CHAPTER 27 – DR. ORCHARD'S FRENCH FLAT
Dr. Orchard's home in France turned out to be an apartment (flat, in Brit-speak). Richard Hugh was delighted with the neighborhood, and the layout of the building. He also liked the neighbors, none of whom seemed to question that an unfamiliar Englishman was walking down the hall. For that matter, they projected a sort of blind disdain. Blind disdain being a spy's cherished friend, Richard cheerfully met their coldness with what appeared to be an equally uninterested coolness.
It was enjoyable, not attracting much notice for a change – or at least not much of what he would call scrutiny. Leandre Durand, right beside him, attracted even less notice; he had an annoying knack for fading out at will. Richard was jealous of the knack, and had been for years.
After letting himself into the apartment, Richard looked around the harshly furnished front room. "Horrid taste, but fits," he said.
"Is this supposed to be a conversation in which I am supposed to be involved, or are you talking to yourself?" Durand asked.
"Worse than that. I'm muttering things in the direction of Dr. Orchard, who is, I trust, still back in the UK."
"And you are welcome to him," Durand said, with feeling.
Richard laughed, and proceeded to carefully snoop around. After a while, he realized that Durand was standing with his hands behind his back, swaying on his toes, like a self-important supervisor who is impatiently waiting for an underling to finish up. "Here, Durand, why don't you help some?"
"I have not been formally asked, I don't think."
"If it has escaped your attention, we are in France, which is your home turf."
"Precisely."
"Oh, I get it. Please, pretty please, may I, a British fellow, have permission to conduct an internal review of a suspicious person inside internal review, even though he has had the odd taste to purchase a flat in your beloved home country?"
"That is better. Permission granted. What would you like for me to do?"
Richard laughed. "Tell me again how we've stayed friends for so long?"
"I do not have a clue, really."
Richard took a hard look at his friend. "You look bushed, if you don't mind me saying it."
"I am only extremely tired, which is one step this side of bushed, I think. I have been working at odd hours. It is nothing. I am sure that I can help you," Durand said.
For form's sake, Richard didn't call a break right away but, without letting on that he meant to be considerate, he found an excuse to stop early for some sit-down-style thinking.
Despite rumblings from his conscience, Richard listened to the rumblings in his stomach and helped himself to Orchard's coffee and tinned biscuits.
He settled into a chair and allowed his mind to get swept away with thoughts of taking possession of the apartment and using it for his base of operations. He didn't take these thoughts seriously, but it was fun to think of using Orchard's own assets to tree the fellow, if indeed he turned out to be in need of treeing.
Durand, from his own perch, beamed at Richard and shook his head.
"Why the amusement, old sport? Or dare I ask?" Richard said.
Durand waved his hand as if to brush away unimportant thoughts. "Nothing," he said.
Richard gritted his teeth.
Durand heaved a sigh. He crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, and assumed what all his old friends knew to be his very best philosopher's air. Or, at least, his very best playful philosopher's air.
"I'm not sure I'm feeling up to much philosophy at the moment," Richard said, recognizing the signs.
"But it is pleasant philosophy," Durand said.
"With me as the case study I suppose."
"With all mankind as the case study, as you call it," Durand said, grandly.
"Not much chance I can get you to stifle, is there?"
"None."
"All right then. What's the topic this time?"
"The beneficial aspects of marriage. The basis for good marriages. Love. Hope. Art. Natural law. The importance of thinking in alloys," Durand pronounced, emphasizing each subject with hand gestures.
"You lost me somewhere between Art and Natural Law," Richard said.
"Ah, hah! But you are curious now? No?"
"I could probably take it or leave it."
"But of course you could. Yours is a phenomenally disciplined brain. You have an extraordinarily busy life, with much responsibility. If I never talked to you again about thinking in alloys you would still be a happy man," Durand said.
"I forget," Richard said. "Was it Voltaire or Moliere who, when an old man, drove a sculptor nearly to suicide or murder by tossing things about the room when he was supposed to be posing for posterity? Not throwing a fit or anything, just lobbing things about for the fun of watching little things fly. Spitballs or paper airplanes, or whatever."
