pulled the dead woman by the feet. As she slid off the cart her coat and dress became hitched up, exposing her silk-stockinged legs. Père Moscou turned away in embarrassment. The body fell to the ground with a thud. He rolled it into the pit with his umbrella, hurriedly shovelling back the loose earth. When he’d finished, he flattened the grave and scattered it with stones, bits of rubble and grass. He cast a critical eye over his work and found it wanting. The most important thing was missing. He went off, inventing another story to reassure himself.
‘I’m certain it was he, Emperor. Emmanuel Grouchy’s behind this. Remember Waterloo? If he’d stopped Blücher from joining forces with Wellington, victory would have been yours. I reported it to you. He found out, and has hated me ever since. This is his revenge.’
Père Moscou returned carrying two uprooted lilac bushes, which he very carefully replanted. After he’d finished, he thrust his fists in his pockets and stepped back to consider his work.
‘No one, not even Grouchy, would say a woman’s buried there, God rest her soul. I’m not done yet; I need a pick-me-up after that, a drop of hussar’s elixir.
The overgrown garden was so serene he might almost have imagined the strange ceremony. But the jewellery he was rolling between his fingers was real enough.
Notes
1. Grouchy (Emmanuel de, 1766–1847): Marshal of France. Charged with giving chase to the Prussians routed at Ligny, he lacked initiative and failed to come to Napoleon’s aid at Waterloo.
2. The ruins of the Palais d’Orsay which housed the Conseil d’État (Council of State) and the Cour des Comptes (Court of Accounts) stood on the Quai d’Orsay until 1898, when the Compagnie des chemins de fér d’Orleans built the Gare d’Orsay. Today the building houses the Musée d’Orsay.
3. A grognard is an historical term for the soldiers of the old guard of Napoleon I.
IT was almost nine o’clock when Denise reached Pont des Arts. The crisp, clear morning set off to perfection one of the most beautiful views in Paris. She stopped halfway across the bridge, mesmerised by the sights around her. To her left lay the towers of the Palais de Justice, the spire of Saint-Chapelle and the imposing bulk of Notre-Dame with the point of the Île de la Cité and the Vert-Galant garden glinting behind them in the sunshine. To her right, far in the distance, the Eiffel Tower soared into the sky. The Seine seemed to arch its back as it curved under Pont Neuf, its current breaking against the hulls of the laundry boats before settling into a smooth yellowish flow, dotted with ducks.
She walked past the L’Institut and the École des Beaux-Arts, watching the second-hand booksellers and the medal traders setting up their stalls on the other side of Quai Malaquais. She had to pluck up courage to ask a portly man the way, but he smiled at her from behind an enormous moustache and pointed out Rue des Saints-Pères.
The houses here were less ostentatiously grand than those on Boulevard Haussman, but Denise found them much more beautiful, perhaps because their weather-beaten façades had stood the test of time. There was a calm, provincial air to the street that she found reassuring. There were several bookshops, but she couldn’t see Monsieur Legris’s. It was only when she spotted the sign saying ‘Elzévir’ above the number 18 that she was certain that she had come to the right place. Behind the shop windows, which were set in wood panelling of a greeny-bronze colour, large red-bound gilt-edged volumes were lined up next to more recent works. Amongst the latter, the latest book by Émile Zola, The Beast in Man, the extremely controversial Noncoms by Lucien Descaves and a Shakespeare play, left open at a lurid illustration of witches, took pride of place. One corner of the window display was dedicated to some novels whose titles Denise read out haltingly in a low voice: The Lerouge Affair by Émile Gaboriau, The Exploits of Rocambole by Ponson du Terrail, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Fifi Vollard’s Gang by Constant Guéroult and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. A small notice in red ink read:
If you like murder mysteries and thrillers, do not hesitate to ask for advice. It will be our pleasure to assist you.
A little alarmed by these words, Denise pressed her face against the window and saw a blond young man inside the shop, engrossed in a newspaper. She was startled by the sound of whistling. A schoolboy, his cap pulled down over his eyes, was standing beside her, so close that he nudged her arm. She moved away slightly and then took refuge under the awning of a packaging shop on the other side of the street, hoping that Madame’s ex-lover would soon appear. The schoolboy positioned himself a little further off, in front of Debauve & Gallais, makers of fine chocolates.
The door of the building beside the bookshop opened and out came a woman as round as a ball, enveloped in an apron and armed with a broom. As she scanned the street, looking from right to left, she caught sight of Denise and stared at her suspiciously. Then she disappeared into the hall, reappearing a moment later with a bucket, which she emptied on to the pavement just as a costermonger’s cart appeared beside her. The water narrowly missed the woman pulling the cart.
‘Watch out, Madame Ballu. You almost drowned me!’
‘I’m sorry, Madame Pignot, my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking about my cousin Alphonse, the one who went to Senegal. He’s caught it!’
‘Caught what?’
‘Influenza. They’ve given him syrup of snails, but he’s still coughing and coughing.’
‘Not to worry, Madame Ballu, I’m sure he’ll get better. Good day!’
‘And good day to you, Madame Pignot.’
Madame Pignot waved in the direction of the bookshop and set off again pulling her cart. The young blond man rushed out of the shop. ‘Maman, wait!’ he cried.
He caught up with the costermonger, grabbed a couple of large apples from the top of her fruit and vegetable basket, planted a kiss on her cheek and went back into the bookshop.
Denise did not budge from her spot. She saw the blond boy reappear on the pavement and call to a man leaning out of a first-floor window, ‘Give me ten minutes, boss!’
The man nodded his assent, then closed the window. Denise had time to notice his slanting eyes. She remembered her mistress mentioning Monsieur Legris’s Chinese valet disapprovingly.
The Oriental man was dressed in the English style in a fully buttoned tweed jacket with narrow lapels and flap pockets, a white shirt, grey trousers with an impeccable crease and brown leather shoes. He went over to a table with a row of inkwells on it, and picked up some rail tickets, which he slipped into his wallet. He gazed for a moment at the two new prints recently hung on the wall to brighten the room. One, Boat ride under the Azuma Bridge, was by Kiyonga1 and the other, entitled Lake Biwa, was by Hiroshige.2 He pushed open the door of the bathroom, which was equipped with a copper bath. Leaning towards the mirror over the basin, he straightened the knot of his green silk tie, put on a checked worsted bowler hat and, apparently satisfied, smiled at the photograph on a marble shelf in front of him. Gazing out of the image was a young woman with brown hair who was tenderly holding a boy of about twelve. At the bottom was the inscription, Daphne and Victor, London 1872.
The man went back into the spacious sitting room, which was furnished in the style of Louis XIII, slid back a slatted paper partition, and entered a Japanese-style bedroom. A recess housed a thick cotton blanket and a wooden pillow, a Japanese trunk with ornamental