The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Verrian’s skin glowed in the flame, the hairs on his wrists bronze from exposure to the sun. Faded scars flecked the backs of his hands and the third finger of his left hand bore the ghost of a ring. He had removed a wedding ring for Paris.

  He must have noticed her sudden distance, her shock, because he called for the bill. They walked the short distance to St-Sulpice. Outside her building, Verrian cupped her face and she felt an energy moving through him. He groaned softly, bending his head towards her. A chaste touch until she reached up and stroked his neck, finding the islets of bone under the tapering ends of his hair. ‘Verrian, are you married?’

  His response was there beneath her fingertips. A flinch. ‘I was, briefly.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘No, Alix.’ And then his mouth was on hers, demanding and hard. She tasted wine and coffee and felt textures that were becoming familiar – chin and jaw with its evening roughness, the lock of hair that fell over his brow and tickled the bridge of her nose. The tang of cologne and tobacco and recently washed cotton. All this, and another ingredient. As she opened her lips and let him deepen the kiss, she felt something break inside him. He’d done this before, caught fire, but this time he was demanding something back. Flirting was over, his body told her.

  ‘If your grandmother were not waiting, would you come to a hotel with me?’

  Would she? She hesitated. She knew Mémé would be horrified by Verrian’s question and Alix’s slowness to answer. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. I’ll see you inside.’

  ‘You’re angry. I’m sorry … I’ll go in by myself.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He caught her hand, but there was no caress, no tenderness any more. He despises my inexperience, she thought. He mixes with society women, female journalists and photographers who’d laugh at me because I’ve never been with a man. And he’s been married.

  The door to the lobby was on the latch. The concierge was growing careless, she thought, or Mémé had forgotten to close the door behind her. ‘Don’t come up,’ she said. ‘My grandmother may be in her dressing gown and I’d rather introduce you to her in daylight, properly.’ If you want to see me again, she tagged on silently.

  ‘I’ll wait outside until I see the light,’ said Verrian.

  *

  By the time Alix reached her level she was in darkness, the landing lights having failed again. One day of light, then black again. Rather like life, she thought to herself. She had her apartment key ready, but as she nudged it against the lock, the door creaked open. The hallway of her flat was dark.

  ‘Mémé?’ she called softly. She sniffed. An acrid smell. Burnt milk. Mémé often made herself hot cinnamon milk at bedtime. Maybe she’d left the pan on, tired from her card game. Tipsy, even. Alix reached for the light switch, feeling for the place where the wallpaper was smooth through rubbing. The click of an interior door made her pause. ‘Mémé? I sorry I’m late, I—’

  Hurried footsteps were the only reply. And harsh breathing.

  She thought, That’s not Mémé. A scream stuck in her throat as a body rammed into her, knocking her down. Before she could snatch a breath, a hand pressed down on her mouth. It tasted of sweat, grime. Whoever he was, he stank of garlic and tobacco and something else. Something putrid. And he had a woollen jumper on, a rough one which seemed to engulf his face. Then detail dissolved – he was pushing a slimy rag into her mouth while holding her nose.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She used her only weapon.

  Her scissors, on their ribbon. Pulled them free and jabbed. She must have hit a belt buckle or something because they bounced away. He grunted, called her a filthy bitch. But she’d forced a gap between them, space enough to bring up her knee, hard. Her attacker pulled a sharp inbreath. She had another go with the scissors, but he caught them, pulling the ribbon tight and twisting it until she was choking. That was when she felt a knife against her neck. The blade bit and a hot trickle rolled towards her shoulder. Same blade, same smell, same attacker as at Bonnet’s studio. Dragging the rag from her mouth, she screamed.

  The apartment door crashed open and she heard her name shouted. The pressure on her neck was released. She curled into a ball, because whoever was shouting had run into her, and was treading on her hair, her shoulder. Alix rolled tight as a struggle took place above her head. She tried to shout, ‘Knife!’ but a boot glanced off her jaw. Men swore and grunted. She heard the squeak of soles on lino then an agonised, ‘Bloody hell.’

  *

  He switched on the light and his heart missed a beat as he saw Alix sprawled, a chair on top of her and her head underneath a side table. Framed photographs lay shattered on the lino. The apartment door was open. Verrian could hear the attacker’s frantic escape – two flights down by now. Too risky to chase, he might have an accomplice. Alix tried to lever herself up. One side of her skirt was hiked up and she tugged at it fiercely.

