Jigsaw (44 page)

Foxie said, ‘Bon soir. Nous cherchons Audrey Roczak.'

‘What a
deplorable
accent you have,' said the small woman in English. ‘You're English. Home Counties, I'd say.'

‘Well, yes,' said Foxie. ‘Surrey.'

‘I can always tell,
always
. I'm from Kent. But that was long ago.' The woman shuffled her feathery attachments and looked at Frank Pagan. He was reminded of a decayed bird, something stuffed and stuck in the window of a taxidermist long gone out of business. The little blue eyes were alert, though, and probing. ‘And who are you?'

‘Police,' Pagan said. He showed his identity card.

‘London police? Oh, I say. London policemen looking for Auders. Well well. Whatever has she
done?
' The little woman held the door wide, allowing Pagan and Foxworth to step inside the hallway out of the weather.

‘The standard phrase is that she might be helpful in our inquiries,' Pagan said.

‘Oh, I
do
like that. You sound like a man in a detective story. Have you read Dorothy L. Sayers?'

Pagan admitted he hadn't.

‘I dare say she's gone out of fashion rather. The old body in the library stuff does seem
rather
tame when you've got fellows dashing around with tommy-guns or whatever they're called. Why don't you both come this way and we'll dry you out a little?'

Tommy-guns
, Pagan thought, and glanced at Foxie, raised his eyebrows, then followed the feathery woman along the hallway to a large room where a hundred or so framed and signed photographs of old film and theatre celebrities hung on the walls. In one corner sat a black-lacquered grand piano, drowned by arrangements of plants and even more photographs. Chinese paper lanterns, screens adorned with dragons, a collection of filigreed sea shells – the impression was of eccentric clutter and nostalgia.

‘My name's Deirdre Chapman,' the little woman said. ‘Of course, you wouldn't have heard of me. Why should you? You're both too young.' She gestured at the pictures on the walls. Pagan recognized Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, Jean Gabin, and some defunct crooners, like Frankie Laine and Rosemary Clooney; all the pictures were signed to Deirdre with one or other form of affection. ‘I had my heyday in the music halls. I was
quite
the
chanteuse
in my time. Why don't you put your bags down and come closer to the fire and tell me all about Auders?'

Deirdre Chapman poured three glasses of sherry from a decanter and placed them on a wickerwork tray. ‘Help yourself. I don't want to hear any of that can't-drink-on-duty business.'

Both men took the sherry. ‘Cheers,' Pagan said, and glanced at Foxworth, who was looking bemused.

‘Married a Frenchman, in case you're wondering why I'm in
this
particular town,' the woman said. She fluttered her lashes in a way suggestive of a coquette with marvellous memories.
I wasn't always old, boys
. ‘I sang in Paris toward the end of my career. We retired down here. Henri died three years ago. I
do
so miss the old blighter, bless his heart.'

Deirdre Chapman sat in a lime-green wicker chair close to the fire. ‘Now. What
has
Auders got herself involved in?'

Pagan tasted his sherry, which was rich and warming. ‘As I said, we don't think she's done anything. We're hoping she might answer a few questions, that's all. But she doesn't seem to be at home.'

‘Oh, I'd be
ever
so disappointed if you'd come all the way to Lyon just to ask a few
questions
. I was sort of hoping for a grand scandal.' Deirdre Chapman gazed at Pagan. ‘If you were to ask me about Auders, I'd say she's a woman with a past.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘An aura of, well, mystery surrounds her. She's definitely
not
what she appears to be. The cats and the oil paintings do not fool me. One look at her and you can just
feel
she knows all
kinds
of secrets.'

Pagan wondered if it was worth the time pursuing Deirdre Chapman's talk of auras and feelings, or if it would merely prove to be an unenlightening ramble down the byways of her imagination. She lived alone, she missed her dead husband, she read detective fiction; the ingredients were all there for a ragout of speculation.

‘Has Audrey ever done or said anything … out of the ordinary?'

‘You're not
following
me, are you? I'm talking about instincts and insights. I'm talking about intuition. She doesn't
have
to do anything out of the ordinary to be an object of mystification, does she? No, no. It's in her manner, do you see? It's in her eyes.'

