Speak Softly My Love (10 page)

They
gave her a moment to compose herself. She was on the verge of
tears.

“
Did you ever have any reason to believe that Didier might
have been cheating on you?” It was like a slap in the face, and
Tailler looked away.

Somehow
he dragged his eyes back and she was glaring at him, cheeks
flaming. It wasn’t even the question so much, it was the way he
said it. She sat, erect, hostile and yet ashamed of her lack of
control over herself.

“
No! Never.” She bit down, hard, and yet he could see the
thought bottom out somewhere inside there and she came up short—all
those absences.

Her face
came back and there was something new there.

Fear.

Anger.

Disgust.

The eyes
glittered.

“
No. He would never do that to me.”

Hubert
stepped in.

“
We’re trying to find out who might have been his closest
friend. Can you think of anyone? What about the people at
work?”

She took
a breath and mentioned a name.

“
Edmond. Barrault. Another salesman. They went drinking
sometimes or so they said—” Now she had doubts, which Tailler
himself had been responsible for introducing. “He was at head
office, of course, and they traveled together
sometimes.”

The lady
gave him yet another suspicious look. She was having the same
thought at exactly the same time.

It was
one of the risks, of their line of questioning, of where they
wanted to go and also what they had to hold back—what they didn’t
necessarily need to tell her. Yet living right there, surely she
had heard about the body in the park. Even if someone else did the
shopping, the cook or the maid, news traveled fast. Her friends at
least, would read the newspapers and remark upon it. At this point
Tailler was realizing just how fishy it was getting. On balance,
there was such a thing as social isolation, even among the
well-to-do. There were questions of mental hygiene…

Murder,
front page copy in the the more lurid journals, was nothing if not
geared to the vulgar, the lowest common denominator of society.
Some people just preferred not to read it! There were days when
Emile basically skimmed through the paper himself.

Even
so.

Fishy, fishy, fish.

The
three of them sat in her modern and tasteful salon. It was the
fifth-floor loft, usually the lowest in rent. What was interesting
was the upper-class young couple going up and down all those
stairs. That was unusual, but perhaps the compromise was worth it.
The single bedroom, and the bathroom were out of sight, presumably
behind closed doors. A place like this would have a small dressing
room between bedroom and bathroom. Everything else was one big
space, with pale wood flooring, a dark, plain green Danish couch
and chairs. Some odd-ball, shiny accessories came from a prominent
Italian designer. Nothing was made in Japan. There were stained
glass lamps, hanging from a sort of bronze brazier. The lights were
not turned on just then, and the thin pale curtains were thrown
back to admit a lot of light and air. Lush plants and even a lemon
tree in the corner by the big front windows rounded out what was a
very nice living space. It was avant-garde but tasteful. None of it
looked cheap, but he didn’t know much about it. They would get
around to asking about money and income soon enough.

The
woman herself looked washed out. The waiting and the wondering were
taking their toll.

“
Did you ever wonder if he had a mistress, or anything like
that?” Tailler would be asking about prostitutes and child brothels
next.

He’d
never seen an entire room painted white with one red wall before.
The effect was stunning enough. He was supposedly trained in the
art of observation.

Her face
was beet red and she wouldn`t look at him.

It came with the job, and he cast his eye over the low teak
coffee table, with its jumble of women’s magazines and some pulpy
romance magazines in digest format. There was a much-folded copy of
one of the major Paris dailies. Someone had at least made a stab at
the crossword puzzle. Clearly her heart hadn’t been in it. There
was the stub of a pencil right there and cryptic things written
faintly on the margin and available spaces. She had
Vu
and
La Vie,
artsy lifestyle
magazines, which was only to be expected in one of her class. One
would never see them in working class homes. The cover price was
outrageous even on a cop’s salary. Tailler wondered who in the home
read them, Didier or Lucinde.
Vu
for Lucinde and the much more political
La Vie
for Didier, he
thought.

Somewhere in the background goldfinches or something cheeped
and he wondered where she normally kept them. The kitchen might be
their home, which would sort of imply that she either never cooked
or never let them out of the cage.

The
silence was going on too long.

“
Well?” Hubert was back in the conversation after pretending
to go through a couple of pages of his notebook.

Silence
was a pressure tactic.

“
Ah, no. Never. Should I have thought of it?” She was hurt,
angry, and resentful.

Not
unexpectedly.

“
No, Madame and please forgive us. It’s just that we can leave
no stone unturned. It’s a serious business, to go away without
word. Leaving a nice lady like you completely in the dark. Or so it
would seem…” Tailler plowed on. “Seems like a colossal bit of nerve
to me.”

He
looked over at his partner.

“
Yes, when I run into that husband of yours, I may very well
give him a piece of my mind.”

She
looked away, very upset.

Hubert
had agreed to take the bad-cop duty next round and Emile might as
well make a total ass of himself while he had the chance. He had
her rocking on her heels.

So far
they hadn’t provoked any uncontrolled responses. This was merely an
observation, and meant nothing either way. Some people had very
good self-control.

Tailler
decided to make peace if he could.

“
I can’t help noticing, Madame. You have such a lovely home.
And I guess cops can maybe be, ah, you know—assholes sometimes. Is
the kitchen right there?” Emile lifted his right hand and indicated
an arch behind her, the heavy vertical maple planks of the door
giving that end of the room the impression of medieval
solidity.

