The Paris Directive

by Gerald Jay

  “Some detective.”

  Madame Charpentier greeted Molly warmly, welcomed her to her house and, leaving the inspector to fend for himself, took her upstairs. The smell of the bakery below sweetened the air. The room she showed Molly was next to Gabrielle’s. It was small and cluttered with plants and pillows and rocking chair cozy, but it was the mug with a picture of a bearded Che Guevara on the windowsill that won Molly’s heart.

  When the inspector returned to the commissariat, there was a message for him that Monsieur McAllister had called from London. Finally, Mazarelle thought. He immediately sat down at his desk and dialed the number in London.

  McAllister apologized for not getting back to him sooner. He and his family had been away. As Mazarelle had suspected, he knew all about the murders at L’Ermitage and was eager to find out what was so urgent.

  “No,” McAllister said, he’d given no one permission to use his house in Taziac. “Absolutely not. Why?”

  “Your back door was open. We discovered it in the course of our investigation.”

  “That’s strange. I distinctly recall locking all the doors and windows in the house when we left at the end of last summer.”

  “I see you own some guns.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Two rifles. A Mannlicher and a twelve-gauge shotgun. I do some hunting.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to have them tested.”

  “Why?”

  Mazarelle heard the alarm in his voice. “Just to be sure. After all, we did find your door open. Merely part of our ongoing investigation, you understand?”

  “Couldn’t you wait until we return?”

  “I have no time for waiting, Monsieur McAllister. Four people have been murdered already.”

  “Very well,” he said grudgingly, feeling that he’d no choice. “You’ll find a key to my gun case in the kitchen drawer.”

  The inspector thanked him for his cooperation.

  As soon as he hung up, Mazarelle summoned Duboit to his office. Told him to pick up the guns, wrap them with care, and send them down to PTS for testing. He wanted it done right away. After that, he’d another assignment for him. Just in case they had the wrong man or Ali was part of a team of killers, Mazarelle didn’t want to have another dead body on his hands.

  “For the next few days until Mademoiselle Reece leaves Taziac, I want you to park outside Madame Charpentier’s boulangerie, where she’s staying, and don’t let her out of your sight. Clear?”

  “Sure, boss, but why me? Any rookie could handle a job like that. It’s so boring just sitting around waiting. Besides, why does she have to be watched anyhow?”

  “Bernard …” The pause that followed was an abyss into which Bernard chose not to look.

  “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

  The last thing Molly remembered was stretching out on top of the bed to rest for a few seconds. The timid knocking on the door woke her up. It was Gabrielle. There was someone downstairs to see her. Molly had no idea who it might be because only the inspector knew where she was staying, and Gabrielle would have told her if that’s who it was. Molly brushed her hair and hurried down the narrow staircase. The bakery was closed and the only ones in the shop were Madame Charpentier and the tall, dark-haired man talking to her. Suddenly he spun around.

  “Aha, there you are! You see, I found you.”

  “Pierre!”

  “I hope I’m not too early. You haven’t forgotten our appointment?”

  “Of course not.” In her eagerness to leave the Fleuri, Molly had totally forgotten their dinner date. “But how did you find me here?”

  Reiner explained that the manager of the hotel wasn’t very helpful, but he’d better luck when he asked the girl in the kitchen. She’d gone to the bakery earlier in the day and her friend who worked there told her about the beautiful American woman staying upstairs, the one whose parents were murdered.

  Life in a small town, thought Molly, but Madame Charpentier was not so amused. She felt that Gabrielle had a big mouth for such a young girl.

  Molly turned and introduced Pierre Barmeyer to her. Though Molly wasn’t particularly eager to go anywhere, she’d promised him and couldn’t back down now.

  “Just a minute.” Madame Charpentier went behind the counter and took a key from the hook on the wall. “Who knows what time you’ll be back?” she said, and handed it to Molly. “Amusez-vous bien.”

