Beyond Revanche, page 34
General Henri Mordacq drove with them, as did Clemenceau’s son Albert. Jacques surmised that the Tiger probably wanted decent company before the dreary meeting ahead. As usual, an army brigadier sat in the front beside him while two other detectives stood on the fender, further protecting their precious cargo. Jacques-Francois had driven along this route so often that the car could feasibly have navigated the short drive on its own. He turned right into Rue Passy, left into Boulevard Delessert and swung slowly round the corner to avoid the tram lines which crossed the cobbled road at that junction. Jacques was aware of the crowd of well-wishers who waved and applauded the prime minister, but the Tiger was too busy discussing the business of the day to acknowledge them.
Crack.
Crack again.
The glass on the left hand side splintered. Instinct took over. Jacques accelerated at such a speed that the detectives on the fender clung to the hand grips in fear of their lives.
“Stop!” roared Clemenceau. “Stop and get him.” The attacker began to run behind the car as it shuddered to a halt, still firing shots which pinged harmlessly from the bodywork. “Get him. I’m ordering you to stop. NOW!” the Tiger roared.
Both detectives and an army officer sprang into action, firing at the blond-haired target in the middle of the road. Having emptied his gun at the presidential car, the would-be-assassin raised his hands in surrender. In a blur of screams and yells of outrage from those who were still standing at the corner in shock and utter disbelief, a policeman threw himself at the assailant and downed him impressively with a side-tackle which would have earned applause from rugby enthusiasts. The angry mob smelled blood. Realizing that it was safe to attack the unarmed assailant, they rounded on the dazed man with such ferocity that the gendarme had to stop them ripping his body apart. His clothes were torn from him and the detectives had difficultly pulling him to his feet.
“He’s under arrest. Leave him.” But punches and kicks continued unabated.
“Are you alright, Sir?” Jacques thought he saw blood seeping through the prime minister’s waistcoat.
“Wounded, I think. Just a flesh wound.” Henri Mordacq helped his friend into a more comfortable position and instructed Jacques to drive to the nearest hospital, the Boucicaut.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Tiger boomed. “Take me home. Now. I’m perfectly fine.” Jacques-Francois looked at General Mordacq for reassurance.
“Rue Franklin, immediately.” The prime minister was not to be crossed.
“You have to be examined, father. You need to go to hospital for a full examination.” Albert Clemenceau tried to object but his father would have none of it.
“Do as you are told. Home. The doctor can come to see me.” The old man was in control and not to be crossed.
Jacques drove back to Rue Franklin and while the others attended to the wounded leader, he called Mathieu at 36, where the news had already shaken the building like an earth tremor. He had little to add other than he thought one of the bullets had grazed his own arm.
“It’s a blur. All happened so fast. Tiger’s wounded, but I don’t know how badly. He’s playing it down.”
“Nothing more dangerous than a wounded Tiger. Have your arm looked at by a medic and get back to Rue Franklin as fast as you can. We have to know exactly how he is.”
In Rue Franklin, the prime minister’s apartment became the most overstaffed hospital ward in France. A military surgeon was first on the scene. He had dealt with so many traumatic injuries that Clemenceau’s small wound looked more like a scratch. He was joined within minutes by the eminent Professor Gosset who admitted that the patient was lucid and comfortable but his advice was “hospital.”
“No,” Tiger growled again. “Hospitals are full of seriously wounded heroes. This guy fired shots at me from point blank range and missed. Well, almost missed, he conceded. I hope to God he wasn’t in the army. It’d derail the peace talks if the Germans thought that our men couldn’t fire guns from point blank range. We’ve just won the most terrible war in history and this bloody useless Frenchman misses me six times out of seven.”
But the doctor was having none of it. “He has to have an x-ray, no matter what he says. It’s the seventh bullet I’m worried about.”
