It was just too much to bear sometimes.
It’s not that Tailler didn’t feel terrible for her. Obviously, he did.
Of course he did. He very much did.
The trouble was that little element of doubt.
He was also a cop, and this whole thing stank to high heaven.
Does the Pope eat fish on Friday?
He sure as hell does.
It’s just that simple sometimes.
Even a missing husband wasn’t enough to interfere with what was clearly a strong need to present a carefully-composed face to the world. Not for one such as Monique. In a way, it wasn’t very likeable. It was merely beautiful to look upon. Tailler knew he would never really understand.
He doubted if anyone ever had, but her hair was a silken cloud, her lips were ruby-red and her teeth still sparkled.
“Thank you for seeing us so promptly, Madame.” Hubert took off his hat and stepped over the threshold.
She led them into the salon. Tailler jumped right in with the questioning before she could properly get them seated. The two detectives remained standing as if time were precious, which it was, actually.
“Madame Godeffroy, we were wondering if Didier had a passport. He must have traveled outside of the country from time to time.” Tailler’s tone was pleasant.
The longer they could keep her mystified the better.
“But yes, of course.” She stood there in forlorn, hopeless beauty.
She had intuitively picked up a hint of something, right out of thin air.
They stared right back.
“Would you like me to get it for you?”
“Ah, yes, please. Really, it’s strictly routine, Madame.”
The lady turned and stepped out of the room. They could hear her rummaging in a desk or dresser in a room somewhere near the back, on this floor still.
There was a little flip of the guts when she came back and she had the passport in her hand.
They desperately tried not to let on. Tailler nodded encouragingly.
Tailler extended his hand and she gave it up readily enough. He took a quick look at it, various dates and stamps going by in a blur as he riffled through the pages. Monsieur Godeffroy had been to Italy six or seven weeks previously. Nothing unexpected.
“If you don’t mind, we’d like to hang onto this for a while.” Tailler uttered a deep sigh. “Monique. I’m afraid we might have some bad news for you. And yet we don’t really know. In such matters, it is always best to be sure.”
She looked like a scared rabbit.
He slid the passport into his right-hand jacket pocket as her eyes followed.
Her hand went up to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock, and somehow she knew—just like the other one, Lucinde.
She knew.
“It’s Didier.”
“We don’t know that for sure, Madame.” Hubert to the rescue, but there were only so many ways they could play it.
Tailler pulled out the morgue photo, their best one, and showed it to her.
She gave a quick sob, and then slowly subsided onto the couch.
Tailler turned abruptly, going to the window. He put his hands behind his back, striking a pose of commanding rigidity.
He’d been sort of wondering how to act.
This would have to do.
Hubert settled down beside her, knees close to hers and taking her lovely hand into his own. Those lush, curving eyelashes batted back tears. Her scent washed over him.
“This is very hard for you. But we need to have someone, someone who knows Didier very well, to come down and have a look at the body. Honestly, we can’t even really say if it is Didier—your husband. There’s no identification. The trouble is, Monique, that it might be, and we really need to know for sure. You’re the only one that can help us.”
Tailler turned, sighing again, as Monique Godeffroy’s face fell into her hands and those lovely shoulders with their perfect, bird-like bones, heaved and shook with the shock and the grief.
With a look at Tailler, biting his lip and kind of hating himself for that moment, Hubert reached over and put an arm around the lady.
“It’s all right. Just take all the time you need.”
She wept, falling over against him and there wasn’t much either one of them could do about that. He had a left hand so he brought that one up as well.
He had to admit, it was stimulating.
“There, there.”
Tailler’s guts were tight. There was such a thing as duty. Unpleasant as that might be sometimes.
“We have a car waiting outside, Madame Godeffroy. Is there someone we could call for you?” The lady was dressed well enough, he suggested rather gruffly, as if overcome with his own emotions.
It might even be true.
“We could call a friend. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Tailler was all mixed up inside, at least to a certain extent. It wasn’t easy for any of them, but they still didn’t know. Telling her that seemed to help, for she sat up again.
Hubert patted her wrist.
“We really don’t know. We really do need your help.”
She looked at poor Hubert with tears streaking her mascara and leaving two big trails down her cheeks.
“Thank you, gentlemen. I shall be quite all right.” The lady would do her best.
Hubert stood as Tailler turned and headed for the front hallway.
“Okay. Let’s see about finding you a coat.” Some kind of a hat, maybe.
***
“It’s not him.” The lady sniffled, then her face turned and there was this look.
“What?”
She smiled. Teeth showed. She giggled and sniffled some more.
The lady sagged in relief.
“Are you sure about that?”
She turned and had another look.
“Oh, God. Poor man—but no. It’s not him. This is not my Didier.”
The two detectives regarded each other, as if in a state of mild astonishment.
“Okay, well. Huh. Well. What do you know?” Tailler was making an ass of himself and he came to a full stop.
“If the lady says it’s not him, then it’s not him.” For a minute, it looked as if Doctor Auger was going to shake Monique’s hand.
