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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Blind Detective
- Sprache: Englisch
Paris, 1945. Frederick Rowlands arrives in a city riven by the political turmoil following the Liberation at the behest of MI5 agent, Iris Barnes. A young woman calling herself Clara Metzner has just been released from Ravensbr ck concentration camp - and Rowlands, who last met her in Berlin in 1933, has been given the task of confirming whether she is who she says she is. This is far from easy, not only because of Rowlands' blindness, but because Clara's experiences have changed her almost out of recognition. But her evidence may be vital in assisting Iris to track down suspected collaborators in the upper echelons of French society. Then Clara - or the girl who is claiming to be her - is found dead, in circumstances that point to murder. Thrown into the unfamiliar world of Parisian high society, Rowlands must track down the killer, and prevent further deaths - including his own.
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MURDER IN PARIS
Christina Koning2
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For Maia and Cecilia
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Contents
Paris, April 1945
Chapter One
As the train pulled into the Gare du Nord, Frederick Rowlands was already on his feet, reaching for his stick and valise, both of which he’d stowed in the overhead rack. Moments after the engine slowed to a halt, with a grinding of brakes and a final burst of steam, he was descending from the first-class carriage in which he’d travelled from Dieppe, onto the platform of the great Parisian terminus. All around him was bustle and excitement: the slamming of carriage doors; the shouts of porters pushing trolleys; the joyful cries of people meeting their loved ones for what might be the first time in six years …
‘O! Maman, Maman … Est-ce vraiment toi?’
These, combined with that unmistakable smell of French cigarettes and the delicious aroma of roasting coffee beans emanating from a nearby kiosk, told him he was once more on foreign soil. He was still getting his bearings – surely someone would have come to meet him? – when he felt a touch on his arm. ‘Hello, Frederick.’8
‘Miss Barnes. I wasn’t expecting …’
‘I insisted on meeting you myself. It’s the least I could do, since you’ve come all this way. How was the journey?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good. I’ll take your arm, shall I? It’s this way.’ She began piloting him through the slowly moving crowd, whose voices intermingled, in that vaulted space, in a kind of symphony:
‘Mon Dieu! Cela fait si longtemps que nous ne nous sommes pas recontrés …’
Interwoven with these heartfelt utterances were those of the more phlegmatic English: ‘I say, old chap. Fancy a spot of lunch?’
‘Rather. Shall we see if we can get a table at Maxim’s?’
American voices, too, rose above the rest.
‘Gee, ain’t it swell to be back in gay Paree?’
‘Sure is. Last time I was here was on the back of an army truck …’
By contrast with all this ebullience, Rowlands and his companion exchanged only the blandest remarks about the weather – fine – and the crossing – smooth – until they were seated in the car Iris Barnes had waiting. It was not until the big Citroën moved out from the side street in which it had been parked and into the Rue La Fayette, that she broached the subject of what had brought him to Paris. ‘You must know,’ she said in a low voice, although the glass panel between them and the driver was shut, ‘that your coming here at such short notice has been much appreciated in official circles.’
‘I wanted to come,’ he said. ‘Although I’m not sure how much use I can be.’9
‘We’ve cabled her brother, of course,’ said Miss Barnes. ‘But his ship’s in Simonstown. No chance of his getting here for another few weeks – always supposing that the Navy give him leave.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ he said, as the car moved out into what he guessed, from the increased speed at which they were travelling, to be one of the grands boulevards. He wondered if it all still looked the same as it had when he’d last set foot here.
‘Do you remember Paris before the war?’ asked his companion, perhaps guessing his thoughts. He realised as she spoke that she meant the war that had just ended, and not the Great War, which was the defining one for him.
He said that his memories were distinctly hazy, since he’d only visited a couple of times on leave, soon after his division was posted to France. The streets had been full of soldiers – both French and English – and there had been a hectic, hedonistic mood across the city, as if everyone was doing their best to forget what was happening not many miles away.
‘What I do remember of the city was its beauty,’ he went on. ‘Notre-Dame and the Pont Neuf, and all those tall stone houses with the shutters.’ And that steel-blue light over everything, he thought, but did not say. Yes, he remembered the light …
‘My first visit was a school trip with our French assistant, when I was fifteen,’ she said. ‘Mam’selle did her best to impress on her charges – horrid little girls that we were – the superiority of French culture, while trying to stop us running after the local youth … not always successfully,’ she added. ‘In fact, I can date my interest in subterfuge to 10that very time. Then there was the couple of years I spent at the Sorbonne, after my father was posted to Paris … Ah, here’s the Place de l’Étoile. I expect you remember that?’
He said that he did.
‘It was here, just eight months ago, that the General had his great triumph,’ she said. ‘Over a million people turned out to cheer him. They were hanging out of windows and climbing on lamp posts to get a glimpse of him. It was quite a spectacle. Seeing him marching along the Champs-Élysées, with his head held high, as if he and he alone were responsible for beating the Nazis … Oh, he was revelling in it, all right! France’s great liberator.’
The last words were said with a certain irony. ‘It’s just a pity that when he made his speech to the cheering crowd he forgot to mention the men and women – not all of them French – who’d made that liberation possible. Those who’d fought the Germans on various fronts, and who’d carried out acts of resistance. I don’t,’ she went on, still in the same dry tone, ‘make any particular claim for my own outfit. We did what we could – which was never enough. But a word of thanks would have been nice. Arrêtez ici,’ she called to the driver as the car, having traversed the great space, with its radiating avenues, passed down one of these and turned at last into a side street.
