A minute later the barman showed someone in. Vasson looked up and stiffened.
It was the stupid old boy – the count.
Vasson swore to himself. He should never have put this address on the bill of sale; he had known it was a mistake when he did it. He said quietly, ‘Whatever you want, forget it.’
The count smiled inanely. ‘But I bring you good news.’ He sat down in a brand new chair.
Vasson said quickly, ‘I don’t think so.’ And, standing up, called for the barman again.
‘I wouldn’t be hasty if I were you. I bring you news from the past.’
Vasson suddenly felt cold. Slowly, he sat down again. ‘The past?’
‘Yes. I bring you information which I think you will be very happy to have.’ The count grinned like a cat.
Vasson’s mouth felt dry. Slowly, he licked his lips. ‘Well? Go on.’
The count said triumphantly, ‘Someone’s looking for you!’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Someone who knew you some time ago.’
The fear clutched at Vasson’s heart, but he kept his face impassive. He asked quietly, ‘This person found me through the car?’
‘Yes. Knew you’d bought it. Must have seen you at the wheel perhaps?’
‘Perhaps. And who is this person?’
‘Ahhh. That’s the question, isn’t it?’
The old bastard wanted money then. Vasson considered the alternatives. He could beat the information out of him, there was the gun of course, or …
‘I don’t think the information will be worth enough to pay for.’
‘No?’ enquired the count sweetly. ‘But on the other hand, maybe it will.’
Vasson picked at his fingers. ‘If I was interested, then what would you be able to tell me?’
‘Name. Address.’
‘How do I know the name and address would be real?’
‘No assurance. But I think they would be.’
‘Is it just the one person?’
The count considered. ‘I think I can say it’s probably only the one.’
Vasson nodded slowly. ‘Did the person say he’d definitely seen me in the car?’
‘Ahh. Really I feel unable to answer …’ The count looked supercilious, like a complacent schoolmaster.
Sickening old sybarite. Vasson observed him with distaste. But the choices were limited. He had to know. ‘I’ll offer you five hundred.’
The count shook his head and laughed. ‘Really! Really! Five thousand would be a little nearer, don’t you think?’
It was more than the club would take in a good night. ‘You’re out of your mind!’
But he wasn’t and Vasson knew it. Eventually they settled on four thousand.
Vasson handed over the cash and, his heart hammering, asked with difficulty, ‘The information?’
‘A girl. Named Lescaux. Dark hair. Mid- to late twenties. Her address is Hôtel Hortense. It’s a cheap place in the treizième. She came to see me today. She had an old photograph of you. I didn’t recognise you at first – the face was unmarked – but then I saw a similarity in the eyes and realised it must be you after all.’ He paused, watching Vasson’s reaction.
Eventually Vasson said, ‘What … What led her to you?’
‘The advertisement.’
‘So she never saw me at all … in the car?’
‘She didn’t say.’
Vasson stood up stiffly and murmured, ‘Get out and don’t let me ever see your face in here again.’
The count needed no second invitation and disappeared rapidly out of the door.
Vasson thought carefully for five minutes, then, taking his coat from the peg, slipped out through the back door into the night.
Chapter 39
THE ADDRESS WAS somewhere near Pigalle; Julie had realised that the moment she’d read it.
The street, when she found it, looked familiar and she remembered that she’d walked down it a week or so before. It was narrow and very dark, except for the occasional blaze of light from a small bistro. She went slowly, keeping close to the side and pausing now and then to look for the indistinct, sometimes invisible, street numbers on the shopfronts and door frames.
When she was almost there she stopped in a doorway and checked the numbers again. It was just two away now. Her heart beating in her ears, she looked out along the street. Next door was a shop, closed and shuttered. Then, beyond, a dull gold pool of light spilling out of a doorway on to the pavement.
That must be it. She peered into the darkness. There was a sign hanging over the door. It wasn’t illuminated, but she could just make out some sort of painting on it. Above, there was a name. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like The Golden Cage. A club then? How strange. She could have sworn the place hadn’t been there before.
She drew a deep breath and, crossing the street, walked past on the opposite side. Without being too obvious, she took a good look. It was definitely a club. But not, apparently, open for business. The door was open but there was a plank straddling the entrance and, just inside, some kind of notice on a board.
She went on walking, resisting the temptation to look back over her shoulder. She saw a deep doorway ahead and slipped quickly inside. She moistened her lips and waited for her heart to stop hammering. Then she peered back round the corner.
Nothing. No-one had seen her. She relaxed a little.
What next? It would be madness to go in, in case Vasson was there. So she must wait; wait and watch.
Assuming this was the right address.
The count’s behaviour had been so extraordinary she still didn’t know what to make of it. At first, when he didn’t return, she’d given him the benefit of the doubt, but after trudging wearily into the railway station at the end of a long walk from the château she had found the taxi driver waiting there, and slowly, the truth had come out. The count had done it on purpose. But why? What could have made him want to run away like that? Perhaps, she thought wearily, he was Vasson’s friend and partner. Or perhaps she’d got this far only to be tricked and sent on a wild goose chase. This club might be nothing to do with Vasson at all.
