Paris Requiem (33 page)

James recognised Chief Inspector Durand and slowed his steps. Could the man be spying on Marguerite’s movements, too? He watched to see if this time Durand would disappear round the far corner, but the man was back again. He saw James and waved, hurrying towards him.

‘Ah, Monsieur Norton. Perhaps the fates are being kind to me at last.’

James was taken aback. The Chief Inspector had never before manifested such pleasure at seeing him.

‘Yes, yes. You may be able to help me. You Americans know about democracy.’

‘What is it, Chief Inspector?’ James was mystified.

‘Come, let’s indulge ourselves in a little glass of something and I will tell you.’ Durand stroked his moustache nervously and urged him along. ‘It’s to do with Madame de Landois.’ He glanced back at the looming bulk of the house and all but bumped into a capped, hurrying youth. It was Antoine. The boy didn’t acknowledge James.

‘Just over there, Monsieur Norton.’ The Chief Inspector pointed to a small café, half hidden behind a stationary
carriage
. He didn’t speak again until they were seated at an angle from the pewter-topped counter and two glasses of cognac stood before them. Durand took a large gulp of his, then gazed at James. His eyes narrowed abruptly.

‘We lifted your brother’s fingerprints from Olympe Fabre’s apartment, Monsieur.’

James waited for more, but it didn’t come. ‘That’s hardly a surprise, is it, Chief Inspector. My brother has done nothing to hide the frequency of his visits to that place.’

Durand swallowed a retort. He seemed to be struggling over something.

‘That can hardly be what you brought me here for, Chief Inspector.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘What then?’

The man considered him shrewdly. ‘Olympe Fabre’s
landlady
tells us that a man pressured his way into Olympe’s apartment. He crossed her palms with silver, needless to say. He may also have walked off with some things. Letters for instance. I’ve found it distinctly odd that Mlle Fabre kept no letters from your brother …’ His voice trailed off, but he fixed James with an interrogator’s snakelike gaze.

James averted his eyes, forced his voice into casualness. ‘Did you ask Rafael whether he ever wrote to her?’

‘Come, come, Monsieur Norton.’

‘Do you have a description of this man?’

‘What we know is that he was well-dressed, rather debonair in fact. Perhaps like you.’

‘Really, Chief Inspector. Me – debonair?’

‘You haven’t been driven to take any souvenirs from Olympe Fabre’s apartment, then? Perhaps souvenirs for your brother?’

‘Do I strike you as that kind of man, Inspector?’

‘To tell you the truth, Monsieur Norton, I don’t rightly know what kind of man you strike me as. Perhaps that’s because you’re a lawyer. Sly characters, lawyers. But that’s why you can help me, Monsieur Norton.’

‘Have you interviewed Bernfeld?’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t yet found him at the address you gave
me. I’ve left a man there, to watch out for him. However I don’t believe this Bernfeld of yours can be complicit in the blackmail in quite the way you wish to make him.’

‘Really? Has your graphologist determined something? Surely he hasn’t found that Rafael’s writing matches the blackmail note?’

‘Given your brother’s base estimation of my men, Monsieur, it will astonish him to learn that no, we didn’t find a match. His writing has distinctly not been shaped by a French school.’

James permitted himself a smile. ‘He’ll be pleased and relieved to hear that he’s been cleared.’

‘Not cleared, Monsieur. Not altogether.’ Durand tapped out a military rhythm on the table.

‘You’re wasting your time, Chief Inspector. And your men’s in following him.’

‘Let me be the judge of that. In such cases the passion of love too often turns into its opposite.’

James shrugged. He wondered now whether he ought after all to tell Durand about what he had discovered about Olympe’s clothes. If the man still held to his ridiculous theories about Raf hypnotising her into a suicide pact, the fact that she was dressed, whether as a man or a woman, would probably only strengthen his notion.

‘But I am going to take a chance on you, Monsieur. Yes, I am going to entrust you with a confidence.’ His eyes glinted at James, pebble dark above the sharp cheekbones.

