Belle (39 page)

The fiacre turned off the brightly lit and rowdy Boulevard de Clichy by the Moulin Rouge, then crossed another road which Belle recognized as one where she’d found a lovely hat shop. There were many good restaurants in this street and she expected the driver to stop there, but instead he turned right and drove up a steep, narrow, much darker cobbled street which was mainly just houses.

Belle was surprised when he reined in the horses almost at the top of the hill.

‘Voilà
,
madame
,’ he said as he opened the door for her, pointing out a tall, thin house with shuttered windows on her right. She couldn’t see very well as the nearest street lamp was right at the top of the street by a café; she thought it was one she’d been in just a couple of weeks earlier.

The fiacre drove off as she was ringing the bell on the front door. Although she could hear an accordion playing somewhere near, the street was very quiet, so she surmised this was Philippe’s home, though he hadn’t said he lived in Montmartre.

The clanging of the bell had barely died away when the door was opened, not by Philippe or his maid, but by Edouard Pascal. Belle’s heart sank.

‘Monsieur Pascal!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a surprise!’ But assuming he was just visiting Philippe, because she didn’t wish him to sense her dismay, or offend Philippe, she smiled, and accepted a kiss on each cheek.

‘How beautiful you look tonight,’ he said, once she had stepped into the hall and the door was closed behind her. ‘Let me take your wrap.’

She thanked him politely and let him take her short silver fox cape from her shoulders. This had been her one extravagance. It was from Chantal’s, like all her clothes, but it had cost two hundred francs and she’d spent days agonizing over whether she should spend so much. But it was so beautiful, and when she wore it she felt like royalty. ‘Where is Philippe?’ she asked.

‘He was called out on an urgent matter and asked me to look after you until he returns,’ Pascal said. ‘Come in by the fire, he won’t be long.’

Most of the apartments and houses Belle had been to in Paris had been furnished and decorated in a very sumptuous manner, but she had often thought them lacking in character. The drawing room Edouard took her into was by contrast very homely, with large couches, a roaring fire, walls lined with books, a great many ornaments on low tables and a thick Chinese carpet underfoot. Yet it didn’t seem to fit Philippe’s exuberant character.

‘This is Philippe’s home?’ she asked. ‘He didn’t say he had a house in Montmartre.’

While she could imagine Philippe sprawling on one of the couches, she was surprised he’d chosen pale blue ones, as for all the ornaments; that didn’t fit his image either.

‘I’m sure you understand a gentleman in his position would be wary of taking a lady to his home until he knew her better,’ Pascal said silkily. ‘Now, come and sit by the fire and I will get you a drink.’

He poured them both a large cognac, and sat opposite her by the fire. Belle felt the drink go straight to her head because she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She’d been expecting to have dinner with Philippe, and she just hoped Pascal would go as soon as he got back.

She had noticed on previous meetings that Pascal didn’t hold conversations. He tended only to ask questions or give instructions, and he was no different now, firing questions at her about her lodgings, if she had any friends in Paris, and why she left England.

Since Belle had got to Paris she had avoided telling anyone anything about her past, it was safer that way. She had to answer Pascal’s questions though, so she said she had come to Paris with a man she loved, but he went off and left her for another woman. She added that she didn’t want to talk about that as she was trying to put it behind her.

‘Yet you made the step from being a mistress to lady of the night without too many problems?’

Belle shrugged. She felt he might have found something out about her, and was trying to corner her into either lying or admitting something. ‘It’s surprising what you can do when necessity calls for it,’ she said.

‘You are very evasive,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘Why is that?’

‘I just don’t like talking about myself,’ she said. ‘You should understand that, you don’t talk about yourself either.’

Half an hour had gone by since she arrived and she was getting worried now that Philippe wasn’t going to come back at all.

‘You have only ever seen me at my place of business and of course I don’t talk about myself there,’ he replied. ‘But it is different now, we are two friends having a drink together.’

‘So tell me, are you married, do you have children?’ she asked.