It was very worrying.
She moved to a corner of the doorway where she could watch the club while keeping in shadow. The street was getting busier now as the evening trade began to pick up. A man spotted her and came into the doorway to proposition her. Julie got rid of him quickly enough – he was as nervous as a mouse – but she knew she’d got away lightly. Next time it might not be so easy. She remembered she still had a lot of money on her – over two thousand from the money the Patron’s friends had given her. She wished now she’d left it at the hotel.
Someone was coming out of the club. Julie stared. It was a man dressed in baggy clothes with a beret on his head. He paused in the doorway, pulling on a jacket, then called over his shoulder. Another man appeared carrying a workman’s bag, and the two of them walked off in the direction of Pigalle.
She relaxed again. Workmen. That would explain why the club wasn’t open.
After that there was no-one for several hours. The time passed slowly. She was ravenously hungry; for once she’d forgotten to put any bread in her pockets.
By ten-thirty she was numb with cold. Then, just before eleven, there was a movement outside the club. She stiffened. Four or five people were coming out. She peered forward, trying to see their faces in the darkness.
Workmen again: most wore old clothes and carried tool bags. Another man appeared, well dressed and smoother looking than the others. He moved the plank, turned off the lights, closed the front door and locked up. He was very tall, with thick, rather bushy fair hair.
It wasn’t Vasson. None of them was Vasson.
The men walked off. The club looked deserted; clearly, it was closed for the night.
She should go back to the hotel and get some sleep. There was no point in staying here.
She hesitated, then decided to take a quick look. It wouldn’t take a minu
te and it couldn’t possibly do any harm. She stepped out of the doorway and, looking quickly from left to right, crossed the street and walked up to the front of the club. She peered at the sign. Yes: The Golden Cage. Below, pasted on the door, was a notice. The club was opening on the 14th November. She realised with a slight shock that the 14th was the following night.
What a stroke of luck! If Vasson had any connection with the place, he was bound to be there … She could stand in the shadows and watch until he arrived. But would she recognise him at a distance? From the count’s description he was terribly scarred.
She tensed and looked quickly over her shoulder. The street was darker now, full of deep shadows. Apart from the faint drone of traffic the only sound was the distant beat of music. She started to walk. Suddenly her hackles rose and she shivered slightly. She walked faster, an uncomfortable feeling in her spine, until she was safely into the brightness of Place Pigalle.
She took the Métro across the city, thinking hard.
An idea came into her mind. She should get one of the Patron’s friends to take her to the opening. Yes! That would be perfect. She could imagine it all: arriving with all the other guests, looking into the scarred face, knowing immediately it was him, seeing the shock on his face …
In the next moment she knew it would never work. It would be madness to let Vasson see her.
No, the best thing would be to identify him from a position of safety, somewhere close enough but not too close. Then once she was certain that it was him she would tell – who? The Patron’s friends. Yes, or the Resistance. Either group would kill him straight away.
The police would be too kind – or would they? No, perhaps it would be better to let him sweat through a long trial and the fruitless pleas for clemency before he was taken out and shot in cold blood. That way he would have more time to think about what he had done.
It was a fifteen-minute walk from the Métro to the hotel. Tonight it seemed longer because she was dog tired, but finally its dreary façade came into view. The Hôtel Hortense was extremely modest, which was why she’d chosen it. It was so modest, in fact, that there was no night porter. The front door was locked at eleven, after which the guests were expected to let themselves in using a key for which they had to pay a generous deposit, in advance.
Julie trudged up to the door and fumbled in her bag. She swore quietly. The key wasn’t in the bottom, nor in the side compartment. She looked nervously up and down the dark deserted street. Eventually she found the key wedged inside the pages of her pocket diary. She unlocked the door and went in, closing the door gratefully behind her.
The lobby was lit by a single white light, which cast a cold inhospitable glare over the floor and left the rest of the hall in shadow. Julie walked across to the stairs and started to climb. She’d taken a room on the fourth, topmost, floor because it was cheaper there. In the centre of the staircase there was an ancient cage lift in an open mesh shaft, but like most lifts in Paris at the moment it was usually out of order and she never bothered to try it any more.
The building was quiet. The only sound was the slight creaking of the boards under her feet. The hotel had very few guests – at least Julie hardly ever saw anybody.
She reached the first landing and paused. There was a sound; it was coming from the lobby. A gentle rattling. She realised that someone was trying to open the street door.
She went on, a little faster now, up towards the second floor.
From below there came a faint clang. Someone had closed the lift door. Julie reached the second landing and hurried on. Suddenly the lift machinery burst into action with a loud whine. Julie jumped. The lift wires started humming. The lift was coming up.
She reached the third floor and looked down the central well. The lift was rising steadily towards her, but the top was closed and it was impossible to see inside. She climbed on and, panting slightly, hurried across the top landing to her door. She opened her bag and started to look for the room key.
The lift mechanism whirred louder and louder. The key was nowhere to be found; Julie shook her bag impatiently.
