Much later, the shrilling of the telephone would wake him. They’d found a girl in one of the bedrooms who matched the description he’d given, and disposed of the others when they came shouting. And André would have said, Yes, fine. He had never known I had a sister.
I wandered away, towards the river, and went down the steps to the quais.
Under the bridge was a fire set alight in an old container, and men and women huddled round. I thought I saw Monsieur Z; I thought he waved; but I was too tired to do anything other than shoulder my way in and curl up amongst the other bodies.
When I opened my eyes it was dark. The moon was a full white coin, and Camille was lying next to me. Her face was as cool and smooth as a child’s.
She pursed her lips when I put a finger to her face, and pulled back.
I asked: Did the men leave a sign by which I can find them? I could go to the law.
She shook her head.
Then how should we get revenge?
Her glance wavered down to fix on my shoulder; then back to my face.
We lay for a while opposite each other, listening to the shouts of a fight breaking out amongst the people further down the row. She shook her arm out as if it had given her pins and needles.
Where you are – what’s it like?
She did a mock-shiver, drawing an invisible shawl around her ears.
Juliette, vii.
When I arrive at the archive, my things have been left out on my desk overnight, the papers arranged in exactly the same order.
There are three articles in the press about the fire; Le Figaro, Le Temps and Le Petit Parisien. They all agree that the fire started about seven o’clock in the morning, in Building J, which was used by certain of the editors. The fire spread rapidly to the surrounding buildings; within minutes the factory was evacuated. Apart from that there is nothing of interest. All of them attribute the blaze to an accident.
Then I turn to the folder marked ‘Witness Statements’ and a set of papers slip out. I scan them for the Préfecture de Police stamp, and don’t see it; flip back to the front sheet and see writing in a tiny, crabbed hand: Property of Internal Security – Pathé Factory. If found, please return to Building I.
The typewriter ink on the first statement has faded to pale blue.
REY Edouard
Security guard – day Shift
At seven o’clock on 8 January, I was alerted to the fire by a member of my patrol and we went straight to Building J where we saw that the fire had only recently taken hold. We immediately gave the order to evacuate the entire factory.
The largest quantity of smoke issued from the south-west corner of the building, which an editor tells me is where he stores his completed masters, ready to be collected and sent off for duplication.
I did not see anyone in the immediate vicinity of the building.
PHILIBERT Marc
Guard – Night Shift
On my rounds at a quarter to seven I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I was unable to check the door because I had lent my key out the previous night to a director, but I observed that it was fastened and there was no evidence of disturbance.
I proceeded on my way, returning to my cabin at five minutes to seven, and was roused from my cabin by shouts, at which point I made my way to Building J to see a sheet of yellow flame.
In summary, I did not see anything unusual that day. I cannot think of anyone who would want to start the fire deliberately.
There are no more witness statements: just a folder marked ‘Photographs’. But when I open the folder, only one print slips onto the desk.
Black and white grins: three lines of men formally posed, in front of the wall of a building. The front two rows are young men, lolling about in overalls and caps. Behind them is a row of five starchier looking, older men in dark suits and ties. Underneath is a date: 7. janvier 1914. Pathé directors and juniors enjoying a break at the factory.
I press my thumbs to my eyelids until the shapes appear.
Testimony of M. le Docteur HARBLEU
Q. […] you were the physician called by Sergeant Moreau to the gendarmerie on the afternoon of 8. janvier?
A. Correct.
Q. And your findings were?
A. I saw a young female of between fifteen and twenty years in age. Her records were not on file and she confirmed she came from a small parish near Toulouse where written certification was sparse. She gave her name as Adèle Roux, 17.
Q. The wound?
A. Was clean in appearance, from a small-calibre handgun, from a short distance. The victim had been extremely fortunate; the bullet had passed within an inch of the upper left lung, and exited behind the shoulder. The arm hung from its socket – that is to say, the arm’s motor function was naturally impaired – but the victim was able to walk and talk. There was no sepsis. I would say the wound was a day or two old, at best. In short, if one had aimed the bullet precisely it would have been hard to do less permanent damage.
