‘It’s always the same with you – the murderers are always in the right! You’re weird. You hunt them down and then you almost forgive them! He bumped off three men!’
‘He did it to protect his daughter. He loves her, even though he didn’t bring her up. He wants her to be happy. I’ve got him one of the best lawyers in Paris, and I’m sure he’ll be eloquent enough to get the jury on his side by telling them how he heard about Loulou’s murder—’
‘How can he tell them that, given that nobody officially identified the corpse with the dyed black hair?’
‘– that having learnt about Loulou’s murder from a boy from “the Monjol” whom he’d been paying to follow her in secret, he decided to apply the old law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
‘You’ve really got a knack for bending the facts to fit your story! I can’t drink any more of this.’ Joseph pushed away his half-empty glass, feeling his head already beginning to spin. ‘Now we can finally get back to normal life,’ he added.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Victor. ‘There’s one last visit I want to make.’
‘Who do you want to see?’
‘Madame Guérin. You see, Joseph, I may be a consummate liar, but I do want to get to the bottom of this mystery that has preoccupied me for so long. There are still lots of blanks in the narrative, and only this upstanding woman can fill them in.’
Torn between two desires, Joseph only hesitated for a few seconds. Victor was about to cross Quai Malaquais when Joseph caught up with him.
* * *
‘Lovely peas, only five sous a pound!’
‘Eight sous a lettuce! Choose your own!’
‘Take a look at these – Fontenay potatoes! They practically peel themselves! And if you buy five kilos of them we’ll give you the butter to cook them in absolutely free!’
The stallholders’ cries flew back and forth across the street as Victor and Joseph walked past the stalls that lined Rue de Lancry. Closing his eyes and breathing deeply, Joseph savoured the smell of roasted chestnuts mixed with the sweet hint of vanilla coming from a waffle stand. As they passed a barrel organ playing La Fille du Tambour-Major, they saw an old man carrying two books with gilt-edged pages and arguing with the owner of a bric-a-brac stall.
‘Two books by Paul Féval only ten sous? Are you pulling my leg, young man?’
‘If you don’t want to sell them, take them home and use them as a footstool, Grandad!’
I must remember that for my next story, Joseph thought to himself. There’s nothing better than scraps of real-life dialogue.
‘Come on,’ Victor said. ‘We need to catch her unawares before she closes the shop.’
When they reached Rue des Vinaigriers, it seemed strangely quiet after the bustle of the market.
‘It’s closed,’ said Joseph, pointing to the Blue Chinaman.
‘Then let’s go to Rue Albouy.’
They rang the bell several times before one of the ground-floor windows opened. Hermance Guérin fixed them with a hostile gaze.
‘What do you want? Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?’ she shouted.
Victor took off his hat and nudged Joseph, who did the same.
‘Madame Guérin,’ said Victor, ‘we are here to apologise. It was a terrible misunderstanding. We would very much like to speak to your daughter Sophie.’
‘She isn’t here any more. Go away!’
‘Please – I have been in touch with Masson, a great lawyer. He’s very renowned. I’ll pay his fee. He has agreed to defend Father Boniface.’
Hermance Guérin frowned and pursed her lips. Her expression remained doubtful.
‘Madame Guérin, Father Boniface sent us here. He mentioned a diary. Please, it’s really very important. I assure you that neither you nor your daughter will be mentioned at the trial. Please let us in.’
‘Give me one good reason why I should trust you,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a letter here from Monsieur Masson, and one from Father Boniface – you know his handwriting. The police have no conclusive proof against him, only circumstantial evidence. His only mistake was admitting to the murders of Richard Gaétan and Absalon Thomassin. He confessed spontaneously. I’ve spoken to him, and he wants the trial to go ahead.’
‘What will the verdict be?’
‘Given the circumstances, the jury will probably be sympathetic towards him. You won’t be asked to give evidence, and neither will your daughter. Your names will never be mentioned, and Monsieur Masson will avoid bringing you into it. We speak for him and we guarantee that your anonymous revelations will be used only to protect Father Boniface.’
