by Allan Massie
She sniffed noisily, in disapproval or disbelief.
‘Police in the house. We could do without that again.’
The count wasn’t alone. The chair Lannes had sat in on his previous visit was now occupied by a lean dark-complexioned man, with thinning hair that glistened with oil. He had a pencil moustache, and, without rising from his seat, extended a well-manicured hand in Lannes’ direction. It was offered as an acknowledgement that stopped short of a handshake, and was quickly withdrawn.
‘Marthe has announced you as a policeman,’ he said, ‘which makes me curious. I trust my dear brother has not been up to his old games?’
‘Your brother?’ Lannes said, pretending not to understand. ‘Games?’
There came a dry chuckle from the count who seemed to Lannes even older and frailer than on his previous visit.
‘It’s natural that you should think so, Edmond, and it’s mere politeness on the superintendent’s part to pretend to ignorance. Superintendent Lannes, forgive me. I haven’t introduced my younger son to you. He edits a review in Paris. They say it’s well thought of, in certain quarters. It has even been described as “significant” – whatever that implies. So, to our business. Have you discovered anything? No? You may speak freely, for Edmond will certainly regard this little affair as of the utmost . . . insignificance.’
‘In effect,’ Lannes said, ‘nothing.’
The count laid aside his thin black cheroot and closed his eyes.
‘And yet,’ he said, ‘there has been one consequence of your willingness to interest yourself in my concerns. There have been no more letters.’
‘There was however one matter I would like to raise.’
‘You refer to my eldest daughter’s visit to your office?’
‘It surprised me because you gave me to understand that nobody but yourself – and of course their author – knew of the letters. But Madame Thibault de Polmont was evidently well-informed.’
‘So you suspect her? That would be amusing.’
‘The possibility occurred to me,’ Lannes said. ‘No more than that.’
‘Perhaps,’ Edmond said, ‘I might be permitted to see these letters? I might be able to throw some light on the question, speaking as a literary man, indeed a critic. There may be nuances that would, with all due respect, superintendent, escape the eye of a policeman.’
‘That seems unlikely,’ Lannes said. ‘Nuances are not what their author deals in.’
‘And my wife?’ the count said. ‘She could suggest nothing?’
‘Nothing at all. Naturally she found the idea of the letters, which I did not however show her, distressing.’
‘So you advise I let the matter drop?’
‘Unless you now wish to make an official complaint. In which case . . . ’
‘No,’ the count said, ‘I’m too tired’, and closed his eyes.
Lannes made to leave, but to his surprise found Edmond rising and accompanying him to the door. He took Lannes by the elbow and held him there in the hall.
‘I’m very pleased to have made your acquaintance, superintendent. If you have a moment I should like a word with you. You have? Good.’
He led Lannes into a dark little room off the further recesses of the hall. It was over-furnished with armchairs and a sofa in a dull velvet, perhaps plum-coloured, though in the half-light it was difficult to be sure; two cages of stuffed birds stood on a mahogany table.
‘You haven’t had occasion to speak to my son Maurice about this stupid affair.’
‘I’ve seen no need to.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. He’s very young – young for his age, I would say – and impressionable. He thinks he’s a poet, though I doubt if he is. Many young men make verses – and inflict them on me as an editor – but very few of them are poets. I’m inclined to think more verses are written than read, which is perhaps as it should be. But that’s not the point. Do you have sons yourself, superintendent?’
‘Yes,’ Lannes said, disinclined to say more than that.
‘Then you will understand my anxiety, and it is this which has brought me from Paris at a time that is, to speak truly, decidedly inconvenient.’
He waited as if expecting a reply or question, then took out a leather cigar-case.
‘Have one of these, superintendent. Genuine Havanas, I assure you, not these Italian abominations my father smokes. No? You prefer a cigarette? Very well.’
He clipped the head off his cigar and lit it with a long match. When satisfied it was drawing well, he shifted his position in the armchair, crossed his legs, and said, ‘I understand you’re in charge of the investigation into the murder of Gaston Chambolley. May I ask how it is going?’
