THREE

The train stood still in a station. Doors finished slamming and the sound of feet hurrying died: there was the familiar complete silence of a train about to start. Softly, another train alongside pulled away, giving one the disconcerting feeling of travelling backwards.

     How had the old woman got in to see him? He had no clear idea; attempts had been made to get rid of her: he had made a few himself. Suggestions that she went to see a lawyer, or took the advice of the bank manager or the pastor, or practically anybody, had been turned firmly down. A woman of strong character. As she said herself, she had taken a long time making up her mind but once it was made up she wasn’t going to be deflected from her purpose.

     He had such a feeling of going backwards that he had to fix his eye on a lamp standard.

     His gunman had fallen asleep, boneless and comfortable in the corner. Best thing he could do. Barricaded by Castang’s legs; and the door was locked. But he couldn’t go to sleep himself.

     How, or why, she had made up her mind that the police could be of use to her he had not determined. No crime had been committed. Nor, she said, did she have any knowledge of a crime about to be committed, or planned, or even envisaged. She had funny feelings, and the obstinate notion that the police could be of help, if not of use.

     She’d gone to the local commissaire of police, in her local small town. A man of experience, he’d been firm with her. Polite, yes. He didn’t laugh, or suggest she consult a psychiatrist. But sorry, Madame; he just could not see any conceivable way he could be concerned. He would like to be of service, but with respect and apologies, his time was much taken up.

     Why hadn’t Castang said this too? So he had, several times. It hadn’t stuck. Admitted, he wasn’t doing much at that moment, so he had listened. And in the end, in spite of himself, he had become interested. It wasn’t just eccentricity. What was it that had brought an old woman an hour and more in the local train, from a little town called Soulay out in a cul de sac of the province, where Castang had never even been? All the way to the city and trotting through streets to the ‘Cité Administrative’ to search out the Regional Service of Police Judiciaire, the group of small specialised brigades existing to combat gangsterism or the narcotics traffic. Who wouldn’t as a rule be in the least interested in the imaginary terrors of old ladies leading a solitary existence. He asked her. What good, she asked, were cops who would be no more excited than they would by a stolen bicycle?

     How, in heaven’s name, had she got in to see Richard? The Commissaire, head of the local PJ, didn’t as a rule get his time taken up by old biddies. He was protected by filters. Sometimes, though, the very efficiency of these filters created a backlash. Richard could become irritated at what he called ‘isolation by over-zealous subordinates’, and instead of staying deskbound cruised about, and listened to unlikely people. Naughtier was his habit of listening for a few sentences and then deciding that an inspector could listen to the rest.

     This was one reason why he could not dismiss her out of hand. She had succeeded in catching Richard’s eye. Another reason was that she was no ‘old biddy’. A lady!

     Not a lady in the sense of ‘family’, perhaps, and certainly not placed in a position by a couple of generations of prosperous bourgeois commerce. A character in her own right, a woman of education, a person with manners and elegance. He was further impressed to learn that she was a poet. A Lady Poetess. He hadn’t known there were any. The name of Sabine Arthur hadn’t meant anything to him.

     He was relieved to find later that it meant nothing to Richard either. Typically, Richard at once rung up somebody who would know, and did. He had peculiar friends, who knew everything. Irritating the way Richard always wanted to know everything. Still, he was a divisional commissaire. Castang was a ‘Principal Officer’, a nobody.

     Ho, yes, the friend – some pedantic professor, no doubt – knew all about Sabine. Good poet. Not well known, but commanding respect. Individual writer, didn’t waste words. Difficult. Lucid though, and had written some memorable lines. She dated from a while back: the professor thought she must be getting on in years. Hadn’t published anything in a stretch. Not better-known because, you know, prickly. Not a cosy sort of writer.

     Castang hadn’t found her really cosy either.

     ‘Dotty?’ asked Richard. ‘Fairies at the bottom of the garden? Malign influence, just outside the bathroom door?’

     ‘No, no,’ replied the professor. ‘Feet firmly on the ground.’

     ‘I didn’t see anything dotty,’ said Castang honestly. ‘Uncomfortable, yes.’ He knew the professor was not talking nonsense because he himself had been oddly reminded of a picture Vera liked, by Delacroix, quite jaunty and circussy at first. A horse, in a gay blue colour, prancing. There was a tiger riding on its back, looking in some danger of falling off. It was only after looking twice that you saw a sanguinary death, not drawn but in the picture, so that the circus became, abruptly, disconcerting. He thought that Sabine was to be taken seriously.

     Richard, who wore glasses for reading, suddenly put them on.

     ‘I was struck by her myself,’ he said.

