Century Rain

by Alastair Reynolds

  Gare de Lyon had begun the slow, drowsy decline into its nightly sleep. According to the clattering indicator boards, a few trains had yet to arrive and depart, but the evening rush hour was clearly long over. There was a chill in the air, blowing down through broken panes in the latticed metal roof that spanned the station. For the first time in months, Floyd remembered what winter felt like. It was an unwelcome memory that he’d kept boxed away, and he shivered.

  He reached into his pocket for Greta’s letter, and came out instead with the political pamphlet the kid had given him. Floyd glanced back, but there was no sign of the young man. He balled the pamphlet and threw it into the nearest wastepaper bin. He found the letter he had been reaching for and re-read it carefully, satisfying himself that there had been no error, and that he was still on time.

  “Late as usual, Wendell,” a woman said in heavily accented English.

  Floyd snapped around at the instantly familiar voice behind him. “Greta?” he began, as if it could be anyone else. “I wasn’t expecting—”

  “I made an earlier connection. I’ve been waiting here for half an hour, foolishly imagining that you might actually arrive more than a minute ahead of schedule.”

  “Then that’s not your train pulling in over there?”

  “Your detective skills obviously haven’t failed you.” Greta posed elegantly in a black thigh-length fur coat, one hand resting against her hip and the other supporting a cigarette holder at face-level. She wore black shoes, black stockings, black gloves and a wide-brimmed black hat tipped to eyelevel. There was a black feather in the hatband and a black suitcase at her feet. She wore black lipstick and, today, black eyeliner.

  Greta was fond of black. It had always made life easy for Floyd when it came to buying her presents.

  “When exactly did my letter arrive?” she asked.

  “I received it this afternoon.”

  “I posted it from Antibes on Friday. You should have had it by Monday at the very latest.”

  “Custine and I have been a little busy,” Floyd said.

  “That heavy case load of yours?” Greta indicated her luggage. “Help me with this, will you? Did you come by car? I need to get to my aunt’s, and I’d rather not waste good money on a taxi.”

  Floyd nodded towards the welcoming glow of Le Train Bleu, a café at the top of a short flight of iron-railinged stairs. “Car’s nearby, but I bet you haven’t eaten anything all day, have you, stuck on that train?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would take me straight to my aunt.”

  Floyd bent down to collect the suitcase, remembering what Greta had put in her letter. “Does Marguerite still live in Montparnasse?”

  Greta nodded warily. “Yes.”

  “In that case, we’ve time for a drink first. Traffic’s murder across the river—we’re better off waiting half an hour.”

  “I’m sure you’d have an equally plausible excuse if I’d told you she had moved to this side of the river.”

  Floyd smiled and began to lug the suitcase up the stairs. “I’ll take that as a yes. What have you got in here, by the way?”

  “Bed sheets. Nobody’s used my aunt’s spare room in years, not since I moved out.”

  “You could always stay at my apartment,” Floyd said.

  Greta’s heels clicked on the stone steps. “Turf Custine out of his room, is that it? You treat that poor man like dirt.”

  “I don’t hear any complaints.”

  Greta pushed open the double doors leading into the café, pausing a moment on the threshold as if having her photograph taken. Inside, it was all smoke and mirrors and opulently painted ceiling: a miniature Sistine Chapel. A waiter turned to them with a look of blank refusal on his face, shaking his head once.

  Floyd helped himself to the nearest table. “Two orange brandies, monsieur,” he said in French. “And don’t worry—we won’t be staying long.”

  The waiter muttered something and turned away. Greta sat down opposite Floyd and removed her hat and gloves, placing them next to her on the zinc-topped table. She flicked the end of her cigarette into an ashtray and closed her eyes in deep resignation or deep weariness. In the light of the café, he realised that she was not wearing eyeliner at all, but was simply very tired.

  “I’m sorry, Floyd,” she said. “I’m not in the best of moods, as you might have noticed.”

  Floyd tapped the side of his nose. “Detective instinct again. Never lets me down.”

  “Not exactly made your fortune, though, has it?”

  “Still waiting for the knock on the door.”

  She must have heard something in his voice: some crack of hope or expectation. Studying him for a moment, she reached into her purse for another cigarette and slid it into the holder. “I haven’t come back for good, Floyd. When I said I was leaving Paris, I meant it.”

  The waiter brought them their brandies, slamming down Floyd’s like a bad chess player conceding defeat.

  “I didn’t seriously think anything had changed,” Floyd said. “In your letter you said you were coming back to visit your aunt while she was unwell—”

  “While she dies,” Greta corrected, lighting the cigarette.

  The waiter was hovering. Floyd reached into his shirt pocket for a note, found what he thought was money and spilled it on to the table. It was the photograph of Susan White, taken at the horse races. It landed face-up, presenting itself to Greta.

  Greta took a drag on her cigarette. “Your new girlfriend, Floyd? She’s quite beautiful, I’ll give her that.”

  Floyd returned the photograph to his pocket and paid the waiter. “She’s quite dead. You can give her that as well.”

