by Claude Izner
To think that he was under the thumb of a man of barely thirty! What made him angry, what disgusted him most was the lack of appreciation of his ability. Not one of his colleagues could hold a candle to him. He was a good flic with years of experience. During an interrogation something would click and he’d know when a suspect was guilty. His colleagues were surprised.
‘How did you guess, Corcol? Talk about a fool’s luck!’
They were the fools! Being a good policeman meant paying attention to every detail, however seemingly insignificant, but more importantly it meant trusting one’s instinct. Today, his instinct had betrayed him. He was weary, sick of everything relating to his job. Most of his colleagues were like sheep – they toed the line and waited for a chance to win the respect of their superiors. Others simply obeyed out of fear of punishment. Gustave Corcol despised them all. He’d broken the sacred commandments of the law and the sky hadn’t fallen on his head. What sweet revenge!
His rage ebbed away like the tide, leaving only a twinge of humiliation.
He walked a few paces then lay down. His mind was in turmoil. He tried to put things into perspective. He found himself talking aloud.
‘It’s over. Tomorrow I’ll be free.’
A month before, Gustave Corcol had established close ties with a skilled forger of documents, who was unaware of his true identity. Now he could go and see the Manneken-Pis for himself. Once in Brussels he would become Monsieur Cappel from Gand – a respectable widower and pensioner with no children who lived off private means. There, he would have all the time in the world to dream about the future.
He looked with an admiring eye at the tailored suit hanging over the back of a chair.
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow…Gare du Nord…Monsieur Cappel…’He sank into oblivion.
Gustave Corcol came to, sweating. He was wide awake. He couldn’t understand why his muscles, his limbs, refused to obey him. He imagined he felt a presence nearby. No, it was a trick of the dying candle flame. His pulse gradually slowed and he managed to persuade himself that he’d had one of those particularly vivid nightmares that send you into a panic.
He propped himself up on one elbow.
‘Is anybody there?’
A distant memory from childhood, at once strange and familiar, came back to him suddenly.
He realised how foolish he was being. Who could possibly have entered the front door, which was double locked? A ghost?
He remembered a book of fairy tales which had kept him awake at night for months, a gift from his uncle, a thick red book inhabited by monsters, ogres and dragons, which he felt compelled to open every evening.
He could just make out a shadow; it seemed to glide towards the bed where he lay.
‘Who’s there?’
He tried to hide under the sheets.
‘Speak to me,’ he implored.
The apparition began to sing:
‘And if Lady Luck should smile on me
She will never soothe my heart
I will for ever love the cherry season
And keep its memory in my heart!’
Gustave Corcol’s moans turned into a gurgling sound as the blade sank into his heart.
Chapter Twelve
Thursday 27 July
THE only thing moving beneath the chestnut trees on Square de Montrouge was a herd of donkeys trotting towards the Luxembourg Gardens. Then came deserted streets with their whitewashed façades, where the cry of a glazier or a knife-sharpener brought an occasional face to the windows.
Halfway down Passage Thermopyles, Victor and Joseph hurried through a hall at the end of which stood Paul Theneuil’s printing works. A young apprentice of about twelve, preceded by a ginger cat, was blocking their way.
‘About time! Have you brought us some copy?’ he demanded rudely.
‘Is Monsieur Theneuil here?’
‘The boss? He’s done a vanishing act!’ the apprentice announced, sniggering.
‘Move aside, kid, you’re in the way.’
The boy crouched down and, shooting Joseph a murderous look, picked up the tomcat by the scruff of its neck.
In contrast to the silence outside, the workshop was a hive of activity. Victor and Joseph walked towards one of the typesetters, who was standing beside his typecase mounted on a stand. From time to time he glanced at a manuscript before picking characters out of little compartments and placing them on a composing stick he held in his left hand. Furious at having been sent packing, the apprentice hurled the cat at their feet. The animal leapt up onto a typecase, sending the letters flying, before landing nimbly on a marble tabletop where the layout man had arranged his formes. There was a general outcry, while the boy beat a retreat, shouting, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!’
‘I’ll give you what for, Agénor! You’ve wrecked my layout!’
‘He dipped his paws in my ink!’
‘Throw that alley cat in the cooking pot!’
‘That wretched Agénor! He’s the master printer’s son, and he takes advantage of it to drive us all crazy. The latest victim of one of his pranks was Père Flamand, our oldest proofreader. On account of a well-earned slap, Agénor nailed his slippers to the floor so securely that when the poor old fellow tried to move he fell flat on his face,’ explained the typesetter.
‘Forgive me, but where is Monsieur Theneuil?’ Victor enquired.
‘That’s what we’d all like to know. He’s never decamped for this long before. We’re beginning to miss him.’
‘Does he often go away?’
The worker exchanged a knowing look with another typesetter.
