Strangled in Paris E-Book

Claude Izner

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: The Victor Legris Mysteries
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 491

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Why would anyone strangle a humble seamstress with no known enemies? When newly-married bookseller Victor Legris is asked to solve the murder of Louise Fontaine in the abattoir district of La Villette, he is initially baffled by the case. But as the investigation progresses, Victor, along with his assistant and brother-in-law Joseph, discovers that in belle-époque Paris young girls with no money or background are as ruthlessly preyed on as ever they were...

Leseprobe

STRANGLED IN PARIS

CLAUDE IZNER

Translated by Jennifer Higgins

To our darling mother

To Monique who will always be with us

Many thanks to our friend Jacques Rougemont for his invaluable research

The past and the future slumber in the eye of the unicorn.

Adage from the Middle Ages

The pitiful, battered voices

Of the old hurdy-gurdies

First caressing, then biting

Are like the sad, reedy cries

Of a madman who sniggers and sobs

On his deathbed.

Jean Richepin (The Song of the Beggars, 1876)

Contents

Title PageDedicationEpigraphCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER 5CHAPTER 6CHAPTER 7CHAPTER 8CHAPTER 9CHAPTER 10CHAPTER 11CHAPTER 12CHAPTER 13CHAPTER 14CHAPTER 15CHAPTER 16EPILOGUENOTESAbout the AuthorAlso by Claude Izner The Victor Legris MysteriesCopyright

CHAPTER ONE

Sunday 7 January 1894

The storm was battering the Normandy coast. It had swept through the British Isles, attacked the Pas de Calais and had now reached the Cotentin peninsula, where it was venting its full force on the La Hague headland.

Corentin Jourdan lay fully dressed on his four-poster bed listening to the great gusts and squalls shaking the walls. The fire flickered. A piece of canvas hung from the mantelpiece to stop the smoke filling the room. The flames threw bright, fleeting tongues of light onto the copper cistern and the old grandfather clock. Two carved birds’ heads seemed about to fly away from the corners of the wardrobe. A raucous miaowing briefly made itself heard above the tumult: the terrified cat was scratching at the front door. Corentin sat up. A ball of dirty fur with a pink nose and curly whiskers hurtled in through the cat flap and burrowed into the warmth of the eiderdown.

‘Now, Gilliatt, is that any way for an old ship’s mascot to behave? There’s nothing to get excited about!’

An explosion of noise drowned out his words: the thatched roof of the shed had just been torn off. Corentin grew more and more anxious as he heard the tempest attack his stock of dry logs, and he tried to calculate the damage. He would have to get the roof seen to by old Pignol, a real crook but the best thatcher for miles around. A loud neighing suddenly erupted from the stable next door: Flip was getting nervous. Just as long as he didn’t start kicking the walls down!

No doubt hoping to evade the worst of the weather, the old tomcat curled up under his master’s arm, purring loudly. Corentin smiled.

‘Chin up, Gilliatt! It’s only a little shower!’

He had seen worse when he used to navigate the Marie-Jeanneton around the Channel Islands. If it hadn’t been for that confounded spar, which had split during a squall and crushed his foot, he would never have left the navy.

He sighed deeply. Even though his house was a quarter of a mile from the shore, the sound of the breakers filled his room like the baying of a ghostly pack of hounds. The pounding of the surf reverberated inside him, soothing him. He sank into sleep.

When he woke, he felt once again the subtle stirring of fear he had battled ever since the accident. He had had to make a supreme effort to prevent the combination of inactivity and physical suffering getting the better of him. He had hated lying immobile on a hospital bed, dependent on the goodwill of others and far away from the salt air of the open sea. The enforced confinement had left him with no choice but to reflect on his past. For weeks he tried to work out whether he had made a mistake; why the stupid accident? At forty, with two-thirds of his life already gone, what did he have to look forward to? He had quickly recognised the brutal truth that no ship’s captain would ever trust a cripple. At that realisation he had fallen into deep despair as he thought longingly of the familiar, reassuring atmosphere of the Marie-Jeanneton.

A sickly, yellowish dawn was struggling to break, and in its pale light he saw Gilliatt, perched on a cupboard with incriminating crumbs of meat and pastry stuck to his whiskers.

Corentin stretched, and remembered his dream. Once again, Clélia had appeared, transparent and inaccessible. The only woman he had ever loved, the only woman he had never possessed, still haunted him. The memory of all the others, kitchen maids or working girls, whose services were freely offered, faded as soon as his desire was satisfied: only the unattainable woman had been able to capture and hold his imagination for such a long time.

He decided to go out. There might be someone in need of his help. Despite his general misanthropy, he was careful to maintain good relations with his neighbours; after all, it had been his decision to limit his life to this little huddle of cottages.

A squall of rain whipped his face. He jammed his hat more firmly on his head, glanced at the increasingly grey sky and pushed open the stable door. Flip’s tail and mane were ruffled by the wind. The mice feasting in the hay ran off, squeaking. He lit his lamp.

‘Hello there, Flip!’

The horse quivered at the sight of his master. Corentin patted his flank and fed him a sugarlump from his open palm.

‘A little treat from your groom, you old misery. There there, easy now, the storm’s dying down.’

The horse slowly rubbed his muzzle against the wood of his stall before deigning to accept the titbit.

‘Heavens above, Flip, stop looking at me like that!’ cried Corentin, rummaging in the bag full of grain. Flip pawed the ground happily and plunged his nose into the handful of oats that was offered to him.

‘Don’t make a mess, now.’

Corentin patted his neck, put fresh hay in the rack and extinguished the lantern.

‘Be good now, won’t you? Don’t kick anything over,’ he said, fastening the door.

Outside, a cold wind raked the distant hills. Corentin walked on, past the Chaulards’ farm, huddled behind its hillock like a frightened animal. The windows rattled in their frames and the whole building creaked. He couldn’t see a living soul.

