by Pirate Irwin
“Thank you, Miles. For once I appreciate your plain speaking,” laughed Lafarge, though he also felt a surge of pride rise within him.
“Who is the man you would see as being capable of achieving that? As you can well imagine, and I am not revealing anything that is top secret here; while the war is far from won, with most of France liberated our top priority in terms of administration is who on earth can take the reins here,” said McLagan.
Lafarge went back on his guard at the question, for it could be a loaded one given that McLagan had been in conference with de Cambedessus and they both appeared to be on good terms with each other. It could be possible that the general was involved in some way in de Cambedessus’s Machiavellian plot. Thus there were two ways he could answer.
The way he really felt was the future for France – or the one he considered could be most useful for his investigation, which he had to admit despite the reprieve he had been given the night before by Pinault – did not offer much hope of being brought to a successful conclusion.
Unless one thought sending a woman, albeit an evil and calculating one, and her mute husband to the guillotine as a success, which under Vichy might have been celebrated as one, but to Lafarge would be simply a Pyrrhic victory.
“I am reluctant to say it, as I have always strongly believed the Revolution produced much good and certainly initially fairness and has proved durable as illustrated, most of our laws, certainly pre-War, dated back to the Napoleonic era.
“However, the politicians before the war, with some honourable exceptions like Georges Mandel and Lionel Blum, and certainly the scoundrels that were part of the Vichy administration, have time and again failed the people of whom they claimed to represent the best interests.
“So what is one left with? There is General de Gaulle, who kept the flames of resistance burning from abroad and is seen as the savior of French pride but is, still even with his present tour of liberated France, not well known on a personal level, certainly I have no idea of what his politics are. Or there is the almost unimaginable thought of restoring the monarchy,” replied Lafarge, allowing the last phrase to hang in the air to see how McLagan would react.
McLagan tried hard to hide the look of pleasure, but here he failed.
“Well you know that de Gaulle would not be doing his tour of France without it being permitted by us. When I say that, I mean the President has, after hesitating and at times opposing de Gaulle, finally given in and inked him in as the leader,” said McLagan.
“Well, being cooped up in France during the Occupation I was not privy to such political intrigues,” said Lafarge sardonically.
“All I can say is that it may suit the French people to have a less seemingly polarising person in power. For me a restoration of the monarchy rather than a president who is by necessity a politician with vastly reduced powers could be the best option.”
Lafarge could barely believe the rubbish he had just spouted but he sensed he was playing the right hand of cards and his gamble was going to prove a winner. He had gambled big time with Bousquet and won, although it had cost him dearly and like all gamblers he was finding it hard to eradicate the habit even if the stakes he played for were high risk.
“You make a very powerful argument, Gaston. I am not sure how the French people would react to such a theory but the traumas they have been through, and to a certain extent they brought upon themselves, one has to ask whether they should be consulted,” said McLagan.
“In any case this has been a most fruitful and interesting discussion. I would simply say if I had a piece of advice to give to General de Gaulle, as I am a keen student of history, I would draw on an experience closer to home for me.”
Lafarge had by this stage, sensing the conversation was at an end, gathered his things together and was standing up ready to go and see his sister.
“What is that, Miles?”
McLagan stared up at him and breathed deeply before speaking.
“It is that we had a strong leader who led one half of the country to victory over the other half in the last century. He had already been elected democratically unlike de Gaulle, and he had the ability to bring the two halves of the country back together again because of his sense of justice and his patriotic spirit that all people were equal regardless of what they had done.
“However, a bullet to the brain put paid to those hopes of Abraham Lincoln. That should give General de Gaulle food for thought,” said McLagan.
Lafarge stared at McLagan, making no comment except to thank him for the drinks and that no doubt they would be seeing each other again, to which McLagan shook his hand with both of his and said they would see each other sooner than he imagined.
Lafarge left feeling both troubled and elated. The former because now he knew it wasn’t just a few fanatical French monarchists who were out to destroy de Gaulle but their group also included influential members of the American hierarchy, for he doubted McLagan was a lone voice. He felt elated because he had, he believed, just bought himself an invitation to the next meeting between McLagan and de Cambedessus as he had proved with his answer to the general he was a man they could trust.
How wrong they were they would find out grinned Lafarge as he pushed the swing door to exit the Crillon. The investigation had just unexpectedly received the shot in the arm it required.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Your turn to make the coffee, darling,” said Berenice.
Lafarge groaned and turned on his side, it seemed like only minutes since they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms in his apartment.
His lack of action prompted a gentle kick into the small of his back, he let out a yelp and then finally submitting to her request he stumbled around in the early morning light for his dressing gown.
“You may be the most caring of lovers, Gaston, but when it comes to domestic chores in looking after your lady you are sadly lacking,” laughed Berenice.
Lafarge feigned a look of being hurt as he stared down at Berenice, her head just above the sheet looking quite beautiful accentuated by the happy smile on her face, and made his way to the kitchenette.
