Cold Winter in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  ‘I’d kill you,’ he said, ‘happily, if I didn’t need you.’

  ‘No,’ Karim said. ‘No, please … ’

  He couldn’t meet Lannes’ eyes when he said this; he was ashamed of his fear. Ashamed to have pleaded with the man.

  Félix smiled.

  ‘You fucking Arab whore,’ he said, ‘I see I’m going to have to remind you who you belong to.’

  He threw Karim back on the bed. Karim screamed. Then, he didn’t know exactly, there was a loud bang, then another, and Félix was thrown across him. The first shot had hit the wall, the second the back of Félix’s head.

  Or perhaps it was the other way round. He struggled out from under him and saw his mother standing there.

  ‘She didn’t even look surprised. She just let the gun fall from her hand and turned away.’

  When Karim had pulled himself together and dabbed at his bleeding face with a towel, she was back sitting at the table with her glass in one hand and the other on the bottle of rum.

  That at least was the course of events as Lannes reconstructed them from the boy’s halting and disjointed story. It might be true. It might not. But there it was. Karim, exhausted by the telling, was weeping again.

  Lannes said nothing while he smoked two cigarettes. Whatever the truth, Félix had asked for it. And – he thought of his conversation with Jacques Maso – he himself had been done a service.

  ‘Are you going to arrest me?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘And Maman?’

  He had never called her that in speaking to Lannes; the old woman, the old bitch, the old sow, never Maman.

  ‘A boy’s best friend is his mother,’ Lannes said.

  He was in no man’s land. He knew that. Whichever way he moved would determine which danger he was running towards.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘But first wash your face.’

  He pointed to a jug and basin which stood on a little marble-topped table.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Jules meanwhile.’

  * * *

  He knocked on the door that let in to the bar. Jules responded at once, as if he had been waiting for a summons.

  ‘Did anyone see him arrive?’

  ‘There were a few of my regulars in the bar when he turned up. But they wouldn’t think anything of it, and in any case they’re not the sort to blab. How is he?’

  ‘Not good. But trouble’s over. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘Thank Christ. I like a simple life.’

  ‘You do? That surprises me. All the same we might be better to leave by a back door if you have one.’

  ‘You’re not taking the kid in?’

  ‘No reason why I should. Like I said, trouble’s over.’

  Which of course it wasn’t. It was only the First Act curtain. Nevertheless …

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to bring the boy through the bar. That’s certainly the conclusion your customers would jump to. The boy’s had a bad scare. That’s all you need know, Jules.’

  ‘And you’ll be gentle with him.’

  ‘Your concern touches me. But there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be.’

  * * *

  The stench on the staircase was worse than ever, and there was no response when Lannes banged on the door. Karim bent down and called out ‘it’s me’, and they heard shuffling footsteps and the sound of a bolt being withdrawn. The old woman with a half-smoked cigarette stuck to her lower lip took one look at Lannes, and turned away, back to her bottle.

  Karim put his hand on her shoulder and asked her if she was all right.

  She shook it off and looked at him with what might have been contempt. She picked up her glass and said nothing.

  Lannes led the way through to the bedroom. He hadn’t doubted the boy’s story, only perhaps the details. The dead man was lying face down, the back of his head shattered. Lannes rolled him over, and some of the brains fell out. If he hadn’t been told it was Félix, there wasn’t enough left of the face to recognise him, but he didn’t doubt the boy’s identification. His belt had been unbuckled and his fly-buttons undone.

  ‘I wonder if anyone saw him arrive,’ he said.

  Karim shook his head. He looked as if he might be about to faint. Lannes told him to sit down. He obeyed of course; for the moment he had no will of his own. He was as feeble as a pawn on the chessboard, but in real life you shouldn’t sacrifice a pawn.

  Lannes took out a handkerchief, picked up the gun, checked that it was now empty and slipped it into his pocket. He wondered how long the old woman had had it and where it had come from, but the answer wasn’t important, and in any case he wasn’t going to inquire. Probably she wouldn’t be able to give an answer anyway. Others, their neighbours, must have heard the shots, some of them anyway, but in these times, this place, they would be happy to know nothing about anything.

  It would be dark in half an hour. He already knew what he was going to do, and he knew that in coming to this decision, he had crossed his own rubicon. He went through the dead man’s pockets, removing his notecase and any papers, then on second thoughts replaced them.

  There was a trunk under the bed, a huge canvas trunk, the kind people take on a sea voyage. He leant down and pulled it out. It was covered in labels of shipping lines serving North Africa and the Levant.

  ‘What’s in this?’

  Karim stirred.

  ‘It’s the old woman’s costumes,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t think it to look at her now, but she used to be in a dance troupe. They toured all over the Mediterranean. It was in Algeria she met my father, or so she says. Sometimes even now when she’s having a good day and has had only a couple of drinks she likes to get them out and run her hands over them. When I was a boy of ten or twelve, we would both dress up in them and dance together to the gramophone. She wasn’t like she is now then, you understand. It was, well, lovely. You wouldn’t think it but she was quite a looker even five or six years ago.’

