by Elaine Young
* * *
In the end Ari could not face going to Eduard’s funeral. He had only met the man once, he reasoned, and would not be missed by any of Faron’s friends. He visited Rose afterwards to hear about the affair.
‘It was very sad. He only had his brother Raoul as family and they hadn’t had much to do with one another, not since Eduard came back from the war. It was very strange,’ she said, ‘Pantin was Eduard’s best friend and do you think that he was there at the funeral? Not a sign of the man! All of his other drinking cronies were there.’
Ari worried about Pantin’s disappearance, but it was the news on television that made him rush to Rose’s a couple of nights later. It was just a small item about a man who had drowned in the Seine. A possible suicide it was thought. The bland voice of the news reader drummed in his head as he scurried along,
‘It is thought that the man was Louis Pantin who is suspected of killing a patient in a clinic in Drancy.’ Ari hardly heard the rest of the report. His throat constricted as he recalled how Eduard had once drawn his finger across his throat, at the mention of Pantin.
‘Rose . . . Rose,’ he puffed up the stairs and knocked insistently at her door. Hearing the urgency in his voice, she opened it quickly. As he stumbled inside, he gasped out, ‘Did you see the news on the télé? There was an item about a suicide that was fished out of the Seine and it is believed to be Pantin. His sister apparently identified the body. She said that he had left a note in which he confessed to murdering Eduard! It is not possible, surely. They were good friends or so I believed . . .’
She led him to a sofa before pouring him a brandy. After he had gulped it down she sat next to him silently for a while, chafing his cold hands.
‘Let me telephone his sister Suzette, and see if I can find out more.’ Calmly she moved to her bedroom where she had the phone, and closed the door. He sank down into the comfortable sofa among the cushions. In the distance he could hear her voice murmuring, but he could not hear what she was saying. He had almost drifted off to sleep in the glow from the alcohol when she came back, her shabby slippers flapping against her heels. He struggled to sit up but she sat down next to him, her face serious.
‘Suzette is in quite a state, as you can imagine, but she said she does not believe that he composed the note, although it was addressed to her and in his handwriting. It was very shaky, too formal, the spelling perfect. She thinks that he was murdered, but she has been made to realise that she has to accept the official findings, “or else.” She didn’t elaborate on what that meant. She did say, however, that he had never got over his wartime experiences and loyalties, and still seemed to live in the days of the Résistance. Playing ‘cops and robbers’ as she put it.’ She hesitated, watching his face, ‘She said that he always spoke about his friend Jacques Marteau, who was in the Résistance with him.’
Ari’s head came up at that, his eyes wide. In all the times there had been discussions about the war at Rose’s Sunday soirées, Pantin had never mentioned that he knew Marteau. As he had confided his findings to her Rose realised that now he was very afraid.