Q. What was your impression of Mlle Roux?
A. She let me look at her without fuss. If she felt pain on examination she did not show it.
Q. Did she say anything to you?
A. I asked her who had done it and she said ‘M. Durand of Pathé; and his wife.’ When I asked her what she meant, she became agitated, and asked for someone to fetch the police inspector […]
André, vi.
Inspector Japy blows smoke at the façade of André Durand’s house.
It is a fine morning, with an improbable seasonal change in the air: the turf underfoot feels springy for the first time in months; white strips of cloud hurry across the sky. In front of the house, a chauffeur is playing a hose over the bonnet of a grey Daimler.
Go careful, Japy’s superior had begged, sweating in his over-hot office. Just find out if the girl worked for them, then find out why she ran away, or whatever it was: end of story. His boss had dusted his hands of an imaginary embarrassment.
Japy had smiled sleepily. He’d reached the door before his boss had cracked: Japy! Absolutely no mesmerism! Understand?
The chauffeur looks up at his approach, flat feet crunching over gravel, and frowns: ‘Can I help?
‘Is M. Durand at home?’
The chauffeur blinks at Japy’s stained grey overcoat. ‘Can I help?’
‘You could show me in.’
Japy senses some petty infraction in this man’s past – his hands tremble as he drops the hosepipe on the ground.
‘Of course,’ the chauffeur says, overly keen to please, and leads him towards the great front door.
A tapestry which wants to be the Lady and the Unicorn hangs in the hallway, next to an ostentatious hat stand. Japy fingers the tapestry as he passes: cheap Flemish wool, coarse in its modernity.
The chauffeur is sending anxious little glances back at him, hovering a few paces ahead, calling for the butler. Japy looks at the stairway, vast and curled.
A tall man appears at the end of the corridor.
Japy smiles. ‘M. Durand, please.’
The man isn’t used to being bossed about; all the more reason to do it, so when he starts to say, ‘Do you have an appointment?’ Japy changes the tenor of his smile, just lowers the temperature fractionally, and says, ‘No.’
‘I’m afraid it won’t be possible for you to see him today.’
No flies on this one: a past whiter than white, in a monastery possibly. The chauffeur is hanging back, on the edge of disappearing to safety.
‘Inspector Japy,’ Japy says, producing a crumpled visiting card.
The butler takes it; says: ‘Your cigarette.’
‘What?’
‘Is dropping ash on the carpet.’
The butler goes upstairs. A minute passes. Japy grinds his cigarette stub into an imitation High Flemish ashtray and stands back on his heels to wait.
Another minute; then a door closes upstairs, and André Durand is loping down the stairs to meet him.
‘Inspector J
apy? Follow me,’ and leads him into a salon, where he makes sure to pull out the best chair for his guest; sits on the sofa opposite, running his hand through his hair. ‘So, what’s this about?’
Japy nods to a vase on the mantel. ‘Surely that’s First Dynasty?’
‘I believe so. It’s from my wife’s family.’
‘In my spare time, I am something of an antiques enthusiast. One always recognises quality.’
‘A second string to your bow.’
‘Oh, but I don’t consider it a secondary pursuit. Are you familiar with the lectures given by Commander Darget on the topic of magnetic effluvia?’
Durand shifts his weight in his chair. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘By which all objects emit – if you will – a sacred emanation, an ectoplasm indicating the history of their displacements? Imagine if a detective were able to interpret the secret signs of a gun used in a murder? Trace the path of the bullet, faintly glowing, through the air? Imagine what tales that vase would tell us if it could!’ He pauses, hand held dramatically in front of him, for just long enough to see Durand’s lip twitch at the corner. ‘No, M. Durand, my interest in objects is of the order of the professional.’