This, said Miss Barnes, was the Rue Saint-Didier, where the Hôtel Cécil – present headquarters of her ‘outfit’– was to be found. ‘It’s seen better days, of course,’ she said. ‘What remains is a rather faded version of its Belle Époque glory … Not that anything here is as it was,’ she added cryptically. ‘Some might think Paris was lucky to escape the bombing London endured – but in a way, what’s happened 11here is worse. It’s as if the heart has been torn out of the place, leaving an empty shell … albeit a beautiful one.’
Entering the hotel, whose marble-floored foyer had the echo of a more spacious fin-de-siècle era, they climbed the stairs (the lift was out of order, said Miss Barnes) to what Rowlands surmised, after counting five flights, to be an attic floor. Here, the MI6 officer opened a door, saying apologetically, ‘I hope this is all right? We’re rather full up here, at present.’ Rowlands murmured that he was sure it would be fine. The room, although evidently small, was airy, with windows opening onto a tiny balcony. ‘I wouldn’t advise going out there,’ said Miss Barnes, after a glance. ‘Looks decidedly rickety. Lovely view, though …’
If she realised the irrelevance of this remark as far as he was concerned, she didn’t allude to it. ‘If you leave your bag here it should be quite safe. We’ll go and find some lunch. We’ll need it for what we’ve got to do later.’
Descending the four flights up which they had just come, she halted at the first floor. ‘We’ll step into my office for a minute. There’s someone you ought to meet.’
As they walked in, the rattle of typewriter keys greeted them; the sound stopped abruptly. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, madame,’ said the typist.
She spoke in English, but Rowlands detected the trace of an accent – French, he thought – a supposition confirmed when Miss Barnes said, ‘Don’t let us interrupt you, Louise. I just wanted to introduce Frederick Rowlands, a friend from England. He’ll be staying with us for the next few days. This is Mrs Collins, Frederick. My right-hand woman. There’s nothing that happens in this office she doesn’t know about.’12
‘Good to meet you,’ said Rowlands, holding out his hand. From the brief contact that followed – scarcely prolonged enough to count as a handshake – he gained an impression of a slight, rather nervous woman, whose hand, despite the mildness of the weather, felt cold in his.
‘Have you got those lists for me?’ Iris Barnes went on, evidently deciding that the social niceties had gone on long enough.
‘They are nearly done, madame. I was just finishing them,’ replied the secretary.
‘Then we’ll leave you to get on,’ said Miss Barnes, after shuffling through a few papers on her desk. ‘We’re on our way to Fresnes. I take it they’re expecting us?’
‘Yes, madame. I rang the directress first thing this morning.’
‘Good. Lunch first, I think, Frederick, don’t you?’ Then to Mrs Collins, now busily typing, ‘I’ll be out for the rest of the day. You needn’t stay beyond your usual time, Louise.’
‘Madame.’
‘She’s the best secretary I’ve had since I came to this place,’ Miss Barnes confided in a low voice, as she and Rowlands descended the last flight of stairs. ‘Keeps everything running like clockwork. That’s one advantage of employing an older woman – they’ve more sense of responsibility than some of the flighty young things you get nowadays.’
‘She can’t be all that old,’ said Rowlands, to whom the voice, and the nervously clammy hand, had suggested someone not long out of her teens.
‘Oh, she’s probably not more than twenty-five,’ said the MI6 officer carelessly. ‘War ages people, I suppose. 13Louise Collins is a widow. Husband was in the Resistance. He was British – or rather, Irish. Captured and shot, after being tortured by the Gestapo. That was two years ago. I don’t think Louise has ever got over it.’
As they crossed the lobby they encountered two men, deep in conversation, who’d just come in. ‘Ah, Rosalind, so you’re back, are you?’ said one of them, addressing Rowlands’s companion. ‘I take it this is the witness of whom you spoke?’
‘Yes, sir. We’ll be on our way to Fresnes within the hour.’
‘Good show, good show. Well, keep me informed of any developments, won’t you?’
‘Sir.’
Then the two men, neither of whom were introduced to Rowlands, continued on their way upstairs, still talking in low voices. ‘You must see,’ said the man who had asked to be kept abreast of developments, ‘that it’s a question of the balance of power …’
‘“Rosalind”?’ enquired Rowlands, when they had exited the building.
‘A nom de guerre,’ replied Miss Barnes. ‘It needn’t concern you. We’ll go this way.’ Taking his arm, so that any onlooker might have supposed that he was the one escorting her and not the other way around, she drew him along the street until they reached an intersection with what appeared to him, from the increased volume of traffic, to be a large thoroughfare. ‘There’ll be somewhere we can get a bit to eat along Avenue Kléber,’ she said, confirming this. ‘If we can find a place that hasn’t run out of food.’
A few minutes’ walk brought them to one such establishment, where, after some consultation with the 14proprietor as to what was good that day, she ordered plates of rabbit stew and a bottle of wine. ‘Not the best,’ she said after a mouthful of this. ‘But it’s all one can expect, these days. There’s still rationing here – although you can get most foods at a price.’
‘It’s the same in London.’
‘I suppose it must be. I’ve spent very little time there during the past two years. Well,’ said Iris Barnes, chinking her glass against his. ‘Here’s to the success of our venture.’
