps her trip to see him had a darker reason.

  He filled his glass with a healthy dose of cognac and hers with red wine, not feeling this was the right moment to bring Jean-Luc bustling over with another glass of champagne.

  “I’m sorry Aimee, it’s just landing such a piece of news on me without any warning is obviously quite a shock,” said Lafarge, his senses returning to him and as a result his mind relaxed and he felt able to express himself in a far more personable manner than the brusqueness of a few minutes past.

  “I mean I didn’t even know you were alive till tonight, after all when I left Paris you were working for the Resistance and that was several months before the Liberation.

  “Having had no news of you I thought well that’s another person I cared for who I won’t be seeing again, another casualty of this odious war and those baleful sociopaths, the French as much as the Nazis.

  “You may not believe me, why should you, but I did make enquiries about you but I came up with a blank no matter which department I went to.

  “That reassured me because if there was one thing the Nazis were good at that was noting everything down, so if you weren’t listed anywhere that had to be a good sign.

  “All I could hope for was that one day by chance we would bump into each other on the street or in a café or indeed I would see your name up above the title of a film or a play, and then know for certain that you came through safe and well.

  “Now thankfully I don’t have to wait for that moment and I am happier than you can possibly imagine.

  “So when can I meet Bernard?”

  Aimee sniffed and swallowed, it looked to Lafarge that she was having trouble keeping her composure.

  “He is…. he is with a family in Germany,” she said her voice almost a whisper.

  “He’s in Germany! Why? You’ve completely lost me Aimee,” said Lafarge.

  Aimee leant back in her chair she had to hold her glass with two hands as they were trembling so much and her lips quivered.

  “Because Gaston I gave birth in Ravensbruck.”

  “I think you are right Aimee, it is time for us to go back to my flat,” said Lafarge.

  ***

  “I was betrayed Gaston shortly before the Liberation,” she said her voice still low but it had recovered some of its strength.

  “I can only think of one of two people who could have been responsible. Anyway regarding our story and Bernard that isn’t really relevant and is a distraction and is something I will take care of later.

  “I’m afraid it is something that a lot of us experienced during those awful years, so I can hardly gripe that it happened to me and I knew the risks I was taking when I agreed to be part of The Resistance.

  “I was aware I was pregnant well before I was seized but I felt the cause was more important. So I kept going and helping these brave people who could at least restore some pride to France and show others how shamefully they had behaved in not doing anything,” she added her eyes showing some brief sparkle as she recalled those days.

>   Lafarge, who had recovered from the thunderbolt she had delivered with the cold air on the walk back to his building doing the world of good, would have liked to interrupt and suggest that maybe she should have thought about the baby’s welfare first like many others would have done. However, he acknowledged that Aimee was a pretty unique woman and once set on a course her determination to see it through brooked no argument.

  A warm greeting from his indefatigable concierge Madame Grondon, who had enjoyed good relations with Aimee, had boosted her spirits. Now they were sitting in his salon not in the apartment that Aimee had briefly lived in but one down the passage which belonged to a Jewish couple called Rosenberg.

  He had made the change following the shooting of Berenice, it was still his but he had no wish to live there. The Rosenbergs had given no sign of life neither since the Liberation nor post the end of the War. He felt no guilt in taking over their apartment as he had saved the couple from his colleagues when they came looking for them during the Rafle.

  He was not responsible for what had happened to them subsequently, they had taken their own decisions and would have to live or die by them. Cold maybe but there was only so much one could do for adults and he abided by those rules, one was entirely responsible for ones deeds. He would face up to his should he ever be brought to account for them.

  “Are you listening Gaston?” said Aimee impatiently.

  He nodded and returned from the window looking out onto the courtyard and sat opposite her in his old battered brown leather chair. He needed to get up every so often because the springs had sprung in the seat of the chair and made it a rather uncomfortable experience, although he found if he needed to think urgently about something it did the trick wonderfully as it pushed him to come up with a solution.

  “We will track the traitor down Aimee. I will help you. But you are right it is secondary to our and Bernard’s story so please go on and I won’t interrupt you,” he said. He meant the bit about tracking down the traitor, unofficially of course for he or she deserved nothing better than a bullet in the head.