Speak Softly My Love (19 page)

Speak softly, my love…for our love shall never
die.

...speak softly, softly, softly, my love.

Speak
low, speak low, speak low

Speak
softly to me my love

Speak
softly and tell me

Please tell me, tell me

Tell
me

Tell
me, my love

That
you will never go.

To
fall in love, is to be young again

And
to count the cost

Is to
die a little bit inside.

“…
Love, Didier!” Tailler blurted it out without
thinking.

Next thing you
know, they were laughing their damned fool heads off.

***

“
Okay. For starters, sir. Hubert and I would like to check out
this Didier Godeffroy seven ways from Sunday.”

Maintenon nodded.

“
Yes. Get to know our victim.”

“
We were thinking military service. He has no previous
criminal record. First thing we checked. You never know, right?
Otherwise we’re relying on Madame Godeffroy’s personal
identification. There are just too many of them around for any one
of them to be taken too seriously.”

“
Good point.”

“
Also, we’re going to ask about passports. Monsieur Godeffroy
almost certainly travels to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany,
Hungary at least. He’s the senior buyer, right? If he’s left the
country, customs should be able to tell us all that. He might take
the lady friend with him, even.”

Maintenon nodded.

“
You’re not buying the body in the river?”

“
We’ll wait on Doctor Auger’s report. Don’t forget, we have
two different spouses at least. Either one of them should be able
to identify a dead husband. The trouble is that we have no
other
identification,
not so far, for a body that is not in particularly good condition.
No wedding ring, for example. I think we should proceed with
caution there.” They should give away as little as possible. “We’ll
have fingerprints from the body in the river. We’ll have to figure
out how to get fingerprints from the households in question. Either
that or Gaston e Cie. Asking for that is asking for trouble,
especially as we don’t have too many facts.”

This
included the next of kin, who might be presumed to have the best
odds of benefitting from the gentleman’s death. Classic homicide
theory, right out of the textbooks.

“
Who else might identify the body?”

“
Good question. If the wife can’t do it, who could?
Also—”

“
And he is an orphan. Getting someone from work—this Barrault
character. Word would soon get out. No one knows a man like his own
wife.”

“
I want to get a few gendarmes. Policewomen, even.”

Levain
caught Maintenon’s eye, the look of amusement difficult to stifle.
Tailler was on a roll. Brave as hell physically, totally unsure of
himself and his training one minute, now all of a sudden he was
ticking off the points like a seasoned pro.

“
I want to put them in a room with twenty telephones. If
Monsieur Godeffroy really is out there somewhere on a buying trip,
then let’s find him.” Tailler took in oxygen, and lots of it. “I
got more—I think. But basically, we need to get them a list of any
place he might have stayed. The longer the list, the better, and
get them started on that.”

“
That’s a lot of man-hours.” Gilles opened up his
briefcase.

The
phone was ringing and Levain picked it up. He listened for a
moment.

“
Hold on.” He caught Gilles’ eye.

“
So?” Maintenon shrugged elaborately. “What have we
got?”

“
Dead girl. Strangled. Found on a front porch. We’re
wanted.”

“
Hmn. Very well. You and I will take that one—and leave these
beautiful young people to their work.”

Gilles
pulled off a shoe and turning it upside down, gave it a shake.
Levain relayed the information back. They were on their way.
Hanging up, he phoned dispatch to get them a vehicle, and in this
case he figured a driver as well.

“
Sir?”

“
Ah, yes, of course.” Gilles put the shoe back on, mystified
as there hadn’t been anything in there and yet it was like a sharp
little pebble or something.

He stood
up experimentally. Whatever it was, (or had been), it was gone
now.

Andre
was making quick notes and looking at the clock.

“
Andre.”

“
Yes, Gilles?”

“
Phone downstairs. It doesn’t seem like such a busy day. Tell
them we need, ah, four or five warm bodies for a little
project.”

“
All righty then.” Levain lifted the receiver, his finger a
blur as he dialed.

The desk
sergeant didn’t seem to be giving him too much of a problem going
by this end of the conversation. Tailler leaned back on the front
of his desk, braced with both hands, looking studiously
casual.

Levain
hung up and stood. Gilles already had his hat, and with the weather
being changeable, he had his coat on as well.

“
Okay. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

The door
closed behind them.

Tailler
looked at Hubert.

Hubert
looked at Tailler.

“
See? That’s how it’s done, Hubert.” He straightened up, and
went over to stand looking out the window, arms crossed, very tall
all of a sudden.

Hubert
had the impression Tailler had always wanted to command troops in
battle.

“
Sure. Let’s just hope we get something…and soon.”

***

Less
than sixteen minutes later, heavy shoes clomped in the
hallway.

A loud
knock came at the door.

“
Come in, come in.”

Tailler
and Hubert had quickly found a conference room that wasn’t being
used. Using Maintenon’s name and a little fast talking, they had
reserved it for at least the next forty-eight hours.

Tailler’s mouth opened.

The
first uniformed gendarme bent his head and came in, shoulders
blocking out the sight of those behind him.

“
Sir. Reporting as ordered for unspecified duties…”

“
Yes, yes, come in. How many are there?”