He hesitated and then said he wasn’t married. Belle was fairly certain that was a lie for she’d overheard him talking to a married couple at the Ritz once, for whom he had been getting theatre tickets, and he’d told the woman that his wife had loved the play. As he was so slimy he could have just made that up to convince the woman she would enjoy it, but in Belle’s experience men didn’t usually mention a wife if they were bachelors.

‘I think I ought to go home, I’m not feeling very well,’ Belle said, after trying some small talk about the Eiffel Tower and going on a boat down the Seine. She got up and put her hand to her head as if it hurt.

‘You can’t go,’ Pascal said, leaping to his feet.

‘Philippe will understand,’ she said, making for the door.

As she reached it, Pascal caught her shoulder and pulled her back. ‘You aren’t going anywhere.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Belle said reprovingly. ‘It isn’t for you to tell me what I can or can’t do. It’s not like I’ve been paid for tonight.’

‘I’ll pay you to be with me.’

Just the speed with which he responded told Belle that Philippe was not coming here tonight, this house might not even be his, and Pascal had set her up. A cold chill ran down her spine.

‘No. We have a business arrangement, that’s all,’ she said quickly. ‘Now, let me go, I don’t feel well.’

He caught hold of her shoulders, his fingers digging into the flimsy silk which covered them. ‘You were well enough when you arrived here. If you can give yourself to any man I find for you, why not me?’

His eyes were no longer expressionless, they were sparking with anger, and Belle felt a pang of fear.

‘Because I like and respect you as a friend,’ she lied.

His right hand left her shoulder and he slapped her hard, first on one cheek and then on the other. ‘Don’t lie to me. I know you scorn me because I am just a concierge.’

Belle’s head did hurt now, for she was stunned by the vicious slaps. ‘That isn’t true,’ she gasped. ‘I do not scorn you for being a concierge, why would I? We’ve had a good arrangement together until now. Now let me go home. Please!’

‘After you’ve given me what I want,’ he snarled at her, and he grabbed hard at the neckline of her dress and ripped the bodice away.

Belle screamed and tried to get away from him but he was stronger than he looked and caught hold of her arm, swinging her away from the door and back towards the couch. Beneath her dress she was wearing a cream and pink striped camisole which barely covered her breasts, and now he’d ripped her dress she felt half naked.

As he pushed her down on to the couch she bit his hand as hard as she could, drawing blood.

‘
Tu vas le regretter, salope que tu es!
’ he exclaimed, and let go of her to suck on his hand. Belle seized the moment, pushed him away and ran for the door. But she found it was locked and there was no key, and Pascal was right behind her. He caught hold of her shoulder, spun her round and punched her in the face so hard her head banged back against the door.

‘You can’t get out!’ he shouted at her. ‘You will stay here until I’ve finished with you.’

All at once she felt she was back in that room at Madame Sondheim’s, trapped and powerless. Her face was burning, she could taste blood in her mouth and she was terrified. In a flash of insight she saw that she should have realized that the competent, servile manner Pascal adopted with the guests at the Ritz was just a polished veneer. Beneath that was a volcano of intense jealousy. He probably resented everyone who was wealthy and successful, because he knew he could never be that. But he’d believed she could be his because she was only a whore.

‘Please don’t be like this,’ she begged him, forcing herself to sound sweet and docile, and clutching her torn bodice together to hide her breasts. ‘We just got off on the wrong foot tonight. You shouldn’t have pretended I was to meet Philippe; I would have been happy to spend the evening with you if you’d just asked me.’

‘Liar!’ he spat at her. ‘When I opened the door to you I saw your true feelings in your face. I was as welcome as a snake! You smile, you flirt with any other man. You do anything they ask as long as you are paid. But you don’t even look at me.’

She looked at him squarely in the face then, although her right eye was swelling and she could barely see out of it. There was so much anger in his face, the flared nostrils, the straight set of his lips, and such cold eyes. She shuddered. ‘You and I have had a business arrangement,’ she said again, trying very hard not to cry. ‘I thought it best for it to stay that way.’

