by Allan Massie
‘This fellow you have in a cell who claims to be her father, Ephraim Peniel, isn’t it?’
‘Or Édouard – he goes by both.’
‘From what you say, he has to be broken. I’ll interrogate him myself. That’s not a criticism of you, Jean, or of your methods, but I’ve found in the past that there are criminal types who defy the police because, if you forgive me, they live in the same milieu, but who are – what shall I say? – less at ease with the judiciary. Have him brought to me tomorrow. At eleven? Right?’
He stood up to indicate that their conversation was at an end, but, when Lannes remained seated, said, ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ Lannes said, and recounted his conversation with Karim.
Bracal crossed the room to his drinks cabinet and poured two brandies. As before he topped one up with soda water and passed the other to Lannes.
‘This is worrying,’ he said. ‘You believe the boy?
‘Yes.’
‘He sounds a disreputable type.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you believe him.’
‘Yes. He’s frightened, very frightened, and that often leads people to speak the truth. Besides, though he is indeed, as you say, disreputable, and what many would call degenerate, he has, odd as it may seem, a certain sense of honour. I don’t think he’s lying about this, though I’ve no illusions that he wouldn’t lie about other matters when it seemed prudent or necessary to him to do so. This fellow, Félix, he’s quite out of control. I think he may be mad, he’s certainly dangerous, and it’s the same nasty game he played before, which led to Schussmann’s suicide and all sorts of trouble.’
‘You hate him, don’t you?’ Bracal said.
‘I don’t hate people.’
Bracal raised an eyebrow.
‘You’re a strange one yourself, Jean.’
Lannes shook his head.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘I hate what people do, often. I think he has to be stopped.’
‘Unquestionably. Do you plan to see him?’
‘I think I must.’
‘Very well. Keep me informed. We may have to take drastic action. I don’t know. By the way, have you spoken of this to Commissaire Schnyder?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Why not? Surely you should have? As a matter of duty?’
Lannes stubbed out his cigarette, drank his brandy, and made no reply. Bracal smiled again.
‘I think you are wise,’ he said. ‘I have every respect for Commissaire Schnyder, as a diligent officer. But I think you are wise. Please keep me informed.’
It was only when he was descending the stairs that he realised he had said nothing about Colonel von Feidler. Well, it could wait, like so much else.
XVII
Even though Bracal had said he would interview Ephraim Peniel, Lannes wanted another go at him first. It wouldn’t, for one thing, be a bad idea to let him know the judge was interested, and give him a night to sweat on it. So he had him brought up from the cells.
Peniel at once began to complain. He had a delicate stomach. The food here didn’t suit him. It was cold in the cells and he couldn’t sleep.
‘You’ve brought it on yourself,’ Lannes said. ‘So don’t look for sympathy from me. I’ve been talking to a couple of friends of yours. I say friends, though neither of them seems to care for you. I don’t care for you myself if it comes to that. You say the dead woman was your daughter, but I’ve never met a man less distressed by finding his daughter had been murdered. Except one – and he had killed her himself. What do you make of that? What should I make of that?’
Peniel made no reply. He hunched into his jacket. For a moment Lannes saw the years fall away from him to reveal a delinquent schoolboy who knows he has done something beastly but still hopes he may escape punishment.
‘Tell me about Colonel von Feidler.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Don’t be stupid. Who put you on to him?’
Peniel shook his head.
‘All right,’ Lannes said. ‘You don’t want to speak. I think you’re making a mistake but you’re entitled to say nothing. The converse is that I’m – we’re – entitled to draw conclusions from your silence. The first of course is that you’re guilty – not necessarily of murder, for I don’t really believe you killed your daughter. You might kill if you were afraid, kill in panic, anyone can do that, but not this sort of crime, not that theatrical set-up. But you’re certainly guilty, guilty of procuring young girls for sex, or sex shows, or both. Well, that’s a matter for the Vice Squad who will undoubtedly be interested when we’ve finished with you. By the way, your case is almost out of my hands. You’ve an appointment with the examining magistrate, Judge Bracal, tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock. He’s going to want a list of the girls you procured and of your daughter’s clients. You realise what this means of course. When you refuse to satisfy him, he’ll sentence you to preventive detention. That’ll last for months. I could let you go tomorrow, but you are making that impossible for me. So it’s your decision. Fine.’
