The Châtelet Apprentice (28 page)

‘They should be here very soon. But I've a surprise for you, Bourdeau.'

Nicolas took the torch and went up to the carriage that had been stowed away.

‘But you're bleeding, Monsieur.'

‘That rogue reopened the wound in my chest, but it's nothing. Take a look at this cabriolet instead. It's Semacgus's. The horse must have been sold already.'

He opened the door of the carriage. The light suddenly fell upon the beige upholstered seat. It was covered with a large stain of dried blood that had dripped onto the floor and formed a blackish pool. The cabriolet had been used to kill someone or transport a body that had been bled dry. The two men looked on in horror.

‘I really don't think we're going to find Saint-Louis alive,' said Bourdeau.

Nicolas took charge of operations again.

‘As soon as the constables arrive see that they carry out a detailed search of the barn and the land. Not a word must be said about Rapace's death. This cabriolet will need to be taken back to the Châtelet for Semacgus to identify. I'm taking Bricart back for a preliminary interrogation. I'll report to Monsieur de Sartine tomorrow morning. Bourdeau, I'm relying on you to sort everything out here. As soon as you've finished, come and find me. I'm afraid we're not going to get much sleep tonight.'

Tirepot's spy appeared, followed by an officer of the watch and a group of constables. They carried out Nicolas's orders. As he was about to leave he walked up to Bourdeau and held out his hand:

‘Thank you, my friend.'

Nicolas felt light-hearted on the journey back to Paris. The numerous signs of deadly danger had now taken on a new meaning. The future, which until then had looked uncertain, now seemed clear. Even the presence at his side of a known
criminal could not detract from Nicolas's feeling of relief, to which was added the satisfaction of having done Bourdeau justice. The ordeal had strengthened him, as a mountain stream tempers the red-hot blade of a sword. Death, which he had smelled on Rapace's breath, was now only a distant threat; he felt cleansed and more self-assured. It was as if he had been reborn and now saw things in a different light. The cab, even the pain in his chest and the falling snow all filled him with joy and gratitude. He smiled because his dark imaginings were now giving way to brighter ones and, incorrigible as ever, he had veered from one extreme to the other. He revelled in his euphoria until he reached the Châtelet.

When he had changed Nicolas went to find his prisoner, as he wanted to question him at once. He had often noticed that a suspect had fewer defences if interrogated immediately. It was only later on, when the criminal had had time to think things out, that they were able to put together a battery of assertions and denials. Nicolas had obtained a bottle of brandy from the gaoler. His intuition was telling him to take it gently with Bricart, and only to blow hot or cold and try another tack if the first approach did not work.

When he went into the cell he was struck by the change in Bricart. With the lantern he had brought he could see the old soldier sitting on his plank-bed. The beam of light showed a man huddled up, almost bald, his sallow complexion flecked with brown marks. His face, pitted with old scars, bore the signs of age. His dull eyes were bloodshot and his lower lip flabby and trembling. Nicolas went over to the prisoner and untied his
hands. He filled an earthenware cup with brandy and held it out to him. After a moment's hesitation the old soldier downed it in one gulp. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

‘So now you're all on your own,' said Nicolas. ‘You've got no mate to back you up. You alone are charged with a serious crime. If you ask me, there's only one thing you can do: unburden your conscience.'

The man did not react.

‘Let's start at the beginning. Bricart can't be your real name. So what is it?'

The other man hesitated. It was obvious that he was weighing up the pros and cons of keeping silent. Or would his desire to relieve his anxiety by talking get the better of him?

‘Jean-Baptiste Lenfant, born at Sompuy in Champagne,' he said at last.

‘In what year?'

‘I never knew. The priest talked about “the year of the great freeze and the wolves”.'

‘Were you a soldier?'