‘I don’t want a business arrangement, I want you to be my mistress,’ he snarled.

Realizing this argument could go on and on, and he’d only get even angrier and hit her again, Belle felt she had to try to calm him down. ‘Why don’t we start all over again?’ she suggested. ‘Go back by the fire, have another drink, and talk a little?’

‘I don’t want to talk, I want to fuck you,’ he shouted at her.

Belle fought down a feeling of nausea. Her face was throbbing, she was scared of him, and the idea of being forced to have sex with a deranged man was utterly abhorrent. But there was no alternative, he wasn’t going to let her go without it.

‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Where would you like to go, in there by the fire or upstairs?’

He grabbed her by the arms and literally pulled her back into the drawing room, pushing her down on to the couch.

‘Don’t be so rough,’ she said weakly, but he was already pulling the skirt of her dress up as he knelt by her and with his other hand unbuttoning his trousers.

In the last two years Belle had thought she’d encountered every type of sexual technique, from the gauche first-timers to the skilful lovers, with all the hundreds of variations in between. She’d learned to lock away the memory of being raped – she had to or she would never have been able to cope with her new life at Martha’s. When she was with a man she didn’t like or who was incompetent and clumsy, her trick was to imagine she was with Serge and think of the bliss he’d introduced her to.

But everything about Pascal made it impossible to imagine anything pleasant or feel anything but disgust, for he was as rough and unfeeling as the rapists, more sickening than the worst drunk. He forced his tongue into her mouth, bringing with it so much saliva that she retched. He probed roughly at her delicate parts until she cried out in pain, and she knew the things he muttered in French must be vile and was just glad she didn’t understand. His penis was long and thin and as hard as a stick. She tried every trick she knew to make him ejaculate quickly, but without success. The ordeal went on and on and she felt violated in every way, for he bit her neck and breasts so hard she knew he must be drawing blood. He pinched and scratched at her thighs and buttocks as though he hated the female form and wished to disfigure it.

But finally, just when she felt it was never going to end, he came with a muffled sob. For a couple of seconds he lay panting on top of her, then suddenly got up and arranged his clothing.

‘I will show you the bathroom,’ he said curtly.

Belle had found that almost all men were softer after sex, but not Pascal. His face was sterner and colder than it had been before, his hair, usually so neat and oiled, was now ruffled and untidy, but that was the only evidence that he had been engaged in something out of character.

He caught her wrist and practically dragged her up the stairs, right to the top floor. ‘In there,’ he said, opening a door, and nudged her in.

It wasn’t a bathroom as she’d expected, but a small attic bedroom. She turned to him to point out his mistake, but he had already backed out and closed the door behind him, and she heard him locking her in.

‘Pascal!’ she yelled at him. ‘Let me out. I need the bathroom.’

‘There is a chamberpot there and water to wash,’ he called back. ‘You are staying there.’

She yelled and pummelled at the door, but she could hear him walking back down the stairs, calling out that there was no point in screaming because no one would hear.

For a few minutes she just stood there, too stunned to react. The room looked as if it was the maid’s: just a narrow iron bed with a faded flowery quilt covering it, a washstand with a ewer and basin and a chamberpot beneath it, a chest of drawers and a rag rug on the bare floorboards. There were shutters at the small window and she went to open them, only to find that there was no glass in the window behind them, only wood nailed in firmly all around the frame.

Suddenly the electric light went out, and she howled out in protest, realizing he must have turned it off somewhere downstairs. But aware he must have turned off the electricity for a reason, she fell silent and strained her ears. She heard his footsteps down on the tiled hall floor, then the sound of the front door being slammed shut.

Leaning against the door, she whimpered in fear. He was leaving her imprisoned here!

Chapter Twenty-nine

Gabrielle looked at the clock in the hall yet again. It was now two in the afternoon and still Belle had not returned. She tried to tell herself this was because her guest was with a man she really liked and maybe he’d taken her out somewhere today.

