Napoleon's Police

by Michele McGrath

“I don’t want to burst into tears,” he told us as Eugénie kissed him. “I’ll miss you both. Life won’t be nearly as exciting without you. I never knew what trouble Alain would get me into next.”

  I laughed and Eugénie said, “Why don’t you come to Grenoble, Jean? You know Lucienne wants to.”

  Lucienne is Lefebvre’s daughter. She’s at a boarding school and is longing to be grown up. The last time we saw her, she begged her father to take her with us. She had never been away from Paris and she wanted to see other parts of the country for herself. As she said,

  “It would be such an adventure!” Lefebvre had put her off at the time, but I hoped he would change his mind. He had not.

  “What would I do in the sticks, mon brave? I’m a city rat. I don’t feel comfortable outside Paris.”

  “We could work together like we’ve always done. You’d be very useful to a locksmith. You’ve picked enough locks in your time.” Eugénie giggled and Lefebvre grinned. My father owned a locksmith’s workshop in Grenoble, to which I had once been apprenticed. I wasn’t very skilful and I’d always believed my father breathed a huge sigh of relief when I ran away. I was still amazed and a little suspicious that he wanted to see me again. I had a feeling the summons was my sister’s idea, but it suited my purposes so I wasn’t going to question it too closely.

  “Take over your father’s business first,” Lefebvre said. “The old man might have something to say about you employing a villain like me if he’s still in charge. Get settled and then write to me and I’ll consider it.”

  I walked down the stairs with him and he turned to go, then suddenly came back and caught me in a bear-hug.

  “I’ll miss you, Soldier.”

  “I’ll miss you too. Give our love to Lucienne.”

  He nodded and hurried away. I watched him until he was out of sight, with a horrible sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

  Chapter 2

  Fournier was right about the state of the roads. At times the horses struggled hock deep in mud and the diligence swayed alarmingly. I’d made such journeys before but Eugénie had not. She remarked to me, when we were alone, that she wondered whether we would arrive at our destination uninjured. Certainly the journey took far longer than it would have in summer, but I wanted to leave Paris, with all its troubles, far behind me.

  As a family, we had only taken short carriage drives around the city and never before travelled on a diligence. So it was an unpleasant shock to find that our eldest child, Marie-Aimée, suffered from travel sickness. We were unprepared the first time it happened and she made a mess. Several of the other travellers grumbled at us mightily. The coach did not stop for such trifling incidents, so we did the best we could. We cleaned Aimée and the floor; a difficult task with only a few rags and our drinking water.

  The other children, Jean-Pierre and the baby, Marie-Françoise, stared avidly at their sister, who was usually such an adventurous child but now wept and looked green. I swept the whole family off the diligence at the next stop and we put up at an inn for the night. Even though the coach was cleaned, the smell lingered. Clean or not, it had to keep to its schedule and it lumbered off with most of its passengers braving the foetid atmosphere and continuing their journey.

  Only a man and two women chose to stay at the inn with us. I knew that if we remained in that vehicle, Aimée would certainly be sick again and she might make the other children ill as well. I don’t think we could have coped if all of them were unwell.

  When we got into another diligence the following day, we’d made our preparations. Aimée ate very little, only some bread and water. Eugénie carried a bowl with her and we made Aimée sit next to a window with the curtains drawn back. She did better, but she was still suffering. I felt like a torturer forcing her to travel again but I had no choice. On the money I possessed, I could not afford to hire either a better carriage or horses for all of us. Aimée was very good, although she looked like a victim going to the guillotine. She managed to avoid being sick again, until the day before our journey ended. This time we prevented an accident, but the whole journey seemed interminable. One of us constantly watched Aimée, while the other tried to amuse the two little ones. We were bruised and battered from all the bouncing. When we climbed out, we could not walk properly; our legs were so cramped. I have no memory of the people who shared our travels. None of them talked to us much. I think they were as miserable as we were. I would have sworn that weeks passed rather than days and vowed I would wait until the children were grown before we attempted such a journey again.

