He stood for a few minutes in the Place Vendôme looking at the Ritz and tried to imagine the Belle he’d got to know so well plucking up the courage to go into such a grand hotel. But reminding himself that he’d dared to rob people there, and Belle wasn’t lacking in spirit, he went in to ask about his fictitious parcel.
And he was told the concierge’s name was Monsieur Edouard Pascal.
E.B. It had to be him.
‘But he has gone off duty now,’ the clerk at the reception desk told Etienne. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘No, thank you,’ Etienne replied. ‘I think I have the wrong hotel. I’ll have to contact my friend and ask him which one he said he left my parcel at.’
Etienne was jubilant as he left the Ritz. Now he had the right name, he had contacts in Paris who would be able to tell him more about this man. For the first time since the fire he felt he had a purpose. He just hoped that Belle was still alive, for when girls of her age and experience went missing they were invariably found dead in a back alley or floating in the Seine. It was the innocent, trusting girls that got whisked off to work in brothels; they could be moulded to the owner’s will. But Belle would not be like that now.
Le Chat Noir was a dark, smoky bar close to the Moulin Rouge. It was a favourite haunt for men who lived by their wits – confidence tricksters, gamblers, thieves and a variety of entrepreneurial fly-boys. Yet they were in the main the elite of their chosen profession, and Etienne by reputation was one of them.
The doorman, a thick-set ex-boxer, embraced Etienne with delight. ‘We didn’t think we were ever going to see you again,’ he said. ‘Word got around you’d retired.’
‘I have, Sol,’ Etienne replied, and pinched the man’s cheek affectionately. ‘Only in Paris on personal business, but I couldn’t not come and see you all.’
‘We heard about the fire,’ Sol said, his face suddenly serious and sad. ‘A terrible thing!’
Etienne nodded. He didn’t wish to talk about it and hoped not everyone would feel they’d got to bring it up. Perhaps Sol understood, for he remarked on how fit and well Etienne looked and after making a joke about his expensive suit, let him go on into the bar.
About fifteen men were in there drinking, and perhaps five or six women too. Later, in the early hours of the morning, it would be packed and the air virtually unbreathable. Etienne heard his name called and saw a very short man in a checked jacket waving him over on the far side of the room.
Etienne smiled. It was Fritz, a very old friend and one of the people he’d hoped would be here tonight. Fritz had always been a mine of information, and Etienne doubted he’d changed in the four years since he’d last seen him.
He went through the same routine with Fritz as he had with Sol – the embrace, the sincere condolence.
‘Don’t let’s speak of that,’ Etienne said. ‘I came here looking for you to pick your brains. All right?’
Fritz shrugged, which said that whatever Etienne wanted he could have, and then called the waiter for drinks.
Fritz played the part of a clown to strangers. He was less than five feet tall, and with the loud jackets, spats and bright waistcoats he always wore, and a voice to match, people automatically assumed he was a buffoon. But in fact he was one of the most intelligent men Etienne had ever met. When he was younger he’d single-handedly robbed a diamond merchant here in Paris. It was an audacious and meticulously planned robbery which baffled the gendarmes. Fritz was never suspected and only three people knew he’d done it – his wife, his brother and Etienne.
At the time the diamond merchant claimed the haul was worth four million francs, but Fritz had always smiled when that figure was mentioned, which Etienne took to mean it was far less than that. But to this day people still talked about the daring robbery, and each year they exaggerated the value.
Fritz had got away with it because not only had he left no clues behind as to who was responsible, he didn’t brag about it either. Etienne knew it was just that which got most thieves caught, and that they splashed too much money around. Fritz bought a small house, and he and his wife and the children that came along later lived quite simply and happily. He had told Etienne at the time that he’d always planned to do just one big job that would keep him comfortable for ever, and he’d stuck to it.
‘I want to know if you know anything about the concierge at the Ritz, name of Edouard Pascal,’ Etienne asked as soon as the waiter had brought them each a large brandy and they’d moved to a table on their own.
Fritz frowned. ‘Can’t say it’s a place I frequent. What’s he done to you?’
