by Allan Massie
I have seen him twice subsequently. And he has not as yet divulged any useful information. Instead he has questioned me closely about Pilar. But he assures me the secret lies not in Spain or in Bordeaux but in Paris, and promises that he will produce the evidence I am looking for.
He has gone to Paris and I have an appointment with him for when he returns in two days time. But I am suspicious and afraid. My fear is that he seeks such information as I have, rather than providing me with what I need. It is on account of my uncertainty that I am writing this letter – my uncertainty and the fear that is gripping me. G.
The writing deteriorated, straggling unevenly, in the last paragraphs.
Back in the office Lannes handed it to Moncerre, who read it, and said, ‘I would guess he was drinking when he wrote it and drunk by the time he finished it. It doesn’t tell us much, does it? If the poor sod knew anything, he didn’t know its significance. So I don’t see that it tells us anything.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Lannes said. ‘It connects this Marcel with Edmond de Grimaud. That’s interesting. And it makes it clear that Cortazar knew a lot more than he was willing to share with us. Idiot.’
‘Idiot, like you say. Have we had Paulhan’s report on the Catalan?’
‘Heart attack. Paulhan’s certain. As to whether it was brought on by what he suffered, he can’t say more than that it’s probable. The heart was diseased, blood vessels blocked. He might have gone any time. Oh, and there’s evidence, bruising round the mouth, that he was gagged, like Gaston. So it’s just plausible that our friends across the way, the Brunes, really did hear nothing, because there was nothing terrible to hear.’
‘Maybe not, but they’re a right pair. I could cheerfully have throttled them both. They might be the three monkeys, except that when either of them speaks, something nasty dribbles out of the mouth. The minute I tried to put on pressure, he said, “I’ll remind you that I work in the City Hall and am respected there, and have protection”. He had the cheek to tell me not to overstep the mark or I’d be sorry. I’m certain one or other of them saw the Catalan’s killers and could identify them. For one thing she’s as inquisitive as a mongoose, for all her talk about keeping themselves to themselves. And they hated Cortazar and would certainly keep an eye open to see who visited him, if only in the hope that they could make something of it. But they’re saying nothing and he’s not the sort you can throw into a cell and thump till he speaks. Indeed I don’t doubt but that he will already have complained about my way of questioning him. Makes me sick.’
Lannes himself disliked bullying witnesses, saw this as a weakness. It was sometimes necessary, the only way to get results. So he experienced self-reproach, even shame, when he left it to the likes of Moncerre. There’s nothing honourable in relying on others to do the dirty work you dislike. He often wondered if, deep-down, Moncerre despised him for this weakness.
He set another inspector, Fattorini, a Niçois of Italian extraction, to take statements from the Grimaud family, choosing him because he had soft spaniel eyes, an inviting smile and gentle ingratiating manners. His reports were always reliable and well-written. He missed little. In this instance it seemed there was nothing to miss. All affirmed that they had not see the count since he retired to bed the previous evening. All were sure he had fallen. The two spinsters agreed with their brother that he had been unsteady on his legs for months now.
‘What of Madame la comtesse?’
‘There’s no mystery, it seems. She went yesterday afternoon to visit her father who keeps a bar and tabac off the Place Gambetta, as you know. It appears that he hasn’t been well and yesterday took a turn for the worse. So she spent the night there – her mother’s dead and there’s only a woman who comes in to clean during the day. She returned to the rue d’Aviau towards noon to learn that her husband was dead. When I asked why she hadn’t let anyone know she was staying at her father’s, she smiled and said there was nobody who would care where she was, though, she added, “I’ve no doubt you were supplied with scandalous explanations of my absence”. She doesn’t care for them any more than they care for her, I’d say.’
‘Did you have any difficulty?’