  We spent a cold and uncomfortable night in Lyon and then we boarded our last coach, which would bring us to Grenoble. It was dark when we came out of the valley of the Isère. The plateau of the Vercors loomed black on our right side and the massif of the Grande Chartreuse on our left. Then the Vercors drew back, or so it seemed, and the lights of the city twinkled before us.

  It was cold and raining, with a thin mist clinging to the tops of the hills. Everything looked dank. A peculiar odour enveloped us as we passed the glove factories, a scent I remembered from childhood. As I smelled it, I realised unmistakably that I was home. We took a hack from the stage halt to my sister’s house, leaving our luggage to be brought on by the carrier.

  “Not another carriage!” Aimée said weakly, as we helped her into it.

  “The last one for a very long time, Chérie,” I told her, hoping fervently that it was true.

  My sister lived with her husband in a big old house on the south side of the city. It was near to the villa where we grew up. Lights shone in the windows and the sound of a piano came to us when the door opened.

  Sophie herself stood on the threshold. No longer the girl I left but a woman and beautiful, to me at least. I would have recognised her anywhere. Her eyes were the same and so was her smile.

  “Good grief!” she cried out when she saw me. “Are you really Alain, my baby brother?”

  I laughed, for she did not even reach my shoulder now and I needed to bend down for her kiss. “I’m not such a baby any more!”

  “Indeed you’re not. I would have walked past you, if I’d met you in the street.” She ran her finger gently down the lines on my face, a legacy of both my days in the Army and in the Police. “We are both getting older,” she said with a sigh.

  “Not you. You’re as lovely as ever.” Even though a few silver strands marred her dark hair, her face was as sweet as I remembered. Surprisingly though, she looked far more like our mother now than she did as a girl.

  “Flatterer!” Sophie laughed and then she turned to greet Eugénie and the children with hugs and more kisses.

  That evening was one of quiet celebration. Sophie and I had always been close, fellow victims of our horrible father. He would use words to reduce Sophie to tears, but he used his fists on me. No wonder we both hated him. Maman acted as a buffer between us for as long as she was able. I only made contact with Sophie again when Lefebvre and I investigated the case of the New Messiah, but that is another story. By then, we had become almost strangers to each other but those few days renewed our bond. Most of our lives had been spent apart and with different people, yet we still loved each other.

  That first evening in Sophie’s home, I came to know more of my sister as an adult while her family and mine became acquainted. Her husband, Emile, had been born nearby in Vienne and worked as a lawyer in Grenoble. He had been young and brash when he met Papa, who instantly disliked him. Sophie had to wait until the day she came of age to marry him. Her only child was her daughter, Laure, a girl of twelve. Sadly they weren’t able to have any more children. Sophie nearly died at Laure’s birth and Emile would not let her take the risk again.

  It was delightful to watch my sister and niece talking and playing with my children. Aimée was a little older than Laure and had all the glamour of Paris about her, as Laure told her mother afterwards. This was a thought that amused us all for, indeed, Aimée seemed very immature yet and more boyish than
a young lady of fashion should be. The girls took to each other at sight and spent most of the evening chatting and telling their secrets. Eugénie and I felt pleased to see Aimée’s spirits reviving in her cousin’s company, after our awful journey.

  Jean and Françoise sat happily on Sophie’s knee and listened to her stories. She told quite a few about our childhood adventures. Since she’s a good storyteller, she made everyone laugh, especially when I started blushing over her more embarrassing tales. Time flew by until the children tired at last. Sophie and Eugénie took them upstairs and put them to bed. Laure would not be parted from Aimée and begged her mother to let them share a room, while we stayed in their house. Sophie agreed and the girls went off happily together. Later on, Emile brought out liqueurs and sweet biscuits. I tasted again the vintage Chartreuse, which I had been allowed to sip as a child. It was the taste of home and I relaxed knowing I was here to stay, or so I thought.