He lit a cigarette, crossed the room and poured two tots of Armagnac. He passed one to Peniel, who said, ‘I don’t drink alcohol.’
‘As you like.’
Lannes downed his and left the other on the desk in front of the hunched figure opposite him.
‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’re quite happy to be locked up, relieved anyway. That’s because you’re more frightened of Félix – or whatever name you know him by – than you are of me. I know what he did to Karim and what he has planned for him. Nothing to say to that? Oh yes, I know Karim. He doesn’t much like you either. Just takes your money and submits or whatever. That’s right, isn’t it? No affair of mine what you have got up to with the boy. But handing him over to Félix, that’s different. Now tell me about Colonel von Feidler.’
Peniel shifted in his chair. Shifted? Squirmed.
‘You approached Jean-Christophe who is an old client of your daughter’s. Fine. But what made you think this Colonel von Feidler would be interested in your little shows? What put you on to him?’
For the first time Peniel raised his head to look Lannes in the eye. His own brown one was watering, but the blue one remained dry. He twisted his fingers round each other.
‘Ask Félix,’ he said, ‘if you find him. I’ve nothing to say to you. Except this. I’d almost forgotten I was a Jew. I decided long ago not to be one. But now, I find I can’t escape it. You know what that means today, to be Jewish. Gabrielle’s mother was a Jewess too. We did it only once. It disgusted me – woman’s smell, revolting. But she held me responsible, and, when she died, Gabrielle came to me and told me she was my daughter. I don’t know if she was, as I told you, her mother was a whore. All the same, I did what I could for her. I don’t like people. I never have. But I felt something for her. I don’t know just what. Perhaps because she had no morals. Does that shock you? It shouldn’t. You’re a policeman after all. Perhaps it was Gabrielle who forced me to be a Jew again. I don’t know. But now, the world being as it is, I’ve no choice, do I? So when Félix approached me, I said yes. Because I’m a Jew. Not that he knows that, he hates Jews himself. And now it’s got Gabrielle killed, and I know nothing about that. So if your judge locks me up, I won’t complain. And as for that filthy Arab boy, he’ll come to a bad end without my help.’
* * *
When he was alone, Lannes opened the window wide. It was a steel-grey afternoon, but the bitterly cold air felt good. He breathed in deeply. Then he leant there, smoking, looking out at the people coming and going in the square. A man was roasting chestnuts on a brazier, and the scent rose to him and this also felt good. Something in Peniel’s speech had moved him, the sense that he knew he was defiled and nevertheless kept going. There was misery and desolation everywhere. He thought of Schussmann, the poor fool, and of Léon, now of Karim whom Félix was planning to use as he
had used Léon. Then he thought of Clothilde and Michel as he had surprised them sitting side by side on the couch yesterday evening, holding hands and with faces flushed, both looking for a moment guilty, before each smiled a welcome to him, and covered their dismay at his return with a show of good manners. He picked up the brandy Peniel had refused and drank it, slowly. He would buy a poke of chestnuts and go to see Henri and Miriam. These landings in North Africa? He had always discussed the news with Henri.
* * *
As soon as he had settled him with a cup of bad coffee, Henri went up to the attic to call Miriam.
‘We’ve got news,’ he said, ‘she’ll want to share it with you.’ She greeted him with a kiss. Were the lines on her face deeper each time he called?
‘This life in hiding doesn’t suit me,’ she said. ‘I’ve always been energetic, accustomed to walk every day. Sometimes I’m tempted to go out, but then I think this might bring trouble on Henri. I suppose it’s illegal to give shelter to a Jew.’
‘Not illegal,’ Lannes said, ‘at least I don’t think it is, not yet anyway, but … ’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Perhaps.’