He staggered down the slope, tossed about in the wind like a skiff bobbing on the sea. It was at times like this, when there was a big storm, that he most regretted the loss of his own boat. On board a ship, he used to be able to grapple with bad weather in an equal fight; on dry land, he was at the mercy of the slightest squall.

Looking out to sea, Corentin could see the waves tipped with glints of silver. He crossed a stream, now a torrent, gazed briefly at the cliffs obscured by clouds of sea-spray and turned his back on them. The main street in Landemer zigzagged between fishermen’s cottages and a few large villas converted for the summer into family boarding houses. The customs officer’s house had lost its ostentatious ceramic decoration and the smashed remains lay forlornly in the middle of the front garden. Corentin slowed down as he reached the inn, turning up the collar of his oilskin jacket. At this time of day the fish market was usually in full swing, but today the place was eerily empty. He turned towards the beach, dodging as best he could the buffeting breath of the invisible demon.

The raging waves had thrown up a wall of pebbles at the edge of the sand, which was now gradually emerging as the tide receded. The boiling cauldron of the sea was capitulating regretfully. To the right of the fort, there was a pale patch in the water – a flock of birds? Corentin had previously spotted storm petrels here, blown off course from the Orkney Islands.

He walked on for another hundred yards, happy to find himself in the deserted spot where he had spent so many hours observing wildlife and combing the beach for driftwood and curious stones. His solitary walks here had brought him a sense of peace and security. Except for occasional conversations with Madame Guénéqué, who came to clean his little house and to cook for him, Corentin led a solitary existence.

Leaden clouds raced along the horizon, and an angry wind whipped the waves into crests before flattening them again. Corentin squinted into the distance. No, that wasn’t a flock of birds, it was something much bigger. Driven against the reef, a schooner must have struck a rock, where its boom and bowsprit had shattered. The broken mast hung at a sickening angle; people on the bridge ran to and fro, dropping lines to evacuate the vessel. Small boats were bustling around the great carcass. So that was where all the inhabitants of Landemer and Urville had gone. They would have to work fast: the waves would soon pull the wreck under the sea.

He thought of all the fishermen who must have died, and of the captain of the vessel who, probably heading to France from England, had been presumptuous enough to defy the warning of such a troubled sea. Corentin, too, had often thought himself invincible.

Near Gréville, several small, wide skiffs were setting off towards the wreck, and he hurried on, impatient to join them. Suddenly, he stopped, still and attentive. A dark mass undulated in the ebbing tide. For a few seconds he stood motionless, shading his eyes, until all at once he understood, and began to run. A little girl or a woman lay in the foaming water, like a siren caught in the sticky net of seaweed.

Half carrying, half dragging the unconscious form out of the water, he staggered up onto the beach, and gazed in shock at the young woman’s face. Clélia? No! Clélia had been dead for twenty years. Acting instinctively, he loosened her clenched teeth with the stem of his pipe, cleared the mucus and seaweed out of her throat with his fingers and put his ear to her chest. Her heart was beating weakly. He knelt down and, seizing her wrists, began to raise and lower her arms vigorously, pressing on her chest with each downward movement. All this came to him automatically, with an expertise gained from twenty-five years of experience. He repeated this manoeuvre fifteen times every minute, his only thought to bring the unknown woman back to life.

All at once, she was racked by a great spasm and coughed violently before falling back again, inert. He took off his jacket and wrapped it round her. As he hoisted her up, he felt something digging into him: tied around the woman’s wrist was a cord with a small leather bag hanging from it.

Buffeted by the wind, he began to struggle back up the beach. Slight and fragile as his burden was, her drenched clothes made her heavy, and getting her back to his house was no easy task. The dunes seemed to have blurred into a grey mist, which danced before his eyes. He had to stop halfway to get a firmer grip on his charge, finally hauling her over his shoulder. The rain had set in again and he began to fear that the seeming calm had been misleading. When he finally reached his house, his mouth was parched and he had a burning pain in his back. Inside, it was bitterly cold.

With a sigh of relief, he laid the woman on the eiderdown and hurried to light a fire. Still limping, he rushed into the woodshed. The sodden logs would be useless. He turned back.

Ignoring Gilliatt, who was mewing for food, he grasped a hatchet and hacked two of his wooden chairs to pieces. As the flames engulfed them, he remembered that he had stored several bundles of heather at the back of the stable. He collected these, along with a crate that had once held bottles of cider: enough to keep the fire alive for at least an hour.

The woman groaned, her eyes still closed. She wore a small blue earring in her left ear but the right one was missing. He felt her pulse, which was racing. Her forehead was damp. He needed to undress her and rub her skin to get her circulation going. Quickly removing her bag and the jacket he had wrapped around her, he hesitated when confronted with her dress. So many buttons! He tore one off, undid another, and then resorted to more drastic measures. Using a knife, he cut away layer after layer of clothing. Tatters of cloth – skirt, bodice and petticoat – were strewn over the tiled floor. He felt as though he were peeling a fruit with an endless number of skins. Just as he thought he had finished, he came to a final barrier: the corset, as rigid as a breastplate. Clumsily, he undid the stays, and with a last effort separated the two halves of the armour, revealing her breasts, round, supple and generous. With trembling hands, he removed her lace drawers and torn stockings. Her legs were covered in scratches and the corset had left its impression on her skin, but nonetheless she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Not daring to touch any other part of her, he rubbed her frozen feet timidly.

Intrigued, Gilliatt began to sniff the woman’s body, nudging his nose between her legs. With a sweep of his hand, Corentin sent the cat flying, and Gilliatt leapt up onto the canopy of the bed.