  It was extraordinary to think of, to picture that raddled hag as an attractive woman and Karim as a pretty boy wearing one of her suggestive costumes and dancing with her. But people could always surprise you when they gave you a glimpse of the hidden parts of their life.

  ‘Empty it,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need the trunk. So take the things out and lay them aside.’

  When the boy didn’t move, he said, ‘I’m going to help you, Karim. But I can’t do it all by myself. So, do as I say, there’s a good boy.’

  He sat and smoked while Karim took out the costumes one by one, stroking some of them as if the sight brought back memories of happier days.

  He thought they could get away with it, and if they didn’t, well, there would be no defence he could offer.

  When the trunk was empty, he took off his overcoat, told Karim to take hold of Félix’s legs while he got hold of him under the arms, and together they lowered him into the trunk. It was a tight fit, and they had to fold his legs up, but they got him in, and Lannes sat on its lid to hold it shut while he fastened the clasps. And, astonishingly, the boy still asked no questions, not even when Lannes said they would have to wait till it was dark.

  At last the light failed, he put his overcoat on again and they carried the trunk into the other room. The old woman looked up, and said, ‘Why are you letting him steal my trunk, you little bastard?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Maman, he’s helping us clear up the mess you made.’

  ‘The mess I made! What do you mean, mess?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Lannes said, ‘you’ll get your trunk back.’

  He told Karim to go and check that there was no one on the stairs. He wondered if the woman remembered what had happened, what she had done, or if she had blotted it out with rum.

  The trunk was heavy, and one of the handles was frayed and in danger of snapping. But they got it down the stairs, meeting nobody, and out into the night. There was an alley, a cul-de-sac, fifty yards down the st
reet, Lannes remembered. They turned in there and, when they were behind some rubbish bins, laid the trunk down and tipped the body out. Lannes had been tempted to leave it in the trunk, but the labels might invite dangerous questions. Probably they wouldn’t. Who would have thought the old woman had once been what it seemed she had? But it was a risk better not taken.

  When they were back in the apartment with the trunk, Lannes said, ‘I’m keeping your gun. You’re not safe with it.’

  ‘What gun?’ she said. ‘I don’t know nothing about a gun.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Best you don’t.’

  He picked up his stick. At the door Karim said, ‘Will it be all right?’

  Nothing is ever all right, he thought.

  ‘I can’t see why it shouldn’t be,’ he said. ‘He’s nothing to do with you, remember that. But if you need to get in touch with me, which I’d prefer you didn’t, do it by way of Jules, not young Jacques. There’s no cause for him to be involved.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘That’s all right. Best to say nothing. You don’t know anything, so you’ve nothing to thank me for.’

  He walked towards the river. He had broken the law, dishonoured his trade, and yet he wasn’t ashamed. Indeed he felt freer of shame than he had for a long time. Which was absurd. And he was touched that the boy had turned to him for help, turned to a cop whom he hoped he could trust. Who would have thought the old woman could have hit her mark? A bullet in the back of the head. A stroke of luck, really, it surely signified an execution. He leant on the parapet over the rushing black of the water, took the gun from his pocket and hurled it in. There was scarcely even the sound of a splash. So much for Félix, for the moment anyway.

  He stopped off in the Café des Arts for an Armagnac. The place was just about to close. He hoped Marguerite and Clothilde would have retired early to bed. He would have to sponge the jacket of his suit and it was better to invite no questions. ‘What sort of day have you had?’ ‘Ordinary enough. I’ve dealt with a suicide, arranged a funeral, come within a whisker of betraying you with a tart –’ not that he liked to think of Yvette as that – ‘and covered up a homicide. Just routine. It’s the way of the world we’re condemned to live in.’

  He lit a Gauloise, turned up the collar of his coat and stepped out, back into the night.

  XLIV

  The sponging hadn’t got rid of the bloodstains. He would have liked to dispose of the suit. Let it follow the gun into the Garonne. But Marguerite would be sure to notice its disappearance. She might not ask questions, being afraid of the answers she might get, but she would be worried. So he had hung it in the back of the wardrobe, postponing explanations of its condition, the marks of blood on the jacket, till another day, and left home before either Marguerite or Clothilde was awake. He went to the little bar in the rue Vieil du Temple for coffee. He would have to tell Miriam of her uncle’s suicide, but it was too early to call on them. And in truth he was reluctant to have to speak to anyone this morning. Someone, but he couldn’t remember who, had once written that whoever forms a tie to another is doomed; the germ of corruption has entered his soul. The line had always rung false, the more so when he applied it to his feeling for Marguerite and the children. These were natural ties. How could they doom you? No doubt it depended on what you meant by the word. Family – that was where happiness was to be found, but also fear. And was Clothilde doomed by her feeling for Michel? Alain by his attachment to his Idea of France, Dominique by the very gentleness of his character, and Marguerite … he preferred not to think of his wife whom he had come so close to betraying with Yvette. Another tie there, and one that disturbed him.

