Mister Memory

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ says Cavard neutrally. He is trying to weigh something up. If Boissenot is one of Delorme’s men and he shows him the photographs, then bad things will happen. That would prove which side Boissenot is on, but otherwise it would not help very much. On the other hand, Cavard thinks, if I show Boissenot the pictures and nothing bad happens, I will know I can trust him. But what else will I gain?

  Without trying, he thinks, I will not know, and so he slides the envelope across the desk and invites Boissenot to look at it.

  When he does, he shakes his head.

  ‘Well?’ asks Cavard.

  Boissenot puts the pictures back in the envelope, and slides it back to Cavard.

  The silence is killing Cavard.

  ‘Well?’ he repeats, and now Boissenot sighs.

  ‘Chef, I . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  Boissenot hangs his head. Points at the envelope. ‘That was the Minister of the Interior, was it not?’

  ‘It was,’ says Cavard, and Boissenot rolls his eyes, slumps in his chair.

  ‘So? What next? What do we do with this?’

  ‘Unholy ceremonies, but all just an excuse for a wild orgy, no doubt.’

  A silence develops, then, since Boissenot has not said it, Cavard says it for him.

  ‘The end of the world?’

  ‘The end of somebody’s world,’ Boissenot says.

  They are disturbed by a knock on the door and one of his three inspectors makes to come in. When he sees Boissenot, he hesitates, but Cavard waves him in.

  ‘Close the door, Longchamp. The Principal Inspector knows our business.’

  Longchamp comes into the room, closing the door behind him, glancing at Boissenot.

  ‘Sir, it’s all over. The trial.’

  ‘No, the trial is set for tomorrow. There’s still a little time.’

  But Longchamp is already shaking his head. ‘It was set for tomorrow, but Peletier had it moved from the Cour d’Assizes to a Cour Correctionnelle, on technical grounds. It was held this morning. Després was found guilty and is to be transported. He will be dispatched to Toulon by train on Thursday morning. A ship leaves for Cayenne on Friday evening.’

  Longchamp waits for his news to be digested, but Cavard is too shocked to speak.

  Boissenot says what they are all thinking. ‘Cour Correctionnelle. No jury. Just three magistrates, all, we can have no doubt, in Delorme’s pocket. And Després will be transported.’

  ‘No,’ says Cavard. ‘He’ll never make it as far as Toulon, never mind Devil’s Island. Delorme wants him on that train, no doubt with men of his own as guards. Then he’ll pull the same trick that did for Petit in Dijon. Fake an escape, a couple of bullets, and it’s all over. That’s why he wanted the case moved, that’s why he wanted the charge altered to murder of the other girl. He needs to get Marcel out of Paris so he can do away with him with no fuss.’

  Boissenot nods. It seems likely.

  ‘But why? What’s so important?’

  ‘That remains to be found. What is clear is that Delorme thinks that Marcel Després has some powerful information about him. More than this trash in the photographs. That might be an embarrassment, but despite your theories on the modern world, Boissenot, surely not worth killing over. Let’s assume Ondine blackmailed him; that still doesn’t explain why the Okhrana are interested. No, I think Delorme fears Marcel knows something else about him. Something big. And maybe he does.’

  ‘So we need to interview him.’

  ‘I cannot go near that station, and neither can either of you. The Commissaire’s a good man but Delorme will have men all over the place. If we go there, we will all swing one way or another, you can be sure of it.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  Cavard grimaces. Thinks of the old doctor at the asylum.

  ‘I have a way. I don’t like it but I have a man who can get in to speak to him.’

  Yet the day is still not done with Cavard. Just as Longchamp and Boissenot leave, there is another knock at the door. He looks up sharply, now fearing the worst at every turn.

  ‘Come in,’ he barks, and into the room comes his clerk, holding a card folder, bound with a ribbon.

  ‘Yes?’ asks Cavard.

  ‘The file you ordered. From the archives.’

  The clerk nods at the two visitors and places the file on Cavard’s desk. He is about to go when he turns and speaks to the chef.

