Paris Requiem (32 page)

James glanced at his pocket watch. It was fifteen minutes past the appointed time. He began to think he had been naïve, a little too trusting. He should have bullied any information the woman had to give while he had her in front of him – whatever the consequences. Just as he reminded himself that at that point he had not been too keen for another
confrontation
with Marcel Caro, a stolid matron in a metallic blue dress appeared in front of him. It took him a moment, the sight of a gap-toothed half smile, to recognise in this stout, somewhat callous-faced, but really altogether ordinary personage, the pianist he was waiting for.

‘Monsieur …’ She didn’t meet his eyes.

‘Please. Do sit down. I had all but given you up. Madame …?’

‘Simone. It isn’t always easy to get away. To get away privately. I had to invent an errand. Some ribbon, some buttons for the girls’ clothes. I do a lot of sewing.’ She looked at her roughened hands with a melancholy expression.

He ordered a pot of tea at her request, added some
patisserie
in the hope of easing her visible nervousness, then asked softly, ‘How long did you know Olympe Fabre?’

The woman’s dark, hooded eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor
little
Rachel. Such a sweet child she was. Continued to be, too. She wasn’t ashamed of us. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.’

James waited until she had wiped the corners of her eyes with a dainty hanky.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Oh it must be a month ago, now. Maybe more. She came to visit. She dropped in on us every now and again.’

‘Us?’

‘Well, me, really. She had this plan that when she had earned enough money, she and I and her sister, Judith, would take a place together and I would look after them both. It was her secret dream.’ Her plump cheek dimpled and she met his eyes at last.

James had a sense that the dream was as much her own as Olympe’s.

‘You know Judith?’

‘I knew Judith first. We worked in the same … the same house once upon a time. Not Madame Rosa’s. Judith’s stay was brief. She became too ill.’ She paused as the waiter placed slabs of tart before them. Her eyes took on an avid glint. But she restrained herself. ‘What is your interest in us, Monsieur?’

‘My brother was in love with Olympe. We’re trying to find her killer. We’re helping the police.’

She shivered. ‘I see. I wish I could help you.’

‘You may be able to.’ James eyed her keenly. ‘Was Olympe interested in the other … the other members of your establishment.’

‘She was a friendly soul, Monsieur. She talked to them from time to time. Tried to cheer them. Brought little presents.’

‘No more than that?’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘She wasn’t like that, Monsieur. Not like some of the girls. At least I don’t think so.’

James wasn’t sure he had caught her meaning. ‘What about Marcel Caro? What do you know about him?’

Her fingers tightened around the fork she had picked up. Her face grew wary. ‘I don’t know the name.’

‘But he was there last night. A heavy man. Oily skin. Dark hair. A boxer’s face. From what I understand he’s a regular.’

As if James’s words had conjured the man up, he suddenly saw the mirror image of his portrait peering through the front of the café. Yes, it was Caro, a suited Caro with a straw hat on his head, his sallow cheeks bright in the warmth. He was sitting at one of the
terrasse
tables near the open door, his profile turned towards them. James wondered if he could hear their exchange. He must have followed Simone here. Either that or they were working together.

‘I can’t say that I’ve noticed him.’ Simone was saying. She swallowed a sizeable piece of tart. ‘I usually have my back to the salon.’

‘I think you’re lying.’

‘Really, Monsieur. That is quite uncalled for.’

Bile rose in him, hot and black. He felt like slapping her, wiping away the show of propriety, the dainty way she brought the serviette to her lips. The source of his venom was a mystery to him.

‘And what’s called for, I suppose, is more sullied girls. Girls wooed from their distant homes and sold as slaves to your establishment. Slaves. You’re a coward and a liar, Madame.’

‘And you understand nothing. Nothing. And let me remind you that you seem more than willing to use these sullied girls,’ she scoffed, pushed back her chair.

James gripped her arm. He pinned it against the table and simultaneously flashed a look towards the man on the
terrasse
. Caro was still there, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

‘Explain to me what I don’t understand.’

She glanced at his hand, seemed to consider the outcome of a struggle, then settled back, not without a flash of poison in her eyes.

