Faces in the Rain (19 page)

Gare Montparnasse, which is in the same complex as the big metro stop, was busy even at eight p.m. Parisiennes, more than any other big-city dwellers, like to
work long hours and play even longer. If they didn't stay at the office, they'd meet friends at a bar or cafe and linger a while over a pernod or coffee before the final trudge into suburbia. Consequently, despite the August exodus, I had timed it badly. The train to Meudon was packed and that somnolent village took on another perspective at night as hundreds alighted and shouldered their way to the exit.

This time I took a taxi up Rue Des Gardes past the Vital building to another opening to the forest. There was still some daylight when I found the track I had been on two days ago. A light at the bluestone church made it easier to find than during the day and I reached the cemetery after a few minutes. Through the thin poplar trees it was just possible to see the Vital building's lights and those of the surrounding villas. Daylight was fading fast.

I knocked on the door of the little church. No one answered.

I pushed the door open. There were just six pews inside with an altar on which twenty candles flickered.

I retreated into the cemetery and stood staring at the small tombstones. I had to use my lighter to read the names. They were a mix of French and Polynesian. I moved to the rear of the site where the smoothed-down dirt from a fresh grave was evident. I bent down to read the inscription and flicked on the lighter. A name was chalked on the top of the tombstone ready for chiselling.

Frederick L. May.

I looked round. The priest was standing a few paces from me.

‘What do you want?' he demanded.

‘I was wanting to speak with you,' I said, in shock. Freddie was dead and buried right under my feet.

‘Are you alone?' said the priest.

I nodded. He beckoned me into the church.

We sat at a table and he brought some port from a cupboard and offered me a glass. This was not an act of hostility. Despite my shot nerves I trusted this solidly built Polynesian.

The port warmed my throat.

‘You knew Mr May?' he said.

‘I do . . . did.'

‘He was buried this morning.'

I examined the man more closely than before. He was about fifty, with a strong face and handsome brown eyes that weren't menacing or aggressive. The only hint of violence was in the nose, which was flat and gnarled like a boxer's. Despite this, it was a face of contrasting strength and sensitivity.

‘Are you from the Pacific?' I asked.

‘Tahiti. I am the priest for many Tahitians who come to Paris for treatment.'

‘At the hospital?'

‘Yes. It is one of the major centres in Paris. There are other hospitals, but this one has more Polynesians than anywhere else.'

I took some more port.

‘You know Freddie?' I asked. I still couldn't put him in the past tense.

‘Mr May?'

‘Yes.'

‘I never met him. He had come to the hospital, I believe, in recent days for treatment. It is another sad case. Another victim.'

‘What sort of cancer did he have?'

‘It was a brain tumour.'

‘Are you sure?' I said.

‘It's what they said at the hospital. It was on the official report.' The priest noted my doubt and added, ‘He was taken here in the middle of the night for an emergency operation. He collapsed at his apartment.'

‘When you say, “official report”, who is the official?'

The priest held out his hands.

‘When a patient dies, the doctors fill in a form for the Coroner and he approves it.'

‘I see. So the cause of death is on the word of the doctor?'

‘Oui.'

The priest poured me more port.

‘Why do you ask?' he said.

‘Freddie seemed so well. He didn't say he had any tumour.'

‘These things happen very quickly. It's God's way.'

‘He might not have been strong enough for the operation,' I suggested, ambivalently.

The priest smiled sympathetically. It was a look of understanding. His role seemed to be one of providing comfort for the afflicted, but I had a hunch he had more on his mind.

I sipped the port. I wanted to have an autopsy done on Freddie, but that would have to wait. I thanked him for the drink and shook his hand as we wandered out to the cemetery. I nodded to the hospital.

‘It would be a good idea not to say you had met me,' I said. He looked confused. I moved back into the light of the church's door so I could see his face more clearly. He wanted to say something.

‘I don't know who you are,' he said, ‘but if you are interested in that place, I think it should be, well, checked on . . . investigated.'

‘I think so too.'

‘These poor islanders get sick. Usually . . .' he lowered his voice, ‘usually as victims of the French nuclear tests. Some are here as a result of the aboveground tests twenty years ago. Others are more recent victims.'

‘From accidents with the underground tests?'

‘I'm not sure about “accidents”,' he whispered, ‘I talk to these people.' He swept a hand to indicate the graves, ‘they tell me their life history. Everything. And, yes, some problems do occur.' He paused and frowned. ‘For instance, a storm once caused radiation waste to be scattered round some of the islands.'

I moved inside with the priest again. He shut the door. We remained standing.

‘On other occasions bombs have malfunctioned.' he said.

‘Stuck in the underground shafts?'

‘Yes. And many other strange things have occurred. But the cancers are various and often in very young people.'

‘Are you saying that
all
the patients coming here die?'

‘Some recover, but very, very few. For most it is their last home before meeting their Saviour.'

There was a noise outside. The priest ushered me to a side door behind a curtain near the front altar. I hid behind the curtain as he let a visitor in. They spoke in French and I could just hear bits of the conversation. The visitor was enquiring about the burial of Freddie. The priest assured him that it had been done and led the visitor outside. I tried the door behind the curtain. It opened. I slipped out into the forest and found the track leading back to Rue Des Gardes, which took me down to the town centre, where I waited for a city-bound train.

It pleased me to leave Meudon with at least some
information, even though that would take some sifting. I dwelt on it on the short ride to Gare Montparnasse in the half-filled carriages.

I mulled over the priest's words. Cassie had spoken about the the blunders by the French in testing their bombs. The Polynesians were the victims. It made me wonder about the man – the Dominator – who had drugged me in the hospital. Could he be Michel? If he was, that threw fresh light on Vital's operations at Meudon.

