“Then Blanchard killed himself because Susan died? Is that what you’re saying?”
“The two deaths can’t be unrelated. Suggesting that the landlord killed himself as a result of some vague sense of responsibility might not satisfy a jury, but it’s a lot neater than blaming some mysterious third party.”
“Look,” Auger said, “I’m sorry about the way this has happened. You’ve been the piggy in the middle of something that didn’t concern you.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a plain manila envelope. She slid it across the table towards Floyd, who left it sitting there like a ticking bomb. “It’s not much, but I do appreciate your efforts—you looked after the box, after all—and I feel you deserve some kind of termination fee now that the case is closed.”
Floyd put his hand on the envelope, feeling its seductive plumpness. There were easily several hundred francs in it, maybe more. “There’s no need for this,” he said. “My contract was with Blanchard, not you.”
“It’s common human decency, Mister Floyd. Please accept it. I talked to some of the people at the apartment building and I know you’ve not been having an easy couple of days. Please accept this as recompense.”
“If you insist.” Floyd took the envelope and dropped it into the same desk drawer that had held the biscuit tin. “And I do appreciate the gesture.”
“Then we’re done, I think,” Auger said, standing up. She slipped her bag over her shoulder and tucked the tin under one arm.
“Guess so,” he replied, also standing.
She smiled. It was the first time he had seen any recognisable expression on her face. “Somehow I expected there would be more to it than this. Papers to sign, legal people to argue with… I didn’t think I’d walk out of here with the tin without putting up a fight.”
“Like I said, it’s just a tin with some papers in it. And I wouldn’t want to make your life any more difficult than I have to. Losing a sister like that…”
She reached across and took his hand. “You’ve been very kind, Mister Floyd.”
“Just doing my job.”
“I hope things work out for you and your partner. You deserve some good luck.”
Floyd shrugged. “Me and everyone else on the planet.”
She turned around, looking back at him over her shoulder. Her hair framed her face in a nimbus of shining white, like the sun behind a thundercloud. “Thank you again. I can see myself out.”
“It’s been a pleasure doing business.”
She paused at the door. “Mister Floyd? You never did tell me your Christian name.”
“Does it matter?”
“I’d like to know. You’ve been so kind, after all.”
“The name’s Wendell.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“It’s always sounded like a sucker’s name to me. That’s why my friends call me Floyd.”
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I rather like it. Wendell seems such an honest sort of name—to me, at least.”
“Then to you I’m Wendell.”
“In which case… goodbye, Wendell.”
“Goodbye, Miss Auger.”
“Verity, please,” she said, correcting him, then walked out of the office, closing the door behind her.
Floyd waited a moment and then slipped his hand into his pocket, reassuring himself that the postcard was still there.
He liked her. She had the looks and seemed to be a nice enough lady. But he couldn’t help wondering how she would have reacted if he’d mentioned “silver rain.”
SIXTEEN
Auger shut the door behind her, clutching her handbag and the biscuit tin to her chest as if they might be snatched away at any moment. On the landing outside the detective’s premises, a heavily made-up old woman studied her with sly, knowing eyes while enveloping herself in a haze of silver-blue cigarette smoke. She said nothing, but the look on her face conveyed both accusation and bored indifference, as if she had witnessed every possible sin in the world and had long since ceased to be shocked by any of them. Her attention flicked momentarily to the tin Auger was holding so protectively, then her eyes lost focus and whatever gleam of malice had been there a moment before. Auger was about to take the stairs down to the next landing when she noticed that another woman—this one young, with very black hair held back from her face with a spotted red headscarf—was on her hands and knees, waxing and polishing the lower steps.
The woman looked up as Auger was about to descend. “Please,” she said, nodding towards the black iron framework of the elevator shaft that rose up the centre of the stairwell.
Grateful that the elevator car was ready and waiting, Auger stepped inside and slid shut the trellised gate, then pressed the button for the ground floor. With a thud and a whine, the elevator began its inching descent, creeping past the cleaning girl. The elevator descended another floor and then came to an abrupt, rattling halt, exactly between landings. Auger swore and pressed the button again, but the elevator refused to budge. She tried forcing open the sliding gate, but it had locked itself tight.
“Hey,” she called out. “Can someone help me? I’m stuck in this thing.”
She heard the cleaning girl say something, but it sounded more sympathetic than useful. Auger tried the elevator button again, but with no more effect than before. Feeling suddenly dejected, it began to dawn on her that she might be stuck inside it for hours while some overworked engineer made his grumbling way across the city on a Saturday. Assuming anyone had the presence of mind to call for assistance, which might be one assumption too many. She called out again—if the cleaning girl didn’t answer or understand her, then perhaps she might be able to rouse Floyd—but this time she heard nothing at all in reply.
A minute passed with no further sign of movement. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the occasional metallic rattle as her movements caused the elevator car to chafe against its restraints. The building sounded utterly deserted.
She heard a door shut somewhere above her, followed by a rapid succession of descending footsteps. The footsteps quickened in pace and then became thuds, as if someone was skipping two or three steps at a time. Auger peered through the meshwork screen that constituted the elevator car’s roof and saw a dark figure circle the landing immediately above her. Before she could call out, the figure had bounded down the steps surrounding the part of the shaft in which she was stuck in a series of flighty jumps and was on the landing below, continuing towards street level. Auger had only seen the figure in full view for an instant, and that blurred by motion, but she had not been able to make out any facial details. The figure was wearing a high-collared coat, a fedora jammed low on his head with the brim turned down. For an absurd moment she wondered if it might have been Floyd, but even as the idea occurred to her, she dismissed it as stupid.
A moment later, the elevator buzzed back into life and resumed its descent. It came to a halt on the next landing and, not wanting to take any further chances, Auger opened the gate and made the rest of her journey on foot. With the box still in her possession, it was a relief to reach daylight. Somehow she felt safer outdoors, illogical as that may have been.
She looked up and down rue du Dragon, but there was no sign of the running man, or of anything else obviously out of place. The street was as quiet and sleepy as it had been when she had arrived, but there were some pedestrians walking along it, and if anyone was to try anything against her, she knew she could count on one or two witnesses from the equine butcher’s shop on the ground floor of Floyd’s building.
A little further down the street, Auger stepped into the doorway of a boarded-up hosier’s shop, long out of business, and snapped the lid from the tin. Inside, as Floyd had shown her in his office, was a thick rubber-banded bundle of paperwork and documents. She took this bundle and stuffed it into her handbag. Having no further use for the tin, she pushed it into a pile of cardboard boxes and other debris that had built up in one corner of the shop doorway.