"You are about to insult me. I can tell," Durand said.
"No. It just occurred to me that you resemble the fellow a little. A specific statue of him, anyway. I can't remember which man it was, but I remember the statue the poor put-upon artist finished against the odds. It was rather like a merging of imp and ogre and man, I thought when I was a young lad. Amazing I hadn't noticed it before, but you have some of the same features. If you ever get to be an old man, you might very well look like cousins."
"No, he is not going to insult me, he says, and then he compares me to a statue of an ogre whose name he cannot remember. Indeed, I am flattered beyond words," Durand said.
"Sorry," Richard said. "Proceed whenever you're ready with whatever it was you were going to say."
"No."
"Oh, come on. I was kidding. If I've gone overboard, I take it back."
Durand looked partially mollified. But only partially. "On second thoughts, you are not ready to hear this. You are too young to understand, I think."
"I'm only slightly younger than you. I'm 50 in a few weeks. How old do you want me?"
"Maturity is not measured in years, I think you know," Durand said, as he leaned across to take a biscuit from the tin.
Richard had a peppery reply in mind, but was forestalled by a massive roar. The building bucked. The front of it fell off. The floor tipped and threatened to drop away entirely. Richard managed to get enough traction to drag Durand to the side of the room, where they held on to a twisted doorframe for all they were worth.
"A bomb, perhaps?" Durand asked, politely.
"That would be my guess," Richard replied. "But of course there are such things as accidental explosions, gas leaks, that sort of thing."
"But of course. Not that the distinction will matter to our widows if the building comes down."
"You're a cheery fellow to hang onto a doorframe with," Richard said as he tried to survey the damage. There was altogether too much stuff floating in the air yet to see clearly. It was very annoying, not being able to look around properly for a good escape route when you really needed a good escape route.
"At least the sounds are encouraging," Durand said.
Richard listened. He heard screams and moans and car alarms. There should have been sirens, he thought, but he didn't hear any yet.
Durand sighed. "You must ignore the alarms and the people for the moment. Perhaps the British do not teach their people this, but we French are taught to listen to buildings that have been damaged. So far, this one is not creaking in altogether alarming ways."
Richard listened again. And heard screams and moans and car alarms. Also creaks and snapping noises. "To the untrained ear, this building doesn't sound all that sound," he said.
"Now who is being a cheery fellow, as you say it?" Durand said.
It would have been satisfying, in its way, to try to crawl and clamber down the shattered building like special forces operating in some forsaken spot, but they agreed it was ridiculous to risk breaking their necks when a crane or fire ladder would be there soon.
When fire made its way closer, the idea of pretending to be younger, more agile, an
d better trained, began to look better. Luckily, fire engines showed up just then.
When Richard waved a fire ladder to one side to pick up a young woman and her baby before them, Durand started testing the floor with his foot. The floor did not feel promising. He scowled. "Do not misunderstand me, mon vieux. Of course we should let young women and babies be evacuated first. And of course it was honorable for you to point them out, since obviously the firemen had not seen them yet. It is just that now I am beginning to worry about our chances, just a little."
Richard didn't have a good reply. He didn't like their chances either.
For a while, they watched the woman and child being taken down, but gave it up, shifting their gaze and thoughts elsewhere. It was too easy to want to go back in time and make a different choice. Besides, if a man was going to die, it shouldn't be while being jealous of a baby.
They tried not to count off the seconds between when the ladder left and when it came back, this time to them. It seemed a long time, almost as if they'd been forgotten. They knew they were not forgotten. They knew that the firemen were hurrying and it was just that time seemed distorted and in short supply. But it was a hard discovery, to find that feeling forgotten could so dominate a man's universe.
Durand's fingers, clenched as they were on the doorframe, nevertheless twitched in a familiar pattern, working a variety of invisible rosary, trying to get his mind on board, trying to remind himself that he was never truly alone. He finally acknowledged the point, and gratefully threw his soul into God's keeping come what may, but he ached for a ladder all the same.
