The Eleventh Year (48 page)

“You expect me to risk my reputation without seeing the child first?”

“You have to take my word for it that she is safe. But it's up to you.”

The words chilled Alex. He listened to the details, wrote them down on a slip of paper, and hung up the receiver. Micheline said: “It was he?”

He nodded. She hovered near the door, unsure whether to leave or go to him. But suddenly he was galvanized into action. He straightened his tie, slipped on his jacket, ran a comb through his hair. “It's almost lunch time,” he declared. “Don't wait for me. If anyone rings—”

“I shall say you'll be back when?”

“In two hours. Eat something, meanwhile, Micheline. Go out if you wish.”

As he passed through the door, his side brushed hers. He hesitated for one moment, his eyes softening. She touched his arm, her face tense. “Take care.” He patted her hand and strode out, into the clean, crisp day, and stepped into the first available taxicab. “The Ministry of justice,” he stated. He hadn't wanted to take his car, because the new Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce was fairly well known around the city. Its custom-made seats of metallic blue, its specially confectioned hood ornament, a Diana with hunting bow, of solid silver, had already come to be associated with the Varenne house. It had replaced the Bugatti, which he regretted but which had been growing old, less dependable on the road. The taxi driver turned to peer at him: “You're not the
Ministre,
are you, Monsieur?”

Alex smiled, shook his head. On the seat lay a discarded copy of the early edition of
Le Matin.
He opened it up, scanned the first page. Good. There were still no headlines about Cassandra. He'd begged Numa Baragnon, chronicler of judicial matters, and Henri de Jouvenel, the editor-in-chief, not to feed the public this tragic event in their private lives. He was afraid that the more was written, the more harm might come to his niece. But on the second page, discreetly to the right, the words hit him: ‘Still no news of the député's niece, abducted on April 28. She is the three-year-old daughter of Jamison Stewart, author of . . .”

He stopped reading. Things like that were impossible to keep out of the hands of reporters. Piranhas—all of them! They came in handy when it was election time, and it behooved one never to alienate them. But they were a rare breed, feeding on the wounds of others. He tossed the tabloid aside in disgust and realized that they had almost reached Place Vendôme.

As he paid the driver, was let out, and stepped in front of the Ministry, memories assailed him. The octagonal piazza, with its noble dwellings designed by Mansart in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, made him think of Lesley and Jamie during the days when he had first paid court to the twenty-year-old heiress from New York. He and Lesley, marking time till the wedding, had been seen in public places smiling at the
tout-Pans.
Paul and Jamie, passionate, hiding away in taverns and bars of Montmartre and Montparnasse, had all but taken over the hotel suite for their
amours.
So much had happened that first winter, when Paris had spread its arms in vainglorious fashion, after winning the war! He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and entered Number 11-13, which had housed, since 1815, the Ministry of Justice. It had been built nearly a hundred years after Mansart's death, but the architects had conformed to his original designs. Alexandre hardly paused on the landing, but climbed the stairs rapidly, his pulse beating in time.

He knocked on a large oak door, opened it. Behind a partition, several secretaries and clerks were at work. One of them, a pleasant young woman with blond hair, looked up, smiled, said: “Monsieur le Député! What brings you to our offices this morning?”

“I wanted to look for an item of information in one of your

files. Would you give me some help, mademoiselle? Your wartime files, please,” he added, pleasantly casual.

“That's an enormous dossier,” the woman stated. She stood up.

“Not anything to do with war activities,” he reassured her. “It's a certain criminal case that has me intrigued. Nothing conclusive was ever proved, but much work was done.…We're doing some legal research for a client.”

She smiled again and led him through a series of doors into a white room with high ceilings. File cabinets lined the walls and continued into the center of the room. Several swivel chairs provided the only other adornments. The secretary went to a far corner, motioned with her hand. “If I can be of further use . . .”

“These are the years in question?”

“Yes. But the cases are in alphabetical order. The problem is that sometimes they are labeled with the name of the victim, other times with that of the accused. But we have court transcripts—”

“It never reached court, thank you, Mademoiselle Jeanson.”

“Well,” she said vaguely, “good luck.”

When she had departed, Alex crouched near the enormous cabinet. Where to begin? He wiped his glasses on his linen handkerchief, put them over the bridge of his nose, and opened the first drawer. It wouldn't be there. He was looking for the R's. Dust floated up from the yellowed folders as he flipped them through his nervous fingers. And what if there were several copies? Well, that would be Reeve's problem. He'd asked for the original, and nothing else. Because in a court of law, only the original document counted.

An hour later he was wiping the sweat from his brow, still making little progress. He hadn't even found the name “Reeve.” He was growing desperate. Collectors…He flipped to the S's, located “Stein, Gertrude and Leo.” The information gathered wasn't much, as the Steins had apparently been leading charm-filled lives on the right side of the law. Then he saw, as a mere footnote: “Leo Stein ascertained that in the case of the William Blake
Tiger,
the canvas was not an original. It had been sold by Justin, Lord Clearwater, British art dealer, who swore to its authenticity….”

Alexandre's finger remained holding the papers in place in the folder. With great care, he removed only the sheet on which the footnote had appeared. Then he closed the drawer, wiped off the handle with his handkerchief, and stood up, feeling the sweat glistening on his forehead. It was two thirty in the afternoon.

He passed through the doors and into the widely lit front office. The blonde looked up, solicitous. “Did you find what you wanted?”