He could barely believe how quickly the situation had transformed itself from her being a potential source of information to them becoming lovers. It had been three weeks since his meeting with McLagan and de Cambedessus had left for the tour of liberated France.
It hadn’t happened immediately, but there had been a certain sense of inevitability about it and as he got to know her better he felt for the first time in a very long while, he was losing his heart to somebody.
To him she was magical, sensitive, graceful, amusing, cultured and highly intelligent and he could see why de Cambedessus and then the German officer had been swept off their feet by her.
There were moments when he thought of his wife. However, truth be told, while he had compromised with her in a bid to save their marriage and said he would resign from the police, once his previous case had been resolved, he had done it largely because of their two children.
They had been reunited and were looking to a new life in Argentina where, thanks to her father’s influence with the dictator Juan Peron, he would have had little trouble finding a job, but it had felt like he had no option after the manner, albeit all of his own doing, the case had ended.
He wondered whether he was trying to make a convenient excuse for falling in love with somebody else quite so soon after his folly, for he still blamed himself for what had happened to them. It was he who had pushed them to flee so quickly and refused the offer by the Argentinian Embassy in Madrid of living in a nice apartment in the Spanish capital, giving them time to consider their options when the war was at last over.
He banished those thoughts from his head as he struggled to get enough coffee together to make it sufficiently strong for both of them. Shopping had not really been at the top of his agenda since he returned; with the job and now being alone there was little need for home comforts apart from having e
nough wine and cognac to dull the pain before he went to bed.
This pain had been exacerbated after he had visited the asylum St Anne following his drinks with McLagan. His initial relief de Cambedessus had not been lying – Vanessa was indeed a patient – soon subsided when he saw the state she was in.
The place itself was totally chaotic, the patients outnumbered the staff by almost three to one and at times during the visit it was hard to tell who was who. Lafarge had joked to his sister that ‘the lunatics have taken over the asylum’, but she didn’t laugh and he chided himself for making an inappropriate remark.
It was questionable, though, whether she heard him. It was as if she was in a semi-catatonic state; unlike Berenice who had had at least obtained a wig to cover her shaved head, his sister had not been afforded that minor comfort. Her head had barely been washed, and was now covered in scabs where the mob had cut it in their savage, vengeful attack, and her nightdress was dirty.
Occasionally she cried out, but her words meant nothing to Lafarge, and then she would go silent and stare down at the floor and all he could do as a way of telling her she had not been forgotten was to hold her hand. What she had become during the Occupation was no longer important; they had drifted apart for he had found both her choice of man Bonny and her behaviour distasteful, although he had tried once to get her to leave Rue Lauriston but it had ended in abject failure.
The one doctor he had managed to track down in St Anne had looked as if he was ready to be treated himself – huge black rings round his eyes and a thin, lined, gaunt face, aged beyond his years for he couldn’t have been more than 30.
His depressed look reflected his prognosis on Lafarge’s sister’s chances of getting well enough to be able to leave the institution one day. He said there was little hope of her ever being discharged; if they had the medication they could treat her and get her better, but the reality was that they were almost out of drugs and treating mental patients was not high on the list of priorities of the new regime.
Lafarge had bit back the tears as he left her, enclosed in her own nightmarish world and he wondered whether she was able to at least compartmentalise her years during the Occupation and the post Liberation gang rape. Either option probably wasn’t too appealing, certainly for Lafarge.
Thus it had been like awaking from a nightmare once he had been able to focus on nurturing Berenice, who unlike his sister had been able to fight the memories of the appalling rape. Nevertheless he had behaved professionally and not pushed her too hard about her husband’s activities before the war, or his political affiliations, allowing her to do the talking.
He hadn’t learnt much but in a way he was grateful because that had given them the time to get to know each other and to establish trust.
Finally, after an afternoon spent walking in the Luxembourg Gardens just down from the Pantheon where France’s most celebrated people were interred – not many from the recent past will end up there he had joked to Berenice – they had gone to bed.
He had asked her if she felt okay about it, coming so soon after Monnet’s appalling act, and she had nodded saying she was ready and felt it would help in the process of rebuilding her life if she was to make love with someone she had feelings for.
That had been a week ago and since then they had been inseparable. Pinault had from time to time asked him how his enquiry was going but had not probed deeper, probably because he knew what he had feared would happen had happened. Of course there was no danger of a similar thing happening between Levau and Marianne Courneuve as her home was a tiny cell.
Levau had made little headway with her. Even the news of her husband’s narrow escape from the two assassins had not shocked her into confessing to her role in the murder of the Count and she denied any knowledge of a plot or knowledge of their puppet master ‘Arthur’. Hubert Courneuve remained heavily drugged in a prison hospital room. They had managed to stitch his tongue back but he appeared to be so traumatised that he was completely mute.
“Is that coffee being brought to us from Guyana?” Berenice laughed.
Lafarge had quite forgotten about it and poured what now smelt like burnt coffee into two chipped bowls and took them into the bedroom.
