The Ghosts of Paris, page 26
“Non, non. Merci beaucoup,” Billie managed in turn, though her heart was still pounding in her ears, her words seeming to come from some far-off, foreign place. She was aware that he might notice that she had succumbed to tears, and that thought was quite unacceptable. What a damn shame it was that it was not fashionable to wear smoked glasses at night. Her round cheaters would have been handy in such a moment.
“Bonne chance,” the man said, and they wished him the same.
She sincerely hoped chance, luck, would be on their side. And that it had been on Jack’s.
* * *
Billie and Sam sat near the banks of the Seine, watching a boat covered in fairy lights float peacefully downriver. It was a sight of such beauty that it could not come from the same reality as the corpse they had both encountered—let alone the fact that it had been fished out of the very same river, not even a year before.
Before them were two small glasses of brandy, a tablecloth, the incomparable view. They had a table to sit at, a waiter to call on, and even a wool blanket to hold back the night chill, presently placed over Billie’s long legs. “I have everything I need right now, dear Sam. And, well, I don’t think I shall eat again in some time.” The menu, though it would have been tempting hours earlier, was not of interest after their morgue experience.
“What you need is more brandy,” he told her. “Doctor’s orders.”
Billie laughed, then became serious. “Sam, you were . . .” She tried to find the words, at a loss for once. “Just thank you,” she told him simply. “Truly. You’ve been a gentleman tonight.”
“I hope I usually am?” he ventured.
“Oh yes. I think you know what I mean, though.”
A vision of the corpse flashed into her mind—that webbing, the sunken eyes . . .
“There’s no need to thank me, Ms. Walker,” Sam said, reaching a hand across the table and bringing her focus back to the moment. “That is a hard thing to have to do.”
“You’ve been there yourself, I take it,” she said, looking at his hand on hers. It was his scarred but whole hand, and she found it warm and reassuring.
“Brandy. That’s what they gave me. It helped. Is it helping?” he asked her.
She nodded. “I’m not sure how I’ll feel tomorrow, but right now it’s helping all right, as are you. It’s been such a strange trip. Paris is changed. So much has changed,” she said. “I didn’t see it at first, but it’s true. I thought at first it was like stepping back in time, but it’s not. Nothing is the same.”
She frowned as she watched the glittering water. The shifting reflections. The movement. Nothing was ever still. Time moved forward, seasons cycling through, the same and yet different. No moment could be preserved.
“Paris is still beautiful, Billie. Not down in that morgue, perhaps, but the rest of the city,” he said, and smiled.
She turned to face him. “We were lucky to find him, the man who let us in. He liked you,” she said.
“You also, I’d say,” Sam replied. “Come, let’s finish our drinks and walk back. Notre-Dame is close to here. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
She nodded again. Thank goddess for Sam. She tried to imagine what it might have been like to sit there alone, staring at the dark water, as if into an abyss. “Yes, I know Notre-Dame well. It’s beautiful at night.” She’d spent countless hours there when she was living in Paris. It was a quiet, safe space, and that meant something for a young woman alone.
Billie found her eyes lingering on Sam’s smile, his mouth. Yes, he was comforting to be around, she realized, and not just on this unusual Paris night. Even in the cramped conditions of their Lancaster plane, he had been a quiet, reassuring presence, bolstering her spirits in often unspoken ways, and then there were the countless times they had shared late-night shadows in Sydney, trailing targets or pretending to be a couple as they slid into bars and doss-houses, holding hands, having each other’s backs.
“You know, my mother quite likes you,” Billie confessed, and felt a horrifying warmth spread across her cheeks as soon as the words left her lips.
“Is that so. And what does her daughter think?” he asked.
Billie looked down at the tablecloth. “Her daughter thinks you are a fine gentleman, Sam. One in a million.”
He grinned. “Then you are one in ten million, I’d say.”
He did have a way with words. Billie straightened in her chair and adjusted the wool blanket, but it did little to sober her. That third glass of brandy had likely been a mistake. Why else would she be thinking of her assistant’s lips?
