by Claude Izner
‘Well,’ she exclaimed, ‘what a way to behave! I thought he’d gone to Belval-sous-Châtillon to see his daughter. Although it seemed a bit strange him leaving his birds…’
A face appeared behind the glass in the door. Joseph pressed his mouth to the keyhole.
‘Monsieur Fourastié, my name’s Joseph Pignot, I’m an associate of Kenji Mori, the bookseller. He came here himself, but the shop was closed. Monsieur Mori is a friend of Pierre Andrésy’s.’
‘What do you want from me?’ asked a steely voice.
‘I’ve come to tell you that he killed himself…I must speak to you. Please, it’s important!’
‘Important for whom?’
‘For both of us.’
Fourastié unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
‘Come in, quickly.’
Fourastié was a plump man with a drooping moustache, grey hair and broken veins on his cheeks. Joseph avoided looking into his cross-eyes. The cobbler led him through the shop into a workshop crammed with shoes. He moved slowly, without a sound. Joseph noticed a rush of warm air, the pungent smell of the place and the awful din. Birdseed was flying everywhere. Along the partition wall was an aviary divided into tiny cages where pale-yellow canaries, sparrows, hummingbirds, a parrot, Japanese warblers and whistling blackbirds were hopping around and flapping their wings. Fourastié pointed to a stool.
‘Meet my family. Take a seat. Would you like a drink?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Then I’ll drink alone.’
Fourastié poured himself a glass of red wine, drained it in one gulp then pulled a chair out from the other side of a greasy table.
‘So, Monsieur Mori killed himself?’
‘No. Pierre Andrésy.’
Fourastié turned pale. His hand shook as he reached into a drawer and took out a folded letter. He stared at it in silence.
‘When did it happen?’ he asked.
‘Early yesterday evening.’
‘Poor Pierre!’
Joseph felt a mixture of anger and exasperation.
‘Your poor Pierre nearly killed my boss and his fiancée! He murdered four men!’
‘I know. It’s a terrible business, Monsieur, a terrible business. I’d do better to keep my mouth shut.’
Joseph tried to find the right thing to say.
‘I…Believe me, Monsieur Fourastié…The last thing I want is to cause you any problems. The police will never know about this conversation…Only, my bosses insisted that I take notes.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ murmured Fourastié, handing him the letter. ‘This is addressed to Monsieur Mori, it explains everything.’
‘I want to hear the story from your own lips.’
‘Can’t you leave me alone? Let the dead bury the dead.’
‘Listen, Monsieur Fourastié, I was very fond of Pierre Andrésy. I want to know the truth.’
‘You’re tough, aren’t you? Go on, be my guest. Turn the place upside down – maybe you’ll find the truth hiding under the mattress! Oh, and assuming there’s a “hereafter” I’m sure Pierre would heartily approve; he didn’t leave any unfinished business.’
More like he started a funeral business! Joseph thought, catching the beady eye of a red-crested cockatoo gently trying to soothe its yearning for a distant Malaysia as it swung on its perch.
Fourastié cleared his throat. ‘Take notes if you like. I first saw Pierre again two years ago, in 1891, on the banks of the Seine. I was fishing for bleak, it’s my hobby. He was rifling through the booksellers’ boxes for rare bindings. We hadn’t seen each other for twenty years. We reminisced about our youth, about the war. He’d refused to take part in the slaughter and had escaped to England. After the surrender, I joined the Commune. I was arrested on 25 May in Rue de Tournon. A captain interrogated me, and the provost marshal, without glancing up from his papers, gave the order: “Take him to the queue.” In less than five minutes I was sentenced to be shot. I ended up in a tiny courtyard outside the Senate building. It was full of people – men, women and children – surrounded by policemen and soldiers in red uniforms…No, no, I can’t go on, it’s too much!’
He drained the last drops of his wine and studied Joseph’s sympathetic expression.
‘The police know nothing about you, Monsieur Fourastié, you have my word of honour.’
‘If you only knew how little I care! We could hear the crackle of rifles. I knew I was going to die, that none of us would come out alive. I’d almost resigned myself when I noticed a fellow with a tricolour armband. I knew him. We lived on the same street. He was a plain-clothes policeman…’
As he spoke, Fourastié turned towards a photograph standing on a shelf next to a conch shell.
