Midnight is an uneasy time wherever you are, an uncanny and uncertain space between worlds, a moment when strangenesses may slip in and out between the cracks. Midnight at the Ministry of the Interior is more than this, for the evil of the place turns discomfort into danger. The nights are cold now, too, no more pretence of autumn, and they feel colder at the entrance gate of the ministry. The brazier doesn’t seem to burn as well as it should. The sentries are quicker to irritation and squabble. At least two ghost stories are already circulating.
Part of the strangeness, if it’s your miserable lot to have to guard the door of this grim place at this eerie moment, is that it never sleeps. Just when it feels like night, and feels like everyone’s asleep as any God-fearing man should be, and you’re considering a bit of a doze yourself or maybe a piss round the corner or a mouth of tobacco, some unnatural wakeful thing appears. An official, leaving after working too long, or arriving after goodness knows what errand. Visitors – at midnight, for God’s sake – which can’t be good.
So the appearance of R.B., at this strangest moment of the night, with his letter from Monsieur Fouché himself inviting him to bring his documents at this hour, is no surprise.
They talk differently about Fouché now. There was always talk, right from the start, for he seemed a miserable sod and damned ill-featured. Now there’s respect, and something like awe. Fouché’s power has grown and continues to grow. Fouché knows things. Fouché makes things happen. Fouché’s rivals – not rivals, as such, for he has no rivals, but anyone who is known to have irritated or displeased him – unfortunate things seem to happen to these people. A sentry crippled by the misfire of a musket; a beggar hit by a cart. Like the ghosts, Fouché can do things unexpected and uncanny.
Before dawn on 21st November, the Mercury made her scheduled departure from Le Havre bound for Philadelphia, though delayed for one tide by unfavourable winds in the English Channel.
A trim vessel, the Mercury. She’d come close to the record for the Atlantic crossing; twenty years later she’d still have enough about her to be pressed into wartime service. A vessel for an escapade; a vessel for a tale.
There’s an edgy bustle to French ports these days. Strange people arriving: radicals, idealists, mercenaries, naive tourists fancying themselves adventurous, spies, merchants who don’t care for politics, dreamers who care too much. And everyone leaving is scrutinized by the National Guard. Otherwise no one looks at anyone; the coast of France is a furtive place. Customs officials have become the front line of revolutionary patriotism, and capricious tyrants with it. An official who picks his moment in the ebb and flow of fashions in contraband, and hasn’t misjudged his mate, can make a spectacular prize in one discreet tavern agreement. It’s a wild and freakish market that swerves and squalls like the Atlantic winds: coffee, sugar, tin, timber, Italian boots and Scottish cloth and editions of Ovid with dirty pictures, each may have their day of ludicrous value. Information is cheap, true information is expensive, and the most expensive commodity of all is silence.
A ghostly ray of light on Le Havre quay, a woman stands watchful amid the chaos of the mart. She’s watching the Mercury; waiting for her moment. She has her ticket, fairly bought; but still . . . If for one last time she can manage not to be seen, she feels she may never be seen again.
Some of the few passengers are already aboard, hasty to be off and trying not to think about seasickness or the state of the mattresses.
The last of the harbour officials walks down the gangplank and away. The captain’s eyes follow them all the way to their shack at the end of the quay. The young woman glances that way once, and then around her. She feels the currents in the crowd.
Now.
The woman calling herself the widow Philemon of Rouen, it was no secret, had sailed in the Merveille a few days before. So it was hardly remarkable that her daughter should follow her; the explanation had passed without question when the ticket had been bought and when her name had been checked on the passenger manifest.
Thus Lucie had reasoned, having drawn her conclusions: from what she had not found in Emma Lavalier’s house; from Madame’s sudden intimacy with Americans; from the convenient vagueness that seemed to surround the widow Philemon; and above all from an instinct that in this new world of chaos even death might not be what it seemed – and that she alone understood Madame’s sense of the importance of life.
And so the pale young woman stepped up the gangplank in the half-light, and away from France for the New World, sustained by a pair of silver candlesticks, a kiss, and a very personal dream of liberty.
