Folly Du Jour

by Barbara Cleverly

  At the end of the corridor, a group of three men stood guard in front of the closed door of the star’s dressing room. They were agitated. They did not wait for introductions. One, the director, Derval, who’d boomed at them from the stage, put a hand on the door knob.

  ‘Come in quietly! No fuss please! We haven’t disturbed or touched anything. We’ll stay outside until you call us. This is Alex, our stage manager. He found her.’ He nodded to one of his companions. ‘He went to check whether she’d arrived yet.’

  Simenon frowned and chewed his lower lip but said nothing.

  ‘You’d better go in with them, Georges,’ Derval added, touching the man’s shoulder gently.

  She was lying in the middle of the room, on her front on the floor with the back of her glossy black head to the door. Her high-heeled shoes had fallen off. They were green satin, exactly matching the shining cocktail dress that had slid up, revealing brown thighs and strong calves. Joe at first wondered whether the room had been ransacked. Everything was in disorder. Clothes and stage costumes hung from every picture rail and spilled from open couturiers’ boxes littering the floor, towels were draped on every chair back. There was a stench, overpowering and at first inexplicable. A potent cocktail of death and dung. Joe wrinkled his nose, trying to identify the elements. A farmyard? A zoo? And then he noticed the menagerie. In cages and boxes, small animal faces pushed forward, grunting, growling, mewing, sensing their presence, eager for attention. Dog, cat, two rabbits, a small goat, a leopard cub asleep on a cushion in a cardboard box, and – Good Lord! – a snake, thankfully securely boxed.

  Well, that at least explained the trail of cereal of some sort that had spilled from the dead girl’s hand all over the carpet. She’d dropped a bag of pet food and must have been preparing to feed her animals when she was attacked.

  The reporter had rushed forward and sunk to his knees beside her before they thought of calling a warning, touching her sleek head with a caressing hand. ‘She’s dead,’ he whispered. Then he recoiled and froze, eyes starting. He gasped and cursed and, taking the body by the shoulders, turned it over.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was Joe’s turn to draw in his breath in surprise. ‘It’s not her . . . No – that’s not Miss Baker!’

  He stared at the face and added, ‘No scarlet thread. Thank God for that at least.’ His gaze lingered uncertainly. ‘But all the same, there’s something odd here . . . something missing . . .’

  ‘You’re right, though. It’s Francine,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘Francine Raissac.’ He moved to the body with quiet authority. ‘Would you both move aside?’ Bonnefoye checked for signs of life and shook his head. ‘Dead – and very recently. Within the last half-hour. After a second’s inspection, I’d say she’d been strangled. No – wait a moment – neck broken. Better leave that to the pathologist. But what on earth was she doing here? By herself in the star’s dressing room? All dolled up for a party but feeding the animals? It’s unreal!’

  The reporter, visibly shaking from the shock, had taken a pipe from his pocket and was attempting to hold a match steady enough to light it. ‘No, you’re wrong. Everyday scene. The girls were very thick,’ he started to say, between puffs. ‘Josephine liked her. They were always giggling together. She had the run of the place.’

  ‘I understood from Francine herself that she often modelled new outfits for Josephine. They’re the same size and I suspect Francine may have worked hard at acquiring the new fashionable Baker look. Not difficult with her dark skin and hair,’ Joe said.

  ‘She would choose clothes for Josephine to wear after the show. Josephine always goes on somewhere after she’s performed. She’s tireless, you know! Usually to a nightclub. To her own, first of all. Chez Joséphine, it’s called. In the rue Fontaine. And then on somewhere else. Bricktop’s more often than not. She’s not captivated by fashion as Francine is . . . was – she takes her word for it that what she’s picked out for her will be just right for whatever party she has in mind.’ The words spilled out, a confusion of thoughts and tenses, a reaction to the relief he clearly felt. Relief that the dead girl at his feet was not Josephine but also guilt that, in these circumstances, he could be feeling relief at all. He collected himself. He stared at the body and frowned in pity. ‘Francine always got it right. This green satin gown is probably the one she’d selected for whatever Josephine was planning for this evening.