‘My daughter – she’s all I’ve got left in the world. She’s married, lives in Marne.’
‘She’s lovely. Now please get to the point. I want to know about Pierre Andrésy.’
‘This is important for you to know, Monsieur. The fellow with the armband called out: “You, come with me!” I followed him. As I passed close to a queue of condemned men and women, I recognised Pierre’s wife, his fourteen-year-old kid and his younger brother, Sacrovir. I turned round. I thought of my little girl, all alone at home…’
‘Sacrovir?’
‘That was Pierre’s brother Mathieu’s nickname. He was a member of a workers’ group modelled on the Carbonari.69 He’d become involved through a friend. Pierre was violently opposed to it. He said that type of movement could only spell trouble, especially when you ran a printing works. He and his brother fell out and Mathieu stormed out of the house just as war was being declared and went to live in Rue Guisarde.’
‘A printing works? In Rue Mazarine? Was Pierre Andrésy the owner?’
‘Yes. It was a thriving business. When he left for England, his wife took over.’
‘Was Mathieu’s friend’s name Frédéric Daglan?’
‘I don’t know…Pierre said he was an idler, a good-for-nothing, an anarchist of sorts who believed in stealing back from society – in short a thief.’
‘The leopard!’
Fourastié looked surprised. For a few seconds he remained motionless, succumbing to the effects of the alcohol.
‘The flic took me aside, rubbed his finger and thumb together to mean money, and said, laughing: “As you’re a neighbour we’re going to make a deal. If you can pay I’ll arrange for you to be sent to Versailles; hard labour is always better than the grim reaper.”
‘And the name of this flic?’
‘That’s my business,’ Fourastié cut in suddenly, his chin quivering as he bit his lip.
‘Don’t upset yourself, Monsieur Fourastié, don’t upset yourself like that…Come on, you can tell me!’
Choked with emotion, Fourastié remained silent, but he shook his head. Joseph persevered.
‘Was it Gustave Corcol?…He’s dead. He was found murdered the day before yesterday.’
Fourastié tried to smile, but only managed a whimper.
‘Yes, Gustave Corcol, nicknamed the Spaniel, a real swine! I can’t help it, when I remember…It’ll pass, it’ll pass.’
His voice grew calmer.
‘Corcol ruled over the Latin Quarter. When the Versailles Army besieged Paris, his zeal was second to none. He escorted the officers who carried out the raids. They’d surround a whole block of houses and search every building from top to bottom. The smallest incriminating object and everybody went before the provost marshal. After a summary ruling, suspects who weren’t proven to have taken part in the Commune were sent to Versailles, while the rest were thrown into the cellars of the Senate to rot until the cellars were full. And then they made space…’
‘Made space?’
‘They shot people in batches, in the Luxembourg Gardens, by the pond…It was a miracle that I escaped with my life. I could pay. Corcol saved my skin in return for money. During the raids, he lined his pockets thanks to the denunciations. You can’t im
agine the number of anonymous letters, sackloads. Even the military authorities were shocked by such baseness, and they weren’t exactly driven by compassion. People denounced their neighbours, their bosses, their creditors, their rivals in love. Ah, Monsieur, weakness is universal, but this!’
‘Not so fast, Monsieur Fourastié,’ begged Joseph, sticking out his tongue as he scribbled.
‘Imagine what a shock it was to see Andrésy again twenty years after this tragedy. I thought he was dead. He told me he’d lost everyone he loved. Neighbours had described to him how during the siege his family had sought refuge with a cousin near the Sorbonne. The building had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Do you know, Monsieur, nearly fifteen thousand shells fell on Paris?’
‘My mother and I lived in a cellar while my father was fighting at Buzenval. I was under the impression that Pierre Andrésy returned to France before the Prussians surrounded Paris.’
‘I’ve no idea. In any event, the printing works had changed hands…Are you sure you’re not thirsty? I am.’
Fourastié stood up, opened a second bottle, poured himself a drink and paced up and down the workshop holding his glass.