Lannes smiled.
‘You can’t really expect an answer to that question. But in turn I might ask why my investigation should interest you.’
‘I used to know him. We were even friends once. It’s natural that I should be curious.’
‘Curious enough to take me aside and question me? I find that a little strange if you’ll allow me to say so.’
Edmond rolled the cigar round between his lips, removed it, blew out a cloud of dark-grey smoke, looked hard at Lannes, then said, ‘I’m concerned that my son isn’t involved in the matter of subject to investigation.’
Lannes made no reply, waited.
‘Maurice had made the acquaintance of Gaston Chambolley. As I’ve said, he fancies himself as a poet, and Gaston, as you may not know, once enjoyed a certain reputation as a critic. Indeed he wrote for my review in its early days when he was still a serious person, before his life became disreputable. How they became acquainted, I don’t know, but you will not be surprised to learn that I was displeased to learn of it. Any father would be. You have sons yourself, and will appreciate my concern. I wrote to Maurice ordering him to break off this quite unsuitable association. But I have been occupied in Paris, and I don’t know if he obeyed me. Now, given the manner of Gaston’s death and the suspicions it must give rise to – suspicions and rumours sadly likely to taint anyone of his acquaintance – you will understand why I wish to be assured that nothing in your investigation touches Maurice. I have, as you may know, political connections, interests and ambitions, which might be damaged by any scandal concerning my son.’
No doubt he was indeed seeking reassurance, but Lannes was also aware of the threat implicit in this last sentence: your investigation may damage me, but I’m a man of influence, so be careful yourself.
‘I can assure you, monsieur, that you need not disturb yourself.’
Lannes paused. He thought of his conversation with Rougerie. Was Edmond perhaps one of those who had leaned on the examining magistrate? If so . . .
‘I think I can tell you that this investigation has been closed, case filed, not to be pursued. Such are my instructions. You’ll understand that I can’t enter into more detail – which, dammit, I don’t know – But I can assure you of this. Your son has not been questioned, and I cannot envisage the circumstances which would alter that.’
‘The investigation has been closed? That is surely unusual. Closed so quickly, filed away?’
‘Unusual, certainly, in a murder case. I’m not, you will appreciate, at liberty to say more.’
He got to his feet. Then, before he reached the door, turned, and, speaking as if it was an afterthought, said, ‘I’m a little puzzled. You evidently knew of these anonymous letters, and yet you asked if my visit was in connection with your brother and any possible misdemeanours.’
‘Oh that? I was teasing my father. He despises my poor brother whose grubby little history is one of the few things still capable of disturbing him. As to my knowledge of the letters, you’ve met my eldest sister, Amélie-Marie. Well then, you must realize that she thrives on indignation and must share it with others. Naturally she wrote to me at length – in green ink with many underlinings – about these notorious letters.’
‘I see. Thank you. And, a last question, have you
any idea who might have written them?’
‘None at all. How should I have? The matter is of no interest to me.’
The light was fading and the yellow sandstone of which Bordeaux is chiefly built was taking on a leprous look as Lannes, stick in hand, limped away in the direction of the Cours de Verdun and the Monument to the Girondins. He didn’t share his fellow-Bordelais’ admiration for these high-minded liberals who had so enthusiastically engaged France in war. They had died well, that was the best to be said for them, but dying well was often easier than living well. Many a scoundrel went bravely to the guillotine.
He heard running footsteps behind him and a voice calling. Momentarily he tightened the grip on his stick. Then a young man was beside him, breathing heavily in short abrupt spasms from his exertions. His blond hair, worn too long, flopped over his left eye. He wore a high-necked woollen jersey, like a Breton fisherman, and loose-fitting corduroy trousers.
‘I have to speak to you.’
‘So it seems.’
