by Pirate Irwin
Lafarge smiled grimly although the irony wasn’t lost on him. Well he had done it in reverse, so it could have been a sequel for Balzac, had he still been alive of course. Lafarge was mightily relieved when a taxi for hire drew up and they were able to escape Drieu.
As he opened the door, of the old black Citroёn, for Berenice he felt Drieu’s hand grasp his arm which he tried to brush away. Drieu, though, would not let go so Lafarge, having got Berenice safely into the taxi, turned to him.
“What is it you want now?” he asked angrily trying to keep his voice down.
Drieu put on a look of being hurt, but it didn’t wash with Lafarge who was fed up to the back teeth with him.
“She really seems to be a charming lady, Gaston. I just hope for your sake you can keep this one, for women around you have the alarming habit of dying prematurely. Berenice’s wellbeing will depend on you keeping your word to me.
“It would be a great shame were you to not only lose your job again and suffer another personal loss. I really don’t think my capture is worth all that do you, Gaston? She showed up with impeccable timing because now I have my insurance against you double-crossing me,” said Drieu icily, then turned on his heel and disappeared in the direction of the metro station leaving Lafarge feeling very exposed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They had dinner at a restaurant on Rue de la Roquette near where Lafarge lived; it was called ‘Le dernier souper’, a name which Lafarge loved for its dark humour as it lay only a few hundred yards from the Père Lachaise cemetery. The dark clouds that had swirled round him immediately after his meeting with Drieu had disappeared.
The film had been very enjoyable, a lively recreation of Balzac’s anti-hero, although Lafarge took solace in the fact there was no physical resemblance between him and the burly moustachioed Swiss actor Simon who played the leading role. Berenice had joked about that as they left the cinema and gave him further comfort by adding she had found his friend strange and he had not put her at her ease.
Lafarge was greeted warmly by the Toulouse-born owners Yves Carentin, a burly good looking man in his mid-40s, and his wife Danielle who was a buxom well-presented and good-humoured woman of about the same age. They had managed to survive through the Occupation, even though their restaurant which was nothing fancy – serving traditional hearty French dishes and good, well-bodied wines – had been closed down by the Nazis on several occasions because a couple of their waiters had been arrested under suspicion of being resistants. However, through a good word here and there from loyal customers, who were also collaborators, they had been able to re-open.
Lafarge often wondered how they managed to have such a big choice on their menu, rationing having reduced much of the population of Paris to spending most of their time queuing. Sometimes they ended up with the door being shut in their faces as the shop had nothing left to sell, and by all accounts things on that score were not going to improve immediately just because Paris had now been liberated. However, he had thought it best not to ask the Carentins about their efficient suppliers fearing he would receive an answer that might oblige him to refer them to their local police station.
Yves brought them over a glass of champagne each and some excellent charcuterie, which they consumed while poring over the menu. Berenice spent a good deal of time looking round the modestly-sized room observing the other customers who were, like them, well-dressed couples. Lafarge remarked he was sorry it probably didn’t match the splendour of the restaurants that she was accustomed to going to with her husband and Colonel von Liebkampf.
She had grinned and said it was not the quality of the restaurant that counted but the company, which had made Lafarge, unused to such compliments of late, blush. That had made her laugh and she had brushed his nose with her finger playfully, setting the scene for a very relaxed and enjoyable dinner where they devoured some foie gras washed down with a fine bottle of Sauterne, and a confit de canard each plus copious amounts of red wine.
Now back at his apartment he had opened a bottle of champagne and they were sitting in the two battered old armchairs which he had had in his possession for nearly 20 years. They were still just about comfortable enough, although, he felt the springs were primed to go any time.
“You know, Gaston, you intrigue me,” said Berenice as she lit a cigarette.
Lafarge bit his lip and looked at her.
“We’ve spent a lot of time together recently and we’ve become lovers, which was not something I thought likely to happen especially after what that man did to me. But ever since you looked after me, when we were both in the cells, I thought there was something rather special about you.”
She stopped and took a sip of her champagne. Lafarge didn’t say anything, not because he was deploying his usual tactics of luring someone into revealing something that could incriminate them, but because he was apprehensive of saying something totally innocuous.
He felt powerless and that he had been hypnotised, so completely in her thrall was he. It was a very unusual feeling for him, and he didn’t know whether he felt comfortable about it, but he willed himself to let her continue.
“You have filled the vacuum that my husband has patently not succeeded in doing since he returned and I am not simply talking about my physical needs. I know he has been busy and he is required to fulfill his duties, but there is a distance that has grown between us I think that now is irreparable.
“Obviously being cuckolded, and by an officer of your enemy, is not pleasant. However, even after the rape he was not really sympathetic and I got the impression he only wanted to catch the culprit so he could take out all his anger he felt against Karl-Heinz,” she said bitterly.
“He didn’t even do that, Berenice, he asked me to do it instead,” said Lafarge profiting from the moment to twist the knife into de Cambedessus further.