  Verrian reached out a hand. ‘You’re cut on the neck. Let me see.’

  ‘It’s not deep. I must go find Mémé – God, Verrian, you’ve got blood on your shirt … it’s everywhere.’

  ‘He slashed my hand.’ Between the middle and index fingers of his left hand, to be precise. He was wearing a fetching glove of crimson which, he realised now the initial shock had worn off, was exquisitely painful.

  Alix took his wrist. ‘We need to staunch that. There’s bandage in the kitchen cupboard. Where is Mémé? I wonder if she’s still at her card party.’

  They didn’t bother turning on the living-room lights because the kitchen door was open and a halo of gas flame lit the way. In the kitchen they found chaos. And Mémé.

  *

  She was crumpled on the floor and at first Verrian thought the scarlet beneath her head was a scarf. Then reality reached him. Her scalp was split open, her clothes awry as if she’d put up a struggle. The floor was strewn with broken crockery. A pan containing scorched milk explained the stench. He turned off the gas flame as Alix sank down with a keening sound that went straight to his soul.

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Crouching by her, he pressed fingers to the thin skin beneath the old woman’s ear. A faint pulse. ‘She’s alive. Is there a telephone in the building?’ Alix shook her head. Shock was speeding through her like a drug and he wasn’t surprised when she grabbed him to keep herself from collapsing. ‘Alix – nearest restaurant with a telephone.’

  ‘Chez … Chez Jacques,’ she stammered, ‘opposite, down a little towards … I can’t remember.’

  ‘I’ll find it. Can you stay here alone?’

  The question became redundant as neighbours from other floors appeared all at once, competing to describe the shouts and thumps they’d heard earlier. At first Verrian wanted to ask what the hell had stopped them coming upstairs, but they were all elderly females, he realised. A couple of them stared suspiciously at his bloody hand, until a cry from behind caught their attention.

  ‘Mon Dieu, look at this room. Ransacked!’

  The living-room light revealed chairs pushed over, drawers pulled out, Mémé’s sewing box upended. Paintings were piled in the middle of the floor. Verrian turned the top one over, a portrait of a smiling girl. It seemed undamaged.

  He heard a neighbour sputter, ‘We don’t have to look far to know who did it. Those vermin across the courtyard – stands to reason. Madame,’ the woman said to the concierge, ‘you should send your son to call the police.’

  Instead Verrian sent the concierge to Chez Jacques to telephone for an ambulance. He sent a couple of the others for towels and warm water and told the remaining gaggle to go. Alix pulled herself out of her stupor and put a folded towel under Danielle’s head. After checking her pulse again and placing his coat over the old lady, Verrian allowed Alix to bandage his hand.

  ‘They’ll take her to the Lariboisière hospital,’ he said. ‘She’s not bleeding any more, which is a good sign.’ But neither was she moving, or responsive.

 
‘It was the same man who attacked me before. He must have been waiting for me,’ Alix whispered. ‘Why wasn’t I here?’

  As the answer to that was obvious, Verrian answered a different question. ‘Sometimes robberies turn violent, if the perpetrator is disturbed. Your grandmother may not have realised he was in the flat. Did you see anything of the man?’

  ‘It was pitch dark. But I felt him. He had big boots … He could be a fisherman or a hunter.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘His sweater was the sort men wear outdoors to protect them from the rain. I know it was the same man as before; I knew that sweater. Pulled up over his face.’ She started crying again. ‘I should never have left her so late. It’s my fault.’

  An ambulance came and Mémé was stretchered away. One of the ambulance men commented on the whiff of alcohol on the old lady’s breath. ‘Overbalanced, maybe?’

  ‘She had a night out, playing cards,’ Alix told them. ‘She wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you’re saying.’

  Police arrived and Mme Rey came in their wake, her son Fernand with her. The son eyed Mémé’s workbox and the oil paintings with beady interest. Seeing it, Verrian made a show of counting the paintings in front of the policemen. Turning around, he saw Mme Rey go into the kitchen, and was too late to stop her washing the black iron skillet he’d mentally labelled as the likely weapon.