‘I still don’t know,’ said Rowlands, ‘what you hope to achieve from our “venture”, as you call it. I’m hardly the best witness you could have chosen – given that I’ve never actually set eyes on the girl.’
‘And I’ve already told you – our other witness can’t get here for another few weeks. Besides which, he was a child when he last saw her. You’re our best hope, Frederick.’
‘Best hope for what?’
‘Why, for preventing an injustice.’
‘What do you mean?’
She lowered her voice, although they were speaking in English and, as far as Rowlands could tell, those sitting at the tables on either side of theirs were French. But he knew enough of what living in a city riven with fear and suspicion was like from his time in Berlin in 1933. ‘There’s a strong possibility,’ said Miss Barnes, ‘that this girl isn’t who she says she is. She might be a genuine deportee, returned from the camps, or she might not.’
‘But why on earth …?’ he began; but she answered his question before he had finished putting it.
‘Do you have any idea of the treatment meted out to collaborators here – especially if they happen to be women?’15
‘I have heard something,’ he replied. ‘They’ve put some people on trial.’
‘Yes, and hanged them – with good reason, in most cases,’ she said, with the chilling matter-of-factness he recalled from previous encounters. ‘But there are other ways one can destroy a person – not always by killing them. Women, as I said, have paid a high price during this war, and after it. Hardly surprising if our young woman – whoever she might be – prefers to avoid having her head shaved, or being spat at for the crime of being too free with her favours … even though in most cases she will have had little choice in the matter. It may be, of course, that she has committed worse crimes – informing being one – for which the punishment would be more severe. Yes, she – our mystery woman – has every reason to fear exposure, if she has betrayed others to their deaths.’
It was just on four o’clock when their car pulled up outside the gates of Fresnes prison. Iris Barnes gave a little shudder. ‘I never see this place without thinking what it must have seen,’ she said, as they got out. ‘They held a number of our people here, as well as members of the French Resistance. Treated them with appalling brutality. Quite a few died – from torture, typhus and general ill-treatment, even before they could be transferred to one of the camps. Now, the position’s been somewhat reversed, in that most of those housed here have been returned from the camps. It’s a sort of holding pen, so to speak.’
‘I see. Then these people – of which she’s one – aren’t prisoners, as such?’
‘That’s right.’ She laughed. A mirthless sound. ‘Although 16exactly what they are isn’t always clear. That’s to say … nothing is. One thing you learn, when you’ve been in Paris for a while, is that all the distinctions have become blurred. Who’s a victim of oppression and who’s an oppressor … a Resistance fighter or a collaborator … Sometimes they’re the same thing.’
They had by this time entered the gaol by a wicket gate to one side of the main portal. After a cursory glance at the documents proffered by the MI6 officer, an official waved them through. ‘They know me here,’ said Miss Barnes; although he had worked that out for himself. ‘This way. You’d better stick close to me. It wouldn’t do for you to get lost in this place – it’s a labyrinth.’ This, too, he hadn’t needed to be told. The prison had the smell of all such places: a combination of strong carbolic, barely masking the stench of urine; institutional food (cabbage seemed to be the main ingredient) and something else he was inclined to characterise as the smell of fear. As if the horrors this place had seen had seeped into its very walls.
They crossed an echoing entrance hall and came to an iron staircase. ‘We go up here.’ Having climbed the stairs, which clanged beneath their feet, they went along a mezzanine whose floor was an iron grid. Ahead of them marched the wardress (they were in the women’s section of the gaol) to whom Miss Barnes had stated their business on arrival.
‘I needn’t tell you that you’ll probably find her changed,’ murmured the latter. ‘Physically, I mean.’
Before he could remind her that he, of all people, was hardly likely to notice this – given that he’d only the vaguest idea of what Clara Metzner looked like – they 17reached a door, the wardress unlocked it with a jangle of keys and they went in. If Rowlands was surprised that Miss Barnes should have chosen to interview the girl in her cell, rather than in the more convenient surroundings of an interrogation room, the thought was immediately swept aside by the physical sensations of finding himself in that cramped space, with its heavy, almost tangible atmosphere of pain and disgrace.
As he stood there, awaiting the moment when either the woman who had brought him here or the one he had come to see would break the silence, he felt the sweat spring out on his forehead. A foul metallic taste was on his tongue.
‘Well, Clara,’ said Iris Barnes at last. It came as a shock that she spoke in German. ‘I have brought you a visitor, you see.’ Ich habe Ihnen einen Besucher mitgebracht, sehen Sie.
‘Ja, gnädige Frau …’ The girl hesitated, then spoke again. ‘Mais je préfère parler français, s’il vous plait.’
‘And English? You speak that too, don’t you?’
‘Yes. A little. My English … it is not good. But I will try.’ She must have held out her hand then, for she said, addressing Rowlands, ‘How do you do, sir?’
He took the hand in his, and was appalled to feel how thin it was – no more than a little bundle of bones. She was standing closer to him now – he could smell her sour breath – and he estimated her height at a little over five foot. Perhaps five foot two or three. How tall had Clara Metzner been? He couldn’t now recall. Only that the impression he’d had, all those years ago, in Berlin, was of a lively, energetic girl, full of charm and mischievous humour. Not a bit like this spiritless, emaciated creature.18
She was speaking again, in the same careful English – as if, thought Rowlands, she was weighing every word she uttered. ‘I know you … do I not? There was an English man …’
‘Yes …’ began Rowlands eagerly; Iris Barnes put a warning hand on his arm.