She smiled but her eyes reflected the sadness she felt.
“Well there you are, that proves my point. He isn’t in the least bit interested in me anymore. But I have been fortunate to have you at my side. However, I feel despite the time we have spent together I do not know you as well as I should because you are keeping something inside you that you don’t want to reveal.”
Lafarge tugged at his shirt collar and nervously stroked his chin because he knew what she wanted him to do and that was to speak about his late wife, something he hadn’t done since she had drowned. He might have done to Drieu but he had been prevented from doing so because of his former friend’s behaviour that night in his apartment.
He glanced at the photograph of Isabella which was on the mantelpiece almost as if he was seeking her permission to respond to the woman that had replaced her in his heart. Regardless, he had made up his mind that, much as it irked him to admit it, Drieu had been right. It was no way to start a new serious relationship without being honest about the past, although he knew there had to be limits to how much he would tell her.
“She was very beautiful,” said Berenice admiringly.
Lafarge nodded, gulped and tried to pull himself together. He felt he was being overcome by a mix of guilt and also a desire to tell Berenice what she clearly wanted to know if they were to have any chance of making their relationship work.
He didn’t bring de Cambedessus into the equation as his long-term relationship was going to be with the courts and thence the guillotine.
“I know it must be difficult and unusual for a detective to be asked the questions, but let’s switch roles for a moment,” she said gently.
“A woman detective! Now that is a thought.” laughed Lafarge.
“Oh I don’t know, Chief Inspector. You obviously haven’t felt the need to read crime literature but there’s a little old lady in England called Miss Marple who would give you a run for your money! You might have the training and the muscle but she has the rare ability to understand human nature,” said Berenice, her eyes twinkling.
“Well, Berenice, I hate to disabuse you of your prejudices but I
have read Agatha Christie too! I admire her inventiveness in creating two detectives but making one a woman and the other a Belgian really is far-fetched.
“Even Simenon realised, patriotic Belgian that he might be, it was more realistic to make Maigret a Paris-based detective,” said Lafarge who could feel the tension inside him ebbing away.
“Very well, Gaston, we can debate that later. But please let’s get back to real life,” said Berenice raising her eyebrows.
Lafarge poured them another glass and lit a cigarette for each of them. Once settled back in his chair he could feel the effects of the alcohol and the tenderness between the two of them having an almost anaesthetic-like effect on him.
“You are right, Berenice, I do need to be honest with you and it will probably do me good to talk about it, as I have not had the chance to since I returned to Paris.
“It is hardly surprising given that most of my friends and family are either dead, in hiding, or prisoners of war. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the people I surrounded myself with but then all of us have been a little bit guilty in that respect,” he said, hoping she did not take it too personally.
She didn’t appear too as she smiled sympathetically at him and didn’t make any comment.
“It is obvious to me after spending so much time with you recently you are someone one can confide in and trust to keep a secret. I hope I am right as I am risking a lot in what I am going to tell you.
“However, I feel that unless I give you the background it will not explain why I feel so guilty about the deaths of my wife and children,” he said, his voice trembling as it dawned on him he was breaking new ground in entrusting his fate in someone else’s hands.
However, Lafarge almost didn’t care anymore because he had felt this great weight hanging over him.
Thus over the next half hour or so he recounted to Berenice all the details of his past life with Isabella, from thwarting Bousquet by marrying her to the hell of the past two years, leaving nothing out including the three people he had murdered in his almost obsessional pursuit of bringing Bousquet down.
She listened in silence, her expression he thought sympathetic and not even the slightest bit of surprise registered when he admitted to the murders which he hoped wasn’t a sign she thought all policemen were natural killers.
“I had promised her once the case was over I would resign and join her and the children and we would forge a new life in Argentina. I of course did not reveal to her quite why I felt it necessary to take a boat while the war was still going on. However, I was afraid that while I had been absolved of the murders others would wish to harm me and my family.
“Given the appalling mass graves they have been discovering around Paris as the Nazis settled some old scores and executed others who had taken up arms against them in the uprising I believe I was right.
“However, it is counterbalanced by the fact I don’t even think I loved Isabella anymore and I just used her and her father so as to ensure I escaped to safety and that hurts. But the worst thing of all is that in being so selfish it also cost my two children their lives.
“I consigned them to a premature death because of my murderous crusade to rid France of Bousquet. Yet now I don’t know whether I was deluding myself in thinking I was doing a good deed for the honour of France or it was simply a personal vendetta based on a lifelong dislike of him. So I don’t even have the consolation of feeling that some good came out of it.
“I can live easily with the three lives I took, but I cannot with the three that were lost as a result. I believe I am as responsible for their deaths as the submarine captain who ordered the torpedoes to be launched at what was clearly a passenger ship.”
Lafarge had just about managed to say the last few words before the grief he had been expecting to come ever since the tragedy finally overcame him and tears streamed freely down his cheeks.
He vainly tried to wipe them away. However, he was fighting a losing battle as he recalled his son holding tightly to his hand and him seeing the torpedoes once his attention had been drawn to them by Pierre who thought they were fish.