But no right-minded woman would go out by day in an evening dress and a fox cape. Gabrielle’s instinct told her Belle was in trouble.

She had of course arrived here in evening clothes, though she had been wearing a warm coat over her dress. She had never said where she came from that day, but as the Mirabeau was so close to the station, it was fairly obvious she’d run away from a man and caught a train to Paris.

Gabrielle didn’t normally take the slightest interest in her guests. As long as they were quiet, clean, respectful of her hotel and her other guests and paid what they owed, that was enough for her. Like any hotel owner, she’d had her share of difficult, unpleasant and troublesome guests in the five years she’d been here. She’d had gendarmes call to make an arrest, she’d had one woman commit suicide upstairs, irate husbands turn up looking for runaway wives; she’d even had a woman staying here who it transpired was in fact a man. There had been dozens of prostitutes asking for a room too. Usually she’d recognized what they were and refused them, but of those she hadn’t, as soon as they tried to bring in a man, she showed them the door.

Belle was a special case, however. She had arrived dishevelled, clearly distressed, with no luggage, and Gabrielle had expected trouble to follow her, but it hadn’t.

She realized what Belle was up to after the second time she arrived back early in the morning. Gabrielle was daunted then, experience, including some of her own mistakes in the same line of work, telling her that before long Belle would take liberties. But she did not, and was in fact the ideal guest, undemanding, appreciative of any little kindness, and extraordinarily discreet.

What had endeared Belle most to Gabrielle was her sparkle, good manners and warm smile. Gabrielle liked the way she learned some French and had grown to love Paris, and it was always a pleasure to see her so well turned out, stylish, pretty and ladylike.

Now it looked as if the anxiety Gabrielle had felt for her in the last week or two was not misplaced. She knew to her own cost that Paris was full of danger for girls like Belle. Not only were there thugs who would stop at nothing to get a cut of her earnings, but there were also madmen who developed fixations about girls as lovely as her.

At ten that evening Belle still had not returned and Gabrielle’s anxiety was becoming ever more acute. In desperation she went up to the girl’s room, turned on the light and looked around, hoping to find something which might give her a clue to where she had gone the previous evening.

As always, the room was neat and tidy, dresses hanging in the wardrobe, shoes beneath in a row, underclothes neatly folded in the drawers. There were a couple of English books beside the bed, a bottle of cologne on the dressing table, a hairbrush, a comb and a variety of hair clips and pins in a shallow tray.

A sketchbook by the bed was something of a surprise, for it just contained sketches of hats. While Gabrielle could speak quite good English she couldn’t read it very well, but she assumed the notes beneath each hat were of materials and ideas for how to make each one. She found it odd that Belle had aspirations to be a milliner, but judging by her lovely designs and the copious notes, she was serious about it.

All the clothes, toiletries and oddments in the room had been acquired since Belle had come here to live. She received no letters, and there was no pocketbook or diary to give a pointer to who she was and where she’d come from, or even addresses of friends and family back in England. The only communication she ever got was when an errand boy called with a note for her. Gabrielle assumed it was the most recent one lying on the dressing table.

She picked it up to read it. There was no address or name to say who or where it came from.

‘Monsieur Le Brun would like to see you tonight in Montmartre. A cab will come for you at seven,’ she read, and beneath this were just the initials E.P.

Le Brun was a common enough name, the kind that could even be a false one, so that was no help, and Montmartre had many restaurants, cafés and bars Belle could have been taken to. The boy who brought the message was just a street urchin, one of hundreds in Paris that people used to deliver notes like this for a couple of centimes. Gabrielle doubted she would even recognize the boy if she saw him again, for he’d darted in, handed her the envelope addressed to Mademoiselle Cooper, got her to sign another slip of paper to say she’d received it, and darted out again. She couldn’t even say if he was the same boy who had brought other messages before.

Gabrielle sat on the bed for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the note. It was on quality cream writing paper, but it had clearly been torn from a pad, as the top was a little jagged.

