No lighter of heart, but with a vestige of something growing in me, I drove away from their direction, so avoiding passing the slope where a motor burned, in great haste.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
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The snow was tumbling like surpliced leaves, white and deadening, when I made the hotel. You couldn’t see my window from the road, just a sort of lounge with curtains parted above the main doorway. I drove past slowly to check, then got scared. I didn’t want Marimee’s men, especially Marc, catching me in Guy’s car and putting two and two together. I wanted them to continue acting by instinct, now that they’d, well, done their worst.
Making sure the street was clear, I raced up, slammed the brakes on, screeched to a stop a hundred yards short of the hotel entrance, and emerged from the motor whooping and screeching. I left the engine running, and slipped in silence down the alley a few paces off. Then I ran like a loon, coming up winded and sweating cobs, shaking like an aspen. Not as far away as I’d like, but the best I could manage. In my state I darestn’t risk a cafe just yet, certainly not this close.
The streets were clear of pedestrians, more or less. Traffic had dwindled to almost nothing. I leant against the wall to wheeze some breath back, imagining how the sleepy bad-tempered desk clerk would emerge on hearing the racket, see the motor, and go indoors to complain—or not?
It was a good hour of walking before I returned to the area. I actually took a taxi, flagging one down with a tired boredom and telling him the end of the street, paying him off with much interrogation about what notes were which. We had a good laugh before he drove away. By then, of course, I’d told him my name, tried to translate it for him into German—he did an instant and better job, another laugh. And I’d asked him if he’d any antiques because I was an antique dealer. He entered into the spirit of things, saying no, only his cab. I laughed back, saying I’d been lucky in love tonight, tipped him hellishly, complained about his dry old Zurich snow. We parted blood brothers. He’d remember me if no one else.
Nothing. The street was almost deserted. I stood waiting, uneasy. A car passed the other end, its wheels mutedly crunching snow. Three inches, maybe more. The place was not white, not like our East Anglian snow. Something made it curiously slatey-grey. Was it the buildings, something in the air? Or did you need a mountain for contrast?
Waiting’s no good. I walked slowly down the pavement to the hotel. Door closed against the chill wind. Swirls had left small piles by the steps. Guy’s motor car was gone. Either Guy and Veronique had recovered from their oblivion and hurried to Needle Park for a shot of Yuletide bliss. Or something else had happened.
Nobody at the desk. That spoiled things, made my return less noticeable than it ought to be. I dinged the bell.
“Hello!” I called, smiles in my voice thrilling all available listeners. A difficult act, trying to look post-coital after what I’d seen. As difficult, indeed, as trying to pretend that one hasn’t made love the night before when coming down to breakfast. Blokes manage it, leaving slight doubt in cruel observers’ minds. But women can’t. They look loved-in. Or not, as the case may be. Where was I? Pretending. “Anyone there?”
“Please, Monsieur!” somebody called from upstairs.
“Oh, sorry, sorry!” I stepped across to peer up the stairwell at an annoyed bloke with a moustache and specs. “My apologies, Monsieur. Shhhh!” Finger to my lips, I turned to see a thin angry desk man.
He remonstrated with me. He complained that this night was more trouble than any in all his experience. I wanted to know what was wrong, but stayed jauntily unsympathetic.
“Any messages for me?” I asked. On being given a surly no, I was astonished and not a little narked. “But surely, Monsieur Solon my friend left the money that arrived for me? He promised to do so. Could you please check?”
He did. No gelt. I resumed. “But Miss Veronique, my friend’s sister. Surely she left my money? It is very important, for tomorrow I must buy a present for my friend back home…”
All in all it was pretty good. His lip curled at the mention of my companions. To my relief he told me they’d returned over an hour ago, leaving their car running outside. Accidents are caused by such irresponsibility. No, they had not deposited their keys. No, no messages. No, no envelope for me. No, he had not seen them. I got my room key.
