Kaleidoscope (19 page)

The courtyard was very rural – peaceful even in its times of peril. Terracotta flowerpots had held tomatoes, herbs, lettuces and cucumbers in season. Grapevines climbed the walls where the sun would be trapped. The roofs leapt up and up on all sides, bars or closed shutters on the lowest windows, but at the far end, a door exposed two oblong panes of glass.

He started out, threw yet another look behind. Cast-iron drainpipes carried sewage down the outer walls of these older houses, but were hopelessly vulnerable in weather such as this. The one nearest the door to Number 22 had been bashed with a hammer in a fit of rage and now leaked a half-frozen pus of effluent. A bad sign if one was looking for a concierge with heart.

The man, like Shylock in a shoebox, was huddled over his dinner, guiltily rubbing half a grey loaf of that other national curse with a handful of garlic that had been poorly crushed.

The garlic, of course, gave one that sense of the full stomach when the bread had been eaten. Some swore it lasted nearly all day.

‘Well, what is it?' demanded the concierge fiercely. ‘You'll get nothing here! Don't tell me my rights, monsieur. I am not Father Beaumont for nothing!'

A defrocked priest.
Ah Nom de J
é
sus-Christ
, could nothing go right? ‘A moment of your valuable time, eh?' snarled the Sûreté, immediately regretting the slip of manners.

‘A moment?' shrilled the man, tossing the hand with the garlic. ‘Then start the meter running, my fine
flic
with the slush on your shoes, and while you're at it, tell me who is going to clean the place up?'

The beard jerked, the grey eyes were livid. There'd been a notice on the door, ah yes.
Please remove the galoshes
.

Six sweaters and three pairs of trousers hid the concierge. The belt had not been sufficient and a frayed bit of rope held the last of the trousers up.

Beaumont wore no boots, shoes or carpet slippers. Instead, his feet were wrapped in woven straw that had been stuffed with the same.

‘It's warmer than anything else,' he said testily. ‘Our ancestors crossed the glaciers with such as these.'

Was he some kind of historian?

Above the tiny cast-iron stove he had pinned his coal card – 25 kilos a month if one could get it. Enough perhaps to heat this one small room for about two hours a day.

‘This girl,' said St-Cyr, showing him the photograph Hermann had rescued from the Gestapo Munk. ‘The last address we have is …' He threw a look down the stairwell at some noise or other.

‘What's she done now?' hissed the man, forgetting the wad of garlic which shot across the threadbare carpet to land in the slush.

‘Pardon?' offered the Sûreté, not bothering to pick the thing up. ‘You said “now”, monsieur. Please take the trouble to explain yourself.'

The head jerked fiercely. ‘She tried to get away without paying the rent. Twice it's happened but me,' he tapped his head, ‘I have seen too many bare asses in this place for that, monsieur. No one secretly smuggles a few clothes outside, then tries to shoot the moon in my place while leaving all the rest of their crummy baggage behind!'

‘Ah, yes, the moon. And what did you do, eh?'

Merde
! Must he use the eyes of the bishop? ‘Me I faced her with the problem, monsieur.'

‘And?'

‘I …'

‘You said you were going to tell the police.'

The man nodded. Head bowed, he said, ‘That one wept when I undressed her. The moon, I said. Me, I will show you what shooting the moon is like.'

‘The room,' breathed the Sûreté with barely controlled fury. ‘Take me to it at once.'

The man was shrill. ‘Oh you needn't look so pious, my fine Inspector. I did not fornicate with that cheater of cheats. Me, I would never do such a thing. The vows … they are still sacred.'

It took all types to make the city what it was. ‘Where's she gone then?' asked St-Cyr so quietly the budgie in its disgusting cage had to cock an ear.

Birdshit lay a centimetre deep across the little tin floor. The wires were bent, the bird in moult perhaps.

‘She's gone to stay with a friend, I think,' muttered the concierge. ‘A German perhaps. Even rats will spread their legs these days and hers was quite hairy.'

St-Cyr experienced an almost overwhelming desire to free the bird and throw the bastard to the wolves. When he swung the counter top up and stood aside, Beaumont wolfed the bread before snatching up the garlic and stuffing it into a pocket.