  It was a crystalline summer evening and Molly loved the smell of the night air once that of the Renault’s catalytic converter disappeared. They were driving east toward Les Eyzies. Pierre had made a reservation at a restaurant there for later that evening, but he had something to show her first.

  “A surprise,” he called it.

  She gave him a smile. “A pleasant one, I hope.”

  “I’ll let you be the judge.”

  Though he didn’t have much of a sense of humor, there was this dark, brooding intensity about Pierre that Molly liked. She thought of it as a kind of Wagnerian sexiness. Amused at herself, she settled back to enjoy the ride.

  He hadn’t been driving long when he realized that someone was following them, but always at a discreet distance and never using his headlights. He said nothing about it to his companion, merely waited till they reached Cadouin and, losing his pursuer there, sped north by the back roads to Les Eyzies and the confluence of the Vézère and the Beune rivers. Then turning off onto a moonlit dirt road, he followed it for about fifteen minutes through fields of poplars and evergreens toward a row of steep cliffs where the road abruptly gave out, and they were swallowed up by darkness and silence.

  “Here we are. Come on.”

  Molly peered through the windshield into the blackness. All she could see were the treetops’ inky silhouettes slouching against the sky. Though Pierre seemed to know where he was going, she no longer found that reassuring.

  “Where exactly is here?” Molly wasn’t going anywhere without a good reason.

  “La grotte de la Beune. It was discovered only a few years ago and has some truly spectacular prehistoric art. Come on, you’ll see. It’s my little surprise.”

  “You mean cave drawings like Lascaux?”

  “No comparison,” he said dismissively. “Lascaux and the other sites that are open to the public are like Euro Disney compared to this. Come along.” He helped her out of the car and turned on his flashlight. “And don’t make too much noise. There’s a watchman.”

  Pierre made it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Her curiosity piqued, Molly followed him up the steep, narrow path until they came to a wooden barrier with a sign that read Closed to the Public and beyond it a dimly lit shack. Motioning to her, he circled the barrier with Molly close behind.

  “Are you sure we can do this?”

  “Shhh! Careful.”

  There were loose rocks underfoot now. As they climbed toward the shadowy arch that was the mouth of the cave, Molly was glad that she hadn’t changed for dinner, glad that she was wearing boots and not high heels. Once inside the cave, she immediately felt the chill in the air as they made their way down the passage. Molly put up the collar of the jacket she’d taken. There was no electricity, the only illumination coming from the dim, flickering oil lamps set against the walls. Pale shafts of light licked at the ceiling.

  “Where are the drawings?”

  As Molly looked up, she lost her balance on the uneven stone floor, and only Pierre’s quick reflexes saved her from falling.

  “Careful! We’re almost there. Only about another fifty meters.”

  Though he meant to be reassuring, she felt as if she were undergoing a distinctly unpleasant medical procedure. Molly wondered where the narrow, intersecting passages led but didn’t ask, fearing that she couldn’t keep the alarm out of her voice. Dead ends, she guessed. With every twist and turn of the winding main corridor they seemed to be walking deeper and deeper into nothingness until they entered an enormous shadowy chamber, where the beam of his flashlight w
as swallowed up by the darkness at the far end. Molly kept looking around, searching, hoping to see something and half afraid of what it might be. All she could think of was bats.

  Pierre flashed his light up and moved it slowly across the face of the rock. “Look. Look up there.”

  The walls were covered with dozens—no, hundreds—of animals. Bulls, bears, reindeer, galloping horses, and magical tusked and antlered beasts the likes of which she’d never seen before and had no names for. And the colors! Reds and yellows and blacks as vibrant and fresh as if they’d been painted only yesterday.

  “Oh, Pierre!” She reached for his arm to steady herself. “This is amazing.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? Not fantasyland reproductions but the real thing and seen by only a handful of people. Think of it! Direct to us from forty thousand years ago.”

  “I should look so good after forty thousand years. But how is it possible after so long? They’re in such perfect condition.”