‘Not a lot really. The two old girls were in tears and not making much sense. The boy Maurice looked as if he had been weeping too, for his eyes were red. He’s a charmer, isn’t he, which always makes one suspicious, but I think he really was distressed. He said it was partly because he had been afraid of his grandfather and never able to love him, and now felt guilty. That struck me as true, probably. Madame Thibault de Polmont made it clear she regarded my questions as impertinent, but she did say one thing that may be of interest: that her father had summoned you only to make mischief. “He couldn’t even die like a respectable person,” she said. As for the vicomte, who is now, I suppose, the count, he made two complaints which contradicted each other: first, that I was intruding into a house of mourning – though I saw little sign of that – and second, that he would now be obliged to miss the race meeting at Le Bouscat on Sunday.’
‘And the old woman, Marthe?’
‘There’s a one.’ Fattorini smiled. ‘She took me up to the third floor where all the rooms are bare. No furniture, no paintings, no carpets, no hangings, nothing. It seems that the count has been keeping afloat for years now only by selling things. “There’s no money left,” she said, not without satisfaction. “They’ll have to shift for themselves now. Monsieur Edmond won’t cough up, whatever they think. If you ask me, he’s broke himself. We’ll have the bailiffs in, mark my words.” She hates them, except for the boy and the two spinsters who are poor things in her opinion. “Fit only for a convent,” she said, “and that’s where they’ll end up.” I suppose it really was an accident, chief ?’
‘There’s no good reason to think otherwise.’
But why did he send for me? Lannes was sure the count had been devious; that was why he had called his attention to the family in the first place. The question occupied his mind, distracted him. That evening, over supper, he was scarcely aware of the conversation.
Later, when they were alone, Marguerite started crying.
‘I do so hate this war and I’m afraid for Dominique and for what it will do to us.’
He kissed her, held her in his arms. There were no words of comfort that weren’t lies. Later she fell asleep, restlessly. I’m sure he was pushed, he thought, but I doubt if it can be proved. And in any case, does it matter? Set against Marguerite’s misery and the suffering that is to come, how can it matter? That fellow, ‘Marcel’ whoever he is, wherever he is, a killer, no doubt in my mind, but one who has protection. Unable to sleep, he eased himself out of bed and went to the kitchen to make coffee and wait for the dawn.
XV
For three months the PJ had been without a commissaire, and Lannes had been doing what should be his boss’s work as well as his own. Now came word of a new appointment, and it was necessary to have everything up-to-scratch before he arrived. Meanwhile Moncerre and young René had nothing worthwhile to report. Nobody would admit to having seen anyone entering the building where Cortazar had lived and been killed. ‘We’re banging our heads against a brick wall’; that was Moncerre’s opinion.
It had turned hot. The pavement cafés were crowded and at lunchtime the public garden was full of young people eating their sandwiches stuffed with cheese or jambon de Bayonne, talking and flirting. For them the war was still far away.
In the gloomy mansion in the rue d’Aviau it was as if it didn’t exist. Lannes apologised again for intruding on a house of mourning, and the old woman Marthe smiled sardonically. ‘They’re not mourning,’ she said, ‘they’re afraid of what lies ahead of them.’ Lannes explained that he would like to speak to the vicomte or rather, as he supposed, the new count. ‘It’s nothing related to his father’s death, you may tell him, another matter altogether.’ He would be glad if the count would spare him a few minutes.
‘I’ll see that he does. He’s g
ot naught else to do,’ she said, and showed Lannes into the study where he had twice met the old count and which still seemed redolent of his presence.
Naturally Jean-Christophe kept him waiting. He had his new dignity to think of. Lannes put his finger into the bird-cage and one of the canaries permitted him to scratch the back of its neck. He felt intolerably weary.
At last the door opened and Jean-Christophe appeared. He wore a black velvet smoking-jacket, a white ruffled shirt open at the neck, black and white checked trousers, and brown carpet slippers. His face was puffed and purple and he was sweating. Lannes again apologised for his intrusion and added that there was no indication his father’s death had been anything but accidental.
‘Well, I told you that,’ Jean-Christophe said, and settled himself in the old man’s chair.
How long had he looked forward to the day when he would be able to do that?
