Mayhem (25 page)

‘Yes, of course I know what it means, but are you absolutely certain that's what she said?'

‘Leon, this prick isn't worth talking to.'

‘Now wait, my friends. We must be certain, eh? It's important.'

Remi gripped the edge of the bar as if he were about to lift it out of the way. ‘Fixed, fixed, fixed! In the name of Jesus, what the hell else do you want me to say?'

It was Leon who urged caution. ‘The guy picked her up in a car about half an hour later. By then Yvette had changed her clothes and got dolled up a bit. She was never much, that one. A little lipstick, a bit of perfume maybe, but… Ah, she didn't have the money to dress.'

‘Are you sure it was a man who picked her up?'

The brothers shrugged. ‘Would a woman have killed her?' asked Leon.

‘That's not impossible but, yes, it's far more likely the murderer was a man,' offered St-Cyr.

‘But not from the Resistance, eh?' said the face of ground meat, watching him so closely one could see the ghost of a wily smile behind the suspicion in his eyes.

‘The Resistance don't drive cars so easily,' countered St-Cyr. ‘The SS do.'

Ah now, so a certain general was at the top of the list and all that shit about firebombs was just the puddling of a goose. But why had the flic let them know?

St-Cyr gathered in the dice – there was only one way to distract the brothers. He rolled a seven, then an eleven, then snake's-eyes and a pair of sixes.

‘They do what I tell them to,' he said.

‘Yvette was happy when she left here,' offered the mountain. ‘If we'd known that was going to happen to her, we'd have separated his skull even if he was an SS general.'

‘Perhaps you'd better explain the “general” part,' said St-Cyr. ‘Just for the record.'

Remi, you idiot! thought Leon. Sometimes Remi got carried away, but did he have to fall into that old trap?

‘What my brother means, Inspector, is that the General Ackermann often paid the club a visit. Like a lot of other high-ranking Nazis, he came to hear Gabrielle but that was as far as it went, of this I'm certain. Gabrielle … Ah! some women. You know it with them instinctively, isn't that so? They don't sleep around. They're chaste, even if their soldier husbands have been killed and it's now more than two years since they've had it.'

‘So, why the condoms that were found in her purse?'

‘Rubbers? Gabrielle?' The brothers were genuinely mystified.

‘Why the working in a place like this?' asked St-Cyr, striking while he could. ‘Excuse me, my friends, but with that voice and that body, Mademoiselle Arcuri could have done much better. Let's not kid ourselves, eh? The Lido, the Moulin Rouge, the Alhambra, the Shéhérazade, the Cirque Medrano …'

The two of them leaned over the bar. The mountain spoke through his teeth. The Lune Russe, the Deux Anes and the Noctambule, my fine Monsieur the Detective. Gabrielle is an artist, idiot! She writes a lot of her own material, as she did before the war. Is it that you know so little about her? The Lune Russe used to be her place. Night after night, but then she got married and had a son.'

‘So, why did she come to work here?' The Lune Russe … The Russian Moon …

‘Because … because she did and that's all there is to it, isn't that so, Leon? One day she walks in the front door and we see the money she'd bring us. We're not stupid, eh? Cash … a voice like that's worth millions. She wanted ten per cent and we gave it to her.'

St-Cyr studied the dice. The Lune Russe, the Deux Anes and the Noctambule were chanteuse clubs in the old tradition, very genteel, very intimate and respectable but not much favoured by the Germans.

The dice told him to leave it for a moment, to let their suspicions lapse. He rolled a miserable three. ‘Did the General Ackermann ever take her out for dinner, that sort of thing, eh?'

‘Sometimes. Maxim's a couple of times perhaps, the Ritz too … So what? Wouldn't you have tried?'

‘Not with my bankroll. Did he show up here last night?'

Leon Rivard reached for the dice and rolled a seven straight off and then a pair of snake's eyes. ‘That one came in later than usual – about twelve, I think – and when he heard that Gabrielle wasn't singing, he left.'

‘What sort of car does Mademoiselle Arcuri drive?'

So it was on to cars, was it? All by himself the cop was using his noodle. ‘A Peugeot, two-door sedan. Dark blue.'

