The Janeites (20 page)

‘Dear Colleague, it has for long been known that metamorphosis techniques are freely used: masquerading lawyers indistinguishable from real rats. Metempsychosis now flourishes; the souls of our lawyers’ granddams no longer inhabit birds.

‘It has recently been signalled that a group of lawyers in the Vatican practises religious discrimination, headed by a gifted swifty, known as Cardinal-Rat. They hand out certificates of conformity, guaranteeing the holder to be a genuine Catholic rat in good standing, backed by the threat that all rats of other persuasions are to be cast out of the community.

‘You should place all rats in your laboratory under close surveillance, to determine whether infection is present, not only the familiar phenomenon of rats fluent in legal terminology. Pay particular attention to those with a claim to be orthodox Christian rats (present concern is not so much with Muslim or Jewish rats), especially those wearing ostentatious insignia, showing signs of zealous observance,
or otherwise recognizable as engaged in this crusade to eliminate all but true believers. The Cardinal Rat, recognizable by extreme attachment to legal formulae, is said to be active in the Federal Republic, and if seen should be placed in strict isolation.’

“I don’t get it,” said Silvia. Raymond did though – grinning. His Distinguished Eminence, Cardinal Ratzinger, has been voluble lately about the True Church: Protestants need not apply. As a Jesuit Raymond is always suspect in scientific circles; we have a bad name for legalistic hair-splitting. The bare word ‘jesuitical’ is automatically pejorative. Too many of us are over-pally with the extreme right wing of clerical reaction, Opus Dei and the like – some indeed downright fascist. Going to America for the symposium, Doctor Valdez is going to get a lot of humour, some of it edgy, fired at him. Respected colleagues, some of them close friends, intensely sensitive about the death penalty or putting icecubes in the cognac, are looking to draw blood elsewhere.

Raymond’s research work, involving many rats and likely to involve a good many company lawyers, has been relatively peaceable, on the lines of chemical additives to food – a subject that attracts lawyers. Of recent months, a bit more Iatrogenic in quality: a witch-word this, with which medical jargon makes play, confident nobody will understand it. Roughly, there are medical treatments which, of course quite unintentionally, can contribute to the very affliction they are thought to help prevent. He’s aware of being on thin ice here. There are as many cancer-jokes, in the trade, as there are lawyer-jokes.

After sharing it with the immediate colleagues – ‘Watch out for any rats wearing Lourdes medals or who tend to get in a corner to recite their rosary’ – he went to see Paul the historian, his Companion in Jesus.

“Paul, where is it you get these marvellous cigars?”

“Well my dear, if I told you they are a personal tribute from Fidel you’d not believe me, though we’re friends come to that; much abused man, great deal of good in him. I’ll give you an anecdote instead of the ’14 war, on which as you know I’m thought an authority; the before-and-after are both of great interest. I believe it was in
Ypres that a group of English soldiers living in great misery found themselves surrounded and their officer handed round a parcel of very good cigars he’d saved for a rainy day. When the Germans lined them up outside they were smoking these wonderful things, to the edification of all present. My own attitude is comparable. It’s raining outside, I believe,” pretending to look. “You wouldn’t come to see me unless you were contemplating surrender.” So that Raymond told him about the Janeites and their wartime origins.

“Very good,” said Paul. “Like all good jokes, true at the core, compare these lawyers of yours, especially the Pious lawyers, who go to Mass daily.

“I’m going to give you a telling-off, because you’re a good doctor even when you behave like an imbecile, puffed up as you are with vanity and floundering about like a – but that’s what we all are,
pas
vrai
?
–
dolphins, and we get caught and strangled in those abominable nets. Thrashing about, trying hard, knowing ourselves doomed. I don’t know your Jane. English humour saves us pretty often. Did it work, d’you think, with your man?”

“To some extent. Who can say more? Early days as yet. We had a friend in common, old French politician we greatly liked, corrupt old man, very clever, immensely amusing. Strong on literature and that gave me the idea. Here we have a disciplined man, highly trained, magnificent physique, remarkable qualities, and just as in 1917 – what a waste! In my story the only survivor is a big strong chap who’s been shell-shocked into half-witted numbness and the only reality he can catch hold of is Jane, the little old woman who’d written a few books a hundred years before. Extraordinary books – she discards everything bar the moral essentials which now appear trivial. The group builds them into a standing joke, not altogether cynical because they all know they’ll be killed. Only this is worth holding to.”

