Cynthia Manson (ed) (13 page)

“No. I was thinking
about Francois and his present.”

“And with money in
your pocket you banished all your cares!”

The Inspector
hadn’t known Olivier Lecœur since childhood, but he had sized him up all right.
He had hit the nail on the head. When things were black, Olivier would go about
with drooping shoulders and a hangdog air, but no sooner had he a
thousand-franc note in his pocket than he’d feel on top of the world.

“To come back to
Madame Fayet, you say you gave her a receipt. What did she do with it?”

“She slipped it
into an old wallet she always carried about with her in a pocket somewhere
under her skirt.”

“So you knew about
the wallet?”

“Yes. Everybody
did.”

The Inspector
turned towards Andre.

“It hasn’t been
found!”

Then to Olivier:
“You bought some things. In the Louvre?”

“No. I bought the
little radio in the Rue Montmartre.”

“In which shop?”

“I don’t know the
name. It’s next door to a shoe shop.”

“And the other
things?”

“A little farther
on.”

“What time was it
when you’d finished shopping?”

“Close on midnight.
People were coming out of the theaters and movies and crowding into the
restaurants. Some of them were rather noisy.”

His brother at that
time was already here at his switchboard.

“What did you do
during the rest of the night?”

“At the corner of
the Boulevard des Italiens, there’s a movie that stays open all night.”

“You’d been there
before?”

Avoiding his
brother’s eye, Olivier answered rather sheepishly: “Two or three times. After
all, it costs no more than going into a cafe and you can stay there as long as
you like. It’s nice and warm. Some people go there regularly to sleep.”

“When was it you
decided to go to the movies?”

“As soon as I left
Madame Fayet’s.”

Andre Lecœur was
tempted to intervene once again to say to the Inspector: “You see, these people
who are down and out are not so utterly miserable after all. If they were,
they’d never stick it out. They’ve got a world of their own, in odd corners of
which they can take refuge and even amuse themselves.”

It was all so like
Olivier! With a few notes in his pocket—and Heaven only knew how he was ever
going to pay them back—with a few notes in his pocket, his trials were
forgotten. He had only one thought: to give his boy a good Christmas. With that
secured, he was ready to stand himself a little treat.

So while other
families were gathered at table or knelt at Midnight Mass, Olivier went to the
movies all by himself. It was the best he could do.

“When did you leave
the movie?”

“A little before
six.”

“What was the
film?”

“Cœurs Ardents.
With a documentary on Eskimos.”

“How many times did
you see the program?”

“Twice right
through, except for the news, which was just coming on again when I left.”

Andre Lecœur knew
that all this was going to be verified, if only as a matter of routine. It
wasn’t necessary, however. Diving into his pockets, Olivier produced the
torn-off half of a movie ticket, then another ticket—a pink one. “Look at that.
It’s the Métro ticket I had coming home.”

It bore the name of
the station—Opéra—together with the date and the time.

Olivier had been telling
the truth. He couldn’t have been in Madame Fayet’s flat any time between five
and six-thirty.

There was a little
spark of triumph in his eye, mixed with a touch of disdain. He seemed to be
saying to them all, including his brother Andre: “Because I’m poor and unlucky
I come under suspicion. I know—that’s the way things are. I don’t blame you.”

And, funnily
enough, it seemed as though all at once the room had grown colder. That was
probably because, with Olivier Lecœur cleared of suspicion, everyone’s thoughts
reverted to the child. As though moved by one impulse, all eyes turned
instinctively toward the huge plan on the wall.

Some time had
elapsed since any of the lamps had lit up. Certainly it was a quiet morning. On
any ordinary day there would be a street accident coming in every few minutes,
particularly old women knocked down in the crowded thoroughfares of Montmartre
and other overpopulated quarters.

Today the streets
were almost empty—emptier than in August, when half Paris is away on holiday.

Half past eleven.
For three and a half hours there’d been no sign of Francois Lecœur.

“Hallo! Yes,
Saillard speaking. Is that Janvier? You say you couldn’t find a tin anywhere?
Except in her kitchen, of course. Now, look here, was it you who went through
the old girl’s clothes? Oh, Gonesse had already done it. There should have been
an old wallet in a pocket under her skirt. You’re sure there wasn’t anything of
that sort? That’s what Gonesse told you, is it? What’s that about the
concierge? She saw someone go up a little after nine last night. I know. I know
who it was. There were people coming in and out the best part of the night? Of
course. I’d like you to go back to the house in the Rue Vasco de Gama. See what
you can find out about the comings and goings there, particularly on the third
floor. Yes. I’ll still be here.”

He turned back to
the boy’s father, who was now sitting humbly in his chair, looking as
intimidated as a patient in a doctor’s waiting room.

“You understand why
I asked that, don’t you? Does Francois often wake up in the course of the
night?”

“He’s been known to
get up in his sleep.”

“Does he walk
about?”

“No. Generally he
doesn’t even get right out of bed—just sits up and calls out. It’s always the
same thing. He thinks the house is on fire. His eyes are open, but I don’t
think he sees anything. Then, little by little, he calms down and with a deep
sigh lies down again. The next day he doesn’t remember a thing.”

“Is he always
asleep when you get back in the morning?”

“Not always. But if
he isn’t, he always pretends to be so that I can wake him up as usual with a
hug.”

“The people in the
house were probably making more noise than usual last night. Who have you got
in the next flat?”

“A Czech who works
at Renault’s.