  “Calcite. The walls happen to be covered with it and, according to what I read, the calcite forms a white, moisture-resistant ground for the paintings. There’s also a layer of fine chalk on the ceiling that apparently prevents water from seeping in. You see”—he flashed his light up to the ceiling—“no stalactites.”

  It didn’t surprise her at all that Pierre took his hobby seriously or that he seemed to know what he was talking about. He was even able to explain how the artists could paint so far from the light at the mouth of the cave. Archaeologists had discovered ancient lamps here made from hollowed-out flint in which moss was used as a wick and placed in animal fat or oil. But no human bones. They believe, he told her, that this was a temple devoted to the rites of the hunt. He pointed to the arrows in the reindeer’s side. “A prayer for success,” he called them.

  Entranced, Molly gazed up at the exotic menagerie on the wall and listened to Pierre. He seemed so full of his subject, so completely obsessed by it, she fell under his spell. Flattered that he wanted to share his secret with her and bewitched by the gift.

  Ironically, Reiner himself had no particular yearning for the past at all, certainly no wish to be stuck there. If the Magdalenian Age interested him in the least, it was only as a means to an end.

  “But there’s one animal that they set apart,” he told Molly, indicating the direction with his flashlight. “It’s the enormous black bison. The largest of these paintings. Archaeologists call it The Altar of the Black Bison.”

  Molly peered into the shadows. “Where? I don’t see it.”

  “Over there.” He raised the beam of his flashlight. “At the far end of the chamber. Let me show you.”

  “No, don’t bother. I think I can see it.” She inched forward slowly, her boot soles scraping against the stone, step by step into the blackness, watching her footing, careful not to slip.

  “ATTENTION! ATTENTION!” a voice cried out. “What are you doing here?”

  Molly, holding her breath, stopped dead in her tracks. Reiner wheeled around to see who it was. The guard angrily shook his flashlight in their faces. “Nobody is allowed in here. Can’t you see it’s closed? Get out! OUT!” Marching them out of the cave, he demanded to know who they were and what they were doing there. Molly pulled her passport out of her shoulder bag and said, “I’m an American.”

  “Of course.” The sneer in his voice was unmistakable. “And yours?”

  Reiner handed over his French carte d’identité.

  “You at least should know better. This is closed for very good reasons. Now I suggest you both get the hell out of here.”

  As they walked down the hill to their car, Reiner said, “They’re all the same, these petits fonctionnaires. Give them a uniform and they think they’re Napoleon.”

  “I suppose he might have been nicer, but we were trespassing. Anyhow”—Molly slipped her arm fondly into Pierre’s—“I wouldn’t have missed those paintings for anything.”

  Standing by the barrier and keeping his eye on the young couple, the guard waited to make sure that they left. Then he turned and thanked the cop by his side for alerting him. “If you hadn’t told me they were in there, she would have been dead. And I would have been out of a job.”

  Duboit asked, “Who was he?”

  “Pierre Barmeyer, according to his ID. From Strasbourg.”

  Duboit repeated the name “Barmeyer,” fixing it in his mind.

  “And a damn fool too,” the guard said. “Why did he think we have it blocked off like this? They could have both been killed. There’s a chasm at the back of that cave that’s more than seven hundred meters deep. Slip and fall in there and it’ll eat you up without a trace. You’d never be found again.”

  The Hôtel du Centenaire in Les Eyzies was small, but the Michelin Guide called its restaurant excellent, worth a detour. Molly was looking forward to it and was crushed when the maître d’hôtel couldn’t find Pierre’s reservation.

  “But you are in luck,” he said, as he glanced over his bookings. “We have a cancellation.”

  And that evening Molly felt very lucky indeed. Their comfortable table, the soft lights, the delicious food, and waiters who appeared to be genuinely pleased to be serving them. And especially Pierre, who seemed to know that it wasn’t necessary to say anything. It was as if she’d been touched by the magic of the cave. Or perhaps it was merely the wine, a seductive bottle of fragrant white from Bergerac.