Hermance Guérin looked at them for a moment, seemingly unmoved. She closed the window. The front door squeaked on its hinges.
They entered a small sitting room where the ticking of a marble clock on top of the piano was the only sign of life in the sleepy silence. Hermance Guérin invited them to sit down on a small sofa, while she perched on the edge of an armchair.
‘Still,’ she murmured, examining the two letters, ‘it doesn’t look very good, does it, given that he confessed?’
‘Madame, there is still hope. Tell us everything.’
‘Are you really interested in the story of my life?’
Even as she said this, memories began to swarm into her mind. She was seventeen, naïve and enthusiastic. Without thinking, she took up her needles and began to knit.
‘I hardly knew my father. He died when I was eight, and my mother was left to bring up five children. I got a job as a shop assistant working for Marcel Guérin, who owned a sweet shop in the Latin Quarter. He was a friend of my father’s, and had another shop on Rue des Vinaigriers. When you’re young, you don’t mind hard work, but you want to have a bit of fun too. We were all good friends, working there, and we’d go out in the evening. I met Julien Collet like that. He was a handsome boy, only twenty years old. His best friend, Sylvain Bricart, worked at the shop on Rue des Vinaigriers, and he always wanted to court me, but I preferred Julien. Julien wanted to be a doctor, but he didn’t have any money so he used to study in the evenings, from books. During the day, he worked for a glass blower. At the end of 1869, we set up home together. I got pregnant and Sophie was born a few days after France declared war on Prussia. Julien signed up…’
The knitting looked like an old, ragged piece of clothing with fraying sleeves.
‘I only ever got one letter from him, just before the Emperor surrendered. I waited for a year, and then another year. He had disappeared. So when Marcel Guérin proposed to me, I accepted. He let me keep Sophie, but he wouldn’t recognise her as his own because he hoped to have his own children and pass his money on to them. In March 1873, he had a heart attack and I became a widow, up to my neck in debt. I had to sell the apartment and the shop in the Latin Quarter, and take out a mortgage on the shop in Rue des Vinaigriers. It was Sylvain Bricart who helped me out in the end. He found us a place to live on Passage Dubail. I wasn’t in love with him – I just needed protection and a little bit of kindness. I had never really accepted that Julien was dead, though, and part of me still hoped that he would come back. When there’s no proof of death, you dream of a miracle.’
The knitting came to life again, like a cat waking up and stretching. The needles began to click quickly again.
‘When Sophie turned twelve, I decided it was time for her to have a proper education. I put her in a convent at Épernon. One of my brothers lives there. I hated being apart from her. I had eventually managed to save up enough money to buy the house and garden on Rue Albouy. One morning, I received a letter in which Julien’s name was mentioned. I thought it was some kind of horrible joke at first, but I went to the meeting place specified in the letter. There was a man waiting for me there who I would never have recognised he had changed so much. He was wearing a surplice, like the ones the White Fathers wear. It was my Julien. He told me that he had hesitated for a long time before contacting me because he
was afraid of turning my life upside down, and my daughter’s. There he was in front of me, thirteen years later! And it all came back – the same feelings, the same desire … He had deserted and travelled south. In Marseilles, he had got a job as a ship’s cook and sailed to Algeria. He stayed there for a year, doing all sorts of work, but he always had one aim, and that was to get back to Paris and find me. But after the Commune and all that followed, it was too dangerous for him to come back to France. He feared for his life and retreated to the countryside. He met a White Father on his way to work as a missionary in the desert. They travelled together for a time, but the White Father (whose name was Henri Boniface) was bitten by a snake. Julien did all he could to save him, but in vain. Father Boniface died. So my Julien had the idea, there and then, of taking the surplice and becoming somebody else. Nobody would find out, because Father Boniface had no family.’
Hermance Guérin held up her knitting and shook it out, before placing it back on her lap.
‘When Julien got to the missionaries’ camp, there was no one left except for a few black slaves who had taken refuge there from the raids. He stayed with them and helped to build a hospital. One day, a long time afterwards, some French soldiers arrived. That was how he learnt that there had been an amnesty for deserters. He decided to come back to France and see his daughter, even if it was without her knowing. He went to live in “the Monjol”, where nobody cares about anybody else too much. He devoted his life to the poor, and to the children there. We used to meet at his house. Bricart left me. I don’t know whether he was jealous or whether he’d had enough of our life together.’