Chaillot
wasn’t exactly homogeneous, but this particular little street was
definitely charming and he wondered about the rent.

She made
a quick decision, perhaps also sensing the need to back off for a
moment. There was the additional bonus of seeing the lady slide her
feet outwards so as to keep those luscious knees together, and then
ramp herself up out of the low settee. Her skirt had a way of
hiking itself up. She paused at the edge of the couch. She was
rocking back one minute and then leaning well forward the next like
she was straining at the leash. Every time she looked at Tailler,
his heart did this odd little flutter.

He hated
his own cruelty.

What can I fucking say.

There
was probably going to be no getting over it. It made the job a
little tougher sometimes.

She sat
there poised, blinking at them, wondering what to do.

“
If that green tone was any lighter, the red wall would have
overwhelmed it.” To be fair, it was a very, very dark red, almost
black in the way it kind of sucked the eye inwards.

She
stood, so they did too. Tailler took an appreciative stock of the
room.

“
Yes, it really is stunning, Madame.”

The green was very
soft.
Maybe that was the word for it.

A low, white sideboard stood out in stark relief, nothing on
it but a tall pale blue vase with long-stem flowers in blue—irises,
he thought. Something like that. Tailler’s mother would have
positively
shit
to see this room—he would make a point and tell her all about
it later. You had your good days and your bad days. One had to
admit, the work was always interesting. He had been taken out of
his background. So to speak. He lived in a completely different
world now.

“
It really is nice, Madame.”

She
turned her head, giving Hubert a grateful look. Leading the pair of
males, she opened up the kitchen door and Tailler went in. His head
barely cleared the frame. Hubert stood in the doorway and had a
quick look.

“
Wow. My mother’s kitchen is miniscule compared to this.” The
place was done in a cheery yellow and cream décor.

Tailler
gave an approving look around. Maybe she really did cook. There
were racks of copper pots and kettles hanging overhead. It was all
very dramatic, and there was the birdcage. It hung on a tall pole,
bent over at the top and curving down into a hook. There was a
dedicated, carefully fitted cloth for it, with one side pulled back
so the birds could greet the day and their mistress. A pair of
birds were twittering away, and it seemed very pleasant.

“
Very nice. I must say, it’s all open, clean and modern, isn’t
it.” The heavily mullioned windows and painted brickwork in a soft
creamy colour kept it bright even without the electric lights
on.

She was clearly thawing out. She was pretty good about
regaining control of herself. It was always interesting to study
people’s reactions, not that one didn’t partake of the tragedy in
equal doses. The
flics,
the cops at least, had some degree of separation.
They called it objectivity. It wasn’t really, it was just
different. There were plenty of emotions to go around.

They had
carefully taught themselves not to feel too much.

That was the
theory,
anyways.

Tailler
wanted to find Didier, but nowhere near as much as she would.
Without that body in the park, he doubted if they would have shown
anywhere near as much interest in a runaway husband. He had to bear
her pain in mind. She was doing pretty well. But then, she didn’t
know she was bereaved, (theoretically), hence the careful scrutiny
when she wasn’t looking. That scrutiny must have been somewhat
obvious on the intuitive physical level and Tailler would have to
ease up a bit. Keeping silent as he was, Hubert was much more
unreadable. She seemed pretty straightforward and above-board, but
then what the hell did he really know about women. Or anyone,
really.

You
never could. You never really did.

“
So tell me, did you or Didier have money of your own, before
your marriage? We know he’s a very successful man.” Hubert was
easing into the money questions.

She
stood to inherit nothing. Her parents had been lower middle class,
and her father was essentially bankrupt.

“
And your husband?”

“
Oh. Well, Didier started off with nothing, but as you say, he
has become very successful.”

Her
father had been a small businessman. What that meant was anybody’s
guess. Presumably she wouldn’t be starving to death any time soon.
Or maybe she would. There was high colour in her cheeks at all the
money questions. She wasn’t exactly stupid.

“
Well. I’m impressed. I mean that in the romantic sense. It
seems that you found each other.” Tailler had just embarrassed the
lady beyond belief…apparently.

He
caught Hubert’s eye and shrugged, as she had turned away. Hubert
just looked blankly back at him.

Monique
was desperately trying not to cry, maybe—maybe that was
it.

The lady
was definitely struggling with it.

She led
them wordlessly down the hall to show them the bathroom, again
larger than anything either one of them had seen in their own
little lives. It was a beautiful space. It was another nice
recovery. She seemed to have no shyness, no awkwardness now.
Perhaps it was a more familiar role, one more easily played. She
had probably showed others before, and the occasion would arise
again. That was one of the reasons for renovation; it gave you a
project, something to talk about. Ultimately, you got to show off
the results. That’s what Tailler got out of it.

Next she
showed them the bedroom, albeit a little hesitantly.

The room
was beautifully kept up and the bed firmly and crisply made.
Everything seemed to match beautifully, not like the homes of the
poor where everything was a mishmash, half of the stuff lost, half
the stuff found and half the other stuff hand-me-downs. Nothing in
here had ever been patched, repaired and re-broken. Nothing in this
place had been pulled out of an alley or a dustbin.

“
Do you have a maid service, Madame?”

“
Yes, but for how much longer? Didier pays the bills around
here. I’ve always been quite stupid, er, useless, with, ah. Money
and employment and a career and such things.” The girl, not always
the same one, came from an agency. They came in for four hours in
the morning, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.