Chapter Ten
The rue Royale was still busy with the tail end of lunch, waiters clearing tables on the terraces as Elizabeth fell into step beside Cybil.
“Where are we going?”
“The rue du Louvre.” Cybil cut between two women blocking the pavement without slowing. “To see Gaston Vidal.”
“Who’s Gaston Vidal?”
“My former boss at Le Figaro.“ She glanced at Elizabeth. “If the story was killed, Gaston would know why.”
They left the broad terraces of the rue Royale behind, the streets narrowing as they entered the press district, where a boy heaved bundled papers onto a stack outside a shop front. Further along, two men in shirtsleeves pushed through Le Figaro‘s entrance as they went in.
Elizabeth followed Cybil up the stairs and into the din of the newsroom, typewriters rattling beneath a haze of cigarette smoke, two men arguing across a desk in the rapid, overlapping French that left no space for the other to finish.
She kept close behind Cybil, past rows of desks stacked with copy, a boy of about fifteen weaving between the chairs with papers tucked under both arms.
A woman at the nearest desk looked up, then looked again. “Cybil?”
She was out of her seat before Cybil had time to respond, and then a man at the next desk looked up, and then another, names and cheek kisses rippling back through the room, someone calling across to a colleague, a burst of laughter from somewhere further along.
Elizabeth kept a pace behind, watching a side of Cybil she hadn’t seen before – the easy French, the hand squeezed here, the name remembered there, the particular warmth of a room that was genuinely glad to see her back.
The glass-panelled office door at the far end opened, and the man in the doorway took in Cybil across the length of the room and spread his hands.
“Non. Ce n’est pas possible.”
“Gaston.” Cybil offered her cheek.
He kissed both, his hands going to her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length to look at her properly. “Vous êtes infernale.” He switched to English without missing a beat. “As always.” His gaze moved briefly to Elizabeth, then back. “You’ve come to get your old job back, yes?”
The corner of Cybil’s mouth lifted. “I’m visiting Maggie.”
“Maggie.” He pressed a hand to his chest, his expression pained. “Still filing letters for the British?”
Cybil’s eyes went briefly to the ceiling. “She’s very happy at the chancery, Gaston.”
“Dommage.” His gaze moved to Elizabeth, warm and unhurried. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Gaston Vidal, Lady Elizabeth Hawthorne.” Cybil touched Elizabeth’s arm lightly.
“Lady Elizabeth.“ He inclined his head, taking her hand. “Enchanté, mademoiselle.”
“A pleasure, Monsieur Vidal.”
“The pleasure is entirely mine, Lady Elizabeth, and please, Gaston.” He released her hand and turned back to Cybil. “Now. What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping to have a word, actually.” Cybil’s glance took in the desks behind them. “Somewhere quiet, perhaps. It’s a little delicate.”
Gaston’s expression sharpened. He glanced back towards his office. “Bien s?r. Come.”
Cybil lowered her voice as she turned to Elizabeth. “He’ll probably be more forthcoming if it’s just me. Will you be all right out here?”
“Perfectly fine.” Elizabeth glanced around the room. “I’ll keep myself entertained.”
Cybil followed Gaston in and pulled the glass door closed behind her.
Elizabeth found a wooden bench against the wall between two filing cabinets and sat, her bag on her lap.
The room hadn’t paused for a moment. At the nearest desk, a man was reading back copy aloud to himself, crossing out lines with a pencil as he went. Two desks along, a woman with a receiver pressed to one ear, leaning towards the candlestick on her desk as she scribbled with her free hand.
The boy with the papers reappeared from the far end and dropped a stack on a desk without breaking stride, the man at it not looking up.
Elizabeth’s eyes slid to the glass panel in Gaston’s door – his elbows on the desk, fingers steepled in front of his chin as he listened.
A telephone on the nearest desk rang twice before the woman snatched it up.
“Oui, all?, non, attendez –” already pulling open a drawer with her free hand, rifling through it.
To her left, a typewriter stuttered and stopped.
A man swore under his breath, wrenched the carriage back into place, and the keys started up again.
Elizabeth cast a quick glance at the wall clock, then back to the glass panel, her fingers drumming against her leather bag.
“Well, I never. Lady Elizabeth.”
Pippin Westcott stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets.
“Pippin. What a surprise. What brings you to Le Figaro?”
“Just a bit of business, all terribly boring.” He lowered himself onto the bench beside her and drew a cigarette case from his breast pocket, thumbing it open before offering it to her. “You?”
She shook her head. “I’m here with a friend. She used to work here, actually.”
“At Le Figaro?“ He selected a cigarette and placed it between his lips without lighting it. “And how’s Clemmi this morning? I understand she’d been of a rather sickly disposition of late.”
Elizabeth’s head snapped towards him. How on earth did he know about Clemmi’s sickness?
