Then they were in a street with railway arches on one side, most filled in with rickety doors and occasional small businesses like a stone-mason’s or jobbing builder’s. On the other side a couple of identical touring cars were parked, and an inner group of arguing men, some in police uniform, surrounded by a ring of gawping locals.
“Apparently not all over,” Ranklin observed.
“There’s my chap from the Surete!” jay exclaimed. “Should we stop?”
“Fine.”
“Police raid,” O’Gilroy said dourly, having an ingrained dislike of police raids.
While Jay chatted to the Surete officer, Ranklin stood in the street, lit his pipe, and looked genially around. O’Gilroy, unwilling to show his face unnecessarily, stayed in the taxi where the depth of the hood put the back seat in permanent shadow. The cafe was in the middle of a jumbled row of houses, was no wider than them, and had its windows – one cracked – mostly blanked out by dirty lace curtains and sports posters. Policemen went in and out, but not with any sense of purpose. To Ranklin, it looked like make-work, as if the raid had found nothing.
Then he became aware of sullen dark eyes watching him from among the spectators, looked again, and recognised Berenice Collomb. The hat was gone, and the coat replaced with a shawl, but it was the same faded green dress and dead-fish pout. He smiled, walked over and raised his hat.
“Bonjour, Ma’mselle.”
She muttered: “B’jour.”
“I did not know you were back in Paris.”
“We came this morning.”
“We?”
“Your rich lady friend also.” She almost smiled at his polite surprise.
“Is she around here?”
“Her?” She came close to laughing. “Not her, not down here. I came home by myself and I find . . . this. Did you start it?”
“Not me. I don’t tell the Prefecture what to do.”
“This isn’t the Prefecture, it’s the Surete.” But his mistake had been intentional, a false proof of genuine innocence. “Now the Prefecture’s turned up as well and they’re arguing about who owns us.”
“Ah. Did they arrest anyone?”
“All the little birds had flown.”
“Not swum?”
Her face died. He had suddenly rejoined the mistrusted ranks of Them.
Ranklin took his pipe from his mouth and examined it critically. “The flics don’t seem to know about the barge. But if I can’t find it, I suppose I’ll have to tell them. They’ve got the men and resources.”
“Why do you want to find it?”
“I want to talk to Graver’s mother.”
“Kaminsky and his mates will shoot your stupid head off.”
“Kaminsky? Oh, the proprietor. Chap with smallpox scars? No, I wouldn’t want to get shot. So perhaps I’d better leave it to the flics.”
They had drawn back a little from the spectating locals, but still attracted glances whenever the fuss between the two police forces got dull. Berenice looked around uneasily. “Alors, I can’t be seen talking so much to you. Give me some money and I’ll come in the taxi with you.”
Ranklin blinked, at least mentally. First he was a gentleman gawper, now he was buying a lady of the streets. Oh well, it was all disguise, of a sort. “How much are you worth?”
“If you were young and handsome, five francs. To you, ten.”
He handed over the coin. She frowned and bit it, but probably just to make sure the neighbours noticed. Then she pulled the shawl tighter around herself and got into the taxi. O’Gilroy moved to the jump seat and smiled uneasily at her.
Ranklin motioned to him to shut the partition to the driver, then said: “Eh bien, where has the barge gone?”
“Why do you want to talk to that old cow?”
“I have my reasons, but it should help prove Grover is innocent. Now-”
“Oh, I know he’s innocent, all right. The pansy.”
A bit puzzled, Ranklin said: “I know you know, you were . . . with him that night. But I’m talking about proving it.”
“I wasn’t fucking him that night! I’m never going to again! He has a tiny cock and fucks like a Ford auto: bang-bang-bang, pouf.”
If Ranklin’s face showed nothing, he must really be getting good at his job. Because even disregarding her language – which wasn’t easy – his tactical base had dissolved. If that was really how Berenice now thought about Grover, he felt he’d been pulling on a rope and suddenly found it wasn’t tied to anything. And he daren’t look to O’Gilroy for support: when the translation seeped into the prim Irishman, he’d go into shock.
But the immediate point was that love’s young dream had somehow gone smash, and Ranklin had to start again from there. “Return to the barge. D’you think Mrs Langhorn is aboard it?”
“It’s possible.”
“Where else might she be?”
Shrug.
“And which way would it have gone?”
Shrug.
“Perhaps I’d better tell the flics about it after all. And if anybody wonders who told me, well, I was seen talking to you.”
“You are a septic fat capitalist pig.” She said it without rancour, as if it were a precise description. But it showed that Ranklin had got the rope tied back on to her.
“Continue.”
“It will be going out of Paris, of course. Out of the Prefecture’s area. Up the Canal de l’Orque towards Meaux.”
“Do you know this or are you just guessing?”
She shrugged. “Did you really think they’d go down to the Seine through all those locks? And then upstream against the current? That way, they wouldn’t be out of Paris until midnight.” What Ranklin knew about the Paris canals he could write on his thumb-nail. “And I’ve heard them talking about some comrades in Meaux.”
“How fast does a horse-drawn barge go?”
“It doesn’t have a horse,” she sneered. “Don’t you know that Grover (stupid little boy) was helping put a motor in it?” Now he thought of it, Noah Quinton had said the lad had been putting an engine into a canal boat, that was his excuse for buying petrol. But Ranklin had forgotten it as just part of the defence. A good spy does not forget such details.
“Then how fast does it go now?”
She shrugged again. “He said it wouldn’t go faster than you can walk.” Which would be about three miles an hour, and they might have been gone four hours, which made twelve miles . . .
“And how far is Meaux?”
But this she really didn’t know; it was just a name to her. And to Ranklin. So the barge could be there already.
He yanked open the driver’s partition. “How far i? it to Meaux?”
“D’you want to go there? I’m not-”
“No, no. Just how far?”
Shrug. “Forty kilometres, perhaps.”
Thirty miles. Ten hours. Thank God for that. He sat back, thinking.
Jay came back soon after that. “I had a word with-” Then he saw Berenice, swept off his hat and bowed. “Bonjour, Ma’mselle. Quelle surprise charmante – mais ca c’est votre ville natale, n’est-ce pas?” Berenice didn’t like Jay. Of course, she didn’t like anybody much, but Jay was special since he looked like an anarchist’s cartoon of an aristocrat. He smiled at her dull glare. “Does this mean the delicious Mrs Finn is also in town?”
“Apparently. We’re going round there.” He leant forward to give the driver Corinna’s Boulevard des Capucines address.
“I’m sure Mrs Finn will be overcome to see Miss Collomb again. So soon.”
“Quite.” Ranklin turned to Berenice. “Mille remerciements, Ma’mselle-”
“Pas possible. They saw you give me the money. They’ll think it was for information, unless it looks as if you’ve taken me away to fuck me.”
Jay was listening, delighted.
“Oh for God’s sake . . . We’ll put you down at a cafe and you have a drink and walk back. All right? Boulevard des Capucines!”