Paris Requiem

by Lisa Appignanesi

  She had taken on the air of an injured princess. It sat unhappily on her stolid features.

  ‘Live, imprisoned flesh,’ he underlined, his grip still firm. Caro had bent further towards the door. James considered whether he might be better placed today if a fight broke out. His pride itched for it, despite the dictates of intelligence.

  ‘Olympe talked to you, I can see. Foolish girl. I told her she was being foolish. There was no point in putting ideas into the girls’ heads. They weren’t clever enough to hold them there. They weren’t like her. One of them even ran off after taking her advice and got herself …’ She clapped a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Got herself killed,’ James finished for her grimly. He raised his voice. ‘Killed by Marcel Caro. Abetted by Dr Comte, perhaps.’

  He looked towards the door. He was astonished to find that Caro had disappeared. His rage seemed to vanish with the man and the thought that he might be wrong about the sad, old professional in front of him surfaced. Perhaps Simone wasn’t in cahoots with Caro.

  He loosened his grip and Madame Simone sprang up more nimbly than her weight would seem to allow. She looked quickly round her. ‘Don’t meddle in what has nothing to do with you, Monsieur,’ she hissed. ‘I shall forget this meeting. You would be wise to do the same. Good intentions sometimes pave the road to hell.’

  He had learned nothing he didn’t already know, James reflected as he strolled in front of the Louvre and paused amidst a cluster of people to watch a clown advertising a travelling circus. The chalk white face made him think of Ellie. He would have to go back to her soon. But first he had to cross the Seine.

  At least Madame Simone had confirmed his and Touquet’s speculations. He knew that Olympe had been encouraging at least one girl to make a break for freedom. If there had been more than one, if she had visited a variety of establishments where Marcel Caro plied his vile trade, then the man had ample motive for murder. And James could imagine the ease with which he would carry it out.

  He walked quickly, averting his gaze from the murky flow of the river. It was a hot day again, but the sky had a sallow flatness to it, as if it wanted to hide its better face from the tawdry goings-on below.

  The barge was still there, though no drying linen shrouded its grey-brown planks today.

  He strode on board and called out a hello. He was out of luck. It was the lumbering husband who came out to greet him and none too politely.

  ‘What d’ya want?’ He grunted, all suspicion.

  ‘Just a word. You remember me. I was here with Chief Inspector Durand. On the night the body was found.’

  ‘So what’s it to you?’

  His wife had come creeping round the corner and she put a quietening hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Perhaps Monsieur would like a cold drink,’ she said softly.

  ‘No drinks. We’re not millionaires. What’s your business?’

  James glanced down at the woman’s feet. He cleared his throat. ‘I was just wondering. Can you tell me where your wife got her boots?’

  ‘What!’ The man took a stride towards him, his face ugly.

  James put out a staying hand. ‘It’s just that I don’t believe they’re hers.’

  ‘I told you they’d find out,’ the woman whimpered.

  ‘Shut it. What do you want with them?’

  ‘I just want to know where they came from.’

  ‘It’s none of your bloody business.’

  James felt a streak of rage flash through him. Suddenly he was on the man, shaking him by the shoulders, threatening him bodily as he should have done Caro, lifting him off the ground. ‘I’m making it my business,’ he shouted. ‘And in five minutes flat the police will be here, unless you tell me exactly where those boots came from.’

  ‘They came from the dead girl,’ the woman murmured. ‘I didn’t want them. He forced me. He polished them for me. Said they were as good as new.’ She was shivering. ‘We don’t have much …’

  James released the man. ‘What else did you take from Olympe Fabre?’

  The man straightened his blue shirt, shrugged. ‘You don’t want to know what I took from her. It won’t make you happy. It was shameful.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. A scandal. Better not to know.’ He was surly, but he kept his distance.

  ‘Jean means that when we found her, she was wearing trousers. Black trousers and a frock coat and a shirt. It was only because of her hair that we knew she was a woman. So Jean said we should take them off her and sell them. I tidied them up a bit, sewed the tears. He didn’t get much money. Not much at all.’