‘Pierre was convinced that his family had perished during the shelling. I thought I was doing the right thing telling him the truth, so I described what I’d seen, his family being shot, the deportations, the humiliations. I thought it would help him to get over it. What I should have done was confess my own cowardice. What a fool! If only I’d known…I gave him the name of their executioner: Gustave Corcol. He stood before me, dazed, like a man driven to distraction, without speaking, and then he put his head on his arm and sobbed. He blamed himself for having abandoned his family!’
‘Is that what sparked his desire for revenge?’
Fourastié sat down again, wearily pushing the glass and bottle to one side so that he could lean his elbows on the table. Then he hid his face in his hands. Long minutes went by during which he relived his disappointed hopes, his failed attempts at happiness. Suddenly, he looked up at Joseph, with an expression of utter despair.
‘Vengeance is worse than a burn for which there is no salve. Andrésy went away with a crazed look in his eyes – like an animal going to the slaughter. I heard nothing more from him until late summer ’92. One day, he asked me to put him up. He confided his plan to me, and I swore to keep silent because I felt responsible.’
Fourastié stared at the bottle, his eyes red, his face tense.
‘Pierre had finally traced Corcol to La Chapelle police station. He’d studied his habits, found out where he ate, where he lived, which bars he went to. He began going to his local bar and gradually the two men became friendly. He made up a story about a brother who was in Hôpital Lariboisière dying from a chest wound he’d received in May 1871 while routing a group of National Guardsmen who were manning the barricade in Rue de Rennes. He showed him a scar on his hand and told him it was a war wound he’d got at Reichshoffen. What a joke! He’d cut himself by accident once on a trimming guillotine. He didn’t bother to conceal his name, his address or his profession. There was no way Corcol would remember a family arrested and shot in 1871. Pierre sang the praises of Thiers and the repression, harshly criticising the Communards. Corcol was completely taken in.’
‘I can understand why he might want to punish the flic, but the others?’
‘During their conversations at the bar, Corcol confessed that although he detested the Communards, he despised their informers even more. There were three in particular who worked at a printing shop in Rue Mazarine. They were responsible for the arrest of at least thirty people, including their boss’s family. He didn’t know their names, but Pierre worked out who they were by a process of elimination.’
‘Grandjean, Leglantier, Theneuil and Daglan. The swine!’ Joseph cried.
‘Daglan? No, Monsieur, there were only three. I don’t know who Daglan is.’
‘But why did they denounce them?’
‘Self-interest. Once the family had been wiped out, they obtained the deeds to the printing works from the authorities. They immediately sold it and shared the proceeds and everyone went their own way.’
For a while now, Fourastié had been eyeing up the bottle.
‘Oh, to hell with abstinence!’
He downed two glasses one after the other.
‘How did Pierre Andrésy manage to get into Théâtre de l’Échiquier?’
‘He mingled with the joiners. He knocked Leglantier unconscious, opened the gas tap, typed the message then raised the alarm…When Monsieur Mori came here, Pierre started worrying. He…Oh, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…’
He slumped in his seat then resumed his account in a slurred voice, his lips moist, his eyes unfocused.
‘They sent me to the penal colony in New Caledonia. Nine years without my little girl. That’s where I developed my love of birds and learnt to be a cobbler…The past always catches up with you in the end…’
All of a sudden, Fourastié sat up straight.
‘That’s enough, lad. I’ve given you Pierre’s letter, now push off – I need to be alone.’
His mind brimming with questions, Joseph wandered down the quiet avenues of Jardin des Tuileries. He sat on a bench. Around him were well-dressed couples, smiling children, goats harnessed to carts, well-tended lawns, a peaceful existence. Far removed from war, massacres, shattered lives. Joseph felt thirsty. He pulled the letter addressed to Kenji out of his pocket…
Dusk was already casting shadows into the study at Rue Visconti where Joseph was busy imparting what he’d learnt from Fourastié, with no regard for the purplish shadows under Victor’s eyes or Kenji’s yawns.
