Speak Softly My Love (5 page)

Roche.
Sergeant. He took down the telephone number.

“
Don’t worry about Girard. He’s a good one, and he’s happy to
be working with you on this one. He’s like you, Gilles.” The
Inspector’s voice took on a more animated note. “He needs plenty of
stimulation.”

There
was a quick and dry little chuckle and then David rang
off.

Gilles
hung up the receiver and looked up at an expectant circle of bright
and eager faces.

“
Right. I have court and I’d better get going.”

He
stabbed Tailler with a look. He tore off the top sheet from his
notebook and handed it to him.

“
What’s your first move?”

“
Call them and get copies of their incident reports. Send them
everything we’ve got.”

“
Two.”

“
Ah. I wouldn’t mind talking to the Godeffroy woman. Now that
it’s our case. After that—maybe take a quick train ride to
Lyon…?”

Gilles
stood. His briefcase had been carefully packed, to the extent of
having a sandwich and an apple in there. It could be a long day,
but he’d seen plenty of those and it was unavoidable.

Monsieur
Brevard had a right to a speedy trial, among other things. He was
also pretty much a goner.

“
Fair enough.” With a nod, he threw his raincoat over his
shoulder and then he was gone, leaving a slightly impressed Emile
Tailler to brazen it out.

He’d
been there long enough and he really ought to be able to handle it,
thought Andre Levain.

He had
one or two rather pressing matters of his own. Levain was hoping to
get some news back on a fellow who had run off to Martinique in the
hopes of avoiding questioning in a troubling little shooting
incident.

Either
the local police could find him or they couldn’t. He had ten or
twelve other cases as well.

It was
always the way.

Chapter Five

They
hadn’t been able to get Monique by telephone. She was either out or
not disposed to answer. Perhaps the maid or cook had their day off
as well.

Hubert had a year’s seniority on Tailler. Every so often he
belabored the point, usually on procedural matters—Tailler still
struggled with the paperwork, being intimidated by senior officers
and jurists. The pair of them were becoming a pretty good team.
What Tailler lacked in polish and experience he more than made up
for in intuitiveness. He was persistent as all hell. He had a
streak of independence Hubert had never seen in such a junior man.
The fact that they were about the same age and experience probably
helped, thought Hubert. They were more friends than senior man and
apprentice. That was a good thing and he didn’t mind that at all.
If you had to be stuck on a train for half the day (and if they
really wanted to get home tonight then they should have been out of
here an hour ago), with anyone,
well.

It might
as well be someone rational.

Tailler
had very sharp wits, a wicked sense of humour and wasn’t above
having a cold beer on duty, as long as they were away from the
prying eyes of higher-ups. It couldn’t be all bad.

Levain
was busy as hell. Firmin was eying up stacks of files. His phone in
particular was ringing off the hook, and it would seem that they
were it.

“
Come on. Let’s grab a couple of sandwiches and get the hell
out of here.” Hubert, not exactly an old man himself, ran a quick
hand through his fashionably long hair and stuffed everything they
had so far into a briefcase.

“
I’m with you.” The leaves were in full colour and Tailler was
just in the mood for a lark.

His eye
raced down a faded and yellowing train schedule. Hopefully it was
still valid. They had already missed the next one. They just
couldn’t do it. If they stopped and had a decent meal, they would
miss the one after that. It was all the same to him, although he’d
better remember to call his mother—

A quick
stop at the cashier’s office for some expense money, and the two
men were clattering down the front steps of the Quai, hats firmly
jammed on due to the incessant breeze and their coats over their
arms as it really was unusually warm for this time of
year.

***

After
several delays, and what seemed like days on the train but it was
more like six and a half hours, Hubert and Tailler stood in front
of their hotel.

Stricken
with the notion that the expensive commercial travelers hotels near
the station might send the bean-counters into fits, even more
stricken that the expense might not be approved, they had found
something a lot less costly.

It was a little off the beaten path, but it would almost
surely be approved. For two young men in a strange town, an expense
account was almost too much temptation. What they saved
here,
they could
spend
there
.
Hubert seemed to know what he was talking about. Expenses that were
disallowed, they could pay out of their own pockets in a simple
payroll deduction. It all sounded pretty reasonable to
Tailler.

A taxi
slid into place before them.

The
driver rolled the window down.

“
Messieurs? Monsieur Hubert?”

“
Yes, that’s us.”

The
place was so small, cabs did not sit out in front awaiting fares.
The desk clerk, a sallow-faced fellow about their own age, had
phoned for one. With a ferret of a face, and with a rather humorous
air of conspiracy that Tailler for one did not share, the clerk was
nothing if not unprepossessing. Tailler wouldn’t put much past him.
Pimping, pandering and procuring, badger game and blackmail, pretty
much everything went along with a face like that.

Having
spoken personally with Sergeant Roche at Lyon’s central police
station, they had about all the information they were likely to
get. They had an appointment with Madame Godeffroy, but first some
kind of lunch would appear to be in order.

Tailler
slammed the door and Hubert read off the name of a restaurant, a
cheap one as he had insisted, provided by their new ally behind the
hotel desk. Impressed as all hell to have a couple of detectives
from Paris staying with them, the fellow had nodded in
understanding and then provided them with several
options.

“
So how do we play this?”

