Caravaggio's Angel (22 page)

Inevitably, when the call eventually came I was away from my desk. The caller wasn’t Edmunds, but Lebrun. In his halting English, he left a number for me to call. I dialled it at once: it was engaged. I spent the next half-hour punching Redial, but it went on being engaged. Finally I got through. Somewhere in France, a phone rang. There was no reply and no answering machine. I dialled the number again from scratch, in case I’d got it wrong in the first place, but the same thing happened. In the split second between ending his previous interminable conversation and my getting through, Lebrun had vanished.

I tried again ten minutes later. This time I had better luck. The phone not only rang, but was picked up. ‘Lebrun.’

I said, in French because it was easier and I really didn’t feel like playing about, ‘Monsieur Lebrun, it’s Regina Lee. I saw that Madame de Beaupré’s body was exhumed, and I wondered if there were any autopsy results.’

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Over a week ago. Did no one say anything to you?’

No, I said. I’d heard nothing.

‘There was nothing. She died of old age. A heart attack. The case is closed.’

‘Then I can have my passport back?’

‘
Bien sûr
,’ he replied. ‘
Au revoir, madame
.’

Just in time, I remembered to ask him if he could send me an email to this effect. Then at least I’d have proof that this conversation had taken place. He said he would, and twenty minutes later it arrived.

By then I was dancing with fury. Edmunds must have known this all along. What did he think he was doing? Sitting there letting this hang over me, holding on to my passport, when all the time the results were there, the case closed. Spitting with fury, I called David to see what we should do next.

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘You’ll do yourself no good.’

‘But I’m sure he knew.’

‘Whether he did or didn’t, all you want is your passport back. Just concentrate on that, it’s the only important thing.’

I rang Edmunds, but of course he wasn’t there. Probably down at the pub with his mates or indulging in a few desultory stop-and-searches. I left a message to say Lebrun had told me the case was closed, and had sent me an email to confirm it, which I would forward. I was coming by Paddington Green in an hour, and I expected my passport to be ready and waiting for me to collect.

Paddington Green is the place they store all the really edgy prisoners, IRA bombers and terrorists of every stripe. It isn’t nice. It’s situated on possibly the nastiest site in London, just under the roaring Westway and immediately over a particularly squalid pedestrian underpass. I’d passed the building a hundred times, but never actually gone inside. However, I was too furious to be intimidated. I marched up to the counter and demanded Detective Sergeant Edmunds.

‘Who wants to see him?’ a harassed woman wanted to know.

I told her my name and explained that he knew I was coming by and should have left my passport to be picked up. She looked, but there wasn’t anything. She rang his extension. Of course he wasn’t there.

I asked her when he might be back.

‘I’m afraid I can’t say. You can wait if you like.’

I explained that he should have returned the passport a week ago, and that I needed it now as I was going to Paris in the morning. (Who knew? I might be – if I had a pass-port.) I produced my receipt and a copy of Lebrun’s email: she studied them without much interest and said there wasn’t anything she could do, I’d have to speak to him.

I suggested he must have a cellphone. She did not take the suggestion kindly. Those numbers were for use in an emergency. This was not an emergency.

By now I was beginning to actually shake with rage. I said, ‘What’s the name of his superior officer?’

‘Please calm down, Dr Lee,’ said the woman. ‘Losing your temper won’t help matters. I’ll try his extension again. You never know, he may be back.’

As luck would have it, he answered. Back from the pub at last.

‘John? I have a Dr Regina Lee here at reception. Something about a passport . . . OK.’ She put the phone down. ‘He’ll be down shortly. Please take a seat.’

Steaming, I took my place among a disconsolate gather-ing of the marooned. It was twenty minutes before Edmunds ambled in. He was carrying the passport in its plastic bag. He nodded, handed it over to the woman, and, perhaps wisely, ambled out again without emerging from behind the protective counter. In fact I probably wouldn’t have attacked him: even I could see that might be counterproductive. I signed for the passport and left before they took it into their heads to confiscate it again, then celebrated the return of foreign travel by booking a seat on next morning’s seven twenty Eurostar.

