RUE DES CARMÉLITES
The Street of the Carmélites is an oddity whatever way you look at it. It doesn’t even look like a street; a straggling series of elbows not going anywhere in particular and petering out into a side road. At the other end is a stretch of track: no other word seems suitable, for it is fifty metres of pot-holes and puddles bordered by a rich growth of nettle. Built on marshy bottom, probably. There is a rusty notice saying Not Suitable for Wheeled Traffic to which, this being France, nobody pays any heed.
No sign of any Carmélites either but this is a commonplace. All expropriated at the Revolution, that disastrous moment when the dotty and the dishonest alike ran amok unchecked, and the more claptrap there was about rationality the less reason prevailed. Somebody had laid hands upon a large desirable lump of real estate just outside the town as it then was (nowadays it is five minutes from the city centre) but dishonesty was quickly swamped by the dottiness which has reigned ever since. The convent of the holy fathers was razed with the utmost efficiency: there is no sign left of it but a small and awkward municipal cemetery, long overfull. The farm and garden, parcelled out as loot by a few geezers concerned with public safety and hygiene, can still be traced.
There are advantages: hardly any traffic and lots of trees. There are disadvantages: the roadway has never to this day been properly bottomed, the metalling is uneven bumpy patchwork, the pavements sketchy indications full of treeroots, there is no proper guttering and one would be pretty dubious about the drains. The fact is, France is full of places like this and a delight they are, though in wet weather the pools are chronic, in hot weather there are smells, and almost any time the Anglo-Saxon observer will be frightening himself with ideas of typhoid.
Castang had no such inhibitions, and no worries apart from getting his precious clean shoes muddy. He was seeing it at its best. May greenery, a great deal of it weeds, rioting about: overgrown hedges and sodden low-swinging branches that would slap you in the face if you walked too close to the rusty iron railings and decayed plank boarding.
Considered as a row of houses fronting the street it was equally dotty. No alignment. No damned nonsense about order, regulation, or discipline. There were huge rambling houses, gimcrack to start with and now in a state of advanced dilapidation, and there were tiny cottages. There was a huge monstrosity faced with stonework built by a fan of Baron Haussmann, and rural, very, sheds sagging under bindweed. There was a prim pebble-dashed suburban house with a privet hedge: there was even a dashing modern bungalow, with fake landscaping on a bulldozed hillock. Some houses were right on top of the street, others far away behind rural orchards with cordoned pear trees and knee-high wild grass.
Castang liked all this very much. Two hundred years of municipal bribery, and plenty of originality: this seemed to fit Etienne Marcel well enough. He approached Number Three. There wasn’t any Number One that he or anyone else could see. A biggish house, though by no means the biggest; a medley of architectural fantasies but nowhere near the most extravagant: approaching from the wrong end he’d had everything already, including an immense Savoyard chalet with a slate roof and pepperbox turrets added… Quite sober dingy stonework. But a very elaborate front door, frothing with ornate carving. The door was opened to him by – plainly – Thérèse, though he could scarcely make her out, and coming in from the outside nothing at all of the hallway, save that it was big. God had perhaps said ‘Let there be Light’ but the builder of this house had decreed ‘Let there be No light’, and fortified everything to make sure.
There were the usual explanations about Police Judiciaire, and he was left standing, to wait for Madame. His eyes got used enough to the gloom to distinguish black and white marble, radiators painted dirty brown – this place would take some heating – a clumsy, heavy, cramped-looking stairway of polished oak, a small cluster of feeble lighting, bulbs obscured by dust. He was getting so many impressions so fast that he wasn’t taking them in, and when Thérèse came and shooed him into a big room at the back it left no mark till much later. French windows opening on a big, muddled, attractive garden.
"I’ll tell Madame Noelle," Thérèse had said, like a servant. Not, I’ll tell my sister-in-law. Perhaps it was to put him in his place. There was a lot of heavy mahogany furniture, much polished but dusty. Madame was opening diamond-paned cabinet doors and fidgeting with a lot of decanters and stuff. He didn’t really want a drink; it was too early. And he loathed those sticky dark aperitifs. However, he needed a drink. There was too much of everything.
