Carousel (10 page)

‘Get lost, scum. Don't talk to me like that.'

‘Swallow gasoline, my fine Inspector. Monsieur Henri will be only too glad to light the match.'

The stairs were hard. The girl gave a scream. No lonelier sound could have been heard. She cried out again and again in terror, and he didn't know if he could stand to hear much more.

Weeping when she wept, clutching his heart when she stopped in panic, he waited as she waited, then heard the blow, the cough, the gasp, the choking as vomit spilled from battered lips and nose.

‘
I won't tell you. I won't!
' she shrieked.

Unable to control his hands, St-Cyr clutched the stuffed canary in one overcoat pocket and the pearls in the other.

Again he was forced to listen. Again a shrill scream ripped through the upper halls. She hit the floor above him; the boots were being applied! He knew he had to go up there to put a stop to it, that this was what the bastards wanted of him.

And yet … and yet, he knew he could not do so. And they had known it too, and had shown it to him.

‘Louis, it's good to see you.'

‘You're sweating, Henri. Is it because you have had such a hard time with that one upstairs, eh, or are you still afraid I'll put the bracelets on you?'

Once a cow, always a cow! Lafont roared with laughter. The high falsetto that was so incongruous in that tall, muscular handsomeness, shocked as it bounced off the walls, the paintings, the sculptures and
objets d'art.

‘Still the same old Louis. Well, my fine, things have changed. Sit down or stand, it's all the same. Nicole, a glass of the lime for our friend.'

Polite custom? An attempt at manners? ‘I refuse. I've had sufficient. I'm not thirsty.'

‘But you will drink it anyway.'

The girl, a dress designer's mannequin in off-white cashmere and gold with generous cleavage, moved quickly away to an antique cabinet.

Lafont sat down behind the desk he'd looted from one of the Rothschild villas. ‘So, Louis, a small matter, eh?'

At forty, he'd gained a bit of weight – all that high living these days. The face was incredibly not what one would expect in a gangster, more that of a film idol. Good, clean-cut, clean-shaven cheeks, a wide, strong jawline and admirable chin. The wide and slightly sensuous lips were what a woman might have wanted – and many of them did. The eyes … only in the eyes was the lie of it given. Even the dark-brown hair, well cut and brushed towards the left, was what one would have expected in a banker or an investment dealer.

Which was what he was, in a sense, these days.

The brows were neither thick nor too thin. The nose was long and prominent but the eyes … the eyes: these were small, round, hard, glistening, watchful things. The eyes of a falcon just before it takes the sparrow.

Lafont examined his fingernails. He would have to gauge the wind the avenue Foch had put into St-Cyr's sails. Nicole had turned from the cabinet and remained with her back to it. The glass of lime was in her hand.

‘Louis, you're going to need our help. No, my friend, don't get your ass in a knot. Just listen, eh? Sometimes it is necessary.'

At a nod the girl came forward. There was mischief in her lovely brown eyes but more than this, a feral excitement St-Cyr found disconcerting. She fairly breathed it. The fine nostrils were pinched. The pinkness of her tongue touched the crowns of her slightly parted teeth. The mop of auburn curls was short, cute, saucy, so many things. Perfume … What was that scent she was wearing? Mirage – could it be Mirage? Ah no. Why? Why must God do this to him?

‘Your drink, m'sieur.'

St-Cyr met the look she gave with a steadiness and cruelty he hated in himself.

There was a boldness in her eyes, no shame, lust … was there still lust? Had she …?

Nicole de Rainvelle moved away from him again. He had understood her only too well, this Chief Inspector from the Sûreté. Had it shown so much?

She went to lean back against the window-sill behind Henri. She'd fold her arms over her chest and stare at this cop.

There were droplets of blood on her dress but she'd not yet noticed these, had been too excited, too caught up in the beating of that girl upstairs.

Mirage … why was she wearing Gabrielle Arcuri's perfume?

St-Cyr still didn't miss much. Lafont massaged the middle finger of his left hand with the thumb and forefinger of the right. ‘The coins aren't bad, Louis, but the forger's new to the game.'

‘Continue.'

