Cold Winter in Bordeaux (8 page)

‘Did you take these?’

‘What if I did?’

‘Your own daughter … ’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Actually,’ Lannes said, ‘I couldn’t care less about the photographs.

They don’t interest me, except for what they tell me about her, and more immediately about you. Which isn’t nice, admittedly, but then you’ve never been nice, have you? I’ve spoken to Yvette by the way. She told me about the little show you wanted to stage with her and a younger girl, no more than a child really. She was disgusted of course because she’s a nice girl.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or who.’

Moncerre had his pipe going. He crossed the room and stood behind Peniel and put his hand on his shoulder.

‘He doesn’t know what you’re talking about, chief,’ he said. ‘Suppose I take him down to the cells and give him a going over. His memory might return. What do you say?’

Lannes smiled and shook a Gauloise from the packet and lit it.

‘I don’t know about that. He’s protected, you see. That’s what he told me. Protected. So protected that he doesn’t want us to find out who murdered his daughter. What do you think of that?’

Moncerre bent down, took hold of the leg of Peniel’s chair, and flipped it so that both chair and man fell over.

‘That’s just a taste,’ he said. ‘Protected, are you? Get up.’

Peniel obeyed, slowly.

‘I’m an old man,’ he said. He rubbed the side of his face. ‘You’re a brute,’ he said to Moncerre.

‘You’re beginning to get the message,’ Moncerre said. ‘Give me ten minutes with him, chief, and he’ll spill everything.’

‘I don’t think we’re going to need rough stuff,’ Lannes said. ‘He’s going to want to talk very soon, aren’t you, Peniel? Now sit down and tell me where Félix is to be found.’

‘Félix? Don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘The man who gave you the envelope for me.’

‘Met him in a bar.’

Lannes sighed. There were interrogations you could enjoy. He’d experienced many such, usually with professional criminals. They were like a game of chess. But there was nothing to relish in this one. Peniel was a repulsive object, a man who disliked women, as he himself had said and as Yvette had twigged, and also one who had been happy to assist in procuring young girls for men with depraved tastes and in setting up spectacles – sex shows between girls – to excite voyeurs and perverts. But he was also an old man, now caught in a trap – a well-deserved trap – and not knowing who he should be most afraid of: the police, Félix, or his daughter’s clients, whoever they were. Even his defiance was pitiful.

‘I think he thinks he’s in the Resistance,’ Moncerre said. ‘Maybe the Gestapo would like a word with him. Mind you, old man,’ – he leant towards Peniel and patted him on the cheek – ‘with the Gestapo it doesn’t often stop at a word, or so I’ve heard. What do you say, chief?’

‘I think he needs time to reflect,’ Lannes said. ‘Take him to a cell and leave him there. There’s no need to knock him about.’

‘As you say. And what then, chief?’

‘I’ll see you at the brasserie for lunch. Tell young René. Meanwhile there’s someone I want a word with.’

* * *

A Mercedes was standing outside the house in the rue d’Aviau. As Lannes approached, the old count’s eldest daughter, Madame de Thibault de Polmont, came down the steps. She was wearing a fur coat and fur hat and was escorted by a middle-aged German officer with several lines of ribbons on his chest. The driver held the car door open for her. Both got in and it drove away. Lannes waited till it was out of sight before approaching the house and ringing the bell. As on his first visit – more than two years ago now – it was several minutes before the door opened.

‘Oh, it’s you again,’ old Marthe said, and sniffed. ‘Since you’ve come to the front door this time, I suppose it’s not me but his lordship you want. You may get some sense out of him and then again you may not.’

‘How are you keeping, Marthe?’

‘What’s that to you, or anyone? I live as I’ve lived since the old devil was killed, and you did nothing about that.’

The ‘old devil’ was the Comte de Grimaud, whose mistress she had been more than half a century ago and who even in their old age would have his hand up her skirt. They had bickered like cats on a rooftop and neither would have admitted what Lannes believed to be the case: that each was the only person the other had ever truly loved. She had a right to be disagreeable, and Lannes respected her sour temper, even liked her for it.

‘Madame de Thibault de Polmont looks well,’ he said. ‘I just saw her leave with one of her German friends.’