Paul is a good, quiet listener.

“Who is it that has let everyone down? – it’s myself. I fell in love with this man’s wife. And she with me, I’m afraid. But she has gathered the courage and the honour to cut me off. And this has left me in despair.”

“Where did she go?”

“Back to her man; where else would she go?” crossly. “This trap has sharp teeth. Lord, Thou hast made this world but the shadow of a dream.” Paul took the ash off his cigar.

“This self-loathing that has overcome you is an unattractive trait. To indulge in anguish and contempt for yourself is consequent upon your contempt of the world, and that’s indefensible, as you well know. That the world frightens, appals or revolts is common form. Since the Lord you’re making free with gave himself trouble and suffering to redeem it, we must not have the insolence to despise it; that’s bad theology. As a doctor you are called upon to combat pain and misery: you swore, I believe, an oath to that effect. To hate the world is to increase misery; that shows you bad at your job.

“Your private life is no concern of mine – help yourself to some whisky my dear, forgive my negligence – but I can’t have you doing your job badly; that’s pride as well as vanity. Your pettifogging adulteries are of no interest at all but they make you suffer. You shot the albatross and now you have it round your neck. It was a living thing of great beauty and now it’s a horrible carcass stinking of bad fish. Your job is to heal wounds, not to make more. From what you tell me your young woman has defied the world and nobly. You may be called upon to do something more, I cannot know, before the albatross is finished with.

“Mustn’t feel contempt. Don’t belittle your skills. Even if it’s only prolonging a life, making an existence tolerable, restoring hope, increasing comfort. And then of course the man you heal goes out and steals from the poor, but that’s no concern of yours.”

“Fuck you, Paul.”

“Have some more whisky.”

Monsieur Philippe wasn’t happy at all. Gone to a lot of trouble for a good satisfying vengeance, and it fizzles, and now where are you? Even the local paper had been discouragingly meagre. Where he had counted on a gaudy headline, much rhetorical flourish, excitable speculation, outrage; a dry little five-line account headed ‘Explosives Attempt’ and having the mayor shout about ‘cowardly, stupid and
irresponsible’ – he said exactly the same about boys throwing stones: a poor show. ‘Considerable damage to the building exterior’ is meaningless. Corsicans busting a rural tax-office get a much better outcry. (He hadn’t realized that the local mayor was Geoffrey de Saint-Anne, who had ‘had a word’ with the editor.) No better than a tickle.

As is the way with a tickle one has to scratch it in the end. Monsieur Philippe was not able to resist going to see for himself. Prudently holding to the top of the slope and peeking across; an overcast night, too, but there wasn’t much to see. That fancy stairway to the balcony was gone; some sagging masonry supported by builders’ jacks and the windows boarded up; garage door demolished – yes and no Porsche inside neither; had that gone? A result, but he’d hoped for much better. Bitched, really. Most of the blast had gone outward and been wasted.

It had been Geoffrey’s suggestion to have a dog ‘in case of prowlers’. William is not dog-minded: ‘They bark for nothing at all.’ Nor is Joséphine doggy: vague memory of Sherlock Holmes. ‘They do nothing in the night-time as is well known.’ However, Geoffrey produced the dog. Sleeping at the back (dog in the kitchen). William noticed nothing until she poked him.

“It’s growling.” So it was; and walking about; and bristling. One couldn’t see much, out of those front windows. No movement, or if there was it was gone now. He got a torch and had a tour: nothing. Dog had quietened now anyway.

Still, in the morning when he let the dog out he went out with it. Ingrained habit of observation. Well maybe, or maybe not, but security types have the verification habit too, so he went back for a camera and a measuring tape. Didn’t amount to much but there had been enough of a shower yesterday to tell fresh from old. And the dog had growled in the night-time. It would do no harm to verify a bit further. Most of cop-instinct is experience.

“Ho,” said Xavier. “You again. Retired, but now a rent-a-cop.” Scrabbling among his papers. “We’ve had a gendarmerie report… ‘Affair of stolen gas-tank’ – I love that. ‘The village supply is held in the shed. Large impressive padlock but easily opened.’ Mm, interrogation. Long confused tale about a half-empty one.”

“There’s a big hire-deposit charge on those cylinders.”

“Right; that’s how the shopkeeper noticed. Fella took it by mistake?”

