Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

‘Thought you’d make for this place. How are you enjoying the show, so far, Commander?’ The remembered voice purred down at him from the top of the steps.

There was the Fantômas pose again. Eyes glittered through the holes in the mask.

Joe responded in short panting phrases, one for each step as he climbed. ‘Not the best evening I’ve spent in the theatre. Never been fond of melodrama. Overacting sets my teeth on edge. Kinder not to look, really. I’ve decided to bale out at the interval.’

He’d got almost to the top. Near enough. This would do. Affecting a gulping cough, he put his left hand to his chest and seized the rat, grasping its slimy fur in his fingers. ‘I was wondering, Moulin. .’ he began and a moment later had hurled the squashy and stinking corpse into the masked face. The man took an instinctive step back, with an exclamation of disgust, hitting out at the creature with his left hand. In an instant Joe had closed with him, pushing him off balance, a frozen but iron-hard left fist closing over the knife hand and squeezing with the fury of a madman. The zarin clanged on to the cobbles and the man looked down and sideways to find it.

A moment of inattention which cost him the sight of his left eye. Joe brought up the blunt scalpel and drove the point through the nearest hole in the mask.

A yell and a curse broke from him but he struggled on, strong right hand breaking free from Joe’s slippery clutch. He scrambled to pick up his knife. With the scalpel still sticking out of his eye socket, he rounded on Joe, screaming, beside himself with fury, knife once again clutched in his hand. With both his feeble defences used up, Joe crouched and circled, only his fists left and his cunning. He was intending to work his way around his enemy, wrong-foot him and push him into the river.

Just as he was beginning to think he stood a chance, another shot rang out. The nightmare figure was hurled backwards away from Joe by the force of the bullet tearing into his chest. A dark stain was already spreading over the white waistcoat before he collapsed on to the cobbles inches from the drop into the river.

Joe, shaking with cold and effort and shock, could only turn his head and mumble, ‘Bonnefoye? Jean-Philippe, is that you?’ into the darkness.

‘Er, no. It’s me, my boy,’ said Sir George, emerging from the shadows, Luger in hand. ‘Thought you were up to something sending me off like that. Nosy old bugger, as I keep reminding you. Not so easy to shake off. Had to investigate. Who’s your friend?’

He moved over to the body, pistol at the ready, Joe noticed.

‘Who was your friend. He’s dead. Police not very popular in these parts, I see. I had to take strong action to disable the other bloke on the bridge who seemed to be taking too close an interest. Vévé, I’m assuming. He’s dead too, I’m afraid. But, Joe, who was this fool?’

George bent and tugged the mask off the dead face, carefully pulling it away from the scalpel which still projected.

‘No fool! Madman perhaps? Moulin. The doctor. The pathologist.’

‘Pathologist? Is he so short of customers he has to. . oh, sorry, Joe. It just seems very peculiar to me. So, he’s the one who fancied himself as Set, is he? But why on earth is he got up like this? Was he on his way to a masked ball?’

‘He didn’t have time to explain. I’m just guessing this was his last commission. Someone paid to watch me die, George. But where on earth has Jean-Philippe got to? He was down in the square, whistling. . Oh, my God! There were three of them!’

Joe doubled over and vomited up a litre of river water before he was ready to run on unsteady legs back along the bank, up on to the bridge and then down again to the level of the small park, calling out Jean-Philippe’s name. In his exhaustion, he found that George was well able to keep stride with him. They paused by the statue of Henry IV. The dashing young monarch, Le Vert Galant, the Green Sprig himself, peered majestically down from his horse at the panting old man and the drowned rat as they battled to get their breath and take their bearings.

‘There was a third man on the loose. One of the wolves. Got away during the raid. I heard Jean-Philippe whistling down here on this side. We’ll split up and search.’

‘No we won’t,’ said George firmly. ‘You stay by me. I’m not losing sight of you again. No telling what you’ll get up to. Fancy dress balls. . midnight swimming parties. . some fellows live for pleasure alone,’ he muttered, checking his pistol. ‘Six left. Should do it. And in the dark I don’t want to put one of them into you by mistake. Eyes not what they were, you know.’

Back to back, they quartered the ground, working their way out towards the pointed tip of the park.

They found them under a willow tree.

Bonnefoye had had no time to draw his revolver, his hands were empty, thrown out one on either side of his body. The handle of a zarin gleamed in the half-light, sticking out of his back.

George groaned. ‘Ambushed. Taken from behind.’ He expressed his grief and rage, cursing in a torrent of Pushtu.

Joe was on his knees, feeling for any sign of life. ‘George, do shut up! He’s trying to speak! He’s alive. . just. It’s all right, old man. We’re here. Look, try to stay still. You’ve been stabbed. . I expect you noticed. . yes. What we’ll do, if you can bear it, is leave the blade where it is — it’s actually stopping the blood from flowing. We’ll summon up a stretcher party and get you to the hospital. . it’s only a step or two away.’

He bent his ear to the chill mouth which was barely able to move, yet determined to convey something. ‘What’s that? Oh, yes, you got him. Or someone got him. . The wolf. He’s lying here right beside you.’ Joe glanced down. ‘Shot through the back of the head. Small calibre bullet, I’d say. 22? But well placed. Not you, I take it? No? Ah, there’s a puzzle. . Sorry, what did you say?. . Yes. I’ll send George in a taxi to tell her. I’ll stay by you. . What day? It’s Monday, old fruit. . We’ve just had what we call in England a long weekend.’

He was grateful for the soldierly presence of Sir George, still covering the pathways with his Luger. Gently, Joe removed Bonnefoye’s police revolver from its holster and held it at the ready. But he knew the flourish was in vain. The wolf’s killer had made off into the night and was a mile away by now.

The next three days gurgled their way down life’s plughole, barely distinguishable from each other by Joe. A day of sickness and shivering, spent in Bonnefoye’s room in the rue Mouffetard, being Amélie’s replacement son while her own boy was in hospital, passed like a bad dream. He remembered the bowls of chicken soup, the cool hands on his forehead, George’s gruff voice from the doorway: ‘Just back from the hospital. Thought you’d like to hear — the lad’s going to be all right. Blade went in at an angle — the thought is that the attacker was disturbed before he could place his blow more accurately. No vital organs damaged but he lost a lot of blood. He’s on his feet already and clamouring to come home.’

The day after, which must have been a Wednesday, he spent in Fourier’s office making statements, colluding in the fabrication of various pieces of subterfuge. Nodding in agreement as the Commissaire outlined the dashing attack of the Brigade Criminelle officer (trained and directed by Fourier himself) who had gone in against great odds to the rescue (from an attack by a gang of Apaches) of two theatregoers, one a visiting tourist, his companion a Parisian and a distinguished doctor. Sadly, the latter had succumbed to a bullet fired by one of the gang, the former was lucky to survive being hurled into the river by his assailants.