‘Don’t prompt her.’
But the girl said nothing more to the purpose – except to murmur brokenly, ‘It was so long ago. I do not remember. Only that there was an Englishman.’
‘Well, we will leave that for the present,’ said Miss Barnes. ‘Tell us what you do remember. Your name, please.’
‘Clara Metzner.’
‘Age?’
‘Twenty-nine years.’
‘Address?’
There was a faint note of mocking humour in the young woman’s reply that recalled the Clara Metzner that Rowlands had once known. ‘Do you mean apart from Ravensbrück camp?’
‘I mean your address in Berlin.’
‘There were so many,’ sighed the girl. ‘But I think you are referring to 36 Marienburgerstrasse, where I lived with my mother and brothers. All dead, now,’ she said flatly. Rowlands found that he was holding his breath. Surely she knew that, out of all her family, at least one had escaped? She must have sensed his unease – or perhaps his expression had given away more that he imagined – for she added, ‘As far as I know.’
‘All right.’ The MI6 officer wasted no time offering condolences. ‘Father’s name?’19
‘Jakob. He died when I was a small child – of wounds received in the First War.’ This, at least, was accurate, thought Rowlands.
‘Mother’s name?’
‘Sara. She died in the camp. Of typhus.’ At this, Rowlands felt a pang. He had been very fond of Sara Metzner.
‘Other family members?’ went on this relentless catechism.
‘Two brothers. Joachim – the elder – and Walter. I have not seen either of them for many years. Both left Berlin when I was still at school.’
‘And what was your job, after you left school?
‘My job? I was an elementary school teacher, until I think, 1935 or 1936 … when all Jews were proscribed from teaching. By that time, my mother and I had moved away from Marienburgerstrasse. Or rather, we were moved. Do you want to know the addresses where we lived after that?’
‘No, that will do.’ Miss Barnes now turned to Rowlands. ‘Do you have any questions for this woman?’
He thought about it. ‘One or two. What floor did your family live on, in Marienburgerstrasse?’
She barely hesitated. ‘The third.’
‘And what was the name of your school – the one you attended as a pupil, I mean, not the one you taught at.’
‘It was Heinrich-Heine-Oberschule, on Driesener-strasse.’
These were things she might easily have been told by someone else. Uncomfortably aware that he was trying to trip her up, he said, ‘One last question. Can you tell me 20what your brother Walter liked reading about most, when you saw him last?’
There was a pause, which lasted so long that Rowlands began to fear that it would end only with the girl breaking down and admitting that she was a liar and a fraud, and not whom she pretended to be. But all she said at last, in the same expressionless tone that bore no resemblance to that of the girl he had known, was, ‘I do not remember. It was all so long ago.’
‘There were two girls,’ said Iris Barnes, in the car going back to Paris. ‘One German, one French. Both Jewish. They met in the camp, of course. The German was the girl we have just been to see – Clara Metzner, or so she claims. The other was called Amélie Mendl. A seamstress by trade. Quite a highly paid one, too. She worked for Gaby Bonheur, before the war.’ She paused, as if to allow him to comment. ‘You will have heard of her, I imagine?’
‘The dressmaker.’
‘She would say “couturier”. They take dressmaking very seriously here. But it amounts to the same thing.’
‘What happened to her – Amélie Mendl, I mean?’
‘She’s dead, or so the other girl says – the one calling herself Clara. Is it her, do you think, Frederick?’
He hesitated. ‘It’s difficult to say for certain. There were moments when I was almost sure … and others when she sounded like a completely different person from the one I knew. It was twelve years ago.’
‘I realise that. But were there any similarities – of voice, for example?’
Again he reflected. ‘I think so. Given that she’s now a 21young woman, not a girl of seventeen, and considering … well, all that’s happened since.’ He meant the camp, and the privations – physical and mental – Clara Metzner must have endured.
‘Understood,’ said Miss Barnes. ‘Go on.’
‘There was a moment when she spoke of her mother. I thought the emotion sounded genuine.’
‘She isn’t the only one to have lost a mother,’ was the rejoinder. ‘Anything else?’
‘She knew the names of her parents and siblings – and that Jakob Metzner had been wounded in the last war. The fact that she couldn’t answer my question about Walter is hardly surprising.’
‘No. But it is suggestive. If she’s lying about who she is, then she’d only have known about her brother’s interest in cinema … or actresses, or whatever it was … if she’d been there at the time. She could have picked up the family’s names and the other details she mentioned from talking to the real Clara. If this girl’s impersonating her, then there’s no one alive who can prove it. Except you,’ she added slyly.
He was silent, thinking about the conversation that had taken place in the prison. The sound of the young woman’s voice – listless, indifferent – as if she were only half alive. If this was Clara Metzner, then she had changed immeasurably in the dozen years since he had been in Berlin. ‘What did she do, this Amélie Mendl, that would make her want to hide who she really is? Did she betray somebody?’
‘It’s not so much what she’s done, as what she might do,’ was Miss Barnes’s typically evasive reply. ‘If she’s who we 22think she is, then she’s in possession of some information that might be very useful to us.’
‘What kind of information?’
But on this, Iris Barnes would not be drawn. ‘Suffice it to say that it will help us identify some real traitors,’ she said. ‘It’s why I asked you to come to Paris.’