‘The silly old bitch. I’ve no time for the pack of them.’

Jean-Christophe, who was now the Comte de Grimaud, was sitting in the high-backed, winged chair in which his father had first received Lannes, and which he had, as it were, annexed as soon as the old man was buried. He wore a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket and black-and-white checked trousers and his yellow shirt was open at the neck. A decanter of port and a half-empty glass stood on the little table by his side. He was already bleary-eyed and, perhaps because Marthe hadn’t troubled to introduce Lannes but had merely opened the door for him, it was a moment before he recognised his visitor. When he did so, he drained his glass and said, ‘I’ve done nothing. You’ve no right to disturb me. You’ve no right to be here.’

Each time he had met him, Lannes had felt both pity and repulsion. It was more than ten years since the man had narrowly escaped a prison sentence on account of his sexual tastes which were directed towards young girls. His father had employed all his influence, which was considerable, to get the charges dropped; influence and money, for he had paid off the parents of at least three girls. He already despised his son, and perhaps it was the harsh contempt he had always shown him which prevented Jean-Christophe from ever coming to maturity. Lannes didn’t know whether there was indeed an explanation for such tastes, or whether viciousness was innate. Perhaps you could never be certain about such things. Perhaps indeed men like Jean-Christophe were to be pitied. That didn’t, to Lannes’ mind, make their behaviour forgivable or less repulsive. To take advantage of children. Well, he thought of Clothilde as she had been at the age of eleven or twelve …

‘I’m investigating a murder,’ Lannes said. ‘That gives me the right. But it’s information I want. I’m not accusing you of anything.’

It would have been ridiculous even to pretend to do so; he knew very well that the wretch in the chair was incapable of the act of self-assertion which murder so often is. It was no surprise to see him refill his glass and take a gulp of the wine.

‘A woman called Madame Peniel has been killed. You knew her of course, you and your lawyer, Monsieur Labiche.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about. I’ve never heard of the woman.’

The count dabbed his temples with a red and white spotted handkerchief.

‘I’ve spoken to the man who says he was her father. Édouard Peniel, formerly known as Ephraim. He’s in one of our cells now.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, but he’s a liar. Whatever he says will be a lie.’

‘Undoubtedly he’s a liar,’ Lannes said, ‘nevertheless … ’

‘I hadn’t seen him for years and then he came here one day.’

‘And so?’

A tear trickled down the count’s fat cheek and when he reached out for his glass his hand was shaking and he didn’t dare take hold of it.

‘You despise me, don’t you? But you don’t understand, nobody understands what it’s like to want something so much and to be afraid. Afraid of myself and of … do you know what comes between me and sleep? Night after night? I run my hand up a young girl’s skirt and stroke her soft thighs. That’s what I do in my mind and for a moment I’m happy. But that’s all it is, I can’t help myself, and then when I do fall asleep I have nightmares. I told him to go away. I haven’t touched a girl, a real girl, for years, and I told him to go away. You must believe me.’

‘I’m ready to believe you, but there’s something else, isn’t there? He didn’t go away, did he? He wanted more.’

It was a hunch, no more than that, but then it was a hunch that had brought him here, to this house which reeked of corruption, where there had long been, as old Marthe put it, much wickedness.

‘He wanted something from you, didn’t he? And he came with an invitation, I think.’

Jean-Christophe wiped his eyes, but the tears continued to flow, and it seemed as if his whole body was shaking.

Lannes said, ‘It’s best if you tell me.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. She was a terrible woman. Once, years ago, she … she supplied me with what I wanted, and it was wonderful, and then, and then … ’

‘She blackmailed you, didn’t she?’

‘She said she would send photographs to my father if I didn’t pay. So I paid, what else could I do, and it went on and on. She’s dead now of course and I don’t know who has the photographs, but till I learnt of her death I had thought it was all over because she couldn’t send them to you people without questions being asked about how she came by them, and my father is dead. So I was, I won’t say happy, because I don’t know what that means and haven’t for years, but at least safe. And then he came with what he called a proposition. Have you noticed his eyes? Only the brown one has any life in it, the blue one is dead. And this proposition … ’

‘Yes?’ Lannes said, no more than a mild prompt, for he realised what a relief it was for Jean-Christophe at last to speak of what he had fearfully hidden for so long, the relief of confession; so often over his life as a policeman Lannes had known such moments when the dam breaks and what has been repressed floods out.

