Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

The sergeant went smoothly about his duties, pouring out a cup of badly stewed coffee from an enamel pot simmering on the stove and finding a space for it on a tray alongside a green bottle of Perrier water and an empty glass by the Chief Inspector’s hand. No offer of refreshment was made to the men standing in front of him. And as there was no chair in the room but the one on which Fourier sat, stand was all they could do.

All Joe’s attention had been for the silent prisoner in the middle of the room but he forced himself not to react to what he saw and turned back to the Chief Inspector as Bonnefoye performed the introductions. He handed over his warrant card and waited patiently while Fourier read it with exaggerated care, turning it this way and that. ‘If he holds it up to the light, I shall certainly smack him one,’ Joe thought, relieving his tensions with a pleasing fantasy.

‘I see. And you claim to be. . what am I supposed to assume?. . a Commander of Scotland Yard?’ The voice was dry and roughened by years of cigarette smoke. Joe glanced at the ashtray stuffed full of yellow butts and wondered if he should advise the use of Craven A. Kind to the throat, apparently.

‘Your deduction is correct,’ Joe replied mildly. ‘I am a Commander. You may not be familiar with the hierarchy in the Metropolitan Police? I direct a department of the CID — the equivalent of your Brigade Criminelle — specializing in military, diplomatic and political crime of a nature sensitive to His Majesty’s Government. I report to the Chief Commissioner himself.’ As well as clarity and exactness the statement also carried the underlying message that Commander Sandilands outranked Chief Inspector Fourier by a mile.

Fourier dropped the card carelessly on to his desk amongst the disordered piles of papers cluttering the surface. ‘But a commander who has no crew, no ship and has entered foreign waters. Seems to me you’re up the creek without a paddle, Commander.’ Fourier’s hacking, gurgling cough, Joe realized, was laughter and a sign that he was enjoying his own overworked image. ‘You seem to have a turn of speed at least though, I’ll grant you that! How in hell did you manage to get here so fast? Crime wasn’t committed until late last evening.’

Joe decided to ignore the slight and respond to the human element of curiosity. ‘Wings,’ he said with a smile. ‘Wings across the Channel. The night flight from Croydon. We landed a second or two before Lindbergh. I was coming to Paris anyway. I’m to represent Britain at the Interpol conference at the Tuileries.’ Joe’s smile widened. ‘I’m due to give a paper on Day 3 … You might be interested to come along and hear. . It’s on international co-operation, illustrated by specific examples of Franco-British liaison.’

A further bark expressed disbelief and scorn. Joe held out his hand. ‘My card? Would you? I’m sure I saw you drop it into this rats’ nest.’ He kept his hand outstretched and steady — an implied challenge — until his card was safely back in his grasp.

‘And now, to business,’ he said briskly. ‘Perhaps you’d like to introduce me to your prisoner and outline the grievance you have with him.’

At last he felt he could turn and look at George with a measure of composure. Had he reacted at once according to his gut instinct, he would have hauled Fourier over his desk by his greasy braces and smashed a fist into his face.

George was almost unrecognizable. Old and weary, he had been put to stand in the centre of the room, back to the window, in bloodstained undervest and drooping evening trousers. Braces and belt had been taken away, his shoes gaped open where the laces had been removed. A familiar procedure. But used here, Joe guessed, not so much to prevent the prisoner from hanging himself as to humiliate him. One eye was blackened and a bruise was spreading over his unshaven jaw. He seemed uncertain as to how to greet Joe and embarrassed by his own appearance. His slumped shoulders straightened when Joe and Bonnefoye turned to him and he shifted slightly on his feet, planted, Joe noticed, in the soldier’s ‘at ease’ position. But there was nothing easy about George’s circumstances.

Joe decided to play it unemotionally and by the book. ‘Sir! How very good to see you again after all this time. My sympathy and apologies for the plight in which you find yourself. I’m at your service.’

George licked his lips and finally managed, in a ghost of his remembered voice, to drawl: ‘Jolly good! Well, in that case, perhaps you could rustle up a glass of water, eh? Perhaps even some breakfast? Hospitality around here not wonderful. . I’ve eaten and drunk nothing since a light pre-theatre snack yesterday. Though I discern. .’ he said, waving a hand under his nose, ‘that you two boulevardiers have been at it already. Onion soup, would that be?’

Bonnefoye looked down at his feet, unable to meet Joe’s eye.

If he gave way to the explosion of rage that was boiling within him, Joe realized he would be thrown off the premises at best, perhaps even arrested and lined up alongside. At all events, he might expect a damning report on his conduct to be winging its way to Scotland Yard in a mail bag aboard the next Argosy with all the predictable consequences for his future career with Interpol. A passing expression of cunning on the Chief Inspector’s face, the proximity of his finger to the bell on his desk, told him that this was precisely what he was anticipating.

For George’s sake, he calmed himself. His old friend, he calculated from the evidence of his senses, had been kept standing here in this ghastly room for twelve hours with no water or food while his interrogator lounged, coffee in hand, taking time off from his questioning through the night, relieved by his sergeant at intervals. Joe imagined Fourier had a camp bed somewhere about the place to which he could retire when the proceedings began to bore him.

Joe glanced with concern at George’s legs. Long, strong old legs, a polo player’s legs, but he was aware of an involuntary twitching in the region of the knees. There were shadows of exhaustion under his eyes. One of those eyes was almost closed now by the spreading purple bruise. The other bravely essayed a wink. With a stab of pity, Joe determined to make a clandestine but close inspection of the knuckles of both Chief Inspector and sergeant. Whichever had done the damage to George’s face would pay.

Fourier gave him sufficient time to absorb the prisoner’s condition and to spring an attack and, as it did not materialize, he added further fuel to Joe’s anger. ‘Breakfast? Not quite sure where milord thinks he is. . the Crillon, perhaps? As he seems to be prepared to react to you perhaps you could convey my regrets. No information, no refreshment. I can keep him here for a further twelve hours, though I would not like to mar my reputation with the magistrate for speed and efficiency.’

The scornful ‘ milord ’ had given Joe an insight into Fourier’s character. He had already noted the countryman’s accent. He was not experienced enough to identify it but it quite definitely was not a Parisian voice and it was not the voice of a man who prided himself on his culture as did most of the Frenchmen Joe had met. This implacable, humourless man could, in a past century, have taken his place on the Committee of Public Safety alongside Danton, Marat, Robespierre and the other bloodthirsty monsters who had spawned the Revolution. Only three generations separated him from his sans-culotte ancestor, Joe supposed. And here was the descendant, still flaunting his traditional twin hatreds: the aristocracy and the English. George was doubly his target.

Joe’s fists clenched at his sides but it was Bonnefoye who cracked first.