The knitting slipped to the floor, unnoticed.
‘When Sophie and her friend Loulou went on trial in 1891, Julien, or Father Boniface, was a witness. Sylvain didn’t suspect that it was Julien, and Sophie never knew that this priest was her father. When she was ill, after she came back from America, it was he who looked after her. He would dress in ordinary clothes to come and examine her. When I read my little girl’s diary, I was so frightened. I talked to Julien about it and he read it too. He told me that it was all just a girl’s silliness, and that he would watch her and make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. Except Sophie and Loulou were too quick for us, and—’
‘Have you still got the notebook?’
‘Why should I give it to you?’
Victor feigned indifference, and Joseph bent forward to inspect the pattern on the rug more closely.
‘There is a certain person who has been following Sophie, and you too sometimes, Madame Guérin. He limps,’ Victor said, quietly. ‘Where does he come in? Did he also read the diary?’
He noticed a fleeting gleam in the blue eyes. She replied wearily, ‘It’s more than likely. How else can you explain why he was spying on Sophie? He saved her life, apparently.’
‘May I look at the notebook? That’s where everything started, isn’t it? It must be destroyed, but first, if you will allow me, I’d like to see it.’
‘It’s private.’
‘Madame, I feel responsible for this. Worse, I feel guilty. There’s nothing forcing you to show it to me – you can burn it here in front of us if you want to. But I would hate not to know the whole truth, given that I was the one who started the whole thing off with my blundering.’
Hermance Guérin shot him a mocking glance. She rose, tucked in her skirts and, with surprising agility, climbed onto a chair, felt around on top of a cupboard, seized a blue notebook and jumped back down.
‘Here you are, Messieurs. But let me say this: everybody has their own way of doing things. Life is like a piece of ribbed knitting: the stitches are different depending which side you’re looking at.’
She held it out, an old school exercise book, with some of its pages held together by hairpins. Victor noticed a sharp, hard look in the doll-like face. She was sizing him up. Reassured, she nonetheless added, ‘I was the one who encouraged her to write a diary. It meant she could see how she was getting on. She inherited her impulsive character from her father. I thought I was protecting her … The pages pinned together are personal things that have nothing to do with all this,’ she added. ‘You can read it aloud, so that he can hear it too,’ she said, indicating Joseph.
Victor nodded. The first few pages had been inserted at a later date.
1893. I shall begin at the end.
30 July
The clouds are like enormous white waves. The orange groves extend to the foot of the mountains, and the air is full of their scent. Everything is calm. The silence eases the pain. I have lost a friend. Where are you, Sam? Are you floating between two worlds in this blue evening light?
2 August 1893
Everything is settled now. I have received all the insincere condolences, and the funeral was solemn and sumptuous, just as my detestable brother-in-law, Arthur Mathewson, wished it. I managed to maintain my dignity as the family all trooped past looking gloomy. They always look gloomy anyway, so it wasn’t so difficult. Dear Sam, if you were looking down on us from wherever you are, this whole charade must have made you laugh.
4 August
I can’t stand living in this enormous house any more. I intend to leave the Mathewson clan to do with it what they will. I shall take nothing away with me; everything is in my heart. As for the apartments in Regent Street and the money in the London bank, I must remember to send a cable to Sam’s lawyer, Osborne, and ask him to meet me at Southampton.
Here, a pin held together a small number of pages covering the years up to summer 1889. The handwriting was slightly different.
July 1889
Maman has managed to buy a house on Rue Albouy. The business isn’t doing very well and I decided to try to find a job so as not to be a burden to her. She agreed to the idea, but she wanted me to help her in the shop. I wanted to get my own job, though. I’ve been taken on at Le Couturier des Élégantes, on Rue de la Paix. I’ll work hard: Sister Jeanne always used to say, ‘It’s harder to work your way up in life than it is to get to heaven.’ I don’t care about heaven, though! I want to live, and to be in love, but not like the Princesse de Clèves or Madame Bovary.