Lafarge had never known such emotional pain before. His body heaved as he sobbed, but at the same time he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted. The loss would never be made up for but the very fact he had been able to tell the terrible story, especially the admission he had no longer loved Isabella, had been a huge psychological step.
Of course this was not a dress rehearsal for telling Pinault or Levau, for they might sympathise, but murder was murder even if it had been committed under what was now seen as an illegitimate regime and the victims had been questionable characters.
What was more important was how Berenice reacted, for he was totally in her hands now. He made several unsuccessful attempts to try and say something, but they got stuck in his throat as his grief completely consumed him.
Berenice rose from her chair, smoothed down her dress, and for one moment Lafarge feared she was going to get her coat and walk out. However, he couldn’t have been more wrong, for she came to him, got down on her knees and cradled his head in her hands, while she kissed him tenderly on the forehead.
He mumbled an apology to her for soaking her dress with his tears and for burdening her with his story. She hushed him and briefly got up and poured them another drink while she lit a cigarette for them both to share. She then sat on the floor with her knees up to her chin and looked at him with what he took to be not fear or anger but warmth and love.
“You know, Gaston, you are very courageous to have told me such things. But you were right when you said I was a person one could trust. I can understand the enormous guilt you must feel about your children. Your wife, well your feelings for her were bound to change, though I think you might be trying to diminish what you really felt for her.
“However, your wife was also an adult and she could have said no to taking the ship, that it was a risk not worth taking. But she didn’t and so she bears as much of the responsibility and guilt you feel at the moment, the only difference of course being you are still alive and carry it around with you. I am a great believer in Fate and that all of us are governed by it.
“Yes, your children survived the worst of the war but that did not mean they were destined to live through its entirety; you could only do so much to protect them. Eventually it caught up with them, in the most horrible way, but you are not responsible for that.
“I think if I had heard Antoine had been killed in action, when I was still with Karl-Heinz, then I would have hated myself. Regardless of my lover being a good German he was still the enemy and he wore the uniform of my husband’s killers. However, now if I were to hear Antoine had been killed I doubt I would shed too many tears after the way he has behaved towards me.
“I don’t feel now the slightest guilt in having had an affair with a wonderful man like Karl-Heinz, who just by fate wore a different uniform to that of my husband’s, but now I feel he was the better human being!
“I feel the same about you. Indeed I think my feelings for you are stronger than those I felt for even Karl-Heinz, or perhaps that is because I can see a more secure future for us. With him there was always a doubt as to whether it would last simply because of the way the war was turning.
“We as a nation, as a people even, did some appalling things during the Occupation, Gaston. Most are guilty of standing by in silence as their neighbours were rounded up, but we all bear a shared guilt. I don’t see why you should bear this cross of three murders when we are all guilty of thousands. Besides, as you say, those three don’t seem to be a great loss,” she said softly.
Lafarge had stopped sobbing and wiped his eyes so he could look at her properly. He had been very touched, pleasantly relieved and surprised, by what she had just said and he checked that there wasn’t the slightest bit of doubt in her eyes when she had said them. There was none.
“You really think that, Berenice? You feel that you can spend your time with a man lik
e me after what I just confessed to?” asked Lafarge seeking verbal reassurance.
“There is no doubt in my mind, Gaston. Now we are freed from the monster of fascism and the Nazis and we are not presented with deeply troubling moral choices, every day you will return to what you always were – a decent, loving human being.
“And furthermore, Chief Inspector, I want very much to be part of that healing process,” she said kissing him on the lips.
With that she stood up and took his hand, prompting him to rise, and as they made their way to the bedroom she whispered in his ear: “There is one condition of course and that is you will take care of my husband not just for me but for both our sakes.”
“You can count on me,” said Lafarge without hesitating.
****
Lafarge of course had no intention of interpreting ‘take care of my husband’ as putting a bullet in him, much as he would like to.
Berenice’s words of comfort had worked to the extent that he went to the Quai the next day with a lighter tread. However, despite her assurances and her belief everyone was governed by Fate he would not be able quite so easily to rid himself of the guilt of his family’s deaths.
However, having talked about it for the first time – and he hoped for the last – he felt he and Berenice could now build a future together.
Of course he wasn’t so confident her husband would see things in quite the same way but then Lafarge had other cards to play to ensure any reluctance on de Cambedessus part to see his wife leave him for the Chief Inspector would be superfluous.
His thoughts were interrupted abruptly.
“Ah, Chief Inspector, it is indeed a nice surprise to see you. Did you have trouble remembering your way here?” asked a smiling Pinault.
Lafarge grinned.
“Well I was going to make my way to the cells but then realised I still had a desk here.”
Pinault laughed and asked him to follow him. Lafarge shuffled after him and found his superior was already climbing the stairs two at a time. Lafarge took them rather more conservatively and arrived to find Pinault ushering him towards his new office which was at the end of the corridor.