  Emile asked me, “How long is it since you ran away?”

  “It was the spring after Maman died,” I replied. “It must have been 1796. Heavens, that’s nearly twenty years ago!” I hesitated. “How did Papa take my leaving so suddenly?” I asked Sophie.

  “Very badly. At first he thought that you would soon crawl back, like a dog with its tail between its legs. He imagined you starving and threadbare, begging him to take you back, like the Prodigal Son. He swore he never would. Then, when you didn’t come, he became even more furious. He disinherited you and ordered everyone never to speak your name again. I tried to reason with him and got slapped for my pains.”

  “He hit you?” I asked incredulously. With all his faults, my father never lifted his hand to either my mother or my sister. My cousin and I had been thrashed often enough, but not the women.

  “Only once. He lashed out without thought. Don’t fret about it ̶̶ it wasn’t your fault. I knew I was goading him too far. I never made the same mistake again and we became reconciled long ago.”

  I nodded. “How is he?”

  “Sick, needing you, waiting for you to come.”

  “He’s never needed me in his life.”

  “He does now. He has a growth on his side that the doctor says is killing him. He hasn’t got many months to live and he’s in pain. He wants to make his peace with you before he dies.”

  I turned away, staring into the fire, my thoughts tumbling over in my mind. Hatred of my father had been such a constant emotion in my life. He was a tall burly man with a loud voice and a truculent manner. He expected instant obedience from me and enforced his will with a ruthlessness he showed to few others. He had never ailed for a day in his life when I knew him. I did not know how to cope with the thought of him sick and dying – should I be sorry or rejoicing? I’d wished all sorts of evils on him when I was a boy. When I was a man, I tried to forget I ever had a father.

  “Alain.” As usual it was Eugénie who rescued me from my inner turmoil. “The fact that he asked you to come home means that he must be ready to forgive you for running away. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let Sophie write to you. He’s no longer your master, only a sick old man who wants to see his son before he dies. If you don’t forgive him, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  I nodded, realising the truth of her words. I had to do this, for my own sake. He’d made the first gesture, something I never believed he would do. I turned to Sophie.

  “What happened to Jacques?” Jacques was our cousin, a couple of years older than me. He was a better workman and far more skilled with his hands, so my father had always favoured him. I’d expected him to take over from my father one day and did not envy him the task.

  “His horse threw him, six or seven years ago now. He hit his head against a wall and never regained consciousness.”

  “I see.” I can’t say that I cared much. Jacques had a habit of crowing over me, as boys do. He also took a delight in making trouble for me with my father, which was an easy enough task. I wouldn’t have wished an early death on him, but neither would I be hypocritical enough to pretend to grieve.

  “What does Papa want me for?”

  “He hasn’t said so in so many words but I think he expects you to take over the business.”

  “I was never much of a locksmith and I did not even finished my apprenticeship.”

  “Papa has three men working for him and they’re all competent. He doesn’t do the work himself any more, unless the job is particularly complicated. He spent his time, before he became too ill, meeting people, doing paperwork and collecting debts. Even you can do those things.” She smiled at me.

  “Even I can.” I nodded. At that moment, Eugénie gave a huge yawn and immediately apologised, but Sophie jumped to her feet.

  “What are we doing keeping you out of your beds all night, talking? You must be exhausted after that terrible journey. Come away at once. We’ll have all the time in the world to talk about this later,” Sophie said, with no idea our time together would prove to be so short.

  Next day I decided to face the thing I was dreading most, before I did anything else. So I made my way into the centre of the town to Papa’s workshop. Sophie had told me that, since her marriage, Papa had given up Bellevue. This was our childhood home, some distance south of the old city walls. Father preferred to live in an apartment over the business. He liked to oversee what was going on and drink with his cronies without having to travel or bother with the upkeep of a large house.

  Eugénie wanted to come with me to see him but I refused. “Better not, wait until I find out what mood he’s in.”