Durand’s whole body is relaxed, legs lolling apart at the knees; his voice, correspondingly, is a purr. ‘And has this effluvia led you to many convictions?’
‘Not yet, Monsieur,’ Japy says, ‘but one lives in hope. What can you tell me about a Mademoiselle Adèle Roux?’
‘Mlle Roux was my wife’s assistant, until a few days ago,’ he says.
‘It is only that Mlle Roux has made some allegations against you and your wife.’
‘What sort of allegations?’
‘She has been very badly hurt, and claims you are responsible.’
‘But that’s preposterous.’ Durand gets to his feet. ‘If anything, we are the injured party. Mlle Roux ran away a few days ago, leaving us in a fix for our domestic position. Not to mention the worry we naturally felt for her wellbeing.’
Japy thinks: You have prepared even this little speech.
‘What has happened to her, then?’ Durand asks.
‘She has been shot through the arm. You understand the position. We are bound over to investigate where possible.’
‘Shot? Dear me,’ Durand says. ‘Are you sure? She was such a demure little person.’ He pinches his own lip, thinking. ‘A boyfriend, perhaps, someone we didn’t know about.’
‘She will recover.’
‘So glad.’ He sits on the sofa. ‘But I must admit to feeling very poorly used in all this. To accuse us…!’ One hand goes to shade his forehead.
Japy reaches inside his coat for a notepad. ‘Would you mind telling me how she left?’
‘It was two days ago. We simply came back and found her gone.’
‘When you say, you found her gone…’
‘Suitcase, clothes, everything. Nobody saw her leave.’
Japy raises his hands to heaven. ‘My dear sir! A mesmerist’s dream!’
‘Pardon?’
‘You have only to show me to the lady’s chamber, and there I will concentrate my mind and observe the trails left by the missing objects. That will certainly give us a clue to the nature of the mystery.’
He stands, flipping the notepad shut, beaming. Durand starts, as if unsure if this is a joke. ‘Is this a joke?’ he says.
‘I assure you it is quite real.’
Durand pushes the bedroom door open. Japy smiles politely, shoulders past him and looks at the second-rate furniture, the old paint on the shutters, which have been flung wide to air the room.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘oh yes, I can see we are going to have some success here.’
He stands in the centre of the room, pinches middle finger to thumb on each hand and lowers his head.
‘Yes, it was this way,’ he murmurs to himself, a moment later, walking swiftly to the door. ‘The valise went this way. I can see it. And down towards the stairs, yes, like so.’
He crosses to the landing and starts to descend. Durand waits, arms folded, and then follows him.
Japy leads him all the way back to the ground floor, and hovers in the hallway. The butler has appeared at the sound of footsteps and stands disapproving at the back of the hall.
‘Almost,’ Japy says through clenched teeth. ‘Almost…’
With a swift movement he runs to the great front door and yanks it open, and stands, sniffing the morning air.
Behind him, he hears a cough of laughter.
‘Almost…’ he says again, seems to deflate, then rallies, turning to his audience, which by now includes the chauffeur and a footman he hasn’t seen before.
‘No?’ Durand says.
‘I can sense, definitely so, that she came this way carrying her valise. She left the house, as you told us, through the front door. Everything happened just as you said, Monsieur.’
Durand’s nostrils flare. ‘You will go back to your superiors and they will, they will give your report the credit it deserves?’
Japy: ‘They take me very seriously indeed.’
Durand stretches out a hand. ‘So pleased to have made your acquaintance, Inspector. I hope we meet again in better circumstances.’
Japy shakes the hand gravely. ‘At your service, Monsieur.’
He waits until he is striding down the gravel path, has waved once, twice to Durand and his huddled staff; then turns back. ‘One last thing.’ He starts to walk back towards the house. ‘Might I ask the privilege of seeing round behind, to admire the rear elevation? One never gets to see these fine old houses from the back.’