A good deal of Noelle, for a start: bosomy and hippy in a black skirt and a fussy white blouse. She didn’t look like an ex-barmaid, but once you knew it, you could see it. A lot of jewellery: the clothes were expensive and well cut, but over-elaborate. There were many tables and lace mats, a great many lamps and a great many flowers. But Noelle was very businesslike. Remarkably shrewd blue eyes. It would take three auctioneers to catalogue all the stuff around, and she compelled all the concentration he had.
"We dislike intruding on your privacy."
"Yes," with no particular inflection.
"But we’re faced with a complex situation."
"Really? I thought it was simple. Wasn’t it terrorists?"
"I don’t know," said Castang. Everything was complicated including this woman. He needed to give himself time. "May I smoke?"
"Of course." Damn, mistake; swamped at once in boxes of cigars and lots of huge ashtrays. Extricated himself with a maize-paper Gitane: thank God he didn’t smoke a pipe. She was heavy, but quick and decisive in her movements.
"If it was terrorists there’s no direct lead to them. Nobody claims responsibility. Who are they, where do they come from, what purpose can they have had? You see?"
"Yes."
"Monsieur Marcel led a very busy life, a very varied existence. I should like, indeed I must, learn all I can of the different facets. Includes his home life, indeed that’s where one has to start. You knew him best. I can take it you would have known more about his life and activities than anyone?"
"I suppose so."
"You’re not sure?"
"No, I’m not. About some, not all. About certain things more than anyone, yes. Other things very little, maybe nothing. It’s hard to say. About municipal business…"
"Yes. Commissaire Richard is looking after that end of it. My present instructions are to get as complete a picture – this we think will help us distinguish relevant from irrelevant facts – so I’d like to learn what I can of his home life."
"You want to see the house?" unexpectedly direct.
"I’d like to, very much."
"I’ve got nothing to hide. I suppose I must expect this. He was a public figure and so on. Areas of privacy and all that – I’m not going to let it worry me. I was expecting it anyhow. If I refused, you’d just go ferreting, I imagine." There wasn’t any answer to that.
The house rambled, as such a house will. Noelle, who seemed to have done a lot of modernising, was voluble about bathrooms and the servants’ staircase. He didn’t listen to her much, didn’t try to keep his bearings. Her own bedroom was displayed with pride: a fortress of longhaired rugs and complicated looking-glasses; two wooden heads wearing wigs and a tailor’s dummy wearing her dressing-gown. Ivory telephone by her bed on a tatty pile of womens’ magazines; a seagreen bathroom with a pearly pink bath, ough. Immense quantities of feminine frippery flung about with energetic, enjoyable untidiness: she was not unlikable. Strongly marked character, personality of much charm.
Marcel’s bedroom was the other side of the landing on the sunless side; oddly dark, gloomy and severe. Old-fashioned country bed looking narrow and uncomfortable, an enormous mahogany tallboy. One of his dark go-to-meeting suits was hung neatly on a wooden stand. Everything was orderly, or would have been but for the obvious traces of his wife’s passage, looking for suitable clothes in which to dress him for the funeral.
"It was the bed he slept in as a boy," said Noelle unemotionally, "and he was obstinate about it – refused to be parted."
"He didn’t sleep with you?"
"Oh, the odd time," unembarrassed. "We got on better leaving the other to manage his own affairs. We were very good friends," a little defensively. "Nothing wrong with this marriage and I hope you understand me, inspector. Simply that we were both busy, active people… I won’t bother showing you the top. Thérèse sleeps up there, and the maids’ rooms, all converted of course. This one is our parents’ room, won’t interest you either – we’ll go down, shall we?" Etienne’s bathroom was an old dressing-room, small and without light. Cough syrup, a throat-spray, very few jars and bottles: no hypochondriac.
"In pretty good health," remarked Castang.
"Very much so – a bit overweight from all that eating and drinking, but he played a lot of tennis." They had got down again to the other corner of the ground floor, like the living-room with a French window opening on to a terrace, and the big back garden behind.
"This was the business-room: I use it too but here again, we kept our affairs separate." There was a baby grand piano, unexpected till one remembered that Etienne had been an accomplished amateur musician. Big room, probably been the dining-room in Third Empire days. His desk was bare and neat, with conventional presentation deskset and calendar.
"He had an office of course at the town hall: this was for personal affairs."