Bernard Roux heard about the assassination attempt as his security meeting with British, American, and Italian intelligence officers in an ante room at the Palace de Justice was about to begin. He cancelled it and placed himself at the hub of the inquiry. Mathieu was already on his way to the commissariat in Rue Bas-le-Vent where an interrogation had begun. The officer in charge had slung the gunman’s defiant figure, still half naked and clearly frightened, into a room devoid of charity.
“I think I have to start, Monsieur, with a word of caution to you. Normally when murderers are brought in here, we dish out the appropriate welcome, but beating you to a pulp would be a waste of time, and effort. The public appear to have got to you first. But let me assure you of this: should you try to be smart, lie to us, conceal anything, or fail to tell the whole truth first time, we will wait till your injuries have begun to heal and then beat you properly. Understood, Monsieur? And it will be a pleasure. The prime minister is a hero in these parts.”
At which point, Mathieu burst into the room. All eyes turned to the captain from no. 36 and with a strange shiver of deja vu he remembered the night that the assistant commissioner had charged into Raoul Villain’s interrogation and taken him away. Taken them off the case, or tried to.
“My apologies,” he began. “I would like to sit in on this.”
“You don’t want to take charge, Captain? You are the senior officer.”
“No, no. Please continue. You lads have done a terrific job in arresting the suspect so quickly and getting him safely into custody. I just want to hear what he has to say.”
“By all means. Please have a seat.”
“This is Emile Cottin, Sir.” He turned to the confused and battered prisoner. “Monsieur Cottin, let me introduce Captain Bertrand from the Deuxième Bureau. He will be listening to your every word.” Emile Cottin was clearly frightened. He glanced at Mathieu, but turned away lest the stony faced police officer had mystical powers which his folly had disturbed.
“You are Emile Cottin?”
“Louis Emile Cottin,” he whimpered.
“So, Louis Emile Cottin, explain what happened this morning. Leave no detail out.”
“I shot Clemenceau in his limousine on Boulevard Delessert.”
There was a strange timbre of defiance in his voice, a mixture of fear and pride laced with quiet assuredness. He fixed his eyes on the blank wall behind his interrogators, hoping to distance himself from the proceedings. Mathieu grunted guttural disapproval as if to prepare the room for a change of approach. The interrogating officer understood.
“I think you should continue the interview, captain.”
“Certainly.” Mathieu turned to Cottin and said, “How many of you were there?” Louis Emile was lost. Completely perplexed by the people around him. He had not thought through what might happen because he didn’t care. “Tell us what happened. How you did it. Who all was involved? Why did you try to kill the prime minister?” Before he could reply a change of plan was ordained from above.
Bernard Roux, having spoken to the prime minister’s office, the president’s office, and the Ministry of Justice ordered that Cottin be brought immediately to the Palaise de Justice for a formal interrogation. At every level of responsibility, desks were cleared and records examined to ensure that the finger of blame could not be directed at those in charge. The change of surroundings loosened Emil Cottin’s reticence and his bowels.
“Clean him up and bring him straight to the upper corridor interview room. I’ll continue in ten minutes. He speaks to no one other than me. Clear?” Roux was waiting for Mathieu with customary impatience, smoke rising with his blood pressure. He wanted to know how it could have happened. Here in Paris, with the whole world looking on.
“There were at least half a dozen gendarmes positioned around that stretch of road. How did he manage to avoid their suspicion?”
“Went for a piss. Simple as that.”
“What?” Roux’s Gauloises almost fell from his open mouth, but decades of practice allowed him to avoid the indignity of such an error.
“He sauntered into the street and went for a piss in the street urinal. No big deal. That’s what urinals are for. Took his time and left by the rear exit when people began to cheer. He knew that Clemenceau’s car always swung away from the tram lines, so he calmly stepped into the street and fired off three shots before anyone realized what was happening. When the car sped off he ran onto the road and emptied his gun chamber. Tiger ordered the protection team to stop and go for him, and ironically, if he hadn’t, the crowd on Rue Delessert would have pulled him apart.”