  Sophie agreed with me. “Alain’s right. My father’s an awkward man socially and he might say something that he would later regret. The two of them have to speak about things that hurt and angered them both in the past and get rid of the bitterness, if they can. Let them do so in private.”

  I walked through the streets of Grenoble alone. I revelled in the autumn sunshine and the freedom from travelling, but I had an apprehension so great it almost choked me. As I turned the last corner into the narrow road where the business was situated, my heart began to pound like a drum and my hands shook. The street hadn’t changed and the workshop remained much as I remembered it, dark and untidy. Two men worked at one of the long benches, by the light of candles. One of them rose and came to greet me, as I pushed open the door and entered.

  “Can I help you, Monsieur?” he asked.

  “I would like to see Monsieur Duval,” I replied.

  “Monsieur Duval is indisposed and not seeing customers today. I am Georges, his foreman. I’m sure I will be able to deal with your needs.”

  I saw little point in being rude to the man, who was only doing as he had been told. So I smiled and said,

  “Monsieur Duval will certainly see me. Please tell him that his son, Alain, has called and is waiting downstairs.”

  A sudden exclamation made both of us look at the man on the other side of the workshop, who was rising slowly from his seat. An older man, with a long white moustache and pince-nez perched on the bridge of his nose.

  “Alain!” he said, smiling and holding out his arms to me.

  I recognised him then with a shock. I had last seen him with brown hair and without glasses. “Benôit! Still here then?” I returned his hug.

  “Where else should I be?”

  “And still fighting with my father?”

  He laughed. “It keeps us alive. What would he do without me?”

  After the greetings, introductions and remarks on how the years had changed us both, Benôit sent Georges off to announce me to my father. When he was gone, Benôit said,

  “Be careful how you speak to the Patron. He’s ready to forgive and forget but he’s still got a temper. Don’t provoke him.”

  “I’ve never needed to provoke him. Simply existing and being in the same room with him was always more than enough.”

  “You’re a man now, not a boy, and he’s dying. He’s been terrified he would go before you got here. So d
o what I tell you for once and speak softly to him.”

  “Yes, Papa,” I said with a grin, for indeed the old man had been more of a father to me than my own. He’d protected me when he could and he’d taught me what little I still remembered of the trade. Benôit gave me a clout in the way he used to do, just as Georges came down the stairs and beckoned.

  “He’s in the salon, first door on the left.”

  I climbed up, with the sick feeling I’d forgotten in the workshop coming back unbidden and double in strength. I scratched on his door and heard the word, “Come!” That was my first real warning of the change in my father. The voice seemed thin, reedy and unlike his usual bellow.

  I could hardly see him at first. The room was dark, with the curtains half drawn against the weak sunlight. When my eyes adjusted, I realised that he was sitting in a low armchair beside a sluggish fire. A small shrivelled figure, with hands that shook so much they spilled liquid from the glass he held.

  “Papa?” I stood before him like an uneasy schoolboy expecting a scolding, while I inwardly reeled in horror from the change I saw in him.

  “You took your time coming when I sent for you!” That sounded more like the man I used to know.

  I started to tell him about the state of the roads, then I realised I no longer needed to excuse myself to him. “I’m here now.” I strode across the room, pulled another armchair over to the fire and sat down on it.

  “Mind your manners, boy. You’re mighty free with my possessions for a scamp I disinherited long ago.”

  “You sent for me and I’m here. I didn’t return to be insulted but because I thought you needed me. If you don’t, I’ll go away again.” In that moment I’d forgotten everything that Benôit had said to me and even his fragile health. His carping temper had its usual effect on mine. I started to rise but he stopped me.

  “Sit down, boy, and listen to me.” It was not his words that made me pause, but a pleading note in his voice which I’d heard only once before. That was the night he knelt beside my dying mother and begged her not to leave him. Since he was the one who had caused her untimely death, his repentant words sickened me at the time and increased my hatred.