Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

To Joe’s horror, he saw the blue eyes begin to fill with tears and looked tactfully away.

‘My poor chap!’ said Sir George. ‘Many suffered similarly in India. Ask Joe! We all learn that the woman keeps no friends. She is totally self-interested. Unscrupulous.’ He turned angrily on Joe and Bonnefoye. ‘Now do you see what we’ve done? Jack is not one of your criminal insen-sitives, you know.’

‘You’re generous to say “we”, George. You should know, Pollock, that your cousin would hear not a word against you. He didn’t believe Alice’s story. And he was right. She used your relationship, the details of her close familiarity with you, to convince us that you were the guilty party behind these crimes.’ He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. ‘She traded a man’s reputation and possibly his life for her freedom. And who knows where the hell she is now?’

‘Out in the mists, armed, calling her Zouave to heel, planning her next murderous display?’ said Bonnefoye. ‘What clowns we are! She’s made monkeys of the lot of us! She’s the one behind it all, isn’t she? There is. . never has been a Set.’

‘More of a Kali, perhaps,’ muttered George. ‘Indian Goddess of Death.’

‘Look, you fellows, you’ve already ruined my evening. Bursting in here like Ratty and Moley with old Badger brandishing his stick, come to tell me the game’s up. .’ Jack Pollock grinned at George. ‘Why not come back again tomorrow and ruin my day? I’ve heard only a fraction of what you have to tell me but really — you will understand, George — when Her Excellency calls, the aide comes running. That was her calling and here I am — running.’ Pollock got to his feet. ‘Fascinating story! No — truly fascinating! You could make an opera of it.’

He went over to the desk and plucked a red rose from the vase. ‘Must get into the part, I suppose. Der Rosenkavalier — here he comes!’ He nodded his head to the three of them, stuck the rose defiantly between his teeth and made for the door.

With a sickening vision of the red roses swirling away on the current down the Seine, Joe called after him impulsively: ‘Pollock! If you have to go over a bridge, take care, won’t you? Oh, I’m so sorry! How ridiculous! Do forgive me!’

Pollock, wondering, took the rose from his teeth and threaded it through his buttonhole. ‘No bridges between here and the Opéra, Ratty. It’s a straight dash down the river bank. See you all again tomorrow, then? Harry will show you out.’

‘Bridges?’ said Bonnefoye when the door closed behind Pollock. ‘What was that all about?’

‘Oh, a phobia of mine. Some people fear snakes, some spiders, others heights. . me — I can’t abide crossing rivers. It was the rose that triggered that display of weakness.’

George wasn’t listening. ‘Look — Jackie’s got the telephone,’ he announced. ‘Why don’t you use it to ring up your mother, Jean-Philippe? She’ll be concerned. Tell her we’re all coming home safe and well.’

‘But I never ring my mother — ’

‘Then I think you should start. Not easy being the mother of a policeman.’

Bonnefoye made no move to oblige and, with a snort of exasperation, George seized the receiver and took up the earpiece. He spoke in his Governor’s voice, friendly but authoritative: ‘Hello? This is Sir George Jardine here. I’m down below and I want you to connect me with this number. It’s a city number. Got a pencil to hand, have you?’

After the usual arrangement of clicks and bangs they heard Madame Bonnefoye reply. ‘Hold on a minute, will you, madame? I have your son on the line.’ He beckoned to Bonnefoye and held out the earpiece.

‘Yes, it is me, Maman. Oh — well! Yes, it went well. A waste of our time, I think. False alarm. Nothing sinister to report. Look, we’re all going to climb into a taxi and come back for supper. We’ll need to stop off for a minute or two at the Quai to brief Fourier. . we don’t want him inadvertently to go laying siege to the British Embassy. . and then come straight on home. Half an hour.’

As their taxi moved off, a second, which had been waiting across the road and a few yards down, started up and slid into the busy traffic stream behind them.

They had left George sitting in the back of the taxi in the courtyard while they trudged up the stairs to confess to Fourier that they’d been given misleading information. They emerged fifteen minutes later, silent, dismayed by the Chief Inspector’s glee at their predicament.

Before they could cross the courtyard, they were alerted by the sound of running feet clattering down the stairs after them. Fourier’s sergeant shouted their names and they waited for him to catch up with them. ‘Inspector! Sir! Message just came through to the Commissaire. Emergency down by the Square du Vert Galant. Roistering. There’s been roistering going on. They will do it! Young folk got drunk and someone’s been pushed in the river. You’re nearest, sir. Can you go down and sort it out?’

‘No. I’m busy,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘Do I look like a life guard? We have a two-man detail down there from nine o’clock onwards for these eventualities. This is for uniform. They’ll deal with it.’

‘That’s the point, sir,’ said the sergeant, puzzled. ‘Can’t be found. They’ve buzzed off somewhere. What should I do then, sir? You’d better tell me. . just so as it’s clear.’ He evidently didn’t want to go back upstairs and report the Inspector’s refusal of an order.

Bonnefoye groaned. ‘I’ll go and take a look. But I warn you — looking’s all I intend to do. I won’t get my feet wet!’

Turning to Joe: ‘Look — not sure I like this much, Joe. It’s. . irregular. I’d rather deal with it myself. I’m not so quixotic as you — you’d jump in to save a dog! You go on back with Sir George. I’ll grab another taxi when I’ve found those two sluggards who ought to be here.’

‘No — I’ve a better idea,’ Joe replied. ‘I’m coming with you. But we’ll send George home as advance warning that we really are serious about supper. George!’ he shouted, opening the back door. ‘Slight change in arrangements. Something to check on down by the river. You carry on, will you? Jean-Philippe and I will be along in say — half an hour. Driver, take this gentleman to the address he will give you as soon as you’re under way.’

He banged peremptorily on the taxi roof to deny George a chance to argue and watched as the taxi made its way out of the courtyard.

They began to run along the Quai des Orfèvres towards the bow-shaped point of the city island beyond the Pont Neuf. A romantic spot, green and inviting and dotted with willow trees, it was a magnet for the youth of the city with proposals and declarations to make but also for the many drunken tramps who seemed to wash in and out with the tide. A hundred yards. Bonnefoye gave warning of their approach by tooting insistently on the police whistle he kept in his pocket. No duty officer came hurrying up to join them with tumbling apologies.

‘Why us ?’ Bonnefoye spluttered. ‘A whole bloody building full of cops behind us and who’s rushing for a dip in this open sewer? We are. Must be nuts. Where are the beat men? I’ll have their badges in the morning!’

They paused to get their breath back on the Pont Neuf. The loveliest bridge, Joe thought, and certainly the oldest, it spanned the Seine in two arms, divided almost exactly by the square. Centuries ago it had been a stage as well as a thoroughfare and market place, a paved space free of mud where comedy troupes could perform. The Italian Pantaloon, the clown Tabarin, uselessly flourishing his wooden sword, had drawn the crowds with burlesque acts of buffoonery. In an echo of the rather sinister jollity, each rounded arch was graced with a stone-carved gargoyle at its centre, grinning out over the river. Joe and Bonnefoye added their own stony profiles to the scene as they peered over the parapet into the gloom, searching the oily surface of the fast-flowing water, the only illumination the reflections of the gas lamps along the quays and a full moon dipping flirtatiously in and out of the veils of mist rising up from the river.