     She sat very straight, upright as an elderly dancer. A trim and wiry figure still muscular and vital: the lined grey face was firm, the look direct. Behind spectacles the grey eyes were bright and candid. The mouth was thinned and puckered by age but even now wide and generous. There was nothing weak or foolish.

     He had been himself sufficiently struck to tell Vera, that evening. She knew all about tigers and wild horses, and things that weren’t quite in the picture.

     ‘No, you aren’t talking nonsense,’ she said – a strong-minded and sometimes acid woman. ‘As long as you say what you see.’

     But even while looking at Sabine he had tried to behave in a chill professional way. The thin figure, spare but tough in its navy blue jumper and serge trousers, was compelling. But what is written down can be looked at afterwards by another man, seen through Richard’s eyes.

     Name Sabine Arthur, age seventy-three. In excellent health, thank God, she added offhand. Was never ill. Never had been. Relict of Vincent Lipschitz, deceased. Profession – none. Housewife, if he liked. Forget about the poetry.

     Lived on a small pension, and a small income from rents. Mr Lipschitz had been a municipal employee, which was to say curator of the local museum. The town was historic: there were Roman, Gallic, and other remnants. Much of this was of interest, and Mr Lipschitz had been an authority on the architecture, history, ethnography of this corner of the province.

     Castang said he was sorry; he had never been in Soulay. Hadn’t it been fortified by Vauban in the seventeenth century? There were walls, weren’t there, and a citadel?

     Yes it was, and there were, and all preserved, and a historic monument, and Mr Lipschitz had been justly proud of his work in averting destruction, or speculative building. The museum was in the citadel. Soulay was still a smallish town, of fifteen to twenty thousand souls, but had spilt beyond the ramparts. Had grown a lot in recent years.

     She lived herself in a village, a few kilometres outside. Even there a lot of new houses had been built.

     Very good, Madame. Now, at least, he had some idea. But why now, exactly, had she come to them? What was it she hoped for?

     ‘Help,’ said Sabine with simplicity.

     ‘But your local commissaire…’

     ‘He’s a man without imagination. I don’t mean to imply that he isn’t competent; I’ve no doubt he is. But stolid. I have no tangible ground for complaint, so in his eyes there is no way of registering it.’

     ‘So you came here, thinking that we…?’

     ‘I think nothing, except that petty officials may be of mediocre quality.’

     ‘I’m not trying to sound discouraging. The Police Judiciaire works in a specialised, fairly complex manner. Generally at the orders of a judge of instruction. In all logic I ought to send you back to your commissaire, but I see that would be useless.’

     ‘I had thought the police existed also to protect people.’

     So it did. He wanted to laugh. It was unanswerable.

     ‘We’ll do what we can. We may be able to help you. We have to be free to decide whether we are competent.’ He was caught in two minds. However obvious that here was a sensitive and intelligent woman it was still terribly like those clouded tales that the neighbours are sneaking in at night, to pour weedkiller on the dahlias.

     Her clear direct look faded and blurred.

     ‘No doubt I’ve made another mistake, and you too will tell me that these are the fantasies of a silly old woman.’

     He picked up his pen invitingly and waited for her. Sabine pulled herself together, settled her glasses on her nose in a nervous gesture which he would get to know, and said, ‘The facts are as follows.’

     She rambled. There were gaps in her memory, she sometimes said things twice, she would jump into a new set of circumstances thinking him familiar with the personages. But he couldn’t see much wrong with her mind. No self-pity, no self-indulgence. A conscious, careful wish to be objective. Sadness, but unembittered. The phrase with which she finished her tale was ‘Where have I gone wrong?’

     ‘There’s no way I could answer that,’ said Castang. ‘I’ve got it all down. Can I think about it?’

     ‘Have I wasted your time?’

     ‘No. But I don’t know what I can do. I’ll have to talk to my chief. You’ll have an answer, though, and I promise to make it myself.’

     ‘I think you’ve been very patient,’ she said getting up. No umbrella, no handbag even. A light raincoat, and a scarf to tie round the short, coarse grey hair. ‘And polite…why are officials in or out of uniform such mediocre persons?’

     He shrugged; he hadn’t that answer either.

     ‘Here’s my card. If anything becomes critical, reaching a crisis, then ring me. Meanwhile I’ll do what I can.’

     ‘Crises occur daily. If things weren’t critical I would never have come. I think I have been patient. This thing has grown like cancer, imperceptibly. But I love him, you see… If I ask for help – it is for him.’

     ‘Yes. That’s the whole difficulty. It’s not a police problem, and I don’t know who else it concerns.’

     ‘I realise. Thank you, Monsieur.’

     ‘Au revoir, Madame.’ They stood there bowing at each other.