Stifling Folds of Love

by John Brooke

  Claude shook his head. ‘Forget it. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s saying it.’

  ‘But it’s bullshit!’ (Conneries!)

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it. You’re here too. You’re my accomplice and my lover.’

  She whined, ‘But it’s not right! This is not a real situation!’

  He begged to differ. ‘You’re damn right it’s a real situation.’

  Pearl pounded the letter with an outraged fist. ‘We’ll give them this! You take it to them. You make them take it. They’ll have to read it on their broadcast — if they have any integrity at all!’

  ‘Pearl…’ Claude hesitated. Was she strong, or cold? Obstinate, or simply stupid? Again, she left him wondering. He felt an urge to say bonsoir, madame, keep your doors and windows locked, and get himself the hell back down to street level, take his lumps, leave this goddamn thing. Finally, he laughed, ‘Of course they’ll read it! You could send them your poetry and they’d read it. The papers would run it on their front page.’

  Pearl’s fierceness went all twisty. ‘I don’t have any poetry.’

  ‘Then your thoughts on the new global marketplace. They’d love to know. They need a handle for their story, Pearl. They can’t operate in a vacuum. It’s a losing battle, believe me.’

  ‘Claude! …I want to tell them their reporter got it wrong. Horribly wrong. It’s what any self-respecting person would do. Has to do. Surely they want to know.’

  ‘Not really. Not when their star hound’s got the sweet scent of rich underwear up her nose.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘I won’t be disgusting if you won’t be dumb. OK, Pearl? Deal?’

  ‘Deal?’ Pearl rose from her desk, threw her letter in his face and walked away. ‘Merde!’

  ‘Right.’ Claude picked up his suit coat and put it on. It was ripped and rumpled from the quote wild brawl at the elegant party at the well-heeled club unquote. He told her, ‘Sorry, as a public official it would be wrong for me to countersign. You want me to leave?’

  Pearl gazed out at the city that would think she was complicit with a rogue cop and nibbled on her pen. ‘No,’ she muttered, ‘I don’t want that.’

  ‘Then don’t say a word…’ discreetly removing his coat; ‘it’ll only make it worse. Now, right or wrong, we’re going to have work around them and that’s not easy. Our first strategy is silence.’

  ‘Our strategy?’ was her pointed reply. But her outburst seemed to have settled.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He shrugged. ‘You seemed so alone in this.’

  Pearl nodded… She accepted that.

  She cleared their supper off to the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine.

  Claude took a breath and dialed Inspector Nouvelle’s apartment again. No answer.

  He could not bring himself to go out on Pearl’s deck and look down.

  They shared the last of the wine, watching the gloaming spread across the mountains. They talked about tomorrow. She asked, ‘What will we do?’

  ‘We’ll talk to them. Tell them the truth.’

  ‘They’ll put us in separate rooms. I’ve seen the way they do it.’

  ‘They’re not bad people. They respect the truth. They recognize it. Just don’t waver…’ He reached for her hand. She let him hold it. ‘There’s nothing to fear if you’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve no idea what I’m hiding, but I fear I must be hiding something. Why else would this be happening? The way everyone’s watching? I can’t sleep at all.’

  ‘So tell me about it.’ He felt her move closer. ‘Try, Pearl… You can tell me.’

  Pearl told him her dream, a recurring dream, absurd and disturbing, of Tommi Bonneau out in the moonlight doing flips on her diving board like some demonic saltimbanque, perfectly agile, beautifully balanced, ‘…and he lands so softly, like Peter Pan! There is always applause from the city below, and Tommi bows…’ while she lay trapped and mute in her bed.

  Claude shrugged. ‘You could talk to J-P Blismes. A psychologist — he sometimes works with us.’

  ‘I can’t stop their stories, but it’s not who I am,’ Pearl said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m not a bad person.’

  ‘Someone’s a bad person.’

  Pearl shuddered (and he felt it). ‘But is it me? Could it be?’

  ‘Don’t think that way. It doesn’t help. Please, Pearl…’

  ‘I’m scared, Claude.’

  ‘It’s normal.’