She sat on a high-backed chair, smoothing her skirt as she settled herself.
Henri said, ‘I apologise for the coffee. It’s undrinkable, isn’t it? I’ll open a bottle of wine. No, it’s all right, Jean. These days I manage to restrict myself to a glass or two.’
Lannes leant back. He had been at ease with Miriam since they first met, that ease disturbed only briefly when he wanted to make love to her, and now that he no longer did so, the ease had returned and he was happy to sit with her without talking as Henri busied himself with corkscrew and glasses.
‘It’s a light Graves,’ Henri said, ‘poor Gaston’s favourite, as you will remember.’
He stuffed tobacco into his pipe while Lannes and Miriam lit cigarettes. Toto, the little French bulldog, woke up and sniffed Lannes’ trouser legs, then, deciding as usual that he was a friend, turned away to sit by Henri’s feet. Henri, having got his pipe going, emitted little puffs, and said, ‘I’d a visit yesterday from Madame de Balastre, Jérôme’s mother. She’s an old friend, but she came here because she knew that Léon used to work in the bookshop. She had news. Since the boys left she has taken to listening to Radio London. That surprised me since she and her husband are staunchly maréchaliste, but there it is, I suppose the maternal instinct is stronger than political allegiances. We live in confusing times, don’t we? I’m sure she still thinks of the Resistance as – I don’t know what – nothing good anyway, criminal types perhaps. No matter. She said she had heard Jérôme speak on Radio London the previous night. Of course the speaker wasn’t identified by name, but, as she said, she couldn’t mistake her son’s voice. She was almost in tears. But I assume this means that the three of them are in England, and that’s good news surely.’
‘It’s a relief, certainly,’ Miriam said. ‘Don’t you think so, Jean?’
What could he do but agree? What was the point of saying that they knew nothing of how the Free French – the Gaullists – operated? The boys might have been separated, given different roles. Alain and Léon might never have got further than North Africa, and, if that was the case, what position would they be in now that the Americans had landed there? Far from reassuring him, the news tightened the knot of fear in his guts. It was no surprise that – if Madame de Balastre was right, as she surely was, for what mother would not recognise her son’s voice? – Jérôme had been assigned to propaganda work; you had only to look at him to see he wasn’t suited to combat, to danger. Alain was different, Léon too perhaps.
Henri said, ‘The American landings. Do you think this might be the beginning of the end, Jean?’
‘The end of the beginning, perhaps. But we don’t yet know how Vichy is responding. Are they resisting the Americans or greeting them as Allies? The word is that Laval has gone to meet Hitler. My fear is that there will be pressure for France to re-enter the war on the German side.’
‘Surely he’ll resist that?’ Henri said.
‘He may want to. I don’t know. He’s a deep one, Laval, but if he still believes that Germany will win the war, what sort of choice does he have?’
It was already dark when he left the rue des Remparts.
XVIII
There was a new mood in the city. You could sense it, even if nobody put it into words: an undercurrent of nervous excitement, whether that sprang from hope or apprehension. There was no certain news from North Africa. Some said the Vichy forces were resisting the Americans, that they had even repelled the invasion, others that they had laid down their arms and were welcoming the Americans as liberators. Lannes inclined to the latter view because there was more German activity in the city, staff cars and troop carriers hurtling through the streets, deserted of all other traffic except for bicycles and municipal buses. Then came firm undeniable news. Laval had returned from Germany empty-handed. The Free Zone was being dismantled and the French army commanded to disarm. All France would now be subject to Occupation. Yet Vichy remained in being, the shadow government of a shadow state. And the Marshal remained there, obedient to his promise not to desert the French People. Poor man, poor deluded old man. Still it appeared that Laval had resisted any German demand that France should declare war on the United States and Britain. Nevertheless, as Lannes said to Moncerre and young René, ‘Things will get worse before they get better.’
‘If they get better,’ Moncerre said.
There was a letter on his desk from the Comte de St-Hilaire, Jérôme’s godfather, requesting that Lannes would do him the favour of calling on him. He telephoned and spoke to the Count’s butler, making an appointment for the afternoon after the butler had assured him that the Count had said a visit would be convenient at any time.
