‘Watch out!’ he cried in panic and blinked. His heart was pounding.
Something had awakened him. Lafont? Had Oberg sent the bastards so soon?
‘Gabrielle … Gabrielle … Ah, Mon Dieu, you’re safe! I had thought … Listen, please. You and me, it would never work. This place … the life I must lead.’
She got up from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed. The house was a shambles. Jean-Louis had a good day’s growth of whiskers and crusts in the corners of his eyes. The covers were thick and up to his chin. He’d a knitted toque on his head and earmuffs as well as gloves. ‘You’ll find me at the club if you need me.’
‘Yes … Yes, of course. The club.’ He wet his throat.
She tossed her beautiful head, tossed the mane of hair that was not blonde but the fine, fine shade of a fine brandy.
‘I’ve a general waiting, Jean-Louis. I only stopped by to see if you were here. I had a premonition you would be.’
‘What time is it?’
‘0800 hours Berlin time. I am just on my way home. We had a good crowd last night. They had missed me.’
‘How’s Rene Yvon-Paul?’
Her son. ‘Fine. Yes, fine, Jean-Louis. He has asked about you, and I have explained things to him. Think about it, eh? It would mean a lot to me.’
‘Me also, but it cannot be.’
She left him then in the cold and paltry light with the faint allure of Mirage in his nostrils. Gabrielle Arcuri, the chanteuse in a sequined sheath. A general was waiting.
Flinging himself over on to his left side in anger, St-Cyr saw that cracks had made pleasure with the wall on which had once hung an enlarged portrait photograph of his mother. The frame had been broken, the glass shattered by the blast. The photograph was now in shreds and he knew there’d be no sense in trying to glue it back together.
Gabrielle had made him an offer to stay at her place, an offer he dared not accept. Ah merde! why had he dreamt of her like that, and naked too?
The house was draughty but by some trick of fate or act of God, the lavatory he’d installed with plumber’s tools and flames had been spared, the kitchen too. They were enough. Once Hermann and he had settled the murders, he’d start in on the repairs.
The nightmare continued to haunt him. Some of the animals had not risen as high as others. The High Court Jester had been trying to tell him something.
When he came out of the house, Hermann was waiting in the car. ‘Louis, I still can’t find Giselle. No one’s seen her. Madame Chabot is bitching about lost income.’
So much for the leisurely walk up to the carousel, the quiet think!
A cinematographer at heart, the film of Nicole de Rainvelle passed frame by frame before St-Cyr. He knew he should tell Hermann that Giselle might well have been worked over by Lafont and Bonny but … ah, Nom de Jesus-Christ! he didn’t have the courage.
‘Have you not slept a wink, Hermann?’
‘Not yet.’
‘More Benzedrine?’
‘Louis, I’m being torn apart. I can’t get it out of my head that something’s happened to her. I’m missing her like crazy.’
Was Hermann really in love? This thing, this case …
‘You drive. I hit someone’s black cat, Louis. It’s custard for the crows.’
Was he getting superstitious too? ‘Climb in the back, my old one. Go to sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.’
‘Breakfast?’
‘Let’s do the carousel first, while it’s still fresh in my mind.’
The greyness of the early morning filtered into the carousel through its canvas roof, and the wind, tugging at some bit of bunting, played mischief with the silence.
Not a thing inside moved. The elephant still had its trunk lifted in the stampede that had stopped. The lion still chased the lioness; wild-eyed, the zebra followed white stallions whose nostrils flared and whose eyes shied away in fright.
It was at once a moment profound and one he felt deeply. Here was the essence of the carousel, the lively colours that even in the subdued light of morning had lost none of their vitality. He was glad he’d left Hermann in the car asleep. Even the intrusion of packing a beloved pipe might be too much.
The carousel seemed as if each of its animals wanted to cry out, For shame, Chief Inspector! A killer, monsieur. Help us before it is too late. -, though we hated him, need not have died here, at least not here. – was good to us – you can see that for yourself. Look at our paint, look at how well kept we are. We’re still good some two and a half years after he left us. After the Defeat!- is in trouble. – is in danger. – are to blame.
Clement Cueillard popped his grinning head out of the inner workings. ‘You’ve turned to salt, eh? Good morning, Chief Inspector.’ He gave a cheery wave of his straight razor before disappearing to whistle up some lively tune, thus interrupting time and thought. Ah Mon Dieu … son of a bitch!
There’d been a towel folded jauntily about his scrawny neck. Cueillard had made himself at home. The place was warm. ‘Would you care for a coffee?’ the man sang out. ‘It’ll have to be in the monkey’s cup, but I’ll give it a swish if you like.’
A swish of soapy water? ‘Did the monkey come back?’ shouted the detective.
‘Late last night.’ The head popped out again. The razor glinted. ‘The little bastard woke me up. Bitching, swearing and banging things – leaping from animal to animal expecting a free ride and climbing all over the place. When it saw me, it gave a yelp and buggered off. Me, I could not catch it in my long johns. The grass was too cold and wet. Besides, there were stones.’
So much for monkeys at night. ‘Any idea where it’s holed up?’
‘The Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. Monkeys like height. Besides, there’s no food in the kiosks and restaurants. They’re all closed. He came back to get some. He’ll come back again if you leave a few bananas out.’
Bananas at a time of war, with most of Europe under naval blockade! Bananas from a former banana merchant?
‘Carrots will do,’ Cueillard sang out. ‘Or oranges. Personally I think he bitched because I ate the last of his stuff, except for the apples and pears. The chestnuts were excellent with the salt and a little butter. Roasted right in here.’
The ostrich grinned, the giraffe did too. The razor flashed.
‘The Prefet himself has given me the orders, Chief Inspector. I am to stick around until the case is closed. I am to report anything suspicious directly to him in person, and I’m to report in detail all developments. They are sending me a scaffold of paper.’
‘A scaffold?’
Cueillard examined his chin in the mirror that hung from a post. ‘Of paper, yes, monsieur. That is what I will construct for him.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t fall down. Hold the coffee. Don’t wake the sleeping beauty in the car.’
Armed with two apples and a pear, he set out. Footpaths led uphill through the trees. The smell of decaying leaves was in the air, the sound of water in some gully not far away.
Prior to 1867, the Buttes-Chaumont had been a stone quarry, the refuge of petty thieves and beggars. Though Baron Haussmann, the Prefet of the Seine, had got all the credit, it had been someone else who had put the place right. And wasn’t it odd, or a coincidence, that Talbotte, yet another Prefet, was involved today with the park, and that Talbotte, being Talbotte, would reap all the credit and none of the blame should a successful conclusion come to this whole affair.
Ah, Mon Dieu, what were they to do? Instead of witnesses, he was trudging after a monkey in the faint hope the creature could tell them something.
He’d take the long way round. The lake itself was fed partly by natural springs and partly by a diversion from the Canal Saint-Martin. Access to the island was by a brick footbridge and an iron suspension bridge, or by the simple and pleasurable act of hiring a boat and rowing across.