Corentin uncorked a bottle of plum brandy that he kept for special occasions and dampened his hands with the alcohol. He slowly began to massage the woman’s skin, but stopped at her waist, hesitating to go any higher. The cat’s mewing brought his attention back to the task in hand. Applying a few more drops of brandy to his palms, he accelerated his massage. Her breasts were soft to his touch, and he moved down to her thighs, working methodically. He was calm now, her nudity no longer troubling him. He moved over the nape of her neck, her back, curving in so delightfully at the waist, her arms, her stomach, her thighs …

The bottle was empty and the woman lay, still unconscious, stretched out on her side, impregnated with alcohol and pink from having been rubbed all over. When he had cleaned her wounds, he covered them with a balsam pomade scented with mint. Reaching into the wardrobe, he unfolded a sheet, placed it over the woman’s body and piled several blankets on top.

The fire was dying down, so Corentin sacrificed a third chair, and hurried to the stable, where he grabbed the last bundles of heather and two more wooden crates from under Flip’s nose. Throwing all these provisions into a wheelbarrow, he made his way back via the shed and managed to find two logs that were less sodden than the others. He spread all this new fuel out next to the fireplace, and leant the logs against the fire-back to dry.

He felt drained of all strength. A sharp pain throbbed in his leg, just above the knee. He leant on the edge of the table, trying to get his breath back, and began to shiver, overcome by weariness after all the tensions of the day. He changed his clothes, cut himself a large hunk of bread and reduced another crate to splinters, immediately giving it up to the hungry flames. This time, the fireplace, satisfied with the offering, gave out an intense burst of heat. Corentin poured himself a tankard of cider and sat down beside the woman.

She looked young, no more than twenty-five. She was tanned, which showed that she had lived in the sun. And were her eyes even darker than the thick curls of her hair? And how would her lips taste? It was difficult to resist the temptation to find out. He held firm, but after a few moments pulled away the sheet to reveal her body, gazing in silent admiration, then reached out to caress a shoulder, the curve of a breast, her neck. Then, springing up so brusquely that he knocked over his stool, he pulled the covers back over her.

Was he going mad? He had learnt to protect himself with a shield of indifference. He had kept to himself, avoided all intimacy and turned off his emotions. This woman was the first to threaten his serenity since Clélia. The only explanation he could find was that the exertion had affected him more than he cared to admit.

He went up the steps to his attic room, a familiar little world that he had created when his sailing days had come to an end. A homely, comforting smell of tobacco, apples and ink hung in the air, and cases filled with watercolours and sketchbooks served as reminders of his past life. Two stuffed deities reigned over the chaotic piles of souvenirs from his travels: a great black cormorant and a chough. Scattered pages related stories from his youth when, as a young sailor, he had plied the seas of North Africa and the East. The small desk was covered with clothbound notebooks along with two paperweights and a paraffin lamp. Beside the desk, a sextant and a telescope jostled for space with pots of herbs and jars of pickled samphire. The carefully reconstructed skeleton of a tawny owl kept watch over a little trestle bed covered in books. On the rough wattle walls hung several drawings by Jean-François Millet, left to him by his uncle Gaspard, who had bought them when the painter had returned to his native village near Landemer. Corentin’s favourite was a sketch of a shepherd herding his flock by moonlight. He was also particularly fond of the large circular map of the world that he had copied from one by Mercator. One of the cupboards was filled with dozens of nautical charts, although the chart showing the seas near his home was redundant because Corentin (like Gilliatt, the hero of Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea, for whom the cat was named) was ‘born with a map of the bed of the English Channel inscribed in his head’.

Corentin lit his pipe. Without warning, Clélia appeared before him. If only he had married her, his beloved cousin! She had been seduced by a travelling puppeteer in Cherbourg, and followed him to Paris where, abandoned and miserable, she had died of puerperal fever. He had only found this out after endless searching and questioning. He had never been able to discover where she was buried.

‘What does it matter, anyway?’ he muttered, getting up and standing by the window. The apple trees in the paddock were bending in the strong west wind. The slate-coloured sky was indistinguishable from the sea.

He went back downstairs. Obviously in the grip of a nightmare, the woman was muttering incoherent words. Her expression alarmed him and he stroked her cheek gently. A sudden and overwhelming emotion surged through him. Had they been destined to meet? He had seen too much of life and had too many strange encounters to believe that the course of events was decided by chance alone. His gaze still fixed on the stranger, he resolved never again to expose himself to the pain and bitterness of love. And yet, and yet … He felt his defences crumbling, all those barriers put up during the years of solitude and despair. It felt good to have a woman under his roof.

Her eyelids fluttered.

‘You’re safe.’

Who could have said those words? Would this rolling and swaying never stop? Everything seemed dark, and she was floating in the midst of a foaming sea, which filled her nose and mouth, choking her.

She concentrated, trying to understand this voice that seemed to be speaking, but that she could barely hear. She attempted to move, but the pain of the blood returning to her limbs made her cry out. Oh God, where was she?

‘Don’t be afraid.’

The voice resonated like someone calling in an empty house. She had to fight, she had to stay alive.

Could the tall figure with the head of curly hair surrounded by a halo of light be the ship’s doctor? She felt hot. A sudden dizziness made the walls spin, then her confusion cleared, revealing the phosphorescent pupils of a cat and the torso of a man leaning over her.

‘Are you all right?’

His voice seemed clearer now.

‘Are we in Southampton?’ she murmured.

‘No, in France.’

She tried to sit up, but a hand pushed her back. She wanted to resist, but she was so tired. The voice again: ‘You must rest.’

She pretended she was falling asleep again but managed to look about her. She could make out a fireplace, and a pewter pot filled with flowering thistles placed on a large table. To one side, rows of painted plates lined the shelves of a large dresser. The man held a globe lamp and she was able to see a large ham hanging from one of the beams. Strange forms were projected on the uneven wattle and lath walls, as lifelike as that of the large grey cat curled up in front of the fire.

Disconnected images flitted through her mind. Boarding the Eagle at Southampton after meeting her husband’s lawyer. The captain, a squat, podgy man who stood too close to her and assured her that he knew this stretch of water like the back of his hand and that, storm or no storm, they would reach France that very day. The fear she had felt as she clung to the vessel, while it was tossed and whirled by enormous waves that all seemed intent on one thing: destroying the little boat and destroying her with it. Before that, the journey from San Francisco to New York and then the calm voyage all the way to the south of England.