In every amour there is a moment when possibility becomes intention: a moment among the glances and pleasantries and accidental touches when one or other of us says or does something that both of us knows is unequivocal. I am serious. The world stops, the heart hesitates, the game changes, and the tide must either ebb away or explode forwards. I want this. It is the moment of the greatest excitement and daring; it is the moment of the greatest vulnerability. This is who I really am.
Neither an experienced man nor a cautious man would wish to make that first move.
The edge of the clearing is all shadow. To perceive anything in the shadow would be fanciful.
But the hopeful heart sees fancies. And so across the clearing, among the shadow of the trees it becomes possible to see a shadow. And this is only possible because the shadow is seeing a shadow.
A pair of fanciful shadows on opposite sides of the clearing, shifting and strengthening. The world outside is a sudden flurry of breeze, a whirl of dry leaves, a startled bird, and silence again. In their world, the two shadows wait.
Karl Arnim: so many flirtations, so many proposals, so many exchanges, so many moonlit meetings, and every one the first and thrilling; this moment, this now, is my whole life.
Joseph Fouché: surely such a conventional ambition, and yet it has led by patient brilliance to this utterly unexpected climax; this is who I am become.
Somewhere nearby there is a splashing of water; some creature has touched the surface of the ornamental pool.
This morning, there is no one looking out from the great royal palace of Versailles over its gardens, across the expanse of the terrace, down the steps to the fountain and the intricate plant beds with their straggling dead harvest, along the avenue to the faint silvery finger of the pool; no one to stretch their gaze between the trees and beyond the length of the pool to the farthest part of the garden. Not for many mornings now, not since the royal family was chased out of their palace by the women of Paris. Even for the ghosts, the last element of the garden is more than a mile off, and the first light of dawn plays tricks. The Étoile Royale is a perfectly round clearing in the trees, reached by a symmetrical pattern of paths between them, open on one side to the distant gaze of the palace, and to the other side to the untamed landscape of unroyal France.
For Arnim: duty; his greatness, again and always.
For Fouché: the eclipse of Danton; and knowledge, always more knowledge.
The two shadows are distinct against the shadow.
Then the two shadows are distinct from the shadow. Each has stepped forwards from the treeline, though it’s not clear which was first: perhaps Arnim, who expects to control, has taken the decisive step; perhaps Fouché stumbled slightly.
The shadows begin to measure each other: one is bulk; one is leanness.
Something is certainly happening. This morning there will be a consummation. Now it’s about character, not concealment. Arnim takes another step forwards, because Arnim controls; Fouché takes another step forwards because he is in his own country.
Dawn catches each of their faces, and neither has expected it. Away from the trees the first of the light feels for them. It startles Fouché, who still feels that he is transgressing; it concerns Arnim, who does not like to be seen in France. Fouché’s face hardens in determination. Arnim produces a comfortable smile.
They bow.
Surprising h
imself, Fouché speaks. ‘I should welcome you to France, for I suspect no other official has done you that courtesy.’
‘I thank you. You are welcome to keep it.’
‘I congratulate you on the game you have played: hidden, behind everything, and supplanting your rivals.’
Arnim nods at the courtesy. ‘And I you; you transcend the chaos of this land by sheer ability.’ A horse whinnies; Arnim looks beyond Fouché, eyes now sharper in the gloom, up the avenue behind him. ‘You came in a cart? This is disguise, or revolutionary sensibility?’
‘The cart was necessary for the coffin – the body of your agent.’
‘What did you say?’ Arnim is attuned to the slightest anomalies; they have saved his life more than once.
‘Your agent. The trade you proposed: the body of your agent Greene, in return for the royal jewel.’
‘I made no proposal.’ Now his senses are screaming. He begins to glance around him in the gloom, considers whether to –
‘In your letter. You proposed – ’
‘I wrote no letter, Frenchman.’ Arnim’s voice is hoarse. He takes a step to one side: he’s not ready to step back, for weakness could be fatal, but he must start to change the balance of the exchange. ‘You wrote to me, and I came based on your proposal.’
‘What? I wrote – ’ The subtle night collapses in noise, scuffling and shouting in the darkness to one side of the clearing, feet scrabbling in the dust and curses and a shout of pain. Fouché is fixed on the sound; Arnim looked briefly towards it and is now gazing around the arena, considering options.