“Would have saved a great deal of paperwork if they had,” the chief mused.
Cottin was grilled non-stop for two hours by the highest-paid assembly of inquisitors Mathieu had ever seen in one place. His actions and responses were dissected by the director of police judiciary, the procurator general, the state procurator, a judge, and a pack of lawyers.
“Where did you get the gun?”
“I bought it for thirty-five francs some months back, from a badly maimed former soldier.”
“He was willing to part with a good solid Browning for thirty-five francs?”
“He was desperate and destitute. Have you the slightest idea what that means? To wander the streets of Paris, cap in hand, dragging a withered rump of a leg behind you? Thirty-five francs bought him enough drink to forget it all for a few hours.”
The inquisitor reddened into unjustified anger. To hide his embarrassment he shouted in Cottin’s face. “Who helped you? I see that you claim to be a well-known anarchist and member of the Communist Federation of the Seine?”
“It’s not illegal now, is it?” Cottin’s sarcasm bit deep. He had no intention of pleasing his audience.
“Why did you want to kill the prime minister?”
Emile Cottin slumped in his chair. His matted blond hair and facial contusions, torn vest, and thin bruised arms gave him the appearance of a third-rate boxer who had fought above his weight, and failed miserably to land a blow. He had almost begun to enjoy the exchanges with these bourgeoisie elitists who clearly had no idea about street poverty or living on the edge of destitution in a once glorious city. But they had touched a raw nerve. His hatred for Georges Clemenceau ran deep. He was the man who had prolonged the misery of the war; a war in which he had lost so many friends. He was the bastard who used the police and army to crush strikes and attack unions.
“Because I hate him and all that he stands for.”
Mathieu drew a long breath in anticipation of a hard day ahead and a longer night beyond. Two months ago, no. 36 had received information about suspected Bolshevik activity loosely based in Switzerland aimed at destroying the unity of the allies in Europe. Stories abounded of arrests at the Swiss border, where suspected agitators had been turned back and refused entry to France. Agents raided the working man’s lodging house in Montrouge where Cottin lived and found quantities of anarchist and communist literature. Emile did not smoke or drink, but he read profusely. While the right wing papers carried unsubstantiated reports of his association with a secret Bolshevik group in what they described as, “the more sordid quarters of Paris,” Mathieu knew that the secret service had no factual evidence. It transpired that Cottin was a known activist who worked at the Caudron airplane factory after he had been invalided out of the army. There were hundreds like him. His police record included three sentences for inciting soldiers to disobey orders, and according to the report, his final arrest was because he shouted “Death to Clemenceau.”
What disturbed Mathieu most was the web of unproven inferences which likened Villain’s cowardly murder of Jean Jaurès, and the attempt on the prime minister’s life by Emile Cottin. From nowhere newspapers reported that the police were looking for a “correctly dressed” youth who had allegedly called at Cottin’s lodging on the evening before the attempt to kill Clemenceau. That was a lie. There was no such police activity. Not a single report. No one was looking for an accomplice, but there were men in high office who knew that Villain had accomplices. They were deliberately muddying the waters.
Raoul’s Story
Smell the Coffee
Then it happened. As naturally as the spring tides raise the river levels. Joy of joys. Wonder of wonders. They agreed a trial date. At last.
Maitre Giraud and Maitre Bourson had a plan. To be frank, I don’t know for sure if it was their plan, for Monsieur Georges and Action française always had a plan. It was very simple.
“Wait.” How Giraud loved to take the lead.
“Say nothing,” echoed his witless friend.
“Mention no one.” What? Did they imagine that I had forgotten the mantra?
“You will see. We will stand by you.” Stupid Bourson never said anything of consequence.
“Unless…” But of course, there was no unless. For almost five years I had repeatedly said nothing other than I killed Jaures on my own.