  Fear (and a little wine) defined a place within the nexus. He took her in his arms. Pearl let Claude hold onto her but that was all. ‘Don’t. Don’t make it worse… Till she left him with his sense of duty and badly aching testicles. For the second night he lay down on the pull-out hidden inside that same divan. He tried to stay alert to sounds, but was distracted by lover’s nuts and strategy.

  All available units were hunting the noble. Divisionnaire Fauré had backed off till morning. Claude hoped Michel Souviron was standing pat. He’d need Souviron tomorrow — he had no faith at all in Gérard Richand. He’d given up on Aliette Nouvelle. Of course they had to talk. He supposed he was a bastard. But it would settle. She would see it. Two cops is not a good idea and they’d never hide it forever. Nosy Monique was on the verge of guessing, and once she did, the entire world would know. It had been a nice moment, a comfort during winter, but Nouvelle-Néon was a non-starter.

  She had to see it. She had to know this… Claude Néon lay there mulling.

  Did he sleep? Did he hear a threatening sound? Claude was jolted.

  ‘Are you a good cop, Claude?’ Pearl asked this as she slid warmly in beside a startled and somewhat embarrassed commissaire. The erection she gently patted had been standing in the middle of his sleep like a streetlight; now here she was, leaning against it.

  ‘Try to be,’ he mumbled, moving away from her, slightly…yet opening his arms.

  ‘I believe you,’ she whispered, moving into his arms, now putting him between her legs.

  Not inside herself — just there. Pearl smiled at him, dimly, the same uncertain tone in her face as in her voice, then she buried her face in the crook of his neck as if to sleep.

  There was an indeterminate time of tentative fingers, unclear legs, closed-mouth kisses, dry-lip nuzzling, vague heat, the muffled sounds of vaguer want and need. Then he was inside her.

  The strangest thing is always the look at that instant. This held true for Pearl.

  They made love like two people who did not really want to wake up, neither one on top nor bottom, movements desultory. That was all. Baudelaire would have been disappointed.

  Claude was less than fulfilled…

  He awoke to Monique’s call and another erection which he quickly piled with blankets. No luck finding Didi Belfort. He was expected to present himself (with Pearl) to the divisionnaire, without fuss, down at the entrance to her building at eight sharp. Police solidarity was key now. Perception was going to be everything, and it would start with the walk to the car…

  Yes, yes, fine. Claude confirmed details.

  Pearl, soft-faced like any other woman in the morning, was lying there, watching him talk.

  They prepared separately, and in silence. He used Jerôme Duteil’s forgotten razor to clean his worried face. He used an offered toothbrush, didn’t ask whose it was. Her apartment was resplendent in the clean light of early morning — he took one last look as they stepped into the lift.

  She asked him again. ‘Are you a good cop, Claude?’

  Watching the floor numbers light up, flash off as they descended. ‘Yes.’

  Pearl stared deep into herself and said, ‘I hope so.’

  As if she felt something was again lacking in yet another man?

  He took it to mean her fear was growing. He had to.

  They emerged together hand in hand, the way defeated politicians will with their wives, or like film stars who’ve
been through tragedy, or convicted CEOs. The wife, the lover, the friend, it helps soften the grim image. They met Norbert Fauré waiting in the lobby and proceeded to the door.

  18

  Didi Discovered

  Monday morning traffic jerked spasmodically around the rond-point as some motorists slowed for a look. Impatient others blasted on shrill horns. The crowd was growing by the minute, noisy, expectant, most grasping copies of Le Cri du Matin. Inspector Aliette Nouvelle certainly had hers. Tommi Bonneau had warned her Claude would hate this morning’s column. Local Scene: Regarding Saturday’s tragedy. A delicate balance was disturbed, a fragile energy shattered. We have lost Raymond Tuche. We have lost his beautiful vision. While our Pearl continues on, now in the company of her policeman. Protective custody? These are dry official words. I for one am having trouble accepting them. What is happening?

  Yes, Claude probably would.