‘I was watching you from the landing at the turning of the stair, but then I had to wait till my father rejoined Grandpa in his study before I could slip out of the house, and I was afraid for a moment I had lost you.’
‘Well, we can’t speak in the street,’ Lannes said and taking hold of the boy’s arm – in case he should suddenly change his mind? – led him into a café. He ordered a beer for himself and a lemonade for the boy who had first protested that he wanted nothing. The boy was agitated and there were pink spots on his cheeks, which were probably usually pale.
‘So?’
‘It’s difficult, and now that I’ve found you I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Take your time.’
Lannes lit a cigarette and pushed the packet across the table.
‘So you’re Maurice.’
‘Yes of course,’ the boy said and took a cigarette. His hands were shaking as he lit it, and he held it awkwardly, as if he wasn’t accustomed to smoking. ‘But, first, I wonder what news you have of Dominique.’
‘You mean my Dominique?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said again. ‘Not that I can claim to know him well, we’ve not met more than half-a-dozen times, but on two of these occasions we talked at length, about everything really, and discovered an affinity. Then the army took him and I’m ashamed not to be in uniform myself, but I suffer from asthma, you see. So I would like to write to him, very much like to, only I don’t have an address.’
Lannes, not for the first time of course, was brought up against a truth of parenthood so easily forgotten: that your children have lives of their own in which, often, there is no part for you, and that, in the company of their friends, their mates, les copains, they are different people.
‘All the same,’ he said, scribbling Dominique’s army number and direction on the back of an envelope, ‘it wasn’t only to get Dominique’s address that you came running after me. If that had been all you wanted, you could have asked me on my way out, couldn’t you?’
The boy twisted the lock of hair that flopped over his eye and took a quick – anxious or just inexperienced? – puff of his cigarette.
‘What did my father want?’
‘Reassurance.’
‘About me?’
‘Who else?’
‘I don’t understand it. It’s not as if he cares about me. Indeed he’s always despised me, I think, and resented me too because of my mother who left him. She was English, you know, and he hates the English, and is always on the look-out for the Englishman in me. I’m afraid of him really. That’s a terrible thing to have to say about your father, but it’s true, even if he has never so much as laid a hand on me or anything like that. I’m talking too much but I think it’s because you’re Dominique’s father and because Miriam said you were all right. So it’s almost in spite of you being a policeman, as it were.’
Lannes thought: this is an unhappy boy and near breaking-point. His barriers are collapsing and he needs to confess whatever it is that’s troubling him. He’d seen it so often as he approached the end of a long interrogation: that moment when it becomes a relief to speak the truth which you have so long denied or hidden from.
‘But this too isn’t why you ran after me,’ he said.
The boy hesitated, then the words came in a rush.
‘No, it wasn’t, and I have to speak because I think I’m going mad keeping it to myself. Miriam told me that the investigation into Gaston’s murder has been abandoned, called off, and I thought, how can that be, surely the police don’t give up on a murder. And I was the more surprised because of how she had spoken of you. Of course I don’t know about these things, why a case may be abandoned or shelved. But you see it shouldn’t be, not this one, and then I thought, it’s my fault.’
Lannes pushed the cigarette packet towards the boy again, but this time he shook his head. He wasn’t far from tears.
‘It’s because I’ve been withholding evidence. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? You see, I was there that night. Oh, it’s so hard to explain.’
‘There’s no hurry.’
‘He had a room in the rue Belle Etoile, quite near the station, off the Cours du Marne. Did you know that? It was his secret place. That’s what he called it. We used to meet there. No, it’s not what you think. I mean, I knew he was a pederast, well, it was obvious, and he was maybe a little in love with me, but he never made what they call advances, I’m glad to say, for the idea revolts me. So all we did was talk. I would read my poems to him and he would criticize them, advising me, he was really helpful, and we discussed literature in general and certain books in particular. He was really interesting, and it pleased him to regard me as his pupil. He was a natural teacher, far more so than any of my profs, and I learned a lot from him. I’m not naïve, whatever you may think, and I knew why he kept that room and guessed what use he put it to, though of course we didn’t talk about that. He did say once that in Bergerac where he lived most of the time, he had to be respectable because of his housekeeper whom he didn’t want to offend. He made a joke of it, and perhaps he hoped I would react in a certain way, but that’s all there was to it. Despite everything – I mean, his vice, as I suppose it was – he was a good man, kind. Miriam says the same and she had known him all her life. But this isn’t to the point.’