At the head of the bed, Corentin was scraping his pipe out into an earthenware cup, his mind full of strange and sombre thoughts. A man like him needed something to give his life meaning. Something like a woman’s love, perhaps? All that had been taken from him. He felt a thirst in his soul, as though he had lived, like a second Robinson Crusoe, on nothing but smoked herrings with never a drop of fresh water.

He was just drifting off to sleep when, heralded by a great gust of cold air, Madame Guénéqué burst in. She was a robust country woman of about fifty, the widow of a man who had devoted most of his short life to the art of brewing his own beer and cider. She had been left to bring up their numerous offspring and had earned her living as a servant in the great houses of the area. Now, she managed to get by working as a cook and cleaner.

‘Hello, Captain, sorry I’m late. I didn’t dare stick my nose outside earlier, on account of all that wind. It’s brightening up now, though – look at the sky. Rain and sunshine all at once – it’s the devil beating his missus and marrying off his daughter. It’s a crying shame. A good few boats have been wrecked – it’s always the same when they come. One storm, and it lasts three days! Oh, you’ve got a visitor?’

‘I found her unconscious early this morning. I suppose she must have been a passenger on the schooner. I did my best to get her warm.’

Quick as a flash, Madame Guénéqué closed the door and scuttled over to the bed to size up the newcomer. When she caught sight of the scraps of clothing lying on the floor, her wrinkled old face lit up with a roguish smile.

‘So that’s why you decided to peel her like an onion?’

‘It was either that or leave her to die. And if I’d done that I’d have been able to inspect her intimately and at my leisure.’

‘Oh, don’t get cross. I was only saying …’

‘I was just answering your question,’ replied Corentin in a conciliatory tone. ‘Now, help yourself to some coffee.’

But it was too much to ask of Madame Guénéqué that she would leave it there.

‘Ha. And what’s happened to your chairs? They’re in a pretty state! And is this person going to stay here for long?’

‘I was waiting for you to come so that I could go out and ask the nuns at the infirmary to send someone to collect her.’

‘I’d do it sharpish if I were you. When my poor old man fell head first into the cider vat, his friends did the best they could to get him to cough it all up, but in the end his heart gave out.’

‘I’m going now. Keep the fire burning while I’m gone and, if she wakes up and wants to eat, there are eggs and sausages in the cupboard.’

‘Don’t you worry, she won’t die of hunger. I’ll make her some nice hot soup.’ She rolled up her sleeves and set to work. ‘He may be an old hermit,’ she muttered, ‘but he’s still got a soft spot for the ladies.’

Outside, Corentin Jourdan filled his lungs with the damp air, relieved to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the house. The wind had wreaked havoc among the rose bushes and mallow plants: the trees were bent and splayed into tortured shapes, and crows fluttered to and fro among the broken branches. The bakehouse was flooded and the geese were honking in the little yard, which was white with their droppings.

He released Flip and put his harness on. The horse, an Anglo-Norman with a long nose, shook his mane in pleasure at the prospect of escaping from his confinement. With his master in the saddle, left leg hanging free of the stirrup, he walked along the shore, punctuating the monotonous calls of the seagulls with his whinnying.

They crossed the stream just as the church bell was tolling. A silent crowd gathered in front of the church doors, which were surmounted by a relief of St Martin. Urville’s gravediggers would have their work cut out this evening.

He had to knock on the large double doors several times before a little hatch was pulled half open. A young nun stared at him while he explained his case. The sister retorted that the mother superior would do what she could as soon as possible but that all the beds were full because of the storm. He was insistent.

‘This woman has a high fever. Who knows how long she may have been in the water? It’s a miracle that she’s still of this world.’

An older nun brushed the novice aside and examined Corentin, adjusting her spectacles.

‘Sister Ursula is right, Captain Jourdan, we are run off our feet here. Still, I shall send Landry, the gardener’s son, to collect the woman, and we’ll put her up in the annexe.’

He thanked the mother superior warmly. He had earned her gratitude one winter day in 1892 when he had helped repair one of the walls of the infirmary which had fallen down, and had accepted nothing by way of a reward except for a bowl of coffee and some bread and butter.

She kept her word. Five minutes later, Landry’s shock of red hair could be seen bobbing along towards Landemer behind the nuns’ old nag. From a distance, Corentin Jourdan watched the cart rattling over the potholed path.

From the shelter of the stable, he observed the boy and Madame Guénéqué carrying the woman, wrapped up like a mummy, as best they could towards the cart. When Landry had disappeared round the bend, Corentin took the saddle off his horse and let it graze.

‘You missed them,’ remarked Madame Guénéqué when he came in. A pot hung over the fire, simmering and giving off an appetising smell of vegetables and ham. ‘She didn’t open her eyes or her mouth, poor thing.’

Having finished cleaning the ground floor, Madame Guénéqué was putting on her shawl. The loft was forbidden territory, except when her employer was away.

‘I’m going to see old Pignol.’

‘Don’t forget to tell him about the roof. The weather’s settling down now, but still …’

‘Don’t worry, I will. See you on Wednesday, Captain. And remember to dig out that washtub for me – there’s a ton of washing to be done.’

She shot a poisonous glance at Gilliatt, spread-eagled in the middle of the bed.

When she had gone, Corentin Jourdan let out a sigh. A few short hours had been enough for a stranger to turn his routine upside down. He lay down next to the cat, overcome with fatigue.

In the middle of the night he got up, poked the remains of the fire and added the remnants of one of the crates. He served himself a bowl of warm soup and sat down in the chimney corner. At his feet, Gilliatt lapped at a saucer of milk. The regular sound of the cat’s little pink tongue flicking back and forth sent Corentin off into a daydream. He recalled a vision he had once had: a naked water sprite was holding him in her arms, and a blue aura hung around her jet-black hair.