As it was, he gave a quick, odd little bow. Then he stood at ease, hands behind his back.
He had all kinds of experience dealing with this sort of thing. The detectives were caught a bit flatfooted.
He crossed his arms and gave them a happy nod.
So. What are you going to do about it?
Hubert, and especially Tailler, were relative newcomers to the game.
“Oh, thank God. It’s not him. Huh.” Hubert took her arm. “Terribly sorry about all of this. Madame Godeffroy. Thank you so much for helping us out. Uh, huh. I guess we’d better get you home, eh?”
She turned, hugging herself in the cold and the damp, still looking at the man on the slab. The sheet was drawn down only enough to show the face.
“Tell me something, Madame.” Tailler figured it couldn’t hurt to press a little.
She was still giddy with the relief, and for whatever reason, perhaps disappointment, he couldn’t quite help it.
“Yes?”
She stopped and waited, Hubert right there, standing at her side. He regarded her with clouded, questioning eyes.
“Does this gentleman look anything like your husband? Didier? Anything at all. I mean. He’s the spitting image, at least in our opinion, in the photographs and such.”
She took a step back again. She looked at that cold, dead, waxen face, eyes mercifully closed.
“Oh, yes, I can see why you wondered—there really is a resemblance. But that’s not my Didier.”
Auger gave a subdued nod. That seemed clear enough. You couldn’t really do much better than that.
Tailler bit his lip.
He looked at Hubert.
“Okay. It looks like we are ou
t of here.” He turned and gave the Doctor a quick and rueful grin. “We’ll give you a call. Thank you for all of your patience.”
“Not at all, my dear boy. It’s why they keep me around, after all.” He gave one last look at Madame.
They weren’t exactly messing about with that one, were they? The door was slow on its double-sprung hinges. Their voices faded off down the hallway.
“…we’re so terribly sorry, Madame. We know how very upsetting this must be, and we thank you for your forbearance…”
He could still hear their footsteps.
Her response was muffled and indistinct, but there were only so many things she could say. His gut twitched and he snorted gently, careful not to be overhead by a sensitive public. The door touched the frame and the latches clicked into position. He could go back to being himself again, a true scientist, for only then was he happy.
It was in the nature of his job, but he was always the last one to find out why.
As an expert examiner, giving testimony in court, he had always managed to keep a special kind of detachment. It didn’t pay to get too involved. He was not paid to speculate.
All he ever did was look at the body and write a report. He read it back in court and then answered questions as best he could.
That’s it. Job done.
He had to wait until it was in the paper just to find out what really happened.
There was more here than met the eye.
Thoughtfully, he covered the face of their anonymous victim, and put the poor fellow away again.
With an internal monologue that never seemed to shut up, Dr. Auger was never lonely.
Chapter Seventeen
“Once more into the breach, dear friends.” Tailler was frankly tiring of long train rides.
The countryside was, if anything, prettier than the last time through.
The train rumbled along a valley, low hills on each side sprinkled with autumn wildflowers and vineyards, grain and cattle. It was all very well. The streams were picturesque.
Big deal.
“That’s all right. I could use the sleep.” Hubert squirmed and scrunched down in his seat, trying to get comfortable.
He would probably feel like hell when he woke up, cramped and uncomfortable as it was. But the thoughts of a nap were insidious, and there were only so many things to see out the window, so many things to talk about.
He was about done talking and more than anything, thinking about the case.
“What do you think of that woman in the Rive Gauche? Love, Didier. Seriously. And that knife wound—I’ll bet it matches the one from Gilles’ mystery man.” Tailler’s fingers sought the confiscated blade in his pocket, but they were convinced the weapon had been more like a stiletto.
As soon as they got back, Tailler planned on putting two reports side by side and comparing them—the knife wounds in (or of) their decedents sure sounded like the same killer.
A short blade might have reached the heart if it was really pounded into the body. There were no signs of bruising around the wound, according to the Inspector. This was true in both cases. The trouble was he couldn’t quite recall the exact wording, and two different doctors had examined two different victims.
Hubert heaved a deep sigh.
“Leave it alone, Emile. I’m sure there is a very logical, perfectly innocent explanation for all of this.”
“Yeah, sure there is—the guy faked his own death, got up and ran away after Maintenon falls on him, boots off to Lyon for a quick weekend with the second wife. Then it’s off to Bordeaux to buy and sell a few hundred thousand bottles of the finest.” Tailler stared out the window, glad the sun was on the other side of the carriage now. “And then, a quick nip back to town to shove a knife in some blonde lady’s guts. Pop in, see the wife, have dinner, bang her once or twice—and then it’s off he goes again.” He gave Hubert a look. “Nah. I could never happen.”
“Not without a motive, Emile—and the explanation is a lot simpler than that.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is then?”
Hubert gave a disgusted snort.
“Because I don’t know what it is yet, dummy.”
Hubert turned, wriggling and cursing lightly
He managed to get curled up on his left side. His legs contracted, bending at the knees, and it seemed as if he was really going to do it.
