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| ...don't forget the matches... |
Louis Shalako
A brief stop at the tobacconists. Don’t forget the matches, it was right at the top of his shopping list…and he didn’t. Up two flights of stairs. Pausing at the door, fishing for his keys, it seemed as if she had heard him on the stairs as the lock rattled and she opened up.
“Ah, thank you.” She must have had damned good hearing—another thing sometimes wasted, along with youth itself, upon the young.
Laden as he was, she took the bags to the counter beside the sink, and Gilles gratefully took off his shoes and hung up the coat and hat, damp now that the rain was back. The bottoms of his feet felt very damp. He really did need new shoes, these ones were all loosened up in the stitching between uppers and soles. In spite of all of that…
The cat was there, and the smell of coffee permeated the room.
All in all, life was good, and he didn’t have to be back until Monday morning.
And if you are lonely when you are all alone, then you are in bad company. Sartre—and a not very comforting thought.
***
It was almost with a sense of contentment that he rose, bathed, shaved his cheeks, neck and under his chin, and had a light breakfast, mostly consisting of hot, black coffee. And still only four hours until dawn, at this latitude, or was it longitude.
Dressing in a clean but unremarkable suit, he had greeted his driver Alphonse, on the street in front of his house, as usual, with a cheerful grunt and a fresh cigar. It was still pitch black, and damp all round but not actually raining…yet.
It was a ten-minute drive, the streets mostly empty at this hour but getting busier.
Mounting the stairs to the top floor, housing other departments, some of them obscure indeed, Gilles entered the Special Homicide Unit.
Inspector Gilles Maintenon, Proprietor.
His coat had a funny smell, and, it was heavy and damp, although the morning was looking better. At least so far. He stuck his hand in his left coat pocket, for no particular reason, and there it was.
A scrap, or rather a sheet, a small sheet of paper, ruled in blue with red ones as well, just like a page torn from a school-kids exercise book.
There were names. Names on a list.
It was the first three names that got to him.
He stood there with his mouth hanging down.
“Gilles?”
He proffered the paper to Andre.
Hanging up his coat, he uttered a deep sigh and looked to the coffee pot.
“Jesus.”
“Ah, yes, Andre”
***
“…the first three names have been crossed off.”
“Yes.”
“And they correspond to the names of our victims…so far.” Bearing in mind one had returned from the grave, and another may have simply skipped for South America—or the Levant, or West Africa, perhaps.
Maintenon’s first thought was that it was a joke, but by whom? And why? He’d only gone out the one time over the weekend, and he was fairly certain that it hadn’t been there on the Friday before. One of the things men did, for men were ruled by a certain unconscious routine, was to empty their pockets of all of those bulky and inessential things, which while they might be absolutely vital outside of the home, during the working or business day, things which made life uncomfortable—the bulky wallet, habitually carried in a hip pocket had caused more than one problem of pain and stiffness in the hips. This problem was worse for drivers and those consigned to long periods behind a desk, on a hard maple chair, which, for better or worse had taken its Godforsaken place as the institutional chair of the modern age…
His second thought had been Tailler—and the man, a rather strange man, as he now conceded, at the market.
“Schleischer, eh?”
“Von, Schleischer.” There was a certain emphasis. “How in the hell you spell that, is entirely up to you.”
Tailler grinned.
“Yes, they really are like that.” The title, the pedigree, was precious and they never let one forget it.
He grimaced.
Emile Tailler...
“Sorry, it doesn’t ring any bells. And all dressed up like…like Sherlock Holmes, you say?” Tailler gave a quizzical grin and a faint shake of the head.
“Yes. I really can’t think of any other prospects. I did not take a bus or the Metro. No one brushed up against me in the street—” As police officers, they were all too aware of the problem of petty crime, pickpockets being the scourge of the streets these days.
It was the economy, stupid, as some were fond of saying.
“It sure as hell wasn’t Sophie.” He clarified. “Er, my new housekeeper. She starts this morning, although we went through the place Saturday. I mean, she had the opportunity, one supposes, but why?”
Interestingly enough, he’d left before her arrival. This was why she had a key after all. But in order to stick a piece of paper in a man’s pocket, it was hardly necessary to take employment in their household. He laid it out for Emile.
“And you said he had a German accent.”
“I am beginning to wonder about that. I knew he wasn’t British, in spite of the get-up. And yet—yet.” It was only now, that he was having second thoughts. “Once I had decided that he was German, I never even gave it a second thought.”
Yet the man had never came out and stated directly that he was with the German Embassy. That had been an assumption on Maintenon’s part. He’d only said he was the cultural attaché. He never said he was German, and even if he had, it could be a lie. Yes, Maintenon’s head, it was going around and around, and that would no doubt continue.
“…at the embassy.”
He suppressed a growl.
"Merde.
That should have been a clue. Quite frankly, I wish I would have paid more
attention.”
The boss had been had, and didn't like it very much.