What was happening to him? It was the first time in twenty years that he had become so obsessed by something. Ashamed of behaving like a dreamy adolescent, Corentin got up and was about to make for the attic when he saw something under the bed. He bent down and picked up the woman’s bag. Madame Guénéqué’s broom wasn’t always very thorough.

He lit a candle and went up to the attic. Uncertain what to do, he looked thoughtfully at his find. Should he open it? If he did, he risked becoming attached to the woman, rather than freeing himself from her. He had resolved never to leave his home here where his frugal way of life, combined with the money left by his uncle, meant that he was independent, almost rich. He was entirely at peace with the world, because his heart was not pierced by any thorns of emotion, and because he hardly ever saw other people and only had a horse and a cat to look after.

‘Is she married?’

Unable to resist, he picked up the bag. The leather had protected an address book, a bulging purse and a wad of papers tied up in a triple layer of oilcloth. Where to start? He began with a crinkled beige envelope, pulling out a blue notebook whose pages were covered in small writing. He settled himself on the trestle bed, began reading and didn’t stop until he had read the whole thing.

When morning came, he put the notebook back where he had found it and went to stand by the window. In the courtyard below, a timid ray of sunlight projected the black shadow of the chimney onto the wall. Between two buildings, there was a glimpse of the sea, calm as a millpond. He looked at it for a moment, his pipe in his mouth, lost in thought. The clear horizon seemed to bode well for the day and he set off to take the woman’s bag to the nuns.

He was told that, after a difficult night, the woman seemed, according to the doctor, to be out of danger. Her name was Sophie Clairsange. A sailor from the Eagle had brought her suitcase, full of beautiful clothes. The poor woman was still fragile, but had managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of food. Would the captain like to see her?

Corentin instructed the novice not to reveal his identity if Sophie Clairsange should happen to ask about him. Surprised, the novice promised to do as he asked.

He left. At Urville, he bought La Lanterne Manchoise hot off the press. A front-page article on the wreck of the schooner recorded that there had been no casualties. Elsewhere, the newspaper bemoaned the uprooting of trees in Cherbourg, which was causing chaos on the main road into the town.

He set off back to the sanctuary of his own home.

Wednesday 10 January

‘What about that washtub?’ grumbled Madame Guénéqué, when she saw that Corentin hadn’t obeyed her instruction.

Without replying, he went up to the attic. Where had he left it? Ah yes, under the bed. He pulled out a wooden box and took off the lid. Inside he found 420 francs, which he hoped would be enough for his needs. After all, the journey there and back in third class cost less than forty francs. The trip to Cherbourg wouldn’t cost much and Landry would be delighted with even such a small sum, which he would go and spend straight away in one of the bistros at the port. Then it would just be a case of renting a cheap room – would twenty francs a month be enough? – and cutting back on his meals. Luckily, he had never had a big appetite.

Paris! A noisy island, a crowded continent as mysterious as the ocean, where he could get lost for ever.

He put the money in his pocket, filled a haversack with clothes and then went back downstairs, dragging the washtub with him.

‘Madame Guénéqué, I’m going away for a few weeks – urgent business in Paris. As soon as I know my address there, I’ll send it to you in case you need to contact me.’

‘You’d be wasting your time – I can’t read or write.’

‘Then you can ask the nuns to help you.’

‘I’m surprised at you, Monsieur Corentin. For years and years you’ve never been further away from here than a rabbit from its warren. People will be talking about this all the way from here to Val de Saire!’

‘I’m counting on you to keep all those busy tongues from wagging, and to make sure the farrier mends that shoe of Flip’s that’s wearing down. The main thing is, don’t forget to give him some water before you feed him his oats, and brush him every day.’

Madame Guénéqué eyed him mischievously.

‘You don’t need to give me all these instructions, Captain, you’ve told me a hundred times before. Ah, Paris, Paris, everyone’s got Paris fever! That lovely lady you scrubbed up so carefully, she’s going to Paris too. The doctor told her over and over that she shouldn’t go, not in the state she’s in, but she’s as stubborn as a mule! They wouldn’t be linked, would they, your two journeys?’

‘Wherever do you get your ideas from? I don’t know anything about her – who she is, where she lives. It’s business, as I said, to do with my uncle’s investments.’

‘Whatever you say. I’ll look after the animals, but it’ll mean me trailing over here every morning …’

‘I’ll give you forty francs. If I’m not back by the end of January, I’ll send a postal order.’

‘Oh, no need for that, Captain, no need for that. Forty francs is a tidy sum!’ she blustered, her eyes round at the thought. She spirited the notes away as soon as he put them in her hand.

With a stroke for Gilliatt and a friendly pat for Flip, he was off. He was clutching the blue earring he had found under the table. Despite the black clouds and the occasional gust of wind, the storm had left the Cotentin peninsula and gone to wreak its havoc further south.

Why had he ever opened that confounded bag? Now, he knew things he wished he didn’t and, if he refused to act on what he had read, it would poison his very existence. He would not rest until he had found the woman whose secrets he had stolen. Come what may, he would seek her in that immense city, full of dangers far more deadly than the storm.

CHAPTER TWO

Friday 9 February 1894

It was nearly five o’clock and Paris was succumbing to dusk. Sprawling Paris of the grand houses, the brightly lit avenues, the shady districts, the bustling streets, the sinister streets, the empty streets. Corentin Jourdan knew exactly what he had to do. Either the two women would emerge from the house together, or one would come out alone. Depending on whether it was the brunette or the blonde, he would put the first or the second of his plans into action.

From his garret room, he could see all of the houses along Rue Albouy,1 but the one he was interested in was the building on the corner of Rue des Vinaigriers. If the brunette Sophie Clairsange emerged, he would easily have enough time to get to the stall where his horse was waiting. The carriage station was on Boulevard Magenta and it would take the young woman five minutes to get there. He was familiar with the streets now and would be able to catch up with her.