‘Only if you think I can bear it, Chief Inspector. You know my priorities in this matter.’

‘What are they exactly?’

‘To clear my brother’s name and to discover the truth about Olympe’s death.’

‘In that order?’

‘The two are synonymous.’

‘For your sake, I hope you are right. But as for that blackmail letter … Quite by chance this morning, because I received a note from Madame de Landois, I made an extraordinary
discovery
.’ He moved closer again. ‘Her writing and the writing on the blackmail letter are one and the same.’

James put his glass down unsteadily. ‘No!’

‘Yes. I fear so.’

‘Your expert has confirmed it?’

Durand looked shamefaced. ‘I haven’t put it to him yet. You see, our Commissioner has warned me to be polite. To take care. You understand?’

James understood that the Chief Inspector had been cautioned by superior powers. Madame de Landois would not make a comfortable suspect for whatever crime or misdemeanour.

‘I don’t want her to think that we are prying unnecessarily into her affairs. Yet the matter could be highly significant. I was hoping that you …’

James cut him off. ‘Do you think Madame de Landois was showing Olympe how she could raise money to pay back her family debt to Bernfeld?’

‘No. No. Surely, if Olympe had confided her need of money to her, Madame would have lent it to her. Don’t you think?’

‘One can never judge from the surface about the state of people’s finances.’

James thought of some of his former clients, thought rather more anxiously of his last conversation with
Marguerite
. Could his speculations then have carried more than a grain of truth? Could Marguerite, in some moment of crazed passion at losing Raf, some sense of vengeful betrayal, have committed an act which would incriminate her rival, an act which had so agonised Olympe that she had plunged to her death. Trapped in a web of dire possibilities, he almost failed to hear Durand.

‘Perhaps. In any case, I would like you to put it to her.’

‘Me?’ James was aghast.

‘Yes, yes. You can do it diplomatically. And you can tease the whole story from her. You can even say that I sent you as a messenger.’

‘Kill the messenger, you mean?’

Durand raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely you are not afraid of her?’

‘No, no. But it will be a challenge.’ He met the Chief Inspector’s eyes and decided in that moment that, in spite of everything and despite his occasionally bizarre ideas, he liked the man, even trusted him. ‘You will have to do something for me in return, Inspector.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. It may be equally, if not more important to our
investigation
. And rather more dangerous, I suspect.’

‘You want to see me dead, then.’

‘No, no.’ James told him what he had discovered at the Hotel Monpiquet, told him about Marcel Caro, his traffic in women from the East, Jewish women, one certainly and perhaps several more, already dead, and how Olympe might have delved too deeply and incurred the man’s murderous wrath. He told him, too, about Dr Henri Comte. ‘So you need to do some careful questioning, Chief Inspector. And some investigating.’

Durand looked more worried than if James had suggested raising an expedition against the Germans. ‘Caro. I know the man. Very slightly. He used to be with the morality police. Not my jurisdiction.’ He gnawed at his lips as if to get rid of a foul taste, rifled through his pockets for cigarettes. ‘This isn’t one of Touquet’s wild speculations, is it?’

‘No. It’s based on the evidence of my ears and eyes. Not to mention a rather bruised jaw.’ James rubbed his cheek delicately. ‘Though Touquet put me on the trail, I have to admit. You’re not afraid, are you, Chief Inspector?’

‘Afraid, of course not.’ He puffed out his chest, then grinned ruefully. ‘Though to be altogether honest, I’m no longer
certain
whether the challenge of Madame de Landois might not have been far preferable to a visit to one of our brothels.’

M
argeurite de Landois’s balding butler kept James waiting longer than usual before directing him to the library. Here, too, the wait was long. He picked out a random volume of Descartes and let his eyes skim. But his mind was elsewhere. He wondered what was keeping her – this woman who had bemoaned the fact that her very womanhood made her days long and lax.

As he looked out onto the garden, he determined that once she was with him, there would be little point in beating about the bush. Marguerite was far better at indirections than he was. He would fulfil the Chief Inspector’s errand immediately, ask what needed to be asked, and then rush over to Ellie, whom he was once more aware of having neglected. He hoped Ponsard’s ministrations had calmed her.