He drew a black matchbook from his pocket, struck one and held it to the cigarette, shaking it out as the tobacco caught. “I imagine you’re wondering how I know so much about Clemmi’s health?”
“The thought crossed my mind, I must confess.”
He exhaled, a ring of smoke curling lazily between them. “Well, you see, the thing is, Lady Elizabeth, I can read minds.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your face.” Pippin burst out laughing, loud enough to turn heads at the nearest desks.
“You should have seen it.” He took another draw.
“There are no secrets in diplomatic circles, I’m afraid.
And even when people imagine there are, they never stay buried for long.
It’s practically incestuous – everyone knows everyone else’s business before they know it themselves. ”
“I imagine it’s always the same in these expatriate communities.”
“Since the dawn of time.” He glanced across the room, then back to her. “How long will you be in Paris?”
“A week most likely, though my return isn’t fixed yet.”
“Then we absolutely must do lunch. I know a place on the ?le Saint-Louis where the food is simply to die for.” He withdrew a pen from his inside jacket pocket and scribbled a number on the inside of the matchbook before handing it to her.
“Telephone me when you know your plans and we’ll set a date. ”
He rose, taking a last drag on the cigarette. “No rest for the wicked, as they say.” He inclined his head. “Lady Elizabeth.”
“Pippin.” She returned the gesture.
Elizabeth watched him thread his way between the desks, hand raised in farewell without a backward glance
A flash of colour caught her eye as Cybil emerged from Gaston’s office, bidding him au revoir as she pulled the door closed behind her.
A woman at the desk directly in her path held the telephone receiver away from her ear. “Wonderful to see you, darling – don’t leave it so long next time.”
“I won’t, I promise.” Cybil dropped a hand briefly to her shoulder as she passed.
Elizabeth rose from the bench, bag in hand, as Cybil reached her.
“Well?” Elizabeth leaned a little closer, her words meant for Cybil’s ears only.
“Not here.”
She kept pace with Cybil through the newsroom and down the single flight of steps to the street.
The thud of the presses in the basement followed them out, the cobblestones still trembling faintly underfoot as they pushed into the afternoon.
A cartload of bundled papers sat hard against the kerb, the driver up on his seat with the reins loose in his hands, waiting for a gap in the traffic that showed no sign of coming, forcing everyone on the pavement to edge past in single file.
Cybil’s hand closed briefly around Elizabeth’s arm, steering her into the side street alongside the building and into the recess of a doorway.
“So, what did he say?” She held Cybil’s gaze.
“That the order came from above, he doesn’t know who exactly. He received a telephone call from the directeur personally, late last night, telling him not to print it.”
“But he was aware of the shooting?”
“Yes, they were ready to run the story in the afternoon edition.”
“Did this man tell him why?”
“No, he just said that with the American delegation visiting, they didn’t want it to cause any alarm.”
“A man was murdered, and someone high up doesn’t want to alarm the Americans?”
“It certainly looks that way, and the official line is that it was a robbery gone wrong.”
“A robbery? I was there, Cybil. There were at least a dozen people on that bridge when those shots were fired. Surely someone must have come forward?”
“You’d think so.” Cybil’s gaze flicked to the mouth of the alley. “But not a single witness has gone to the press.”
“Which means someone got to them first.” Elizabeth pressed her fingers against the side of her bag. “The police, the witnesses, the press – all of it buttoned up overnight.”
“Gaston said it was the cleanest kill order he’d ever seen. Unfortunate turn of phrase, I know.”
“Quite, but nothing about this makes sense.” Elizabeth shook her head.
“A British embassy employee shot dead on the Pont Neuf in front of a dozen witnesses, and within hours it’s been reduced to a footnote that nobody’s allowed to print.
A man is dead, Cybil. He deserves better than to be quietly tidied away because the timing was inconvenient. ”
“Perhaps we’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it isn’t about the shooting itself.” She met Elizabeth’s gaze. “Perhaps it has to do with the identity of the victim. I mean what do we actually know about Mr Ashby?”
“Other than what Maggie told me earlier, that he’d only been in the position for the last two months.”
“Which isn’t very much at all.” Cybil paused. “We should speak to Maggie. She might know more than she realises.”
“I can’t this evening. I’ve arranged to have dinner with Clemmi.”
“Then leave Maggie to me, and we’ll compare notes over lunch tomorrow. Le Jardin Suspendu, on the boulevard du Montparnasse. Shall we say, one o’clock? If anything can’t wait until then, I’ll telephone you in the morning.”
“One o’clock it is.”
They parted at the mouth of the alley, Cybil turning back towards the rue du Louvre, Elizabeth in the opposite direction.
A man was shot dead in the middle of Paris, and not a newspaper in the city willing to print a single line about it.
A couple of months at the chancery, and by Maggie’s own account, none of them had known him well.
Who exactly was Mr Ashby?