Chance, destiny and luck had all worked in his favour so far, and fortune seemed to be smiling on his endeavour. Living alone and seldom speaking to anyone had been the best way of gathering information discreetly.

He’d realised he would have to tail carriages or omnibuses at short notice, and so would need his own mode of transport. His budget would not stretch to hiring a carriage and horses; the twenty-five or perhaps forty francs a day necessary would have swallowed up his savings in no time. But fortunately he had discovered a removal man who operated nearby. In exchange for a small sum, the man had allowed Jourdan to hire an old mare who still had some life left in her, and a cart which would be at his disposal any time of the day or night.

Immediately on arrival at Gare Saint-Lazare, he had made for the address he’d found in the notebook belonging to the young woman whose life he’d saved. When he got to Rue des Vinaigriers, the little shop painted in garish blue seemed to beckon to him. There was a sign outside:

THE BLUE CHINAMAN

Madame Guérin

Fine Confectionery since 1873

His heart pounding, he had put down his haversack. Now all he needed was to find a hotel or a furnished room, anything as long as it was nearby, and wait. He had looked at the rows of glass jars lined up on the shelves: caramels, sugar-coated almonds, pralines, Turkish delight, aniseed balls, barley sugar, humbugs, gumdrops, marshmallow and liquorice. The symphony of colours had washed over him like a memory of childhood, of freedom and innocence. His vision blurred and he saw again the slender young girl running towards him across a beach, as clearly as if she had actually been there.

The rays of the setting sun glinting on the shop window had brought him back to his senses. Clélia is dead. You’re looking for Sophie Clairsange.

She was there, behind the sweet-shop counter, with a middle-aged woman standing next to her. Should he go in? Push open the door of the gingerbread house? No. He had come so far, and was so close to his goal – so close to her! He must be patient, and not fall into the trap of accosting her too soon.

He had sat at the bar in the Ancre de Fortune café, beside a bakery on Rue des Vinaigriers. It was a tiny place with a provincial air and he felt as though he were back in Cherbourg. Outside, a long, drab strip of fencing partially concealed a warehouse built from tarred wood. The light of a gas lamp cast its spindly shadow across the road and into the gutter. Two stray dogs were playing in the street, and a tow-haired boy was carrying a large jug filled with cheap beer. There was no noise except the puffing of trains coming from the Gare de l’Est.

‘Do you know if there are any rooms to rent near here?’ he had asked the barman.

‘How long do you need it for?’

‘A month or two. I can pay in advance.’

‘Maman!’ the barman had called. ‘You’ve got a customer.’

An old woman had stuck her nose out of the kitchen.

‘If you’re not too fussy, I’ve got an attic. The water’s from a pump and you’d have to go down three floors to get it, and there’s no heating.’

‘That’s fine. How much?’

That evening he had stood daydreaming, gazing at the sky above the huge, dark warehouse, with no thought of what was to come. On the horizon, windows began to light up, casting a wavering glow over the tiled roofs. She was so close by, just behind one of those curtains that fluttered in the night air, his lovely siren.

Over the next few weeks, Sophie Clairsange had not left the house. Corentin Jourdan had questioned some of the neighbours and learnt that the man with a large bag who visited the house each morning was a doctor, and that the woman lodging there was ill. One evening he had caught sight of her briefly, standing at the window. She was well again! He felt relieved.

He was always on the alert, ready to intervene when the time came. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but his imagination filled in the gaps and led him to gloss over some of the details. Who was the blonde woman? A nurse, most likely, or a friend, nothing more.

All the while that Corentin Jourdan kept watch over the lit window on the second floor, he thought about Sophie Clairsange, her body which he had glimpsed so briefly and the secrets hidden in the blue notebook.

An old drunk slumped on a stool in the Au Petit Jour bar on Rue d’Allemagne2 let out a loud hiccup, like a bottle being uncorked.

‘They serve short measures here … it’s a well-known fact!’

Martin Lorson fixed his gaze on the Views of Paris calendar that was pinned to the peeling wall, picked at a stringy ragout and did his best to block out his surroundings. But it was to no avail: to his right, an ex-clergyman with a beard sprinkled with lumps of fried egg declaimed a line from Ecclesiastes, ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be’, and to his right, a scrawny girl, a mother at just sixteen, was prattling to her baby: ‘Whose are these little hands then?’

A man with a wooden leg leered toothlessly at the ruddy baby and hailed his fellow drinkers. ‘The Middle Ages, now that was a good time to be alive! On Friday, I was sitting right up against the big heater in Église Saint-Eustache, and the sexton shows up. “What’s going on here?” he says. “I’m just getting warm,” I say. “This isn’t a warming house, you know, this is God’s house, and you’d better leave.”’

‘The Middle Ages? You must be joking!’ mumbled the ex-clergyman.

‘Churches were places of sanctuary, Mr Preacher! You think you’re so clever. I might be on my uppers now, but I’m an educated man!’

In desperation, Martin Lorson craned his neck to look at a niche in the wall where, with one hand on her hip and a suggestive look on her face, an Egyptian dancing girl made of wax, rotated slowly to the strains of ‘Plaisir d’amour’. For a moment he dreamt of putting his arms round the dancer and escaping with her from all the ugliness around him. The hoarse voice of the ex-clergyman interrupted his reverie.

‘“There is nothing new under the sun!” I don’t hold it against society, but really, for someone of my background to be reduced to a career on the stage, playing bit parts at the Châtelet. Five changes of costume every performance, and I only get forty sous for it! Ecclesiastes was right, “What profit hath a man of all his labour?”’

The landlord, bilious and sharp-tongued, with a dirty cap askew above his hatchet face, a menacing mouth and hard eyes, gathered up a stack of plates. On his way past, he flicked Martin Lorson with his dishcloth and addressed the listening audience.

‘Now, take this bloke, he’s fallen off a pedestal too. Haven’t you, Swot? That’s what they used to call him when he was still a penpusher at the Ministry of Finance. Look where it got him!’