Bricart raised his head. A visible transformation came over him and, after asking for a drink, he launched into a breathless account of his whole life. Yes, he had been a soldier and for a long time, too, until that damn wound on the battlefield at Fontenoy. When he was twenty his name had been drawn by lot for the royal militia. It was bad luck and he might just as easily have avoided it. He could still picture the scene as he left his village. Many of his friends were in tears, protesting that they were being led to the slaughter. Their mothers were there, wringing their hands. He could still smell the stench of the stinking uniforms that had belonged to those killed in the
previous war, or so it was rumoured. He could still feel the weight of the haversack, so heavy that it pulled you back and cut into your shoulders. It was the begin-ning of a long trudge through the winter mud to reach the regiment or the fort. Their clogs fell to pieces, their socks were shredded to bits and by the time they reached the bivouac their feet were bleeding. Some recruits did not survive, others mutilated themselves
deliberately
. For all of them there was the sorrow of having left behind their loved ones, and the homesickness that destroyed all hope. Then each day had followed the next. Things became routine, with moments of happiness amidst all the suffering. There were the mates, the drinking sessions, pilfering that turned into looting, the bellyfuls of stolen poultry and fruit and the girls from the farms and the taverns.

But one day everything came to an end on the battlefield. Why then, why him? It began with a reveille blasting out in the cold dawn. The enemy had begun their attack at five o'clock. The officers of the general staff galloped past in their brightly decorated uniforms. On a hillock in the distance you could see a grey and gold spot and beside it a red one. The sergeant muttered it was the King and his son, the dauphin. For the first and last time in his life Bricart had seen the Marshal of Saxony, so ill from the effects of the pox that he had to be carried around in a wicker chair, his body swollen with dropsy. He was shouting angrily at the officers, whipping up their energy and castigating their indiscipline. Everything got going to the sound of the bugles, and one by one the columns moved up to the front line.

Then, just as suddenly, everything was over. The surprise of the impact, the first impression that nothing has happened, that you've saved your skin and that you'll get up simply covered in
earth and in the blood from a mate mown down beside you. Next comes the feeling of soaking in a warm liquid and then, growing stronger and stronger until it makes you scream, the terrible pain from the leg shattered by a cannonball. He was left lying there until nightfall and had put a tourniquet on his thigh himself. He had been half-dead when he was picked up. But before that he had heard the frightening clash of battle, the shrieks, the whinnying of the horses, the screaming that had gradually given way to the wailing of the wounded and the groaning of the dying. Near him a hussar crushed beneath his horse was crying softly, calling out for his mother. He had had to fight off looters, women and even children who snatched from those poor corpses their pathetic riches, including the braid sewn onto their uniforms. Then he had been taken in a cart to a dressing station. The ground was covered with blood and human remains. Surgeons were maiming the poor devils for life. His right leg went. He stayed there for days. Each of the wounded lay in his own excrement, worse than if he had been sleeping on dung. They were all swarming with vermin, and the dead served as mattresses for the living. Yes, he'd been a soldier and they'd made good use of him as cannon fodder.

Now that he was an invalid, with no means of support and no rank, he was left to his own devices with only his threadbare uniform and his wooden leg to comfort him. He went back to his village. His mother and father had died long since, and his few cousins had given him up for dead and his meagre inheritance had been dispersed. Reduced to poverty, he had wandered far and wide, then had the idea that in the big city he would be able to provide for himself more easily. But what could an invalid unfit for manual labour hope for? He could not read or write and
was barely able to sign his name. He was afraid of ending up in the Hôpital Général, locked up like an animal amongst the lunatics who were given their food on the end of a bayonet. He knew what he was talking about because he had been caught once and put away in Bicêtre. Miraculously he had escaped and he dreaded the idea of going back there.

Bricart had livened up as he told his story. The colour had returned to his cheeks. But under the influence of the alcohol he became prostrate again, his head slumped on his chest. Nicolas could not help pitying this fellow to whom life had been so cruel. But the time had come to apply pressure and to get either a formal confession out of him, or information likely to help the progress of the investigation. It was essential that Nicolas corroborate the various facts already in his possession. He decided on a direct line of attack. Bricart's reactions would indicate how he should follow up the interrogation.