He wondered if in part all his rushing about were simply an escape from her pressing condition. Now that he considered it, her condition frightened him almost more than anything else. Yes, more than Durand’s suspicions about Raf, not to mention Caro’s savage behaviour.

‘James, I’m sorry to keep you. It was unavoidable.’

James started. He hadn’t heard the door opening.

‘And you look distressed. What’s happened? I’ve asked Pierre to bring tea.’

Marguerite’s cheeks were flushed as if she had just emerged from a hot bath, her hair piled high, moist ringlets framing her face. Her scent wafted towards him. It made him think of lilies of the valley, shaded woods, like her celandine dress. She was their nymph. He shunted the thought aside as she gestured him towards a chair.

‘I’m on an errand,’ he said more bluntly than he would have wished.

‘Oh? An unpleasant one, I take it.’

‘Slightly delicate.’

‘You can be frank with me.’ Irony glimmered over her features. ‘Though I confess, I feel there has been rather too much unpleasantness these last days.’

‘Yes. Far too much.’ He surveyed her to catch her mood, then cleared his throat. ‘It’s an errand from Chief
Inspector
Durand.’

‘Oh dear, our good Chief Inspector has you in his clutches.’

‘That’s not how I would have put it.’

‘Put it for me then.’ There was suddenly something hard in her voice.

‘You remember I told you about that blackmailing letter Durand had found, the one from which he asked Raf to write out a sentence?’

‘How could I forget?’

Pierre appeared with a tray. She waved him into haste, murmured an impatient, ‘Leave us, Pierre.’ He was hardly out of the room before she intoned in a cold voice, ‘The letter. What about it?’

‘Apparently, the writing matches your own.’

She slumped back into her chair, then changed her mind and got up. Her movements were agitated. ‘I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.’

He wished he could see her face, but she was standing by the window, her back to him. At last he said softly, ‘So it really was written by you?’

‘Yes, yes, it was.’ She turned, her face pale, tears crowding her eyes. ‘So long ago. I had all but let myself forget it.’ She sat down at a distance from him, smoothed her dress with trembling fingers.

‘When?’

‘Years.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s hard to explain, James.’ She was up again.

‘Perhaps you’d rather explain to Durand.’ He hadn’t intended the note of cruelty that had crept up on him unawares. He had been thinking of Olympe, the corrupt moves her older and undoubtedly admired benefactress had engaged her in.

She stared at him, calm now as if his coldness had bestowed that on her. ‘Perhaps that would indeed be better, but since he’s sent you … Only promise me that you won’t breathe a word to Raf.’

‘I can’t honestly do that, Marguerite. Not until I know what it’s about.’

Her calm crumbled. She was digging her nails into the palm of her hand. ‘Pour us some tea, James.’

She took the cup gratefully and drank a few mouthfuls. Only then did he notice that his pipe and tobacco had been discreetly placed on the tray. He reached for them.

‘It’s not easy to talk about. And you will hate me afterwards.’ Her eyes beseeched him. Then she shrugged and put the cup down on the table. ‘What matter!’

He could see from her face that it mattered acutely. ‘Give me the freedom to decide on that myself, Marguerite.’

‘Ah, freedom!’ She was up again, pacing restlessly. ‘That’s what it was all about. Years ago, as I told you. I can hardly remember myself then. I was a different person. Baffled by
everything. Vulnerable. Small inside. Shamed. Trapped. Like a dog who had leapt into a pit sniffing a banquet of delicacies and found only fleas and rats, but was too small to leap out again, could only bark helplessly, endlessly, scratch until the sores bled.

‘No, you don’t understand. You’ve never been there. Never felt the pain of entrapment.’ She stared at him for a moment, her eyes savage. ‘It started before I met Rachel, as she was then. I think I told you that my marriage was not going well. One of the reasons it was not going well was that my husband had a taste for boys.’

James gasped.