  ‘It’s nearly lunchtime, Chef. Do you need anything else?’

  Cavard shakes his head, just managing to restrain himself from telling the clerk that he has ordered no files from the archives.

  ‘Then I’ll take my lunch now,’ says the clerk, and leaves.

  Cavard pulls the file towards him, and opens it. The first thing he sees is that it is the internal record of a policeman, whose name means nothing to him. The second thing he sees is a note pinned to the inside of the folder, and so he understands that the folder is just cover to get a message to him unobtrusively.

  I’m working late tonight. Perhaps you would care to join me? G.

  Cavard stares at the note for a long while.

  ‘Chef?’ asks Boissenot, and Cavard lifts his head.

  ‘We have much to do,’ he says, ‘and little time to do it. Boissenot, do you have a safe at home?’

  Boissenot nods.

  ‘I do not want these left on police premises any longer,’ says Cavard, sliding the packet of photographs across the desk towards him. ‘Take it home and lock it up. Keep it there. Do you have a last will and testament?’

  Boissenot swallows hard, nodding, as Cavard continues.

  ‘I want you to write a note concerning the provenance and contents of the collection and add it to your private papers. Tonight. If we go down we will take them with us, do you understand? We have a day or so in which to conclude this matter before Després will be transported for a crime of which he is innocent.’

  ‘And so?’ asks Longchamp. ‘Do we use this to expose Delorme before that happens?’

  ‘No,’ says Cavard, ‘we do not. We keep working to find what he is really guilty of, and Després will go to Devil’s Island.’

  Longchamp rubs a hand on the back of his neck. ‘That’s –’

  Boissenot nods, interrupting.

  ‘That’s the way it has to be. Després is a bystander, but we cannot move to save him. Unless he holds the key to this, we have no use for him.’

  ‘But supposing there is nothing else,’ says Longchamp. ‘Just these photographs and whatever sordid club Delorme belongs to. What if you’re looking for nothing? Després will rot in a penal colony. For nothing.’

  Cavard looks at the inspector, not with any condescension, or criticism, but with admiration. He admires him for something that he himself lost long ago. For while Cavard is indeed a man of the people, he also believes that sometimes the individual person has to suffer for the good of everyone else.

  ‘Longchamp,’ Cavard says, ‘I hope very much that Després is indeed the key to this puzzle. We will make one attempt to find out. I want you to call upon Dr Morel at the Salpêtrière. Ask him to meet me in the Café Zigomar, Rue Racine, tonight. Get him to take extreme care that he is not followed. Eight o’clock.’

  ‘Very good.’

  Thank you, gentlemen,’ says Cavard, ‘Thank you.’

  Outside, it is not the kind of weather to dawdle in. A thin cold sleet presses down across the river, with a wind from the east that only makes it more unpleasant. Despite these conditions, Cavard’s clerk, having delivered the file to the chef’s desk, and then, having listened outside the door, makes his way out into the cold and down the Quai des Oeuvres. Here he takes the ramp leading down to the waterside itself. He looks behind him as he goes, checking not once, or twice, but three times that he has not been seen. There, by the water, he speaks to a man who appears to have been waiting for him. They converse for no more than two or three minutes, and then the clerk hurries away, off to
find his lunch.

  A FINAL INTERVIEW

  At the end of the day, Cavard kills time in his office, hating that he is trapped behind a desk when there are things to be done in the world, action to take. But it is for the best. He cannot be seen to be acting. He will have to operate through others, for the time being. They have sufficient evidence of sexual activities to disgrace many big men, but not to bring them to justice. For that, he needs to know what else Delorme is so keen to conceal, for he is convinced, like Petit, that there is more to know. The answer is not long in coming.

  When he judges that the offices are quiet enough, he gathers his belongings and makes his way out. Both of the clerks have gone home, and thanks to Longchamp he has a meeting arranged with the doctor.

  As soon as he thinks it suitable, and as casually as he can, Cavard makes his way down to the basement once more, and finds the archives still open.