‘…There were three informers: the master printer, Paul Theneuil; the apprentice engraver, Léopold Grandjean; and the proofreader, Edmond Leglantier – a talentless rhymester who boasted of having been applauded by the Empress Eugénie. It took Pierre Andrésy time to find them after twenty years. Meanwhile, Corcol had confided in him his need for money; Andrésy lent him small amounts on several occasions and put to him an idea for the perfect swindle: selling shares in a fictitious company making synthetic amber that looked like the real thing. Corcol swallowed it hook, line and sinker. All he had to do was to produce some authentic-looking shares. Corcol would take charge of the operation. Andrésy provided him with the addresses of his three ex-employees. The enamellist came up with the design, the printer printed them, and the theatre manager sold the worthless pieces of paper. Naturally each man received a substantial payment. Monsieur Andrésy explains it all in his letter. You may congratulate me, Monsieur Legris, on the theory I put forward last night, which was almost flawless. What a brilliant strategem! Andrésy gave half the profits to Leglantier and half to Corcol, each man believing himself to be his only associate.’
Joseph paused, raising his hand in a theatrical pose. He imagined treading the boards – at Théâtre du Gymnase, for instance – upstaging Coquelin Cadet by playing opposite Sarah Bernhardt. But which role would he play? The vaivode Otto von Munk or Sublieutenant Wilkinson?
‘Get on with the story!’ thundered Kenji.
‘Pierre Andrésy’s plan was worthy of Machiavelli. Leglantier failed to make the connection between Grandjean the apprentice engraver and the name on the Ambrex share certificates.’
‘Wait a minute! These two knew each other and yet Leglantier didn’t realise?’
‘Apparently, since he went ahead. He was desperate for money and, in any case, his back was covered – his name wasn’t mentioned anywhere.’
‘Did Corcol also suffer from amnesia? He was an inspector, after all,’ Kenji retorted sarcastically.
‘It was a long time ago. I already told you, in ’71 Corcol would pick up the lists of people to be arrested from the police station in the fifth arrondissement. He was snowed under. People were being shot left, right and centre; he had no idea who the informers were.’
‘How did he know they worked at a printer’s?�
�
Kenji, hands in pockets, wrinkled his nose and closed one eye, as if to say: you won’t get anything past me.
Joseph, frustrated, turned to Victor.
‘They told the police in order to avoid being picked up. Anyone with grubby clothes or hands was being systematically arrested. As for Daglan, he had nothing to do with it,’ he declared emphatically.
‘Yes, tell us more about Daglan,’ ordered Kenji.
‘Pierre Andrésy blamed him particularly for having led his younger brother Mathieu astray. If it hadn’t been for Daglan’s influence, Mathieu would never have become Sacrovir. He would have kept away from the Communards and his family would have come through the slaughter. Do you see?’ he said sharply to Kenji.
‘Wipe that surly expression off your face and carry on with your saga.’
‘They needed cigar holders made of real amber in order to dupe the investors. Monsieur Andrésy gave Corcol the name of an enterprising burglar – an urban Robin Hood known as the leopard of Batignolles.’
‘Victor, please translate this gibberish for me,’ Kenji said, ‘my nerves are beginning to fray.’
‘Once the Ambrex shares had been sold, Pierre Andrésy wreaked his revenge. He killed Grandjean, then he killed Paul Theneuil, dressed the corpse in his own clothes and placed it in his shop before setting fire to the premises. A dead man can act freely without fear of hindrance. He killed Leglantier then he killed Corcol. His revenge was almost complete.’
‘What about my Persian manuscript, clever clogs?’ Kenji asked Joseph.
‘Seeing as he was officially dead, Monsieur Andrésy needed liquid assets. He asked his friend Fourastié to sell a few rare editions belonging to his customers.’
‘And I thought so highly of him,’ muttered Kenji.
‘He thought highly of you, too, or he wouldn’t have turned his gun on himself – he would simply have shot you.’
‘How did Pierre Andrésy come across his brother’s watch?’
‘It’s all explained in the letter. Mathieu, to be on the safe side, had hidden his green Communard membership card and his fob watch under a floorboard in his room in Rue Guisarde. The flics must have been in a hurry and they just swiped the few belongings he owned. When Pierre returned to France in October 1871, he asked the new tenants if he could take a look around. They were good honest folk and they gave him back the watch. They had torn up the card.’