‘What's in her eyes?' Pagan asked wearily.

‘The weight of grave secrets. If you saw her, you'd understand what I'm
trying
to
tell
you.' Deirdre Chapman brandished her glass of sherry as if Pagan's obtuseness exasperated her. The nut-brown little face seemed to develop a snout as she tilted her head upwards to survey him.

Pagan slumped into silence. He'd let Foxworth pick up the slack. Foxie had more patience with dotty people anyway. He had better manners in general.

‘When did you last see her, Mrs Chapman?' Foxie asked.

‘It's Madame Delacroix, actually. But you wouldn't be expected to know that. How could you?'

Foxie smiled gently. You could see Foxworth guiding tour parties of aged persons round ancient monuments, answering questions in a measured manner.

‘Well. I saw Auders only yesterday. It must have been late afternoon. Let's say it was five o'clock. Yes. She was coming down the stairs in a
great
rush. Which was rather unusual, I must say, because she's normally an
unhurried
sort of person. I asked her where she was going in such an
ungodly
hurry and …
This
is very uncharacteristic of her. She was actually quite
brusque
with me. Normally we'd have a little chat, nothing of great
import
, don't you know? But yesterday …'

‘So she said nothing?' Foxie asked.

‘Well she muttered
something
about having to buy oils before the art shop closed and then she was gone! Just like that!' Deirdre Chapman clearly found the recollection unsettling, a major disturbance in a life that was otherwise routine.

‘Oils,' said Foxie.

‘Oils. She dabbles in painting. Oh, lord, great
dreary
things, all blacks and browns. I don't believe she's picked up a brush in months. Showed some of her work to a dealer and he
wasn't
encouraging. Big blow to her ego. American, you see. They always seem to have ego problems, don't you think?'

‘So you haven't seen or heard from her since she left,' Foxie said.

‘No, I haven't.'

Deirdre Chapman poured herself another glass of sherry, a tiny amount. She offered the decanter. Both Pagan and Foxworth declined.

‘Was she carrying any luggage?' Pagan asked.

‘A handbag, I do believe. That's all. The cats worry me rather. She has about six or seven of them upstairs. And if she
didn't
come back last night, how are the animals to be
fed?
It simply isn't like her to
leave
the cats alone.'

Pagan set down his empty glass on the table. Fatigue gnawed on him. When had he last slept? ‘Has anyone been asking for her?'

‘Apart from yourselves, no.'

‘Are you sure you have no idea where she might have gone?'

‘Well. She does have a little studio not so very far away. She might have gone there.'

‘Do you have the address?' Pagan asked.

‘I can tell you where it is, but I don't have the
actual
address.'

‘We'd be obliged,' Pagan said, and took out his notebook, anxious to be gone from this room, which was having a deleterious effect on his senses – the stench of mothballs, stale feathers, furniture wax, the ghostly photographs of long-dead smiles. The crypts of other people's keepsakes made him uncomfortable.

‘Fire away,' he said, pencil poised over open notebook.

Deirdre Chapman stood up. Her feathers appeared to wilt, as if the imminent departure of her unexpected visitors made her unhappy.

‘Now then. Let me see. Do you know this city?' she asked.

Pagan shook his head.

‘Do you have a car?'

‘No.'

‘Then you'll need a taxi. Ask the driver for Vieux Lyon. Get him to drop you off at the Place St Jean. Are you getting this down?'

Pagan said he was. Deirdre Chapman went on, ‘There's a narrow street just
beyond
the Place. Now I can't
quite
remember its name, but on the corner of the street is a café called Bip. Write that down. Pass the café, keep going, oh, perhaps twenty metres or so, and you'll come to a small shop that sells puppets.'

‘Puppets,' Pagan echoed in a dutiful way.

‘The window's filled with all
kinds
of dolls and puppets. Guignol and the like. Above the shop is Auder's studio.'

Pagan shut his notebook. Foxworth, sensing Frank's growing impatience, seeing his look of quiet weariness, thanked the woman. Reluctantly, she escorted them along the hall to the front door. Rain still pounded the street demonically.

‘This has been
fun
,' Deirdre Chapman said. ‘I do so hope you find what you're looking for.'