  ‘I’m wondering if Mme Lutzman didn’t trip and fall,’ the concierge said as Verrian filled the doorway. ‘This lino’s up all over the place. I’ve already caught my heel in it.’

  Verrian answered, ‘Then a word to the landlord would be in order. Madame, would your son fit a new lightbulb in the stairwell? The ambulance men had to find their way in the pitch dark.’

  ‘Fernand put a bulb in this morning,’ Mme Rey insisted.

  ‘Well, it’s blown or blown away.’

  The policemen glanced around each room. One of them asked about Verrian’s bloodstained hand while looking covertly at Alix, who was sobbing as she rehung the paintings. They’re putting it down as a domestic squabble, Verrian realised. They think it’s a madhouse and we’re all drunk.

  One of the policemen secured a taxi and Verrian sat with Alix in the back. At the hospital, a nurse cleaned and re-bound his hand, tutting about lovers’ tiffs.

  Later he took Alix to his own lodgings, giving Rosa Konstantiva the bare bones of the drama. Rosa, who’d been on the point of retiring, immediately offered to fetch blankets and make up a bed.

  ‘She won’t mind kipping down on the sofa?’

  Alix could have his room, he said. He’d find a bed elsewhere. He had no qualms about passing Alix into Rosa’s care. Rosa’s bedrock was kindness and she came from a background which absorbed stray people and orphaned kittens without fuss.

  He went next door to Bonnet’s and found the front door ajar. Climbing the stairs in darkness, he entered a studio and saw a man blocking shapes on to a canvas with feverish strokes. Bonnet – working by the light of a pair of hurricane lamps. Unaware of interruption, the artist worked on, whistling harshly through his beard. Verrian tapped on the wall and said, ‘Good evening.’

  Bonnet’s arm froze mid-movement.

  Verrian let the door whine shut. ‘I’m Haviland, your neighbour and Alix’s friend. There’s something you need to know.’ He left Bonnet’s at 2 a.m. Montmartre was still busy, still lit, cabaret customers oozing out of open doors. No wonder this quarter looks jaded, Verrian thought. It never gets any rest. He hailed a taxi and told the driver, ‘Boccador, corner of Trémoille.’ He could have gone to the Polonaise and slept in a bed the size of Wales, or gone back to Laurentin’s and asked for his old room, but he couldn’t face servility or bonhomie. He leaned against the taxi’s headrest and let the pulse of his injured hand fill his brain.

  He’d given Bonnet the news of Danielle Lutzman and watched the man stagger. Verrian had steered him to an armchair, removing an empty tobacco tin full of cigarette butts first. The butts looked as if they’d been salvaged from bars – some had lipstick on. Bonnet must really be down on his luck.

  The man had groaned, ‘I have to finish tonight.’

  Realising Bonnet meant his canvas, Verrian wondered, You can think of painting after what I’ve told you? ‘Is it a commission?’

  ‘It’s money, my friend. Money I need. Danielle, is she dying?’

  ‘I’m not a doctor. It was a hard blow … two actually.’

  ‘Two blows. How hard?’

  ‘Alix can tell you tomorrow. She’s going to the hospital first thing, to talk with the surgeon.’

  ‘Poor, poor Alix. How is she?’

  ‘Appalled, distressed. Feels it’s her fault.’

  ‘No.’ Bonnet’s lips drew back. ‘It’s your fault. Where the hell were you when this happened?’

  ‘At ground level, waiting to see a light go on. Thank God I was.’

  Bonnet continued peppering him with questions. Might Danielle describe her attacker? Was she, you know … humiliated in any way? He finished with, ‘The man who did it, did he leave footprints?’

  ‘Not that I saw. By the time fifteen people had piled in and out, traces were gone.’

  Bonnet hunched over, muttering about the world’s evil. ‘Ma pauvre chou, I will look after her. As I did for Danielle and Mathilda, yes, I will go to the hospital and sit with her. Yes, Bonnet will do that. It was those vagabonds in the courtyard. Filthy fungus, seeping through the cracks.’

  Verrian felt surprise. Alix’s neighbours had spooned out similar bigotry, but Bonnet? He’d always assumed artists took a broader view of the world. ‘I shall take Alix to the hospital tomorrow,’ he said as Bonnet went to a bench and rootled among the jars.