‘I thought that was because you wanted to prevent an injustice,’ said Rowlands. ‘Only it seems as if it’s more about setting a trap.’
Chapter Two
After what had been an exhausting few hours, Rowlands was looking forward to a bath – to wash the prison smell from his hair and skin – followed by a leisurely stroll before dinner. But they had no sooner arrived back at the Hôtel Cécil, than Miss Barnes announced that they would be going out again within the hour. ‘There’s a party we should go to. Oh, don’t worry!’ – seeing his dismayed expression – ‘You needn’t dress. It’ll be quite informal.’
And so there was no time for more than a hasty wash and shave, and a change of shirt, before Rowlands was on his way again. He remembered this about Iris Barnes – she never wasted time, if she could help it. Social occasions were, for her, mere opportunities for the gathering of information, which was her stock-in-trade. Even her moments of relaxation were no more than the necessary pause before action – like an athlete’s momentary immobility before launching himself into a run; or a tiger gathering itself to pounce.24
Once more, they traversed the city, bowling smoothly along its great wide boulevards in the official car. ‘No, no, not that route,’ she said to the driver, in her rapid French. ‘Take the Avenue Victor Hugo, then Boulevard de Courcelles as far as the Parc Monceau. Then Rue de Moscou to the Boulevard de Clichy …’ She offered no further details of where they were going until they were almost at their destination. ‘Montmartre,’ she said, as the car began the climb up the steep streets. ‘Favourite haunt of artists, flâneurs and revolutionaries. And this’ – as the vehicle came to a halt, a few minutes later – ‘is 49 Rue Gabrielle, where you will find examples of all three.’
After Miss Barnes had given the driver orders to take himself off for an hour or two (‘But stay close, mind? I might need you …’), they got out. ‘Ah,’ said his companion. ‘It would appear that things have already started.’ This Rowlands had worked out for himself, from the raucous strains of ‘hot’ jazz that drifted out into the evening air.
At the MI6 officer’s bidding, they entered the building by the street door, which stood open, and climbed a flight of stairs, already thronged with partygoers, to a room on the third floor. This, Rowlands gathered, from the strong smell of oil paint, linseed oil and turpentine that even the powerful reek of French cigarettes could not disguise, was an atelier of some kind. That the studio – evidently a large one, occupying the whole width of the building – was crammed with people was evident from the deafening racket that greeted them as they went in.
By dint of pushing and shoving they got themselves into the room, while shouted conversations went on all 25around them. That these were mostly in French came as no surprise to Rowlands; nor that the subject of most of these exchanges (as far as he could gather) was art.
‘A-tu vu l’exposition?’
‘Malheureusement, oui. Mon Dieu! Quelles affreuses peintures!’
‘Oui, bien sûr. Mais elles sont très populaires, tu sais …’
From this cacophony of voices others arose, speaking in more familiar accents:
‘Good God! What the hell’s it supposed to be?’
‘I think it’s rather good … once you get used to the fact that the eyes are both on the same side of the nose. I rather like the green hair.’
‘You would. Personally, I think all this Cubist stuff is a fad that won’t last …’
One of these two voices was familiar to Rowlands, but as he began to move (not without difficulty) towards the speaker – of course, he would be at a gathering like this – a drink was thrust into his hand. ‘Best I could do, I’m afraid,’ said Iris Barnes. ‘But it won’t poison you. Come on. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
She drew him towards the centre of the room, where a man was holding forth – also in English – although his accent suggested he was a native of a city other than Paris. Somewhere further south, Rowlands guessed. Madrid or Barcelona. ‘I am a simple artist,’ he was saying. ‘I know nothing of politics.’
‘B-but surely, Señor Ruiz …’ stammered the young man to whom he had addressed these remarks. ‘Surely your work has often dealt with political themes … I mean … the war in Spain for example …’26
‘That was a long time ago,’ was the sharp rejoinder. ‘I was a young man. Young men like to express their political views. Since then, I have become wiser … Ah!’ At once, he switched his attention from his young acolyte to Rowlands’s companion. ‘Mademoiselle Rosaline, is it not? I did not expect to see you in my humble studio.’
‘You know I never miss one of your shows, Diego,’ she replied. ‘This is Mr Rowlands, who is also an admirer.’
Rowlands held out his hand, and felt it firmly gripped. From the muscular strength of this, and the height from which the other man’s voice came, he envisaged a short, powerfully built individual – and one with a penetrating gaze, as evinced from his next remark: ‘I fail to see how he can admire my paintings, since he cannot see them.’
This, thought Rowlands, was a very shrewd character. ‘What my friend means, Señor Ruiz,’ he said, ‘is that your fame precedes you. Even in England, we have heard of your work.’
‘Ah yes,’ replied the other, with some complacency. ‘The English appreciate good art – having so little of their own,’ he added with a laugh.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Rowlands. ‘Turner. Gainsborough. Constable. I’d say they were all pretty fine painters. It’s true that I haven’t had the good fortune to see your work, Señor Ruiz – but I wonder, will it stand the test of time as well as these artists have?’
There was an awful silence. Ruiz was evidently not a man used to being contradicted. Then, from somewhere near at hand came a burst of laughter. ‘He’s got you there, Diego! Admit it. You Frenchies can’t have it all your own way where painting’s concerned.’27
‘I am Spanish,’ said Diego Ruiz in a withering tone. ‘As you well know, Loveless. And what you say is true, Mr Rowlands. There have indeed been some English painters – the ones you mention and a few others – whose work I would deem passable. But nobody worth mentioning in modern times.’
