J. Janes - Carousel

‘Suck lemons. We know nothing.’

Deep inside the carousel, the faint glow from the firebox threw shadows on the punchboards of the calliope. Clement Cueillard wiped breakfast soup from the strainer of his handlebar moustache. The monkey, huddled on his shoulder, was edgy.

‘I have found them when I was raking out the ashes, Inspectors. Such clinkers … It’s shit, that soft coal. It does not burn well. We’re running out.’ He gave the two of them the look of one who has lived with unpleasantness in what should have been a place of joy.

A tin pie plate held a sand of cinders. Six molars, two incisors and the shattered lower left jawbone were all equally charred. ‘Weren’t there any more chips of bone?’ asked the Surete uneasily.

‘A few – smashed to smithereens, Inspector. Did they extract the marrow, eh? That’s what Joujou and I want to know, not that marrow isn’t nourishing in these times.’

Rejean Tourmel snorted lustily. ‘So, my fines, another dead one, eh? Who was it did this one? Myself or Charles?’

‘Piss off. I’ll deal with you in time,’ snarled St-Cyr.

‘It’s Roland Minou,’ quipped Charles Audit. ‘Hey, Rejean, you remember that little pimp. A real smart-ass. They should have saved the blood for his mother.’

So much for depths of sadness in the eyes of ex-convicts from Devil’s Island. ‘Look, you two, speak only when you’re spoken to and not before then.’

Tourmel tossed his head. ‘Nervous, eh, Jean-Louis? What’s it to be? The Abwehr, the SS or the rue Lauriston, or are they all after you?’

‘Louis, this puts another twist on things,’ said Kohler, covering the two of them with his pistol.

‘Not really, Hermann. No, it only reinforces what we have already come to believe.’

‘The mackerel and Schraum killed Madame Minou’s son for wanting too much and interfering when he shouldn’t have,’ said Kohler grimly. ‘Morande then cut up the body and disposed of it in the firebox.’

Joujou flitted nervously off Cueillard’s shoulder, knocking over the coffee in its tin mug.

As the puddle grew, Cueillard sadly shook his head. ‘That was the last of the real stuff, Joujou. It’s the end for us then, is it, Inspectors? Back to the beat for me, eh? What’s to happen to my carousel?’

‘Who’s he?’ snorted the previous owner.

Charles Audit stood to Hermann’s left, Rejean to the right, the two ex-convicts linked by bracelets, yes, and by fraud, murder and revenge. ‘He is the man you should have hired to run your carousel, my friend. But since Rejean had a score to settle with Victor Morande, and since Morande was an outsider among the criminal milieu and a small-time hood the Germans would ignore, Victor had to be chosen for the job.’

‘Go on, we’re waiting,’ breathed Charles Audit.

St-Cyr shrugged. ‘Since you ask it, my friend, then I will tell you. You could not entrust the carousel to just anyone, eh? Rejean agreed to help and you made a deal so that he became the new owner.’

‘There was nothing illegal in that.’

‘Ah no, of course not, except for the lack of registration and licensing. But no one cared, the Germans were far too busy. You waited. You bided your time. The desire for revenge only grew with your brother’s continuing successes, the scheme developing as an orchid does for that one brief moment when the flower will open to accept the bee.’

The monkey, flitting back and forth on its bit of chain, eyed its former master with guilt, suspicion and outright anxiety.

‘What scheme?’ asked Audit.

‘Don’t say anything more, Charles. Let St-Cyr pull all the teeth he wants.’

Rejean had been tough, so tough. One should adopt a tired attitude with these two. ‘A scheme of revenge, my old ones. Revenge so deep and sinister, I myself find it hard to accept, but then, after more than thirty years of crime, very little surprises me.’

Kohler sucked in a breath. Louis had used the familiar ‘my old ones’. He’d got to know them better and damned if he hadn’t let them know it!

‘Clement,’ said St-Cyr, ‘could I ask you to stand by this morning to operate the controls if necessary? Let us show these two a real artiste, eh?’

Cueillard was too smart to be margarined, but knew what was wanted.

‘The turtle and the pig, Inspector. The rabbit and the panda, and the black stallion in the fourth row, that one most of all.’

The monkey stared viciously at its former master, who stared emptily back at it.

‘Louis, what the hell’s Cueillard on about? Black stallions, pigs, turtles?’

‘My nightmares, Hermann. The ups and downs. I only hope they don’t come true.’

‘You’ve heard it then,’ sighed Kohler. Moving swiftly, he shoved Charles Audit and Rejean Tourmel out on to the platform and handcuffed them to one of the brass standards.

The throb of engines grew – a race! ‘ Lafont , Louis, and Brandl !’

‘The first of many perhaps,’ snorted Rejean.

‘At least let us help you,’ urged Charles Audit. ‘With the four of us, you might stand a chance. They are no friends of ours.’

Headlamps flung their lights over the darkened carousel and, as a sliver of illumination pierced the inner darkness, it touched the monkey’s cup.

‘Louis, go left. Let them come to me.’

‘Hermann, no ! Cueillard, my friend, be ready at the moment’s notice, eh? The roundel lights, the music, the works.’

No sound betrayed the detectives’ sudden disappearance. One moment they were there beside him, the next they were gone, ‘Joujou …’ began Cueillard, nervously wetting his throat. ‘Joujou, we must stay at the controls as ordered.’

A woman screamed in terror, the shrieks lifting the hair and causing the monkey to tug at its chain.

One by one, each pair of headlamps went out, and where once the stallions’ eyes had been bright and flashing in the dusky light, now there was not even the silhouette of the animals poised suspended in their charge.

Kohler crept among them anyway. The rain came down, thrumming on the canvas roof, reminding him that this whole affair had begun with rain. Paris in winter. The merry-go-round of it. They’d be over by the entrance now. Would Lafont have the Schmeisser with him?

‘Hey, Louis, don’t play games, eh?’ shouted Bonny. ‘Just give up the coins and we’ll let the girls go.’

A muffled answer came from off to Kohler’s left. ‘Pierre, you were never one to be trusted. Why should we do so now?’

‘Brandl’s here.’

‘Did he bring the Captain Offenheimer?’ asked Louis.

‘Hey, what is this, eh? You hold no cards, my friend. Nothing !’ shouted Bonny.

‘Me, I know who did the killings and I know where the coins are hidden.’

‘THEN GIVE THEM TO HIM!’ shrieked Gabrielle Arcuri. ‘Jean-Louis, please, I beg it of you. This bitch has a straight razor. She is going to slash my face!’

Nicole de Rainvelle. Ah Mon Dieu …

A burst of firing cut the air, sending shrieks and cries from the prisoners.

Droplets immediately began to fall from the holes in the roof. The smell of cordite mingled with the dampness as St-Cyr got cautiously up from behind one of the gondola cars. ‘Hermann … Hermann, it is -’

‘LOUIS, GET DOWN!’

The Schmeisser fired, the splinters flew. Charles Audit cried out in anger, ‘YOU BASTARDS … BASTARDS … MY CAROUSEL! My carousel …’

Again the place went to silence. Not a thing moved but the patient droplets of rain. St-Cyr could hear them as they hit the turtle’s head. Hermann would hear them too.

Out of the silence came the quavering voice of Otto Brandl. ‘I have the Van der Lynn woman, Hermann, and the concierge from the Hotel of the Silent Life. You should not have left them at the Villa Audit!’