The stairs creaked, telling the world Lovejoy was in action. For once I was legit. I grumbled loudly, authentically everywhere for when the police would come calling if I’d guessed right. I went into my room. My heart was banging. Have you ever had it thumping so you simply can’t understand how other people can avoid being deafened by it? Like that. I was shaking. I looked at myself in the mirror, washed my face, went to the loo, tidied myself up. I was worn out. Had my heart pounded this way, my hands shaken this badly, when Marc the killer had used the butt of his rifle on that snowy road?
Half an hour, I moved. Not like lightning, but trembling. I went out, closing but not locking my door—wasn’t I simply visiting my friends in the next room? I knocked. No response. I knocked a second time. Nobody. I knocked loud, louder, loudest.
A bloke spoke to me in German from the end of the corridor. He wore a dressing-gown. Different bloke, no ’tache, no specs. I was relieved at another witness, explained in poor French I was trying to wake my friends who’d forgotten to leave my money at the desk. I tried the door as I was talking, exclaimed aloud as if pleased, and staggered in a sweat of fear into Guy’s room. And gagged. No pretending any more, not for anyone.
They lay on the bed. The light was on. A syringe was in Veronique’s arm, dangling, partly filled with blood. Guy lay beside her. The stench was sour, acrid. Vomit soiled the counterpane. Both were partly clothed. Bloodstains on their faces and bare arms, as if they’d pawed each other in some terminal dementia. White, white skin, whiter than the Zurich snow. The pallor seemed an aura. Guy’s face was buried in the pillow, a pool of vomit forming an ugly meniscus along one cheek. It was Veronique that got me. She seemed faintly worried, as if trying to be serene but knowing something was going awry. This isn’t part of the game, her attitude seemed to be telling me, so what’s up, Lovejoy? Can’t you explain to these men who’ve come stealthing into our room and who’re giving us a dose we don’t actually want this time? Yet there was no expression. There never is, in death. It’s a vacancy, a marked absence. It was only me again, supposing.
I have no illusions. In that terrible split second when I was reading expressions into her posture to obfuscate, explain away the ugliness of the two bodies’ cesspool state, the scatter of needles, the bloodstained syringes, the marks—
For Christ’s sake, I’d forgotten to howl. I’d silently practised one before coming to knock. It didn’t matter, because I found myself doing it anyway, creating enough noise to wake the—well, being sick as a dog on the landing, going argh-argh-argh like they do in the pulp comics when fighting. Only I was vomiting on the threadbare carpet, reeling like a drunk, panting and trying to do my howl and failing. Always, always failing. My scene, I sometimes think. What I’d not shown for friends, I showed in grief for enemies. Typical me.
Gasping, sicking, pointing as doors opened and the no-’tache man went past me and started hollering. I made my way downstairs, hardly knowing any longer if I was sticking to any plan. Pointing back upstairs, I reeled wherever my feet took me. I managed a brief word as the irritable desk clerk climbed slowly upstairs past me. “My friends…!” I got out. He merely expressed outrage at the mess I’d made, and avoided stepping into anything Zurich might not be proud of.
Swiss trains run on time. I don’t mean this as a political jibe. They simply do. Not as many of them as I’d like, and jiggery-pokery at borders, but nothing worth writing home about. Into France, into Paris, me kipping all the way, sleep of the just and innocent I shouldn’t wonder. Sleep needs six hours a man, seven a woman, eight a fool. The old saying doesn’t say who gets none.
Your feet do the choosing, I often
notice. I got into a dozy little doss-house within a mile of that glass pyramid somebody conned Paris into buying. Worryingly, I was low on money. And I needed a motor now that, well, now circumstances had changed. First thing I did was get on the blower to Dicko Chave. God, but heartiness is a killer. I staggered from there like a beaten boxer. What with his indefatigable good cheer, his merriment, his stiff upper lip. I’m sure he’d be great in battle, but just to say hello to him was a burden. He’d bring more money over, he told me. Midday flight.
“Looking forward to meeting her, Lovejoy,” he’d said crisply.
“Her?” I’d bleated, in a panic remembering my super new mythical partner. He’d already financed her once at my Zurich hotel. “Ah, well, you see old chap —”
“Toodle-oo, Lovejoy. See you in Gay Paree!”
