Cold Winter in Bordeaux (14 page)

‘Did you go to see Gabrielle when you came back to Bordeaux?’

She got to her feet, lightly.

‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I told myself I wouldn’t have a drink till evening, but I need one, badly.’

She opened the wine, took two glasses from a shelf, rubbed them with the corner of her robe, poured the wine and passed a glass to Lannes. She downed hers in one and refilled it. The rough red ordinaire left a smudge on her upper lip. She sat upright on the couch now, placed the glass on the floor, and hugged her knees.

‘Did you?’

‘Did I what?’

‘See Gabrielle?’

She shook her head.

‘I’m a mess,’ she said, ‘a real mess. I must look a fright. Yes, I went to see her. I hated her – there’s a motive for you – but I was broke and I went to ask her for money. I thought she owed me.’

‘And?’

‘She made it clear that she didn’t. She offered me a job, work. Her kind of work. I told her to stuff it, and I left. She was full of life when I left her. You know what? It amused her to have me begging. That’s the sort of woman she was. I don’t say she was asking for what she got, but don’t expect me to be sorry she’s dead. The world’s a better place without the bitch. So there. Make of that whatever you please. I hope you never find whoever did for her. Does that shock you?’

‘Madame Jauzion told me about your little sister. So, no, it doesn’t shock me that you feel like this. Is your sister still in the orphanage with the nuns?’

The girl looked at him open-mouthed. Then her eyes filled with tears, and she buried her face in the cushions and sobbed, her whole body shaking. Lannes waited without speaking. There are girls and women who can make themselves weep at will; he had known many do so in the course of an interrogation, enough for him to be sceptical. But this distress seemed genuine.

He waited. Eventually the body stopped shaking. She sat up, wiped her eyes as she had wiped the glasses with the corner of her robe, picked up her wine and held it a moment in both hands which were trembling, and drank it.

‘She’s not with the nuns. She’s dead. She hanged herself. Five years ago. The poor fool, the poor innocent fool. The Ice Queen didn’t tell you that?’

XXI

Instead of going home for lunch as he had intended, Lannes went to the Bar Météo, rue Fénelon. It was where he had met Félix, at the spook’s invitation, the previous year, and, though it wasn’t likely that the man made it his regular haunt – for it was surely the practice of his type to eschew any such routine – he felt obscurely that simply being there brought him closer, even though there was no evidence that Félix was still in Bordeaux. Vincent, Bracal’s friend in Travaux Ruraux, had said that Félix had been ordered to return to their head office in Marseille, but had not yet, to his knowledge, reported there. ‘It seems he’s regarded as a lone wolf,’ Bracal said.

The proprietor greeted him, a touch warily.

‘You’re not here on business, superintendent, I hope?’

‘That depends. Meanwhile you can give me an Armagnac and a demi.’

‘Depends on what?’

‘Your memory perhaps.’

‘My memory’s terrible.’

‘That’s a pity. I met a chap here last year, in May I think it was.’

‘Long time ago.’

He drew the beer and poured out two glasses of Armagnac.

‘On the house,’ he said, ‘your health.’

‘And yours. You’ll remember him,’ Lannes said. ‘I’ve no doubt of that really. You let him have the use of your private room for our meeting. I don’t suppose you do that for just anyone.’

The proprietor pulled at his moustache and downed his Armagnac. Lannes offered him a cigarette which he accepted. Two workmen in blue overalls came in and asked for big glasses of red. They began to talk about rugby, addressing the proprietor as Gaspard. Lannes took his drinks to a table in the corner of the bar, sat down and waited. Kiki’s story had disturbed him. It was his duty to find Gabrielle’s murderer but the more he learnt of the woman the less, it seemed, her death was to be regretted. He pictured that little girl dangling from the end of a rope and felt sick. There was a difference, doubtless, between guilt and responsibility, but the girl had been driven to it because Gabrielle was what she was. There came a burst of laughter from the bar. One of the workmen leant forward and punched Gaspard lightly on the shoulder.

‘You old bastard,’ he said, ‘you really were an old bastard in those days, up to all the tricks.’

‘If you say so,’ Gaspard replied, laughing too. ‘You were up to a few yourself, weren’t you?’