  When their bill came, Molly, as agreed upon, was more than happy to pay her share. She took the check, perfectly willing to cover the whole thing, but Pierre was so genuinely offended that she gave it up, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

  Later, though, as they sat in his car in front of Madame Charpentier’s bakery, Pierre seemed grumpy. Molly wondered what was bothering him. Usually, with people she knew, she could always tell why the mood of an evening had changed. Not tonight. There was something unpredictable about Pierre. He seemed so guarded, so locked up within himself. Her father would have said that he’d make a great poker player. You had no idea what cards he was holding.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked.

  “Given the food, I must say I thought that place was too expensive.”

  Molly indulged him with a smile. “Maybe—but my fish was absolutely exquisite.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t order the pigeon. They cremated the poor thing. Even I could make it better.”

  “I didn’t know you were a cook as well as an artist.”

  “How could you? You hardly know me.”

  “That’s true. You’re full of surprises.”

  “Yes, I suppose I am.” Suddenly leaning over, Pierre took her in his arms and kissed her. He smelled of the cave. Molly started to push him away but then yielded to the pleasure of the moment. His lips tasted of garlic.

  “How would you like dinner at my place?” he offered.

  “Only if you’re as good a cook as you claim.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  She hesitated. “No, I can’t.” She gave him her phone number. “Call me on the weekend.”

  Oh yes, he’d have her! She was worth waiting for. But how much more time could he wait? She’d already mentioned his accent. Not a good sign. If an American noticed it, how much more likely that the French would, given their peculiar sensitivity to their language—the purity of its sound, its diction. Reiner was acutely aware of one thing. The longer he remained in the house where he was staying, the more dangerous it became. No more failures, Reiner swore.

  35

  LE CYRANO

  Molly put down the Sunday paper. She’d been reading an article about two of the lawyers in the murder case—François Astruc, Ali’s new defense lawyer, and the investigating magistrate Christine Leclerc. Everything that Molly had heard about Madame Leclerc’s thoughtfulness and intelligence she liked. She wondered why she hadn’t tried to see her before. Anything to accelerate the inspector’s investigation.

  Finding her number in the Bergerac telephone book, Molly deci
ded to call her at home. Why not? All she could say was no. But as luck would have it, Christine Leclerc was as curious to see the daughter of the murdered Americans as Molly was to meet the investigating magistrate.

  Her house was perched on a terrace overlooking the Dordogne. A lovely view of the river, especially on a hot, sunny day. The white-haired man in the blue smock, who came to the door, smelled of soap. Ushering Molly into the twilight of the living room, he left without a word. She hoped that she’d come to the right house. The shutters were closed and fastened against the heat of the day, the windows behind them opened wide and the lace curtains pushed back to catch any breath of air trickling in. Molly wondered why there were so few air conditioners in this part of France when the country was plainly bristling with nuclear power plants. On a piano inside, she heard someone playing a familiar Scarlatti sonata much better than her mother ever could.

  Molly, with a heavy heart, was thinking of her mother when Madame Leclerc appeared in the doorway on the other side of the room. A small woman with a black chignon, dressed younger than her years. In her sparkling white pants and elegantly fitted blue silk jacket with its bright floral pattern, she didn’t look much like a judge.

  Sitting down beside her visitor on the couch, Madame Leclerc was eager to express her sympathy. She spoke in English, as if to spare her guest any needless pain. Molly considered her English a work in progress. All the same, she did appreciate her kindness in agreeing to see her.

  “Merci beaucoup, madame … mais si vous voulez—”

  “English is fine,” insisted Madame Leclerc. Her white-haired servant returned, carrying a bottle in a gleaming silver ice bucket. “A cool glass of wine, perhaps?”

  Before Molly could say no, he’d poured them both some white Bordeaux. A complex smell of citrus and vanilla. Molly sampled it with pleasure.

  “Delicious. But I know how busy you must be these days so let me come to the point immediately. I don’t think Ali Sedak murdered my parents.”

  Madame Leclerc took her news calmly.

  “Why is that, my dear?”