  There, behind his throne, sits Gilbert, as promised, scratching away with a pen at some paperwork. As the door clicks behind Cavard, Gilbert looks up.

  ‘You got my note,’ he states.

  Cavard waves a hand. ‘I know of no such thing. I merely thought I would pay a courtesy call.’

  Gilbert does not seem to have a sense of humour. He comes around from his desk and pulls out two chairs, out of sight of the door.

  ‘And you read the file?’

  Cavard sits, easing himself into the insufficient chair.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’ Cavard asks, trusting no one any more. Though the answer is obvious: Gilbert is a good man. However he is also obviously not one for idle conversation.

  ‘Did you read the file?’ he repeats.

  ‘The file? No, I assumed that—’

  ‘You didn’t see the name?’

  ‘Should I have?’

  ‘Paul Pontalis. The file was of a young policeman named Paul Pontalis.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Paul Pontalis was an inspector in his late thirties when he left the force. Or rather, I should say, when he ceased to be.’

  ‘He was killed.’

  ‘No, far from it. He changed his name. His mother, being a widow for some years, remarried and her son decided to change his name to that of his new stepfather. For appearances’ sake, was the reason he gave. A most traditional family. Still, a very unusual step to take. Unless there were another reason it suited him to take a new name. As I say, he left the police around the same time. You will by now have guessed the surname of his new stepfather?’

  Cavard nods. ‘Delorme. How did you find all this out?’

  Gilbert seems affronted. ‘I am an archivist, sir,’ he states, as if that is explanation enough. ‘Paul Delorme rejoins the Paris police five years later, appointed quite miraculously as Commissaire of the 18th at the express wishes of the then Prefect. He went on to rise rapidly to the position he now holds, always first in line for promotion to a better arrondissement, and then to the positions that really matter. In five years he becomes Prefect. From nowhere. Of course, there may be some who knew him from his days in the Sûreté as Pontalis, but such facts are soon forgotten; it was years ago, and in the other branch of the police. And you know how much, or should I say how little, we correspond with the other lot.’

  ‘Very interesting. But the question is what did Paul Pontalis do?’

  ‘That is the exact question. And when Delorme took his file away, he either forgot or did not know about the existence of a folder on his former life; the one I sent to you this afternoon.’

  ‘It’s upstairs. On my desk. Your note is in pieces in my wastepaper basket.’

  ‘I suggest you return that file here or lock it away. In case it too goes missing.’

  ‘Agreed. I will fetch it the moment I leave here. But you can tell me the contents?’

  Gilbert nods. ‘Paul Pontalis was the Sûreté’s liaison officer with the Okhrana.’

  There it is, thinks Cavard. That’s the key. That’s why Russians keep popping into this story. The Sûreté has always had unofficial contact with the Tsar’s men in Paris. Delorme did something with the Okhrana. But what?

  Gilbert is ahead of him. ‘Alas, that is the final piece of the puzzle, I suspect. Once you know that, you will know everything. But you should be asking about Paul Pontalis, not Paul Delorme.’

  These are the very words that Cavard puts to Dr Morel over a glass in the Café Zigomar, later that evening.

  ‘You must get him to speak. See if he knows anything about Delorme, but the name you really need to push him on is Pontalis. See if Ondine ever spoke to him about a Paul Pontalis.’

  Morel’s face is almost without expression. Not for the first time Cavard doubts that he is doing the right thing, but the doctor has already explained that he has been to see Marcel on two occasions. The Commissaire at the station house accepted his story that he still feels responsible for his patient and that he wishes to assess his state of mind at face value, because, after all, it is the truth.

  This tells Cavard that fate is on his side, and he urges Morel to make one last trip.

  ‘Do you speak to him on your own?’

  ‘No, there’s always been a guard present.’

  ‘You need to find a way to get to speak to him privately. Can you do it?’

  The old doctor’s face is a blank sheet. He merely blinks from time to time, expressing a little water from his eyes, which he wipes away with a fingertip when it becomes too much.

  ‘I can but try,’ says Morel.