  ‘And she used to come in before work to see to the menagerie.’ Simenon waved a hand with distaste in the direction of the animals. ‘Josephine adores them but she isn’t all that consistent in her care . . . no more than she is with people, I suppose. Francine couldn’t bear to see them go without attention. She even cleaned up after them and took them for walks. The ones that can walk. I suspect Derval slipped her a little extra for her trouble. She never stopped working, that girl.’

  They watched in fascination as Bonnefoye in total silence poked and prodded his way through a textbook examination of the corpse. Joe determined to extract as much information as he could from the man who was so close to both girls. For Joe, listening to witnesses’ early reactions was more important than firing off the usual series of routine police questions. And he’d never met a witness so involved and so insightful, he thought, as this man. He would encourage him.

  ‘Are you thinking that this may be – if indeed it is murder we’re looking at – a case of mistaken identity? Finding Francine, looking as she does, in Josephine’s clothes, going about what ought to be Josephine’s chores, perhaps with her back to the door, one can understand that a mistake might have been made.’

  ‘They’re really meaning to kill Josephine, you mean? I had feared as much.’ He took two deep puffs on his pipe and the atmosphere in the room thickened further. ‘She has enemies, you know. Quite a lot of them are American. Successful, self-opinionated, liberated black girl that she is – that’s too much for some of them to stomach. I was with her at a dinner party the night before last – we were celebrating the arrival of Lindbergh. Some oafish fellow countryman announced in ringing tones across the table that black girls where he came from would be in the kitchen cooking the food, not sitting at table eating it with civilized folks. I think sometimes it breaks her heart. Strong heart though.’

  ‘And, I’ve heard – enemies in the theatre,’ said Joe. ‘Rival ladies wishing to be the paramount star in the Paris heaven. Ladies with influential lovers, prepared and able to indulge them.’

  ‘She nearly died when that device she comes down from the roof in misfired. Death trap! There was a fuss and they sacked someone. But there never was a serious enquiry. Certainly no one called the police in.’ He looked at Joe across the body, startled. ‘It could have been arranged. Someone could have been paid to foul up the works.’

  ‘The most spectacular exit ever on the French – or any other – stage, that would have been,’ said Joe thoughtfully. And with a memory of Fourier’s avid face, ‘What headlines! Black Venus plummets head-first into death pit.’

  ‘Dea ex machina. It was just a rehearsal, thank God. But it could have gone to performance, you know. I might have been in the audience, witnessing the death with my own eyes,’ murmured Simenon with a shudder. ‘What a waste of an opportunity! Because, I can tell you, it’s not an article I could ever have written.’

  Joe believed him and was glad to hear him say so. And yet Joe was, while struggling with his shock, touched by a feeling of resentment. He could find no comfort in the realization that this was not the star lying dead at his feet. There was no need to mourn Josephine. But this was Francine, the girl he had flirted with, sipped coffee with, and, by his unwitting clumsiness, annoyed the hell out of only yesterday. He’d liked and admired her. More than that. He flushed with guilt as he acknowledged he’d been planning a further meeting with Mademoiselle Raissac. In fantasy, he’d taken her to a performance at the Comédie Française – more her style than the cabaret, he thought – and then he’d walked with her along the Seine an
d dropped in at the Café Flore for a brandy before . . . well . . . whatever Paris suggested.

  He looked again in sorrow at the chilling flesh and realized how much of her attraction had sprung from her movements, her light gestures, the slanting, upward challenge offered by her dark eyes. He remembered her head tilted like a quizzical robin and now permanently tilted, it seemed, at that angle by a broken neck. The last throaty, gurgling laughter he’d provoked by his clowning beneath her window in Montmartre replayed in his memory. Stylish and intelligent. He was saddened that such a girl had thought it necessary to copy the looks of anyone, even an entertainer like Josephine. The thought startled him into a gesture.

  ‘Bonnefoye! There is something wrong here!’ He bent and looked closely at the dead face. ‘Her hair. Look, there – d’you see? – it’s been cut. Raggedly. She had a kiss curl on her forehead, I’m certain, when I met her yesterday. You know – one of those cowlick things . . . stuck down on her forehead like Josephine.’

