The Dress Thief (10 page)

His daughter Ninette insisted she could always tell when a phone call was from Christine’s fiancé. ‘The ring goes all moist when Philippe calls. It wheezes with unexpressed poetry.’

‘Don’t mock your sister,’ Jean-Yves reproved. ‘Telephones, like all man-made technology, are reliably unimaginative.’

‘No, no, Papa. They mirror our feelings.’

‘Then allow your sister her private feelings and remember that a loving telephone will ring for you one day.’

When, three days after meeting Danielle in St-Sulpice, his telephone rang, Ninette’s theory blew back at him. He knew before he picked up the receiver which voice he’d hear.

‘Where were you yesterday. Not-so-Good Friday? You did not leave the money, broke our sacred deal. You are forcing
me –’ the catarrh was getting thicker – ‘to give you one, final chance. I know where those you care about spend their days. I know where they walk, the young ladies, where they shop and take their lunch. Don’t wait until my knife-hand is unbearably itchy.’

‘I tried to pay, I swear. Listen, please—’ A knock at his study door made Jean-Yves curse violently. He shouted, ‘Go away!’ but the door opened
to reveal his secretary bearing a sheath of parchment. Jean-Yves dropped his arm behind his desk to hide the telephone receiver. ‘Not now, Ferryman.’

‘These are from the Duc de Brioude’s attorney, Monsieur. Your signature is needed.’

‘I said, later. I’m busy.’

Ferryman made an obsequious half-bow, but did not move. ‘Permit me to suggest you sign them, Monsieur, so I can deliver them—’

‘Just
bloody well get out!’

The whole exchange took perhaps a quarter of a minute, but it was too long for the caller’s patience: the line was dead. Jean-Yves replaced the receiver and waited for the man to ring back; waited like a cat ready to pounce. When that posture exhausted him, he got up and paced, never taking his eyes from the telephone. The instrument on the desk had gained the malevolent
power of a devil’s familiar. He swore never again to laugh at Ninette’s flights of fancy.

When Ninette herself put her head round his door, asking if she might go to the Bois de Boulogne to ride with her friends, he snapped, ‘No.’

She blinked at him. ‘I only asked to be polite, Papa. You never say no.’

‘Who else is going? Any young men in the party?’

‘Well, yes, of course.’ She named names,
all young men of good family, one of them on leave from the cavalry school at Saumur. One couldn’t ask for a better escort for a daughter. Even in his sweating panic, Jean-Yves knew he couldn’t place his girls under house arrest. So he told Ninette she could go but on no account to leave her friends. And the chauffeur must drive her. Also, Ferryman must accompany her and wait at the livery stables
for her.

‘Ferryman?’ Ninette’s face stretched in horror. ‘Papa, no! He bows like a waiter … people might think he’s my boyfriend. Anything but Ferryman.’
He gave in to that too, because she was right without knowing it: life must continue as normal, even though he was unable to focus on anything but a blackmailer with a knife and an itchy hand.

*

He was adding up the value of his Banque d’Alsace
shares – arriving at a different total each time – when there came a tap at his door. Expecting Ferryman, priming himself to apologise for his earlier ill temper, he was surprised to find his elder daughter, Christine. Her wedding trousseau consumed her at the moment and she was usually to be found in the morning room, embroidering linked de Charembourg and Brioude ciphers on to linen napkins.

She was dressed for lunch at home, and his first impression was that the copper-green bias-cut dress did not suit her. Christine was tall but not slender, and princess-line would have been better. He kissed her and sniffed. ‘Schiaparelli’s “Shocking”? Did an Easter gift arrive from Philippe, perchance?’

She giggled. ‘You have a good nose for a man.’

‘For a man? The best perfumers are men. I cite
Ernest Beaux, who created Chanel’s No. 5; André Fraysse who threw flowers into a pot to produce your mother’s favourite, Arpège. The best couturiers are also men, and undoubtedly the best chefs.’

A frown bent Christine’s brows and he presumed her feminine pride was touched, but all she said was, ‘Philippe is dining with us tonight.’

‘Good. I like your fiancé. In him, I have the joys of a clever
son without having had the expense of educating him.’

Christine’s frown deepened. She rarely understood his jokes. ‘Philippe promised to call me to find out what flowers to bring for Maman. You know she likes men to bring flowers that compliment her evening clothes?’

‘I am aware of that charming foible. Has he not called?’

‘Oh, yes, but I told him gardenias because white is always safe. But
then I remembered that Maman hates the smell.’

‘So, ring him and tell him to bring roses.’

‘He’s gone out and won’t be back all day, his man says. What shall I do?’

‘How about, stop wasting energy on trivialities?’ He instantly regretted his sharp tongue. Christine was in love; silly things mattered. Unlike Ninette, she hadn’t the confidence to be playful or cheeky. With her heart-shaped face
and negligible brows, Christine reminded him deeply of his mother. Like the late Marie-Christine de Charembourg, his daughter expressed her love in detailed care, in absolute loyalty, traits easily abused. So he continued gently, ‘We can remedy the situation by going out and buying white roses. Ferryman can lurk in the hall with them behind his back. Philippe arrives … and a daring exchange is
made without your mother suspecting a thing.
Voilà
.’

Finally she laughed. ‘You are wonderful. Shall we go out for lunch?’ Then, instead of letting him answer, she returned to that small, persistent detail; ‘I suggested white flowers only
because I have no idea what Maman will wear tonight. She’s at Maison Javier, having the final fitting for her dress for dinner tomorrow.’

