by John Brooke
The door to the room is slightly ajar. Unobserved, the inspector takes a moment to scan another whore’s personal space.
Very mundane: She’s hunched over her bidet, washing her lingerie. It’s spread all over the room, bras slung over bedposts and drawer handles, stockings hanging from closed drawers, a slip suspended from a tower of magazines by her dresser, two more from hooks in the burnished ironwork supporting the chandelier, yet another from her closet door. Three pairs of panties hang in the window with the sun filtering through — violet, lime and rose: a colourful profusion of kinky silk. Aliette’s wandering gaze comes back to find the woman looking calmly up from her labours.
She smiles. “We didn’t have anything booked, I hope...we’re not really open today.”
It’s a smile that brings a cop up short. “No...no, nothing booked. My name is Aliette Nouvelle. Police Judiciaire.” Flashing her police ID, looking to re-establish that sense of balance lost.
“Ah.” Standing, offering her damp hand. “Bonjour. I’m Flossie. Flossie Orain.” The same height as Aliette’s five-seven; a gangly upper body and bowed legs in the jeans she wears for laundry day and mourning make her seem taller. Thinnish face; but the fleshy nose and ample lips lend a natural sensuousness. Her black hair, combed with a part on the side and hanging far enough to touch her seventh vertebra, is fine, silky — none of the lank druggy effect so usually apparent. And Flossie’s umber eyes have an engaging twinkle that matches the luxurious smile as she leans forward, seeming to examine the inspector. “Nouvelle? ...haven’t I seen you somewhere? Wait.” Smile tightening into a sort of librarian’s pout, she turns and runs her finger up her stack of magazines. Stopping close to the top, she removes a copy of Paris-Match and flips it open. “Let’s see... Yes, here it is: Inspector Aliette Nouvelle...”
The headline proclaims The Killing of Jacques Normand! The report features photos of a glaring, unshaven former Public Enemy (now dead), Louis Moreau, her former Commissaire, the enigmatic accomplice called Anne-Marie, scenes from that fatal morning, Claude Néon, and a picture of herself. “That’s me all right.”
Flossie points to a line in the story. “They say you have excellent instincts.”
“Some people do say that... Were you working last evening, Flossie?”
“Oh yes. Christophe. Our car-parts man from Lille.”
“But were you up here when — ” A quick glance at her notes.
“Yes. We’d just come up and were getting comfortable.”
“When Dorise Ménou found her? Found them, in point of fact.”
“Poor Dorise.”
“I haven’t met Dorise yet... You were a friend of Manon?”
Flossie puts Paris-Match aside and goes to her window to see if her panties are dry. “They take ages with this humidity... Of course I was. We’re like a family here. It’s so tragic.”
“What was she like?”
“Well,” ...her face, framed in the window and its morning sun is pensive, lovely; would a client ever see that aspect? “...like Marilyn Monroe.”
“Yes. But underneath the act.”
Now Flossie Orain grimaces, as if a mistake has been made in the gathered information. And then she sighs. Leaving her brilliant underwear to dry a little longer, she turns her attention back to the cop in her room. “That was what she was like, Inspector. That was her life... There wasn’t much else, I’m afraid, if you really want to know. But she was still our friend. And very good at what she did.”
“Why would he kill her?”
“I don’t know... Any number of things could have been wrong. Herméné Dupras is one of those men who are very big on control.”
“Is he violent?”
“He has a temper, sure — but I’ve never heard of any violence until last night.”
“What would bring him to the edge?”
“Well... If things aren’t working the way they’re meant to. And his pride.”
“How so? The pride.”
“Some people take a certain view of us...of him. Herméné doesn’t hold that view. None of us do. But some of us are more realistic than others...it depends on the circumstances. The wrong word, he’ll erupt. But I really can’t see poor Manon insulting him like that.”
“And things were working as they’re meant to?”
“Very much so — roaring right along. That’s the mystery.”
“Does Herménégilde Dupras treat his work as more than a business, then?”
“Don’t we all, Inspector?”