‘As you’ve pointed out, I’m not in a position to judge,’ said Rowlands mildly. ‘But I’m told Mr Loveless here is a good painter. And what of Isaac Goldberg?’
‘Ah, Goldberg is another matter,’ said Ruiz. ‘But then he is a German Jew. I will allow you Goldberg.’
‘Big of you,’ muttered Percy Loveless; then to Rowlands, ‘It’s good to see you, dear old spy. It must be ten years since we last met. I wonder what brings you here, to this newly liberated city? Or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘You may certainly ask,’ interjected Iris Barnes. ‘Whether Mr Rowlands here would be well advised to answer is another matter.’
‘Ah, the lovely Miss … whatever your name is,’ replied Loveless. ‘Looking just the same as when you sat for me a dozen … or was it fifteen … years ago? Good to see you’re still following your artistic bent.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said drily. ‘I’ve never lost interest in the arts.’
‘Of course, our friend Diego Ruiz is very much the centre of the Paris art scene,’ said Loveless innocently. ‘Oh yes, he knows everybody – don’t you, Diego?’
But Ruiz was no longer paying attention, caught up as he was in what sounded like a friendly dispute on the relative merits of Titian and Caravaggio. ‘For me, there is no contest,’ he was saying flatly. ‘The one was a master of 28colour and light – whereas the other was a mere showman, performing his tricks for the crowd.’
‘Come on!’ protested the other. An American, Rowlands surmised. Paris seemed to be full of them. ‘You can’t deny his mastery of chiaroscuro …’
‘Like I said – trickery,’ replied the artist. ‘Besides which, he was a murderer. And I dislike murderers.’
The American laughed, as if Ruiz had made a very good joke. ‘Sure you do,’ he said.
Only Ruiz wasn’t laughing. ‘When are you going to pay me for that painting I did for you?’ he demanded. ‘We artists have to eat, you know, Harrington.’
Of course, thought Rowlands, Boyd Harrington would be here. The industrialist had done very well out of the war, it was said – his factories in the USA supplying aeroplanes and guns to Allied forces across the globe. Some of the wealth he’d acquired by these means was evidently being spent on enlarging his renowned art collection. ‘You’ll get your money, don’t worry!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Just as soon as the Foundation takes delivery of the work. You promised it six months ago.’
‘Six months ago we had barely got rid of the Boche,’ replied the artist coldly.
‘Oh, sure,’ said the American, still in the same bantering tone he had used throughout their exchange. ‘I guess it must have taken a while for you to straighten out your affairs in that respect.’
There was a charged silence. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ Ruiz spoke quietly, but there was an underlying menace in the words.
‘Just what I said, old sport,’ the other replied. ‘You 29weren’t the only Paris resident to get tangled up with the Nazi overlords. I mean, they kinda ran the show for more’n five years, didn’t they? Hardly surprising if people got drawn in. Don’t suppose any of you had much choice …’
‘If you’re suggesting I had anything to do with those bastards, you’d better take it back right now.’ Ruiz’s tone was ugly.
Boyd Harrington seemed to realise he’d gone too far, for he said quickly, ‘Easy, old sport. I didn’t mean anything by it. Only I really would like that painting. I paid for it, you know …’
‘You’ll get your painting,’ said Ruiz. ‘Now get out of my studio.’
‘Hey!’ said the American, his tone still affable. ‘No need to take that attitude, old sport.’
‘I said get out.’
‘Boys, boys!’ said another voice: a woman’s, also American. ‘What’s all the ruckus? We could hear you on the stairs, couldn’t we, Avis?’
The woman’s companion murmured something that Rowlands didn’t catch – her voice being drowned out by the resonant tones of the first speaker, who now addressed her countryman. ‘Hello, Boyd! Knew I’d see you here. Picking out some nice pieces for your collection, I guess?’
‘Hello, Gerda. Guess you’re here for the same reason, now you’re back from Switzerland, or wherever it was you were hiding out …’
‘Savoy, actually. Avis and I never left France.’
‘You were lucky, then. Some people had no choice but to leave … But maybe you had friends in high places, like our friend Ruiz?’30
‘Are you still here?’ demanded the artist rudely. ‘Gerda, I want a word with you about that new piece. How much are you prepared to give me for it?’
‘How good to know that, after the turmoil and bloodshed of the past six years, the art world has returned to what it does best – talking about money,’ murmured Loveless in Rowlands’s ear.
‘Did it ever stop?’ said Iris Barnes. ‘It’s good to see you, Loveless. How was Canada?’
‘Cold. My wife liked it, though. But then she’s German. They know about cold winters. How was your war, Rowlands, old man? I must say, you’re looking remarkably fit.’
Rowlands was still reeling from the news that Loveless had a wife – although come to think of it, hadn’t he once said he was married? It had sometimes been difficult to know whether Loveless was joking or not. ‘I got through the war all right, as you can see,’ he said.
‘And your charming spouse?’
‘She’s well, too.’
‘Good to … hear—’ The remark was lost in a fit of coughing. ‘Sorry … sorry,’ Loveless gasped, when he could speak again. ‘Wretched bronchitis. Don’t seem to be able to throw it off.’