‘You can't leave a thing lying around these days,' he cursed. ‘Even here the rule of law no longer exists.'

The room was in the attic six floors above the vacant courtyard. Frost covered all but a central patch of window across which hung a dirty webbing of tattered lace.

Both cars, still with engines running, were waiting in the street – he could just catch a glimpse of each. Not on speaking terms, then. One watching the other and both of them on to him but not inclined to step out into the cold.

So be it, eh, my friends? There was virtually nothing in the bureau drawers. Two rolled-up pairs of heavy woollen socks, dark blue, a pair of grey tweed trousers unlined … A man's? he wondered, dragging them out to hold them against his own. Perhaps … but he thought not. Not like the sister.

A skirt and blouse for summer.

‘That one, she has pawned practically everything, monsieur,' muttered the concierge. ‘The blanket is mine, as are the sheet and pillow slip. Rented, of course.'

‘Of course. Did she cry, my friend?'

‘When undressed? Yes, yes … it is the sinner's duty to weep, is it not?'

‘At other times?'

‘Yes, yes, often there was much weeping behind the closed door.'

‘Did she ever receive any letters?'

‘Three since she came to this place in the early summer. She always used to ask if anything more had arrived. Always she was so eager for money, always so distraught when nothing more came.'

‘Money?' asked the Sûreté, raising the eyebrows and carefully moving the curtain aside again to have another look.

‘Money, yes. From the south but posted here in Paris. When no more letters had arrived for some time, she said, “My friend, she has let me down and this I cannot understand. Something must have happened to her.” Then she pawned her things, Inspector, bit by bit and then …'

‘You caught her trying to leave without paying the rent. Yes, yes, continue.'

‘She gave up hope. I have seen that look in others, Inspector. I know what it is to relinquish all trust in God.'

A pathetic mirror and brush were on the bureau beside the tiny tin wash-basin and toothbrush …
Ah, Nom de Dieu
, why had she left the toothbrush if she'd gone to stay with a friend? The things were almost impossible to obtain these days. Rubbish when one managed it. Carpet bristles, cheap glue, and as a consequence, the mouth full of bristles at the first tasting of non-existent tooth-powder!

Satisfied that the boys in the street would wait, and that they probably had already known the girl had flown the coop, he went back to picking through her meagre belongings.

When he found the locket in the toe of a shoe that had lost its low heel, his fingers trembled. Immediately he was taken right back to the
mas
on that hillside in Provence. He heard the sister's terrible shrieks and moans while the old woman steadfastly ground her goose livers.

The locket, though similar to that of Josianne-Michèle, was badly dented and deeply incised with scratches. Cherished still, perhaps, but not clutched as one would the anchor of lost love when exhaustion overcame all else.

Not worn any longer. Ah no, of course not. Josette-Louise had come to Paris to succeed at all the things her sister had dreamed of.

The same two curly-headed girls of ten or twelve looked at him from their rings of gold. The cinematographer's eye saw the village, the ruins of its citadel higher still. He smelled the sage and thyme of those hills, heard the goats and felt the mistral on his cheeks.

Why, if those two girls had ceased to speak or see each other, had Josette-Louise bothered to keep her locket?

There were teeth-marks sunk into the gold. He ran a thumb over them. He asked, what has happened here?

There was no other jewellery, no perfume or traces of the rouge and carefully budgeted lipstick she would most certainly have worn when attempting to find work.

A dancer … a designer's mannequin … one who posed for artists and sculptors when she could find no other work.

He brought the slender scrap of soap up to a nostril but age and wear had banished whatever scent there might once have been.

‘Has anyone else been here asking questions? Come, come, monsieur, it will do you credit to answer truthfully.'

‘Credit? You talk of
credit
?'

‘I'm waiting.'

‘One who is much taller and bigger than yourself. Also from the police, eh? A man of no patience.'

‘When … when was he last here?'

The Sûreté was worried. Could a bribe be asked? Ah no, not this time. ‘Late yesterday and … and again this morning. That one searches, monsieur, but not as a man after a woman. Is it that she is hiding from him?'