Remi tried the dice. St-Cyr let him have a go. The Peugeot was a sensible car, so, too, the colour. Von Schaumburg, as the Kommandant of Greater Paris, would have signed the permit and issued the gasoline allowance. None of the chanteuse clubs would have suited, had this been what she'd had in mind.

But she could have got the same from any of the more popular places – entertaining the troops gave one special privileges. The brothers had made a decent financial deal with her as well. So, okay, she had the freedom to drive to the château or to Fontainebleau Woods, and she had good enough reasons for working in this dump. Perhaps fewer questions would be asked as well.

‘About what time did Mademoiselle Arcuri leave the club?'

‘Soon after she discovered Yvette had gone to meet someone. She changed out of her dress, wouldn't take the last three acts. I gave her 10,000 francs against her wages – we'd often done it before,' said Leon. ‘Gabrielle's always been straight with us. This is the first time she hasn't sung all night.'

‘There's always a first time but like I've said, the Resistance are now after her and you'd do well to tell me everything if you want her back.'

‘Then get them for us!' breathed the mountain, still clutching the dice.

‘Today. This morning, Very soon,' said St-Cyr. ‘So, a pastis for your thoughts and for the road, my friends?'

No self-respecting cop would offer to pay for the drinks in circumstances such as this and he didn't offer. They'd only have been doubly suspicious if he had. ‘The boy, Jérome – Yvette's young brother – did he ever come here to see her?'

The bottle stopped. The pastis dribbled down the glass. Leon Rivard finished pouring. ‘We didn't know she had a brother.'

No, of course they didn't.
Merde
! They were so difficult!

St-Cyr reached for the water and added a drop just to let them know he liked his pastis almost neat at times like this. ‘Me, I think he did and I think you should tell me about it while there's still time.'

‘Was he murdered too?' asked Remi.

St-Cyr set his empty glass on the bar between them and picked up the dice. Without a word, he turned and walked away. He was unlocking the bicycle when the brothers stepped into the cold.

It was Leon who did the talking. ‘Yvette had to find her brother a place to stay. Number 17 rue Daguerre, on the other side of the cemetery. Our Aunt Isabella … she's the concierge. Jérome … Jérome didn't stay there often. He'd come for a few days. Yvette would be upset, in tears – frantic – and then the brother would go away and she'd settle down again.'

‘We advanced her money for him against Gabrielle's share,' said Remi.

‘And Mademoiselle Arcuri, what was her part in all of this?' asked St-Cyr.

The two of them exchanged glances. Leon said, ‘Gabrielle had no use for Yvette's brother and told the girl she was a fool to help him.'

She said the family ought to disown him, that to fail as a priest was to bring disgrace down on the whole of Vouvray and its surroundings,' offered the mountain.

‘But she didn't kill him, Inspector. Not Gabrielle, and she wouldn't have killed Yvette either, not even if to murder them had meant saving her son from losing his rightful inheritance.'

They were full of news but it was time to leave. ‘Don't telephone your aunt to tell her I'm on my way. The Gestapo will only be listening in and we wouldn't want that.'

Leon had the darker eyes. ‘They listen in all the time so what's the difference? They probably have a recording of the guy who telephoned Yvette.'

But they haven't told you about it, have they? It was in the gazes of the two of them.

It cut the timber out from under him. Glotz … had Glotz access to that recording? Had he told Hermann? Had Hermann kept that little gem to himself?

‘Was it Ackermann?' he asked, clearly in their hands.

The brothers shrugged. ‘How should we know?' said Leon.

‘Because the accent wouldn't have been French.'

‘Then, Monsieur the Inspector, you can rest easy, eh, because the guy who telephoned her was as French as the three of us.'

‘That's not good enough and you know it. Was it the voice of money and fine breeding?'

The aristocracy – a château on the Loire perhaps? The husband of a certain chanteuse … One could read a flic so easily. ‘We wouldn't know about such things, Inspector,' offered Leon. ‘He was just French like the rest of us. Impatient to get on with life.'

‘And a murder,' breathed St-Cyr. ‘A murder, my friends. Please don't forget that you were among the last to speak with that poor unfortunate girl. Keep her death on your consciences while you warm your hands at the fire!'