That…that costume, seems to have worked, just as it had undoubtedly been intended to work, to allay any suspicions that a high-ranking police officer would have had, should have had, when presented by someone claiming to be a fan…cops had fans, of course, which was often enough to set off one or two alarm bells about the individual in question. Mostly just losers, of course—
Tailler nodded.
“Sorry, Gilles, but we can’t be on, all the, er, fucking time.” No, the Boss had been had, and of course he didn’t much like it.
Gilles fiddled with his pen. He was supposed to be a professional, and he’d missed all the details.
“I think his eyes were blue, the hair kind of light, but not corn-silk fair, if you know what I mean. He was tall, well-built, and well-spoken. There were a few vehicles nearby, mostly small farm lorries, delivery vans and the like, but I honestly couldn’t say, if he got out of one, or even got into one. I was just sort of grateful to break off—under the circumstances.” He shook his head. “No, I was more interested in the tomatoes—bah.”
“Just to be totally specific.”
“Okay. Six-foot or more. Say a hundred and eighty-five centimetres, six-foot one or two. Eighty-five to ninety kilos. Close to two hundred pounds. Shoulders…not quite as big as Andre’s—”
The man in question looked up from his work, but then his eyes dropped back.
“So, you’re saying athletic? Good upper-body strength?”
“Yes, all of that. Perhaps. But it’s just that plenty of taller men have shoulders that sort of appear quite narrow, when on a shorter man they would be, shall we say, more substantial. This guy’s shoulders didn’t slope. They stuck straight out. That sort of makes them more impressive.” He thought. “Taller than our victims, I would say.”
“And the eyes?”
“Let’s call them pale, blue rather than grey. Nothing really remarkable there.”
“And clean shaven.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I can ask my people. But we usually have a pretty good handle on the personalities, names and faces employed at all the various embassies.” Some of which were of very great interest these days.
“Ah. What about the voice?”
“Hmn. Deep, but not too deep. Not harsh, or grating, or gravelly, like a smoker?” A smooth, deep voice, fairly cultured was the impression Gilles had gotten.
A confident voice.
“The walk.”
“Again. Nothing distinctive, like a limp. No, the impression was one of fitness, but also not in any real hurry…” Gilles trailed off, trying to recall. “Hmn. Definitely a good, strong grip.”
There was nothing else.
“Gilles. Your English, your German, is better than mine, but. Schleischer?”
“Hmn. Yes. Slasher—it is rather suggestive.”
The pair regarded each other over the files, the folders, the ashtray and the telephones set on Maintenon’s desk. Emile Tailler was relaxed, shoes clean and shiny, narrow shoes, and looking quite prosperous in clothes more suited to a very successful businessman, as opposed to a plain-clothes officer. They were not generally known for their sartorial splendour. He idly picked a bit of something off of a trouser leg.
“Is that even a real German name?”
“That, mon ami, is your department.”
The rain, having held off overnight, began again, its steady splatter almost, but not quite, drowning out the doves who crowded the eaves and orbited the building in their fast-flying flocks. With a bit of thunder on the horizon, they would be a bit restive, and who could blame them.
Tailler rose.
His eyes found the offending bit of paper on Gilles’ desk.
A dozen names, and three of them crossed off.
His own copy, tucked into a slender case, the locks turned and with nothing much more to be said.
“All right. I will get right on it.”
“Thank you.”
With a nod at the other officers, hunched over desks and telephones and typewriters, photographs, finger-print cards and files, he grabbed his coat, put on his hat, and headed for the door. He paused, as if on a thought.
“Gilles.”
“Yes?”
“What did you say that girl’s name was?”
Maintenon’s face darkened.
“Yes. I suppose we must.” Merde. “Sophie. Sophie Valliere.”
She had showed up for work, which proved nothing...
The family didn’t have a phone, but she only lived a few blocks away, and public phones were on every second block these days. He took a scrap of paper and copied it out from his personal address book. Paris was like that, his own neighbourhood was relatively prosperous, and just down the road, real poverty. Sometimes there were great disparities, from one street, from one block, even from one building to another. Sometimes even in the same building—all of those garrets, all of that misery, and yet someone still had to own the place.
“Don’t worry, Gilles. Just a precaution.” His eyes glittered, but this was more like real police work.
The criminal intelligence branch rarely had it so easy. If anyone owed Gilles a favour, he did.
“See you, later, people.”
His own office was at the other end of the building and there was much work to be done.
As the door closed, Gilles reached for the phone.
He dialled a familiar number, heart thudding a bit, but he just had to know.
“Allo?” There was a faint whistle in the background.
She had put the kettle on…she’d taken off her coat, hung up her hat, and put the kettle on, just like Madame Lefebvre, for all of those years before. She had, hopefully, locked the door, standard operating procedure for women of any age, working alone in almost any household—let alone the home of a senior police official, and one fairly famous by this time.
Gently, ever so gently, he put the phone down.
Sophie had at least shown up for work.
Which proved exactly nothing, after all.
END
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