  A contingent of uniformed officers had formed a line and stood linked arm in arm, creating a barrier to allow free passage from the door to the waiting car. Members of the media jostled for vantage along its inner edge. Cakeface was in the thick of it, easily seen in a royal blue knit suit, microphone ready. Cake’s cameraman was stationed on the roof of the TV truck. Aliette watched him diligently keying on the reporter as she pushed and shoved with the others, waiting for Pearl to emerge. She saw Tommi Bonneau up near the building entrance, stooped and disheveled, eye glued to his viewfinder, free hand holding his light aloft. Waiting for his moment.

  The couple could be seen conferring with the divisionnaire as he prepared to escort them from the lobby. There was a prolonged moment of preternatural silence when they appeared, Claude looking grave, but not as grave as Norbert Fauré, who was older, craggy, and looked to be bearing the weight of this scandal like an aggrieved papa. Pearl was jittery. Her alarm deepened visibly as the silence broke, the crowd started up again with its raucous noise, the media pack surged forward, calling questions, flashing lights. Aliette could see Claude’s hand wrapped tightly over Pearl’s while Fauré led the way. Two or three reporters, Cakeface being one, squeezed through the human barrier and confronted the entourage with mics. The uniforms began to manhandle these strays out of the path. Cakeface resented it — the poor flic who grabbed her came away with an ugly gash over his right eye. The crowd went ‘oooh!’ when they saw the blood. Cakeface straightened her hair and starting waving her mic in the air, making sure her man atop the mobile unit had her in his frame.

  That cold green-white light from Tommi’s flash and many others bathed the scene.

  Fauré raised an arm and motioned: one finger — come.

  Five plainclothes men came bursting out of the two cars parked at the end of the line.

  Fauré’s team knew exactly what to do. They efficiently bashed their way to the stranded trio, formed a wedge and began to move. They were not as big as elephants but they did know how to proceed en groupe, and any person, including a telegenic reporter, who stood in their way was summarily ploughed aside. The crowd fell back. The only sound was the percussive ‘hup, hup, hup, hup!’ from the escort, a sound deliberately designed to override all questions. Aliette was impressed. A perfect example of men making excellent combined use of both the larger physical upper body and the concomitant instinct nature had provided in a totally unnatural manner. Moving to the side of Junior Inspector Bernadette Milhau, she was about to point out the absolute left-right, left-right robo footwork which made the exercise a thing of such precise beauty —

  — when a scream stopped the juggernaut dead in its tracks.

  Then another. A woman, terrified, obviously. But where?

  Cop and media antennae simultaneously searched the suddenly still morning.

  One more scream… ‘There!’ — by the corner of the building, in the lane leading round to the parking at the back, and shaking her arms about her face in that universal way people will when expressing deep and sudden fear, as if trying to wave the sight away from her eyes, the very idea out of her mind. She was older, hair wrapped up, an apron tied around her belly, just setting out on a day dedicated to cleaning someone’s luxury apartment. Clearly not a local woman. Turkish, more than likely. Probably with no idea what was happening on the Local Scene.

  Uniforms ran toward her. The crowd flowed after.

  Aliette and Bernadette dawdled along behind. This was not their operation.

  There was a pile of garbage by the entrance to the garage, waiting to be removed: crates, cardboard boxes, discarded furniture. The uniforms approached, sidearms at the ready. One by one they stopped, looking around, shrugging. So? A kindly Cakeface guided the traumatized cleaning lady forward, a gentle arm around her quaking back, demonstrating police and media could work together, even with immigrants. The woman jabbered and shook, pointing at the pile. In the pile! The cops closed in, tentative, trying to follow her scattered directions. One of Fauré’s men saw it first. ‘Mon dieu!’…then everyone, as he went to it: A long, wrapped coil of newspaper, propped up as if it contained a bound-up carpet to be discarded, a hand protruding as if signaling, ‘Here I am.’ Another cop rushed to help. They pulled away the paper. Another wave of green-white light as Tommi and the rest of the pack clicked away with fervent focus…

  A dead man, standing as if frozen, in his tennis whites.

  Smoothly, like water, word filtered back. Didi Belfort! The crowd edged forward. They were held back. The body was covered. They could only watch from a safe remove while the authorities examined and conferred. Pin-pon, pan-pon! The SAMU team arrived. More police vehicles. More media. But after thirty minutes, many of the onlookers lost interest and drifted away.

