But when he got as far as the Section Committee prison where Marie-Claire had been shot, and walked along the same stone corridor, with the smell of sweat and fear in the air, he knew there was no such easy error.
‘Ah – Citizen Lawyer,’ the man with the scar said, smiling. ‘We know who you are, you see?’ He nodded to the soldiers. ‘You can go. You have done well, but we have our own guards here.’ He gestured toward three burly men with gaping shirts and red bandannas around their heads or necks. In the oppressive heat their faces and chests were slick with sweat. Two had pistols, one a knife.
The soldiers left.
‘Now, Citizen Carton,’ the man with the scar began, taking his seat behind a wooden table set up as if it were a judge’s bench. Carton was left standing. ‘This matter of the cheeses that were stolen. It seems you know more about that than you said before. Now would be a good time to tell the truth – all of it. A good time for you, that is.’
Carton tried to clear his brain. What he said now might determine his freedom, even his life. Men killed for less than a cheese these days.
‘You don’t have them?’ He affected immense surprise.
The man’s face darkened with anger and suspicion that he was being mocked.
Carton stared back at him with wide innocence. He really had no idea where the cheeses were, and he had even more urgent reasons for wishing that he did.
‘No, we don’t,’ the man admitted in a growl.
‘That is very serious,‘ Carton said sympathetically. ‘Citizen…!’
‘Sabot,’ the man grunted.
‘Citizen Sabot.’ Carton nodded courteously. ‘We must do everything we can to find them. They are evidence. And apart from that, it is a crime to waste good food. There is certainly a deserving person somewhere to whom they should go.’ The place seemed even more airless than before, as if everything which came here, human or not, remained. The smell of fear was in the nose and throat, suffocating the breath.
Along the corridor to the left, out of sight, someone shouted, there was laughter, a wail. Then the silence surged back like a returning wave.
Carton found his voice shaking when he spoke again. ‘Citizen Sabot, you have been very fair to me. I will do everything I can to learn what happened to the cheeses and bring you the information.’ He saw the distrust naked in Sabot’s face, the sneer already forming on his lips. ‘You are a man of great influence,’ he went on truthfully, however much he might despise himself for it. ‘Apart from justice, it would be wise of me to assist you all that I can.’
Sabot was mollified. ‘Yes, it would,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll give you two days. Today and tomorrow.’
‘I’ll report to you in two days,’ Carton hedged. ‘I might need longer to track them down. We are dealing with clever people here. If it were not so, your own men would have found them already, surely.’
Sabot considered for a moment. Half a dozen Revolutionary Guards marched by with heavy tread. Someone sang a snatch of ‘The Marseillaise’, that song the rabble had adopted when they burst out of the gaols of Marseilles and the other sea ports of the Mediterranean, and marched all the way to Paris, killing and looting everything in their path. Carton found himself shaking uncontrollably, memory nauseating him.
‘Tomorrow night,’ Sabot conceded. ‘But if you find them and eat them yourself, I’ll have your head.’
Carton gulped and steadied himself. ‘Naturally,’ he agreed. He almost added something else, then while he still retained some balance, he turned and left, trying not to run.
Back in the room he rented, Carton sank down into his bed, his mind racing to make sense of what had happened, and his own wild promise to Sabot to find the cheeses. He had been granted barely two days. Where could he even begin?
With Marie-Claire’s original plan. She had intended to have Philippe tell Fleuriot that he was going to post guards, so he had moved the cheeses and the bacon to a more accessible place. Only he had done it earlier than the time agreed with Marie-Claire. Presumably his plan had worked. Fleuriot had moved the cheeses, and Philippe had caught him in the act, and confiscated them. Fleuriot had said nothing, because he should not have had the cheeses in the first place. So much was clear.
Marie-Claire had heard of it and attempted to accuse Philippe, but either she had not been listened to at all, or if she had, she had not been believed, and Philippe had silenced her before she could prove anything. According to Sabot, no one had found the cheeses, so Philippe must still have them.
Maybe Carton should begin with Fleuriot. He at least would know when the cheeses had been taken, which – if it led to Philippe’s movements that day – might indicate where he could have hidden them. Carton got up and went out. This was all an infuriating waste of time. He should be working. His money was getting low. If it were not his own neck at risk, he would not do it. All the proof of innocence in the world would not save poor Marie-Claire now. And it would hardly help Jean-Jacques, either. No one cared because half the charges made were built on settling old scores anyway, or on profit of one sort or another. Those who had liked Marie-Claire would still like her just as much.
He walked along the street briskly, head down, avoiding people’s eyes. There was a warm wind rising, and it smelled as if rain were coming. Old newspapers blew along the pavement, flapping like wounded birds. Two laundresses were arguing. It looked like the same ones as before.
He went the long way around to the Rue St Honoré, in order to avoid passing the house where Marat lived and printed his papers. He had enough trouble without an encounter with the ‘Rage of the People’. A couple of questions elicited the information as to exactly which house Fleuriot lived in, next to the carpenter Duplay. But Fleuriot was an angry and frightened man. The loss of a few cheeses was nothing compared with the threatened loss of his head. He stood in the doorway, his spectacles balanced on his forehead, and stared fixedly at Carton.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Citizen. There are always Revolutionary Guards about the place. How is one day different from another?’
‘Not Revolutionary Guards,’ Carton corrected patiently. ‘These would be from the local Committee, not in uniform, apart from the red bandanna.’
‘Red bandanna!’ Fleuriot threw his hands up in the air. ‘What does that mean? Nothing! Anyone can wear a red rag. They could be from the Faubourg St Antoine, for all I know. I mind my own business, Citizen, and you’d be best advised to mind yours! Good day.’ And without giving Carton a chance to say anything more, he retreated inside his house and slammed the door, leaving Carton alone in the yard just as it began to rain.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening getting thoroughly wet and learning very little of use. He asked all the neighbours whose apartments fronted onto the courtyard, and he even asked the apothecary in the house to the left, and the carpenter in the yard to the right. But Philippe was powerful and his temper vicious. If anyone knew anything about exactly when he came with his man, they were affecting ignorance. According to most of them, the place had been totally deserted on that particular late afternoon. One was queuing for candles, another for soap. One woman was visiting her sick sister, a girl was selling pamphlets, a youth was delivering a piece of furniture, another was too drunk to have known if his own mother had walked past him, and she had been dead for years. That at least was probably honest.
Carton went home wet to the skin and thoroughly discouraged. He had two slices of bread, half a piece of sausage, and a bottle of wine. He took off his wet clothes and sat in his nightshirt, thinking. Tomorrow was July 13. If he did not report the day after, Sabot would come for him. He would be angry because he had failed twice, and been taken for a fool. And what was worse, by then Philippe himself would almost certainly be aware of Carton’s interest in the matter. He must succeed. The alternative would be disaster. He must find out more about Philippe himself, where he lived, what other places he might have access to, who were his friends. Even better would be to know who were his enemies!