‘Or the sender tore off the address that was on there,’ she murmured to herself.

‘A hotel!’ she exclaimed as the thought came to her. ‘Of course! That’s how she gets her engagements.’

She knew it was common practice for wealthy male guests in the smartest hotels to ask a doorman or concierge to find them some female company. She didn’t know why she hadn’t considered this before as Belle was ideally suited for such work. She didn’t look like a common prostitute, and she had the poise and good manners to hold her own with sophisticated men.

Gabrielle suddenly felt queasy, for Belle could have had the misfortune to meet someone very dangerous. While most businessmen away from home wanted nothing more than uncomplicated sex, there were always those who were perverted and cruel and saw a prostitute as fair game for any sick activity they had in mind.

She put her hand under the ruffle round the high neck of her dress and ran her fingers over the bumpy scar there. Her son Henri had just had his first birthday when she had the misfortune to meet the man who called himself Gérard Tournier. He seemed like a perfect gentleman, agreeing to fifty francs, then took her to supper first. But instead of accompanying her back to her apartment as they’d agreed, he’d taken her into a back alley and slashed her neck with a knife. She was lucky in that she was found before she bled to death, but the resulting hideous scar was a permanent reminder of what she used to be.

‘Belle’s smarter than you were though,’ Gabrielle told herself, tucking the note into the pocket of her apron and leaving the room, locking it again behind her. She knew if Belle wasn’t back by the morning she must enlist someone’s help in finding her because she was sure she couldn’t live with herself if the girl was found dead and she had just stayed here and done nothing.

Gabrielle had cut herself off from everyone she knew during her time as a prostitute. She wanted no reminders of her old career. And she never wanted Henri to discover what she’d done in the past. But there was just one person connected with that world that she remained in touch with, for she had nursed Gabrielle back to health following the attack in the alley, and looked after Henri. When she got up the next morning to find Belle still hadn’t returned, Gabrielle resolved to go to Lisette after she’d given the guests their breakfast and Henri had gone to school. She didn’t expect her old friend to have any idea of where Belle could be, but she might know people who would.

Unless she was taking Henri out for the day, Gabrielle rarely went beyond a half-mile radius of the Mirabeau, and then only to buy food, because she felt safer close to home. She never made any effort with her appearance either for by looking dowdy she attracted no attention to herself. But she felt compelled to make an effort for her visit to Lisette and changed into an old but still smart grey and white dogtooth check costume. The jacket was rather too well-fitting for a woman who liked to conceal her shape in loose clothing, but she tied a white scarf at a jaunty angle to hide her scar, added the black velvet hat with a half-veil she wore to Mass, and was pleased that she neither stood out nor looked too drab.

When Lisette had taken care of her over a decade ago they had both had rooms in the same house in Montmartre, but a year afterwards, when Gabrielle had left Paris to act as housekeeper for Samuel Arkwright, an English painter in Provence, Lisette went to live and work in a bordello. They kept in touch only by the occasional letter, for although Gabrielle cared deeply for Lisette, she had no wish to be reminded of the life she’d once shared with her.

Lisette’s nursing skills were her saviour as a few years later, after she’d given birth to a little boy, she went to work in a nursing home in La Celle St-Cloud. The two women had met up only once since then, shortly after Gabrielle had returned to Paris following Samuel’s death. Lisette said little about her own circumstances that day for she was more concerned with Gabrielle’s grief at losing Samuel and whether she was doing the right thing in investing the money he had left her in a hotel.

Gabrielle was well aware of her own shortcomings. She didn’t have a gregarious nature, in fact since she was attacked she had become a solitary soul who couldn’t make small talk, and shied away from other people. Guests sometimes commented that she was sullen and uncommunicative, and had the Mirabeau not been so well placed near the station, she could have run into difficulties. Fortunately, however, there was a continual stream of people needing a small, comfortable hotel like hers and she didn’t have to rely on guests returning.

