Chapter 22
The headquarters of Vidocq’s Sûreté nationale lay in a back court of the labyrinth of grim, soot-stained structures that housed the judicial and law enforcement apparatus of France.
Located near the western end of the Île de la Cité, this massive, forbidding complex was once known as the Palais de la Cité, the magnificent primary residence of the medieval Capetian Kings of France. Built of golden limestone on the banks of the Seine, it had been a fairy-tale-like place of soaring, conically roofed towers, grand banqueting halls, fragrant private gardens, and dank, hidden dungeons. Much of that imposing palace was gone now, with little remaining beyond the chapel, a few grim towers, a vast, thickly columned hall, and the haunted prison cells and official chambers that had become known as the Conciergerie. It was in the dark, vermin-infested cells of the Conciergerie that Marie Antoinette and so many others had passed their last days; here that they were dragged before the Revolutionary Tribunal to hear their death sentences pronounced; here that they were loaded into the crude tumbrels that would carry them through roaring crowds to the waiting blade of Madame Guillotine. It was a haunted and haunting place, and Sebastian found himself hesitating on the narrow cobbled street that ran between the Conciergerie and the river, his thoughts on the place’s dark, ugly past.
He was still standing there, his head tipping back as he stared up at the sinister medieval towers flanking the main portal, when he heard himself hailed by someone on the Pont au Change. Turning, he scanned the press of hurrying pale-faced functionaries and ragged ex-soldiers, bonneted housewives and servants, roughly dressed artisans and laborers, who filled the quay along the riverfront. He didn’t see anyone he recognized. Then a cocky grin split the dirty face of a stocky water carrier striding toward him with a rollicking gait.
“Didn’t recognize me, did you?” said Eugène-François Vidocq, coming up to him.
“I did not,” admitted Sebastian.
Vidocq laughed. “I’ve been making some discreet inquiries in another matter. I take it you’re here looking for me?”
“I am,” said Sebastian as the two men turned to walk together along the river. “I have a description of the fiacre driver from that night: thin and frail-looking, but not old. The person who saw him thinks he might be a former prisoner of war recently returned from England or Russia.” It shamed Sebastian, the treatment the French prisoners of war had received at the hands of Britain and her allies—shamed and appalled him.
“Interesting,” said Vidocq, jerking his chin toward a trio of emaciated, gaunt-faced men huddled over a charcoal fire beneath a nearby crumbling arch, their uniforms reduced to filthy rags. “God knows there are enough of them. But between the disbanding of the army and the Bourbons’ cancellation of Napoléon’s public improvement projects, a lot of people are starving. This person didn’t happen to see the fiacre’s number, did he?”
“No.”
“Pity.”
Sebastian was silent for a moment, watching a ragged little flower girl sink down on a nearby set of stone steps leading up to a stout wooden door that didn’t look as if it had been opened in a hundred years. Her feet were bare, her thin, wan face streaked with dirt, her golden hair hanging in tangled clumps. The tray of flowers dangling from a strap around her neck was pitted with rust, the posy clutched in her pale, bony fist beginning to wilt. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, and the look of despair in her soft blue eyes was horrible to see.
Such children were an all-too-familiar sight in London as well as in Paris. And yet for some reason he couldn’t explain, this child touched his heart and filled him with a tide of hot rage that caught him by surprise. And he found himself wondering why. Because the people of this land had risen up against the grinding inequality and injustice of their age, only to lose their way in a morass of hatred, bloodshed, and terror that would surely taint any such movements for generations to come? Because the reimposition of the oppressive rule of the Bourbons made a brighter, more just future seem somehow less likely than ever? Because something about this little girl reminded Sebastian of his mother, and for one piercing moment he found her death so painful that he wasn’t sure he could bear it?
“You all right there?” said Vidocq, watching him with an expression on his homely, scarred face that Sebastian couldn’t read.
Sebastian blinked and turned his head to stare out over the sun-dazzled waters of the Seine. “Yes, I’m fine.”
