J. Janes - Carousel

It was so cold in here. Freezing! She clasped her shoulders and began to rub them. There was a small mirror on the washstand and she saw the basin reflected in this, saw the open door to the room and the empty corridor – had someone passed by? Had someone looked in to see her standing here?

‘What’s a good-looking woman like yourself doing with a bastard like Kohler? Hey, listen, madame, it doesn’t take a jackass to see those two are has-beens. Why not save yourself and do me a little favour?’

Hermann … where was Hermann? Where was Louis? Louis would do all he could for her. Louis would …

The hotel seemed to breathe its silence. It was musty and close and yes, the smell of death still lingered in this room in spite of the carbolic that had been used and yes, the rue Lauriston would have kept this place under constant surveillance.

‘What sort of favour?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on the corridor’s reflection in the mirror. There had been someone.

‘Come closer. Come over here where we can talk.’

‘Not on your life! Never !’ she jumped.

A handsome woman, a woman who was so afraid she could not even look across the room at him. ‘Maybe those two won’t be coming back, madame. Maybe they’ve got it all wrong and can’t deliver the goods. What then, eh? The rue Lauriston – please, I know that’s what you’re thinking. Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny … You don’t want them to hold you down, do you, madame? Others will then have a go at you.’

‘ Batard , you killed that girl!’ There was no one standing in the hall. No one had been looking in at them. ‘What … what is it you want?’

That was better. ‘Do yourself a favour and call the Bureau Otto for me, madame. Ask to speak to Captain Brandl personally. Tell him Antoine Audit can deliver.’

The coins? ‘Deliver?’ she asked, seeing his dark-brown eyes flick over her body as if it would soon be naked and she would be standing here like that girl must have done. A piece of jewellery, a choker of pearls, a butterfly pin, a pair of gold and emerald earrings Christabelle could not possibly have worn.

Audit tugged at the handcuff. Four good yanks and the thing might come loose. ‘Yes, deliver . A deal , madame. Brandl will understand. Do this before it is too late for you. They want the loot, the coins. If we give them the collection, they will let us go.’

Otto Brandl … the Bureau Otto … ‘Is it that you know where the coins are hidden?’

Audit smiled briefly and she knew then that he would kill her if he could.

‘Brandl’s a personal friend. He hates the rue Lauriston, madame, hates Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny because they intrude into business he considers his own. When two sides compete so fiercely, those caught in the middle must choose one or the other. He’ll help us. He’ll not hurt you. Not Otto.’

Audit dug into a pocket and held out a small notebook. ‘The number’s under the B,’ he said, urging her to take that thing from him. His hands were strong. There was dirt under the cracked nails. He’d grab her. He’d pull her to him. He’d force her to help him or hold her hostage.

Why hadn’t Hermann come back? Where was St-Cyr? Where was Madame Minou?

‘There is a telephone in the cafe and bal musette on the corner, madame. Here …’ Audit half stood up to drag a small change purse from a trouser pocket. ‘Go … go while there is still time. I’ll tell them you’ve gone to the toilet. Use the tradesmen’s exit. It’s better. Keep to the wall and then make your way carefully to the courtyard door and out on to the street.’

She had lost everything, the children, her husband, even the job as concierge at the house on the quai Jemmapes, her clothes, her papers – everything.

‘I didn’t kill her, madame. I, who should have known better, loved her deeply.’

It was a gamble, this last little confession, and when she timidly turned away from the mirror, Audit pushed the notebook out across the bed and then withdrew until he was standing. ‘No attempts to grab you, madame. I swear it.’

She snatched up the notebook and the purse and stood there quivering.

‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go now. Everything will be all right if you do exactly as I’ve said.’

The cellars beneath the hotel were damp and full of rubbish. Two strands of questionable electrical wire ran down into the darkness to wrap themselves about a broken insulator before taking off into the ink. The only lightbulb that Kohler could see had been recently smashed, a bad sign.

He nudged the door open more fully. One of the concierge’s felt slippers had become hooked on a nail. Oh-oh.

The rubbish was that of a pack-rat. Broken chairs, broken crockery, tables without one or even two legs. Peeling veneer, cracked chamber-pots and dried-up cans of paint.

It was quite a place, but he’d left Oona upstairs with Antoine Audit and he’d best go back for her. She’d be nervous, she’d be remembering the Ile Saint-Louis. She’d be thinking of how Christabelle Audit had died.

Water covered the floor. He could hear his shoes sucking at it with each lousy step. There’d been no sign of Lafont and Bonny, but one could never tell. Louis must be in a jam.

By feeling his way forward, Kohler followed the narrow channel that had been left in the refuse. There were stacks of damp newspapers, each with a brick or piece of iron to hold it down. It wasn’t fair of him to have left Oona alone with Audit. Louis would understand the need to go back.

Can’t see a thing, he said to himself. Drawing his gun, he found a match and struck it under a thumbnail. At once the cellars opened up with flickering shadows high on the orange-red brickwork of an arched roof above him. He had to stand in awe of it, had to breathe, ‘Jesus, a catacomb?’

Madame Minou’s other slipper drifted by, the felt strung with slime and hair.

Wine had once been stored here. The cobwebbed racks were piled against the walls. Empty bottles held the mould of age.

Kohler blew out the match and listened. Muttering ‘Louis?’ he suddenly had the feeling the place was very unhealthy.

A series of tunnels branched to the left and right and continued straight ahead. ‘Louis?’ he hazarded. ‘ Louis … Louis … Louis? ’ came the echoes.

‘Son of a bitch, don’t do this to me! We’ve got the killer upstairs in that room with Oona, idiot! I know it’s him.’

‘Him … Him … Him …’

She’d be terrified.

In time he came to another place where wine had once been stored, perhaps in Roman times. It was just beyond a turning and long before the match burned down he heard the muffled curse Louis gave from somewhere in the surrounding darkness.

‘ Put that thing out and shut up, Hermann! Don’t be an idiot yourself! Ah , Mon Dieu …’

The sound of the shot boomed and rolled back and forth. Kohler cringed and tried to get out of its way. The slug pinged off the walls, smacked into an empty steel drum and then shattered several forgotten panes of glass.

Madame Minou sucked in a breath. A shrill voice leapt out of the darkness. ‘I DID NOT KILL HER, MESSIEURS!’

Louis’ urgent entreaty came from somewhere over to the right. ‘ Imbecile, I know you didn’t! Come out of there at once. Give yourself up. ’

‘NO!’ A volley of shots ruptured the darkness. The blubbering concierge pleaded with God for salvation.

And then tearfully, ‘Messieurs … Messieurs … In the Name of Jesus, I’m but a poor woman who is now soaked to the skin! The sewers, messieurs. They have flooded the cellars.’

Ignoring the whimpering, the assailant shouted antagonistically. ‘ That one upstairs knew Roland, Inspector. Me, I saw them talking. Roland killed her. I swear he did! ’