That’s all I needed. He was still blabbing cheer when I rang off, depressed. Things were getting too complicated. I wondered if I could reasonably nick a car, decided against it. There was Lysette, of course. Where? Sheer spite must have taken her off in high dudgeon. Being a bird, she’d naturally blame me so she was, frankly, out. My one chance of help, and I had to chuck her. Typical, but I felt utterly panned out, forswunked. It wasn’t my fault things had turned out like this.
They’d repaired the ramraiders’ efforts. I was pleased at that. The pretty girl—Claire, was it?—had done her stuff. I hoped I’d given her enough heavy hints to get her antiques out of the way. I stood opposite, watching the dealers in and out. It was along here that the ramraider had hated me and someone else, when he’d peered in and called us bastards. Given such a clue, I should have made myself face facts back then. Someone else, with more sense, had. Nobody’s more sentimental towards children than a crook. It’s a wonder the ramraider hadn’t clubbed me there and then. In fact he would have, but for leaving clues, collecting bloodstains. I’d escaped such a fate, of course; lucky old me. Somebody else hadn’t, o.c.; Lucky old me.
“Monsieur Lovejoy?”
Somebody touched my arm. I fumbled in my pocket for a coin to give to this importuning beggar. You can’t be all worked up about child exploitation while ignoring the plights of others. I thought. Here, hang on. How the hell did this policeman know my name? Him and two police cars—so low on the ground, Paris bobbies’ motors are—and what was going on?
“You will accompany…” Long pause, then he made it: ”… us.”
“Thank you,” I said miserably, and got into their motor. Best not to say a single word of a foreign lingo straight away, or you get spoken to at such speed you’re lost in a trice. To show grovelling subservience I added, “Merci, Monsieur. Ta.”
And got driven away to the police station. I wasn’t quite ready, but when is ready for the likes of them?
The place wasn’t some grand Victorian dump, nor some black glass rectanguloid. It seemed no more than a dullish office that looked like a building-society branch office. I’d never seen people smoking like their jobs depended on fags, but this lot were. All except the lead bloke. He was an oddly motionless bloke with an ornate waistcoat, the sort you saw years ago on telly announcers. The rest of him was very, very serious.
“Lovejoy?” he said. Not to me, to everybody else. The police who’d fetched me promised yes, this man was Lovejoy, and got sent on their way. He had a good smile, events such a drag and couldn’t we get on with things, please, but I wasn’t taken in. Police only have three sorts of smiles, all phoney. They constitute threat. “You’re Lovejoy,” he told me sadly.
“Lovejoy, Monsieur,” I agreed. “Merci.”
“Bring the lady in.” English his language, so no cheating.
And in came the beautiful Claire Fabien. She stood carefully away from me. I smiled my very best, innocence radiating from me. I rose, made to shake hands. She recoiled. I faltered.
“Miss Fabien!” I tried. “The antique dealer! You remember me? I bought several pieces from you. The Davenport!”
“Yes, Monsieur,” to the cop. Except now I looked at him he began to look less and less like a bobby. “This is the man.”
“Of course I am le même homme, Mademoiselle!” I outdid Dicko in heartiness, beaming like him. “Are you all right? In trouble?”
Waistcoat had not risen when La Fabien entered. I don’t like blokes this motionless. Blokes normally shuffle about, hitch, shift feet. We don’t stay frozen to spots, unless we’ve malice in mind.
“Lovejoy. You warned Miss Fabien against ramraiders.”
“Against who?” I asked, a puzzled innocent.
“You advised Miss Fabien to move her antiques, even into a pantechnicon.” The word came out stilted. “Why?”
“Ramraiders?” I wrinkled my brow, theatrically. Clear the brow and into, “You have them in France? Good heavens!”
“Very well.” This man didn’t waste time on prattlers or phoney excuses. He let me off his hook too easily. “To the English, crime is an amusing commodity. To the Germans a philosophical proposition. To the Americans a job.” I didn’t know whether I was to laugh or not, so did. “Monsieur. You ordered a large number of antiques for shipment from many antique dealers. Most spoke of your excellent choice. Payment was in cash, by two assistants. Could you please identify them for us?”