He bought all of the little girl’s flowers.
Afterward he went to stand in one of the curved stone bastions of the Pont Neuf, not far from where Sophie must have been attacked. He dropped the bunches of flowers one by one into the river below him, then watched as the dark waters swirled them away downstream. From here he could see the ancient limestone walls of the Louvre and the Tuileries Palace, the long green swath of the old royal gardens, the graceful iron arches and thick stone supporting columns of Napoléon’s Pont des Arts. The sun was surprisingly warm on his face, the wide sweep of the Seine reflecting the rare blue of the sky, the breeze off the water fresh and smelling faintly of fish.
Lowering the brim of his hat against the glare, he rested his arms on the old stone parapet before him and tried to make sense of a series of events that seemed to have begun with a troubling visit to the island refuge of an exiled emperor and had ended here, on this ancient bridge, on a dark, misty night that would forever be seared into Sebastian’s memory.
Except that it hadn’t ended here. Because the next day, Sophie’s young abigail, Francine, had in turn died a painful, terrifying death. And he couldn’t begin to understand why.
He became aware of an elegant carriage drawn by a fine team of white horses pulling up behind him and turned as the carriage’s near window came down with a rattle to reveal the fleshy, unsmiling face of his father-in-law, Lord Jarvis.
“Climb up,” snapped Jarvis. He glanced at the man in the carriage with him, a tall, fair-haired man Sebastian recognized as one of the many former army officers in Jarvis’s employ, and said, “Leave us for a moment.”
The major nodded, said, “Yes, my lord,” and hopped down without waiting for the steps to be lowered. For one piercing moment, his gaze met Sebastian’s. Then he turned to walk across the bridge toward the Louvre.
“Well?” said Jarvis when Sebastian hesitated.
The last thing he wanted at that moment was a conversation with the British King’s powerful, Machiavellian cousin. But he leapt up and settled in the seat opposite his father-in-law anyway. “I take it you have something you wish to say to me?”
The carriage started forward again as Jarvis drew a pearl-studded gold snuffbox from the pocket of his finely tailored coat and flipped open the lid with his thumbnail. “You’re upsetting Marie-Thérèse.”
“Oh?”
Sebastian watched the older man lift a delicate pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniff. “The French King’s niece is easily distressed,” said Jarvis. “And it is not in Britain’s interest that she be . . . disturbed.”
“And precisely what am I doing that is ‘disturbing’ Madame Royale?”
Jarvis closed his snuffbox with a snap. “You know.”
“I gather you’re referring to my investigation into the death of Dama Cappello? I must admit I fail to understand why that would upset her.” Sebastian paused. “Unless of course she’s the one who ordered the killing.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Is it so absurd?” Sebastian watched Jarvis tuck his snuffbox away. “What do you know of Sophia Cappello’s death?”
“Absolutely nothing. Why would I?”
“You do have a decided interest in maintaining the Bourbon restoration.”
The shrewd gray eyes that were so much like Hero’s narrowed. “Are you suggesting Dama Cappello was a threat to the Restoration?”
“I honestly don’t know. But Marie-Thérèse is aware of her recent visit to Elba. Were you?”
Jarvis hesitated just a fraction too long before saying, “I was not.”
Sebastian found himself faintly smiling. “You lie extraordinarily well, you know. I’ve no doubt most people would accept that statement without question.”
Jarvis’s steely gray eyes narrowed. “There are things going on here about which you have no idea. Things that are of far greater importance than the death of one woman.”
“Not to me.” Sebastian signaled the driver to pull up, then thrust open the door and hopped down before the carriage had come to a complete stop.
Leaning forward, Jarvis put out a hand to hold open the door when Sebastian would have closed it. “I will not tolerate your interference in an already volatile situation.”
“I’m not dropping this investigation. You and I both know why.”
“I mean what I say.”
Sebastian met his father-in-law’s dangerously glittering gaze and held it. “So do I.”