For the King (38 page)

He settled behind a tree, about one hundred paces away from her, well within the range of his gun. With his spectacles, he could easily hit a target at this distance. He was no expert marksman, but his hand was steady and his nerves never failed him.

This was uncannily easy. Limoëlan, to avoid making any noise, had taken the precaution of fitting the compressed-air reservoir and loading the bullet magazine before leaving the crypt of Church of Saint-Laurent. He dropped to his knee on the humid, soft soil. He aimed at his leisure and was ready to shoot when he heard a man’s voice to his left. Now he could guess at a figure, half hidden by a tree. Not an easy enough target.

“Blanche, what are you doing here?” shouted the man. “Run! Run away!”

She turned in the direction of the voice, and seemed to hesitate whether to leave the pier. She walked a yard or two, then stopped.

“Blanche, come to me,” pleaded the voice. “Don’t let him kill you. Please.”

Blanche began to run towards the bank. Soon she would reach her lover and the protection of the trees. The man himself had left his position and was headed in Blanche’s direction. With a little luck Limoëlan could kill them both, one after the other. A slight breeze pushed a wisp of fog between him and his targets. No matter, he could still guess at their positions. He pulled the trigger. There was no explosion, no fire, no smoke, only a whizzing sound, repeated half a dozen times.

But Limoëlan did not see whether he had hit his targets. All of a sudden he went blind. The pain in the socket of his right eye was so sharp that he dropped his gun.

“Right ’ere, Citizen Chief Inspector!” cried an unknown voice, high-pitched and croaky. “I nailed the bastard!”

Limoëlan put his hand up to his eye. A warm gush of blood was running down his cheek. He staggered and fell to his side. Running footsteps were getting closer and closer.

60

R
och had heard the whistling of the bullets, but the bank of the river remained hidden in mist. From the spot where he had last seen Blanche no noise was coming, not a cry, not a moan, not a whimper, not a splash in the water. She must have moved in time. As for Limoëlan, there was no telling what had happened to him. Certainly he was not shooting anymore, and the odd voice resembled that of Pépin. Roch headed cautiously in its direction. He could not go to Blanche until he was assured that Limoëlan no longer posed a threat.

Roch breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Pépin, holding a slingshot and kicking a prostrate Limoëlan in the belly. The man was doubled over in pain, his spectacles were missing and blood was smeared over the right side of his face.

“Enough, Pépin,” said Roch. “Now grab the gentleman’s gun and watch him for a moment.”

Roch ran back towards the pier. Another gust of wind tore at the wall of fog. He dreaded seeing at any moment something white lying there. Blanche wounded, in pain, dying. But no, all he could see was the planks of the pier and the sandy soil of the banks. She had disappeared as fast, as silently as an apparition, and he wondered whether his eyes had not deceived him.

Roch walked back to Pépin, who was standing, air gun in hand, next to Limoëlan. The man, curled up on his side, his eyes closed, was clutching his belly. That sight infuriated Roch.

“I will take this, Pépin, if you don’t mind,” he said, seizing the gun.

Limoëlan started at the sound of Roch’s voice and rolled over onto his back. He blinked. Roch pointed the gun at Limoëlan’s face. The man probably could not see anything without his spectacles, but he recoiled from the heat of the barrel on his cheek.

“Yes, bastard,” said Roch, “this is your gun. Now, tell me, how many bullets have we left in this thing? I’d say at least a dozen. And we aren’t in any hurry, are we? Nice and slow, one at a time. Where do you think I should begin? The stomach? Or the bowels? Or maybe the groin?”

“Have mercy,” whispered Limoëlan.

“Mercy? What mercy? Mercy on Blanche when you tried to kill her a moment ago? On those poor people on Rue Nicaise? Now let’s be serious. Give me one reason not to kill you, piece of filth.”

Limoëlan opened his mouth, but could utter only a rattling sound.

“None comes to mind, apparently,” said Roch.

Roch pushed the barrel of the gun into Limoëlan’s belly and was ready to shoot. The man let out a croaking cry. “Wait! I can help you save your father.”

Roch had not expected this. His heart was pounding.

“Your father . . .” continued Limoëlan. “Fouché sent him to jail, did he not?”

“How do you know that? Through Bachelot, that traitor?”