"Not just now," said Castang, "but I may have to ask your permission to look at all these papers. There may be things – you see?"
"You’d better take that up with the notary," said Noelle. "I haven’t even the keys. I’ve no particular objection, but I dare say the man-of-affairs would," with a bit of a snigger. Castang felt sure he would! Need to get authority from Colette Delavigne. It would be a boring, and probably useless, business. He looked at the desk. High-class modern affair, with good locks; locks that could be broken, but not without leaving traces, and could certainly not be slipped. A careful man, Monsieur Marcel.
Noelle seemed indifferent to his nosing about. She had sat absently behind her own table on the other side, where she got a good light; a table as crowded and untidy as her bedroom: she glanced at a few papers and shuffled them aside. He looked around. Nothing very personal about this, save the piano with its ragged pile of dog-eared sheet music. A few prints hung on the walls and a couple of lithographs that meant nothing to him. For the rest, tidy and chilly. Wastepaper basket empty. A glass coffee-table and two office-like easy chairs, in black leather: one might be at the town hall. It was on Noelle’s side that activity was pronounced – her wastepaper basket was overflowing.
"Did he do much business here?"
"Not a great deal. Sometimes people came. I know little about it, really. We weren’t in here together often. We kept things separate as you can see – even the telephones are separate lines. Both unlisted, naturally. Mine’s the same as the living-room and upstairs, but his was private." Yes; the man had lived in a series of boxes: they linked, but he kept everything in its own compartment.
"What affairs were yours – or do you mind telling me?" She smiled, showing good teeth.
"I don’t mind – and again, if I did…you’d make it your business to find out, wouldn’t you?"
"Probably. It’ll be my business to look into everything until I find out why he should have been killed, and by whom." She had gone away, looking out of the window, thinking.
"As to that… I have no idea…simply no idea at all." She came back, looked straight at him, said "Etienne’s affairs…" holding up her hands to show helplessness. "I miss him," simply. "I miss him very much. Just because life has to go on – but it does, doesn’t it?"
"That’s why we’re here."
"Yes. Well, affairs we shared – the brasserie, that’s really all. I was co-owner, which will mean I’m now sole owner. Joseph – my brother-in-law – manages it for us. If you go there – you can draw your own conclusions about that. Say that Etienne didn’t really have time for that kind of detail, and most of the work devolves upon me. Naturally – I ran it myself for many years. He didn’t want me to continue that, after he became adjunct to the Mayor. Then – the affairs of this house, which were mostly left to me. As you can see it is large, awkward and expensive and he wasn’t the kind of man to be greatly interested in plumbers or electricians. Then – as to my own affairs – do you want to question me about those?"
"It’s as well that I should understand once and for all."
"Right. Just the little restaurant – it’s a secret but a pretty open one. Here," rummaging, "I’ll give you a card. You can go there, ask what you like. Show them this," writing on the back, "and they’ll give you a free meal. It’s very simple really. I liked to have an interest, and an activity. My own money went into it. Nothing to do with Etienne. He would sometimes entertain people there, whom he wanted to favour. For the rest it was my pigeon, and will continue to be. There are no legal complications – it’s all in my name."
"Then that’s all, I think. Can I chat to the others here in this house – your parents, or his rather."
Noelle made a grimace, shrugged, smiled.
"For what good that will do you. Whatever you please. Just that you’ll find Mémé – she’s physically very active still – but her areas of interest, you must understand, are pretty narrowed nowadays. And Vieux-papa – outside in the garden, which is his particular terrain…he doesn’t talk much at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, he’s gaga, poor old dear. But you’re welcome. Thérèse you’ll find in the kitchen mostly: that’s her real domain and I don’t interfere with that much. You can talk to her; whether she’ll talk to you is another matter. And Thierry…he’s my son. I prefer I think not to say anything. He can speak for himself, and you’ll see why I don’t want to prejudice anything or anybody. You will understand – he’s my son and I love him. That’s all. My eldest son, and my daughter Magali, live in their own houses, live their own lives, and any approach to them is their concern. You’d better not bother Thérèse now; she’ll be busy with her lunch."
"This afternoon will do for that. I’ve a few other chores anyhow."
Right: a baby to register, at the Town Hall. While on this little errand, no danger of crossing Richard’s path!