20

Paris, October

My first destination was the Louvre, and an unannounced visit to Charles Rey. There were things I wanted to know, and even if he didn’t want to share them, they might nevertheless be divined if I could confront him face-to-face. And that could only be achieved impromptu. If I tried to make an appointment, not only would the element of surprise be lost, but he almost certainly wouldn’t agree to see me. Whereas if I just turned up, he couldn’t escape.

London was being battered by October gales, but Paris, when I arrived there, sparkled palely under an autumn sun. I took the metro to the Louvre, and descended to the subterranean corridor that contained Rey’s office. It was eleven forty-five – not lunchtime yet, there should be a good chance of finding him at his desk. I knocked, and Janine Desvergnes’ voice called, ‘
Entrez
.’

I entered. ‘
Bonjour, madame
. Regina Lee from the National Gallery, we met in June. Is Monsieur Rey in?’

‘
Bien sûr
.’ Madame Desvergnes sat trimly at her desk. I wondered if she’d seen the story and noted my starring role. It seemed impossible she had not. ‘Naturally I re-member. Is Charles expecting you? I don’t seem to have anything written down.’

‘No, I was passing by, so I thought I’d take a chance.’

She got up and opened the door that led into the inner sanctum. ‘Charles – Madame Lee from the National Gallery’s here to see you.’

There was a short pause: I imagined him trying, unsuccessfully, to devise a way out. Eventually a chair was pushed back, and he appeared in the doorway. After the first brief shock the young man I’d known warped into the middle-aged figure before me. He’d got plumper, and his thick black hair had receded and thinned, though the terrifically unhealthy white complexion was unchanged. Presumably he was registering similar details. I dyed my hair so incessantly these days that its original colour was a mere flickering memory. Had my Ghent self still been a nut-brown girl? She’d certainly been a larger girl . . . For a minute we stared at each other. Then, wordlessly, he waved me into his office.

Charles Rey and I were about the same age, but on Juliette’s measurement – are you successful? – he definitely scored higher than me. Where I had only the most exiguous share of a communal secretary, he commanded an outer office complete with watchdog. This time, however, the system had unaccountably failed, and he was trapped. He looked sulky, there was no other word for it. He nodded perfunctorily towards a chair, closed the door, then slumped down behind his desk and waited.

‘Nice to see you again after all these years,’ I opened cheerfully.

He grunted, not actually disagreeing in so many words. ‘Next time it would be better if you’d call if you’re plan-ning to visit. I might easily have been away from my desk.’

I didn’t bother to remark that this was exactly the point. Why waste precious time telling him what he already knew? ‘I wondered if you’d remembered any more about that Caravaggio, or Monsieur Rigaut,’ I said sweetly. ‘I was in Paris, so I thought I’d take a chance and drop by.’

‘Uh.’

‘I’m still hoping you may change your mind and lend it to us.’

He shook his head. ‘Not a chance.’

‘Give me one good reason why not.’

He looked at me, his elbows on the desk, his chin resting on his clasped hands. Then he leaned back and spoke as from a great distance. ‘Just accept it. Some things are more trouble than they’re worth. What are we talking about, some piffling little exhibition? Take my advice, give it up. It’s not worth it.’

Trouble indeed. I wondered how much he knew about it. ‘Perhaps it’s worth it to me.’

‘Then you’re stupider than I thought.’

Temper, temper! This was obviously a sore spot. All the more reason, then, to probe it further. ‘You must see, Monsieur Rigaut’s behaviour was puzzling. First he said yes, then all of a sudden no. No reason, just no. But that’s ridiculous. It can’t have been just a whim.’

‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘I don’t suppose it was a whim.’

‘Fine, so there was a reason. And I thought, since you knew him, you might know what it was.’

He still didn’t move, but the colour rushed to his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

I didn’t believe him. Was that a bead of sweat on his fore-head? He knew all right, but he wasn’t telling. Why not? Because someone had told him not to? If so, no prizes for guessing their name. As for the leverage, that was easy. In France, museums are part of the state. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Are you accusing me of lying?’

‘Of course not. But if something should happen to strike you . . .’

He shook his head and said, ‘You’ll just have to accept it,’ then added, so softly I could hardly make the words out, ‘otherwise you’ve seen the kind of thing that happens.’

Someone else had said that. Trying to remember who, I temporized. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do.’ He was definitely sweating now, no doubt about it. He got up from behind his desk and held the door open for me. ‘I don’t think there’s much more I can tell you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.’