The sun had come out and it was a bright cold afternoon with only a few delicate fleecy clouds in the sky when he left the office, but there was still rainwater in the gutters and his shoes were spattered with mud well before he had reached the Count’s ‘hôtel particulier’ in the Allées de Tourny. It was an address which, even after more than twenty years in the police, still left him, to his irritation, feeling abashed. When he was a young inspector, much like René Martin now, his boss had remarked on his feeling of social inadequacy and sought to rid him of it. ‘Always remember, Jean,’ he had said, ‘that when you go to one of these grand houses, you are there as an officer of the Republic, either because its occupants have need of you, or because they or theirs have stepped out of line. Whichever way, you’re the man in charge.’ It was no doubt good advice, and it irked him to think that he had never had the confidence to act fully upon it. He smiled at the thought now, threw his cigarette away, and rang the bell.
The butler showed him into a salon where the Louis Quinze furniture and the portraits of what he took to be the count’s ancestors might have been calculated to sharpen his sense of social unease. There was also a Fragonard of nymphs bathing, which was not to his taste, and a still life of bread, cheese, wine and fruit, which he took to be a Courbet, and which pleased him, because it was as ordinary as it was beautiful. He was still admiring it when the Count came into the room.
There was a moment of constraint. That was no surprise. It couldn’t be otherwise. At their last meeting the Count had let him understand that the actress and star of the Bordeaux theatre, Adrienne Jauzion, whom the world took to be his lover, had been responsible for the killing of her father, Professor Aristide Labiche, the brother of the advocate whom Lannes detested; Lannes had already been ordered to abandon the investigation into Aristide’s death, but now, the memory of that conversation hung trembling in the air between him and St-Hilaire. He had done nothing with the information, as the Count had known he would do nothing, and not only because he was in debt to the Count for having facilitated the escape from Bordeaux of Alain and his friends. He respected St-Hilaire, was grateful to him, might even like him; and yet he still re
sented, as he had then, his patrician certainty that Lannes would not act on the information he had given him. There had been extenuating circumstances, certainly; nevertheless, if a shopkeeper had told him that his mistress, in a moment of anger and bitterness, had killed her father, would he have done nothing about it? He could be sure of the answer and felt soiled.
‘Have you word of your son?’ the Count said.
For a moment Lannes hoped – feared – that it was to give him news about Alain that St-Hilaire had invited him, but this was absurd; the question would have been framed differently.
‘None at all,’ he said, ‘but I gather Madame de Balastre has recognised Jérôme’s voice on Radio London. So I hope they may all be in England.’
‘Yes, I suppose mothers can’t be mistaken about their son’s voice. It must be worrying for you.’
‘Given his sentiments, it would be worrying if he was still here.’
‘Ah yes, the Resistance, an admirable cause, but perhaps not always admirable people.’
Lannes made no reply, and hoped the expression on his face was neutral.
‘And now North Africa,’ the Count said. ‘A turning point.’
‘Perhaps. Who knows?’
St-Hilaire took a box of Ramon Allones cigars from an occasional table, and offered it to Lannes, who declined, saying he preferred cigarettes, and was invited to light one. The Count clipped the end off a cigar and held a match to it.
‘Oh, there can be no doubt,’ he said. ‘The Germans are a remarkable people, magnificent warriors, but now that the Americans have bestirred themselves, they’re doomed. Between the pincer of the United States and the Soviet Union, a German victory is unthinkable. It’s only a matter of time. Which is why I would wish that your charming son and that clever Jewish boy – was his name Léon? – were safe in a broadcasting studio with my godson. But now the Resistance, most of whom I suppose are Communists, are determined that France should become a battlefield, with Frenchmen killing Frenchmen. I have a certain regard for Monsieur Laval: a scoundrel, but an intelligent one, and a man who prefers peace to war. As we all should, don’t you think? You fought at Verdun yourself, if I remember?’