“Is he married?”

“I really don’t
know. There are so many people in the house and they change so often we don’t
know much about them. All I can tell you is that on Sundays other Czechs come
there and they sing a lot of their own songs.”

“Janvier will tell
us whether there was a party there last night. If there was, they may well have
awakened the boy. Besides, children are apt to sleep more lightly when they’re
excited about a present they’re expecting. If he got out of bed, he might
easily have looked out of the window, in which case he might have seen you at
Madame Fayet’s. He didn’t know she was his grandmother, did he?”

“No. He didn’t like
her. He sometimes passed her in the street and he used to say she smelled like
a squashed bug.”

The boy would
probably know what he was talking about. A house like his was no doubt infested
with vermin.

“He’d have been
surprised to see you with her?”

“Certainly.”

“Did he know she
lent money?”

“Everyone knew.”

“Would there be
anybody working at the
Presse
on a day like this?”

“There’s always
somebody there.”

The Inspector asked
Andre to ring them up.

“See if anyone’s
ever been round to ask for your brother.”

Olivier looked
uncomfortable, but when his brother reached for the telephone directory, he
gave him the number. Both he and the Inspector stared at Andre while he got
through.

“It’s very
important, Mademoiselle. It may even be a matter of life and death. Yes,
please. See if you can find out. Ask everybody who’s in the building now. What?
Yes, I know it’s Christmas Day. It’s Christmas Day here, too, but we have to
carry on just the same.”

Between his teeth
he muttered, “Silly little bitch!”

He could hear the
linotypes clicking as he held the line, waiting for her answer.

“Yes. What? Three
weeks ago. A young boy—”

Olivier went pale
in the face. His eyes dropped, and during the rest of the conversation he
stared obstinately at his hands.

“He didn’t
telephone? Came round himself. At what time? On a Thursday, you say. What did
he want? Asked if Olivier Lecœur worked there? What? What was he told?”

Looking up, Olivier
saw a flush spread over his brother’s face before he banged down the receiver.

“Francois went
there one Thursday afternoon. He must have suspected something. They told him
you hadn’t been working there for some time.”

There was no point
in repeating what he had heard. What they’d said to the boy was: “We chucked
the old fool out weeks ago.”

Perhaps not out of
cruelty. They may not have thought it was the man’s son they were speaking to.

“Do you begin to
understand, Olivier?”

Did he realize that
the situation was the reverse of what he had imagined? He had been going off at
night, armed with his little box of sandwiches, keeping up an elaborate
pretense. And in the end he had been the one to be taken in!

The boy had found
him out. And wasn’t it only fair to suppose that he had seen through the Uncle
Gedeon story, too?

He hadn’t said a
word. He had simply fallen in with the game.

No one dared say
anything for fear of saying too much, for fear of evoking images that would be
heartrending.

A father and a son
each lying to avoid hurting the other.

They had to look at
it through the eyes of the child, with all childhood’s tragic earnestness. His
father kisses him good night and goes off to the job that doesn’t really exist,
saying: “Sleep well. There’ll be a surprise for you in the morning.”

A radio. It could
only be that. And didn’t he know that his father’s pockets were empty? Did he
try to go to sleep? Or did he get up as soon as his father had gone, to sit
miserably staring out of the window obsessed by one thought?
His father had
no money—yet he was going to buy him a radio!

To the
accompaniment, in all probability, of a full-throated Czech choir singing their
national songs on the other side of the thin wall!

The Inspector
sighed and knocked out his pipe on his heel.

“It looks as though
he saw you at Madame Fayet’s.”

Olivier nodded.

“We’ll check up on
this, but it seems likely that, looking down from his window, he wouldn’t see
very far into the room.”

“That’s quite
right.”

“Could he have seen
you leave the room?”

“No. The door’s on
the opposite side from the window.”

“Do you remember
going near the window?”

“At one time I was
sitting on the windowsill.”

“Was the window
open then? We know it was later.”

“It was open a few
inches. I’m sure of that, because I moved away from it, as I felt an icy
draught on my back. She lived with us for a while, just after our marriage, and
I know she couldn’t bear not to have her window open all the year round. You
see, she’d been brought up in the country.”

“So there’d be no
frost on the panes. He’d certainly have seen you if he was looking.”

A call. Lecœur
thrust his contact plug into one of the sockets.

“Yes. What’s that?
A boy?”

The other two held
their breath.

“Yes. Yes. What?
Yes. Send out the
agents cyclistes
. Comb the whole neighborhood. I’ll
see about the station. How long ago was it? Half an hour? Couldn’t he have let
us know sooner?”

Without losing time
over explanations, Lecœur plugged in to the Gare du Nord.

“Hallo! Gare du
Nord! Who’s speaking? Ah, Lambert. Listen, this is urgent. Have the station
searched from end to end. Ask everybody if they’ve seen a boy of ten wandering
about. What? Alone? He may be. Or he may be accompanied. We don’t know. Let me
know what you find out. Yes, of course. Grab him at once if you set eyes on
him.”

“Did you say
accompanied?” asked Olivier anxiously.

“Why not? It’s
possible. Anything’s possible. Of course, it may not be him. If it is, we’re
half an hour late. It was a small grocer in the Rue de Maubeuge whose shopfront
is open onto the street. He saw a boy snatch a couple of oranges and make off.
He didn’t run after him. Only later, when a policeman passed, he thought he
might as well mention it.”

“Had your son any
money?” asked the Inspector.