And then a shot.
Both men stare into the empty gloom.
A figure appears out of the night, staggering, lost. It is Theodor, Arnim’s man.
Theodor whispers ‘Meister . . .’, and drops, shirt scarlet, eyes now as dead as his ears.
Arnim’s face is cold.
Another figure walks clumsily out of the night. Guilbert’s left arm is a mess of blood, and there’s a cut across his cheek starting to bleed. He’s repriming the pistol as he walks. He’s grimacing, but then the pistol is up in his right hand and pointing at Arnim.
‘If you please, Monsieur.’ Eyes on Arnim, he hands the pistol to Fouché. Fouché is still bewildered, but Guilbert is reassuring, and clearly they’re in control, and he takes the pistol and keeps it pointing at Arnim with wide-eyed concentration. Guilbert puts his fingers to his cheek, examines them, and then pulls off his coat with a hiss of discomfort and focuses on his arm. He rips at his shirt sleeve, and most of it comes away; there’s a wound across his upper arm, and he spits on it and dabs once with the sleeve and gives another great hiss of pain. Now, one-handed, he starts to bind the sleeve tight around the wound.
‘I’d hurry if I were you,’ Arnim says cold. ‘Your Monsieur doesn’t seem too sure with that weapon, and you might lose your other arm.’ Guilbert ignores it, gives the binding a last tug, gasps, and tucks in the end of the improvised bandage.
‘You came with a confederate!’ Fouché sounds offended. Arnim considers him disdainfully. Fouché sees the irony, and smiles. ‘At least mine is competent.’
‘He appears to have had the greatest difficulty in assaulting an old deaf man. I don’t find much to trouble the army of Prussia.’
Guilbert has pulled on his coat again, disappears into the darkness for a moment, and returns with a satchel. He opens it, considers the contents, finds a bottle and drops the rest. He pulls out the cork, takes a swig, replaces the cork and slips the bottle into the pocket of his coat.
Arnim has been considering him. ‘You murdered my dearest friend. You have murdered my servant. And now you’re stealing my wine. I do not concern myself with peasants, but I’m seriously considering dirtying my hands with you.’
Guilbert looks at him again. ‘Big man,’ he says. ‘More to cut. More to scream.’ He takes the pistol back from Fouché, and says to him, ‘Prussian was playing tricks with you, Monsieur. I thought it was time to get his attention. His old man slowed me down some, but here we are again. Over to you, Monsieur.’
Fouché nods. It’s all very comfortable now. First there was uncertainty and risk, then there was crisis, and now there is dominance. ‘Some answers, I think,’ he says. ‘You wrote to me offering to meet at this place. You wanted back the body of the Britisher Henry Greene, who was your agent, in return for one of the French royal jewels, which you had stolen.’
Karl Arnim doesn’t care about words any more. Everything is uncertain; everything is ambiguous. But everything is always uncertain and ambiguous. There is only life, and death.
The fingers of his left hand flicker against the ring. ‘Every single element of that statement is untrue,’ he says. ‘In its way a triumph of the French language.’
‘Monsieur, let – ’
‘Wait, Guilbert.’ Fouché considers the Prussian. ‘I cannot find any reason in logic why you would deny it now. Surely you can’t hope to pretend that . . . that what? That you are an innocent traveller in France, who happens to be Prussian and happens to come to this place at this time?’ He shakes his head. ‘Amuse me. Offer me an alternative truth.’
‘You wrote to me, Monsieur Fouché. You offered to sell me documents of the secret royal correspondence relating to Prussia.’ Something flickers across Guilbert’s face, and Arnim sees it. ‘You might want to watch your servant now. He’s wondering if you’ve sold him out. No honour among thieves.’
‘Or perhaps he’s just interested to know you have money with you.’ But Fouché’s voice is distant; he’s still confused. ‘I wrote no such letter. I don’t understand . . . ’ He shakes his head. Then he remembers that Guilbert still has the pistol pointing at Arnim. He smiles. ‘One of us must be lying.’
‘Or both!’ A new voice, and three heads veer round.
