Madeleine's War (34 page)

She gave me a look. “Which raises the question of Antoine Picard and Monique Brèger. Are they linked? Is that why Picard came to see you?”

“Yes.”

“Was she a Gaullist spy in Avenue Foch?”

“Yes.”

I told Justine the whole story.

“And Picard came to see you after we visited Claudine Petit?”

“Yes, a gesture of cooperation.”

“So you are a Gaullist now?”

I laughed. “Are you worried you just made love with a Gaullist? Don't be. I'm not taking sides, Justine. I have a job to do and will use whatever help is offered.”

I kissed her forehead. “Will it be a noisy meeting, do you think?”

She didn't reply straightaway, simmering down. Eventually, she said, “There will be fireworks, yes—flames, I am sure. But then we will settle down to work together to take on de Gaulle. If you come to the meeting you must promise me that you will not reveal what goes on inside the hall. No one must know of our divisions; all others must think we are united. Do you agree?”

I nodded and smiled. “Of course. I'm not on anyone's side, Justine. I promise.” I kissed her forehead again.

I lay back in bed and closed my eyes. I couldn't be totally certain but I thought she had just given me an idea of how I might kill François Perrault and get away with it.

THE THÉÂTRE STENDHAL
,
ON THE CORNER
of the rue Beaubourg and the rue Pierre au Larde, was—like a lot of Parisian theatres—a creation of the 1920s. It was ornate, with art deco twists and twirls around its entrance doors, which were themselves composed of languid, flowery stained glass and shiny metal that must have taken hours to polish. Lights shaped like upside-down flower buds hung from the ceiling of the foyer,
which had a dead bar at one end, all its bottles and glasses tidied away. Today's proceedings were not entertainment.

At the other end of the red-carpeted space—lined with framed posters of long-gone shows—Communist Party membership cards were being assiduously inspected, though Justine seemed to know all the guardians of the proceedings. I was allowed through, so long as I remained with her—that was made very plain.

Inside, the auditorium was small—there were no more than eight hundred seats, by my eye, and about half of those were occupied. The seats were like theatre seats everywhere—red velvet with gold trimmings, small ashtrays fixed to the backs of every other one.

For obvious reasons, I wanted to sit as far back as possible, while Justine, for reasons of her own, wanted to sit at the front. She won.

She had spent the previous day on party business, she said, which I assumed meant that she was helping to sort out today's agenda; and I had at least completed my interim report and sent it encrypted to Hilary in London.

In the theatre, Justine was all business, waving hello to several colleagues, and kissing—or nearly kissing—others. As the moment drew near for the meeting to begin, she climbed on to the stage, took a sheaf of papers from one of the three men sitting at a table, and started handing round the sheets to people in the “audience.” That done, she came back and sat down next to me.

“Have you seen your man, Luc Lippens?”

I shook my head. “No, have you?”

“It's possible he's not coming—so from your point of view it's all a waste. Do you want to leave? Won't you be bored?”

“No, don't worry, I won't be bored. We've discussed this before. I'm interested to see how your meetings are run. Is Gilles here? Can I meet him?”

“No, he's not.” She paused. “His mother's ill.”

I nodded. “Who are the people on the stage?”

“On the left is Roger Clayard, general secretary of the party, in the middle is Daniel Wildmayer, head of the Paris Communist Party, and on the right, in the black sweater, is François Perrault, head of theory, intelligence, and communications.”

So that was my target.

“Head of theory? What does that mean?”

“We are Marxist-Leninists here. François is well-read in all the classic communist literature. Since the war has been on, we haven't been able to keep up with our Russian colleagues, who normally lead communist thinking. So François does it instead. He will be the first into Russia as soon as it's possible for anyone to go, to renew friendships and discuss policy initiatives.”

If François Perrault was that intent on going to Russia at the earliest opportunity, well, that made my task a little more…not easier, exactly, in a practical way, but somewhat easier morally. Not totally clean—the man
was
a Nobel Prize–winning scientist, after all. But her remarks had made it almost certain that if he
did
find out about the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb, he would certainly tell the Russians about it, just as soon as he got the chance. And I accepted that he had to be stopped.

I was grateful for today's meeting in another way, too. Having a specific meeting to attend didn't make the solid mass in the pit of my stomach go away, but it did keep it from taking me over completely, as it did in bed in the early hours, or when I was in the office alone, or even just walking the streets of Paris. At one point I had searched the faces of passers-by, on the Paris pavements, looking for Madeleine. Now I couldn't even do that.

One of the men on the stage stood up and moved to a microphone. He tapped it, heard his taps reverberate around the theatre, and called the meeting to order.

I didn't follow the proceedings at all closely—a lot of people, including Justine, made a lot of speeches, many with references to Marx and Lenin. They were universally anti–de Gaulle.

After the speeches, there was a hiatus while people prepared the motions to be voted on, and I took the opportunity to tell Justine that I had seen and heard enough and would meet her later at the flat. I needed to escape before she did, of course, so that I could wait somewhere convenient and follow François Perrault when he came out.

She smiled and nodded, and I left.

Outside, it had started to rain.

The Café Beaubourg was about a hundred yards away, down the rue Beaubourg on the opposite side of the road. I bought a newspaper from a nearby tabac and sat inside the café, from where I could see the doors of the Théâtre Stendhal but couldn't myself be seen.

There I waited.

Buying the paper had reminded me—I still had to get Justine to take
me to the Bibliothèque Nationale to consult the article with the archaeological report. Then I caught myself. What was the point now?

I drank my coffee and opened the paper, trying to concentrate. I had to hope that all the people at the meeting would come out through the main doors. There was a stage door to the theatre, on the side street, but the people on the stage were hardly actors—they would leave with everyone else.

