The Predator of Batignolles: 5th Victor Legris Mystery. Claude Izner

whose red shade stood out against a bluey-green background.

      The poster was now a palimpsest. A long list appeared on the grey wall. Six columns with hundreds of names:

      WOMEN PRISONERS

      At Versailles …

       Outside a wine shop, an old man is sprawled across the pavement. He is barefoot, his legs covered in sores. A policeman leans over and presses the neck of a bottle to the man’s lips; laughter rings out. Inside, at the counter, Versailles Army officers and civilians loudly toast victory, their faces flushed with drink. In Rue des Écoles, firing squads are carrying out summary executions on a huge expanse of wasteland. 2 A wagon crawls along, a pile of corpses visible through its open door. Policemen in shiny-buttoned uniforms force the locals to take down a barricade. A woman cries over some bodies, their skulls smashed in. A soldier slaps her.

       On Rue Racine, a firing squad trains its rifles on a boy accused of stuffing a handful of incriminating cartridges through the grating of a drain to help his father. The officer raises his arm.

       ‘Wait!’

       A beggar next to the boy is resisting efforts to push him forward.

       ‘I took these shoes off a dead soldier, I swear!’

       ‘Line them up!’

       Line ’em up!

       We heard the captain shout

       Stuffing his mouth

       ’N’ filling his cup

       Line ’em up! 3

      The man realised that he would have to give in: he hadn’t the strength to bury the past.

      The leaves on the horse chestnuts cast pools of shade over the alleyways in the Luxembourg Gardens. Boys in sailor suits rolled their hoops around the statue of a lion guarding the Observatory steps. The man collapsed onto a bench and watched the hoops turning under the light touch of the sticks. Twenty years on, he could still see the woman.

       Clasping an infant to her bosom, her expression frozen like a death mask, she has just recognised her husband among the prisoners. She hurls herself towards him. A blow from a rifle butt sends her reeling; the baby falls to the ground.

      A hoop rolled up to the man’s shoe, wobbled and fell over.

       The sightless eyes of the statues contemplate the bodies piled up on the lawns. Rows of men, their faces pale with fright, file out of the Senate and are led over to the central pond: Communards, civilians informed on by their neighbours, people with dirty hands or who just don’t look quite right. The rifles dispense death. The first rows of men crumple and are immediately buried under those falling on top of them. The blood flows; the soldiers doing the butchering, the endless butchering, are knee-deep in blood. The mass graves are numberless: L’École Militaire, the Lobau barracks, Mazas, Parc Monceau, Buttes-Chaumont, Père-Lachaise. Upholsterers bear the bodies away. Paris reeks of rotting flesh.

      Eight days was how long it went on for. Eight days. Every afternoon, at the foot of Pont Neuf, respectable folk gathered to witness the massacre. Twenty thousand souls put to death in Paris by court-martials and summary executions.

      Eight days that refused to dissolve into the thousands of others the man sitting on the bench in the Luxembourg Gardens had experienced. Eight days that would haunt him until his dying breath.

      The gunpowder, the blood, the hatred, the walls – people had been lined up against the nearest wall and shot.

      Would he go insane? Or would he find his own walls, his own way of meting out justice?

      A toy boat streaked across the central pond. Cries, laughter, bursts of music, a refrain:

       He re comes the flower seller.

       Buy a spray of forget-me-nots

       To brighten up your day.

      Forget? He couldn’t forget. He must act. It was the only way of freeing himself from this insufferable burden: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

       CHAPTER ONE

       Two years later

       Sunday 11 June 1893

      THE train deposited a dozen punters in striped pullovers and straw boaters on the platform before letting out a long jet of steam. The passengers clogged the exit for a moment before setting off towards the riverbank, where families dressed in their Sunday best and a podgy man in a checked bowler hat were also headed.

      The man made a beeline for Pont de Chatou without so much as a glance towards the shimmering water, which was dotted with boats in the unseasonably warm spring weather. A barge whistled. The man dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and paused to light a cigar before shuffling off again.

      Meanwhile an imposing-looking fellow sat sipping a glass of beer at a table outside Cabaret Fournaise in the middle of the island. His eyes were fixed on the potbellied figure in the checked bowler. He was momentarily distracted by the couples dancing beneath the poplars to a lively polka being played by three musicians on a nearby bandstand; tapping his foot to the music, he admired a narrow skiff as it darted out from behind the bend in the Seine. But his attention soon turned back to the portly chap, who was making the floorboards creak as he approached.

      ‘Right on time! You certainly don’t keep people waiting,’ he said, stretching nonchalantly.

      ‘This blasted heat! The sweat’s dripping off me. Is there somewhere quieter where we can talk?’

      ‘I’ve reserved a private room upstairs.’

      They crossed the restaurant where waiters were busy bringing plates of fried smelts, sautéed potatoes and jugs of white wine to the tables. A flight of stairs took them up to a landing and they entered a room at the end. They sat down, face to face, and studied each other. The man in the bowler had puffy eyes and broken veins on his fleshy face, which was framed by a mop of curly hair and grizzled whiskers. He looked like a shaggy dog.

      No wonder they call him the Spaniel, thought his companion, who had an aquiline nose and a jauntily turned up blond moustache.

      He himself had a cat-like physique. His expression was half mocking, half disdainful, and he looked constantly on the verge of laughter. He exuded an innate charm, which made him very successful with women, but so far had failed to win over his sullen companion.

      ‘Call the waiter, I’m in a hurry,’ grumbled the Spaniel, crushing his cigar stub underfoot.

      ‘Don’t worry, Monsieur, they know we’re here. I’m a regular. We’ll get the royal treatment. While we’re waiting, tell me how much I’ll be getting.’

      ‘Two hundred. It’s an easy job.’

      ‘What do I have to do?’

      ‘Purloin a few cigar holders.’

      ‘You’re pulling my leg, Monsieur! Two hundred francs for some cigar holders?’

      ‘They’re made of amber. Will you do it, Daglan?’

      ‘How many do you need?’

      ‘About fifty – more if possible.’

      ‘And where do I find this junk?’

      ‘Bridoire’s