He came out from behind the bar, crossed the room to join Lannes, pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘They’re old mates,’ he said. ‘We used to play in the scrum together. Good days they were. I’d like to help you, superintendent. I don’t want any trouble; this is a respectable bar I run, so I’d like to help you. The chap you’re asking about. He was in here just the other day, with a couple of other types I didn’t like the look of. Tell the truth, I was happy to see the back of them when they left. He asked for the back room again and I didn’t like to refuse him. There’s something about him. I won’t say he alarmed me, because I’m not the sort to be alarmed. I can look after myself, as you’d expect. In this line you have to be able to do that, and in any case, as my mates there would tell you, in the old days if there was any dirty work in the scrum or at a line-out, I gave as good as I got and usually better. But I can smell danger, and that type gives off a stench of it. That’s all I know.’

Lannes took out his card and said, ‘Your nose doesn’t deceive you. If he comes in again, give him this and tell him to call me.’

* * *

It didn’t make sense. Félix had sent Peniel to him – with the photographs – and had even arranged to meet him. Then he hadn’t turned up, and there had been no further approaches. What had happened to make him change his mind? Was it because of what he had planned for Karim?

He left the bar and had walked some distance in the cold bright sunlight before he admitted to himself where he was going. It was probably a mistake; nevertheless…

* * *

The desk of the Pension Bernadotte was deserted, as she had said it would be at that hour, and so he went straight to her room and knocked on the door.

The radio was on, Charles Trenet singing ‘Le Soleil et la Lune’, and Yvette was lying on the bed, as on his first visit when he was investigating the murder of the professor, Aristide Labiche, whom she called ‘the old gentleman’; and again she was naked but for a negligee which disclosed her generous breasts and was rucked up to the top of her thighs.

‘Hello stranger,’ she said, ‘I knew you’d come some day. Needing?’

He was close to saying yes. She was a nice girl and a desirable one and he wanted her, and what would it matter? A half-hour in bed would mean nothing to her. She would give him pleasure, and he might even manage to please her in turn.

‘You’re playing games again, Yvette. It’s pointless and you know why. I don’t say that if things were different, I mightn’t, but they’re not. So put some clothes on and I’ll take you out for lunch.’

She sighed. He knew it for a theatrical sigh. Then she smiled and eased herself off the bed, letting the negligee fall away. She leant forward, put her arms round his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

She put her hand between his legs and giggled.

‘You are silly,’ she said. ‘We both know that, don’t we? Still, a girl never says no to a free lunch. Not this one anyway.’

* * *

The little brasserie used to be Jewish, and that might have deterred Lannes from entering it, on account of a certain delicacy of feeling, but the family who ran it had left Bordeaux before it became an Occupied City, indeed before the Battle of France. Old Isaac, the grandfather who had come there as a boy from the Ukraine before the turn of the century, escaping from a pogrom in Kiev – and who had served in the French Army as a cook throughout Lannes’ war – had told him that everything would soon be up, and that they were off to North Africa. Lannes had been dismayed by the old man’s defeatism. Well, it had been sadly justified. No doubt they had opened another restaurant in Algiers or Oran.

‘I wish they’d all had as much sense as old Isaac,’ he said. ‘I wish they’d all gone while they had the chance.’

‘So what is it you want to talk about?’ she said when they were settled at their table and had ordered the plat du jour, which was a lamb stew that would be short on lamb, and a half-litre of the house Médoc.

‘So?’ she said again, laying her hand on Lannes’ thigh. ‘I’m a good listener. At least I can be.’

He spoke to her as he should have been able to speak to Marguerite, spilling out his anxiety, frustration and discontent. He told her about Gabrielle and the dancer and the little girl who had hanged herself – she took tight hold of his hand when he spoke of the child; about Félix and the photographs, and Karim and his fears for the boy; about Clothilde and Michel and his certainty that it must come to a bad end, on account of Michel’s politics and his corrupting relationship with Sigi; about Dominique in Vichy and the worry this caused him now; about Léon who was old Léopold’s great-nephew; about Alain and his pride in the boy, ignorance of his whereabouts, and the gnawing terror that this occasioned and kept him awake at night. He spoke of the difficulties of his position, of how he sensed that his immediate boss was coming to distrust him and of how he was sure that the Germans had their eye on him. And then he told her that there was a wall between him and Marguerite which he couldn’t breach.