He took a quick swig of his lemonade, and touched his lower lip with his tongue. Two men came into the café, and Lannes saw through the briefly opened door that the light was dying in the street. One of the men called for two big glasses of red. They stood at the bar, and when Lannes looked at them, stared back, asserting themselves. Snatches of their talk came to him. The taller, taking off his hat and laying it on the bar, mopped his brow with a blue handkerchief. ‘If you ask me,’ he said, ‘the real danger doesn’t come from the Boches. We can handle them, but from the Reds and the Jews. We should round them up and put them in camps. You have to admit that in this respect at least Hitler has the right idea.’
Maurice, no doubt also aware of their presence and conversation, lowered his voice and began to speak very quickly.
‘I left him before seven o’clock, probably nearer half-past six. My aunt makes a fuss if I’m late for dinner, you see, and I was expected. Gaston was alive then, naturally, and not at all drunk, which was less usual. But I had been drinking tea and he had had only a single glass of white wine, a Graves. He always made a joke about that – an English joke. I read English of course on account of my mother and there’s a line of the poet Byron – ‘only sextons drink Graves’ – it’s a pun, sextons are grave-diggers, you see. Gaston loved the English Romantic poets and so he would lift his glass and say – in English too – “this wine puts me in funeral mood” It’s not very funny, is it, not really. Do you speak English, monsieur Lannes?’
‘A little. Enough to get the meaning.’
‘It’s terrible to remember how he made his usual joke that night . . . I’m sorry, it upsets me to think of it, and I’m sorry
to be so long in getting to the point.’
‘That’s all right. Take your time. Compose yourself. Believe me, these details are useful to me. Knowing the victim helps you to understand a crime, even solve it sometimes.’
‘Fact is,’ the smaller of the men at the bar, middle-aged, wearing a striped suit, said in a booming voice, ‘we need someone like Hitler in France. Not exactly like him, I grant you, because he’s a guttersnipe, but still a strong man to clean up this disgusting Republic of ours.’
Maurice looked up, sharply, at the speaker, then quickly lowered his eyes, and keeping them fixed on the table, said in a voice that was now little more than a whisper, ‘It’s difficult partly because I’m ashamed not to have come forward. I was afraid. That’s something Dominique and I discussed – fear and the nature of fear. But he had more reason, going to the Front, while I . . . have never had to fear anything worse than disapproval.’
Perhaps, Lannes thought, his relations with Gaston weren’t quite as innocent as he says, not that it matters, poor boy.
‘It’s as I was leaving. Two men were on the doorstep and pushed past me to enter the building. There’s no concierge there, and it strikes me now that they were waiting for someone to come out, though I may be wrong. They went upstairs to Gaston’s room.’
‘Can you be sure of that?’
‘Yes indeed, because . . . ’
Colour flooded into the boy’s face and he spoke in a rapid mumble.
‘Because I heard one of them say, “that’ll be one of his bumboys, a good time to catch him”. And his companion laughed and made some reply, but he spoke in Spanish which I don’t really understand. Now of course I wish I hadn’t continued on my way home.’
Lannes said nothing and Maurice, probably afraid that he was angry, apologised again for not speaking sooner.
‘Would it have helped if I had? Can the investigation be reopened now that you have my evidence?’
There was no point answering the first question. No point making this boy feel more guilty than he already knew himself to be. And, in any case, the speed with which Rougerie had moved to close down the case suggested other pressure would have been put on Lannes if he had seemed to be making progress.