Everybody turned to stare at the object of his disdain, a bloated, balding man in his forties, whose fraying suit was shiny with grease and dirt.

‘And d’you know why?’ continued the landlord. ‘Debts! Oh, the little Swot wasn’t lazy, and if he’d hung on for another eighteen years he could have worked his way up to being the office boss, which is more or less a rest cure! Oh yes, only going to work three days a week, to read the paper and stamp a few documents. But he hadn’t counted on his dear lady wife!’

A crumpled-up dishcloth landed on the bar. Martin Lorson hurriedly paid the bill, jammed an old top hat onto his balding head and grabbed a coat that had seen better days. He tried to hurry, but his ample stomach and equally impressive posterior impeded his progress. He thus had the pleasure of hearing all the landlord’s venomous comments, like an animal caught in a trap.

‘Her ladyship wanted a posh house and all the trimmings. She wanted to be kept in the style to which she was accustomed, didn’t she? A new dress here, a pair of shoes there, not to mention the servants and the private box at the theatre. Was he rich, though, the Swot? No! So he had to borrow, left, right and centre. And then boom! Creditors rolling up at the Ministry on pay day – it looks bad, doesn’t it? Once, twice, ten times, the cashier agrees to give him an advance, but the eleventh time, he gets fired!’

Martin Lorson had finally reached the door when he realised that he had forgotten his scarf. With burning cheeks, he laboriously made his way back across the room. Suddenly cheering up, the ex-clergyman didn’t feel as bad about himself as usual and the young girl caressed her baby, sure that he would never end up in such a terrible state.

‘“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,”’ brayed the ex-clergyman.

‘Someone get me a drink!’ roared the old drunk.

‘As soon as Madame Lorson got wind of her penpusher of a husband’s disgrace, she chucked him out. It’s just a blessing they never had any children!’ the landlord concluded, eyeing the girl and her offspring.

‘And now?’ asked the ex-clergyman.

‘Now? He’s a pauper dressed as a gent!’

‘“All is vanity and vexation of spirit!” says Ecclesiastes. “That which is crooked cannot be made straight.”’

Suddenly aware of noise outside, Corentin Jourdan got up quietly from his chair. Down below, a streak of orange light fell across the pavement, spilling from the open door of the basement of the bakery. Within, a group of young men, bare to the waist, stood with their arms thrust into the dough, seizing it and kneading it as they chanted rhythmically, like natives around a campfire. Corentin looked at his watch: eight o’clock. The baker’s boys had already begun their night’s labour. Sitting down close to the window, he picked up his book, Treasure Island.

This here is a sweet spot, this island – a sweet spot for a lad to get ashore on. You’ll bathe, and you’ll climb trees, and you’ll hunt goats, you will; and you’ll get aloft on them hills like a goat yourself …

He had read and reread Stevenson’s novel, and each time this paragraph brought tears to his eyes. ‘Bathe … climb trees … hunt …’; for him, all these things were impossible now. But then it occurred to him that the situation in which he now found himself was rather like having a map of a desert island in the South Seas, but not knowing where the buried treasure was hidden. He was Jim Hawkins, sailing alongside Long John Silver aboard the Hispaniola.

A creaking interrupted his reverie. He pulled back the curtain and saw that the metal gate of the house on the corner had just opened. A woman in a gold-sequined cloak, her hair coiled into a chignon and covered with a velvet cap, was hurrying towards Rue Lancry. He jumped up, pulled on his coat and hat and, despite the pain in his injured leg, ran down the three flights of stairs and raced to the courtyard where his horse, already saddled, greeted him with a stamp of its foot.

He caught up with the woman on Boulevard Magenta just as she disappeared into a carriage, which turned round and drove up Quai de Valmy. Corentin followed on his horse, keeping his distance. At the far end of the canal, in the dim light of the lanterns illuminating the locks, a large cylindrical building loomed, like an ancient monument.

Night was closing in on the La Villette meat market, headquarters of butchery and metropolis of steak, mutton and offal, through which Martin Lorson wandered, his spirit wounded by the landlord’s biting remarks. He would have to get a grip of himself.

‘The fish rots from the head first, after all. I should despise these fools. I’m head and shoulders above all of them.’

For a moment, he thought he could hear the piteous cacophony of terrified beasts, brought by blue-overalled drovers to the entrance of the biggest abattoir in Paris, but it was only the roaring of blood in his head. In this strange landscape, where the capital’s lunches and dinners were prepared, the atmosphere was permeated with the fear of the animals about to be sacrificed. Fear was a constant companion to him now. Had it not been at his side ever since his dismissal from the Ministry? Fear and resentment, fear and loneliness, which lasted far longer than the sudden fright caused by the clatter of a passing cart laden with coke or animal fodder. The weight of his fear would sometimes lift for a while, only to return with renewed force. He hoped that he would eventually escape from it by dint of sheer stubbornness.

A lamplighter was making his way down the street, repeating the same series of movements again and again: lifting the lever on the gas tap and squeezing the rubber air pump at the bottom of his pole. The glass mantles lit up one by one, and the neighbourhood echoed with the sound of the rubbish carts doing their rounds. Martin Lorson knotted his scarf more tightly round his neck; the air was unpleasantly damp despite the mildness of the winter.

As he walked on, he planned his movements for the next twenty-four hours. Stand in for Gamache. Then to bed, with a lie-in the next morning. Sprint over to the piano maker’s and stand in for Jaquemin. Lunch at the cheap canteen in Rue de Nantes. Stand in for Berthier, Norpois and Collin at the abattoir. Dinner at Au Petit Jour. Go back and meet Gamache again.