Billie paled, and she instinctively sat back, retreating from him. “I know we are here for work, but I have to say it’s a real pleasure to be here with you, Billie. Working with you is always a pleasure, but I’m grateful you chose to bring me on this journey.”
“Well, it hasn’t all been a pleasure, what with the automobile crashes and corpses,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but with you.”
His words hung in the air, her eyes again riveted to the lips they had come from, and somewhere in the distance someone was playing a violin. It was a cinematic moment and Billie considered everything she knew about Paris and its charms. “It’s a romantic city, I’ll give it that,” she said carefully, catching herself.
“It’s one of those cities you read so much about,” he said. “I’ve always been keen to see the catacombs as well. Do you think we could take a look, just for an hour or so tomorrow, perhaps?”
The mention of the catacombs brought that day in 1938 vividly to the fore. Her first date with Jack, if “date” was the right word for it.
Jack.
Her husband.
Billie paled, her hand retreating from Sam’s. “I . . . no. No, I don’t think so.”
When she looked up, just past his shoulder, she swore she could see the face of her husband across the river. Jack was there, just for a second, she could swear it, but she blinked and he was gone, the slim figure of some stranger turning and blending into the shadows once more. Billie blinked again and shook her head.
Sensing something wrong, Sam’s expression changed in an instant. “I’m sorry, Ms. Walker, I know we are here on a job. And suggesting it so soon after . . . tonight’s experience. I apologize for suggesting it. I should know better.”
Now she was seeing Jack everywhere—in the morgue, on the banks of the Seine.
Billie shook her head again, this time in response to Sam, and noticing her glass was emptied of every last drop, she motioned for the waiter. “No, Sam, you didn’t say anything wrong. It is a very famous attraction and you’re allowed to sightsee, and to have the odd moment off even in this crazy trade,” she said, and stood up, folding the wool blanket and indicating to the waiter she wanted l’addition, the check. A good night’s rest and maybe she could shake the horrors of the evening off. “You are doing quite enough work at the moment. Why don’t you see the catacombs for yourself tomorrow? I’ll get in touch with Simone again and see if I can’t narrow down some neighborhood hangouts to canvas for Montgomery.” She knew best where he might be found, if her theory was correct.
Sam stood, looking concerned. “Did I say something to upset you? If I did, I am awfully sorry, Billie.” He helped her with the blanket and pushed their chairs back under the table neatly.
“No, it’s not you, dear Sam,” she said, looking out at the Seine. “Please do some sightseeing tomorrow. I’ll catch you later and perhaps in the evening we can prowl Paris for Montgomery.”
This town has ghosts, she wanted to say, feeling sobered by her memories of the catacombs. One ghost in particular would not stop haunting her.
Twenty-six
Sydney, Australia, 1947
Detective Inspector Cooper,” Alma McGuire said. “Please do come in.”
Cooper doffed his hat to Alma and entered Baroness von Hooft’s flat at Cliffside, holding something in a small box. “Is the baroness in?” he inquired in a formal manner, doubtless knowing she was nearby. He seemed to instinctively know how to deal with Ella, which made Alma smile.
“Indeed I am, Inspector. Thank you for coming,” Ella called out, and sauntered to the front door in shimmering emerald Schiaparelli beads to welcome her visitor from the constabulary. “What an honor,” she said. “I gather you are not here to arrest me?”
He inclined his head. “No, ma’am. I am not here to arrest you.” He took in her glamorous ensemble without comment.
“Then I guess we can still be friends,” Ella said, sounding very much like her daughter. She placed one hand on her hip. “Please do come inside. What would you like to drink?”
“Nothing, thank you. I can’t stay long,” he said, looking around, holding his welt-edge fedora in large hands.
“Don’t say that, Inspector. You’ll have a tiny tipple,” Ella declared, and took him by the elbow. “Alma, bring the man a drink,” she called out as she led him to the settee. The man did not stand a chance.