Tailler
wasn’t worried about the driver overhearing. The situation could be
managed without naming names. He was referring to the Godeffroy
case.

Misunderstanding his intent, Hubert shrugged in a
non-committal manner.

“
I can live with pretty much anything. As long as they have
cold beer, that’s all that’s really important.”

Tailler
agreed to a certain extent, but the heavy red sauces were not his
favourite. Since becoming a detective and feeling the pressure, his
stomach had rapidly become over-sensitive to hot spices and
anything acidic. He had thought driving Chiefs and Commissioners
and Deputy Chief-Inspectors around was stressful enough.

Cold
beer sounded good to him as well.

“
I meant the lady.”

“
Ah. Well.” Hubert’s eyes took in the driver, seemingly
ignoring them.

Unlike
most of his breed, this one was apparently not much of a talker
once initial requirements for hard information were met.

“
Give up nothing—and wring her for everything she’s
worth.”

The
driver’s eyes found him in the mirror and Hubert looked away. He
didn’t answer to anyone but Maintenon, not in his humble opinion.
In certain disciplinary matters Maintenon would be the least of
their problems. Other than the bare-bones information they had,
perhaps the lady would identify the gentleman in their photos as
her husband. It might be an emotional scene, and yet they really
couldn’t tell her anything.

If she said,
no
—
that’s not my
husband
, then the name might just be a
coincidence. It was hard to see it any other way at this point in
the investigation. At least she wouldn’t be looking at a morgue
shot.

“
Hmn.” Tailler was beginning to sound like Gilles.

Hubert
decided that silence was the best policy and let the conversation
drop.

The
restaurant was apparently all the blessed way across town. Lyon was
an industrial city and the capital of its region. He’d sort of
forgotten its size. Any schoolboy could look it up.

He
settled into the cushions for a long ride, stomach rumbling and
hoping they could get out of there at the crack of dawn.
Interesting as it was, variety being the spice of life, his real
life was back in Paris.

***

Lucinde
was tall, slender, and very blonde and blue-eyed. She was an
archetype, as Gilles would have said. She unconsciously lifted a
hand and pulled the fine long hair back, sticking it behind her ear
to hold it in place.

It was
hard to imagine someone like her ever committing a crime, or ever
having darkness enter her life. And yet tragedy had struck. The
odds were against it, but here it had happened.

Each
person, every story was unique and to make an assumption was to be
bit on the ass sooner or later. For that reason, Hubert had a
prepared list of twenty questions. Tailler would stick an oar in
somewhere in his inimitable way.

“
Thank you for speaking with us, Madame.”

She
nodded sombrely, hands clasped in her lap. Stolidly middle-class by
the appearance of her home, a flat in a prosperous section of the
city, she appeared to be bracing herself for what came
next.

“
Now, these questions are strictly routine and there is
probably nothing in it. Your husband is Didier Godeffroy, and he is
a traveling representative of Gaston e Cie, a wine
wholesaler?”

“
Yes, Monsieur.”

“
Please call me Hubert, everyone else does. We’re going to do
our very best to locate your husband, Madame. In the meantime,
every little bit of information you can give is of value. N’est
pas?”

She
nodded, intent.

All
Tailler had said on the phone was that they wanted her to look at
some pictures, and that it may or may not be Monsieur
Godeffroy.

She was
expecting photos from the morgue and she sort of shivered, and yet
the two males were so reassuring, so uncertain and so gently
polite—the suspense was killing her of course.

“
I only wish we had some real news.”

She had
some pretty nice knees, thought Tailler.

Emile
Tailler, seated beside her on the couch, opened up his battered
briefcase, where he had everything stacked up in a kind of order.
The envelope of photo-enlargements lay on top. The arrangement had
been thoughtful, obscuring any other documents that she might get a
glimpse of. You couldn’t be too careful, and more than anything
they didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag. It was their case,
not hers.

She had
no right to any other information. He closed the briefcase and set
it aside. If she was completely innocent, she would be accepting
things at face value. You couldn’t be too careful
sometimes.

He
reached into the manila envelope and pulled out the first one. He
handed it to her as Hubert studied her reaction.

“
Where did you get this?” She looked up, startled. “From his
mother?”

Wasn’t
Didier supposed to be an orphan…

Didier
at about twenty years old. Straw boater cap, white shirt, black
vest, ribbon tie and a flower in the buttonhole.

Hubert
didn’t answer directly, and sooner or later she was going to catch
on. Everything about the lady, the flat, the books on the shelf
lining the one short wall on the end and framing the archway into
the dining room, spoke of education, intelligence, and
refinement.

This was
no ordinary housewife.

They
tried another picture.

“
Ah, why do you ask that?” It was lame, terribly lame. “Is
that Monsieur Godeffroy?”

Tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks as she faltered
before speaking. He handed her
another
photo.

“
God, he looks so young…” It was a university graduation
picture, found by the other Madame amongst her husband’s
effects.

Hubert wondered why Tailler hadn’t led off with that one, but
let the boy go. This was interesting. The orphan must have been
lucky, to get a scholarship—or to
somehow
work his way through school,
thought Hubert.

“
Is this your husband, Didier Godeffroy, Madame?”

“
Oh, God. He’s dead isn’t he?”

This was
already going badly but there were only so many approaches, so many
places to start.

“
We’re not really sure of anything, Madame. Not just
yet.”