The career he had invented for himself as a stand-in provided regular work and he was rather proud of it. The people whose jobs he took over could go and have a drink or a bite to eat, and in return they gave him a few centimes, enough for him never to be short of food or tobacco. And, thanks to Gamache, he even had somewhere to sleep. Had he not, all things considered, found a jolly good solution to his problems? No senior clerk breathing down his neck, no promotion, no wife, no rent and no furniture or possessions except the few odd things he kept stored in the shack where he slept. This was true independence. So what did he care about the base insults of a common waiter? Now that he had had a taste of this life, no amount of money would have persuaded him to change it. His colleagues at the Ministry were welcome to their struggles to make ends meet before payday, moonlighters taking their jobs, and the treacherous attentions of women!

No sooner had these thoughts run through his mind than a wave of vague anxiety broke over him and his breath seemed to catch in his throat. Stopping in front of the public wash-house (only twenty centimes for a bath), he lit a cigarette. Smoking calmed his nerves. He set off again, his protuberant stomach leading the way.

In the centre of the La Villette roundabout, the impressive rotunda that marked the toll barrier at the old city gates loomed up like a huge fortified tomb, with its circular gallery and arcade supported by forty columns. The mausoleum of a building had been built by Claude Nicolas Ledoux,3 and now contained offices and stocks of goods held as surety. A general air of dirt and decrepitude added to its funereal aspect. Below a triangular pediment were some rusty railings with a sign attached:

NO ENTRY

By the light of a streetlamp, Martin Lorson could just make out a figure in a kepi armed with a bayonet, on guard near one of the large colonnaded porches of the rotunda. He was twirling the ends of his enormous moustache and pacing up and down. As soon as he caught sight of his stand-in, he pulled on his cape and handed over his bayonet and kepi, which was embroidered with the emblem of a red hunting horn on a dark background.

‘I was starting to wonder where you’d got to – I haven’t got time to stand around kicking my heels, you know!’

‘I came as fast as I could!’

‘Well, ’scuse me! I might stay away for longer than usual tonight. I’ve got an assignation with a nice little bit-part actress from La Villette Theatre. I’ve promised her a slap-up meal and I’m hoping for a bit of slap and tickle in return. Ah, that Pauline, she’s perfect!’

He joined his thumb, forefinger and middle finger and kissed them, but his friend merely grunted disapprovingly. Martin Lorson had no interest in Alfred Gamache’s little intrigues, and besides he was anxious to get rid of the man and settle down to drink the rum he had bought earlier in the day at La Comète des Abattoirs.

He set the bayonet down as far away as possible, and began swigging the rum, which quickly lulled him into a state of exquisite bliss. From Boulevard de la Chapelle, the faint strains of a barrel organ could be heard, droning out La Fille de Madame Angot.4 Curled up against the railings, he soon dozed off. There was silence all around him, broken only occasionally by the click-clack of heels tapping along the tarmac. Even the canal seemed to slumber, tired after the incessant to-and-fro of barges loaded with goods destined for the factories in the port or for delivery to one of the nearby warehouses.

In his drunken haze, Martin Lorson didn’t notice a carriage draw up on the pathway separating the rotunda from the canal. A woman in a ball gown and wrapped in a gold-sequined cloak got out and the carriage drove away. She considered her surroundings, her face hidden behind a black velvet mask. A second carriage clattered down Rue de Flandre and stopped just out of sight, and this time the commotion woke Martin Lorson from his trance. The passenger, a man wearing a soft felt hat, hesitated for a moment under the pale glow of a gaslight, a cigarette in his mouth. He watched the woman skipping down the pathway and avoiding the cracks between the paving stones. Eventually, he accosted her.

‘If this is where the toffs meet up for their smutty shenanigans, I’m in for a long night,’ Martin Lorson muttered.

But he soon realised that these two weren’t a pair of lovebirds. Otherwise, why would they be so offhand with one another? There was no embrace, no tender caress; they only talked, in voices too low to be overheard. Now the woman was waving an envelope she had produced from her bag. The man tried to take it from her, but she whisked it away, laughing, and made off towards Rue de Flandre. It was four or five seconds before the man reacted, and then everything happened so quickly that Martin Lorson didn’t even have time to brandish his bayonet. The man leapt towards the woman, grabbed her by the neck and squeezed and squeezed. His victim’s body jerked like a puppet and then sank down lifeless into his arms. He let her slide to the ground, looked at her stiffened body for a moment and then bent down, rifled through her bag and ran off. Then a horse could be heard trotting away.

On Boulevard de la Chapelle, the barrel organ was still playing, but La Fille de Madame Angot had given way to La Fille du Tambour-Major.5

Suddenly a man appeared from behind the rotunda.

I must’ve had one too many, Martin Lorson thought to himself, his heart beating wildly. I’m seeing visions … It’s all over, isn’t it?

It wasn’t all over. The killer had returned. Bending over the woman, he lifted her mask. Kneeling over her, transfixed, the man studied her face minutely before replacing the mask and melting into the shadows.

Martin Lorson was too terrified to utter a sound. He dared not move or even swallow, sure that the man must be watching him as a cat watches a sparrow, delighting in its fear. Would he jump out from one side, or from directly opposite him? Panic kept Martin Lorson curled up in a ball, shrinking against the railings. Was that creak the muffled sound of a knife being drawn? Was that shadow the fist of an assassin about to attack?

Panting, he screwed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. After what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes, he managed to convince himself that there was nobody around. He tiptoed over to the woman, freezing at the slightest sound. He nudged her body with his foot. A corpse. As he greedily gulped down air, a medallion stuck between two paving stones caught his eye. Crouching down, he slipped it into his pocket, and noticed the remains of the cigarette that had fallen from the man’s mouth as he’d committed his crime. Lorson lit it and filled his lungs with smoke. The rotunda gazed at him hollow-eyed, daring him to carry on keeping watch. Why should he hang around here while Gamache was off carousing? A draught of rum revived him, and he decided to hide the kepi and bayonet behind a column as a sign that his departure had been carefully considered. Alfred was wily enough and would realise that his friend had judged it best, for whatever reason, to slip off quietly. He would see the dead woman, alert the police and, with any luck, omit to mention the name of the only witness to the crime.