The way Flossie poses it, she can only agree. “And Manon was Herméné’s girl?”
“Well, yes. But we all are. That’s the point. He goes from girl to girl, as he chooses.”
“I see... How was her health?”
“Fine, as far as I know — apart from her migraines. But that was only once a month.”
“Would he order her to work when she didn’t want to?”
“Never...we don’t work when we are having our menstruations. It’s important in this business — a few days to ourselves. Money is not the issue here, Inspector — it’s love.” Flossie seems sure.
“All right. Love. But then how could this thing — ?”
“Something to do with needing to have. To own us. Herménégilde Dupras believes we belong to him.”
“Well...”
“Well, we don’t!” Flossie follows this track into an impassioned description of the Mari Morgan’s profit sharing scheme, not unique in the industry, but certainly amongst the more enlightened.
“Herméné’s idea?”
“No. Louise — our redhead.”
“Did he fight it?”
“No, he liked it. It was only those slimy City Hall accountants who wouldn’t miss their weekly freebie if their lives depended on it. They advised against it.”
Love then. Not money. A crime of passion?
“Perhaps,” surmises Flossie, “but not your usual passion. It’s this control thing. Too much mother, maybe?”
“That woman beside the piano?”
“Yes. She raised him in this business.”
“That house...”
“Les Violettes. Small town to the south. Did a good business. Used him for it, too.”
“In what way?”
“Lots of ways. From a petit Jésus to a prop for the theatrically minded to — ”
“A petit Jésus?“
“A little boy, Inspector. Very profitable. He has lots of stories...” Here Flossie’s eyes glaze and she laughs softly with a kind of affection. “He can be very entertaining when you get him going, our Herméné.”
“And you know how, I’m sure.”
Flossie’s smile remains; but her demeanour, as she nods oui, is changed completely. “You see, Inspector, there is control, and then there is control. It’s my business to make men lose it. Some women, too...” It’s the suddenly chilly, non-committal eyes: “not that that has anything to do with the business of running a business.”
Aliette has to blink. “I’m not sure I understand your point of view here.”
Flossie is sympathetic and wanting to be clear. “I’m not saying I don’t like him. As a matter of fact I love him, in my own little way. Thirteen years with Herméné Dupras and you come to love him. But no one should have any illusions about the kind of man he is.”
“No... No illusions.”
The rest of the Mari Morgan’s girls are sequestered in their separate rooms and interviewed. Louise, Martine, Sophie, Julie, Lynda, Brigitte and Josiane... The gathered information is confirmed seven times without discrepancy: Sophie, a cutish, roundish cross between Edith Piaf and Betty Boop, had been working the bar, entertaining one of the Peugeot managers — ”We don’t actually drink, we pretend to drink. You could never drink with every client. Only Herméné does that...” — when Dorise had screamed from the back. She and Louise had been the first ones there. Beyond that, the same basic story: Herméné Dupras was a nice man with almost no self-control who had to
be everyone’s best friend and keeper. And: it couldn’t have been money; something must have happened between them.
What were they doing in his office? None of my business. Would he force her to work? No...it wasn’t about work; couldn’t have been. Perhaps she was getting too old? Not at all; coming into her prime, sexually speaking... Yes, noticing the stack of Marie Claires by Brigitte’s bed; Aliette has read the same article. But was Herméné worried about having to offer a forty-four-year-old “girl”? Marilyn Monroe doesn’t get old. But was Manon growing tired of Marilyn Monroe? She never said a word to me about it. What was she like? Funny. Funny strange? Funny ha ha — MM, all the way. Was she happy? Seemed so; except when she had her headaches.
Is there a petit Jésus around here I should be talking to?
No, the market’s much too fragmented now.
Oh yes, the market. Did they work hard? Three or four is a normal day, seven days a week. We work the same sort of schedule as les pompiers and infirmières, with time off every month... (Inspector Nouvelle sees rubber boots lined up in a row by a gleaming pole; hears white shoes squeaking through the dark.) We always make a profit. Clients can have us for as long as they want; the rate scale slides to meet the daily average. So very businesslike in every aspect.
