Season of Light (45 page)

‘In a moment,’ said the chairman, ‘we shall ask Deputy Paulin a few questions. In the meantime, now that you know that we are aware of your connection with him, let’s just clear up a few things. Prisoner Ardleigh, did you go to Caen in order to visit this man’s family?’

Didier nodded at her.

‘Yes.’

‘And is this the man for whom you risked a journey to Paris?’

‘Yes.’

‘You see Deputy Paulin, as one would expect from someone in his position, has been completely frank with us, and told us all about what you were both doing on the night Marat was murdered.’

‘Then he knows I am innocent. Could we not have established that long ago?’

‘
He knows you are innocent
. Does he indeed? Deputy Paulin, if I might trouble you to step forward? As I promised you earlier, this won’t take very long.’

When Didier approached the table he did so with an air of disinterested professionalism. Asa had never seen him at work, but it must have been clear to everyone that this was familiar territory to him as he stood with feet apart, grasping his elbows, listening attentively to each question.

‘Deputy Paulin, do you know this woman?’

‘She is Thomasina Ardleigh of England.’ His voice was calm and clipped.

‘When did you first meet?’

‘Here, in Paris, five years ago.’

‘And what was the nature of your relationship?’

‘We were lovers.’ There was muttering in the benches beside her and the chairman’s brow lifted.

‘What happened as a result of your relationship?’

‘Nothing happened. We were separated because the prisoner had to go back to England. For a time we wrote to each other. Then, when our two countries declared war, I put a stop to the correspondence.’

‘Why, exactly?’

‘As there was no prospect of our meeting, it seemed to me that there was a conflict of loyalties if the correspondence continued.’

‘So when did you meet her again?’

‘A week or so ago. On 11 July, I glimpsed her at the Convention. Then two days later she came to my apartment.’

‘The purpose of her visit?’

‘To see me.’

‘Tell me again when you last met.’

‘As I’ve said, five years ago. July 1788.’

‘And you say you last wrote to her about two years ago.’

‘About that.’

‘She must have given some reason for arriving so suddenly in Paris?’

‘She said she had received letters from me begging her to come.’

‘Had you sent any such letters?’

He gazed straight ahead. ‘I had not. But …’

‘So, let’s be clear. You had not written to Prisoner Ardleigh inviting her to come to Paris.’

‘No.’

Asa realised, as she stared at Didier, that his version of the story was already well known; the interchange between him and the interrogator was so measured they must have rehearsed it beforehand.

‘You’re not asking him the right questions,’ she interrupted. ‘You’re making him twist the truth. They were
his
letters, in
his
hand, that was the point.’

‘In good time, prisoner, you may ask your own questions. For now, please be quiet. Deputy Paulin, where were you on the evening of Marat’s murder?’

‘In my apartment with Citoyenne Ardleigh.’

‘And during the course of that day, and the day before?’

‘I had business out of the city.’

‘So you cannot vouch for Prisoner Ardleigh during that time?’

‘No.’

‘Did she tell you where she’d been that day?’

‘She said she’d been exploring the city – as I would expect of a visitor to Paris. She’d not been here for five years so she was curious.’ For the first time Didier smiled at Asa.

‘Did she tell you her route through the city?’

‘Not precisely.’

‘What does that mean? You of all people will know, Deputy Paulin, that such vague answers simply will not do.’

‘She said she went to our old haunts, the district of St-Germain.’

‘Anywhere else?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And when she was in Caen? Do you know what activities she’d been engaged in, while the town was in a state of civil unrest?’

‘I do not.’

‘You know that she stayed with your sister.’

‘Because she says so, and because of my sister’s letter to Citoyenne Maurice. My sister was also in Paris five years ago, so she and Citoyenne Ardleigh had become friends.’

‘The prisoner Ardleigh declares that she knew nothing of Charlotte Corday’s plans. The reason she gives for travelling under a false name and with false papers is that she wanted to find you. Can you suggest why she would not come to you openly?’

‘As she said, she is English …’

‘You are concerned with police matters in Paris, Paulin. Perhaps you can answer this question: Is it a crime to be English?’

‘Our two countries are at war.’

‘I repeat, is it a crime to be English?’