  ‘Une mèche rebelle,’ said Simenon. ‘Yes, she had. There’s a pair of scissors – over there on the floor.’ He went to peer at them, carefully refraining from touching them. ‘And there’s a black hair trapped between the blades.’ He looked back at Francine. ‘She’s cut it off. Perhaps that was yesterday’s fashion?’ Concerned, he went to the waste basket and turned over the contents. ‘No hair.’ He checked the crowded surface of the dressing table. ‘No hair anywhere.’

  With mounting dismay, Joe pointed to the girl’s mouth. ‘Her lipstick’s badly smudged.’ He touched her cheeks gently. ‘And her face is puffy.’

  ‘Time for the opening of the mouth ceremony?’ said Bonnefoye quietly. ‘What did you say, Joe? Release the ka? Let’s do it, while we can – before rigor starts to set in!’

  He delicately ran a finger between her lips and slid it under her top teeth. With his other hand he tugged gently on the lower jaw and the mouth sagged open. The fingers probed the inside of her mouth and drew out the contents.

  With an exclamation of disgust, Joe spread his handkerchief on the floor by the corpse to receive the damp bundle.

  Bonnefoye poked at it. ‘A wad of currency and . . .’ He flipped the folded notes over revealing something wrapped tightly up in them. ‘There it is – the curl of hair.’

  He sat back on his heels, confused and defeated. ‘Now what the hell are we supposed to make of that?’

  ‘Mèche! That’s what we’re meant to understand!’ Simenon’s voice was urgent, trying to stifle triumph. ‘It’s a play on words! It means “kiss curl, strand of hair” but it’s also a candle wick . . . or a fuse. And if someone informs on you in criminal circles you’d say: on vend la mèche. They’re selling out. Selling information. They got the girl they wanted, you know. It was Francine they intended to kill. No mistake!’

  ‘And the choice of currency, I believe, was not random,’ said Joe bitterly. ‘Significant, would you say? That the notes are English ones? Have you noticed? Those elegant white sheets of paper are English treasury fivers. They’re saying she sold out to me. To the English cop. They’ve crammed in ten of them. Fifty pounds! No expense spared on the death of a little Parisian ouvreuse? More money than she ever had in her life.’

  He turned away to hide his sorrow and anger.

  Simenon’s eyes flashed from one policeman to the other. ‘Ah. Little Francine whispered more than she ought to have done into a sympathetic English ear, did she? Alfred? He’s the connection. He talked to her and she talked to you, Sandilands. Brother and sister both got their rewards then. They’re suspicious of family relationships. One sees why. Word of this will be on the street by the end of the day. And people like me will be silenced for another year.’ He turned to Joe and finished quietly: ‘Whatever you charmed out of her, keep it to yourself, will you? I don’t want to hear. Not sure it’s even safe to stand next to you.’

  Joe began to pull himself together and turned again to the body, though he noticed the younger men looked away, unable to meet his eye, alarmed by his expression. For a fleeting moment, the two sides of his face came together, disconcertingly in harmony, uniting to give out the same message. A message of fierce hatred.

  Joe made the sign of the cross over the dead girl and knelt, tugging down and straightening the hem of the green satin dress. ‘Even in death, she looks beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘She’d be pleased to be making her last appearance in something special. Not her black uniform. What is this little number do you suppose, Bonnefoye?’

  ‘I know what this is. I checked the label. It’s a Paul Poiret. Her favourite.’

  The three men gathered at the door, pausing to adjust their expressions, regain control and prepare for the flood of questions waiting for them in the corridor.

  On the point of leaving, Simenon took a parting glance around the room, then, one element of the chaos evidently catching his attention, he pointed and exclaimed.

  ‘Look! Over there! That’s how he got in!’

  Chapter Twenty

  They followed his pointing finger to a lavish bouquet of two dozen large white lilies abandoned behind the door and beginning to wilt on the floor. The smell of death. Funerals and weeping. Joe had seen too many lilies.