‘What you don’t understand, Monsieur, with your gilded spoons and your fine clothes and your independent income,
is that these girls, these girls wooed from their distant homes, as you so beautifully put it, are far, far better off as living flesh than as dead meat chopped up in some pogrom. They’re really no worse off than servants here. They’re not slaves. Now will you let me go. Please. You’re hurting me.’

She had taken on the air of an injured princess. It sat unhappily on her stolid features.

‘Live, imprisoned flesh,’ he underlined, his grip still firm. Caro had bent further towards the door. James considered whether he might be better placed today if a fight broke out. His pride itched for it, despite the dictates of intelligence.

‘Olympe talked to you, I can see. Foolish girl. I told her she was being foolish. There was no point in putting ideas into the girls’ heads. They weren’t clever enough to hold them there. They weren’t like her. One of them even ran off after taking her advice and got herself …’ She clapped a hand over her mouth.

‘Got herself killed,’ James finished for her grimly. He raised his voice. ‘Killed by Marcel Caro. Abetted by Dr Comte, perhaps.’

He looked towards the door. He was astonished to find that Caro had disappeared. His rage seemed to vanish with the man and the thought that he might be wrong about the sad, old professional in front of him surfaced. Perhaps Simone wasn’t in cahoots with Caro.

He loosened his grip and Madame Simone sprang up more nimbly than her weight would seem to allow. She looked quickly round her. ‘Don’t meddle in what has nothing to do with you, Monsieur,’ she hissed. ‘I shall forget this meeting. You would be wise to do the same. Good intentions
sometimes
pave the road to hell.’

He had learned nothing he didn’t already know, James reflected as he strolled in front of the Louvre and paused
amidst a cluster of people to watch a clown advertising a
travelling
circus. The chalk white face made him think of Ellie. He would have to go back to her soon. But first he had to cross the Seine.

At least Madame Simone had confirmed his and Touquet’s speculations. He knew that Olympe had been encouraging at least one girl to make a break for freedom. If there had been more than one, if she had visited a variety of
establishments
where Marcel Caro plied his vile trade, then the man had ample motive for murder. And James could imagine the ease with which he would carry it out.

He walked quickly, averting his gaze from the murky flow of the river. It was a hot day again, but the sky had a sallow flatness to it, as if it wanted to hide its better face from the tawdry goings-on below.

The barge was still there, though no drying linen shrouded its grey-brown planks today.

He strode on board and called out a hello. He was out of luck. It was the lumbering husband who came out to greet him and none too politely.

‘What d’ya want?’ He grunted, all suspicion.

‘Just a word. You remember me. I was here with Chief Inspector Durand. On the night the body was found.’

‘So what’s it to you?’

His wife had come creeping round the corner and she put a quietening hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Perhaps Monsieur would like a cold drink,’ she said softly.

‘No drinks. We’re not millionaires. What’s your business?’

James glanced down at the woman’s feet. He cleared his throat. ‘I was just wondering. Can you tell me where your wife got her boots?’

‘What!’ The man took a stride towards him, his face ugly.

James put out a staying hand. ‘It’s just that I don’t believe they’re hers.’

‘I told you they’d find out,’ the woman whimpered.

‘Shut it. What do you want with them?’

‘I just want to know where they came from.’

‘It’s none of your bloody business.’

James felt a streak of rage flash through him. Suddenly he was on the man, shaking him by the shoulders, threatening him bodily as he should have done Caro, lifting him off the ground. ‘I’m making it my business,’ he shouted. ‘And in five minutes flat the police will be here, unless you tell me exactly where those boots came from.’

‘They came from the dead girl,’ the woman murmured. ‘I didn’t want them. He forced me. He polished them for me. Said they were as good as new.’ She was shivering. ‘We don’t have much …’

James released the man. ‘What else did you take from Olympe Fabre?’

The man straightened his blue shirt, shrugged. ‘You don’t want to know what I took from her. It won’t make you happy. It was shameful.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. A scandal. Better not to know.’ He was surly, but he kept his distance.