The building shuddered. They dropped several inches.
"Ah, well, the silly building just did not understand that we could reach you from where you were," a fireman called out to them, from his perch twenty feet away on a ladder.
"Oh, we're not all that worried," Durand called back.
"Ah, then. Shall I break for coffee?"
"No, thank you. This doorframe is bending rather seriously, if you must know," Durand called out. "And the floor feels like thin rubber."
The fireman spoke into his radio. The ladder swung right over to them.
"Fathers first," Richard said, waving Durand ahead of him. Durand for once didn't argue.
They were barely onto the ladder when the building bucked again. Their doorframe, along with most of the building, dropped from view.
"Hang on!" the fireman yelled. "It's likely to hit the truck, and try to fling us off."
Massive chunks of rubble pummeled the fire truck, knocking it about. The movement was amplified up the length of the ladder. The men held onto each other and the ladder for dear life. Durand recited Catholic prayers, Richard rediscovered the Book of Common Worship, and the fireman, having been raised an atheist, made up some heartfelt prayers as he went. To God, of course. One gets no satisfaction praying to impersonal Life Forces or, worse yet, Thousands of Years of Lucky Chemical Reactions.
"It's a bit like being the weight on a badly-built metronome, no?" the fireman joked, once the oscillations calmed down enough that it seemed unlikely they'd be flung off, or the truck would tip over. He looked downward. "Ooh, man, I'd hate to be the chief, trying to explain why we had the truck so close when the building came down."
Richard looked at the mess. "On the other side of that, he ought to get points for moving the evacuees away from the building as far as he did. Look. The staging area looks fine. And before we go down, I'd like to say that if I were younger I would name my firstborn son after you."
"Go on," the fireman said.
"I have more than a sneaking suspicion that you knew you were cutting it too close, but came after us anyway."
"Never call the French cowards," the fireman said.
"I don't, generally," Richard said. "Your leading class often leaves something to be desired, but most leading classes do, if it comes to that. It's universally difficult to attract decent people to top jobs, and keep them decent afterward, it seems."
"Silly old world," the fireman joked. "Me, I leave politics alone. Well, shall we try this again? Down we go, now. Mind your step, there might be a weak rung or two after that thrashing."
As soon as they touched ground, Richard and Durand were herded to the staging area. The woman who had been rescued because Richard had waved the ladder over to her was talking to a police officer, between racking coughs. She glared at Richard. "It's their fault," she said bitterly, pointing at Richard and Durand. "I swear it is. All I did is what I was paid to do, which was to call it in whenever a man went into that British-owned apartment. This time, they told me to get out, that I wouldn't like what was going to happen and wouldn't want to be involved in it. But they might have told me that they intended to blow up the place. I'd never have gone along with that." She glared even more malevolently at Richard, and held her baby tighter.
-
Durand was busy for a while, smoothing things over as well as investigating, and in general arranging matters to his satisfaction. It would not do, for instance, to find names of certain individuals or agencies in the newspapers, no? Not if it could reasonably be avoided. The local officials, accustomed to being bullied from above, were grateful for his politeness but assumed it was a velvet glove on an iron fist, and were only too accommodating.
Richard faded into the background and held his peace. Finally, he was able to grab Durand for a few minutes alone. "All I meant to do on this trip to France, besides have a look around that flat for clues, was let you know that your Castelneau seems to have a connection with a woman who shot Stolemaker. We're still sorting it out. Likely it's merely coincidental, but you might be on your toes."
"Not that it's any of my business, but is Stolemaker all right?"
"Sorry. Yes, he is. I'm getting frazzled or something. I'm starting to assume you can read minds or something. Now I forgot what I was going to say."
"That is very interesting about Castelneau, especially since he recently assigned me to report to him any leaks from non-traditional, underground communists. He tried to make it seem like he wishes to keep on top of their activities, but of course there is the remotest outside chance that I am being used to let somebody know if someone has let him or his friends down by being indiscreet."