  ‘I see,’ James said, not seeing. ‘Who did you sell them to?’

  ‘Some bloke. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  A look passed between husband and wife and the man shook his head too abruptly. ‘Nothing. Now get out of here. We don’t want any more visitors. Waste of time, all of you.’

  ‘I guesss I’ll have to come back with the Chief Inspector, after all.’ James made to move.

  ‘Tell him, Jean.’

  The man lunged towards his wife. James leapt to intercede and dragged him away from her. ‘You’d better come with me. Right now. They have excellent cells at the Sûreté.’

  He shoved the man towards the gangplank.

  ‘No, Monsieur. No, please.’ The woman clutched at James’s sleeve. ‘Give it to him, Jean. Or we’ll all end up getting arrested. The baby …’ She was sobbing. ‘It’s not right. I told you it wasn’t right. You shouldn’t profit from the dead.’

  James pretended oblivion and prodded the man along.

  ‘All right. Go and get it,’ he lashed out at his wife as they reached the bank. ‘She’s going to get it. Get your paws off me. Now.’

  James kept his grip while the woman disappeared round the corner of the deck. She came back a moment later and held out a bracelet, a pretty mixture of silver and emeralds.

  ‘Here, here. Take it. Please, Monsieur. Don’t have him arrested. Please.’ Her voice trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘They’ll take the baby. I couldn’t … We didn’t mean anything by it. Really. Jean thought it would prevent a scandal. He wanted me to have something nice …’

  James looked from one to the other of them. ‘You’re sure this is everything?’

  The woman nodded while her husband grunted. ‘The slut was hardly wearing Marie Antoinette’s diamonds!’

  ‘Jean! Yes, yes.’ She turned towards James. ‘That’s everything. On my honour.’ She crossed herself quickly. ‘Please, Monsieur …’ Her eyes implored him.

  ‘All right. I’ll let the Chief Inspector know you told me all this willingly. That your intentions were …’ he paused. ‘That your intentions were good.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur. Thank you.’

  He left with the sound of her thanks mingled with her husband’s curses ringing in his ears.

  Drunk on too much information, James walked unsteadily. He was oblivious to his direction, to the play of human traffic around him, to the shouting voices which told him to watch his step as he lurched into a mountain of construction material. His throat felt raw. This last bit of unpalatable knowledge stuck in his gullet. He couldn’t digest it.

  He remembered one of the first things Raf had said to him about the case. The drowned Olympe was bereft of clothes. Someone had all but stripped her and then killed her or in the reverse order. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that a woman bent on suicide didn’t take her clothes off before flinging herself into the river. Therefore her death had to be murder. But Olympe’s body, it now transpired, hadn’t floated downstream ungarbed. After all this, her death could still be a suicide.

  That much he could absorb. But the fact that she had been dressed in a man’s clothes was the rub. Why? What did it signify?

  His thoughts scurried, restless as rats. He sniffed at dark corners. What was it the pianist had said? Olympe wasn’t like that, wasn’t like some of the girls. Wh
at were some of the girls like? He thought of the statuesque Berenice, little Eugénie.

  Could Olympe’s interest when she visited her friends have been something quite other than charitable? He pushed the thought away into a dusty crack. In any event, in no way did such matters deny Caro’s violent activities.

  He needed to see Durand. He looked round to get his bearings. Somehow his feet had carried him in the direction of Madame de Landois’s street. Perhaps he should talk to Marguerite first. It might help to clarify things. Yes, if she was at home that’s what he would do. He could also perhaps catch up with Raf at Touquet’s office by telephone from there. But no, no. He couldn’t tell Raf this latest bit of information. Not the full content of it. It would throw Raf into even greater turmoil.

  A carriage clattered round the corner, narrowly missing him as he made the turn into the street. In front of Marguerite’s hôtel particulier, a man walked, his stick clicking out a repetitive rhythm on the pavement. As James approached, he turned and retraced his trajectory, glancing up at the double doors of Marguerite’s house, before once more turning back.

