‘Why are you interested in the Michel family?’
He knows them. Think carefully.
‘I’m a historian. I specialise in the war years and the Liberation in Lyon. I’ve found some unsigned personal documents on this period, and I’m having trouble seeing how they fit in. They contain quite a lot of references to Michel and his daughter Antoinette, and I’m trying to cross-reference …’
It’ll have to do, for a hasty explanation …
‘Do you know if Antoinette’s still alive, doctor?’
‘I have no idea. I haven’t seen a death certificate with her name on it in Lyon, but she could have moved away, abroad, perhaps.’
Laurencin looks at the doctor. I’m on the right track, he wants to talk. Mustn’t rush him. He allows a long silence to set in, then Méchin speaks:
‘It is a painful memory for me.’ He breaks off. ‘Michel was a brute who used to beat his wife. According to my father, he beat her to death. But that was during the war, he was in the Militia and nobody asked any questions. He also used to beat his daughter, Antoinette. She got pregnant, she was very young. I don’t remember the date …’
‘Her daughter was born in October ’43.’
‘Sounds possible. It was my father who told Michel the news, and who took the girl into our house for a while, to protect her from being beaten. And then, on the Liberation, Michel was killed in his apartment, nobody was sorry, but it happened in front of his daughter, it wasn’t a pretty business, and afterwards her head was shorn and she was paraded around the whole city.’ He stops. ‘And this is the really painful part. My father took care of Antoinette, he knew the child’s father, but he hadn’t really been part of the Resistance, he was afraid, and he didn’t lift a finger to defend her, and neither did I. And she was never seen again. Forty years on, and it’s still something I’m not exactly proud of.’
‘Who was the father? Wasn’t he around either?’
‘A young militiaman who spent a lot of time with Michel. His name was Bornand.’ Laurencin found it hard not to show his surprise. ‘He disappeared during Antoinette’s pregnancy and we never saw him again. He must have been killed. You know, a lot of people got killed during those years.’
‘Well, that answers my question. The author of my documents must be this person, Bornand.’
Macquart takes Laurencin’s call at eight p.m. Françoise Michel is Bornand’s daughter.
‘Come back to Paris right away, Laurencin.’ A silence. ‘And thank you.’
Noria and Levert look up from their work. Macquart looks back at them and smiles. Incredible. A broad, jubilant smile through set lips, not exactly reassuring.
‘You see, these are rare moments of triumph. We were mistaken, not completely, but almost completely, and we’re going to win all the same. I don’t know what comes closer than this to pure happiness.’
The phone rings. Macquart picks up the receiver. ‘It’s Fernandez on the line,’ says the switchboard operator. Fernandez … well, well, good things always come in threes.
‘Can you trace the call?’
‘We’re already onto it, superintendent.’
‘Good. Put him through … Hello, Fernandez.’
‘Superintendent, I’d like to talk to you, can I come in and see you?’
‘Spot of trouble, young man?’
‘Yes, superintendent, big trouble.’
Bornand’s envoy? I don’t think so, not now, when Bornand thinks he’s holding all the aces, and not after having gone underground for forty-eight hours. But I’ve got a better card. I’ll keep it back for now. Just in case … I’ve got Bornand in a stranglehold, and it won’t take him long to realise it.
‘I’m up to my ears, Fernandez. Come and see me on Friday, does that suit you?’
‘Perfect, thank you, superintendent.’
Macquart hangs up. The switchboard calls back: Hôtel de la République, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Where he’s been staying since last Monday.
Macquart addresses Noria and Levert:
‘You’re off to Saint-Germain. It’s close to Paris, and rather a pleasant place. You’re going to find out what Fernandez wants to tell us, since he doesn’t appear to have taken any precautions to stop us tracing his call. And be back here as soon as you can. Tomorrow morning, I’m the one who’ll have the duty and honour of informing the President of the delicate situation in which his advisor finds himself …’
Thursday 12 December
At the Intelligence Service headquarters there was tension in the air as the day dragged by following Macquart’s return from the Élysée. Eyes and ears had been positioned everywhere they possibly could. Reports came in regularly: nothing’s happening. Bornand is at home, he’s not moving, not telephoning, not receiving any visitors. Françoise Michel is having dinner with a girlfriend at the Champs Élysées Drugstore as if it were the most normal thing in the world. They’re going to the cinema to see The Year of the Dragon. Macquart wagers she has no idea of what’s going on.
Fernandez arrived at the Hôtel de la République, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye at around midnight on Monday evening. He parked his car in a paying car park, and hasn’t moved it since. He goes for walks in the forest, reads the newspaper, bets on the horses and plays table football at the nearest bar-cum-tobacconist and betting shop, eats at the hotel and drinks whisky in his room.
Macquart summarises for them. ‘In other words, he’s telling us that he’s been out of Paris since Monday evening. But he’s right next to a busy train station where there’s no likelihood of his being identified … We’ll soon see about that.’
Bornand has shut himself up in his drawing room and sits slumped in an armchair. He’s had his mistress informed that he’s not available, sent Antoine away, locked his door, unplugged the telephone, and opened a bottle of vodka. The President refused to see him and congratulated himself in front of his closest associates for never having invited Françoise Michel to the Élysée. The verdict has been delivered and it is finaclass="underline" no scandals of this nature in the corridors of the presidential palace. Bornand is asked to leave his office at the Élysée immediately, and its door is now closed to him. With all his files inside. He is not the only one who understands the workings of power. He is to put an immediate end to this affair, and ostensibly go back to living with his wife. ‘Then, we’ll see,’ says the President, ‘it all depends on the reaction of the press and of public opinion.’
Bornand takes a large slug of vodka and closes his eyes. Go back to living with his wife. A half smile. They never had lived together. They’d lived in the same house while Thomas was alive, that’s all that can be said. Then Bornand’s wife moved away to live in Saumur, one day after the funeral. It was several days before he noticed she’d gone. So, resume their cohabitation, why not?
The vodka bottle is empty. His stomach’s burning. He feels shut in. Plagued, as in the past. Sees himself locked in his room with Thomas, his father-in-law to be, pacing the floor, shouting, randomly banging into furniture.
‘In the Militia! You idiot … What are you trying to do? Act the martyr? … Wake up. This is March 1943. The Germans have lost Stalingrad, the Americans are in North Africa and the Japanese are retreating in the Pacific. Can’t you see for yourself that Hitler has lost the war, and Vichy and the Militia will go down with him?’
He follows Thomas with his eyes and says nothing. Vichy, the new homeland, building the Europe of tomorrow, destroying Communism, the enemy of Western civilisation, is he the only person who believes in it?
‘The kids’ games are over. You’ll go and live with my mother in the country, and you stay put until further orders. Let people forget you. I’ll have enough on my plate trying to salvage my business after the war, without having a collaborator on my hands as well.’