fish so fresh it was still alive; the barges transporting it from the Lower Seine were equipped with saltwater tanks for the pick of the catch.
He was about to go out when he heard Louise Lardin calling him. She was sitting at the desk in the library, writing in semi-darkness. Only a candlestick, its candle almost spent, lit up her tired and haggard face.
‘Good morning, Nicolas. I came down very early. I couldn’t sleep. Guillaume has still not returned. I didn’t hear you come in yesterday evening. What time was it?’
The concern was new and the question direct.
‘Well after eight o’clock,’ said Nicolas, lying.
She gave him a quizzical look and he noticed for the first time that her usual smile was missing. How hard her tight-lipped face could appear, with her hair undone and no make-up.
‘Where can he be?’ she asked. ‘Did you see Bourdeau yesterday? No one tells me anything.’
‘The search is continuing, Madame. You may be sure of that.’
‘Nicolas, you must tell me everything.’
She had got up and was now smiling. Forgetting how scantily dressed she was, she resumed her normal seductive pose. She reminded him of the enchantress Circe and his mind began to wander. He imagined himself suddenly transformed into a woodpecker like King Picus, or a swine like Ulysses’ companions. He did not think Catherine’s soup would protect him from Louise’s evil spells. He was unable to keep a straight face at these mythological musings, which reminded him a little of his school days.
‘So you find this amusing, do you?’ asked Louise Lardin.
Nicolas pulled himself together.
‘No, Madame, not at all. Excuse me but I must leave.’
‘Go, Monsieur, go. No one is stopping you. Perhaps you will bring back good news. But, the more I look at you, the more convinced I am that I can expect nothing from you.’
He was on his way out when she called him back and held out her hand.
‘Excuse me, Nicolas. I didn’t mean that. I’m anxious and worried. You are my friend, are you not?’
‘I am your servant, Madame.’
He hurriedly took leave of this woman whose obvious duplicity intrigued him. He could not identify exactly what kinds of feelings she aroused in him.
The snow had stopped falling, there was a sharp chill, but the day promised to be fine. At police headquarters Nicolas met Monsieur de Sartine on the staircase. The Lieutenant General was impatient and in a hurry and Nicolas was forced to give him an account of the initial results of his investigations right there on the steps. If he had been expecting some flattering approbation he was soon disappointed and had to make do with a vague grunt.
Nicolas did, however, venture to request permission to borrow a mount from the official stables as he wanted to make his way to Vaugirard to question Dr Descart. The answer, delivered in the haughtiest of tones by a furious Sartine, was that having been given a commission, a move that was perhaps already proving ill-advised, Nicolas should simply make good use of it, without worrying people with trivial details. He could take one, a score or fourscore horses, donkeys or mules, as long as it was in the King’s service.
Mortified by this reply, Nicolas went off to meet Bourdeau. He recounted this altercation, but regretted doing so immediately, as if he had let slip a personal weakness. The inspector listened with amusement and attempted to convince him of the insignificance of the incident, which had damaged nothing more than his self-esteem. Nicolas blushed and readily agreed.
Bourdeau pointed out that Monsieur de Sartine had dozens of cases on his hands and that Lardin’s disappearance was probably not the most important of them. He also had to answer to the Comte de Saint Florentin, a minister of the King’s household, whose responsibilities included Paris, and above him the chief ministers, who all wanted a say and, lastly, the King himself to whom he had direct access and from whom he received his orders. Could there possibly be a more delicate post, with more constant worries? This was ample justification for his occasional changes of mood and for an immoderate love of … wigs. What were they, in comparison, other than mere cogs in the immense police machine? Nicolas should learn his lesson and get on with the job.
Still smarting, the young man took the hint and changed the subject, thanking heaven for having granted him a companion who knew how to tell him the truth. After giving Bourdeau the task of reading the latest reports he went to the stables to choose a horse – there were no mules or donkeys to be seen – and set off for Vaugirard.
Nicolas crossed the Seine via Pont-Royal and arrived at the Esplanade des Invalides. There he stopped, awestruck by the splendour of the scene. The sun cast slanting shafts of light through dark clouds. With the help of the wind, an invisible ballet master directed constantly shifting and alternating plays of darkness and light that swept across this immense panorama. The curtain of shadow pierced by flashes of light gave way at each moment to its opposite: the brightness then flickered, swallowed up by a dark fiery glow.
In the middle of all this, majestically towering over the scene, the dome of the church of Saint-Louis seemed to swivel on its stone axis as it reflected the flitting shadows. The radiance of the dome was further highlighted by the horizontal line of the rooftops, their wet slates gleaming where the snow had already slid down. White heaps piled up around the attic rooms and the chimney pots, and came crashing down in blocks, topping the building with powdery whirls. Nicolas, an unrepentant dreamer before ocean skies, marvelled at the multifarious range of greys, blacks, whites, golds and deep blues. So much beauty stunned him and his heart was racing with joy. He found himself in love with a Paris that allowed him such feelings, and he understood for the first time the deep meaning of the sentence from the scriptures: ‘And there was light.’
The wind that slapped his face brought him out of his dream and back to the nagging fear of confronting Descart. He spurred his horse on and felt giddy from the icy air. Holding his hat, lest it blow away, he sat straight in the saddle and raised his head high. His hair billowed freely, like the brown mane of his mount, and from a distance this moving mass of muscle, cloth and leather must have looked like a ghostly centaur. The repeated thud of hooves on the snow produced a dull swishing sound, their irregular beat only adding to the strangeness of the misty apparition crossing the esplanade. Beyond the Vaugirard toll-gate, dreary-looking hills stretched out from the city walls to the heights of Meudon. The windmills, like towers of ice, kept guard; from their frost-encrusted sails hung delicate lances of crystal. All was bright, silky and brittle. The giddiness of the ride and the sun’s reflection in the snow again numbed Nicolas’s senses, as he passed like a dark streak through a colourless world.
In the midst of a petrified army of vines there appeared snow-covered hovels and bourgeois dwellings. He had the feeling of being worlds away from the capital. At ‘La Croix Nivert’, a crossroads forced him to try to find his bearings. He had come to see the doctor once before, to give him a letter from Lardin. Descart had not even invited him inside or deigned to speak to him.
Nicolas eventually located the residence. It was a large building surrounded by high walls, the tops of which were crowned with fragments of glass set into the mortar. A dog began to howl and the horse shied so much that a less experienced rider than Nicolas would have been thrown from his saddle straight away. He calmed the angry beast by stroking its neck and whispering words of comfort.
Jumping to