  Inspector Nouvelle, still not needed, but standing by and waiting, watched people dispersing. She wondered, Were they feeling satisfied? cheated? witnesses to history? or merely late for work? She wished she had survey cards to hand out. Someone would cherish the information. Probably make lots of money with it. Musing, yawning, she noticed Pearl Serein split away from the out-going group of citizens. Their eyes met for an instant. Pearl looked so much like all the rest of them.

  The inspector belatedly yelled, ‘Hey!’ as Pearl ran, quick and deft, across the rond-point and into the old quarter.

  The first one after her was Remy Lorentz, tennis pro (not yet in his whites). A good runner — this she already knew, but was Remy not meant to be in garde à vue? That’s what happens when you stop taking calls and have some beers… Next came Claude, running flat out, billowy, less than elegant. Then Junior Inspector Millhau, who had a much more telegenic way of running… Cake’s cameraman, well-positioned on top of his truck, spun on his tripod, one eye glued to his viewer, fingers wrapped around his lens, total concentration as he followed the action… Then Fauré’s men, followed by a ragged parade of hustling uniforms, then the frantic camera wielders.

  Tommi Bonneau was lagging at the rear, jogging fitfully, looking back, then looking back again, as if not quite certain whether he needed more shots of a dead Didier Belfort.

  Or a shot of a fleeing Pearl.

  Aliette caught his eye. He waved, Salut…kept following along, to see what he could see

  But they were unable to find Pearl Serein — not hard to disappear in the old quarter.

  Two of Fauré’s large men returned with a hostile Remy Lorentz in tow, actively resisting, loudly insisting he was ‘her friend, damn it! just her friend!’ as he was bundled into a car.

  Captain Mathieu Deubelbeiss dispatched a team to seal Pearl’s apartment.

  Surrounded by media he refused to acknowledge, PJ Commissaire Claude Néon stood ready to face the divisionnaire, ready to take it like a man.

  Surprisingly, Claude was allowed to leave, albeit with an order to be at the procureur’s office at exactly two PM, ‘with a very comprehensive report, monsieur. A great deal will be riding on it.’ Menacing, but without theatrics. Aliette had to admire Fauré for playing it out so coolly in the face of the cameras and mics. She remained qui
et. Don’t-worry-Claudes and it’ll-be-fines were of no use at this point. Claude drove off in the back of his official car. She walked. When she arrived at the commissariat, his office door was shut. Monique had cleared her desk, ready to receive his pages for editing, typos, underlining, straight margins — all the things that make the difference.

  The inspector spent the better part of her morning with the City team, down on the second floor. Charlotte Griss-Freiss, Didier Belfort’s diminutive cousin (half-sister? this was still not clear) was brought in for an interview with Captain Deubelbeiss. The police had visited and called several times Saturday and Sunday, to little effect. Confronted with the reality of her Didi’s death, the woman’s cantankerous manner softened. There were still many holes, but Charlotte did her best. Belfort had a tennis lesson every day. He usually came home livid or depressed. A week or so ago they’d gone out for an evening of dancing at Diabolik. Bonneau had been there with his horrid camera, there’d been an altercation, a tantrum. ‘He stewed about it for days.’ Friday, like every day, Belfort had got up, dressed for his tennis lesson, ‘…he plods about in the morning, I sleep, ignore it as best I can. A beating. He kept muttering about a beating as he tied his shoes. I’m sure it’s what I heard. Could’ve been that disgusting gossip, or it could’ve been tennis — honestly not worth listening to, poor Didi.’ Then he’d left and she did not see him again. ‘No, he takes his car.’

  They made a call to the club. Gaston said he would canvass his staff. Ten minutes later he called back. Yes, Belfort had been in the locker room Friday morning, staff and several members could vouch for that. He always arrived in his car and left the same way, everyone Gaston had asked was sure… Saturday the place was busy as usual, and Saturday night the club lot was full, what with the party — lots of people coming and going, members and guests alike, lots of silvery high-end German coupes very much like the noble’s, no one could say they had seen him on the premises any time Saturday. Before he went back to his chat with Charlotte, Inspector Nouvelle asked Deubelbeiss, ‘Could you ask her to be more specific about this run-in with Bonneau? At the club downtown?’