  James recognised Chief Inspector Durand and slowed his steps. Could the man be spying on Marguerite’s movements, too? He watched to see if this time Durand would disappear round the far corner, but the man was back again. He saw James and waved, hurrying towards him.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Norton. Perhaps the fates are being kind to me at last.’

  James was taken aback. The Chief Inspector had never before manifested such pleasure at seeing him.

  ‘Yes, yes. You may be able to help me. You Americans know about democracy.’

  ‘What is it, Chief Inspector?’ James was mystified.

  ‘Come, let’s indulge ourselves in a little glass of something and I will tell you.’ Durand stroked his moustache nervously and urged him along. ‘It’s to do with Madame de Landois.’ He glanced back at the looming bulk of the house and all but bumped into a capped, hurrying youth. It was Antoine. The boy didn’t acknowledge James.

  ‘Just over there, Monsieur Norton.’ The Chief Inspector pointed to a small café, half hidden behind a stationary carriage. He didn’t speak again until they were seated at an angle from the pewter-topped counter and two glasses of cognac stood before them. Durand took a large gulp of his, then gazed at James. His eyes narrowed abruptly.

  ‘We lifted your brother’s fingerprints from Olympe Fabre’s apartment, Monsieur.’

  James waited for more, but it didn’t come. ‘That’s hardly a surprise, is it, Chief Inspector. My brother has done nothing to hide the frequency of his visits to that place.’

  Durand swallowed a retort. He seemed to be struggling over something.

  ‘That can hardly be what you brought me here for, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘What then?’

  The man considered him shrewdly. ‘Olympe Fabre’s landlady tells us that a man pressured his way into Olympe’s apartment. He crossed her palms with silver, needless to say. He may also have walked off with some things. Letters for instance. I’ve found it distinctly odd that Mlle Fabre kept no letters from your brother …’ His voice trailed off, but he fixed James with an interrogator’s snakelike gaze.

  James averted his eyes, forced his voice into casualness. ‘Did you ask Rafael whether he ever wrote to her?’

  ‘Come, come, Monsieur Norton.’

  ‘Do you have a description of this man?’

  ‘What we know is that he was well-dressed, rather debonair in fact. Perhaps like you.’

  ‘Really, Chief Inspector. Me – debonair?’

  ‘You haven’t been driven to take any souvenirs from Olympe Fabre’s apartment, then? Perhaps souvenirs for your brother?’

  ‘Do I strike you as that kind of man, Inspector?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Monsieur Norton, I don’t rightly know what kind of man you strike me as. Perhaps that’s because you’re a lawyer. Sly characters, lawyers. But that’s why you can help me, Monsieur Norton.’

  ‘Have you interviewed Bernfeld?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t yet found him at the address you gave me. I’ve left a man there, to watch out for him. However I don’t believe this Bernfeld of yours can be complicit in the blackmail in quite the way you wish to make him.’

  ‘Really? Has your graphologist determined something? Surely he hasn’t found that Rafael’s writing matches the blackmail note?’

  ‘Given your brother’s base estimation of my men, Monsieur, it will astonish him to learn that no, we didn’t find a match. His writing has distinctly not been shaped by a French school.’

  James permitted himself a smile. ‘He’ll be pleased and relieved to hear that he’s been cleared.’

  ‘Not cleared, Monsieur. Not altogether.’ Durand tapped out a military rhythm on the table.

  ‘You’re wasting your time, Chief Inspector. And your men’s in following him.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that. In such cases the passion of love too often turns into its opposite.’

  James shrugged. He wondered now whether he ought after all to tell Durand about what he had discovered about Olympe’s clothes. If the man still held to his ridiculous theories about Raf hypnotising her into a suicide pact, the fact that she was dressed, whether as a man or a woman, would probably only strengthen his notion.

  ‘But I am going to take a chance on you, Monsieur. Yes, I am going to entrust you with a confidence.’ His eyes glinted at James, pebble dark above the sharp cheekbones.

  ‘Only if you think I can bear it, Chief Inspector. You know my priorities in this matter.’

  ‘What are they exactly?’