The victims could be used for experimentation with new cancer drugs. It could also explain why Maniguet was after Cassie's research. He and Cochard were probably meant to deliver it to Meudon. If this was the case, Michel could be using her research results to experiment on patients with various cancers and then use in drugs marketed by Vital.

There was still one last chore before I escaped Paris. I had to get some information on Claude Michel.

H
ER NAME
was Nicole and she worked on the front desk at
Le Monde
's archive section. Despite her spiked hair and a ring through a nostril, she was sweet. I would have put her at nineteen, and she was the last hope of obtaining a few facts about Claude Michel. It helped that she spoke English and had a brother in Australia.

Nicole had given some indication over the phone that she knew why no newspaper files on Michel were available to the public. Officials at several papers had either denied a file existed or had refused to even check if there were any cuttings. My chances of finding a photo of the man, or even a report on him had faded. For that reason I had decided Nicole was worth a visit, even though I was loath to venture out.

She seemed nervous when I arrived. A bespectacled, bald manager eyed us. We were near Boulevard Haussmann in the eighth
arrondissement
, which I knew a
little. I leant forward on the counter.

‘You have been most kind,' I said, ‘when's your lunch hour?'

Nicole's eyes flicked to the manager. I didn't think he understood English.

‘I don't take lunch out, Monsieur.'

‘Quelle dommage,'
I said, looking at the clock above her head. It was just noon.

Nicole blushed. I shook hands with her and slipped her a card with a note. It suggested we meet at 12.30 at Cafe Haussmann, a seafood restaurant.

I waited in a doorway across from
Le Monde.
Exactly at 12.30 Nicole bounced out the door. At first it looked as if she might head for the cafe as she reached Haussmann, but she stopped at a bread shop. I hurried after her and caught her on the way out, a breadstick under her arm.

‘Oh, Monsieur,' she said apprehensively.

‘Couldn't you join me at the cafe?'

‘No, I am sorry. I only get a 'alf 'our.'

She glanced down to the street leading to the newspaper building.

‘You know,' she said, ‘there is a way for you to get the information you want.' Her eyes flicked towards the same street again. She was making me edgy.

‘How?' I said.

‘You must ask for the papers for the dates concerned.'

‘But I don't know the dates!'

‘Try the week of June 23, six years ago.'

She turned to go. I touched her on the forearm.

‘What's the matter?' I asked. ‘Why is there secrecy around this man?'

‘There is no file on him,' she said with two more furtive glances, ‘the security people removed it.'

‘When?'

‘I must go, Monsieur.'

I watched her step off with a determined swivel on her high heels, and after a minute, I walked round the block back to the newspaper's archives section.

The manager was at the counter. I asked for the microfiche of several newspapers from different years and included the first three days of the week Nicole had suggested. I found a cubicle and began reading the microfiche. There were articles each day about Claude Michel but they contained less information than I already knew about him.

I asked for the last four papers in the week of June 23. One of them carried a head and shoulders shot of the man in question and an article concerning Michel's background. I felt as if I had discovered gold.

Nicole had reappeared at the counter.

‘The microfiche seems to be missing for June 28,' I said with a smile, ‘could I possibly have a look at the original?'

Nicole disappeared to a back room.

When I had the original copy I returned to the cubicle and began looking at every page. I took notes on a Mitterand speech. The manager wandered to me, and with a sibilant and salivatory voice, asked me what I was looking for.

‘Je cherche un article au sujet du Président,'
I said beginning a lie off the top. He was distracted by the number of customers at the counter and excused himself.

I looked round. The manager was serving someone else. Nicole was talking to another customer. Others were coming in and it was busy. I coughed long and hard and tore down the page carrying Michel's photo. I folded the page and stuffed it down the front of my
trousers, returned the papers to the counter and began to walk away.

I made for the door and dashed for Boulevard Haussmann. I broke into a sprint. A taxi pulled up beside me. I hesitated but it was occupied so I charged on, changed direction down Rue Tronchet and puffed my way to the metro at Madeleine.

I joined the hundreds of subterranean commuters and jumped on the first train in. I couldn't resist the temptation to read the article on Claude Michel.

The article's author had tried to draw a psychological profile that would make sense of Michel's brutal indifference to the more than twenty people who were said to have died because of his malpractice. It touched on the relationships with the two people who had brought him up – his mother, now dead, who was described as a ‘cold and ambitious' medical administrator, and his wealthy grandfather, who owned a chain of old people's homes across France and Belgium.

No one seemed to know the identity of Michel's father. Michel's mother was quoted as saying there had been violence in the home when young Claude was growing up, but she claimed that it had never been directed at the boy, who was called reclusive at school.

Because of the conflict between the mother and the grandfather at home he was sent abroad for several years. Without evidence, the journalist even speculated that the grandfather was in fact Michel's real father. Michel had done his medical training in Switzerland where he had become attached to the pharmaceutical industry.

I studied the photo. Michel had fair hair, which was thick and brushed straight back, with no part, like Mozart's. He had a round face and a distinctively big
nose. His eyes frowned under ridges of light eyebrows, and his jaw was set aggressively. His large mouth was half caught in a sneer. The sideways glance he was giving the photographer and the movement of his right forearm, which was coming up to hide his face, indicated he didn't want his snapshot taken.

Michel wore a light raincoat and was coming out of a doorway. An out-of-focus umbrella was poking up behind his head.

Over the years I had prided myself on a perfect memory for faces. I would meet people I had not seen for as much as twenty or thirty years and recall them. It had turned me into an amateur physiognomist.

Michel's picture bothered me. I was blocked on the face. I didn't think I had ever seen that visage before. But the demeanour, the frown, the angle of the mouth, the jaw thrust, the sneer. They all rang bells. The photo was slim pickings from my trip abroad, but it was something.