“Trust your friends. Always.” They nodded to each other. Just like…
“Remember that, my friend.” Bourson smiled at me like a bemused Buddha. “Trust us,” he insisted.
Really?
Carbolic brought me a bag of coffee beans which I had never seen before. He said that a manservant of “a friend” had delivered them to La Santé. They smelled divine. When I let him inhale the wonderful aroma, Carbolic’s eyes opened wide and he said, “Very expensive, very. It’s Blue Mountain, from Jamaica. Louis XIV brought it over to France, you know.”
How could he have had such knowledge? The man couldn’t tie shoelaces yet he made those ludicrous statements. “Only two men in Paris can afford such luxury…so who is your secret admirer, Sir?” I was intrigued by his interest. “Come now, Sir. You can tell me, surely?”
“It’s forbidden. Need to cut out my tongue. Or rather, they would cut out my tongue if I told you.”
I decided to play his game. “Let me offer you a few possible initials?”
Carbolic paused for a second and said slowly, “R or Z.” Then I understood. It was more than a gift. It was a sign of things to come. Riches. Wealth. Fame and fortune. I knew who the Z was, and was fairly sure of the R. But I shook my head without comment.
“I hear that your trial date has been set.” Carbolic smiled knowingly.
“You hear many things, Carbolic. Perhaps you should be more careful with such secrets. I understood that the date had not been made public. Have you been listening at my cell door?” I stared hard at him, watching for his reaction.
“Ah, my friend, the orderly who cleans the Governor’s office might see a communication left carelessly on his desk.” He bowed his head with theatrical precision as if he rehearsed such mannerisms in front of a mirror. “But if it is a secret, worry not. I am the keeper of secrets. You can trust me.”
Putain, I thought. “My word,” I said.
Carbolic donned his most obsequious stance. “Would you like me to make you a cup of coffee?”
The offer sounded generous, as if it were his bloody coffee beans. “I’m not sharing them with you, if that’s what you think.”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’m not particularly fond of coffee anyway.”
Liar. I knew a liar when I heard one. “Shame,” I said. It wasn’t really a shame, but I chose to be polite.
He procured a small pot of steaming water and within seconds the all-pervading smell of luxury transformed my little cell into a grand café deluxe. Slightly bitter for my taste, I considered asking if he could find some sugar to add to the coffee, but that would have betrayed a weakness I could not afford. Strong men drank strong coffee.
“And what do they say in the streets about Clemenceau? Will he die? I hope not. What will become of me if he dies?”
“No, Sir, it will take more than a bullet lodged in his lungs to kill the prime minister. Much more.”
It was a terrible thing, to attempt to murder a great man in cold blood.
“I was shocked to hear about the anarchist who tried to assassinate Clemenceau. What won’t these people do? How do they think it makes our country look when the eyes of the whole world are turned to Paris and everyone who has come to Versailles sees how these Bolsheviks and communists behave? I heard that bystanders ripped his clothes off and pasted his face black and blue. A butcher’s boy landed the first blow, or so the papers say. Good on him, I say. He would have been killed in the street if the police had not intervened. They should have left the people to get on with it.”
Carbolic’s face twisted through a rainbow of expressions. He appeared to be on the point of speaking on several occasions, but failed to find the precise words. Was he having a heart attack? Was this how a stroke began? Was he laughing or choking? Was he in pain?
“Are you alright, Carbolic?”
Wide-eyed and speechless, it took him some time to recover his composure.
“You really must take care. Be a bad day if you survived all the influenza, pestilence, bombing and shelling, and choked to death in here. Do you suffer these fits often?”
He shook his head. “I think it was a fit of irony, Sir.”
Strange man. I could never understand him. But I sought one more favor.
“Would you bring me a selection of quality newspapers, please? Le Figaro, Le Parisien would be appreciated.” I went to offer him money, but to my surprise I couldn’t find my purse. Could have sworn it was in my jacket.