There was a loud Clunk! and silence. The lift had stopped. There was a click as the gate was opened.
Julie thrust her hand into the outside compartment of her bag and at last her fingers closed over the large metal key tag. She raised the key to the lock but her hand was trembling slightly and she couldn’t get it in.
A soft footstep fell on the thin carpet behind her.
She whirled round.
It was the tallest, blackest man she’d ever seen. Julie put her hand to her chest and laughed nervously. ‘Oh, good evening! You startled me!’
The man was in French Army uniform. He was grinning from ear to ear, revealing an enormous row of white teeth which were in startling contrast to the blackness of his skin. Julie stared, fascinated. The soldier bowed low and straightened up again, swaying slightly. Julie realised he was rather drunk.
He said in a low booming voice, ‘Mademoiselle, my sincere apologies!’
Julie nodded politely and quickly let herself into her room. As she closed the door, she saw he was still standing there, beaming happily. Drunk but quite harmless, she decided. She turned on the light and locked and bolted the door.
The room was quite simple: a bed, a rug on the floor, a chest of drawers and a narrow wardrobe. But it was clean and, most important, no-one in the hotel took any notice of her.
She threw herself straight on to the bed and lay there for a moment because it was so lovely to get her feet up. Then, reluctantly, she got up again and, opening the double windows, reached out to close the shutters. The window was a dormer, set into the roof behind a parapet. You couldn’t see the street from there, but you could see an enormous amount of sky. It was very clear tonight and, above the faint glow of the city, Julie could see a thousand stars.
It had been a long time since she had seen a night sky.
For several moments she stood and watched and remembered Brittany a long time ago.
The night was cold. She fastened the shutters and closed the windows again.
Hastily slicing some cheese on to a slice of stale bread two days old, she ate ravenously. Then, gritting her teeth against the cold, she undressed as quickly as possible and pulled on her nightdress.
She didn’t bother to wash, but hopped straight into bed, shivering violently. She spread her dressing gown over the thin blankets then pulled her coat off the chair and spread that over as well.
She wriggled down into the bed and curled herself up, wondering whether she’d ever feel warm again.
It was a bit of luck, the black soldier coming along like that. Vasson even helped him to find his key.
Vasson waited for the lift to disappear, then slipped quickly behind the reception desk and looked for the registration book. It wasn’t there. He looked around. Immediately behind the desk was a door which probably led to an office. The registration book would be in there. He tried the door; it was locked. He cursed softly.
Then something caught his eye and he let out a small hiss of triumph. To the right of the door there was a notice board covered with yellowing fire regulations and taxi numbers – and a fresh white piece of paper with a list of room numbers and, where appropriate, names. He read it quickly. There weren’t many guests – just six or so – and it took him only a second to find the name he wanted.
Lescaux. Room 25.
He took a swift look round the lobby, then tiptoed quickly across to the stairs. He ran lightly up to the first floor, checked the room numbers, and then continued up the building.
As he approached the fourth floor he slowed down and listened.
Silence.
He climbed the last few steps and paused again. Softly, he padded across the landing until he could see the numbers on the doors.
Room 25 was in the left-hand corner, at the front of the building. Vasson crept up to the door and listened. He stiffened. Someone was moving about inside. There wa
s a click as if a window was being closed.
He looked round the landing. There were several other bedrooms, then, on the opposite side, a door marked ‘Salle de Bain’ and another marked ‘W.C.’. Beyond was a plain painted metal door. He ran across and tried it, but it was locked. He looked up. Above was a sign: Sortie de Secours. Beside it was a key hanging on a nail.
He took the key and tried it in the lock. At first it wouldn’t move but then he pulled on the handle and the key turned quite easily. He opened the door and put his head out. He looked both ways then, satisfied, pulled his head back in and closed the door again without locking it.
He walked lightly across to the bathroom, which was open, and went in. He flicked on the light, locked the door carefully, and turned the light off again. Then he sat down on the floor to wait.
He fingered the gun in his pocket and decided against it. Far too noisy. No, it would have to be done quietly – the other way.
Damn the woman. She’d been trouble all along.
What really upset him was that she’d found out about the car. But how? He couldn’t imagine and it was driving him mad. He’d never told anyone about it, he was certain, at least not for years and years …
Damn her. Was she alone? Had she told anyone else? He’d have to risk it. If he didn’t deal with her he’d be a dead man anyway.
Damn her.
He leant his head against the bath and, looking unseeing at the night sky, waited impatiently for the minutes to pass.
She couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about the day’s events and what they meant. Every time she started to drift off she woke up with a start and began to go through it all over again.
There was another thing keeping her awake: she needed to go to the lavatory. She should have gone before, of course, but the bed had been too inviting. Now it couldn’t be put off any longer. With an exclamation of irritation, she got out of bed into the cold air and pulled on her dressing gown.
She unlocked the door, walked quickly across the landing and went into the W.C.
When she came out, she went towards the bathroom to wash. She tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. She glanced up at the fanlight; there was no light showing through. She tried again, pushing hard against the door, but it was firmly locked. She stood still for a moment, then gave up and went back to her room.
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