‘It’s another matter altogether.’
‘Another matter? I can think of none that concerns you that may concern me.’
‘You were a friend, I believe, of Gaston Chambolley?’
Jean-Christophe pursed his lips, but made no reply.
‘You will know of course of his murder.’
‘It was in the papers. I read what was there. A nasty business of course, but . . . yes, we were acquainted, “friends” is too strong, and it was not an acquaintance I had any interest in maintaining.’
‘But you had dealings with him recently.’
‘Not at all. Certainly not.’
‘So I am misinformed?’
‘Absolutely. Why should I have wished to renew out acquaintance. He had become disreputable, was received nowhere. He was known to be a degenerate, you see.’
Lannes took a copy of Gaston’s letter from his pocket, and slowly unfolded it.
‘I’m puzzled,’ he said. ‘You see, monsieur, I have here a letter which Gaston wrote to his brother in which he says that you promised to act as an intermediary between him and your brother Edmond in relation to investigations he was pursuing into the disappearance and probable death of his sister-in-law, Henri’s wife; and yet you now tell me you have had no dealings with him recently. How do you explain this?’
Jean-Christophe shifted from one buttock to another.
‘It’s obvious. He was lying.’
‘Someone is lying, certainly. But who? Policemen are accustomed to being told lies and so we develop a nose for what is true and for what isn’t. Now I can see no reason why Gaston should have lied to his brother.’
‘This is intolerable. It’s persecution. And impertinence. May I remind you of who I am; a person not without influence in this city.’
Lannes smiled.
‘Naturally, monsieur, you are at liberty to exert such influence as you may possess. But your own reputation is, apparently, not unblemished. Such things are taken into account. Did you in fact speak to Edmond?’
The sweat was now flowing on Jean-Christophe’s face. He shifted again in his chair, as if he might be suffering from piles.
‘You’ve no right to speak to me like this. In my own house too.’
‘If you prefer, we could conduct this conversation in my office.’
‘No, no. You’re bullying me. I can’t stand being bullied. I’ve got a weak heart.’
He began to snivel.
‘They do things to you in police stations, horrible things.’
Lannes waited.
‘All right then, I did speak to Edmond, which I don’t often because . . . it’s not my fault I am as I am. I suppose you despise me too.’
‘I despise nobody. But there’s been another death, you know. A friend of Gaston’s, a Spaniard in whom he had confided. He was tortured before he died. What did your brother say?’
The vicomte, now the count, moaned and placed his hand on his heart. Tears ran down his fat cheeks. Lannes crossed to the bookcase, pressed the panel, took out the bottle of brandy and poured two glasses. He gave one to Jean-Christophe.
‘Drink this and tell me. You’ll feel better when you do.’
He swallowed the brandy in one gulp, and shivered.
‘Edmond said to leave it to him and say nothing to anybody. How could I when I know nothing?’
‘Tell me about Marcel.’
‘I don’t know who you mean. It’s a common name.’
‘Common enough,’ Lannes said. ‘Not so common to smoke English cigarettes as this Marcel does.’
‘I don’t know who you mean or what you’re talking about.’
‘Think about it,’ Lannes said. ‘I’m not surprised you’re afraid. He’s a dangerous man, a killer. But I think you know that already.’
‘I don’t know anything, I tell you.You’re bullying me again. I’ll make a complaint, report you.’
‘Do that then. But speak to Edmond first, Speak to him about Marcel. Say I’m interested in him. At the moment, monsieur, you know too much and too little. You’ll be safer when you have told me everything.’
‘I can’t. I mean, I don’t know anything. Now please leave. You’re upsetting me and I have a weak heart. Any strain is bad for me. Please go away and leave me in peace.’
‘Speak to Edmond,’ Lannes said again.