I marched out past Madame Desvergnes, who kept her eyes demurely on her keyboard. I hoped Charlie wouldn’t take his annoyance, if that’s what it was, out on her. It seemed unlikely. Not much doubt who was the boss there.

I glanced at my watch: twelve fifteen. My next appointment was at twelve thirty. If I walked fast, I should just make it.

On the way, I remembered who’d used that phrase about seeing the kind of thing that happens. Manu. It had been Manu.

When I’d rung his number last night, expecting either absence or the man himself, to my surprise a woman’s voice had answered. For a moment I was disproportion-ately thrown – but why shouldn’t an attractive young man have lady friends? I pulled myself together and said, ‘Sorry to disturb you, I wanted to speak to Manu Rigaut.’

‘I’m afraid he doesn’t live here any more,’ said the voice. ‘But I can give you his new number, if you want.’

‘That’s very kind. If you would . . .’ Obviously, now that Juliette had died, he’d been thrown out of his cushy digs.

Manu duly answered the new number. He didn’t ask where I’d got it, nor did he sound particularly surprised to hear from me. As before, he merely acquiesced. I asked for his new address, and he told me 14, quai des Grands Augustins.

This was a part of Paris I knew well from the days when we used to visit our grandmother. Our mother had often taken us for walks along here on the way to the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes. Sam and I used to fantasize about what went on in the various buildings we passed, and when I got there I realized that number 14 was one we had particularly noticed. It didn’t go straight up like its neigh-bours but was prettily domed on the top two storeys, in a gentle curve of silvery lead. As I remembered it had been the home of a rich princess that a mad scientist was holding for ransom up in the roof behind the dome. And the scientist’s lair, it turned out, was exactly where Manu lived. ‘Take the lift,’ he said, as he buzzed me in. ‘I’m on the top floor.’

The ancient lift wheezed and groaned up to a landing with two doors. Manu was waiting outside one of them. We hesitated between the formality of a handshake or the slightly more familiar double kiss: I solved the problem by kissing him. These days, I was all but part of the family.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Had you any particular reason for this, or is it purely a friendly visit?’

‘A bit of both.’

He opened the door a little wider. ‘Come in. Or shall we go out? I don’t usually bother with lunch, but there’s a brasserie a few doors down if you’re hungry.’

‘I’m always hungry at lunchtime.’

We ordered steak and chips and a couple of beers. I said, ‘I thought you lived in the rue d’Assas.’

‘I did.’

‘Not any more?’

‘No, now I live here.’

‘It belonged to your uncle, right?’ The address had been niggling me all morning, but when I’d turned into the quai I’d remembered.

He nodded.

‘Won’t you have to move once the estate’s settled?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It belongs to me now.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Lucky you.’

‘That’s what they all say.’

He didn’t seem inclined to say much else. We concentrated on our steaks. When we’d finished he said, ‘Thanks, that was great. So. I’ve got to go somewhere in a bit. It might interest you. You can come, if you want.’

‘That’s very kind,’ I said, laughing. ‘Where to, exactly?’

‘You’ll see when we get there . . . It’s not for a while, though.’

We wandered back to the apartment. The space behind the dome was every bit as splendid as Sam and I had imagined it all those years ago. The door gave on to an entrance hall, with parquet floors and cream and gold-painted panelling, from which a door opened into a large salon, similarly parqueted and painted, that overlooked the river. The outside wall was gently curved above the three windows that framed the spectacular view; the inner ones were covered with bookcases interspersed with pictures, including a magnificent Poussin landscape with a temple and a scatter of nymphs and fauns, doubtless the booty from Russia. ‘Wow,’ I said.

‘Wow,’ Manu agreed.

He wandered restlessly around the room, nervously pulling books from the shelves and replacing them. The summer had tanned him, his grey eyes burning out even more insistently from the even brown of his skin and hair: a beautiful young man. But there was no spark there. Perhaps he wasn’t interested in women. Perhaps he wasn’t interested in anyone, full stop. There was something hollow about him. Where he’d lived before, his grand-mother’s house in rue d’Assas, had felt quite impersonal, like a very expensive hotel. This, by contrast, was very much someone’s home. Not Manu’s, though. Perhaps he’d grow into it.

