In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (33 page)

‘Vengeance is worse than a burn for which there is no salve. Andrésy went away with a crazed look in his eyes – like an animal going to the slaughter. I heard nothing more from him until late summer ’92. One day, he asked me to put him up. He confided his plan to me, and I swore to keep silent because I felt responsible.’

Fourastié stared at the bottle, his eyes red, his face tense.

‘Pierre had finally traced Corcol to La Chapelle police station. He’d studied his habits, found out where he ate, where he lived, which bars he went to. He began going to his local bar and gradually the two men became friendly. He made up a story about a brother who was in Hôpital Lariboisière dying from a chest wound he’d received in May 1871 while routing a group of National Guardsmen who were manning the barricade in Rue de Rennes. He showed him a scar on his hand and told him it was a war wound he’d got at Reichshoffen. What a joke! He’d cut himself by accident once on a trimming guillotine. He didn’t bother to conceal his name, his address or his profession. There was no way Corcol would remember a family arrested and shot in 1871. Pierre sang the praises of Thiers and the repression, harshly criticising the Communards. Corcol was completely taken in.’

‘I can understand why he might want to punish the
flic
, but the others?’

‘During their conversations at the bar, Corcol confessed that although he detested the Communards, he despised their informers even more. There were three in particular who worked at a printing shop in Rue Mazarine. They were responsible for the arrest of at least thirty people, including their boss’s family. He didn’t know their names, but Pierre worked out who they were by a process of elimination.’

‘Grandjean, Leglantier, Theneuil and Daglan. The swine!’ Joseph cried.

‘Daglan? No, Monsieur, there were only three. I don’t know who Daglan is.’

‘But why did they denounce them?’

‘Self-interest. Once the family had been wiped out, they obtained the deeds to the printing works from the authorities. They immediately sold it and shared the proceeds and everyone went their own way.’

For a while now, Fourastié had been eyeing up the bottle.

‘Oh, to hell with abstinence!’

He downed two glasses one after the other.

‘How did Pierre Andrésy manage to get into Théâtre de l’Échiquier?’

‘He mingled with the joiners. He knocked Leglantier unconscious, opened the gas tap, typed the message then raised the alarm…When Monsieur Mori came here, Pierre started worrying. He…Oh, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…’

He slumped in his seat then resumed his account in a slurred voice, his lips moist, his eyes unfocused.

‘They sent me to the penal colony in New Caledonia. Nine years without my little girl. That’s where I developed my love of birds and learnt to be a cobbler…The past always catches up with you in the end…’

All of a sudden, Fourastié sat up straight.

‘That’s enough, lad. I’ve given you Pierre’s letter, now push off – I need to be alone.’

His mind brimming with questions, Joseph wandered down the quiet avenues of Jardin des Tuileries. He sat on a bench. Around him were well-dressed couples, smiling children, goats harnessed to carts, well-tended lawns, a peaceful existence. Far removed from war, massacres, shattered lives. Joseph felt thirsty. He pulled the letter addressed to Kenji out of his pocket…

Dusk was already casting shadows into the study at Rue Visconti where Joseph was busy imparting what he’d learnt from Fourastié, with no regard for the purplish shadows under Victor’s eyes or Kenji’s yawns.

‘…There were three informers: the master printer, Paul Theneuil; the apprentice engraver, Léopold Grandjean; and the proofreader, Edmond Leglantier – a talentless rhymester who boasted of having been applauded by the Empress Eugénie. It took Pierre Andrésy time to find them after twenty years. Meanwhile, Corcol had confided in him his need for money; Andrésy lent him small amounts on several occasions and put to him an idea for the perfect swindle: selling shares in a fictitious company making synthetic amber that looked like the real thing. Corcol swallowed it hook, line and sinker. All he had to do was to produce some authentic-looking shares. Corcol would take charge of the operation. Andrésy provided him with the addresses of his three ex-employees. The enamellist came up with the design, the printer printed them, and the theatre manager sold the worthless pieces of paper. Naturally each man received a substantial payment. Monsieur Andrésy explains it all in his letter. You may congratulate me, Monsieur Legris, on the theory I put forward last night, which was almost flawless. What a brilliant strategem! Andrésy gave half the profits to Leglantier and half to Corcol, each man believing himself to be his only associate.’