‘Nothing. But he’s been arranging clients for a friend of mine who has now gone missing.’
‘
Fille de joie
?’
Etienne nodded. He was glad Fritz had used that expression, it was kinder.
‘But it’s the client you should be looking for surely? Do you know his name?’
‘Le Brun, that’s all, there must be hundreds in Paris. But he’d be rich. And she was excited about seeing him again, so she liked him.’
‘So we’re looking for a Monsieur Le Brun, rich, charming. Any idea how old?’
‘No. But I can’t imagine he’d be much more than forty. She’s only eighteen, girls of that age wouldn’t be excited by someone very old. But could you get any information on this man Pascal? I may be forced to lean on him and I need to know what I’m dealing with.’
‘See that man there?’ Fritz pointed out a burly man in his thirties with a very big nose who was sitting a few tables away. ‘He was a doorman at the Ritz a while back. Got the push for insulting someone. He’d know about the concierge.’
Etienne hesitated. ‘But what’s he like? I don’t want it getting back to Pascal that anyone’s been asking about him. Nor do I want anyone else knowing about this business. You know what I mean.’
Fritz nodded. He realized Etienne was concerned that the organization he used to work for might try to force him back to work for them if they heard he was active again. ‘He owes me a couple of favours. I can make up some reason for asking about Pascal. I won’t tell him you want to know.’
‘Fair enough. Ask him when I’ve gone and we could meet up tomorrow. Can you think about the name Le Brun too, and see if you can come up with something?’
‘I will. I’ll meet you at Gustave’s at ten in the morning.’
After leaving Le Chat Noir, Etienne hailed a fiacre to take him to the Marais. It was an area that had fallen on hard times, but he was fond of it for he’d lived there during a period when he had had to leave London in a hurry but couldn’t go home to Marseille. It was well past midnight, but the place was buzzing with life, including dozens of prostitutes strutting up and down looking for business, and their
maquereaux
leaning on lamp-posts smoking and looking menacing.
Music wafted out of the many cafés and bars, above many of which were brothels. Etienne had worked in one briefly as a doorman, and he’d been shocked by the perversions the place offered. One room was like a torture chamber with manacles on the walls where the clients could be secured to be whipped. He’d seen men stagger out of there with their flesh so badly lacerated it was a miracle they were still conscious. He still couldn’t understand how anyone would find that pleasurable.
It was here that he first learned that some men like sex with children, and it was hearing a girl of twelve screaming as she was raped that broke the spell of Paris and sent him back to Marseille. Again and again over the years he’d come up against men who abducted children and young girls to force them into prostitution, a practice he found despicable. The saddest thing was that there was no way out for these girls; once sucked into the trade, there they stayed until they were too old or too diseased for any man to pay them.
Because of his strong feelings about this trade, he felt deeply ashamed that he’d given in to pressure from Jacques and escorted Belle to New Orleans. While it was true he had no choice, not if he wanted Elena and the boys to remain safe, he had come to justify himself because Belle wasn’t a child and he also believed that Martha’s was a far better place to be than any brothel in Paris.
But after he left her there, thoughts of what he’d been a party to were like having a thorn in his foot that he was unable to get out. He had nightmares of Belle being ill treated, imagining brutish men forcing themselves into her. He hated himself for not being clever enough to find some way of getting her back safely to England, while still making sure his wife and children were protected.
This was why he eventually told Jacques he couldn’t work for him any longer. He made out it was only because he wanted to spend more time with his family and Elena couldn’t manage the restaurant alone.
He would probably never know for certain whether the fire that killed them was Jacques’s revenge, or a genuine accident. But there was one thing he was certain of – if he did find Belle, then he was determined to expose this evil trade in children and young girls. He’d already lost everything that was dear to him, he had nothing more to lose other than his own life, and he’d die happy if he knew no more children would suffer that way.