‘Oh, it’s hardly unusual. Though I didn’t know about such things then. I was really remarkably innocent. I only knew that he had stopped loving me. Had grown cold. Never touched me.’ She shivered. ‘I was doubly desperate because I thought then that I wanted a child. In my reckless grief, I started to follow him. Late at night, when he left the house after dinner. I was certain he had a mistress and I wanted to know who she was.’

She laughed oddly. ‘One night I managed to track him to a certain hotel in the 9th arrondissement. But I didn’t dare go in. I followed him there on several occasions. One daytime, I went there on my own and made enquiries. Don’t ask me the bravery and heartache it cost me. The whole thing was so demeaning. But I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t. Anyhow,
eventually
I managed to find out that it was a particular kind of establishment. A brothel where boys and men met.’

‘The hotel D …’

‘Yes. I have to say that the innocent country bumpkin that I was drew back in shock. I started to loathe my husband. Loathe him with a fury. I couldn’t bear his punctilious little voice, his mannerisms, the way he straightened his tie, or sipped his wine, having sniffed it first, his nose like a rat’s. I
couldn’t bear his politeness. I couldn’t bear the way he would choose what dress or jewellery I should wear then fasten it round my neck, his fingers cool, precise. His very presence scratched at me until I thought I would go mad.

‘It was around that time that I met Rachel. We grew close. And eventually, I told her. I told her because I needed to tell someone and she wasn’t of my circle. I told her because I thought if she was up to it, she might be able to help me. I had concocted this plan. I knew that Olivier was a vain man, enamoured of his status, and would dread nothing so much as public exposure. I needed someone who could witness his presence at one of the brothels he frequented, and then pretend blackmail, having of course simultaneously stated that I had been alerted to his betrayal.

‘Rachel thought it was a game, an acting game. We got her some men’s clothes and she wore them to perfection. She wasn’t afraid of those establishments. Her sister … but that’s another story. In any case, it didn’t take long until she found Olivier out, flirted with him a little. And then I wrote that letter for her to copy and send. One to me as well. When the letters arrived, I confronted Olivier. It was terrible. He wept.’

She hid her face from him.

‘Now, now that I am wiser about the vagaries of desire, I am deeply ashamed of myself. But then … then I was brutal. Righteous.’

She sat down opposite him, her eyes vast, her face drawn. Oddly, she looked younger, like a frightened girl, tortured by emotions that wouldn’t leave her alone.

‘By the end of that dreadful night, we had reached an accommodation. He would pay the messenger the sum mentioned in the letter, which was, in fact, small enough. And we would live apart. That would be best for both of us. He determined to travel for some months and then settle in the country. He was afraid, of course, that the blackmail
would continue. I told him I would deal with that. He could trust me.’

She poured them more tea, her hand not altogether steady. ‘It’s not an act or a period of my life I like to remember. I never thought I would have to. I had always assumed that Olympe had thrown out the letter.’

She paused. Her features grew pensive. ‘It seems odd that she carried it with her over all those years. When you
mentioned
that Durand had it and had attributed it to Raf, I knew that sooner or later I might have to dredge all this up. I admit I hate having to confront ugliness, especially in myself. I somehow hoped that it wouldn’t happen. It has.’

She glanced at him and rushed on. ‘Oh, I know, James, know that blackmail is a foul crime. It ruptures and besmirches the ties that bind society. It’s also a betrayal. But at the time it felt like the only way out.’ She gave him a grim smile.

‘Quite what you decide to tell the Chief Inspector, I leave to you. But do emphasise that none of it bears any relationship to Olympe’s death. And I sincerely wish he won’t need to confront Olivier with it. Who knows, Olivier may even lie to save face. I can’t say that I would blame him. As for Rafael,’ she arranged a stray lock, ‘my greatest wish is that …’

She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead she looked up at him like a prisoner in the dock. The jury had already pronounced and she was awaiting sentence. James had become both judge and potential executioner. He delayed the moment.

‘How can you be so certain that all this bears no
relationship
to Olympe’s death? Maybe your husband decided to take his revenge. He could somehow have found out that the letter came from her.’