20 September 1889, Rue Albouy, my room, 9 in the evening.
This afternoon, on Rue de la Paix, I was just coming out of the storeroom when I bumped into Monsieur Thomassin, Monsieur Gaétan’s business partner. He smiled at me, and raised his hat just as he would have done to a client. I blushed and ran away. He’s so handsome and elegant!
22 September
I managed to arrange things so that at five o’clock, Mademoiselle Valier, the head seamstress, sent me to the storeroom again. I was hoping to bump into Monsieur Thomassin. And I did, but I was so shy that I didn’t even dare return his smile. I was trembling and my heart was pounding. He caught up with me at the top of the steps because I had deliberately dropped some receipts, which he picked up for me. This evening, he was waiting for me in a carriage when I came out of the workshop. He took me back to Rue Albouy without asking me to do anything except agree to see him again. I haven’t slept a wink all night.
25 September
Monsieur Thomassin asked me to call him Absalon. I’ll never dare. Maman doesn’t suspect a thing. We meet in carriages.
10 October
I told Maman that I was going to work overtime and that I would sleep at the workshop. I met Absalon at his home on Rue des Martyrs.
Here there were several more pages pinned together, and then:
2 November 1889
I’m so sad. Absalon is going away for a few weeks. Yesterday evening, Loulou came and stayed the night at Rue Albouy. I told her everything, and all she said was that I should be careful. She told me that the person who designs all the clothes at Le Couturier des Élégantes isn’t Richard Gaétan at all, but Absalon, but it’s a secret.
8 November
I don’t know what to do. The day before yesterday, we worked overtime. They hid me in a cupboard because the inspector turned up without warnin
g. The next day, Monsieur Gaétan asked to see me. He showed me into a pretty little boudoir and I sat down. He offered me sweets and told me that I was as tempting as an almond cake covered with angelica. He filled two little glasses with some green liqueur and insisted that we drink a toast. It was strong and it stung my throat. He leant over and passed me an envelope. He said, ‘Here, buy yourself some trinkets.’ I was feeling giddy by then. He began to be more insistent and told me that if I was good then I wouldn’t be fired. I heard the other girls leaving the workshop and old Monsieur Michon starting to do his rounds checking the stoves. I got up to go, but Monsieur Gaétan was looking at me in a funny way. He came towards me and pushed me back onto the sofa. I started to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth and took me by force. Since then, I haven’t stopped crying.
25 November 1889
If I tell Absalon about what happened in Monsieur Gaétan’s boudoir, who knows what might happen?
30 November
I’m three weeks late.
15 December
Monsieur Gaétan threatened me and I had to go and meet him at his house on Rue de Courcelles. It was that or be fired. I need to work, so I went. He showed me his collection of dolls. He’s obsessed – it’s disgusting.
20 December
Still nothing. I’m nearly six weeks late now. I’m going to have to tell Absalon.
22 December
Absalon says it’s all over. He doesn’t want to see me ever again. He said some terrible things, that I was stupid, nothing more than a common baggage, and that the streets were full of hussies like me. I’m devastated. I cried and begged, but he told me never to go back to Rue des Martyrs. Anyway, he’s going away on tour soon, far away, to the other side of the world.
10 January 1890
I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep. I don’t even know who the father is. I went to meet Loulou on Rue d’Aboukir, and she noticed straight away that something was wrong. I told her everything. She comforted me. ‘Only eight weeks – it can still be sorted out. Swear that you won’t repeat this to anyone, because it’s serious, do you understand? I could get into trouble with the police.’ She said, ‘There are women who, for one reason or another, don’t want children, or can’t look after them, so they have abortions. I did it last year. Do you want me to help you to have one?’ I said yes. I was terrified, but I didn’t hesitate for a second. When we went to Constance Thomas’s rooms, it took me an hour to calm down and lie on the bed. Madame Thomas put a handkerchief between my teeth so that the neighbours wouldn’t hear me scream. Loulou held my hand. It hurt a lot.
Strangled in Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries) Page 28