The studio, which had been full to capacity, now showed signs of emptying out, as people downed last drinks and made plans to go on elsewhere for dinner. Loveless, too, muttered something about needing to see a man about a painting, and drifted off. ‘Let’s meet up before you leave Paris,’ he said to Rowlands. ‘I’m at the Hôtel d’Angleterre. You can find me there or at the dear old Select any day of 31the week. Do say you’ll come! One has so few friends left one can really talk to the way I can talk to you, dear old spy.’
Rowlands was struck by how much his friend had changed in the years since they had last met. Gone was the loud, bombastic individual he recalled. This man was quieter, almost subdued in manner. When he shook Loveless’s hand, agreeing that they must try to meet again before his return to England, he got the impression that the artist had lost height, and bulk. Illness, perhaps, had done that.
‘Poor old Loveless. He’s not looking at all well,’ said Iris Barnes, once the artist had left. ‘His eyesight’s not getting any better either – judging by the thick lenses in those glasses he was wearing.’
Rowlands was sorry to hear it. For a man like Loveless, whose life had been devoted to the visual arts, the realisation that he could no longer see clearly must have seemed like a catastrophe. As he was musing on this, and on the unfairness of life in general, Rowlands felt a tug on his sleeve. ‘Now that the crowd’s thinned out in here, we can take a closer look at what’s on the walls,’ said Miss Barnes. He guessed she had a reason for this, apart from a simple interest in Diego Ruiz’s paintings. Iris Barnes, he had come to know, had a reason for everything she did.
‘Some interesting work,’ she said, as they paused for her to examine the paintings displayed on the far wall. ‘All portraits, of course. That’s Diego’s favourite subject, the human face. Even though one might be forgiven for thinking that some of these resemble the faces of animals – or monsters – rather than anything human.’32
Rowlands, who vaguely remembered the beginning of the Cubist experiment before the Great War, murmured that he supposed it was the fashion. ‘Indeed,’ was the reply. ‘Although Diego would say he was the one who started the fashion. And he does it superbly well, one has to admit. Take this one, for example – Seated Man. You can tell it’s a man from the fact that he’s wearing a suit and tie. But the face is that of a creature from a nightmare – as if the features have been broken apart and reassembled. The effect is rather disturbing.’
Her companion, who had seen faces broken apart and reassembled – not by an artist’s hand, but by the action of a rifle bullet or a hand grenade – made no reply. ‘Ah, now this is a much more attractive image,’ Iris Barnes went on. ‘It’s a portrait of a young woman – pretty, too. Diego always did have an eye for a pretty girl. Funny, this face looks familiar. It’s one of his earlier, more naturalistic series – before he started distorting the features and shifting them around … Yes, it’s her all right.’
‘Who do you mean?’ Although he already had a suspicion.
‘Why, the very girl we’ve been talking to … or someone very like her. As I said, he likes pretty women, both as subjects and … well, in all the obvious ways.’
‘Are you saying this is a portrait of Clara Metzner?’
‘It might be her, or it might not,’ was the reply. ‘The title of the piece is suggestive, however. The Little Seamstress,’ she added. ‘That would indicate that it’s not Clara, but the other one. Amélie Mendl. But who, now, can tell them apart – except you, Mr Rowlands?’33
They had dinner in a restaurant in Place du Tertre – a homely place, to judge by the rustic wooden tables and chairs, the former covered with the coarse cotton tablecloths Rowlands recalled from similar establishments visited when he’d been in Paris during the last war; his companion confirmed this. ‘Oh, places like La Mère Catherine haven’t changed in fifty years … or a hundred years, come to that. Same red-and-white checked tablecloths, same rough red wine – made from grapes grown in the local vineyard, not three hundred yards away, it might amuse you to know. Same reliable dishes. I hope you like chicken, by the way, since that’s all they’ve got?’
Rowlands said that sounded good – and indeed, the smells wafting towards him from the kitchen at the back of the place were making his mouth water. ‘Funny to think that only six months ago this restaurant was overrun with Germans,’ said Iris Barnes. ‘It was popular with all ranks of the Wehrmacht – although of course the top brass preferred the smarter places on the Right Bank.’
Rowlands didn’t ask her how it was she knew this, given that she could hardly have been in Paris during the hostilities, unless it had been under a different identity … which was probably the case, he thought. ‘It must have been a strange time,’ was all he said. ‘Living under occupation, I mean.’
‘Oh, it was,’ she replied off-handedly. ‘But then I’ve found people can accommodate themselves to almost anything.’ She broke off, took a swig of her wine, then said, without further preamble, ‘Well? What did you think of him?’34
‘You mean your artist fellow?’
‘Of course. Is he a traitor, do you think? Or merely a clever man who knows on which side his bread’s buttered?’
Rowlands laughed. ‘How on earth should I know? I’ve only just met the man.’
‘You have an instinct for these things. But no matter. There’ll be time for you to make up your mind over the next few days. In the meantime, there are a few other people I want you to meet.’
‘Iris …’ He couldn’t help feeling that he’d been inveigled into something more complicated than he’d first supposed. ‘I came here – at no small inconvenience, I might say – for one reason and one reason only … which was to try and identify Clara Metzner. So far it seems I’ve failed miserably. As for these “other people” you mention, I fail to see …’
‘But they’re all connected. You saw that painting … or rather,’ she corrected herself impatiently, ‘you didn’t see it, but you heard it described by me. Don’t you think it’s suggestive?’