Delphane had not gone to Bayonne as expected but had used it to delay Hermann and himself from reaching Josette-Louise.

‘That one, he has paid her the little visit some weeks ago, monsieur. The dress, the hat, the handbag and the shoes of that photograph in your hand, those things she had yet to pawn and wore them later on another occasion when … when she went out to meet him. The silk stockings as well and the … the white underpants. White … she … she only wore white ones.'

The weaver had known Jean-Paul – probably also from before, at least from Chamonix. Josette-Louise must also have known him or of him. Ah yes. He tossed a hand to indicate the concierge should continue.

‘Me, I have wondered why the work it should have completely dried up for her after his visit, monsieur. But day by day it did and since then there has been nothing.'

‘Was she afraid to go out?' snapped the Sûreté testily.

‘Perhaps.'

The photograph had been taken in the Place de la Concorde. Early October perhaps. A very troubled young woman who had looked towards the camera with … with such pleading in her eyes. Ah yes, yes, but had she not also been startled by the photographer only to realize she could not object? He tossed his head and nodded grimly.

The father had wanted to sell the villa in Cannes; the mother had refused but more than this, had been unwilling to part with anything in that villa in spite of her apparently desperate need for cash.

When opened again, the locket revealed nothing but the happiness of twin sisters in far better times. When closed, it seemed to want to say so much.

Sliding the thing into a pocket, he said, ‘Touch nothing. This room is to be treated as if sealed until further notice from myself.'

It was only as he went to close the bureau drawers that he saw a scattering of dust. It had been beneath one of the pairs of socks. Greyish to greenish-white. Each particle larger than that of freshly ground pepper. The edges slightly curled.

Quickly he unravelled the socks and carefully shook them over the drawer.

Three tiny scabs of lichen fell out and he heaved a sigh that was far from contented.

Collecting them into a simple fold of paper, he said, ‘Now show me the way up on to the roofs and suggest the most possible avenue of exit. The slush will have to be conquered and that is all there is to it.'

The woman was very nice and Kohler thought her very good. Unlike the two schmucks who had tailed him in their car, this one had used her pins and her head. She had let him dodge the two of them, had had it all figured out well ahead of time and had known exactly what he'd do.

Only then had she let him become aware of her. The Odéon had been running newsreels. Tanks, tanks, and more of them but not in the snow and hard-frozen mud of a Russian winter. In high summer. Stukas plummeting through naked skies to bomb the Jesus out of baffled peasants and scatter Cossack cavalry.

She had slipped from row to row and had sat right down beside him. Half-way through the destruction of some miserable Ukrainian village, he had felt her knee against his own.

She had asked for a light, the accent of Normandy, had said softly, ‘It's a bunch of shit. Let's go to my place.'

Then had got up but had hesitated in front of him, her backside firmly blocking his view and those knees of hers between his own. He'd got up. He'd had to! Some fanatic four rows behind had shouted at them to sit down and somehow she had turned around. Had stood there frozen in the fringes of the projector beam. Nice eyes, nice lips, a generous smile. Nose to nose and body to body. ‘I meant it,' she had said. ‘I think I could show you a few things, monsieur, and perhaps you could teach me something.'

Ah Nom de Dieu
, what was he to have done, eh? He had buttoned up that coat of hers and had said, ‘Beat it. I haven't got the time.'

Admonishingly a forefinger had been pressed against his lips, the catcalls coming. The crowd jeering at some victory Goebbels was trying to put over on the French, that bastard behind yelling his head off, too, and threatening violence. Flames on the screen, a fuel dump that time. Nomadic Arab goats scattering like hell across Saharan sands and then …‘The male orgasm it takes only seventeen seconds. We could do it right here and no one would be the wiser than yourself. But,' she had tossed those lovely eyes of hers, had shrugged and touched his cheek ‘at my place it could be prolonged.'

She'd had a car all ready and waiting. The flat was on the fashionable rue Pergolése not far from the Arc de Triomphe. A piano took up one corner with a tall crystal vase of roses and litter of sheet music. Handel, Bach, Schubert and Brahms …