Speak Softly My Love (11 page)

Hubert
nodded in sophistication and empathy.

“
Of course, Madame.” Ushering her and Tailler out again, the
young detective closed the bedroom door, holding the latch and
rotating the handle, making the least of noises and treating it
with all the reverence that it deserved.

They
were only going to hit her with so many questions and then beat it
for a while.

***

Tailler
retook his original seat. They were all friends again and Hubert
made another show of consulting his notes. There were no ashtrays
in the place. Neither she nor Didier smoked. He put that out of his
head. The outside sounds were at a bare minimum.

He
popped the question, the real question.

“
So what sort of an income did Didier have? I mean, it must
have been enough to live comfortably, but we were wondering. Did he
gamble, did he have any money problems? Any big debts? Anything
like that, that maybe you can recall?”

This one
didn’t seem to fluster the lady.

“
No, nothing at all. He made good money of course, but he was
on the road so much. Don’t forget, Didier had an expense account.
He received a base salary and commissions. His meals and drinks
were paid for, his fares and hotels, travel expenses of all kinds.”
She looked over at Tailler in doubtful fashion but he kept
silent.

Fishing
around among the magazines, he pulled out the folded section of
newspaper.

She kept
an eye on him for a moment.

“
I live very simply. I don’t go out very often, and we live, I
suppose, relatively frugally.” She explained that the flat was
bought and paid-for before she even met Didier. “He really is quite
a phenomenon.”

“
Ah, but I sense your delicate hand in the decoration, the
presentation, Madame.”

She
smiled in spite of herself, pleased by what was some fairly obvious
flattery.

Hubert’s
youthful face and innocent air were going to take him a long ways
in police work, thought Tailler, enjoying the
performance.

“
So, ah, just to go back again, did he show you his pay
cheques?” Hubert’s head bobbed. “He must have filed income taxes,
right?”

“
Oh. Yes.” She wrung her hands. “He does have his little desk,
of course.”

They’d
seen it in one corner of the capacious bedroom.

She
leapt up.

“
I’ll just go and have a look.” Her heels clattered across the
bare floor and then thudded on the thick wool rug of the
bedroom.

She had
the door open and they heard a drawer slide out. Hubert gave him a
wink and he nodded.

Tailler
raised his eyebrows.

It
wasn’t all that late in the day. Upon their arrival she was dressed
to the nines, in a conservative but cheerful yellow dress with
ruffs on the shoulders. He wondered if she was actually going
anywhere or whether it was strictly for their benefit. Not the sort
of woman to entertain in dungarees, with her sleeves rolled-up. No
headscarves, flour-streaked aprons and rough red hands in this
household.

When she
came back, she dutifully handed over a small sheaf of pay stubs,
confirmed by Tailler when Hubert handed them over for his
examination. The cheques had the company name and address on
them.

“
Does Didier have a personal cheque-book in the
desk?”

She
nodded, but didn’t offer to go get it.

“
Would the address on his personal cheques be the same as this
address? I mean, er, some men have mail go to their offices, or to
post office boxes…”

“
Yes, of course it’s this address.” She gave him an odd look.
“Sometimes I make out a cheque, to pay a bill, and Didier would
sign it when he was home.”

She had
them all made up on the first of the month. Other than that, Didier
gave her cash to run the household.

Going by
the salary, plus the reimbursements for expenses, it was certainly
possible that they were able to afford what was really a luxurious
pad. There were a few pay-cheques, not all in sequence, just one
here in May and one in July, two in August. One for the first pay
period in September. Not very well organized at all. The guy was
making a good nine times what either one of them was
making.

“
No income tax returns?”

“
It has to be in there somewhere.” She shrugged.

She
cleared her throat.

“
He got some very good year-end bonuses.” Volunteering
information.

She
seemed to be fully recovered.

“
Does Didier use an accountant?”

She
brightened.

“
Yes.”

They
plied her for a name and she couldn’t quite recall the firm. There
was a whole pile of stuff in the two lower desk drawers and she
would have to go digging for it.

“
Simon and something.” That’s all she knew. “There’s another
big closet at the end of the hall. Didier had some boxes of papers
in there as well—I don’t know if he ever did get rid of
it.”

“
Okay, if we need it we’ll let you know.” Tailler picked up
the pencil and waved the cross-word puzzle at her in mock humour—it
wasn’t all that funny with her husband gone but he’d been playing
it heavy-handed since arriving.

“
Do you take the paper regularly, or just on
Sundays
?
I see
you’re a big crossword fan.”

Tricky Tailler…

He read
the clues for a couple of the blank lines, and solved number seven
with a little thought.

Trapezoid.

He
wondered what she might make of that.

The look
on her face was unreadable.

“
Ah, no, we just pick it up once in a blue moon. Didier,
rather. Me, not so much.”

Me, not so much.

Ah, but
the date was right there on the top of the page—and going by the
look of nervous concentration on Monique’s strained and narrow
face, she was aware that the question wasn’t entirely innocent.
That side-to-side shift of the eyes was a dead giveaway in Tiller’s
opinion, but of what. That was always a good question. Sometimes
people just couldn’t remember and yet they still wanted to answer
the question. They still wanted to help.

It was
possible she couldn’t quite remember what day that had been. This
was Friday’s paper.

Tailler
had it right in front of him.