  “I’m sorry. What—”

  “Our new investigation,” Floyd said. “The woman in the picture threw herself off a fifth-floor balcony in the thirteenth. That was a few weeks ago. She was American, although that’s pretty much all anyone knew about her.”

  “Open and shut case, then.”

  “Maybe,” Floyd replied, sipping at his brandy. “There isn’t one, incidentally.”

  “Isn’t one what?”

  “A new girlfriend. I haven’t been seeing anyone since you left. You can ask Custine. He’ll vouch for me.”

  “I told you I wasn’t coming back. There was no need for you to become celibate on my account.”

  “But you are back.”

  “Not for long. This time next week, I doubt I’ll be in Paris.”

  Floyd looked through the café’s steamed-up window, beyond the concourse to a platform where a train was inching out into the night. He thought of Greta on a similar train, returning to the south, the last time he’d ever see her unless he counted airbrushed photographs in the music weeklies.

  Finishing their drinks in silence, they walked out of Le Train Bleu and back through the iron vault of the station. It was nearly empty now, save for a handful of stragglers waiting for one or other of the last trains. Floyd steered Greta back towards the street, via the entrance he had come in by. Nearing it, he became aware of a commotion: voices raised in anger or defiance.

  “Floyd, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Wait here.”

  But she followed him anyway. Rounding the corner, they were confronted by a tableau in light and shade, like a still photograph from a movie. Three hatless young men stood in aggressive postures beneath a streetlamp. They were all dressed in crisp black clothes, their trousers tucked into highly polished boots. Sitting on the ground, pinned in a circle of lamplight with his back against the base of the post, was the young man who had given Floyd the pamphlet earlier. His face was bloodied, his glasses mangled and shattered on the sidewalk.

  He recognised Floyd, and for an instant there was something like hope in his face. “Monsieur… please help me.”

  One of the thugs laughed and kicked him in the chest. The youth bent double, letting out a single pained cough. One of the other thugs turned from the little scene, shadows sliding across his fa
ce. He had very sharp cheekbones, his short, fair hair oiled back from his brow and shaved close to his skull at the sides and back.

  “Keep your nose out,” the thug said, something gleaming in his hand.

  Greta squeezed Floyd’s arm. “We have to do something.”

  “Too dangerous,” Floyd said, backing off.

  “They’ll kill him.”

  “They’re just giving him a warning. They could have killed him already, if they were serious about it.”

  The pamphleteer started to say something, but his words were curtailed by another well-aimed boot to the chest. With a groan, his upper body slumped to the sidewalk. Floyd took a step towards the scene, wishing that he carried a weapon. The first thug waved his knife between them, and then shook his head very slowly. “I said keep your nose out, fat man.”

  Floyd turned away, feeling his cheeks tingle with shame. Quickly he led Greta away from the scene, back around to a different part of the station where he knew there was another exit. She squeezed his arm again, just as if they were promenading in the Tuileries Gardens on a Sunday afternoon. “It’s all right,” she said. “You did the right thing.”

  “I did nothing.”

  “Nothing was the right thing. They’d have cut you up. I just hope they leave that man alone.”

  “It was his fault,” Floyd said. “Handing out stuff the way he did… he should have known better.”

  “What exactly was he saying?”

  “I don’t know. I threw his pamphlet away.”

  They reached the Mathis, hidden away in a backstreet. Another pamphlet had been tucked under the wiper. Floyd took it out and pressed it flat against the windshield, examining it under the stuttering glow of a dying sodium light. It was printed on better paper than the ones the young man had been distributing, with a photograph of Chatelier, smooth and handsome in military uniform. The text urged the president’s friends and allies to continue their support of him, before digressing into a thinly veiled attack on various minorities, including Jews, blacks, homosexuals and gypsies.

  Greta snatched the paper from him, scanning it quickly. Raised in Paris by a French aunt, she had little difficulty with the language.

  “It’s worse now than when I left,” she said. “Back then they never dared to say anything like this so openly.”

  “They have the police on their side now,” Floyd said. “They can say what they like.”

  “I’m not surprised Custine got out when he did. He was always too good for them.” Greta stamped her feet against the chill, gloves and hat back in place. “Where is Custine anyway?”

  Floyd took the paper from her, blew his nose in it then threw it into the gutter. “Taking care of that little homicide investigation.”

  “You were serious about that?”

  “Did you think I was making it up?”

  “I didn’t think murder was quite your thing.”

  “It is now.”

  “But if she was murdered, shouldn’t Custine’s former associates be showing a little more interest? They can’t all be too busy harassing dissidents.”

  Floyd unlocked the car and put Greta’s suitcase on to the back seat. “If she had been French, they might have been more inclined to spend some time on the case. But she was just an American tourist, and that lets them off the hook. They say it’s an open-and-shut case: either she jumped or she fell by accident. The railings weren’t faulty, so there’s no crime either way.” He held the door open for Greta while she settled herself in the front passenger seat and then moved around to the driver’s side and got in.

  “But you don’t think it happened like that?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind.” Floyd waited for the car to cough itself into life. “Given what we’ve learned so far, I wouldn’t rule out accidental death or even suicide. But there are a couple of things that don’t quite fit.”

  “And who’s paying for this independent investigation?”