  Bonnefoye sighed. ‘A special delivery! They must be three feet high! Walking along behind those, no one’s going to notice your face or challenge you. “Who are you and what’s your business here?” Pretty obvious, I think. You’d feel silly asking!’

  ‘And flowers arriving at the stage door – it’s a daily occurrence. There’s usually someone on duty to receive them, though, and bring them on here to her dressing room.’

  ‘I’m thinking this must have been a particularly forceful delivery boy,’ said Joe. ‘Too much to hope there’s a card with them, I suppose?’

  Bonnefoye checked and came up with nothing more than a shrug.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, are we ready to face the crowd?’ asked Joe.

  Information, explanation and requests for back-up followed in an intensive quarter of an hour. Derval hurried away to carry out Bonnefoye’s instructions.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind but, in the circumstances, with the performance about to start, we’ve kept all this quiet,’ said the stage manager, assuming authority. ‘Josephine turned up five minutes ago, strolling down the corridor, munching on a ham sandwich, cool as you please. God! I nearly fainted! We guessed what had happened and when Derval could get his voice back he told her there’d been an accident in her room, a spillage . . . Had to get the cleaners in . . . When we could reassure her that her animals were all safe she agreed to borrow a costume, use the general dressing room and go on as normal. She doesn’t make a fuss . . . used to bunking up . . . gets on well with the girls. Goodness only knows what I’m going to tell her when she comes off! She was very fond of Francine, you know. We all were.’

  Joe launched into an angry outburst. ‘Then you should take better care of your staff, monsieur! Where is your security in all this? A murderer walks in from the street and kills what he assumes to be the star? What next? One killing on the premises, I will call chance, two, a coincidence. But three? That’s known as enemy action! If you call us back here for a further crime I shall send Commissaire Fourier to arrest you! Good day, monsieur.’

  Joe and Bonnefoye each felt his arm taken in a firm grasp and they heard Simenon’s voice in their ears growling: ‘The bar’s open! Come on, lads – we all need a brandy. This way!’

  ‘It’s not your fault. I’m talking to both of you! I haven’t got the whole picture by any means, but I see enough to say: I can see you’re both knocked sideways by that girl’s death – more than professional concern calls for perhaps? I don’t know what more you could have done or shouldn’t have done and why you should hold yourselves responsible, but it wasn’t your hands around her throat. Hang on to that! All you can do now is find those hands.’

  ‘And break every last bone in each one,’ muttered Bonnefoye viciously. ‘Slowly and one at a time. The
n stamp on both of them.’ Catching sight of Joe’s wondering look, he added, ‘Excuse me. My uncle was in the Foreign Legion.’

  They had found a quiet corner behind a screen of potted palms and were sitting, heads together, sipping generous measures of cognac, half an hour before the doors opened to admit the crowds.

  ‘It seems that, unwilling as we were to believe it, what we’ve got is a double – at least – murder, carried out, gangland-style, to punish informers and send out a warning,’ said Joe. ‘Alfred and Francine.’

  ‘You said you knew about Alfred?’ Bonnefoye asked the newsman.

  ‘Her brother? Rumours only. Nothing for certain. Feel like telling me?’

  Bonnefoye obliged.

  ‘. . . So it would seem to me that these clever dicks not only punish but signal ahead the identity of their next victim,’ Joe summarized heavily.

  ‘See what you mean,’ said Simenon. ‘All that stitching done on Alfred was a very personal warning to his sister.’

  ‘She perceived it as such. Yes.’

  ‘And her own death is meant to carry with it a threat to the next name on their list?’

  ‘Oh, good God! Those English banknotes, Joe!’ said Bonnefoye. ‘It was more than a cocky way of saying, “Look, this was all your fault. She sold out to you, you English copper.”’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid so. Though they got that wrong. The notes they provided from their own resources. She had nothing from me but a red rose, a cup of coffee . . . and a laugh.’ With an effort, he pulled himself together and battled on: ‘I think the next name on their list is Joseph Sandilands. As Simenon here has remarked, I’m not safe to stand close to and I take the comment seriously. I’ve no intention of being the death of anyone else in this hellish chain. I think we know the source of the infection. Let me go in and lance the boil.’