Fouché and Arnim have each expected the possibility of a Guilbert or a Theodor appearing, but no one has expected another voice, and no one has expected anything else to emerge from the darkness of the trees. But now a pistol thrusts out of the shadow, and then an arm. It points at Arnim, and then at Fouché, and then settles on Guilbert between them. ‘It would be no surprise if the both of you were lying.’
Now the pistol and the arm lead a man into the clearing. A lean man, and unremarkable.
‘But what if you’re both telling the truth?’ A cold, hard face. ‘What would that imply?’
And now it smiles without humour. ‘That would imply . . . me.’
Still the three men stare at him.
‘My name is Keith Kinnaird.’ He makes a little bow, but his eyes and his pistol are fixed. ‘And at last this damn’ country will know me.’
Guilbert has survived the slums and sins of Paris this long by being sensible. He knows that he’s the most vulnerable because he’s the one holding the pistol, and so he’s not moving at all. His eyes watch Kinnaird intently. They wait. He glimpses Fouché near him, startled and angry. Without looking round, Guilbert nods. ‘It’s him, Monsieur.’
Kinnaird comes forwards another step. ‘You: lay the pistol on the ground and step away from it.’ Guilbert’s mind is fast in the fray. He’s looking at the distance and looking at the Britisher and reckoning from eye and arm that he hasn’t fired many pistols in his time. But there’s still a good chance – half a dozen paces now – that the Britisher will wound him bad enough. And even if he could shoot the Britisher he’d then have an empty pistol and a big angry Prussian.
Also he calculates that, as soon as he isn’t holding the pistol, he’s the least important and the least vulnerable. Already, by the end of this calculation, the pistol is gleaming in the dirt, and Guilbert is a step back towards the shadow.
Kinnaird relaxes a fraction. To the Prussian: ‘We more or less met, sir, at the factory, but too brisk to be introduced. You’re Arnim, I think.’ Arnim produces a deep bow. It’s courtesy, respect, and the beginning of a calculation that the game may be turning. ‘Mr Marinus spoke most highly of you. I wish I’d had mor
e time to learn from him.’
‘He was too good for this world.’ A glance at Fouché; Guilbert is beneath his contempt. ‘I find that I only erred when I ignored his advice, and perhaps my greatest error was to ignore his advice that we should work with you.’
‘You may have missed the boat there, old lad.’ Now Kinnaird turns to Fouché. ‘We’ve not been introduced, Monsieur, but I fancy I’ve felt you at my heels these two months. You’re Fouché. You’re the new France.’
Fouché bows stiffly, determined to match the Prussian’s courtesy.
Rationally it seems inconceivable that the solitary Britisher – one man with one pistol – can finally survive. But Fouché’s never had a pistol pointed at him before.
‘I’ve spent the last two months playing your game, gentlemen. Politics. Deception. Now you’re playing my game.’ Again the dead smile. ‘Trade. But you didn’t know what you’re trading, and I did; because I wrote both of the letters.’ His eyes shift between them, pistol still steady. ‘I came to France for one reason only: for Hal Greene. So let’s go and get him, shall we? Mr Arnim, I’ll have that other pistol, and we’ll escort the gentlemen to their cart.’
Still for Fouché the confusion: what can this man hope to achieve? And still the fear, now that he finds himself captured in the night by a stranger with a pistol. He glances at Guilbert, but Guilbert is impassive, and Fouché finds the limits of loyalty. He turns slowly and begins to walk up one of the paths towards the cart, and he learns that a pistol is even bigger and more alarming when it’s pointing at your spine.
Still for Guilbert the simple calculation that, the way things are going, he’s going to come through the night alive. And that’s always the priority.
Within a few minutes the two Frenchmen are stumbling back into the clearing with the coffin swaying between them. On their cart, Kinnaird has also found a lantern, and given it to Arnim. Three faces are clear and wild in its light. Kinnaird a few steps behind is in gloom, and Arnim and Guilbert at least know that it strengthens his advantage. Kinnaird gestures them on into the dawn, out of the clearing again into the landscape beyond the estate, onto a track and a second cart. The Frenchmen return to the clearing breathing hard.
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