‘No.’

‘As you aware, Paulin, on the day before the murder of Marat, Prisoner Ardleigh went walking close to his house. This map, found at her lodgings, is marked with crosses, some of them supplied by her landlady, Maurice. The prisoner had asked to be shown certain locations in the city. It is known, therefore, that she walked first to the Temple Prison, then across the river to the Luxembourg, thereby passing along the end of the rue des Cordeliers where, as we all know, Marat lived and was subsequently assassinated.’

Didier was breathing more rapidly. He wiped a dribble of sweat from the side of his face.

‘Didier,’ said Asa, ‘tell them why I wanted to visit St-Joseph’s and the street where you used to live.’

Didier stared at the interrogator but did not speak.

‘I believe you received a note from the prisoner, Deputy Paulin, a couple of nights after Marat’s death. Is this it? I’ll read part of it aloud.
You of all people will know that I need to get out of the city
. Can you explain the note?’

‘I must admit I was very surprised when I received it. It was quite unlike her, to be so irrational.’

‘Didier, you told me yourself …’

‘It is indeed your turn for questions, prisoner. Is there anything else you want to say to Deputy Paulin before we allow him to return to his work?’

‘I sent him the note because I was waiting to hear from him. He’d promised to help me.’

‘Is this true?’

‘Certainly I thought she should go home.’

‘Didier, tell them I didn’t know anything about Charlotte’s plans. Nor did Beatrice. Tell them why I came to France.’

Didier shook his head, smiled at the interrogator, took a deep breath and raised his shoulders as if to say: This is really beyond me, I don’t understand it. The chairman said softly: ‘Much better if you don’t tell the witness what to say, prisoner. Much better to ask a simple question and let him answer.’

‘Didier. Tell the court how I came by those letters from you.’

She sensed that the bond between the interrogator and Didier was under strain. It wasn’t clear now how sympathetic he was to Didier. ‘Answer the question, Paulin.’

‘I can’t say for certain how the prisoner got hold of them. I had certainly written them – not to her but to another woman.’

‘So let’s take a look at these letters, shall we?’ The interrogator withdrew them from his folder. ‘Any fool could see these are not recent. Look at the age of the paper. So on the basis of these letters, which bear no address and are unsigned, you are expecting us to believe, Prisoner Ardleigh, that you returned to France to seek out Citoyen Paulin. Please credit us with a little intelligence.’

Asa stared at Didier. ‘I wanted to see him, of course I did. I thought he still loved me.’

‘Did you indeed? You seem to have let our prisoner down, Paulin.’ General laughter.

‘Now what else did you wish to ask, prisoner?’

‘Didier, I told you the reason I went walking in Paris – it was because I wanted to see for myself where a certain priest had been killed. That is why I went to Joseph des Carmes.’

A deathly hush. In that moment, Asa understood, the revelation like a drumbeat in her stomach, that she had committed the heinous crime of exposing one of the darker secrets of the Revolution’s past, and had therefore perhaps sealed her fate.

‘Is this true, Paulin?’

‘It is.’

‘Here is the map,’ said the interrogator, pointing with his manicured fingernail. ‘Here is Marat’s house. Here is Les Carmes. Ten minutes apart. To reach Les Carmes she must have walked past the end of Marat’s street. The prisoner was marking out the territory for Corday.’

Didier laughed. ‘Oh, come, come. That is pure speculation.’

‘Anything else to ask Citoyen Paulin?’ the interrogator enquired of Asa.

‘I can’t think. I must be given time. This is all so absurd. Didier, just tell them, please, how I was tricked into coming to France.’

‘Tricked, now, is it? I think we’ve been over that point quite often enough. Thank you so much for your time, Deputy Paulin.’

‘Didier.’ He was already at the door; his back was turned so that she could see only his neatly tied hair and trim shoulders. ‘
Didier
.’

They took Asa by the shoulders, forced her into a chair and waited until she was quiet. She strained to hear his retreating footsteps and the distant closing of a door. ‘Now we have established that Deputy Paulin was the object of your affection – your devotion gives you credit, prisoner, given that it seems you and he had been parted for five years – we simply have to clear up the small matter of your acquaintance with Corday.’