Ferryman knocked just
then, entering sideways, as if by narrowing himself he might avoid a further telling-off. He brought a letter, hand-delivered moments before. Jean-Yves tore into it, preparing a nonchalant expression for the young people who watched him closely. He sagged in relief when he saw a familiar signature. ‘It’s from the chairman of FTM. I’m summoned to a meeting,’ he said.

When Christine looked blank,
he added drily, ‘FTM … Fabrication Textile Mulhouse – the people who pay my salary?’ He read the letter again. ‘Well, now. There’s a Swiss moneybags in town, interested in buying into the firm. Seems we’re meeting today.’

‘A business meeting on Holy Saturday?’ Christine couldn’t hide her disapproval. Another trait she shared with his late mother was religious devotion. ‘Who is he, the moneybags?’

‘Name of Maurice Ralsberg. A heathen, no doubt.’

‘Ralsberg – oh, he came to a charity function Maman took me to.’ Christine risked a smile. ‘He was quite handsome when he took his glasses off. Very charming to Maman and me. He called her “comtesse” the whole time, which she likes.’

‘Oho. A social climber. Shall I double the price of my shares? Tell you what,’ he continued, ‘we’ll have that lunch.
Come to Rue du Sentier with me first. You can sit in on the board meeting. It will be an education.’

‘Me, come to a business meeting?’

‘Absolutely. You can charm the moneybags, after which, since we’ll be in the heart of the fabric quarter, you can choose some pretty cloth for your honeymoon—’

‘Javier’s making my trousseau,’ she said quickly. ‘Maman won’t like me buying fabric without her there.’

‘Shush. You can buy something Philippe will adore, and I’ll have it made up. Then we’ll have lunch somewhere quiet.’

Having sent her away and Ferryman with her, he checked there was nobody in the hall outside, then took a leather satchel from a locked drawer. He inspected the banded wads of notes. Five hundred thousand francs, all present and correct. Astonishing how little space so much money
took up. He lifted the receiver, intending to call his broker and arrange the sale of half of his Banque d’Alsace shares. That would raise sufficient cash to make up for withdrawing so much from his bank account. But as he dialled the broker’s number, he remembered that his man of business would be out of town for the Easter festival. The irony was, he had
tried
to pay the blackmailer. He’d gone
to the drop-off behind the kiosk by Notre-Dame-d’Auteuil the previous day as instructed, and discovered there was no ‘behind’. Just a pavement in full view of the world. The situation had felt too risky and – this was a strange choice of word –
amateur
. He’d walked on, clutching the satchel to him because he couldn’t allow so much money to fall into the wrong hands.

On 31
^st
March 1937, the German Condor Legion bombed the town of Durango in the Basque region of Spain. They chose market day, mid-afternoon.

Verrian Haviland wished to God he had been there, and not lying on a bed in a dingy Paris hotel, fighting off the remains of a fever. The newspaper that the maid had brought up with his morning coffee confirmed
what he’d suspected during his last days in Madrid – the theatre of war was turning north. The Fascists had failed to take Madrid and were targeting Spain’s industrial centres instead. But even so, striking little Durango made no sense.

Verrian had made that point in a dispatch from Madrid on 9th March. He’d typed up the copy in the aftermath of a raid and wired it, very late, for next morning’s
edition of the
News Monitor
. At some point during the night his editor – who was also his brother Jack – had got hold of the article and added his own creative touch.

Three days later, all hell had broken loose.

Verrian stretched out a tanned arm to see if his scars had faded. Not entirely, but they weren’t painful any more. And he could clench a fist and count how many fingers he was wiggling.
He knew from the fact that he was desperate for a cigarette that he must have thrown off the worst of his fever. He washed at the hotel sink and hunted for a clean shirt, remembering then that he only had the one he’d arrived in.

The thought brought back a slow-motion nightmare. He sank down on his bed, replaying the moment a Spanish Republican policeman had rammed a friend of his, Miguel Rojas
Ibarra, against the wall of a room in a government office … taken Miguel’s hand, raised it like a target … the sound that followed was engrained in Verrian’s body as deeply as the shards of plaster blown from the wall. They’d dragged Miguel away and the police had come for Verrian. He’d fought his way out of the building, cut through back-streets and found refuge in a church crypt. Alone in the
damp dark, he’d pieced events together. He’d filed his copy in all innocence, ensuring it would reach the
News Monitor
’s London office when his brother Jack was on night duty. Jack had run the piece having changed some vital wording to suit his own political prejudices. The Spanish authorities must have got wind of it around the 13
^th
March, reacting with savage speed.

Verrian had stayed a week
in the crypt, emerging into the bombed streets only to snatch the odd meal in a café, unable to risk returning to his hotel in case police patrols were looking for him. Being tall with blue eyes, he couldn’t merge with a
Madrid crowd, and his blood-spattered shirt and jacket marked him out.

Eventually, fearing he’d die of exposure, and desperately anxious for Miguel, he’d thrown money at a taxi
driver to take him to the nearest airport. He didn’t remember much of the drive or the checkpoint stops. He must have talked his way through them. Using the last of his strength, he’d pounded across the concrete at Albacete aerodrome, reaching the side of an Avro Anson just as it taxied for take-off. The flight out … He’d never felt so sick. His forearms and the backs of his hands, which had shielded
his face from the gun blast, were burned raw and he couldn’t get one scene out of his head: Miguel bent double, shelves of white paper behind him drenched scarlet because they’d shot him in a stationery store room. Verrian remembered landing at Paris’s Le Bourget airport and getting a taxi to this hotel. At some point he’d rung London, begging Jack to move heaven and earth to help Miguel because
it had all been Jack’s fault, that horror.