He shook his head regretfully. “No, I'm afraid. Are there any copies around? Perhaps the original has been misfiled.”

“No, that wouldn't be the case. The war files have been completely gone over by the minister's staff. The important things would be duplicated, of course. But the ones on which there was inconclusive evidence…I doubt it.”

“Well, I'll come back another time to double check,” he declared, smiling. “You've been most helpful.”

“If it's important I could try to find it for you,” she offered. “Or you could send Mademoiselle Prandot.”

He remembered now: This girl and Micheline were friends. So she knew, probably, about their affair. He frowned slightly. “Mademoiselle Prandot is leaving my employ,” he stated somewhat curtly. “But if it's necessary, I'll send one of our other secretaries.”

“Certainly, Monsieur le Député.”

He inclined his head and left the room. Only the cases with conclusive proof had been duplicated. That's what she'd said. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't. But Justin Reeve would go on what Alex would tell him.

He called for a taxi and gave the Gare du Nord as his destination. The cash lay in his briefcase with the folded sheet on Justin Reeve. It contained nothing but bills and the crucial sheet. Outside, playful spring leaves were waving in the sun on the limbs of the plane trees, like bangles on the arm of a graceful flapper.

T
he Doric columns
of the Du Barry pavilion rose tall and cool against the sudden heat of the May third afternoon, and the butler came out with his salver of iced tea and cakes, discreetly moving from one group to another. There were only four people on the patio. Jamie sat near the steps, Lesley standing behind her, and to the side, alone, Alexandre leaned against one of the columns. Nobody spoke, but they waited tensely, minutes passing by like hours and weeks.

Lesley was thinking: Nobody knows what Alex had to do. He did it for his niece. If I had told him before, might he have been willing to forgive me? But it was too late. When he had returned from the Gare du Nord two days before, his face had looked haggard, white and drawn, and she hadn't dared approach him. He'd gone into his room, shut the door, refused dinner. Jamie hadn't asked. She was too subtle, too tactful to pry, but in her eyes had come a glow, a compassion. Had she known then that Lesley's marriage was over? They still hadn't discussed it. Alex had later knocked on Jamie's door, lingered an hour speaking with her. Lesley didn't know what they'd discussed. But she thought: If it hadn't been for me, for the mess of my life, none of this would have happened. Alex wouldn't have had to do something repugnant to him. Jamie wouldn't have been deprived of her daughter.

Something rebelled inside her. She'd led her life as anyone might have, only she'd had the misfortune to have been caught with a pregnancy. Alex was holding himself aloof, judging her. But she hadn't really done anything! Elena and Paul were the criminals. What they'd been doing was cruel, illegal. They'd been living off her for three years, making her relive a nightmare that otherwise, she might have forgotten. Eventually she and Alex would have been able to live on, to be happy.
They
hadn't let her.

All at once there was a noise, a crunching of gravel. Jamie uttered a small cry, rose in her chair. Lesley's arm tightened around her. Alexandre came close to them, his foot scraping Jamie's chair leg. A small form was coming up the path, in a red checkered dress: Cassandra, carrying a small doll, her reddish-brown hair tied back into a pony tail. She was coming from far away, from the gate, but Jamie shot up from the chair and started to run, her own hair loose over her back, flying. Lesley moved forward, but Alex laid a hand on her arm: It was Jamie's child, Jamie's moment.

The three people on the porch watched, mesmerized, as Jamie bent down and hugged the child, as they heard her sobbing against her daughter. Then Lesley saw Alex. He slipped out to the right, disappeared among the shrubbery and trees that separated the right flank of the house from the road. Her throat tightened. Part of her wanted to watch the reunion, the other part wanted to follow Alex. She was suddenly afraid. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Paul coming by her and him running to the woman and the little girl. He was crouching down by them and lifting Cassie into the air. Jamie was standing now, looking at him. Lesley turned around and went where she had seen Alexandre go, into the small wood. Her chest felt painfully constricted.

There was no sign of Alex. Lesley walked along, then lifted her skirt and began to sprint, reaching the gate just as she saw him passing by, running. She'd rarely seen him move so quickly. Her heart pounding, she ran after him. The cul-de-sac seemed empty at first, a beautiful, shaded road bordered by disintegrating stone walls. She turned her heel, cried out, fell down, stood up again, holding her ankle, tears of pain in her eyes. But the concern seemed greater than the bruised ligament and the broken heel of her shoe.

To the far left there was a parked car, a red Citroën, and she heard noises coming from its vicinity. She tried to run, but her ankle hurt too much, so instead she limped along toward the red automobile. She approached the car and then she heard the yells. In the ditch, next to the wheels, two men were fighting, their arms around each other, fingers around each other's throats. Alex and Justin.

Lesley stood transfixed, watching them. She looked on in horror as Justin's fingers tightened around Alex's neck, squeezing the breath out of him. Then Alex reacted, shoved the other man off him with all his might. But instead of fighting back, Justin began to run toward the car, leaving Alex in the ditch, stunned, his hands touching the bruises on his throat. Justin slammed the door, turned the key in the ignition, and revved the engine. The Citroën took off with a screeching of tires.

Lesley ran to her husband, knelt beside him. “Call the police!” Alex ordered, breathless and in pain.

But she shook her head, tears streaming down her face, tears of relief as well as of fear. “Let him go,” she said in a hushed voice. “He's never going to hurt any of us anymore.”