‘You're in danger of something much worse than Bicêtre!' said Nicolas. ‘Be a good fellow and tell me what you were up to with Rapace. And to start with, where does the bloodstained cabriolet in your barn come from?'

Bricart huddled up even more. He gave Nicolas a shifty, suspicious look.

‘We're dealers, that's all. We buy things and sell them.'

‘You can't tell me that you're afraid of being put in the hospital and at the same time claim that you're a tradesman. You're not going to make anyone swallow that.'

‘Rapace was the one with the cash. I've got nothing. I just helped him.'

‘Doing what?'

‘Finding bargains.'

‘And the cabriolet, was it a bargain?'

‘Rapace was the one who dealt with it.'

Nicolas realised that Bricart had chosen solid ground from which to defend himself: blaming everything on Rapace, who was no longer around to contradict him. The long account of his life as a soldier had merely been a diversionary tactic. By talking about unimportant things he would say nothing about what really mattered. Nicolas needed to attack him from a new angle.

‘Does your leg hurt a lot?'

Relieved, Bricart jumped at the opportunity to talk about something else.

‘Oh, my dear Monsieur, the bloody thing never gives me a moment's peace. Would you believe it, I still think it's there. I can feel it itching. I even go numb in the toes. Ain't it a shame and an ordeal to have to scratch away at nothing. And the stump still hasn't healed up. It hurts terribly.'

‘Your wooden leg looks solid enough.'

‘I should say so. It was made from the oak of a sling-cart destroyed at Fontenoy.
2
A carpenter carved it for me. This leg's an old friend who's never let me down.'

He lifted up the tip towards Nicolas, who took hold of the end firmly. Bricart was flung back against the wall and banged his head.

‘God, what does this shuffler want from me?' he growled.

‘I think you're a lying rogue,' Nicolas replied, ‘but I intend to get the truth out of you.'

While keeping hold of Bricart's wooden leg with one hand, he took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket with the
other. He carefully put the metal tip of the prosthesis onto the centre of the document.

‘This is clear proof,' he declared. ‘Jean-Baptiste Lenfant, also known as Bricart, I hereby charge you with having been to Montfaucon on the night of 2 February, along with Rapace your accomplice, in order to deposit there the remains of a murdered body. You went there in a horse and cart.'

The prisoner's terror-stricken expression showed he was desperately searching for a way out. Nicolas had already seen this look on a fox caught in a trap, surrounded by angry dogs. He felt no pride at having reduced a man to such a state of panic but he had to make him talk. He let go of the wooden leg, which banged against the plank-bed on its way down.

‘You're lying and making it all up,' protested Bricart. ‘I don't know anything. Let me go. I haven't done anything. I'm just a poor old invalid soldier. An invalid!'

He was shouting and the light now showed the sweat pouring down his face.

‘Would you like me to give you some more precise details?' Nicolas asked. ‘Why can I state categorically that you were in Montfaucon that evening? Because I noted down imprints in the frozen snow.' He waved the little piece of paper. ‘Imprints of what? Those of a small six-sided object with an irregular outline, which happens to be identical to the tip of your wooden leg. I should add that you were not on your own in Montfaucon …'

‘Hell. There was only Rapace. Go to the devil!'

‘Thank you for confirming that you were with Rapace at the knacker's yard. Even if you'd sworn the opposite I would have told you that a witness had seen you there. For the last time, my only advice to you is to speak the truth. Otherwise
people more skilled than me in such matters will drag it out of you by working on your other leg.'

He was horrified by his own brutality. Its sole justification was that he believed his suggestion was Bricart's only chance of saving his life, or at any rate of suffering less. The man before him probably was a criminal, but could you judge his misdeeds without seeing them against the background of a life of
misfortune
? He imagined Bricart as a child, a young man, a wounded soldier and all that suffering went through his mind …

‘Fair enough,' the other conceded, ‘I was in Montfaucon with Rapace. So what? We were carrying a dead old nag we'd cut up.'