  ‘And remember, you must warn him about the train journey. That is the most dangerous time. At this end and in Toulon there will be too many other parties: policemen, station officials. It will happen on the train.’

  Morel stands, and without saying anything further, leaves.

  Cavard settles down for an interminable wait. He orders an omelette and some more wine, and tries to find something else to think about. He cannot. He thinks about Marcel. He has never met the man, but he wonders if it can really be true that his memory is perfect. What a gift to a policeman! he thinks. What a boon that would be. But Cavard cannot believe it is really true, though the doctor seems to be convinced that it is, and the doctor, like the archivist, does not seem to be a man who jokes about anything at all.

  Morel manages to get to see Marcel, one last time. More than that, he demands to be allowed ten minutes of private conversation with his former patient. He is given five, and he knows that he will have to get Marcel to stick to the point if those five minutes are to prove of any use.

  He is in luck, for Marcel seems to be as clear and rational as he has ever been.

  ‘I see things so much more clearly now,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why. It just seems to me that I understand a little bit more. You helped me do that, Doctor.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ he says hurriedly, ‘but we must speak of other things.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Marcel, but he won’t leave the subject at once. ‘I would just like you to know, before they send me away, that you helped me to understand myself. I see what I am dealing with now. My memory, I mean. Before, I only knew I had it; I never saw how it got in the way of my seeing who other people are, how other people act. What they know. But now I do, because of you.’

  Marcel tells him more. He tells him how he has begun to understand himself, and how other people see him. He believes this knowledge will prove useful to him. Should he have a future.

  Though flattered, and though once Morel would have puffed himself up and delighted in the praise, he finds that now all he wants is to get Marcel on to the subject of Pontalis. Eventually, as the minutes tick away, he does, and when he does, Morel leaves the police station with what he believes is the missing piece that Cavard has been hunting. That Petit was hunting. Over which, and in order to keep quiet, Delorme has resorted to murder.

  A HISTORY LESSON

  ‘You didn’t see him?’ Cavard asks, but as soon as Morel sits he can see that he is a different man from the one who left no mo
re than half an hour before.

  ‘I saw him,’ he says, and, taking a glass from the next table, pours himself a large glass of wine, half of which disappears in one go. He tops up his glass and looks at Cavard.

  ‘I saw him,’ he says. ‘I have never seen him this way before. He was the most lucid I have ever known him. As if he is finally here in the world. Only now do I see what has been missing in him; it’s as if he is detached from the rest of us, from life, from everything that goes on. But he’s different tonight. He is all too well aware that he is to be transported to Cayenne. He protests his innocence, as a normal man would, when up to now it has appeared to be a matter of extreme indifference whether he is guilty or not, whether he will be executed, or imprisoned, or not.’

  Cavard cannot deny that this is interesting but there are matters that are more interesting still. He lowers his voice.

  ‘And Delorme?’

  ‘Yes,’ says the doctor. ‘I am coming to that. I told the guards that I wanted some time alone with my patient, for private reflection. There was a fuss, but a man who appeared to be in charge overruled the guards and I was allowed five minutes. I asked him if he knew who Paul Delorme was, and he said, of course, because he reads the papers and everyone knows who the Prefect of Paris is. So I asked him if Ondine had ever mentioned that she had had anything to do with him, and though that was a thought that troubled him, I can assure you he was not lying when he told me that she had never spoken of him. So I tried my final question, and by this time my five minutes were all but up. Chef, you do not know how hard it is to keep Marcel on a subject without wandering off. I asked him if his wife had ever spoken of a Paul Pontalis and again, he said no. But then he said that he had heard of him. In fact, he said, and he was remembering something from a long time ago, he said he had met him.’

  This is almost too much for Cavard to take.

  ‘He met him? He met Pontalis? I mean, Delorme when he was still—’

  ‘Yes. Quite so. Cavard, do you recall that Marcel Després was once, briefly, a journalist? Well, maybe not exactly a journalist, but he worked for a paper for a time. And you recall that bombing, the one in the station café, that happened in ’94?’