Joseph paused, raising his hand in a theatrical pose. He imagined treading the boards – at Théâtre du Gymnase, for instance – upstaging Coquelin Cadet by playing opposite Sarah Bernhardt. But which role would he play? The vaivode Otto von Munk or Sublieutenant Wilkinson?

‘Get on with the story!’ thundered Kenji.

‘Pierre Andrésy’s plan was worthy of Machiavelli. Leglantier failed to make the connection between Grandjean the apprentice engraver and the name on the Ambrex share certificates.’

‘Wait a minute! These two knew each other and yet Leglantier didn’t realise?’

‘Apparently, since he went ahead. He was desperate for money and, in any case, his back was covered – his name wasn’t mentioned anywhere.’

‘Did Corcol also suffer from amnesia? He was an inspector, after all,’ Kenji retorted sarcastically.

‘It was a long time ago. I already told you, in ’71 Corcol would pick up the lists of people to be arrested from the police station in the fifth arrondissement. He was snowed under. People were being shot left, right and centre; he had no idea who the informers were.’

‘How did he know they worked at a printer’s?’

Kenji, hands in pockets, wrinkled his nose and closed one eye, as if to say: you won’t get anything past me.

Joseph, frustrated, turned to Victor.

‘They told the police in order to avoid being picked up. Anyone with grubby clothes or hands was being systematically arrested. As for Daglan, he had nothing to do with it,’ he declared emphatically.

‘Yes, tell us more about Daglan,’ ordered Kenji.

‘Pierre Andrésy blamed him particularly for having led his younger brother Mathieu astray. If it hadn’t been for Daglan’s influence, Mathieu would never have become Sacrovir. He would have kept away from the Communards and his family would have come through the slaughter. Do you see?’ he said sharply to Kenji.

‘Wipe that surly expression off your face and carry on with your saga.’

‘They needed cigar holders made of real amber in order to dupe the investors. Monsieur Andrésy gave Corcol the name of an enterprising burglar – an urban Robin Hood known as the leopard of Batignolles.’

‘Victor, please translate this gibberish for me,’ Kenji said, ‘my nerves are beginning to fray.’

‘Once the Ambrex shares had been sold, Pierre Andrésy wreaked his revenge. He killed Grandjean, then he killed Paul Theneuil, dressed the corpse in his own clothes and placed it in his shop before setting fire to the premises. A dead man can act freely without fear of hindrance. He killed Leglantier then he killed Corcol. His revenge was almost complete.’

‘What about my Persian manuscript, clever clogs?’ Kenji asked Joseph.

‘Seeing as he was officially dead, Monsieur Andrésy needed liquid assets. He asked his friend Fourastié to sell a few rare editions belonging to his customers.’

‘And I thought so highly of him,’ muttered Kenji.

‘He thought highly of you, too, or he wouldn’t have turned his gun on himself – he would simply have shot you.’

‘How did Pierre Andrésy come across his brother’s watch?’

‘It’s all explained in the letter. Mathieu, to be on the safe side, had hidden his green Communard membership card and his fob watch under a floorboard in his room in Rue Guisarde. The
flics
must have been in a hurry and they just swiped the few belongings he owned. When Pierre returned to France in October 1871, he asked the new tenants if he could take a look around. They were good honest folk and they gave him back the watch. They had torn up the card.’

‘And what part did the cousin play?’

‘There is no cousin. He was an invention. In case Pierre needed to reappear for any reason.’