So he exposed himself and was ashamed, and ordered another half-litre.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘For what?’

‘For inflicting all this on you.’

‘You are silly,’ she said, and kissed him. ‘It would have been easier for you to say all this in bed – you’ve no idea of the sort of confessions some of my clients come out with – but all the same I’m flattered that you’ve chosen to speak of it over lunch. It makes me think we’re friends, that I’m not just a convenience, which is what I mostly am, I realise that. We are friends, aren’t we?’

‘I suppose we are.’

‘Only suppose?’

Lannes picked up his glass and clicked it against hers.

‘It would be simpler if you didn’t love your wife. But you do, don’t you?’

He supposed he did. Or was it because he no longer did that he was so reluctant to say or do anything that might hurt her?

XXII

Lannes had had few dealings with Lieutenant Schuerle, Kordlinger’s replacement as the officer charged with liaison between the Occupying Forces and the PJ. He took this as evidence that Kordlinger’s report had placed a black mark against his name. So it was a surprise when old Joseph knocked on his door and ushered the German in; even more of one when Schuerle did not greet him with that ridiculous Hitler salute, which even the unfortunate Schussmann had usually remembered to give, but instead offered a handshake which Lannes accepted. He was younger than his predecessors, no more than in his middle or late twenties it seemed, blond, and surprisingly quick to smile. He had been wounded on the Eastern Front; he wore a black leather patch over his right eye, and his left arm hung useless or almost useless, shattered, Lannes supposed, by shellfire, which was doubtless why he had been assigned to liaison duties.

‘I have a problem I wish to discuss with you, superintendent,’ he said, and he gave that quick smile which might have been intended to be disarming, but was also perhaps a sign of nervousness.

‘Certainly,’ Lannes said. ‘Do sit down.’

‘It is rather a delicate matter, and, if you don’t mind, I would prefer not to speak about it here, in your office. As it happens, the sun is at last shining. It’s a beautiful afternoon, even if a cold one – though the cold is nothing to what I was accustomed to recently, or indeed back home in East Prussia. Would you care to take a walk with me, superintendent, perhaps to your delightful public garden?’

‘As you like,’ Lannes said; he heaved himself into his thorn-proof English tweed coat, and collected his stick.

‘That is kind of you. I was so hopeful that you would agree.’

The walk was passed in near silence, Schuerle making only the occasional remark about the beauties of Bordeaux or asking about particular buildings. Reaching the garden which was almost deserted despite the fine weather, they settled on a bench. Schuerle looked around, as if to assure himself, unnecessarily, that no one was near enough to overhear them.

‘Charming,’ he said, ‘quite charming. You find my approach unorthodox?’

‘Unusual, certainly.’

‘Good, good. You wonder why I am behaving in this manner, especially since Lieutenant Kordlinger advised that you were not to be trusted. Does that surprise you?’

Lannes lit a cigarette.

‘Not greatly.’

‘He described you as obstructive and ill-disposed to the requirement that the French police collaborate with us. He went so far as to request of your superiors – would that be the Prefect ? – that you be dismissed, then appears to have withdrawn his request. I find this strange. Don’t you, superintendent?’

‘No doubt he had his reasons.’

‘No doubt.’

Schuerle took an envelope from his briefcase and passed it to Lannes.

‘This makes me feel as if I was engaged in espionage,’ he said.

‘I’m sure you’ve already seen the photographs. I suppose it is the boy who was employed to incriminate poor Schussmann and you with the boy. You wonder how they came into my possession? Evidently you have enemies, superintendent. Kordlinger required you to find and deliver the boy – the degenerate boy, I believe he said. You failed to do so, and yet evidently you knew him. What do you have to say?’

Lannes turned his head to look Schuerle in the face. He was smiling again – perhaps it was a nervous tic, consequence even of his war wound, not a genuine smile. But it looked like one.

‘Kordlinger threw me into a cell,’ he said, ‘and had a couple of heavies beat me up. I’d nothing to tell him then. Now we’re chatting on a bench in the public garden, and I’m wondering why.’