He made us some coffee, and I noticed he was left-handed. ‘Your grandmother was too, wasn’t she? I seem to remember noticing.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, it runs in the family. Antoine, too.’ He sighed. ‘She said you’d been to see her.’

I waited for him to say something more – about the exhumation, about my part in the whole affair – but he fell silent and looked sad. Eventually he added, ‘She liked you.’

‘I liked her. I was very sorry to hear she’d died.’

‘She was old, I suppose.’

I said cautiously, ‘Lucky for me I got to her in time.’

He nodded. Perhaps, like me, he was thinking of the circumstances in which he’d given me her address, for he suddenly asked ‘So how’s your exhibition going?’

‘Not very well. First your uncle wouldn’t lend the pic-ture I wanted, and then your father tried to stop your grandmother lending hers. And now it’s his, so that’s that. He seems to have it in for me, your papa. I really can’t imagine why.’

‘Ah, my papa . . .’ He pulled out a big, thick, heavy book – it looked like a dictionary – and stood weighing it in his hands, as though considering how far and hard he might be able to throw it. ‘Believe me, you’re not alone. I some-times think he hates the whole world. Including me.’

‘You?’

He nodded. ‘Especially now. He was furious about this place. I think he thought maybe there was something between me and Antoine, and that this was a kind of pay-off. That I was some sort of tart.’

‘Was there?’

He shook his head. ‘Nope. Not that it would be any of his business if there had been. We were just fond of each other. Friends, you know? I miss Antoine so much. My father can’t understand that. He doesn’t have friends, just people he does or doesn’t control. He doesn’t do emotions. They’re too complex. You’re either for him or against him. And if you’re against him you’re an obstacle to be got out of the way. I’ve often thought he’s actually autistic. High-grade, but autistic. I think maybe he was jealous of Antoine and me – we had something he thought he should have had, but he couldn’t manage it. Another reason to hate us.’

‘They didn’t get on?’

Manu shook his head. ‘Not even as children, apparently. Antoine was always the favourite, and my father was always jealous of him.’

I thought of Helmut Kopp.

‘What about the place in rue d’Assas? Is that yours too?’

He shook his head. ‘Fortunately, not. Though there were some bad moments when we were waiting to know what was in my grandmother’s will. I really think he’d have gone mad if that had fallen into my lap too. Killed me or something.’

I thought this perfectly possible, but it seemed tactless to say so. Just because people are rude about their relatives doesn’t mean you can be, too. Instead I blandly confined the conversation to property. ‘So that’s his now? The little house?’

He nodded. ‘They can’t decide what to do with it. My mother wants it for her town house, but my father wants to rent it for lots of money to Americans. Or sell it. He never has enough money. The amount they get through . . . I expect she’ll win, though. She usually does. It’s not much fun being married to papa, but she makes sure it’s a comfortable sort of hell.’ So that must have been his mother I’d spoken to. ‘Why are you so interested in my family, anyway?’

‘Because they’re interesting,’ I said, which was certainly true enough. ‘Not many people’s fathers get to be President.’

He shuddered. ‘
Pas possible
. If people only knew . . .’

‘So why don’t you tell them, if you feel so strongly? It’d be easy enough. Every journalist in France would be fighting to talk to you.’ I thought of Olivier, and then of Delphine. Not such a good idea, perhaps.

He shook his head and looked at his watch. ‘Time to go.’

We left the apartment, creaked down in the lift, then set off at a brisk trot along the pavement. I scurried to keep up with his long-legged stride. ‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see when we get there.’

We turned into a side street with a parking garage, and took the lift to the fifth level. Manu led the way to a silver Mercedes. Not this season’s model, but still, a surprisingly lush if rather middle-aged vehicle for so young a man.

‘Was this your uncle’s too?’

He nodded and got on with the business of manoeuvring it down the ramps. We crossed the river and drove north towards Montmartre, then through St Denis towards the banlieue, the ring of suburbs whose poetic names – Mantes-la-Jolie, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Villiers-le-Bel – sit so ironically with today’s grim reality. I tried to chat, but Manu, preoccupied with his thoughts, or perhaps simply with the nerve-racking business of manoeuvring through the traffic, did not reply.