‘Of what exactly?’
‘Why, at the very least, of complicity,’ she said. ‘Ruiz knew Clara Metzner – or Amélie Mendl, if that’s what she was calling herself … Ah, here we are!’ Their food had arrived and conversation, except of the more general kind, ceased. Only when they’d disposed of the – surprisingly good – poule au pot, and Miss Barnes had called for the bill, did she say softly, ‘It’s important that you see the bigger picture, Frederick. To do that, you’ll need to stay at least until the end of the week. Tomorrow we’ll visit the girl again, and see if you can’t get some more out of 35her. In the afternoon, we’ve another engagement …’
‘Oh?’
‘When was the last time,’ she said, ‘that you attended a fashion show?’
Chapter Three
They set off for Fresnes prison soon after breakfast – a modest repast of coffee and brioche that left Rowlands (who liked his bacon and eggs) feeling unsatisfied. Although it was something more than hunger which had left him with this uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach … As the Citroën slowed to a halt in front of the prison gates, he did his best to shake off the sensation, which was perhaps no more than the effect of a disturbed night, and the unsettling thoughts arising from the day which had preceded it.
Once more, they passed through the wicket, and were nodded through by the porter. Once more, they found themselves in the echoing entrance hall of the great fortress, with its smells of carbolic masking fouler odours; its atmosphere of fear and suspicion. But as they began to make their way in the direction of the iron staircase that led to the upper floor, a door along the corridor opened and someone put her head out. ‘Mam’selle Rosaline!’
‘Madame Bodin. How very kind of you to meet us! But 37I assure you, it wasn’t necessary. Mr Rowlands and I are quite capable of finding our way around.’
‘But Mam’selle …’
‘This is Mr Rowlands, by the way. He is helping me with the investigation into the Metzner girl. Frederick, this is Madame Bodin, the directress of the women’s prison. It’s she who’s responsible for the welfare of the women here – including Clara. Speaking of whom, we really should be on our way. She’ll be expecting us.’
‘Then you do not know?’ said the directress, cutting across this. ‘You did not receive my telephone message?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Ah! A thousand pities. I had hoped to prepare you—’
‘Prepare me for what?’ said Iris Barnes sharply.
‘Why … that is … I …’ The directress seemed momentarily lost for words. ‘You had better come with me,’ she said at last. With which she turned and, heels clicking, set off in the direction of the staircase. This they climbed, in a silence heavy with apprehension. Again they walked, footsteps echoing hollowly along the metal floor of the mezzanine, and came to a halt outside Clara Metzner’s cell. ‘In here,’ said Madame Bodin, simultaneously thumping the door with the flat of her hand. The door opened, and the directress ushered them in. ‘You see how it is,’ she said. ‘She was already dead when we found her.’
‘Yes.’ Iris Barnes was silent a moment. For Rowlands, the slight gasp – swiftly checked – she had given, on seeing what he guessed must be Clara Metzner’s body, told him all he needed to know. That, and the smell of death that filled the room. ‘What time was this?’
‘Two hours ago – that is, a little after seven. I called the 38doctor and telephoned your office soon after.’
‘Who found her?’
‘The maid cleaning the rooms could not get a reply when she knocked. When she unlocked the door, she saw how it was, and summoned Wardress Charbon.’
‘Was it you who cut her down?’ said Iris Barnes to the wardress – evidently the one who had let them in.
‘Yes, madame.’
‘And where was she when you found her?’
‘Hanging from the window bars. Saw she was dead, straight away. Quite cold, she was. And blue in the face.’
‘A dressing-gown cord,’ said the directress. ‘It should have been taken from her, but …’ Rowlands could envisage the shrug which accompanied her next words. ‘We cannot supervise them twenty-four hours a day.’
‘No, but you might have known she was a risk to herself,’ said Miss Barnes. ‘These women have endured a great deal. It takes very little to tip them over the edge.’
‘She seemed no worse than any of the others,’ was Madame Bodin’s reply. ‘But if you think there is cause for complaint …’
‘No matter.’ The MI6 officer sounded as if the subject bored her. ‘What time did it happen, as far as you know?’
‘The doctor thought she’d been dead between four to six hours.’
‘So …’ Miss Barnes made a calculation. ‘She died between three and five this morning. I assume,’ she said, with the cold detachment Rowlands still found unnerving, ‘that the cells are locked during these hours?’
The directress said that they were. ‘Reveille is at six. But some of the women sleep in if they don’t feel like 39breakfast.’ To hear her speak, they might have been pampered starlets, sleeping off a night’s excesses, instead of poor, broken-down survivors of a terrible war.
‘And so she – Clara – wasn’t found until an hour later?’ persisted Iris Barnes.
Again the other must have shrugged; it was in her voice. ‘As I have said, it was the maid sweeping out the rooms who found her.’
‘I’ll need to speak to the maid.’
‘That will not be possible, mam’selle. She was distressed, you understand. I sent her home.’
‘Even so she will have to be interviewed. Have the police been called?’
For the first time, the directress sounded faintly embarrassed. ‘I thought, mam’selle, that I should wait until you had seen her.’
‘Well, I’ve seen her. You’d better get her to the mortuary now. I’ll want a copy of the doctor’s report. And I’ll talk to the police.’
‘Yes, Mam’selle Rosaline.’