‘Jean means that when we found her, she was wearing trousers. Black trousers and a frock coat and a shirt. It was only because of her hair that we knew she was a woman. So Jean said we should take them off her and sell them. I tidied them up a bit, sewed the tears. He didn’t get much money. Not much at all.’

‘I see,’ James said, not seeing. ‘Who did you sell them to?’

‘Some bloke. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Was there anything else?’

A look passed between husband and wife and the man shook his head too abruptly. ‘Nothing. Now get out of here. We don’t want any more visitors. Waste of time, all of you.’

‘I guesss I’ll have to come back with the Chief Inspector, after all.’ James made to move.

‘Tell him, Jean.’

The man lunged towards his wife. James leapt to intercede and dragged him away from her. ‘You’d better come with me. Right now. They have excellent cells at the Sûreté.’

He shoved the man towards the gangplank.

‘No, Monsieur. No, please.’ The woman clutched at James’s sleeve. ‘Give it to him, Jean. Or we’ll all end up getting arrested. The baby …’ She was sobbing. ‘It’s not right. I told you it wasn’t right. You shouldn’t profit from the dead.’

James pretended oblivion and prodded the man along.

‘All right. Go and get it,’ he lashed out at his wife as they reached the bank. ‘She’s going to get it. Get your paws off me. Now.’

James kept his grip while the woman disappeared round the corner of the deck. She came back a moment later and held out a bracelet, a pretty mixture of silver and emeralds.

‘Here, here. Take it. Please, Monsieur. Don’t have him arrested. Please.’ Her voice trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘They’ll take the baby. I couldn’t … We didn’t mean anything by it. Really. Jean thought it would prevent a scandal. He wanted me to have something nice …’

James looked from one to the other of them. ‘You’re sure this is everything?’

The woman nodded while her husband grunted. ‘The slut was hardly wearing Marie Antoinette’s diamonds!’

‘Jean! Yes, yes.’ She turned towards James. ‘That’s everything. On my honour.’ She crossed herself quickly. ‘Please, Monsieur …’ Her eyes implored him.

‘All right. I’ll let the Chief Inspector know you told me all this willingly. That your intentions were …’ he paused. ‘That your intentions were good.’

‘Thank you, Monsieur. Thank you.’

He left with the sound of her thanks mingled with her
husband’s
curses ringing in his ears.

Drunk on too much information, James walked unsteadily. He was oblivious to his direction, to the play of human traffic around him, to the shouting voices which told him to watch his step as he lurched into a mountain of construction material. His throat felt raw. This last bit of unpalatable knowledge stuck in his gullet. He couldn’t digest it.

He remembered one of the first things Raf had said to him about the case. The drowned Olympe was bereft of clothes. Someone had all but stripped her and then killed her or in the reverse order. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that a woman bent on suicide didn’t take her clothes off before flinging herself into the river. Therefore her death had to be murder. But Olympe’s body, it now transpired, hadn’t floated downstream ungarbed. After all this, her death could still be a suicide.

That much he could absorb. But the fact that she had been dressed in a man’s clothes was the rub. Why? What did it signify?

His thoughts scurried, restless as rats. He sniffed at dark corners. What was it the pianist had said? Olympe wasn’t like that, wasn’t like some of the girls. What were some of the girls like? He thought of the statuesque Berenice, little Eugénie.

Could Olympe’s interest when she visited her friends have been something quite other than charitable? He pushed the thought away into a dusty crack. In any event, in no way did such matters deny Caro’s violent activities.

He needed to see Durand. He looked round to get his bearings. Somehow his feet had carried him in the direction of Madame de Landois’s street. Perhaps he should talk to Marguerite first. It might help to clarify things. Yes, if she was at home that’s what he would do. He could also perhaps
catch up with Raf at Touquet’s office by telephone from there. But no, no. He couldn’t tell Raf this latest bit of
information
. Not the full content of it. It would throw Raf into even greater turmoil.

A carriage clattered round the corner, narrowly missing him as he made the turn into the street. In front of
Marguerite’s
hôtel particulier
, a man walked, his stick clicking out a repetitive rhythm on the pavement. As James approached, he turned and retraced his trajectory, glancing up at the double doors of Marguerite’s house, before once more turning back.