Two
policewomen and this big one. Tailler gave him another
look

“
All right.” He handed them each a thin file folder. “We’ve
grabbed a room. We’re getting some additional phones rigged. What’s
going to happen, is that you’re going to be calling the numbers on
the list and asking a few simple questions. If there’s no number
listed, go through the telephone exchange—and if you get a number,
write it down. If you get a hit, you tell them to hold on—better
yet, hang up. Then you come running and find one of us.”

Hubert
was still pounding away at the typewriter.

He came
to the end of the document in question. Sitting up straighter, he
cranked it up and out of the machine.

He
looked around.

“
You.”

The big
male cop responded.

“
Me?”

“
Anyone. Get over here and copy these documents. We need it
quick, because we want to get you guys started.”

He got
out of his chair and the bulky fellow, fingers like sausages he
had, quickly took his place.

“
How many copies, sir?”

“
Make it six—no, eight. You can only do a couple of carbons at
a time.” Hubert pulled out a drawer and showed him the paper and
thin carbon sheets.

“
Yes, sir.” He peered down at the page, inserted fresh sheets,
and then began pecking away.

Hubert
looked at Tailler. “Any other ideas?”

“
Yeah. Take the ladies down the hall, show them where they’ll
be working. While you’re doing that, I will write up, ah, some
quick little briefing notes. They need to know exactly what they’re
working on.”

Hubert
nodded. He had an idea. Nipping to his desk, he quickly sorted
through his materials.

“
Here.” He picked the first one he made eye contact with.
“Take these down to the photo lab and tell them we need six or
seven more copies of each—the file number is right there. Tell them
to bring it up to Room Three-Sixteen.”

He
looked over at the officer typing, and raised his voice.

“
You hear that? Room Three-Sixteen.”

A hand
came up in acknowledgement.

“
Yes, sir.”

Hubert
nodded at Tailler.

“
Okay, we’re off—”

“
And?”

Hubert
cracked a quick grin.

“
Keep up the good work, Emile—we’re doing okay here. We’ll get
some more people when they can spare them.” And no sooner, in other
words.

The look he received in return was kind of hard to pin down.
There might have been some
demur,
in there.

“
The great thing about being cops, is that we’re never going
to run out of work.” Their acolytes chuckled at the unexpected
response, the tone spot-on.

Sad, but true.

Poor old
Tailler was just a bit out of his depth but struggling manfully to
stay afloat.

That
look pretty much said it all.

***

It was a
very good thing that Hubert had put some thought into briefing
their untried, untested, impromptu little team.

Barely a
half an hour later, they were all hard at work.

“
What? Oh, Monsieur Godeffroy. We’ve been trying to reach you
all day.” Looking very white around the eyes, the policewoman on
the end of their long table turned and beckoned
furiously.

Hubert
was momentarily riveted to the spot, then galvanized into a kind of
twitch. Here was their big chance. This was the unexpected rearing
its ugly head. Always when you least expected it.

Sacre merde,
he had no idea of what
to do.

“
Holy.” The hoarse whisper cut through everything as he threw
his pen at the back of Tailler’s head and
that
conversation was quickly cut to
a bare and shocked silence.

Tailler
stared at him, rubbing the sore spot. Hubert pointed at the
policewoman on the other end of the table.

“…
and how are you today, Monsieur Godeffroy?”

The room
was a babble of talk, with three of them and Tailler going one
minute, and dead quiet the next. All eyes and all ears were frozen
in place.

The
policewoman, turning back to the conversation, appeared to be
listening. She’d gotten a hit and the switchboard had put her right
through.

“
Ah, yes, Monsieur. We were just wondering if your
refrigerator was running—” Almost choking on it, she managed an
insane giggle.

You
could have heard a pin drop in the room, and then with a sudden
wince, she pulled the thing away from her ear and quickly put her
finger on the button.

She
turned to Hubert.

“
Where
was
that, exactly?”

She
nodded, pencil in hand.

“
It’s some little village. Just north of Chalons sur
Champagne. Hotel d’Esprit. What do we do now, sir?”

“
That was good thinking, Jeannine. Outstanding! I thought my
heart was going to stop dead. Just dead, there.” He had to ask.
“What did he say? Did he say anything?”

“
Well.” She rolled her eyes. “He has an extensive vocabulary,
sir.”

They all
looked at him and then laughed when he laughed.

“
I don’t believe it.” Tailler was right—

Hubert
was finding it very hard to accept that they had located their
missing husband.

Just
like that, right out of the blue.

Tailler was the first to hang up the phone. Dubiously, having
barely gotten started into the work, the other two reluctantly cut
it off with a
click.
They could always call back and try again.

“
Okay, we need a minute to think about this one.” Hubert rose
and with a look at Emile, headed for the door.

Tailler
got up out of his chair.

“
All right, people. Hmn. What I want you to do,
ah…
now,
is to
call around. We know where he is. So, let’s find a map somewhere
and narrow these lists down. He’s been gone for a few days now.
He’s using his own name. He must have been staying somewhere. There
are hundreds of vineyards, vintners, dozens of fine chateaux in the
vicinity. It’s also wine country, Gaston e Cie is a big company and
this guy is well-known up there.”