Once on the train to La Celle St-Cloud, Gabrielle began to fret that Lisette might have moved on, as she hadn’t heard from her for nearly a year. But she comforted herself that if that was the case, at least she had tried to do something to find Belle.

She found the nursing home easily enough and knocked on the door. It was opened by an old woman with a white apron over her black dress.

Gabrielle apologized for calling but said she needed to see Lisette urgently. The old woman told her to wait outside.

A few minutes passed before Lisette came to the door, looking anxious as if fearing she was going to hear bad news. When she saw her old friend, her pretty face broke into a wide smile.

‘Gabrielle!’ she exclaimed. ‘How good to see you! What brings you out here?’

Gabrielle asked if there was somewhere they could talk and Lisette said she could come out for a cup of coffee with her; she’d just have to tell someone what she was doing.

Within five minutes they were walking down to the square and Gabrielle explained as briefly as possible that she had a guest who had gone missing after going to see a man. ‘I’ve grown fond of the English girl,’ she said. ‘As you can imagine, once I knew how she was earning a living I started worrying about her safety, but she is just the way we were, confident that no one would harm her. I hoped you might know someone who could help me find her.’

‘She’s English?’ Lisette said. ‘How old?’

‘About eighteen, I don’t know for sure. Her name is Belle Cooper.’

Lisette looked startled. ‘Belle? She has dark, curly hair, blue eyes?’

‘You know her?’ Gabrielle asked incredulously.

‘Well, it sounds like the same girl,’ Lisette said, and explained how she’d nursed a girl of that age, name and description two years earlier. ‘She was taken to America,’ she finished up. ‘But I had a man come looking for her too, a friend of her family. That must be getting on for a year ago now.’

‘Was his name Etienne?’

Lisette frowned. ‘No, he was English, about thirty or so. But why did you ask if it was Etienne?’

‘It was a name she gave me, the last evening I saw her. She said she trusted him.’

They had reached the café in the square now, and sat down at a table outside well away from other people. Lisette looked stunned.

‘What is it? Do you know someone called Etienne?’ Gabrielle asked.

Lisette nodded. ‘He was the man who escorted her to America.’

Gabrielle had expected little of this meeting, and to find that Lisette knew Belle and the man she’d named was almost too much for her. Her heart began to race, and beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. ‘Can you tell me everything you know?’ she asked. ‘It seems you know far more about Belle than I do.’

Lisette hesitated. ‘I am not out of the business like you,’ she said sadly. ‘But I’m sure you remember how it is? I have only told you this much because you are an old friend and I trust you. I have my son to think of.’

Gabrielle understood exactly what she meant, and she took the other woman’s hand between her own in reassurance. ‘I haven’t forgotten anything. But anything you can tell me will just be between us.’

Lisette told her everything she knew then: how Belle came to need nursing, how much she had liked her, and then about Noah Bayliss coming to see her.

‘I liked him a great deal too,’ she admitted. ‘I almost weakened to take up his offer of help to get me away from here. But I was too afraid.’

Gabrielle nodded. The people behind bringing young girls to France were ruthless, and it would be hard for Lisette to trust any man enough to keep her and her little boy safe.

‘But surely if this man Etienne was the one who took Belle to America he’s as bad as all the others? Why would she say she trusted him?’

Lisette shrugged. ‘Most of us caught up in this business have been forced into doing things we know are wrong, usually because they have a hold over us. That doesn’t mean we are all bad. I would say Belle must have touched Etienne’s good side, just as she did me, and you. She would’ve been with him for a long sea voyage, and they must have become friends. The Englishman Noah wanted me to try and contact him, to find out where he’d taken her. I tried at the time, but failed.’

Gabrielle sighed. ‘I don’t suppose he’d be any help with this now anyway.’

‘Probably not,’ Lisette said. ‘Especially as I heard he’d left the business. A story went round that his wife and two children were killed in a fire and he is a broken man. Of course, that might not be true. I’ve heard stories like that before, it could just be to keep all of us fearful.’