Marguerite shook her head. ‘Never.’

‘You’re very absolute. Do you know more than I do?’

‘Oh, I’m not saying he couldn’t have found out, if he had really tried. If he had persisted. But Olivier is a changed man.
He’s altogether happy with his new life. The country suits him. And he comes to Paris less and less frequently. I think I would have known if the insult, the threat, had rankled and festered through all these years. Will you tell Rafael?’

‘I haven’t decided yet. The truth is, Marguerite, I’ve barely taken it all in.’

Her chuckle held a trace of self-contempt. ‘I don’t know why I care so much for his opinion. Can you explain that to me?’

‘I suspect you’re a far better philosopher of the boudoir than I’ll ever be.’

‘And you despise me for it.’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know yet.’ As he said it, he wondered at his own equanimity. What right had he to judge her, given the vagaries of his own desire?

She got up again, her skirts swishing as she strode through silence. After a moment, she opened the French windows and beckoned him onto the small ironwork terrace. The garden lay beneath them in all its June glory. A bird sang melodiously.

‘It’s strange, James, but I feel lighter. Confession must be good for one. You know, I haven’t slept these last nights for worry about when and how it would come out.’ Her voice fell into a whisper. ‘I guess in a way, I’d been worrying for a long time.’

‘But not worrying so profoundly that you might want to do damage to Olympe?’

‘Of course not.’ She turned on him.

‘Yet she held on to the letter. So perhaps she was worrying that you might one day. Want to do her damage, I mean. The letter was her safeguard.’

She shrugged. ‘I’d never considered that. But you must be right. The rich, after all, are never to be completely trusted. Olympe knew that.’ She gave him one of her astute looks. ‘Maybe you’re better acquainted with the murky depths of the soul than even I am, James. What will you do now?’

He moved back into the room. A restlessness had overtaken him. He wanted to go, to walk, to think. But there was too much he still had to ask her. Now more than ever. He examined the painting which hung over the fireplace. He hadn’t really taken it in before. It showed a man leaning against a mantlepiece, a little as he was doing now. The face was intent, bony. The eyes stared straight out of the canvas with an arrogant expression. ‘Is that Olivier?’

‘No, James. I’m sorry to disappoint. It’s my father. I painted it before I left home. It’s not very good. But I have a certain fondness for it. He scowls reassuringly at the upheavals in my life.’

‘It doesn’t look to me as if he’s scowling.’

‘No?’ She came to stand beside him, examined the
portrait
. He could smell the fragrance of her hair, see the delicate whorls of her ear, the down on her cheek, the gentle rise and fall of her bosom. She turned and suddenly touched his lips with hers. He had the sensation of wings fluttering softly across his face. He would have liked to hold them there, but he hesitated and she was already away, leaving him with an indefinable sadness.

‘I think you should probably go and see the Chief Inspector now, James. He’ll be waiting.’

He shook himself inwardly. ‘There are a few more things I need to ask you.’

‘If you must.’

‘Yes. You may be the best placed to answer them. About Olympe.’ He cleared his throat, reached for his pipe and filled it methodically. ‘I have discovered that contrary to
appearances
, Olympe was wearing clothes when she died.’ He struck a match. ‘Men’s clothes.’

‘Indeed.’ Marguerite looked wholly untroubled by his revelation. ‘Are you telling me that suicide now seems more likely?’

‘Perhaps that, too. I was really wondering about the clothes.’

Margeurite giggled. The sound was so unexpected that he choked a little on his smoke and coughed. Her laughter grew louder. She stifled it behind her hand. ‘I’m sorry, James, but you should see your face. With all your wisdom, you’re so wonderfully shockable. It quite cheers me.’

‘So this doesn’t surprise you?’ James struggled for composure.

‘No. Should it? Olympe often donned men’s clothes after that first time. Particularly late at night, if she was alone. It made getting round the city far easier. No one bothers you if you’re a man. Neither other men, nor the police. She made quite the swell in her top hat.’