The Corsicans' aunt Isabella had conveniently gone to see her sister in St Lazare and wouldn't be back until evening. The slug she'd left in charge didn't even know his own name and was hard of hearing.

With no food in his stomach since the previous night's supper, and three pastis sloshing around inside him, St-Cyr began to look for a café.

The brothers had given him much to think about and a new and pressing task but ah! that was the nature of a good murder case. Threads and threads and lots of little unexpected things, all of which had to be followed up. Now more than ever Hermann and he would have to compare notes. This new development, it had that feel about it, like the taste of a good ripe olive or that of a glass of the Vouvray
moelleux
!

Gabrielle Arcuri's husband. Dead, of course, but what if dead only in name?

The voice of money and breeding over the telephone. Had Jérome discovered her secret? And what of Yvette? ‘Tell Mademoiselle Arcuri it's all going to be fixed.' Those words had that certain ring about them, didn't they?

And what of the countess and of Gabrielle herself? What of Ackermann, the distant cousin?

And the monks … the monks … the monks …

As he pedalled towards the Luxembourg Garden, St-Cyr passed along the rue Vivan. It took him several minutes to realize exactly where he was. Then he remembered the girl with the shoes. She'd lived at number 23, ‘upstairs at the top'. She'd lived with her sister and brother-in-law. ‘They've two kids,' she'd said.

Number 23 was just across the road and down it a little. Several cyclists passed – it was still early, perhaps not yet nine o'clock. There was a gap in the traffic and then the car of some German official and more cyclists.

The doorway to number 23 was inset a little. He remembered standing there, remembered how impulsively she'd thrown her arms about his neck.

That kiss … such innocence. So poignant a memory. The excitement darkness had brought – it had been very sexual, very instinctive, very dose and feral … yes, feral. Like animals in the wild.

Ah, to be young again and in a free Paris, a free France. To live again!

But had he ever been young – really young at heart? Weren't some men meant to go through life like slightly used rubber tyres? The sort that are always second-hand and a little worn when you buy them, and therefore suspect?

Used tyres give comfortable rides, he reminded himself. He must stink of pastis, but wasn't the fear of a puncture a part of the excitement, eh?

So, okay, he'd cross the street and introduce himself. He'd tell her he hadn't forgotten the shoes.

He'd do no such thing, and he knew it. Shyness perhaps, he admitted. Fear too. She'd been so young and eager.

There was a café on the corner, a place much frequented by the locals, a good sign. Chaining the bicycle to a lamppost, he straightened his tie and marched into the place. A good morning's work demanded a reasonable feed but … ah! damn it, had he remembered to bring his ration tickets?

Deep down in an inside pocket he found the cursed things Marianne had left out for him. They were now out of date! Would the colour have been changed?

The bar was crowded with workmen all standing shoulder to shoulder. The tables were filled. There was only one vacant chair. Green tickets were still being used, so that was okay in so far as the colour was concerned. The things one had to do these days! Ah Mon Dieu, it was a pain in the ass, this war.

He took off his hat, nodded to the proprietor and made his way among the tables.

A girl was sitting right at the back and at first this puzzled him because she'd have a good view of the door and the street, of the whole place, even of the telephone … but she'd have had no reason to watch such things, would she? A friend perhaps? The table was too well chosen just for that.

The pile of books spelled student; the swollen right jaw spelled tooth.

She sipped her ersatz coffee – no milk of course. She dunked the bread into it.

‘Mademoiselle …' he began.

Watering suddenly, her brown eyes fled anxiously to the door, the street, and back up to him. ‘This chair,' he said, ‘would you mind if I …?'

‘The chair …? Oh! Yes, yes, of course. I was just leaving.'

‘But… but you've not finished?'

The bowl with its coffee shattered on the floor, the books spilled about as she made a grab for them and the beret. The proprietor called out, ‘Liline, is anything the matter?'

‘
My tooth, Monsieur Henri. I'm sorry about the mess. I have to rush. They're fixing it at the Dental School's clinic. Those guys, you know how they are. No freezing any more – straight in with the drill or the hammer and chisel. It'll take three of them to hold me down.'