“Yes. My father too was in jail, before he was guillotined. I couldn’t save him.” Limoëlan paused to swallow. “Fouché has no intention of letting your father go. You know that, don’t you?”

“You are lying to save your skin, bastard,” cried Roch. He was breathing hard. The worst was that Limoëlan might be right. What incentive could Fouché have to release Old Miquel now? Gratitude? Keeping his word?

“Listen to me,” said Limoëlan, “and then tell me if I sound like a liar. Fouché asked my mother to arrange a meeting with me. That was three weeks before the attack.”

“‘I already knew that. He asked you to betray your friends?”

“No. He seemed to know all about them already. He . . . he asked me to put him in touch with George, and with the King’s government in London. He wants to remain Minister of Police once the King is restored.”

Roch held his breath. Was it out of character for Fouché to plot such a thing? Certainly not.

“I see,” said Roch. “Fouché looks the other way while you kill Bonaparte and, as a reward, he gets to keep his position. And what did you do?”

“I wrote George, of course.”

“And what had George to say about it?”

“He forwarded Fouché’s offers to London.”

“Did George put this in writing?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that letter?”

“Do you think I carry George’s letters in my pockets? I burned them all at the time of Francis’s arrest.”

Roch looked down at Limoëlan. The barrel of the gun had left a reddish burn on the man’s cheek.

“Then this is worthless. There’s no proof of what you are telling me. Better think of another story. Fast.”

Limoëlan blinked a few times. “Wait. Miquel! If you kill me, you will lose any proof of Fouché’s dealings with George. You will be the only man left in Paris to know about that, and it won’t put you in a very enviable position, will it? Do you think Fouché would hesitate for a moment to rid himself of you if you were the last witness against him? And where would that leave your father?”

Roch pushed the gun deeper into Limoëlan’s stomach. “You are right,” said Roch. “Better arrest you. Get to your feet, I am taking you to the Prefecture.”

“That won’t work either for you. If you arrest me, I will reveal everything I know about Fouché to the Prefect in exchange for immunity. I need not tell you what that means. Dubois hates Fouché and will have him arrested for treason. Now I understand the Prefect is no friend of yours, is he? You will be dismissed, and your father will be tried before some Military Commission. So, Miquel, as much as you hate the idea, you need me alive, and free.”

Roch was torn apart. He was Chief Inspector Miquel, one of the upper functionaries of the Prefecture of Police, a man whose paramount duty it was to arrest the assassins and prevent them from killing again. But there was a different Roch, the son of Old Miquel. And Old Miquel, unlike the Rue Nicaise victims, could still be saved. Roch the policeman had lost many of his illusions over the past few weeks. Had his superiors, Fouché and Dubois, displayed any integrity? Of course if Roch let Limoëlan go now, he would be guilty of the same dereliction of duty.

“Listen, Miquel,” continued Limoëlan, “if you let me go, I give you my word of honor that I will flee to Brittany, and from there to England. You will never hear of me again.”

“Or you might come back to Paris someday and kill again.”

“I gave you my word of honor.”

“Assassins like you have no word, and no honor.”

Roch’s heart was racing. Rage almost choked him, but now was the time to think clearly for Old Miquel’s sake.

“Pépin, go look for the gentleman’s spectacles,” he said.

Pépin walked around and soon brandished them with a cry of triumph.

“He won’t see too good with’m, though,” the boy said as he showed Roch the spectacles. One of the glasses had been shattered and sparkled like diamonds in the glow of the streetlights.

“Oh, better these than nothing. Give them to him. We wouldn’t want him to hurt himself, would we?” Roch spat in Limoëlan’s face. “Now run,” he hissed.

Limoëlan rose slowly, watching Roch through his only intact eyeglass.

“Run, carrion, before I change my mind.”

Limoëlan turned around very fast and disappeared into the night.

61

“
S
o you let the vermin go, Sir, after he tried to kill you and Madame Coudert,” said Pépin, a twinge of disappointment in his voice.

“I had no choice.”

Roch was twisting in his pocket Blanche’s last letter. Again she had slipped away when she had seemed so close. Yet to her too Limoëlan’s escape was good news. If Francis and Saint-Régent persisted in protecting her, she might not even be suspected. Roch himself did not intend to reveal her part in the conspiracy.