Cooper seemed to realize there was no point in refusing, and he took a seat on the plush cushions opposite the baroness, as directed. “I thank you for your telephone call. You are unharmed, I hope, Baroness?”
“Quite,” Ella said proudly, chin raised. “Not so the other fellow.”
“I see,” he said, resisting a smile. Alma presented him with a glass of sherry, which he courteously took and placed on the table with a thank-you. “I paid Mr. Vincenzo Moretti a visit. If you are willing to press charges, I do believe we may have something.” He opened the box in his hand. “Do you recognize these?”
Ella gasped. Inside were a pair of glittering drop earrings, with ten little square sapphires set in a vertical line, surrounded by small diamonds. “Why, those are my sapphire earrings! They were taken from Billie’s bedroom. They’ve been missing for months.”
He nodded. “I thought so. They fit the description on file. These were found on a young woman at The Dancers and traced back to Vincenzo Moretti, who had given them to her to wear, according to her testimony. And they were found in his flat.”
“That rat! How dare he!” Ella picked up one of them, holding it in her fingertips, admiring the way the light shone through the deep-blue stones. She had missed them dearly, Alma knew. Billie had said they might have been found.
“What was he doing with these? And what was he doing in Billie’s office?” Ella demanded.
“I can’t yet say,” Cooper replied, his large hands clasped in front of him. Alma wondered what precisely that meant. He couldn’t or wouldn’t say? “Moretti has been arrested in connection with the theft of your earrings, Baroness von Hooft,” he informed Ella. “He is thus far cagey about exactly how he received his stomach wound. He’s in hospital presently, under police guard.”
Ella gently placed the earring back in the box. “Did I, um, get him good?” she ventured.
“Perhaps you could walk me through exactly what happened, Baroness.” Cooper stood up, encouraging her to do the same.
Alma watched this exchange with no small dose of concern, but Ella kept her cool. “Well,” she said, standing up, “I was in the reception where that lovely young man she works with sits, and I opened the door to Billie’s office and bam!” Her Marcel waves quivered as she made a stabbing motion. “Stab!”
“Where exactly did you stab him?”
Ella appeared puzzled, her thin brows pulling together. “By the door to the office. To my daughter Billie’s office.”
“I mean on his person,” Cooper specified patiently.
Shyla hadn’t furnished them with those details. “Stomach? I couldn’t say, exactly,” Ella replied cautiously. “It was dark and it all happened frightfully fast.”
Cooper nodded. “I see,” he said.
“Well, I couldn’t,” she shot back.
Alma watched the exchange silently, wondering if Moretti had admitted to being in Billie’s office and had described the woman who stabbed him. Shyla and Ella had a few things in common, but appearance was not one of them.
“I couldn’t see much of anything. My eyesight, you see,” the baroness added dramatically, and shrugged. It must have pained her somewhat to admit this sign of age, but it was a good move.
Cooper remained poker-faced. “And you had a knife on you at the time, is that right?” he asked.
“The letter opener,” Ella said, and Alma handed it to her, who then handed it to Cooper, quite neatly obscuring any remaining fingerprints, should there be reason to check.
Cooper, who had remained stoic and calm in the face of Ella’s forceful personality, now raised his brows, accepting the item and noting the blood on it. “I had thought Shyla was helping out at the office,” he pointed out, inspecting the blade.
Ella licked her lips. “Why, yes, she is. She was, uh, busy.”
He looked up at her. “I see. Do you know where she is now?”
“No,” Ella lied, and swallowed.
Cooper watched her. “And I understand that Billie’s flat was broken into as well—is that correct?”
“Oh yes, it was. Yes. A ghastly thing,” Ella lamented. “This is a respectable building!”
“I’m sure it is,” he agreed, and sat back down. Ella took this cue to sit as well, but then he turned to look at her, still holding the blade in his hands. Cooper’s hazel eyes were direct, drilling into hers, and Alma, observing this from across the room, imagined the uncomfortable sensation of succumbing to an X-ray, unable to break away. Could he see each of Ella’s lies writ large? As plain as if they were painted on the wall? After a time, Cooper turned his head again, unlocking that intense gaze, and Ella’s shoulders dropped.