“Would account for the damage being minor, maybe.”

Reading from his page – “‘The inbreaker knew his way about the village but it is suggested, no longer lives there’ – Their conclusion.”

“Village people know a full cylinder by the weight. Townspeople might not – My conclusion.”

“Now just supposing this geezer you fancy… we’ll have a go at these photos, might well tell us the type of car.”

“Turning out to be the widest-sold Renault on the market.”

“Nor is it evidence one could bring in to court: photos could have been made at any time.”

“I’m dubious about this theory anyhow. He wouldn’t know about the village, wouldn’t know where to look. He’d know how to open a lock but I don’t see him up there at all.”

“He may have an accomplice. Like who bashed your friend Doctor Valdez. We never saw the jeweller for that. But supposing we postulate someone familiar with that village and who got that gas-tank for him?”

“And knew it was half empty?”

“And thought maybe, fella won’t know the difference.”

Monsieur Philippe was also fishing. One has to persevere. A dud at one end of the pool; try the other. There was something to be made of these people. They were behaving in a funny way. Here in the town one didn’t see the woman around: certainty she was no longer living with the doctor, and he too had changed his habits. New car – rather sharp: nice little BMW. Didn’t go with the life style. And yes, seems to be planning a move; pricy building in the Musicians’ Quarter. What was going on? Hadn’t changed jobs; still that old bicycle to go to the research place.

Mr Cleverdick Barton – even knowing his name still thought of as Le Parisien, and a slyboots – was an enigma. One couldn’t follow him about: nothing absent-minded about that one. A cop
undoubtedly; evident since that unpleasantly jarring encounter. Never seemed to go to work; had been ill judging by the doctor’s visits, but now? The village gossip was that the Sainte-Anne woman had been married to him and ho, had gone back to live with him afresh, by all accounts. What now was the story with the doctor?

The explosion had been a flash in the pan. He’d seen as much: windows broken, a few shutters torn off, builders busy with those steps. Chewed the place up a bit, but not good enough. The tormenting taste of salt in the mouth was still there and would stay, until he got this account levelled.

How to get at the slippery bastard? Monsieur Philippe has lost faith in direct action. He preferred to arrange for people to trip themselves up. How about a letter? A technique he has used in business; you plant a few suggestions, which work in the mind. And the fellow might well do something silly. ‘Do you think of that doctor as a friend of yours? Or your wife? They are still screwing on the sly. You ought to wake up.’ On those lines. Three or four of those, the cat’s in with the pigeons. Complaisant husbands are not infrequent but if the fellow gets the idea he’s being made a fool of… One wants the bastard to squirm.

I’ve brought this on myself, thought William. A ‘
corbeau
’. Poison-pen letters in France come from a crow; a cunning bird. Sharp-eyed and slippery; easy to think of it busy writing this sort of stuff. It was of course the same man. He had ridiculed, humiliated that man in his own place. He knew he’d made a bad mistake, overplaying. He’d been angered, and had surrendered to anger. That man had been behind a sneaking attack on my friend, who had been badly hurt. The mechanisms by which this came about weren’t of great interest; in the past he’d known other nasty stories with the same kind of motive: the simpleton Janine was at the bottom of it, playing the call-girl. Think herself lucky if punishment hadn’t come her way. He’d known girls thrown out of moving cars for overstepping the bounds allowed them: she had some protector, no doubt.

This little man was still trying to get at him, and now through Joséphine; had been spying about, keyholing, it was obvious. Ray was
at risk too – but he had to control himself, to protect two people he loved… with any luck at all, Xavier would tie this sneak up, and with a ribbon round it. Pah, though; it had spoilt his day. A crow, winking and grinning, and writing little notes.

In the course of a hunt for a telephone number that she was quite sure she had written on the back of an envelope which had disappeared, Joséphine was head down in the wastepaper bucket; simple as that, all among this week’s promotions for the supermarket and the impassioned invitations to subscribe to things: poor postman, trudging under the weight of so much Passion. First she sat up, then stood up. William wouldn’t be bothered burning such things, or hiding them from her. Wouldn’t be framing them to hang on the wall, either: in with the rest of the junk mail. Whoever did that would be careful with fingerprints, or even those handy fragments of DNA we’re always told about. Saliva under the stamp, or the lick of the envelope? It didn’t have enough importance, even as a piece of evidence to put on a courtroom table.