Especially Louise Lebraz, the redhead with the civilized ideas about sharing the wealth. And a mean one, seemingly bitter by nature. Along with Flossie, she is senior. Older than Flossie — closing in on forty, reckons the inspector; Louise is formidable but you can see the signs. The rest, although pretty in their own way, are less than compelling women once you talked to them.
“We’re professionals,” says Louise. And Manon was not the only one; they can all do a “famous fuck” or two if you had the money.
She asks about the plausibility of the look-alike routine.
“The face is only a hook to hang a whim on,” says Louise, whose own specialty (be-wigged) is Elvis Presley’s ex-wife as seen on an imported American soap opera set in Texas, hugely popular throughout the Republic at the time. And Flossie’s? ...Flossie’s is the smart and elegant news anchor, married to the finance minister, who rips fearlessly into corrupt politicians (but not her hubby) and dishonest executives each evening on the national report. “The face is only there to get them started and keep it going until it doesn’t matter. We’re not here for our faces, Inspector.”
She tests the air in each room, but the scent detected on the victim’s chemise and hair is not to be traced to the upper parts of the house. Nor, apart from the boss’s bowl of opium, is there evidence of any drugs. And in each of these women’s rooms she senses that the tears shed for Manon Larivière are from the heart.
Except in the case of Louise Lebraz, who probably hasn’t cried since she was three.
And Flossie Orain, who’d been humming whilst washing her things.
4.
Down to the kitchen. Dorise Ménou is slight and sinewy in her starched institutional whites. In her sixties, maybe seventy. Of all of them, her grief for Manon is plainly bitter, deeply sore; it shows all over her lined and haunted face. Aliette asks, “Why her?”
The pinched little shoulders rise and fall exactly once. “Probably because she was the only one not working. He would never interfere with anyone who was bringing in money. He called her to his room on her very worst day.”
“He’s a businessman. They say she was his star. Would he jeopardize that?”
The cook flashes a cockeyed smile. “They’re all businessmen, Inspector, every one who has ever walked through that door. What else could they possibly be? Herméné Dupras’s the kind of man who takes what he wants when he wants it. Not an ounce of self-control. He’s grotesque.”
She doubts it will help Dorise’s anger much to know Manon and Herméné had not had sex the night before. Instead, she asks, “Why do you work for such a monster?”
Dorise glares at her. “I work for the others! I keep them healthy and help them make the best of what they have to do to earn a living. This place is not what you think it is. Not the part I run.”
Just so. Dorise Ménou’s kitchen is spotless and stocked with every sort of implement hanging from hooks over a central counter. There’s a pot on said counter and some carrots, washed and set out beside it, waiting to be chopped. There’s a cow on the far wall and Aliette is drawn toward it. “She’s superb! ...Does she have a name?”
“We call her Céleste.”
Standing proud on a metal panel about a metre square, Céleste adorns the front face of Mari Morgan’s industrial-sized milk dispenser. She’s intricately painted to capture every detail, her moulded proportioning perfect. Aliette runs her hand over it: not plastic; something older; a ceramic? “Where did you find her?”
“She’s always been here.” The haggard grey eyes of the lady who guards her immediately quash the inspector’s delight in Céleste the cow. This woman is strung to the snapping point. How best to work with that?
Looking around with quiet admiration...”You take good care of them, I see.”
Dorise says, “We have a rule: only milk in the mornings.”
“Only milk? Is that one of Herméné’s rules?”
“No, it’s our rule.”
“The women?”
Dorise nods in a proprietary way and begins to chop her carrots, rebuilding composure.
“So Manon had eaten nothing since morning.”
“Nothing except milk...warm milk. When she has bad cramps, I give her warm milk.”
“And what is it that you give her for her headaches?”
Dorise looks like a girl being tested for badges as she lays her knife down and goes to another cupboard where she fetches a large jar filled with a cloudy, amber-hued liquid. “I give her this.”
Aliette sniffs a vague fruity, fermented vapour — but only on top. She lets it breathe a moment and tries again. The movement of air reveals something old, funky, distinctly grainy below the fruit perfume. “What is it?”