It was
the day after the body in the park, and that, had been front-page
news. It was old news at this point. That section of the paper must
be around someplace. He wondered what she did when she was done
with them. It was probably lining the bird-cage, he
realized.

Hubert
broke it off smoothly before they got in too deep. Their questions
could reveal much, to the devious mind of a killer…

“
Okay, Madame, we’ll be in touch.” He handed her a card.
“These missing person cases are a real high priority with us. Call
us if you think of anything or just have a question. Oh. And see if
you can find last year’s income tax statement, ah. Please. And
we’ll need the name and branch of his bank as well.”

Her
mouth opened and Tailler stood there with pen poised to
strike.

By the
time they were done with her, the lady was more than glad to see
them go.

Chapter Eleven

The two
detectives had requisitioned a car, which they didn’t do very
often. They were on their own for a change. Their next stop was way
over on the other side of the city. Madame Godeffroy lived in the
Chaillot area on the north side of Paris. The company was in the
other end of town. Gaston e Cie was located just below the Butte
aux Cailles, near the Seine and the route out of the city to the
major wine regions. Primarily in the south, there were wine regions
all over the country. The firm had set its original roots down in
the industrial and commercial fringe belt. What had once been near
the outskirts was now well within the built-up areas. The city was
getting bigger every day, a product of the industrial revolution
and internal migration. Hubert picked his way through unfamiliar
streets, attempting to avoid yet another go-around due to yet
another one-way thoroughfare.

“
Where in the hell are we? Argh.” Hubert spun the wheel and
the car swerved into the curb. “We forgot to ask how they
met.”

“
Yeah, I know. It’s a hard job sometimes, eh?” Tailler was
still thinking about Didier—and two different beautiful women, both
of whom seemed to care for him.

That was
just plain unbelievable. He could not deny a moment of what could
only be described as envy. There were times when you just had to be
honest with yourself, although the heart pounded a little because
of it.

It
really didn’t bear thinking about. That Didier must be a real
bastard.

And I’m
jealous.

Hubert
made Tailler crank the passenger-side window down. Checking the
mirror, he waited for a pedestrian to come along from behind
them.

Hubert
leaned way over.

“
Hey, buddy.”

The guy
stopped and looked.

“
Sir?” The fellow had some element of caution but seemed
helpful.

“
Where in the hell is Gaston e Cie, the more or less
world-famous wine distributors?”

The
fellow shook his head.

“
Sorry. I don’t actually live around here—I work down the
road. We make boots. Lots and lots of boots. My bus stop is just up
the street.”

“
We’re looking for the Rue Cantagrel.” Tailler had his trusty
notebook right there in his lap.

“
Oh. Okay. Well, you’re on the Rue de Patay. You must have
gone right by the turn, a left turn back there. What you want to do
is to go up a block and take the next left. It’s the next block.
It’s just that it goes on a weird angle.”

They had
zigged right when they should have zagged left. Hubert nodded
cheerfully.

“
Thank you.” He pulled back out into light traffic.

Tailler left the window down, stuck his arm out and enjoyed
the last little bit of their ride. Hubert made his left turn, which
was quite a ways along. They went a few hundred
more
metres. The Rue de Cantagrel
was finally there. They were still in a commercial area. There were
some run-down storefronts that might have had some pretty grim
little flats above them. In what was rare for Paris, they even saw
a vacant lot. It was a lot more open, a mix of modernity and decay.
They sat at an intersection waiting for the light to turn. Both men
peered and shaded their eyes. Finding a street number that wasn’t
microscopic, missing or invisible was turning out to be
impossible.

“…
left, I think. I’d bet a hundred francs.”

To
Tailler’s amusement, Hubert turned right.

The odds
were fifty-fifty either way.

There
was a whoop from the driver’s side and there it was on the left
side of the street. The name of the company was up on a painted
signboard over what looked like a small but modern distribution
facility. The street-front in red brick was narrow. The driveway
was on the left. The window trim, the doors and door frames were
all white. There was an administration block on the street, with a
half-dozen parking spaces. In behind was a warehouse with a dozen
loading docks and big doors under a wide awning roof. They saw a
forklift go across from one to the other. There were a couple of
company trucks and an even larger one from a well-known carrier
backed in, and presumably in the process of loading or
unloading.

“
All right. Now we just need a place to park.”

“
That,
Mon ami,
is what the hat is for.”

Hubert
reached into the back seat and pulled out a dusty but serviceable
gendarme’s cap.

Hopefully that would keep the beat cops (flatfoots but
not
gumshoes
) off
of them for the moment, for there were signs and painted lines
strictly forbidding vehicles from stopping in that
section.

He set
it on top of the dashboard and they got out.

“
Hopefully they can take a joke.” The parking slots in front
of the building were all taken. “If not—”

Fuck ‘em.

***

“
Good day. We were hoping that you might be able to help us.
We’re trying to locate a Monsieur Didier Godeffroy, who is employed
with this company. His wife has reported him missing.” Hubert
flashed her the badge.

Monsieur
Godeffroy’s secretary was a slim, well-preserved woman of about
thirty-four. Her name was Violet Pelletier. In the inner sanctum,
ferns reigned supreme, along with the solitary sound of a large
grandfather clock standing outside the room in an out-of-the-way
corner of the foyer. It was unnaturally loud in the oppressively
still air of the room.