It was Blanche who had in fact led him, unwittingly or deliberately, to all three men in stallholder jackets. She had informed Francis’s sister of the short man’s presence at the Convent, which had indirectly caused his niece Madeleine to reveal his hiding place. Then Blanche had betrayed Saint-Régent. Now she had risked her life to allow Roch to capture Limoëlan. Had she hoped to find an escape from her troubles and sorrows in death? Roch clenched his fists at the thought that he had let Limoëlan escape, but that very escape, hopefully, would secure Old Miquel’s freedom. Yes, what mattered now was the fate of Old Miquel.

Roch shook himself out of his thoughts. “Let’s talk about you, Pépin. I haven’t thanked you yet. Let me do so.” Roch put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I wish to express my deepest gratitude for your help.”

Pépin smiled proudly. “I aimed good, eh, Citizen Chief Inspector? Right in his spe’tacles. I’d have gotten him earlier, but I’d to find jus’ the right stone. I knew I couldn’t miss.”

“You did very well.”

“I kept an eye on Madame Coudert, like you’d said. When I saw she was leavin’ her home in a hackney, I jumped onto the back. It dropped her over there.” He pointed in the direction of Place de la Révolution. “I almost thought I was too late to save her.”

Blanche must have already reached her house on Rue de Babylone. It was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from the bottom of the Champs-Elysées. Roch, his hand still on Pépin’s shoulder, headed for the Place de la Révolution. The familiar outline of the Statue of Liberty was no longer to be seen against the night sky. It had already been demolished to make way for a monumental tribute to Bonaparte. Roch remembered his conversation with Old Miquel on the night of the Rue Nicaise attack.

“So where’re we goin’, Sir?” asked Pépin.

“To my lodgings. I can’t leave you to freeze on the streets after what you did for me. I want you to sleep in a warm bed tonight, with some soup in your stomach.”

The boy grinned broadly. “Well, that’s awful nice of you, and—”

“Believe me, you won’t feel the least inclination to thank me once you set eyes on my maid. She is a redoubtable woman. She will scour every inch of your skin without mercy.”

“Why, if she ever tries to—”

“Oh, it will take her but a moment to get the better of a shrimp like you.”

Pépin sighed, apparently resigned to the prospect of a forced bath. “So long’s it makes you happy. But, remember, Citizen Chief Inspector, you talked about a ’prenticeship th’other day . . .”

“I have changed my mind.”

Pépin’s lips formed a silent
Oh
of disappointment.

“I will send you to school instead,” added Roch, “though it won’t be easy to find a teacher brave enough to undertake your education.”

Pépin breathed in sharply. “Ah, no, Sir, you can’t do that! After I saved your life too! Don’t you know they whip boys in schools?”

“They do, fiercely so. But better men than you have gone through that ordeal, and lived to tell the tale. I am afraid, my poor Pépin, that many changes are coming your way, like it or not.”

They walked in silence until they reached Roch’s lodgings twenty minutes later. He pulled his astonished maid from her bed and delivered Pépin to her care. The boy followed her with surprising meekness. She brought Roch a mug of honeyed tea. He seized a carafe on the sideboard and added a generous swig of plum spirits to the hot beverage. He needed to brace himself for the task ahead.

62

I
t was barely six in the morning when Roch was shown into the Minister’s private apartment at the Juigné Mansion. He could not help staring at Fouché, the millionaire, the head of the Nation’s police, the most powerful man in France after Bonaparte. Gray stubble made the Minister’s face look still more cadaverous than usual. He wore a yellowed flannel waistcoat over his nightshirt. Its collar floated around his gaunt neck, where tendons pulled like ropes on wrinkled skin. Toes stuck out of the pierced slippers on his bare feet. A nightcap rested on the fireplace mantel, next to a box containing a bar of the cheapest shaving soap.

“Always good to see you, Miquel,” said Fouché. “I gather that you are all for early visits. I am not adverse to them myself, but you will have to allow me to complete my ablutions in your presence.” The Minister pointed at a chair. “Please make yourself comfortable.”

Roch remained standing. “I saw Limoëlan last night.”

Fouché took a deep breath. “Did you now? Did you arrest him?”