‘Let’s just say that he strays from the conjugal nest from time to time, when the urge takes him. Everybody knows why, including his wife, but seeing as he always comes quietly back to the fold after two or three days, she indulges him. This time, though, he’s been gone three weeks, and he sent a letter which makes the claptrap in your average fin-de-siècle novel look like child’s play.’
‘This letter, was it addressed to his wife?’
‘No, to his book-keeper, Monsieur Leuze, the lanky fellow with the glasses and the peaked cap sitting over there at the back.’
‘By the way, have you printed any share certificates recently?’
‘We don’t do that sort of thing here. We only cater to men of letters and historians.’
Monsieur Leuze pushed his spectacles to the end of his nose and peered over the top of them at the visitors. When Victor informed him that they were journalists, he replied gruffly that he’d already spoken to the gentlemen of the press.
‘We’re writing a feature about mysterious occurrences, and we’d like to include the message Monsieur Theneuil sent you,’ Joseph improvised.
‘It was typewritten and unsigned. There’s nothing to prove that Monsieur Theneuil wrote it,’ muttered Monsieur Leuze, handing them a piece of paper on which was written:
Remember, Paul. The leopard, light as amber, says: ‘Merry month of May, oh when will you return?’
‘Yes, why would Paul Theneuil tell himself to remember something?’ Victor mumbled.
‘That’s what I said when Madame Theneuil called the police a week after what we’d been assuming was another amorous adventure,’ agreed the book-keeper, neatly folding the piece of paper. ‘If Monsieur Paul had meant to inform us of a lengthy absence why this enjoinder to recall the passing of the seasons? It’s completely idiotic.’
‘What did the police make of it?’
‘They think it may be a hoax, an elopement or a kidnapping. In short, they can’t do anything. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘Didn’t the word leopard arouse their interest?’
‘No more than our apprentice’s accursed cat,’ grumbled Monsieur Leuze. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but my time is precious. This situation has caused us a lot of trouble because Madame Theneuil hasn’t the necessary experience to replace her husband, although she’s doing her best.’
‘Where can we find her
?’
‘Up on the first floor, in the glass-fronted office.’
The woman who opened the door to them had the drawn features of a person who hasn’t slept for several days. Her unkempt hair and crumpled dress betrayed her distress more than her faltering voice and her deceptively formal manner. Almost immediately, her self-control broke down and she collapsed onto a chair, burying her head in her hands. She pulled herself together and apologised.
‘I’m very distressed…My husband is no saint, but I put up with his peccadilloes. When he feels the need to go off, he lets me know, and arranges things so that the business won’t suffer because of his escapades. The last time I saw him was on the evening of 4 July. I was making his favourite dish, jugged hare. He stopped by the haberdasher’s to tell me that he’d be home a bit late because he had a meeting with a customer who’d ordered some posters.’
‘I thought he only printed books.’
‘Oh, he’d occasionally do a favour for an old friend.’
‘Who was he meeting?’
‘I don’t know. It was raining and he’d forgotten his umbrella.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘A brown jacket. I told the police.’
‘Did he wear spectacles?’
‘Yes, half-moon spectacles, but only for reading. Now…I’m afraid, I’m so afraid!’
She stood up and pointed to a pile of papers scattered over the table.
‘I can’t cope any more…You see, I run a haberdasher’s down the street. I could have stopped working a long time ago because business is going well, only I wanted to save up for a rainy day. Paul is so unreliable! But he loves me, I know he does. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Did the Chief of Police send you?’
‘No, we’re from the newspaper.’
‘Oh! You’re not going to repeat…’
‘Don’t worry. We’re also trying to find out the truth. Did your husband ever receive any threats?’
‘He never said anything. He would have told me. He still confided in me – despite our relationship being more like that of a brother and sister. Over the years physical attraction had turned into deep affection. I was his old pal, yes, that’s what he would call me, either that or his pet…He’d stopped calling me “darling”. And yet…’
Marthe Theneuil twisted her lips into a pitiful smile.
‘And yet, our love was once so passionate that we believed it would last for ever. When we first met, he showered me with gifts, and I gave him presents too. And then I no longer fulfilled his needs. No doubt he didn’t find me attractive enough.’
Victor and Joseph examined the gaunt face framed by a mass of dishevelled hair and reflected that in her normal state Marthe Theneuil was undeniably still appealing. Victor couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘And aren’t you jealous of these other women?’
She remained silent for a moment then looked him straight in the eye.
‘Why should I be? He always comes back to me. That part of Paul’s life is not my concern. Besides, it makes him happier. Men seem to have an inborn need to seduce. When they’re deprived of that, they become depressed and God knows what else. You’re still young, Monsieur, but the same will happen to you.’
‘Oh, no, certainly not. That would be immoral!’ he cried.