“So, my gaoler, what is the plan for today? More torture on the rack you call your bed!” she jested as she rested the bowl on her knees which she had drawn up under her chin.
“Yes, well didn’t you know us policemen have to live and sleep the job. I’ve got some thumbscrews in the kitchen – they may look like they are for eating snails with but in fact it is for extracting information,” said Lafarge trying to look his most serious. However, it was a very poor effort and both burst into laughter.
“Well I thought that as it looks like being a gorgeous day we should go for a stroll and then perhaps go to a film this evening. I hear Vautrin with Michel Simon is very good,” said Lafarge.
Berenice said that sounded like a perfect plan, but first she would like to sleep for a bit longer as it was only eight o’clock in the morning and they had gone to bed at four.
Lafarge grimaced, remembering how late it had been, and thought he too could quite easily go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
He had nothing else to do with regard to the investigation as de Cambedessus was still away. He had no idea where McLagan was as he had not had any contact with him since their revealing chat in the Crillon. “He’s probably still in the bar waiting either for his co-conspirator to return from de Gaulle’s triumphant tour,” thought Lafarge, “or for the bourbon to finally be furnished to the Crillon.”
However, his hopes of joining Berenice on the rack, as she called it, were dashed as the phone rang in the drawing room. He made a face and left her to her slumbers.
“Hello, Gaston.”
Lafarge’s sunny disposition evaporated for the voice was that of Drieu.
“I thought I told you never to contact me,” said Lafarge trying to keep his voice down lest it wake Berenice.
“Well, Gaston, I have so few people I can talk to these days, so I have a little list that I rotate my calls around,” said Drieu, his voice sounding tired and a little slurred.
“Well I think you can reduce that list by one and I mean that, Drieu. I don’t take kindly to being threatened in my home and least of all by someone who has no moral authority,” hissed Lafarge.
“Ah sorry, Gaston, you must have company the manner in which you are speaking. So soon after Isabella’s death; it must be consoling to know that you can still attract the women even with your record,” said Drieu.
Lafarge seethed but refused to rise to the bait.
“Anyway, Gaston, I think you and I should meet because I have some information that is certain to be of interest to you. Being the considerate person I am I thought you should be the first person I offer to divulge it to,” said Drieu.
Lafarge had sworn he would never see Drieu again. Nevertheless he couldn’t just dismiss his claims and if it turned out he did possess damaging information and passed it on to Pinault, Lafarge would be quite possibly joining the Courneuves at the guillotine.
“Very well, Drieu, I will meet you. Where and when?” asked Lafarge exasperated.
“Well you may find this odd, Gaston, but being on the run – maybe Petiot feels the same way, though I have yet to cross paths with him on fugitives’ alley – I feel safer in crowds: one stands out less. I mean, after all, people are hardly likely to think one of the most wanted men in France is mixing with them.
“So I suggest we meet at Trocadero around four. One of the rare pleasures I get these days is listening to the US Army band playing Glenn Miller swing tunes. I know being an overt collaborationist and a cultural snob I shouldn’t like it, but maybe I’m mellowing in my middle age,” he said smoothly before ringing off.
****
“So, Gaston, you came. I must have piqued your curiosity,” said Drieu.
Lafarge scowled at his former friend.
He had left Ber
enice enjoying the army band; she had asked him to dance but he was tense about his meeting with Drieu and had fobbed her off with the excuse he would later. He was a clumsy dancer and he had always preferred to sit and listen, a nice respite from sitting and asking questions. He had often gone to clubs before the war to hear Josephine Baker and other American jazz singers and musicians who had found a willing and appreciative audience in Paris.
It was a refreshing sign things were returning to some form of normality that music which had been banned by the Nazis as they considered it anarchic – more likely because it was a world dominated largely by their antithesis of Aryans – was now being played and to large numbers of people in the open air of Trocadero.
He had been fetched by a boy who had led him to Drieu. Berenice had looked quizzically at Lafarge as he excused himself but he said it wouldn’t be for long.
Drieu looked a bit better than he had on the previous occasion. He was dapperly dressed – a chalk grey pinstripe suit, striped shirt and plain blue tie – but in an effort to avoid being recognised had grown a beard. Evidently not completely confident his new look was fail-safe he had his black fedora pulled low onto his forehead, although being vain as well Lafarge reckoned it could have been to hide his receding hairline.
He led Lafarge away from the masses and up on to the top of the Trocadero Esplanade. They walked to the front of the terrace that overlooked the band and gave a superb view, especially on sunny days like the one that day, of the Eiffel Tower.
“You’re taking a bit of a risk aren’t you, Drieu by appearing in such a popular spot?”
Drieu smiled, his eyes holding no sign of fear.
“I find it is far easier to move around where there are lots of people than to skulk in deserted cafes and restaurants, Gaston. Bizarrely the chances of me being recognised, the nice touch of the beard apart, are far less likely. People are so pre-occupied with themselves and their own problems that they barely give others a glance,” replied Drieu.