The Trois Cygnes hadn’t changed. There was the same faded red and white checked half curtain on a brass rail across the window, peeling paint and the same blast of cigarette smoke, mildew and garlic as Etienne opened the door. A wizened old man was playing the accordion just the way he remembered, and although the faces of the customers were different, they were the same mix of whores, pimps, struggling artists, dancers and students. A few of the older ones might even be the same he used to drink with all those years ago. But his memory of this place was that it had been bursting with life, with heated arguments about politics and art. Colourful characters, strong opinions and eccentricity used to be the order of the day, but the present customers looked surly, jaded and dull.
‘Etienne!’
He looked over to where the shout came from at the back of the bar, and smiled at the delight in the woman’s voice. It had to be Madeleine, even if the years hadn’t been kind to her.
She wriggled her way through the close-packed tables and chairs, fat now and in her mid-forties, but she still had a smile to light up a room.
‘Madeleine! I hoped you’d be here,’ Etienne said and held out his arms to embrace her. He’d learned everything about lovemaking from her, and even more about life. In her thirties she’d been a flame-haired beauty, with a soul as beautiful as her face. Her hair was still red, but all too clearly dyed, and the porcelain-like complexion was muddy and lined now. Yet all the warmth she’d had was still there, and as he held her the years slipped away and he felt as he had at twenty.
‘Let me look at you,’ she said, stepping back a little. ‘More handsome than ever, and a suit that tells me you won’t need me to buy you a drink! But what brings you here? I heard you’d become a recluse.’
‘I came looking for you,’ Etienne said.
She took his hand and led him to a free table right at the back of the bar, calling to the barman to bring them cognac. As he had half expected, she’d heard about Elena and the boys – bad news always spread far and wide – and as she offered condolences her eyes filled with tears of sympathy.
‘It is good to see your heart is still as big,’ he said, taking her hand across the table. ‘After the way I left you, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d wished bad luck on me.’
‘You were never for me, I always knew that,’ she said, and he noticed her green eyes were still as vivid. ‘If you’d stayed we would’ve destroyed one another, and I was too old for you too. But let’s not talk about that – tell me why you are here in Paris. You weren’t one for social calls, as I remember.’
‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that anything I say must stay between us?’ he reminded her.
‘Of course.’
Etienne outlined Belle’s story. ‘You were right in believing I’d become a recluse. If I hadn’t got a message to say Belle had disappeared I would have finished clearing the land around my cottage and planted some crops and got some chickens.’
Madeleine laughed. ‘Surely not! You a farmer?’
‘Working the land suits me,’ he said. ‘I hope I can go back to it. But first I have to find Belle to put things right.’
‘She may have just gone off on a jaunt with this client of hers.’
‘No, she has left all her belongings at the hotel she was staying at.’
‘Pssst,’ Madeleine said scornfully. ‘A few clothes would not hold a girl, not if the man was rich and could buy her new ones.’
‘I would say that is true of many women, but not Belle,’ he said staunchly. ‘She would’ve sent a message to her landlady so she wouldn’t worry.’
‘Two years as a whore would’ve changed her. She won’t be the girl you knew any longer.’
‘It is over twelve years since I met you, but I’d say you still have the same values,’ Etienne argued.
‘Where you are concerned, maybe.’ She shrugged, implying that he was a special case. ‘But a girl who works the top hotels has to be smart and hard-headed. I did it myself, remember.’
‘I know Belle is in trouble,’ he insisted. ‘I feel it, so does her landlady. She was a
fille de joie
too.’
That seemed to change Madeleine’s mind. ‘Fair enough. So what do you want of me?’
‘Have you ever met or do you know anything about a man called Edouard Pascal?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and sat up with a jolt as if startled. ‘He used to come to the Marais nearly every week. I went with him two or three times, but I didn’t like him, he gave me the creeps. None of the other girls liked him either. But this was eight years ago or more. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘What did he work at?’
‘He didn’t say. He was well dressed but I don’t think he had much money – an office worker maybe?’
‘He’s the concierge at the Ritz now. He was getting Belle clients.’
Madeleine’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘That makes me think you are right to be worried about her. The reason I remember him so well was because he liked it rough. He bit me very hard, and slapped me when I complained. The other girls talked about him too.’