“Guy and Veronique Solon,” I said pleasantly enough and quickly. “I was hired by them. Met them in a motorway restaurant when hitchhiking through your lovely country.”
“How did that happen?”
“Oh,” I said, smiling apology at Claire Fabien, taking so long, soon clear up this misunderstanding, “we got talking antiques. Don’t exactly recall how. They were international buyers. I stopped off with them at one or two places, window-shopping. They admired what little skill I have. I agreed to do a bit of purchasing on their behalf.”
“Why France, Monsieur?” A pause to avoid smiling. “I believe like your poet, that it’s curiosity, not devotion, makes pilgrims.”
“Eh? You mean me? Just trying to find new sources of supply. I’d run into a shortage of stock. You know how it is.” His shrug made an elbow-room of silence. 1 said to Claire, “Did you get ramraided then?”
She glanced at Waistcoat. “It was very terrible. They drove cars in the shop and stole. They ruined many antiques.”
“Kell do madge,” I tried politely, shaking my head. If she’d windowed the ones I’d ignored, the world had only lost a few poor-quality fakes. I looked at her with interest. “You claimed on the insurance, Miss Fabien?”
Suddenly a little pinker than before. “Of course,” she said stiffly. So she was pulling the insurance scam. Had to, of course—or admit that her display was muchly fakes.
Was it that give-away that decided Waistcoat? He rose, thanked me profusely, and shook my hand. Deadest mitt I’d ever touched among the living. I began to wonder if I’d landed in the French equivalent of our Fraud mob. I had the sense not to ask.
“Your intentions, Monsieur?”
“Oh, I was just about to look round the Louvre des Antiquaires, Monsieur. I’ve heard of the Marchés aux Puces, and your Village Suisse, where many superb bargains —”
“Please do not believe all you read in the guidebooks, Monsieur. Though I am sure you require no assistance.”
“Thank you for your advice, Monsieur…?” I’d see this sod again, I felt uncomfortably.
“Pascal, Monsieur.” He didn’t smile. “Easy to remember, eh?”
“May I walk you to your emporium, Miss Fabien?” I asked, gallantry itself.
She recoiled, no, no. Well, win some, lose some. And that was how I came to be sitting alone in the cold wind of the little square where me and Lysette and one other had met up and talked over what we were going to do. And where I’d made the decision, shutting out the truth and causing a friend to be… well, made unable to continue living.
The coffee didn’t seem as good. I realized I’d ordered breakfast, this hour. I had it, then wanted soup and some other grub. The waitress was encouraged, brought a menu. I ask
ed for more. She was pleased, said I could dine inside if I wanted. I realized I was the only one sitting in the square, everybody inside looking out. It must be perishing. A light dusting of snow was on the table. How long had I been there?
“It is too cold out here for your lady,” she said. A bonny lass, wanting humanity’s loose ends tidying up.
“No, ta,” I said. “I like fresh air.” I couldn’t take Lysette, not at this stage. Not even if she would give me a lift to the rotating mansion of Marimee’s syndicate where the great share-out would occur and I’d have something positive to do.
The waitress relaid the table and went in, disgruntled. She would have to brave the cool gale that fanned this glade with my next course. Cool gale? Some fragment of school poetry? What poet, Monsieur Pascal? She came across the square towards me. Overcoat now, I noticed, and different from a few minutes ago. I was shivering, but managed to stop it as she pulled the chair opposite me and arranged herself as they do.
“You will catch your death of cold, Lovejoy,” she said sternly.
“You’ll have had your tea.” The old Scotch joke I told you once: Edinburgh folk say hello like that, too mingy to offer any. Friendly Glaswegians give you tea without asking.
“Wrong city, Lovejoy.”
“Where’s the boyo?” I gave her, Welsh accent. “Sure to be near, eh, alannah?” Irish for darling. Anything to strike back before I got arrested good and proper.
“Stop it, Lovejoy. I won’t have this daftness. I want to know what happened. Not”, she gave me in her best Clydebank reproof, “what’s in the papers, either.”
“Is it already in?” I was surprised, but then I never read them. Avoiding newspapers ensures a better quality of ignorance.
Paid and Loving Eyes l-16 Page 29