‘I have told you …’

‘Were you or were you not in the vicinity of Marat’s home on the morning of 12 July?’

‘Not intentionally. Please tell Didier Paulin to come back. I want to ask him some more questions.’

‘Deputy Paulin is a very busy man, prisoner. We have detained him long enough, don’t you think, given that he was clearly bewildered by your sudden arrival in Paris. The truth is that you have told us a pack of lies. How could it possibly be coincidence that you arrived in Paris at the same time as Corday? Under interrogation she …’

‘I’m sure she made no mention of my name. She certainly won’t have known that I was in Paris.’

‘How can you be sure?’

Asa, recognising the trap, spoke more calmly. ‘She didn’t know my plans.’

‘You said Corday
certainly
wasn’t aware that you were in Paris.’ The interrogator leaned forward, a gleam in his eye. ‘That sounded very clear.’

‘She, like almost everyone else I knew in Caen, thought that I was on my way to Le Havre when I left the city.’

‘Why would they think such a thing?’

‘It was where I was supposed to go. There’s an English community there. It was thought I would be safe with them, but I changed my mind.’

‘You changed your mind? Your plans seem to have been very fluid. You changed your mind, and instead you came to Paris two days ahead of Charlotte Corday.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘You seem very confident about contradicting us, Prisoner Ardleigh. Perhaps, when you are transferred to the Conciergerie, you will be less sure of yourself. If I might be allowed to continue with my earlier comment?’ He raised a brow, as if Asa had a choice. His companion laughed again. ‘Under interrogation Corday refused to identify any of her co-conspirators. Perhaps you can help us out. We will try naming a few people with whom we think you might have been in collusion. What do you know of Barbaroux?’

‘I heard his name mentioned while I was in Caen. That’s all.’

‘Brissot?’

‘The same. Even in England I had heard of Brissot and his role in the Revolution. You see, I favour the abolition …’

‘Brissot, as you know, was a sworn enemy of Marat. But we’ll let that pass. You could not be bothered to pay your respects to Marat. Why was that?’

‘I was there in the streets like everyone else.’

‘Yet you turned out for Corday’s execution.’

‘I’d met her in Caen. So yes, I did go to the execution. I wanted to show her that she was not quite alone in Paris at the end, though I never had the chance, of course, the crowd was too large …’

‘At last. There we are. Thank you so much for your confession. Let me repeat it back to you.
I’d met her in Caen … I wanted to show her that she was not quite alone in Paris
. I think we have more than enough. You clearly do not comprehend, prisoner, that after what has happened, even to claim sympathy with Corday is treason. Tomorrow you’ll be transferred to the Conciergerie for sentencing.’

‘I don’t understand. I was told that this was just a preliminary to trial. I haven’t had a trial. I don’t have a lawyer …’

‘Prisoner, you had a lawyer. Didier Paulin, I would have said, is one of the greatest legal minds in our country.’

‘But he was your witness.’

‘That’s enough. Take her away.’

‘I’ve made no confession. Please, ask Didier to come back … Please.’

The chairs were scraped across the floor. Asa was seized and led away.

The gaoler’s wife supplied Asa with a sheet of paper on which to write a letter home but it took hours to compose, given that she could not afford to waste space, had great difficulty in steadying her pen and struggled to find the right words. Terror was a physical condition, like fever. At one point she stopped writing altogether, gripped her warm neck with her cold fingers and closed her eyes.

I don’t regret what I have done for my own sake so much as for yours. Forgive me the suffering I have caused. I am so sorry. But though of course I wish there had been a different ending, I cannot help but feel a sense of rightness in what has happened to me. I came back to France and found it much changed, not as I’d hoped, and yet that old word, liberty, still is not sour on my tongue. There must be a way. And you know – Oh God, I wish I’d told you – there was a man I loved. He was the reason, yet I think I knew, from the moment I set out, that he might be false, or at least be proved different to what I’d hoped. Forgive me, please. I fell in love. But I am still your Asa. And I have been very wrong, and rash and thoughtless, then and now. It must seem to you that I didn’t consider you but instead abused the freedom of mind and body that you gave me. I beg you to see it differently – I have come to grief, but truly I have felt alive
.