  ‘Leave Alix to me.’ Bonnet brought a decanter and poured two measures of amber spirit, handing one to Verrian. ‘Truth is,’ he continued after a mouthful, ‘I’m the only male in Alix’s life who won’t break her heart.’ He beckoned Verrian to a corner of the studio and uncovered a large painting. It was done with a flourish, perhaps to stop the sailcloth cover catching the paint-work underneath. Verrian’s insides jerked.

  Alix, naked. This was the picture she’d teased him about and thoughts of it had kept him awake much of the weekend. His first impression was that Bonnet was indeed a master of flesh. His second impression was that he’d lost two nights’ sleep for no reason.

  Paris would not feast its eyes on Alix Gower’s unveiled sensuality. Bonnet seemed as much interested in the articulation of her joints as he was in goblet-shaped breasts, long thighs, the hint of shadow between. Her hair hung across her face, framing a gaze that seemed locked on some faraway world.

  Behind him Bonnet murmured, ‘Her heart was broken at birth. Broken again when her father died before she was old enough to understand what “death” was. Then I daresay it was broken at school by the first nasty girl to call her a Hun or a Jew. Broken by that bastard de Charembourg who picks her up and puts her down again like a salt pot. Now there’s Javier who, if one is to believe Alix, makes angels’ robes with scissors of gold … he’ll break her. Danielle beaten – dear God. But I will care for Alix. Who else is there? You left her too, Haviland. Gave her your card like an insurance salesman and walked away. If you have a thread of decency, you’ll do that again. Back off.’

  *

  Verrian let himself into Calford Press. Three tries at getting his key into the lock because he was rocking on his feet with blood loss. On the first floor he used a second key to open Lord Calford’s private office. He filled a long glass from a soda siphon, his throat parched from Bonnet’s cognac.

  Turning on the reading lamp, he collapsed into a leather chair and thought, I hate that bastard because he’s right. If Alix is heartbroken, I’m hardly the man to mend her. He took the same photograph he always kept in his wallet and said to the girl in the Basque beret, ‘I failed you too, Maria-Pilar. My poor wife. I let you go into danger and couldn’t pull you out of it.’

  *

  He woke
with a start to the sound of a telephone ringing. Once he’d worked out where he was, he followed the noise down to the reception desk, squinting at his watch as he went. It was six in the morning. What day was it … Monday? No, Tuesday. ‘Hello? News Monitor?’

  A babble of Spanish made his heart leap and he said, unthinking, ‘Maria-Pilar?’

  ‘Maria no soy. Escucheme—’ A woman, speaking so fast he couldn’t make out a word.

  ‘Señora, whoa, please. Your name, slowly.’ She gave it and he repeated, ‘García …’ Señora García y Rojas was his friend Miguel’s wife. ‘Where are you calling from? Where is Miguel?’

  ‘No Miguel!’ she shouted. She was in France, she said. In Marseille on the coast, penniless, alone but for her little son who cried from hunger. No one to turn to except Verrian. He must help her, if he had a heart, and if he did not she would throw herself and her son into the docks to drown.

  *

  Arriving at Le Bourget aerodrome in the sharp light of early morning, Verrian found his friend Ron Phipps drinking coffee and stuffing down a croque-monsieur in the pilots’ mess. It was Phipps who’d rescued him at Albacete after his escape from the Madrid police. Phipps made a precarious living flying between London and the Spanish war zone, picking up rolls of film from journalists who had no way of developing their pictures themselves.

  ‘You want me to take you to Marseille?’ Phipps scratched his head once Verrian had explained his dilemma. ‘Can be done, but I won’t be taking off for several hours and I prefer to get over the bumps –’ his name for the Pyrenean mountains – ‘at night, while the buggers with anti-aircraft guns are asleep. Don’t want to run into any Luftwaffe either. We always take a line over Pamplona. We know the landmarks, d’you see?’

  By ‘we’, Verrian presumed Phipps meant himself and his beloved six-seater Avro Anson, currently waiting to be refuelled for the six-hundred-miles to Madrid. But, promised another refuel, his good nature firmly leaned on, Phipps finally agreed to land Verrian at Marseille and fly on over Andorra. They talked of Spanish adventures for a while, but with a long day and night in prospect, they stretched out on the mess chairs and slept.