Durand smiles. There is nothing behind the smile except perhaps another smile, repeating ad infinitum into the distance. ‘Of course,’ he says.
Japy ducks his head appreciatively. ‘And the girl’s effects? They were taken with her?’
Confident: ‘Yes.’
‘You’re quite sure she took everything?’
A flicker: ‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’ Japy turns and starts to walk around to the side of the house. There is the house wall on the left and then a narrow alley about four metres wide, then on the right a stone wall three metres high, which separates the house from the old stables next door. The space is not much used: nettles and high grass. At the end, sunlight, and a glimpse of a manicured lawn.
He must work fast now: he picks his way over the uneven ground, scanning the grass. The bonfire smell he first noted coming through the girl’s bedroom window: is it stronger here, or here? Invisible trails hang in the air before him, leading him into the alley.
Halfway down, he destroys a dandelion clock with a single kick and squats to part the long grass. Sure enough, a cloud of little ash ribbons flies up at his face. On the ground in front of him are blackened chunks of suitcase leather; you can make out the remains of a handle, and brass studs, which of course did not ignite, lying in a little heap to one side.
He reaches for the handle, and turns it over. There is the silver back of a hairbrush, the bristles burnt away. And underneath that, a sodden lump of half-burnt paper is nestled in the grass. He picks it up, looks at the faded velvet ribbon tying the bottom half of the letters into their charred bundle. Holds them up to the light.
Only the top half of the page remains, written on with a crabbed, cramped hand, on paper so fine as to be almost transparent.
3. juin 1913. Dear Adèle…
At the other end of the alleyway, the light is suddenly blocked. It’s the butler: white-faced, sent to pre-empt the discovery, but too late.
Japy scoops the burnt offerings of the girl’s suitcase into his handkerchief and pockets them.
The butler is still waiting. His lips quivering as if he wants to speak, but in the end there is nothing to say.
Juliette, viii.
PHILIBERT Marc
Guard – Night Shift
On my rounds at a quarter to seven I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I was unable to check the do
or because I had lent my key out the previous night to a director, but I observed that it was fastened and there was no evidence of disturbance.
The archivist threads her way between the filing cabinets and bookshelves towards me. I point to Marc Philibert’s statement. ‘Would it have been normal for a security guard to lend a key to a director?’
She peers. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Security was very tight. They didn’t want anyone stealing their ideas.’
I say: ‘Edouard Rey, the day guard, says that there was no break-in. So whoever got in must have had access. And Philibert mentions that a director borrowed his key the night before.’
She frowns. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Something else. Isn’t it strange that there are only a few witness statements, and just this photo – no others? It’s as if someone’s looked into the dossier already.’
We look together at the photograph. ‘Do you know who any of these people are? The directors, I mean? The ones in the back row?’
She scans the print. ‘No. We do have some material from the bigger name directors, but I don’t recognise any of them.’
She drums her fingers on the desk. ‘But there’s someone who might know. His name is Rinaldi. I think he was at Pathé back in the day. He’s a professor of modern cinema now. He lives just outside Paris.’
4. avril 1914
THE HALL WAS LINED with eager faces in police uniform – every able-bodied man from colonel to private must have turned out to see the show – and from beyond the large, closed double doors to the gendarmerie came a sound like the baying of fairy-tale wolves.
My lawyer Denis Poperin – a thin, serious youth with a consumptive death rattle – took my forearms in his hands and looked at me.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
I nodded. He reached up and pulled the veil I was wearing down over my face.
He nodded to the youngest police officer, who removed the bar and opened the doors.
I saw the street crammed with people, all faces turned towards me. Half of them had notepads; one enterprising soul had set up a camera; a blinding flash of light caught me with my arm half across my face. The crowd surged forward and the police guard pushed them back. A car purred twenty metres down the street, surrounded by a ring of policemen.
Petite Mort Page 21