I had no idea how long I would have to wait but Paris cafés were not normally nosey places. So long as you kept buying coffee, or a beer, no one would interfere. Other people were in the café sheltering from the rain, so I didn't stand out.

I did, however, pay straightaway. I didn't want to be delayed by a tardy waiter.

In the paper I read again that the Germans in St. Nazaire were still holding out—apparently they had seventy-three heavy guns with which to defend themselves. I read that Paris women had a new hairstyle, piled high in emulation of the Eiffel Tower, to mark the liberation. I read an interview with the new British ambassador to France, who was liaising with the provisional government, exhorting the Parisians to rejoice in the fact that, despite the occupation, the fabric of the city had been well respected by the Germans.

And then, after about forty minutes, I noticed a crowd of people spilling on to the pavement outside the theatre. The show was over.

I finished the coffee I was drinking, but kept on reading the paper, with one eye on the theatre.

More people came out and overflowed into the road. Four hundred people are a lot of people, and I realised that, from where I was sitting, I might not be able to see everyone as they left. Also, I could see that a few of the party members were heading straight for the very café where I was sitting. I got up and quickly—but not too quickly—crossed the road so that no one from the theatre would see me close up.

Then I ambled back towards the Stendhal.

This was tricky. Should I bump into Justine, she would rightly want to know what I was doing. I could say I had lost something and was retracing my steps, but would that work? I couldn't afford to look suspicious in any way.

I stood for a moment in the doorway of the tabac where I had bought the newspaper.

Then I saw Justine.

She was standing on the pavement outside the theatre, kissing people again—to say goodbye this time.

Then, behind her, François Perrault appeared. The black sweater he wore was very distinctive. He kissed Justine and she kissed him back. Then he walked off with another man.

And that was a problem.

To follow him, I would have to walk straight past where Justine was standing, still talking and kissing farewells. She showed no sign of moving on just yet.

What could I do? François Perrault was already a hundred and fifty yards away.

The only thing I
could
do, which was a risk, was to turn left into the small side street, the rue Pierre au Larde. I had seen that it curled round to the right and I had to hope it would lead back on to the rue Beaubourg further along.

I walked quickly into the side street, keeping my face averted so that Justine would hopefully not see me, should she look up at the wrong moment. I held my breath, but there was no shout of “Matt!,” no alert of any kind. Twenty yards into the street I broke into a run. After another twenty yards the street began to curve and I was relieved to see that fifty yards further on there was a T junction with another street, which would lead me back to the rue Beaubourg.

I ran all the way, reaching the main street in a sweat, but slowing to a walk at the last moment. I turned the corner and looked to my left.

No sign of François Perrault.

A hundred yards along, though, I could see the wavy lines of a Métro station. And there, just disappearing down the steps was…not Perrault himself but a figure I thought I recognized; it was the man with whom Perrault had left the theatre. Had he gone on ahead? I assumed that he had, and I was already running again, towards the station.

I reached it and clattered down the steps without stopping.

Perrault and his companion were just going through the ticket barrier.

I turned and reached into my coat pocket, as if I were looking for my wallet, but actually so as to hide my face from them. When they had gone beyond the barrier, a rapid inspection of the Métro map established which line they were taking: the one to Porte de Lilas. I bought myself a ticket to the farthest destination on the line, just in case.

Then I followed Perrault and the other man on to the platform and stood a few yards from them.

This, I thought, would be the easy bit. Métro carriages had glass doors at the end of each coach. When the train came in, I got into the carriage next to theirs. I could watch them discreetly from there without arousing suspicion.

Perrault's companion got off after three stops, at Goncourt, and Perrault himself got off two stops later, at Jourdain.

I got out there, too, along with a dozen or so others.

I followed Perrault at a safe distance as he emerged above ground into the boulevard Jourdain. He walked along the boulevard, past a large church, a small
rondpoint
, with several streets leading off it, and turned into the rue Froissart. Halfway along this street was a small
place
, with a few trees growing in it.

I watched as Perrault crossed the
place
and stood outside the door to a narrow three-storey house, next to a small tabac. I watched as he opened the door. Inside was a staircase—he lived in what New Yorkers, at least in the movies, call a walk-up.

I waited.

A couple of minutes later a light went on at the first-floor level, immediately over the tabac. There was only one floor above that: was it a separate flat or part of Perrault's? I needed to know. Then the windows of the top floor lit up. Good.

I looked about me. There was a café in the square with a few tables and chairs on the pavement, and a small fountain by the trees in the middle.

I stepped across the square and entered the tabac, to be greeted by the welcoming tobacco smell that I loved. It was a small shop, what we in London called a lock-up, lined with wooden shelves. Cigars, cigarettes, tins of tobacco, cigarette papers, matches, lighters, tubes of lighter fuel, cigarette holders, and ashtrays were all on display. Behind the counter was a small pleasant-looking woman, in her forties, as I judged.

I bought two tins of tobacco and some cigarette papers. There was cellophane around the tins but I tore it off, as if I intended to roll a cigarette immediately. The woman smiled, took the cellophane from me, and dropped it into a waste bin behind the counter.

I left. I had seen all I needed to.

THAT EVENING AS JUSTINE AND I
lay in the striped half-light that fell across the bed, I tried hard to keep my mind off Madeleine—and failed.
Justine's hair, though redder than Madeleine's, was an unruly reminder, as were the shadows that played over her skin, her unselfconscious nakedness.

I laid my hand on Justine's thigh and brought the conversation around to the other subject that was on my mind.

“Tell me, those three men on the stage, running your meeting, what's the pecking order?”

“What do you mean? What is a pecking order?”

I laughed. “Sorry.” I switched back to French. “Who is the most important? Who is the top dog? Who runs things?”

She curled into me. “You want to talk politics, even now? Very well…”