J. Janes - Tapestry

‘I’m sure you did, but please bear with me. You see, those gold louis were borrowed by the flic who was first on the scene.’

‘The fool! Did you arrest him?’ demanded Rouget.

‘Judge, don’t look for sparrows among the crumbs. Leave such things to the hawks of a reformed conscience since the flic , though tempted, has a family and he put the louis back next day for me to find when I called on Monsieur Felix Picard of Au Philateliste Savant in the passage Jouffroy.’

‘Denise, take your mother to the toilettes for a tidy-up.’

‘Judge, you are under instruction. Please don’t be difficult. We’ll get to Elene Artur and the child she was carrying soon enough.’

‘ESPECE DE SALAUD! LECHEUR DE CHATTE!’

Fucking bastard; cunt-licker … ‘HERCULE, NOT IN PUBLIC!’

‘ MAMAN, LOWER YOUR VOICE!’

All conversation ceased in this culinary paradise, all eyes were on the table. Some stood for a better look, among them the Standartenfuhrer Langbehn, who let his napkin fall to the floor and then cautioned a waiter not to pick it up.

‘Judge, before that one reaches us, it’s my considered belief that Elene Artur was disembowelled to find the fetus she was carrying and dispose of it. Fortunately my partner recovered the body of what would have been your son.’

Kohler let the match flame linger as a shiver ran through Germaine de Brisac, green eyes wincing as she drew on the cigarette he’d given her. ‘Merci,’ she muttered-guilty, was she, of knowing too much? Damned afraid, in any case. He’d make her sit here in the car on place du Parvis, would let her feel the pitch-dark silhouette of the Hotel-Dieu, would let her freeze in that woven shawl with its threads of burnished copper-gold that set off the colour of her hair and eyes, the Schiaparelli dress, silk stockings, high heels and brand-new camel-hair overcoat with its broad lapels and turn-down flaps, her perfume exquisite. A woman of exceptional taste, with emerald drop earrings from Cartier to catch the last of the match’s flame, and so much for the cigarette lighter that had recently been acquired. He’d take his time with her until she realized he wasn’t going to get out from behind the Citroen’s wheel until he had squeezed every last little thing out of her.

Then he’d make her visit Adrienne Guillaumet. ‘So, tell me about Lulu. On the evening of Monday, January eleventh, you left your mother’s Irish Terrier in the car outside Chez Benedicte at about six thirty and went down into the Lido to find out what was delaying Denise Rouget.’

Did he know everything? ‘ Maman worshipped that dog. When one is dying, Inspector, a companion such as Lulu means all the more. Lulu gave my mother life. To have stolen her … to have killed and eaten her was to have …’

‘You knew she’d been eaten?’

Ah, merde ! ‘We assumed she had. Don’t those people eat dogs?’

Deliberately Herr Kohler gave her a moment to calm herself.

‘Correct me, Mademoiselle de Brisac, but wasn’t Colonel Delaroche shy; still looking for Lulu? If so, how is it that you knew Lulu had ended up in the soup pot? It’s probably a culinary delicacy, just as was horse meat here in France before this lousy Occupation.’

‘ “Lousy,” is it?’

‘Just tell me.’

‘I didn’t know. I … I only assumed.’ Ah Sainte-Mere, Sainte-Mere , why had Monsieur le Juge not insisted Denise accompany her?

‘You knew, mademoiselle. You have just stated it as if you did, which can only mean …’

Must he pause like this and make her catch a breath in fear of what was to come? ‘All right, damn you! Abelard also knew or suspected it but didn’t want to tell Mother such a thing.’

‘A good friend of the family, is he?’

‘The best! Like a father. Always there for Mother when needed, always interested in how I’m getting along. Mine was killed in action. He … Colonel Abelard-Armand Delaroche tried his best to take that place for Mother and me. I was only eight years old when we got the news about Papa, nine when Abelard was first able to come home to see how we were.’

‘But he didn’t think to confront Madame Elene Artur with the theft?’

‘WHY SHOULD HE HAVE? HE …’

‘Had other plans for her?’

‘I … I don’t know what you wish to imply, Inspector. I really don’t. Abelard would not have harmed that girl. He was only asked to have her followed.’

‘But I thought he was looking for Lulu? Surely he wasn’t told to follow Elene?’

‘You know very well what I said. Mother and …’

‘And whom?’

It would do no good to lie since he must already know, but it would be best, as with such men, to let him think her spirit had been broken. ‘Mother and Vivienne hired him.’

Hired not asked .

‘Must you sigh like that?’

‘Vivienne knew all about the judge and Elene and didn’t like it one bit, did she?’

‘Should she have? That bitch wasn’t the first but the latest of many. La syphilis, la blennorragie -the clap to you, la chaude-pisse that burns, n’est-ce pas ? To have had to live in terror of his contracting such … such filthy diseases and then giving them to her as he did time and again? Is that not reason enough?’

‘And he has a taste for the exotic, hasn’t he?’

‘If you wish to call it that, I don’t! The wife of a prisoner of war? The mother of a child she should have been home looking after yet who constantly flaunted herself naked on stage and sold herself to the highest bidder while her husband languished behind barbed wire? How could she have done such a thing?’

‘Here, have another of these. That one will only spoil your nail polish.’

She should flick the butt into Herr Kohler’s face, but mustn’t. ‘Vivienne is a patriot. She does what she can. No one could do more.’

‘And your mother?’

‘Can’t do much, poor thing.’

‘But offer to help pay for things and is her confidante, as is Colonel Delaroche?’

‘Isn’t that what lifelong friends become? These bitches have to be stopped. They can’t be allowed to betray their husbands like others did in the last war. They’ve got to be taught a …’

Irritably Germaine de Brisac drew on her cigarette and turned to stare out her side windscreen. ‘I … I didn’t mean to say any of that.’

‘I think you did. I think your late husband fooled around a lot before he was killed during the blitzkrieg. You had already petitioned the courts to let you divorce him.’

Avoiding it would do no good. ‘And now I no longer use my married name. Oh, for sure, I’ve reason enough, just as Mother had before me. Fortunately for her, Papa didn’t return from the fighting, and fortunately for myself, neither did my husband.’

‘And when you went down into the Lido having left Lulu ripe for …’

‘Listen, you, I have blamed myself enough already and have asked countless times why I didn’t simply take her with me.’

‘You were worried about your friend. Lulu would have thrown herself at the judge and …’

‘All right, all right, I knew I couldn’t. Does that satisfy you? Monsieur le juge was besotted with that salope indochinoise . She was always in heat for him, always did things poor Vivienne couldn’t bring herself to do or submit to. Denise begged him to come home and never see the girl again but …’

‘He wouldn’t agree. He had made up his mind to see her again, hadn’t he? Men like the judge don’t just have urges. They’ve the erection of a constant, ego-driven need to conquer and an arrogance that can and does lead them into trouble. Last October, Elene asked him to meet her in the Parc Monceau. My partner and I believe she was going to tell him of the child she was carrying, and likely she did because when Lulu found them, the judge kicked hell out of that terrier.’