Oh heavens.
Alma, unsure of how else to ease the situation, fetched the bottle of sherry to refill his glass, knowing full well he had not yet touched it. “Can we tempt you with some more, Inspector?” she pressed.
The inspector shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I must go, but I will be in touch again soon,” he said, ceremoniously raising his glass, taking a quick swig, and replacing it on the table. “I do thank you for your hospitality. And for this weapon.”
“We’ll get it back?” Alma interjected, hoping to take his focus off her employer.
“Oh yes. Moretti is not pressing charges, and in fact seems content to pretend he did it to himself.”
“Oh, I see,” she said, relieved.
“An awkward angle for a self-inflicted wound. Still, I would like to keep this for a while, if I may?”
“Certainly,” Ella said. “So, that horrible man will be in jail where he belongs? You know he caused my late husband quite a bit of trouble, and just last year . . . Well, my Billie believes he followed her, and caused her trouble, too. He’s rather obsessed with her, I believe.”
Or his clients were, Alma thought, wondering if it could be both.
“Your late husband, Barry, was a good cop, Baroness,” Cooper was telling Ella. “I’m not sure if I ever told you, but he did arrest Vincenzo Moretti for bribery, back when he was in the force. I believe that was before you two met, but it might explain his . . . interest,” he said delicately. “Don’t fear, Moretti is in hospital for now, and he won’t be out for a little while.”
It seemed to Alma that he was holding something back, but then Billie had told her this was his way. He had a shell around him that she had tried unsuccessfully to crack, Alma knew. Ella knew it, too.
“Good,” Ella declared. “I’m glad he’s off the streets. Thank you for returning my earrings.” She sipped her sherry and placed one manicured hand on the box. “I am very pleased to have them back after all this time. I’m not surprised it was that lowlife who was responsible.”
“And I am pleased to see you don’t seem very rattled by the encounter,” he said, watching her closely. “You are more like your daughter than I thought,” he observed aloud, which to Alma seemed to imply, among other things, that he knew well he was being deceived about her involvement in the altercation, and the likely reason for that. “Do pass on my regards, if you hear from Billie. Or Shyla,” Cooper added, and shook Ella’s hand courteously, while she tried to maintain a straight face under his shrewd gaze.
Twenty-seven
Paris, France, 1947
He is familiar to you? Vous le connaissez?”
The man looked at her, his frown exaggerated, showing off full lips. “Non.” He was holding the best of Vera’s photographs of Richard Montgomery, turning it in his fingers, as if the back of it might jog a memory. He wore high, pleated trousers, well cut, and a collared shirt that showed his slim, muscular build. In the pocket of those fine trousers were one hundred of Billie’s francs, so his response was disappointing. Was he worth another ten?
“Vous êtes sûr?” She pressed some more francs into his hand. He was happy to accept.
While Sam was doing some enforced sightseeing, Billie had spent a long lunch with her friend Simone, reminiscing about old times with the aid of some red wine, and going over possible places for Billie to canvass for Montgomery, if the man was indeed living a new life in the more liberal and less risky scene in Paris. She’d needed that company, especially after the shock of having received news of yet another break-in—this one in her office, and involving Vincenzo Moretti, of all people. Shyla had been there, apparently, and was unharmed, but probably dearly wishing she hadn’t agreed to help Billie.
Still buzzing slightly from the heavy-bodied wine she’d consumed with her friend, Billie had taken to the streets, visiting some of the kamp haunts Simone had mentioned. Though they did not advertise openly, there were many of these clubs for men, much like that which Simone had shown her for women, and now that Billie knew where they were located, the near-invisible kamp network of men became more transparent. One only needed to watch, discreetly, to see who came and went, and to observe the manner in which the men interacted.