"Oh, really? Our shootress specializes in French communism, as it happens."
"Very interesting. Is there some reason you are not naming her?"
"Pamela Williams. Ms. Pamela Williams."
"Too rasty to get married, you mean?"
Richard laughed. "A truly desperate or unbalanced man might consider her. But stop it. You're getting me sidetracked."
"You are disciplined. Live with it. And where does our Ms. Williams belong? When she is not trying to assassinate people, I mean."
"Oh, here and there. A letting agent's office. British intelligence. Might moonlight elsewhere for all I know."
"Nice try, but you did not bury it deep enough. Another colleague gone to the dark side? Perhaps you have something inherently wrong at your agency or in your culture, do you think?"
"It's not funny."
"I never said it was."
"Sorry. I don't suppose you have any feeling, old sport, as to whether the bombers today were after me in particular, or Orchard, or Englishmen at random?"
"I would rule out Englishmen at random. At least as a starting theory. Too much boom for so insignificant a target, you understand."
"Too much boom for any individual target in a civilized area, I'd say."
"And I must agree with you. Obviously we are dealing with savages. But I cannot believe that it was random, for just anyone from your country."
"Not that it matters, you understand, except that we might want to put Orchard on ice to keep him from being killed in a Plan B, if he was the intended target," Richard said.
"Sometimes I think the British are too civilized," Durand said. "Look at you, mon vieux, going to such trouble to help a man who appears to have your worst interests at heart."<
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"Innocent until proven guilty," Richard said.
"Bah. Even if he proves guilty, you will be nice to him. In World War II, you were famous for offering tea to Germans who had just fired upon your ships before being captured."
"Better that than what the Polish are infamous for from the same circumstances," Richard said.
"No question, if you mean marching POWs off the sides of ships and then becoming upset when the British called it murder. But that was not widespread, surely? It is not my experience that many Poles are animals. In fact, they have been invaluable in the war against terrorists, no? And defenders of righteousness and decency have arisen more in Poland of late than in most of the rest of Europe, no? Now, if you will allow me to return to the present subject as well as the present day, did I tell you that I have already got hold of the phone number our lady of the demolished building called to report a man entering a certain flat?"
"No. But better late than never. Has it been traced?"
"Not that it is any of your business, officially."
"No, of course not. Not officially. You are right."
"Traced, tracked, and a dead end. It was a landline, which was good, of course. It is so nice to have a physical location."
"But?"
"Do not get impatient."
"I'm in a hurry. I'm entitled to be impatient."
"There is that," Durand conceded. "Sadly, it was a very charred physical location. By the time anyone reliable could get there, it was engulfed. Arson. No question. And all I wanted was a few fingerprints, perhaps a few stray hairs. Was that too much to ask?"
"Apparently."
"At least, in this case, there is no indication that anyone was inside at the time. Just a ruined building, and destroyed evidence, if you were wondering."
Durand could look ahead and see clearly that a couple of things were going to happen. For one, reporters were going to have a heyday, and would without question toss wild theories around, almost none of which would seem likely to people with any actual experience with bombers or any knowledge of the situation. For two, Richard Hugh would memorize the names of everyone killed or badly hurt in this incident. He would not forget. Or idly walk away. In that they were much alike and always had been.
Durand debated with himself whether to file a report with Castelneau. He decided to hold off and play it by ear. He debated whether to tell a colleague or two, and again decided to play it by ear.
To his surprise, the man he most wanted to tell was Bertin Nason. It was amazing how the young fellow had become a confidante of sorts, and so quickly, too.
Durand searched his mind for hints that the young man was insinuating himself into his good graces under false pretenses, but couldn't come up with any. Truly, he seemed to be a nice boy placed into an awkward position by a dubious supervisor, that was all. No, on second thought, he was more than a nice boy. He had courage and wits. He would be a good ally. Or, on the reverse of that, he would be a dangerous enemy, if he chose to be an enemy, especially as he got older.
Not Exactly Allies Page 27