“You can’t sleep like that.”
“Not with you talking I can’t.”
That seemed logical enough.
***
“The first thing we do is ask about the passport.”
Tailler nodded.
“Got you.”
Reaching out, he rang the bell and they patiently waited. They had called ahead before leaving Paris. Lucinde was expecting them. That had been a tough call, and they had argued about it, whether to call ahead or make it a surprise visit. She knew they were from Paris and they could hardly say they were just in the neighbourhood. You never really knew what to do sometimes.
It was a good thirty seconds before there was a response.
“Yes?”
“Detectives Tailler and Hubert—”
Hubert cuffed him on the shoulder and he shut up abruptly.
“Oh, yes. Please come up.” The door latch clicked and the pair stumped up to the third floor landing where there was a small, neatly kept lobby and three doors.
She was door number three.
On their light knock, the door opened and the lady let them in.
“Please come in, gentlemen.”
A short hall led them into the salon.
Lucinde stopped to formally greet them.
“Hello. How are you.”
They made the usual social noises and then settled down to more serious matters.
She took a seat on the sofa, and Tailler studied her intently. Lucinde was not totally grief-stricken, yet she was definitely an unhappy person. The burden that she bore, in the disappearance of her alleged husband, would be hard enough on anyone. To her perceptions, Didier would be everything to her. The effect on her, try as she might, was profound. Her face, with its softness and roundness of countenance, beautiful only a couple of days before, had become drawn, haggard, with long lines bracketing the mouth. If only he could peer past superficialities and see into their heads sometimes. Her eyes were a shocking blue. He’d noticed that before.
“Well. Now that you’re sitting down—” No, that was wrong, thought Hubert.
This was no time for levity.
“Please don’t be alarmed, Lucinde. But we have some information for you, ah, maybe. We need your help. This might be a very great shock.”
“It’s Didier. He’s dead—isn’t he?”
They had been sort of expecting this.
“No—no, please don’t think that way.” Tailler had been regretting such cruelties lately.
Emile had wondered if he was really cut out for the job, not so much the tragedy as the duplicity. Tailler opened the envelope and took out a thick wad of photographs. That’s when he remembered, or appeared to. Maddeningly, he hung onto the pictures as she stared at the package in his hands.
“Oh. I almost forgot. Does your husband have a passport?” He cleared his throat. “It’s just that, ah, we were wondering at the possibility of him leaving the country.”
She nodded.
“Yes, of course.” She looked at Hubert, wide-eyed and innocent.
She stared at the photographs again, from a few metres away.
“Where does he keep it? If it’s there, at least it limits our search to Metropolitan France, and, er, ah, overseas departments.”
“But of course.” She rose, as gracefully as ever, smoothing her skirt in the most unconscious way.
Tailler waited until she was halfway to the bedroom door. He set the materials down. Emile got up and followed along. Assuming it was there, he was prepared to practically grab it out of her hands.
The thing was, if Didier Godeffroy was a kill
er—and there was no real way of calculating the odds of that, they didn’t want the bugger to get away.
He rounded the last corner.
“Ah.” The lady stooped slightly and pulled out the top drawer of the desk.
He came up beside her.
Tailler’s mouth opened. There was a passport book lying right there along with a few other documents. Chequebooks, et cetera.
“Please don’t touch that, Madame.”
She froze in the act of reaching for it.
“Monsieur.”
“I’m sorry, Madame, I really am.” He turned and raised his voice. “Hubert.”
“I’m right here.”
“What…is it?” She stared, hand up to her throat, her face pale. “Something terrible has happened.”
Hubert came closer.
“My friend.” Tailler took out a small camera from his side jacket pocket.
He set that down on the bedspread for a moment as Tailler led her away to a corner. Throwing the curtains wide, he made a big show of pulling on clean white cotton gloves. He used a pencil to pull the drawer a little further open. Hubert turned on the bedside light, pulling it forward to the edge of the table to throw a little more light in there.
He carefully snapped a dozen shots, all bullshit of course, but it had the desired effect of totally mystifying Lucinde.
Theoretically.
Hubert put the camera away and Tailler dramatically stepped forward with the envelope.
Hubert lifted out one…no. Two passports.
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Do you have a passport, Madame? One would assume so, am I right?”
She nodded, staring at the offending drawer. Hers was in there too. He slipped that out and had a quick look.
“We went on a cruise—”
“Oh, how lovely.”
“Did you and your husband ever fight? Did he ever threaten to leave you, anything like that?” Tailler’s voice was calm and cool, and it was just sufficiently distracting.
Tailler put an arm around her as Hubert, head down and seemingly intent, blocked their view with his own backside. He took a quick look before stuffing both passports into the envelope.
He didn’t let her see that part and he slid the drawer closed decisively. She looked puzzled but not frightened. He made her watch as he licked and sealed the tab, and then he and Tailler signed their names across the flap. They got her initials on there too. It was all nice and voluntary.
Speak Softly My Love Page 14