XVI
April 28, 1940
Lannes accompanied Marguerite and Clothilde to morning Mass. He wasn’t a believer himself, had indeed been reared as an anticlerical, nevertheless now found himself grateful for his wife’s faith. The church of St Michel in the Place Canteloupe was packed. Prayers were said for ‘our men at the Front,’ our gallant poilus. The priest made sacrifice the theme of his homily. Lannes thought of his war, of priests and ministers of religion on either side of the struggle invoking the blessing of God. But the Nazis didn’t pray, did they – not to the Christian God? Lannes bowed his head and thought of Dominique who would himself perhaps at this very moment be kneeling in prayer. He took after his mother; Alain, the free-thinker who, when Marguerite wasn’t present, would call the clergy ‘croaking crows’, after him. The war news was bad. There was no doubt now that the British had been well beaten in Norway. ‘It’ll be our turn next’, the refrain on so many lips.
Afterwards they went to a brasserie in the Place des Victoires – ‘victories!’ he thought. Alain joined them. They ate the last oysters of the season and fried sole, which Marguerite rarely cooked because, she said, the smell hung around the apartment. Clothilde had her first ice-cream of the year. They didn’t talk about the war.
April 29, 1940
Lannes rose before six, sat drinking coffee in the kitchen, listened to the radio, found it intolerable, nevertheless felt Monday as a relief. He could bury himself in work, even if much that had piled up on his desk was of no real importance.
Before going to the office he made a detour to the café-tabac off the Place Gambetta. Miriam was behind the counter. She gave him his coffee, then a small glass of marc.
‘On the house,’ she said. ‘Or does that count as a bribe? Did you come to speak to me? If so . . . ’
She called on a slim dark girl of about sixteen, busy preparing sandwiches, to take charge of the bar, and she and Lannes retired to a table at the back of the little room.
‘My niece, Esther,’ she said, ‘my younger sister’s child, a good girl. But what a time to be a girl of that age!’
Lannes asked how her father was.
‘Poorly, very weak, I think he’s on his way out, though he may last for a bit. He’s tough, you know, has had to be.’
‘I’m sorry. You haven’t been back to the rue d’Aviau?’
‘No. Why should I? That part of my life’s over. There’s nothing for me there. I’ll have to attend the funeral of course, but, after that, I’m finished with the lot of them. Good riddance, they’ll say.’
She dropped two lumps of sugar into her milky coffee and said, ‘It really was an accident, I suppose?’
‘I’ve no reason to think otherwise. The old woman says there’s no money l
eft.’
‘I wouldn’t know, but she probably does. You may think me callous, but the fact is that I couldn’t care less what becomes of them.’
She smiled. Lannes, again, felt her attraction.
‘I’ve come home,’ she said. ‘Probably I should never have left. Almost twenty years of my life a sad mistake. Amusing, isn’t it? What do you want of me?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lannes said, ‘not exactly. When you were a child, did you ever play a game called “Blind Man’s Bluff?” Police work is like that, often. You grope about in the dark, touching things and trying to make sense of them. Why is Jean-Christophe afraid of his brother?’
‘Because he is what he is and Edmond is what he is. Isn’t that reason enough? Edmond has a tongue like a whip.’
‘There’s more to it than that, I think. Do you know a man called Marcel?’
‘Lots of them, it’s a common name.’
‘This one smokes English cigarettes.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. We don’t sell many of them here, you know. A dozen packets a week perhaps. You look tired and anxious.’
Lannes shook his head, sipped the marc which was fiery and invigorating.
‘This Marcel?’ she said, ‘what about him?’
‘He killed Gaston and another man, I’m sure of that. Him and a confederate who may be Spanish. That’s all I know. There’s no trace of him anywhere, but he’s guilty, I’ve no doubt. I had hoped you might know who he is. Something else. Why did your husband want to draw our attention to the rue’d’Aviau? Have you any idea?’
‘None at all, but I’ll tell you this. He was a wicked old thing, but in a strange way, he had a sense of honour. So, if there was something that made even him ashamed, well . . . I don’t know if that’s of any help.’
‘I don’t know. There are days when it seems nothing is.’
As for Marcel, Moncerre was probably right in thinking he was no longer in Bordeaux.