The lime squash, a hideously vile concoction of ersatz fruit essence and saccharin, still hadn't been touched. ‘The girl who was murdered in the Hotel of the Silent Life was not the pigeon of the mackerel who operated the carousel.'

The prostitute of the pimp. ‘Did they know each other?' asked the cop.

Lafont smiled inwardly. Teasing St-Cyr was like teasing a fish. ‘Perhaps, but my sources think the mackerel knew of the girl but she didn't know of him.'

Then she was being watched, sized up for future working perhaps. ‘And the owner of the carousel?'

The detective had taken the bait. Was it to be so easy? ‘We've not been able to find him yet.'

Then they were still looking for him. ‘Any ideas?' asked St-Cyr.

‘A room facing on to the quai Jemmapes, above the Café du Paradis.'

The Canal Saint-Martin, in the 10th
arrondissement
not far from the Hospital of Saint-Louis.

‘He hasn't been seen since early this week. The concierge says he went to visit his dying mother.' Lafont shrugged. ‘Mothers do eventually die.'

‘Where?'

Again there was that shrug. ‘The Kommandantur has turned up nothing. The
ausweis
must have been a forgery.'

‘Or he never left the city. Who was he? Surely you must have a name?' insisted St-Cyr.

‘That's for you to find out. The Préfecture will give you nothing, and neither will your famous “Records”. The carousel was here in the city before the Defeat but the thing was sold for a song, dumped during the invasion. The guy who bought it could be anyone.'

‘And not have a proper licence? Come on, you know me better than that!'

‘Find out. Try the previous owner. Maybe he can shed a little light on things.'

‘Who was he?'

‘Someone, obviously, but there is no record left. It was lifted. Destroyed.'

‘And the girl?' They were giving him the run-around.

‘Pierre has the dope on that. Ask him.'

Nicole de Rainvelle's eyes lit up with excited anticipation at this new development. She uncrossed her slender arms and, smiling, pointed to the back of the room, to a far corner and the insignificant desk behind which sat that face from the past.

The trembling couldn't be stopped – ah,
Mon Dieu
, the lime squash!

A little of it ran down over his fingers. Hastily St-Cyr fumbled for a handkerchief. The carpet … he'd damage it! Another Aubusson.

The girl was laughing.

Bonny didn't smile. The squat figure with its squat neck, wide head and face sat so still. The dark eyes were sad and empty and slanting slightly away from the nose to take him in. Not a word of greeting, just hatred seething behind that look.

At fifty-seven, Pierre Bonny was his senior by a little more than five years. The greying hair had receded well back of the broad, flat forehead. The heavy cheeks were tightened to single creases that ran straight up the middle of each cheek. An ox of a man. Round-shouldered, the dark blue-black serge suit new but the fit still too tight; the silk tie a wash of pearl-grey, pink and white. The neatly cornered handkerchief in the jacket pocket was white.

Bonny sucked on a tooth. Louis hadn't changed. He was still the prick he'd always been. ‘So, my friend, what brings you to us, eh?'

There were three card-index drums to Bonny's left, a bank of them behind him. He was famous for them. His own little file on everyone and everything he thought of importance.

St-Cyr set the glass down on the desk. The urge to tip it over was strong but he resisted doing so.

One single droplet of blood marred the stiff white collar of that too-tight shirt.

Bonny had thrust his face at that girl upstairs. He'd grabbed her by the throat or blouse. There was blood on the cuffs of his shirt, but like Nicole de Rainvelle, he'd yet to notice this.

So many things surfaced in that instant. The years of being subordinate to him, of having to say good morning and have him look over the reports; the years of secretly questioning things that hadn't looked right even though a colleague had been behind them, then the accusations, the evidence that had been patiently and secretly gathered, finally the destruction of that colleague.

A file card, together with a head-and-shoulders photograph of the girl who'd called herself Christiane Baudelaire, was flattened beneath those pudgy hands.

‘What have you to say for yourself?' asked St-Cyr with barely controlled fury.

‘You're shaking in your fucking boots, Louis. Fill that pipe of yours. Sit down and shut up.'

‘Never.'

Cops could breathe that way. ‘Suit yourself. The cockerel still wants to crow, Henri. Shall we bring on the hen for him to shag?' he called out.