  And now Karim … why had he assumed responsibility for the boy whose activities he found repulsive? If his complicity in Félix’s death was ever discovered, his career would be at an end; worse still, he would himself be an object of contempt since nobody would believe that he wasn’t one of Karim’s clients, his lover indeed. But how could he not have acted as he did? The sight of the bruised boy curled up in misery on Jules’ bed had aroused his sense of pity, just as Léon had done. And that dreadful old woman who had once been beautiful and danced with her son as if they were on a stage and life too was beautiful, he was in debt to her, for that bullet in the back of Félix’s head had done him a service too. Nevertheless, the germ of corruption, it couldn’t be denied.

  He took his second cup of coffee, laced with a glass of marc, into the street and sat at the little table the barman had just put there. The sky had cleared. Starlings wheeled above him and there was no wind. He remembered how he had sat there one morning and Léon had come round the corner leading Henri’s little dog, Toto. Was that the day when Léon had said that at last he could forget he was talking to a policeman?

  Henri was still in his dressing-gown, with carpet slippers on his feet, when he opened the door to him.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No more than usual. I apologise for the early hour. It’s just that I’ve a busy day ahead. How are you? How’s Miriam?’

  ‘Tired and anxious. Both of us. You look terrible yourself, Jean.’

  ‘No worse than I feel. Sadly. And I’m afraid I’ve bad news for her.’

  ‘Léon?’

  ‘No, not Léon. I’ve no news of him. Nor of Alain.’

  ‘It must be hard for you, Jean. Don’t suppose I don’t know how hard it must be, not knowing where Alain is. I’ll tell her you’re here. I don’t know how much more bad news she can endure.’

  They sat, scarcely speaking, while they waited for her to come down from the attic. To tell the truth Lannes welcomed the silence; it was companionable in its way. They’d known each other so long that there was no need to fill it; just being there with Henri was comfort of a sort. Then Henri opened a drawer in his desk and took out a postcard which he gave to Lannes. It was an old card dating from the Belle Époque, a picture of a Theatre Bill, the kind of thing you come upon in a box at one of the stalls beside the Seine.

  Lannes turned it over. The message read: I have so much to thank you for.

  ‘Léon?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. It’s postmarked Paris, as you see. That’s why I was afraid you had news of him. Any news is likely to be bad, isn’t it, if he’s in Paris? Doing whatever he might be doing.’

  ‘I’ve had no news,’ Lannes said again. ‘But you’re right, except that if something were to happen to him, it’s unlikely we would hear of it.’

  Nevertheless, he thought, if Léon can send Henri a card, why can’t Alain do the same for us? There was one answer which he shrank from and another with which he consoled himself: if he’s in France, he has probably been forbidden to communicate with us, and perhaps Léon has written to Henri – without signing the card – only because he is lonely and afraid.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Henri said, ‘if he survives this war – if we both survive it – I’m going to adopt Léon as my son and heir. I’ve no one else, you know, and besides, now that his mother is dead, he has only Miriam and me.’

  When Miriam joined them, descending the stairs cautiously as if she couldn’t trust her legs, Lannes was again dismayed by how she seemed to be wasting away. What would Henri do if she was seriously ill? Was there a doctor he could trust?

  She held out her cheek to Lannes for a kiss and hugged him hard.

  ‘So you have more bad news,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Is there any other kind these days? It’s your uncle, old Léopold.’

  She sat down.

  ‘There are only two kinds of news, I suppose. Either he’s been arrested in this round-up I’ve read about in the newspaper Henri buys, or he’s dead. Which is it?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He killed himself. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Is it bad news? He’s escaped them, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he’s escaped them.
He chose his own way. You can’t blame him.’

  ‘Oh I don’t. Perhaps I envy him.’

  ‘Don’t speak like that, Miriam,’ Henri said. ‘Please.’

  Lannes explained that he had arranged for his burial, said it was impossible that Miriam should attend; it was more than ever imperative that she remained in hiding here, not only for her own sake, but for Henri’s.

  ‘And Léon’s,’ he added.

  ‘Léon’s? Do you really believe we’ll ever see him again?’

  He held up the postcard.

  ‘We must believe we will. We must believe we’ll see all of them again.’

  Michel too, even Michel, he thought, for Clothilde’s sake.

  ‘What about his cat? He always had a cat. What has happened to it? Can you bring it here? I’m sure Toto wouldn’t mind, Henri, would he?’

  ‘Léopold gave it to a girl he knew and trusted. She’s very pleased to have it.’

  ‘A girl he knew and trusted? I suppose she’s a tart. The old sinner always had a fancy for tarts.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lannes said. ‘You could call her a tart. But she’s a nice girl who was fond of the old man.’

  ‘That’s that then. I don’t really want it. It was just an idea came into my head.’

  XLV

  Waiting for Dr Duvallier, it was strangely reassuring to feel like a policeman again. Then: it’s just that I’m back on the tightrope, he thought, and you can fall off any minute, either side, and I’m not sure that there is a net to catch me if I do.

  ‘Do you want me with you, chief?’ Moncerre said.

  ‘Have you something else urgent?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Well, you said from the start it was a pre-war crime. You may have been right.’

  ‘I’ve read your notes. I don’t see how we can prove anything,’ Moncerre said. ‘Not unless he’s a fool.’