‘He said they were staging a show. I knew what he meant. I’m not a fool whatever you may think, and for a moment I was tempted, excited. You find that disgusting, I suppose, but that’s because you don’t understand what it is to be like me. To be walled up, because that’s what I’ve been for years. But then what he said next frightened me. There’s a German officer lodging here, he’s a cousin, some sort of cousin of my sister’s late husband, and he said he knew he would be interested, so would I please bring him along. How could he know that – that he would be interested, I mean? I told him, again, to get out, because I was afraid. I don’t mind admitting that to you now. I was afraid. And then he said it was my patriotic duty to do as he asked, and his brown eye glittered. I wouldn’t have thought a brown eye could glitter, but it did.’

‘And then?’

‘Then she was dead, I heard she was dead, and I was so relieved that the bitch was dead and I hadn’t had to speak to Colonel von Feidler.’

‘But you would have done so?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I had no choice and then I thought if I did nothing, nothing would happen.’

I thought if I did nothing, nothing would happen. The words sounded in his mind as he crossed the public garden, a chill wind in his face. For the first time he felt sympathy for Jean-Christophe: I thought if I did nothing, nothing would happen. Hadn’t that been the attitude of the French politicians to Hitler and the Nazis in the years before the war, the attitude of the English too, and wasn’t it, shamefully often, his own response to difficulty? Least said, soonest mended is an old proverb and can often seem to be a wise one. When he thought of the silence of their apartment whenever Marguerite and he were alone there, didn’t they both prefer to live in this silence because each feared what might be said if they broke it, and so chose to trust that if neither said anything, nothing would happen? And perhaps this was indeed wise, this conspiracy of silence.

Fernand greeted him with a warm handshake, as usual.

‘That bastard, the advocate Labiche, is here today. It would give me pleasure to turn him away, tell him he’s barred. But you know how it is, Jean. No matter, I’ve put him at a table on the other side of the room from your boys who are already here, and close to the door from the kitchen so that he is in a draught. That’s the best I can do. Meanwhile there’s a nice gigot of lamb for you.’

Moncerre was drinking beer.

‘I needed to wash my mouth out after our session with that fellow,’ he said. ‘What a type! Do you know what he said to me when I shoved him into the cell? He said I’d regret it, once his friends heard about it. Friends! That type over there’s one of them, isn’t he?’

‘Labiche. Of the same stamp, certainly, but not, I think, the particular friends he was speaking of,’ Lannes said. ‘Untouchable, however. So you needn’t hope to have the chance to knock him about.’

‘Maybe the day will come,’ Moncerre said. ‘It can’t come soon enough for me.’

‘On the other hand,’ Lannes said, ‘if Peniel can be believed when he says – or implies – that he was working for the Resistance, Labiche and he are on different sides.’

‘If,’ Moncerre said. ‘It’s a big if, with a type like that. Furthermore, if the Resistance is made up of that sort, there’s bugger-all hope for France.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Lannes said.

Jacques, Fernand’s son by one of his mistresses, brought them the lamb.

‘It’s very good,’ he said. ‘From the Landes. The old man’s been keeping it for you.’

He leant over, and said, very quietly, ‘Can I have a private word with you, sir, before you go?’

‘Of course,’ Lannes said.

Fernand had once spoken of the boy’s wish to join the police. If this was what he wanted to speak about, he would certainly tell him to do no such thing.

As usual they drank a St-Emilion with the lamb which was every bit as good as Jacques had said it was. Lannes felt himself relax. Now wasn’t the moment – and this wasn’t the place – to recount his conversation with Jean-Christophe. In any case he needed to mull over what the count had said of Peniel’s attempt to get him to lure that German officer into the dead woman’s young honeytrap. He would speak to Bracal first; see if he knew anything of this Colonel von Feidler.

Young René said, ‘I’ve got some news, chief. The technical boys have at last reported.’

‘What took them so long?’

‘Well, I asked but they just shrugged their shoulders and said, pressure of work and that they were short staffed, people off with flu.’