Joseph was overtaken by a sudden fit of coughing, which he muffled with a handkerchief before saying, ‘Monsieur Leuze showed us the famous note. Does this leopard bring anybody to mind?’
‘No. It might refer to a friend or relative, or to one of his mistresses, although most of them are ill-bred tarts. I went through all his papers and correspondence with a fine-tooth comb and, apart from our early love letters, the only others of any interest were those he exchanged with Ernestine Grandjean, the sister of a childhood friend whom he courted before he met me.’
Joseph scratched his head furiously to allay suspicion.
‘Grandjean?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, Léopold Grandjean. He and Paul saw a lot of each other despite the difference in their ages. My husband thought of him as the little brother he’d always wanted; he was a youth of seventeen at the time. Ernestine must have been about twenty, and from what I’ve read Paul was besotted with her. She was flattered by his attentions, but felt no attraction for him.’
Victor was surreptitiously leaning over the table trying to glimpse the bundle of letters tied with a blue ribbon which Marthe Theneuil was covering with her hands. He noticed a few bills, engravings of the latest mechanical presses, paper samples and some other letters with a flower for a signature. She realised what he was up to.
‘I couldn’t help rereading some of our old letters dating back to 1873 when we were first in love. Paul was forty but looked ten years younger. I was a young girl of eighteen from the provinces, mesmerised by the big city and by this quiet, serious man to whom my father had introduced me – they’d belonged to the same regiment. It took me months to get to know him, months to discover that underneath that calm exterior he was a womaniser. But I won’t lose him,’ she exclaimed vehemently.
‘Don’t despair. We’ll track him down,’ said Joseph, who was beginning to feel concerned.
And then immediately he added, matter-of-factly, ‘Would you consent to give us Ernestine Grandjean’s address?’
‘I only know the one Paul used to send his letters to: 5, Rue Villedo, next to the gardens of the Palais-Royal. I’d be surprised if she’s still there; it was where she worked, an army outfitter’s.’
‘Could you let us have a photograph of your husband?’
‘Yes, it was taken last year. I gave the most recent one to the police.’
‘Is Monsieur Theneuil a tall man?’
‘A head higher than you.’
Victor and Joseph took their leave, eager to compare notes. When the door had closed, Marthe Theneuil walked over and stood in front of the glass wall, her figure silhouetted against the backdrop of the bustling workshop. She crossed her arms, pressing them tightly to her chest.
Djina Kherson listened to her daughter’s footsteps dying away down the corridor. Love suited Tasha. It gave her a golden glow, like a freshly baked brioche straight out of the oven. Without acknowledging it, Djina envied her. She crossed the empty studio where her pupils had left the odd glove or scarf strewn about. She gathered up the abandoned palettes and paintbrushes and returned to the sanctuary of her apartment, which she was reluctant to leave. Despite the attention she received from her daughter and her daughter’s lover Victor – should she call him her fiancé now? – she felt dreadfully lonely. She missed Ruhléa, to whom she’d always been closer than to her elder daughter. And Pinkus…Although he’d been little more than an occasional companion these past few years, the fact that she’d refused divorce and that they’d kept up their correspondence had helped Djina to cope with the vagaries of her own life. Then there had been exile, the time spent in Germany, her illness. Tasha had persuaded her to come and live in Paris. That prospect, so enticing from afar, had lost its appeal as soon as she came face to face with everyday life. Pinkus lived thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, and Ruhléa was somewhere in the depths of central Europe with a husband she had never met, whose portrait, confined in its wooden frame on the mantelpiece, sized up his mother-in-law with a mysterious expression. Yes, Tasha and Victor were very attentive and she owed them a great deal, and yet…
What had she learnt? That exile and separation were a means of understanding, day after day, with great difficulty and forbearance, the things she had felt and thought since the day she was born. This introspection surreptitiously revealed what had up until then been only a vague intuition. The end result of all those joys, struggles and disappointments seemed so trivial that she felt a sense of apathy and despair.
She went and stood in front of the mirror. Forty-seven, a few silver hairs. Some wrinkles, a slightly saggy neck. She’d kept her figure. Could a man still find her attractive? She slowly undid her blouse, unbutt
oned her skirt, removed her underwear, and unlaced her corset. Standing in the middle of the pile of clothing, her nakedness appeared to her as frail as a winter flower. She let her hair down and shook it out; it looked better loose. The soft light took years off her: a Djina with firm breasts, her waist slightly hollowed above the curve of her buttocks, stood exposed, awakened, filled with longing and desire. She stroked her belly. Would a man’s hands caress her skin again? Would his voice whisper words of love in her ear as he pushed against her gently? She’d only known Pinkus; would she dare make love to another man?
She couldn’t say exactly when she’d allowed Kenji Mori to become so prominent in her thoughts – no doubt when she began to notice that her pulse quickened whenever she saw him. Absurd! A Japanese man…