‘Show him the photos,' came the answer from the other end of the room.

Bonny's look never varied. The widely spaced eyes beneath dark, greying brows took St-Cyr in again.

Christiane Baudelaire had visited one of the flea markets – the Saint-Ouen most probably. The photographer had caught her unawares, not once but many times over several weeks or perhaps even months.

Had she been trying to sell something? wondered St-Cyr. He had the idea they'd keep this from him, but that they'd have photographs of the items the girl had clutched in her coat pockets.

Small things. She'd been afraid.

A last photograph showed her naked on the floor of that room at the Hotel of the Silent Life. Quite obviously the rue Lauriston had managed to get there before Hermann and himself. Ah yes.

In the top right corner of the card-index file Bonny had written: ‘
A Big One.
'

‘Seen enough?' he asked, not showing a ray of sunshine.

‘Yes. Yes, I've seen enough.'

‘You can take these with you. I've copies.'

That won't be necessary.'

‘Suit yourself. You always did think yourself better than the rest of us.'

The crooks that had been in the Sûreté and still were! ‘Not better, my friend. Just more dedicated.'

Nicole de Rainvelle had joined them. Leaning over to expose even more cleavage, she plucked one of the photographs from among the litter.

‘Take this one. Henri says you should. Me, I will escort you to the elevator.'

‘I'd prefer the stairs. My partner, Hermann, has learned the hard way not to trust the elevators in establishments such as this.'

The stairs would be better. ‘So be it then, Monsieur the Chief Inspector. Allow me …' she indicated the door, handing him the shabby hat he'd somehow forgotten.

‘Next time you must wear your rubbers. We don't want you to catch a cold.'

Out in the hall she breathed in quickly, the excitement building. It was always like this, the smell of danger, the smell of blood. Of perfume. Of Mirage. Fingertips lingered lightly on his neck. His skin was hot. ‘Adieu, my poor inspector. Please do not forget to come to see us soon.'

‘Who was she?' He tossed his eyes to indicate the floor above.

He'd break to pieces. For a moment she was tempted to tell him. ‘Just someone who wouldn't co-operate.'

‘Why are you wearing that scent?'

‘You know you should not ask such a thing of a woman such as myself.'

He shut his eyes. He clenched his fists, crumpling his hat and mangling the photograph. It was exquisite to see such pain. It made her body crave rapture. Henri would be pleased.

Gabrielle Arcuri, a
chanteuse
with a Russian past and an evident interest in Jean-Louis St-Cyr, had worn the perfume Mirage.

Giselle le Roy, the young prostitute from the rue Danton and the house of Madame Chabot, was Hermann Kohler's latest girlfriend.

With just such strings were detectives pulled and made to dance.

The butterfly pin was of silver, its enamelled surface smooth, the street ahead narrow.

Kohler sat alone in the car. Giselle would have liked this little thing, but the girl was nowhere to be found and he had the uneasy feeling he'd never see her alive again.

She'd not been in the Red Room at Madame Chabot's, not in the Easter Parade or in the Forest Glade with its battleship-grey bathtub that had been made over into a grotto pond with silk water lilies that seldom stayed in one place or held their shapes for very long.

She'd not been in there with someone else, not on her hands and knees or on her lovely back. Not in the schoolroom either, with the other young girls who played at being teenagers for older men who liked to think of things like that.

Giselle le Roy, age twenty-two, half Greek, half Midi French, a perfect hourglass when standing or bent over fake Empire tables in the Red Room, she throwing him that little look of hers. Stockings of black mesh or Prussian blue right up to her working parts; all the rest of her clothes gone. Damn it, where the hell was she?

Not in the Bal Saint-Séverin, the dancehall she liked to dream in, which was just around the corner from the house on the rue Danton and not too far to walk.

She hadn't been in the Odéon either, soaking up a tired bit of unwanted culture to get in out of the rain, nor in any of her three most-favoured movie theatres watching ancient reruns in hopes there'd be a banquet scene to drool over. Hell, the whole of Paris did that now and then. It was the only way they got a decent feed.

Kohler's fingers shook. She hadn't been happy to see him back in Paris. Come to think of it, she'd been damned worried and distracted.