‘Which is precisely what happened,’ said Kenji. ‘Pierre suddenly remembered that he’d taken his brother’s watch to be mended. Posing as the cousin, he went to Rue Monsieur-le-Prince to try to get it back, but it was too late, the watchmaker had already given it to you, Victor. When the watchmaker came to the shop yesterday, he told me that the cousin had a scar on his left hand. I knew that Pierre Andrésy had cut himself on a guillotine six or seven years ago. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. I fetched one of my antique pistols and rushed over to Rue Fontaine. But why did Pierre think up such a complicated plot? The cigar holders, the shares…Why didn’t he just kill them one after the other and disappear?’

‘He wanted them to feel fear, to remember their heinous crime before dying. In order to achieve this he needed to cook up a scheme that would involve all five men without arousing their suspicions and would tarnish their good name. Daglan was the last on his list, and he would be the scapegoat. The messages left on the victims, the death notice, the letter addressed to Theneuil’s book-keeper, Monsieur Leuze, all prove this. Unfortunately, Pierre made a mistake by failing to take Paul Theneuil’s watch out of his waistcoat. It never occurred to him that we would go nosing about in his affairs.’

‘In one sense, you two prevented him from carrying out the grand finale of his revenge,’ Kenji concluded.

‘How is that?’

‘By denying him the satisfaction of seeing Daglan’s head roll. The reason he wanted to retrieve the watch at any cost was not to avoid punishment, but to implicate the person he considered most to blame. I can’t listen to any more. I’m exhausted. I’m going home to bed. Joseph, give me that letter, and in future please refrain from opening correspondence addressed to me. As for you, Victor, I’m still waiting for Pierre’s watch, which you forgot to give me. Good night.’

‘Well, I’m damned, Boss!’ exclaimed Joseph when Kenji had gone. ‘He’s got a nerve! He’s just as much to blame for Andrésy’s failure!’

‘Have you two quite finished!’ bellowed Euphrosine. ‘I get up at the crack of dawn. I’ve got work to do. For blooming heaven’s sake, it’s worse than being in a henhouse! Ah, the cross I have to bear!’

Joseph tiptoed over to close the door, and put his finger to his lips.

‘Not a word, Boss. If Maman ever found out…’

Victor waved a rolled-up newspaper.

‘Too late, it’s in all the newspapers.
Le Passe-partout
has printed a special edition detailing the police’s initial discoveries. Both my and Monsieur Mori’s names are mentioned. This time there was no getting round Inspector Lecacheur. I’m worried that the publicity will be bad for business.’

‘Cheer up, Boss, our customers will come flocking. I’ll take the opportunity to fill the shop window with detective novels…I’m curious to know how Daglan will react.’

‘He sent me another coded message. I deliberately avoided mentioning it in front of Monsieur Mori.’

‘Did you manage to decipher it?’

‘I’m not a complete idiot, Joseph. I applied your method. Daglan is leaving the country.’

‘Monsieur Andrésy’s letter exonerates him: it clearly states that he had nothing to do with the murders.’

‘With his criminal past he thinks it’s advisable to make himself scarce. I like the fellow, I hope he succeeds.’

Epilogue

W
HY
did people say that the sea was blue? Ruffled haphazardly by the wind, it resembled those fields of cinders at the city’s edges. At best it might deign to take on a greenish tinge if the clouds freed the sun from its shroud. Leaning against the rail at the stern of the boat, Josette Fatou watched the ship’s wake edged with foam and, beyond, the French coastline fading into the distance.

‘Serves you right, serves you right,’ a seagull squawked above her head.

It was sheer madness to have fallen into this stranger’s arms, submitting to his will to the point of leaving everything behind in order to follow him! But the die was cast, there was no going back. She felt sick with panic, and then she glimpsed the figure outlined against the sky, turned towards her, and her fears dissolved, floating away on the sea spray.

‘Just our luck, the weather’s turning today of all days – a taster of that wretched drizzle which is so good for the English lawn. What are you thinking about?’

‘About lawns scattered with daisies, which I will pick and sell in the streets.’

‘You won’t need to work again. I’m going to fill our pockets by relieving the English of their pocketbooks. London’s a pickpocket’s paradise – at least they don’t have an Alphonse Bertillon.’
⁷⁰

‘I prefer to make my own living.’