‘So do I,' Pagan said.

‘And I do hope Auders isn't in any deep bother.' Deirdre Chapman raised her face, cheek turned toward Pagan, for a farewell kiss. Thinking the matter more than a little theatrical, Pagan bussed her quickly, and Foxie did the same, and then the door was closed and Deirdre could be heard singing ‘My Funny Valentine' as she went drifting back to her room of memories.

Foxie opened his wet umbrella and held it aloft.

‘I think we should find a bloody taxi before we drown,' Pagan said.

‘Strange old thing, Deirdre,' Foxie said.

‘Strange is right. I kept resisting the urge to feed her breadcrumbs.'

They were obliged to walk several blocks before a taxi appeared to take them to the Place St Jean, where they looked for the Café Bip. Pagan tried to imagine himself into another season, Lyon in high summer, the pavement tables crowded by tourists, parasols, carafes of wine being lazily drunk in the sunlight. It was difficult: you couldn't foresee this rain – so merciless, so severe – ever stopping. The city had an abandoned feel to it despite the lights in restaurant windows and the people who hurried into doorways for shelter and the occasional gust of music that blew out into the night.

They walked past the Café Bip into a narrow street, hardly more than a passageway, where they found the shop Deirdre Chapman had described. In its palely lit window a variety of wooden puppets gazed out with a certain malign indifference. They had a disquieting effect, as if they were simply awaiting an infusion of some dreadful life: a windowful of small zombies. Pagan surveyed them a moment, then followed Foxie, who had paused outside a door adjoining the shop.

‘This would appear to be the place,' Foxie said, and he looked up, seeing a lit window across which a thin curtain was drawn. He examined the door, couldn't find a bell, only a large iron knocker in the form of an animal's paw. He banged it a few times against the wood, waited. Nothing happened. Pagan, who stood beneath the umbrella, stared in a morose way at the sturdy door.

‘I don't think it's the kind we can just kick in, Foxie.'

‘I'd say not.'

‘Keep hammering.'

Foxie repeated the act of raising and dropping the iron upon the wood. Pagan moved to the edge of the pavement and stared up at the curtained window. Nothing was visible, no shadow moved.

‘What now?' Foxie asked.

Slicks of rain dripped from a spoke of the umbrella and slid round Pagan's nostrils. ‘Let's wander round behind the building,' he suggested. ‘There might be some rear access.'

They walked to the end of the street, turned into another passageway, fumbled down a darkened lane which appeared to be the back of the building in which Audrey Roczak had her studio.

‘This would be it, I think,' Foxie said. He indicated a short flight of ancient stone steps that rose to a door. Pagan considered the aesthetics of rear entrances, how unlike their front counterparts they usually were, poor relations, places where garbage was stacked and concealed. You could have roses and ivy and bloody Doric columns at the front and all manner of rusty detritus at the back.

They climbed the crumbling steps to the door. Above the door was a darkened skylight. Foxie tried the handle. Locked. ‘We could use a flashlight right now,' he muttered. ‘This might be the wrong place. What would happen if we battered the door down only to discover a harmless bourgeois family dining away quite merrily on potatoes lyonnaise?'

Pagan gave the handle a twist. There was a certain amount of play in the lock, a space between jamb and catch. If he had a strong object he could insert into the tiny space … He was considering this when abruptly a light came on and the door flew open and a stout red-haired woman in a long skirt stood there with a gun in her hand.

‘Fuckers,' she said. She levelled the pistol directly at Pagan who, assaulted by the glare of electric light, flinched and stepped back. Looking directly into a gun was like gazing into an infinity of darkness. Your own.

‘Miserable fuckers,' the woman said. She held the gun in such a way it was obvious she knew how to use it, and even more apparent that she wouldn't think twice about pulling the trigger. Pagan looked more closely at her now, conscious of large earrings, a wide-lipsticked mouth hardened in anger.

‘Miss Roczak,' he said.

She raised the gun very slightly, directing it toward Pagan's head. He looked at her: Audrey Roczak, one-time minor operative in the grim cities of Eastern Europe, a carrier of messages, letters left in drops, passwords and codes and safe houses, an imagination fevered by the temperature of the times.