“A remedy...an ergot: rye fungus, with some barley. I soak apples in it when it’s cooked so they can drink it.”
“It’s not just for Manon?”
“It’s good if your bleeding’s too strong. It’s there for anyone who needs it.”
“Can you give me small jar?”
Dorise finds a jam jar and pours expertly from the larger vessel. “It’s the best thing for her headaches. She’s very delicate.” And still very much in the present tense for Dorise Ménou.
Aliette spies the oversized glass jug, the tubes, the line of empty champagne bottles arranged neatly in a shady corner waiting to be filled. “And you make cider too.”
“Beer.”
“Beer! Oh là là. I’d love to try some.” Oh yes!
“It’s not ready yet.”
“Ah. But where did you get all these recipes?”
“They’re my mother’s.”
“Was your mother a cook?”
“Not especially. She was a seamstress.”
“Really... You’re Bretonne, aren’t you?” It’s not her voice, but her face. The wide, flat mouth, often exotic in the young, yet so quick to inform a sullen sulk in the old; and the fine high cheekbones which kept the sullen cheeks from sagging. These traits are everywhere along the coast.
No reply. The cook chops a little more quickly.
“I was born and raised in Nantes,” offers the inspector. “Where are you from?”
“North of there,” mutters Dorise, “the boats come out from Douarnenez and Audierne.”
An islander. A definite breed apart. “Lovely up there,” she ventures. But how did she ever end up here? Dorise is not interested in elaborating. Chop, chop, chop... So, back to business. But it’s all business, Aliette, every word of it. “What happened last night?”
“I went to check on her and found them...” Dorise chokes on the end of her statement. Tears are beginning to well again in eyes that look as though they’ve never been happy.
“You
just walked in? Dorise, they might have been making love...”
“He had no business taking her in there when she was in that kind of condition!”
“And so you barged in and found them.”
Dorise weeps as she chops and chops. Another interview appears to be over.
Dorise blurts, “I hope they cut that man in two!”
As a representative of the state, Aliette feels obliged to inform her: “I’m afraid they don’t do that any more, Dorise. It was abolished in ‘81.”
Dorise only frowns harder: doesn’t matter, she still hopes it.
Merci, Dorise... Now let’s go hear it from Herméné.
5.
But wait — there’s a man in the bar. Drinking alone.
An old man. The City officer has let him in, says he said he was part of the family. Despite the heat, he’s dressed for death in the formal provincial manner of another time: dark wool suit, shirt and tie, stiff black Homburg on the table beside an ebony brass-tipped walking stick. A very old man, more than eighty, spindly, brittle, papery flesh mottling to absolute white from temples to cheekbones. He nods vaguely in greeting. His filmy eyes sparkle dully from the far end of life’s road. He murmurs, “Did you know her well?”
“Never met her. Monsieur...?”
He sips his Scotch and water; stares into it, as if in wonder. Finally says, “I loved her.”
She sits. Above the bar there’s a motto of sorts, carved expertly into the wood: I am the hostess of the irreproachable Ferry Tavern, a white-gowned moon welcoming any man who comes to me with silver. Well, that’s nice...looking around; Aliette could definitely enjoy a glass of beer at this point, but there’s no one at the bar to offer.
The old man mutters, “I did... I loved her in my own particular way.”
“Tell me about it.”
He nods. He will. He wants to tell about Manon. But he’s beyond hurrying. He scratches at his close-cropped snowy scalp; bits of him fall away. He’s aware of it...brushes them from his cuff. “I suppose I’ve always been too much the doctor,” he says. “For me, love was always like an investigation, to find the sense behind the sense, to see where the body and its love sprang from. That was my predilection. It became my addiction...mmm?” With a movement of his eyes, the elegant walking stick is suddenly part of his story. She shudders. Involuntary; not the cop, the woman. “And yet I always felt I was approaching the soul. I honestly looked for it. I did. In my own way, I searched. Manon was an excellent partner in these things. Could always make me laugh.”