  ‘To clear my brother’s name and to discover the truth about Olympe’s death.’

  ‘In that order?’

  ‘The two are synonymous.’

  ‘For your sake, I hope you are right. But as for that blackmail letter … Quite by chance this morning, because I received a note from Madame de Landois, I made an extraordinary discovery.’ He moved closer again. ‘Her writing and the writing on the blackmail letter are one and the same.’

  James put his glass down unsteadily. ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. I fear so.’

  ‘Your expert has confirmed it?’

  Durand looked shamefaced. ‘I haven’t put it to him yet. You see, our Commissioner has warned me to be polite. To take care. You understand?’

  James understood that the Chief Inspector had been cautioned by superior powers. Madame de Landois would not make a comfortable suspect for whatever crime or misdemeanour.

  ‘I don’t want her to think that we are prying unnecessarily into her affairs. Yet the matter could be highly significant. I was hoping that you …’

  James cut him off. ‘Do you think Madame de Landois was showing Olympe how she could raise money to pay back her family debt to Bernfeld?’

  ‘No. No. Surely, if Olympe had confided her need of money to her, Madame would have lent it to her. Don’t you think?’

  ‘One can never judge from the surface about the state of people’s finances.’

  James thought of some of his former clients, thought rather more anxiously of his last conversation with Marguerite. Could his speculations then have carried more than a grain of truth? Could Marguerite, in some moment of crazed passion at losing Raf, some sense of vengeful betrayal, have committed an act which would incriminate her rival, an act which had so agonised Olympe that she had plunged to her death. Trapped in a web of dire possibilities, he almost failed to hear Durand.

  ‘Perhaps. In any case, I would like you to put it to her.’

  ‘Me?’ James was aghast.

  ‘Yes, yes. You can do it diplomatically. And you can tease the whole story from her. You can even say that I sent you as a messenger.’

  ‘Kill the messenger, you mean?’

  Durand raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely you are not afraid of her?’

  ‘No, no. But it will be a challenge.’ He met the Chief
Inspector’s eyes and decided in that moment that, in spite of everything and despite his occasionally bizarre ideas, he liked the man, even trusted him. ‘You will have to do something for me in return, Inspector.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. It may be equally, if not more important to our investigation. And rather more dangerous, I suspect.’

  ‘You want to see me dead, then.’

  ‘No, no.’ James told him what he had discovered at the Hotel Monpiquet, told him about Marcel Caro, his traffic in women from the East, Jewish women, one certainly and perhaps several more, already dead, and how Olympe might have delved too deeply and incurred the man’s murderous wrath. He told him, too, about Dr Henri Comte. ‘So you need to do some careful questioning, Chief Inspector. And some investigating.’

  Durand looked more worried than if James had suggested raising an expedition against the Germans. ‘Caro. I know the man. Very slightly. He used to be with the morality police. Not my jurisdiction.’ He gnawed at his lips as if to get rid of a foul taste, rifled through his pockets for cigarettes. ‘This isn’t one of Touquet’s wild speculations, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s based on the evidence of my ears and eyes. Not to mention a rather bruised jaw.’ James rubbed his cheek delicately. ‘Though Touquet put me on the trail, I have to admit. You’re not afraid, are you, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Afraid, of course not.’ He puffed out his chest, then grinned ruefully. ‘Though to be altogether honest, I’m no longer certain whether the challenge of Madame de Landois might not have been far preferable to a visit to one of our brothels.’

  TWENTY

  Margeurite de Landois’s balding butler kept James waiting longer than usual before directing him to the library. Here, too, the wait was long. He picked out a random volume of Descartes and let his eyes skim. But his mind was elsewhere. He wondered what was keeping her – this woman who had bemoaned the fact that her very womanhood made her days long and lax.

  As he looked out onto the garden, he determined that once she was with him, there would be little point in beating about the bush. Marguerite was far better at indirections than he was. He would fulfil the Chief Inspector’s errand immediately, ask what needed to be asked, and then rush over to Ellie, whom he was once more aware of having neglected. He hoped Ponsard’s ministrations had calmed her.