  “Her elderly landlord.” Floyd eased the car out into the street and began to navigate towards the river and the nearest crossing. A police car passed by in the opposite direction, toiling towards the station but in no obvious hurry to get there.

  “What does her landlord have to do with it?”

  “Took a shine to her, and thinks there was more to this business than meets the eye.” With one hand on the wheel, Floyd reached under his seat for the biscuit tin and passed it to Greta. “See what you make of that little lot.”

  Greta removed her gloves to lever off the tin lid. “These things belonged to the dead woman?”

  “If the landlord’s on the level, she gave him that box for safekeeping just before she died. Now why would she do that if she didn’t have some concerns for her safety?”

  Greta leafed through the bundle of paperwork. “Some of this is in German,” she noticed.

  “That’s why I asked you to take a look at it.”

  She returned the paperwork to the tin, replaced the lid and put it on the back seat next to her suitcase. “I can’t look at it now. It’s too dark in here and I get sick if I read in cars. Especially the way you drive.”

  “That’s all right,” Floyd said. “Take the tin with you and look through it later, when you have a moment.”

  “I came to look after my aunt, not to help you with your case.”

  “It’ll only take you a few minutes. And you don’t have to look at any of it tonight. I’ll swing by tomorrow, take you out for lunch. You can tell me all about it then.”

  “You’re good, Floyd. I’ll give you that.”

  He tried to sound casual, as if none of that had been planned. “There’s something in there that looks like a train ticket, and a business letter to do with some kind of factory in Berlin—a steelworks, maybe. I’m wondering why a nice young lady like Susan White had any business with a steel company.”

  “How do you know she was a nice young lady?”

  “Because they’re all nice until proven otherwise,” he replied, smiling innocently.

  Greta said nothing for another three blocks. She just stared out of the window, as if mesmerised by the rushing flow of head- and tail-lights. “I’ll look at this stuff, Floyd, but that’s all I’m promising. It’s not as if I don’t have other things on my mind at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry about your aunt,” Floyd said. He steered the car on to the end of the line of vehicles waiting to cross the river, relieved to see that his earlier story of the murderous traffic situation had not been completely fanciful. Ahead, a truck had broken down and some men were bashing away at the exposed cylinder head with spanners. Guards had gathered around the scene, the curved magazines of their cheap machine guns gleaming like scythes. They stamped their feet and passed around the glowing spark of a single cigarette.

  Presently, Greta said, “The doctors give her between two and eight weeks, depending on who you speak to. But then what do they ever know?”

  “They do their best,” Floyd said. He still didn’t know what was wrong with Greta’s aunt, not that it was likely to make much difference.

  “She won’t go to hospital. She’s clear about that. She watched my uncle die in hospital in thirty-nine. All she has left now are her home and a few weeks of life.” The inside of her window was beginning to steam up; he watched Greta scratch her fingernail down the glass, leaving a narrow line in the condensation. “I don’t even know for sure that she hasn’t already died. It’s been a week since I had any news of her. They disconnected her telephone when she couldn’t pay the bill.”

  “I hope you’re in time,” Floyd said. “If I’d known, I’d have tried to send you an airline ticket.”

  She looked at him hopelessly. “You’d have tried, Floyd, that’s all.”

  “What about the rest of the band—couldn’t they have stumped up the cash to get you back to Paris?”

  He had inched the car forward another three vehicle lengths before Greta answered. “There is no rest of the band, Floyd. I walked out on t
hem.”

  Floyd tried his best to suppress any hint of triumph, any hint of “I told you so,” in his voice. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Why didn’t it work out? They seemed decent enough fellows to me. Hopheads, but no worse than any other jazz men.”

  “That’s not much of a recommendation.”

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “There was nothing wrong with them. They treated me all right and the tour wasn’t going too badly. We’d gone down well in Nice, and we had a couple of good engagements lined up in Cannes.”

  “So why’d you walk?”

  “Because none of it was going anywhere. One night, it hit me with the force of a revelation: they were not going to make it. If I stayed with them, I wasn’t going to make it either.”

  “Is that how you felt when you walked out on me and Custine?”

  “Yes,” she answered, without a moment’s hesitation.

  Floyd eased the car past the broken-down lorry, touching a finger to the rim of his hat as the guards pointed the barrels of their guns in the vague direction of the Mathis. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

  “I find it helps,” Greta replied.

  They had their papers ready. Floyd watched the guard at the checkpoint grunt through his documents, then pass them back with a look of pursed disapproval, as if Floyd had committed an error of detail but was being let off with a caution. They were always like that, no matter how spick and span the paperwork. He supposed it was what got them through the day.

  “Here,” Greta said, passing her documents over Floyd.

  The guard took the papers, examining them under torchlight. He moved to hand them back, then hesitated, taking a closer look. He licked a finger and paged through Greta’s passport, pausing here and there like someone examining a collection of rare stamps or moths.

  “Been travelling a lot for a German girl,” he said in heavily accented French.

  “That’s what a passport’s for,” Greta replied, her Parisian accent flawless.

  Floyd felt ice run through his veins and reached for Greta’s knee, squeezing it gently, willing her to silence.