Parisian Detective Tales, a Trilogy (eBook)

Part One: Two Sisters

Marcel Marquie (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
236 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-6833-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Paris, 1947. In this post-WWII context, France has just started to recover from four years of Nazi occupation, and private detective Toni Bonnet struggles to make ends meet. Unlike the characters of hard-boiled American fiction that he admires, he is no risk taker and limits himself to simple cases of marital infidelity. Unexpectedly, his humdrum life takes a different turn when he discovers a series of murders committed by two women, a former Résistance hero and her younger sister, whose baby was fathered by a German officer during the war. Two Sisters, the first of a trilogy, is followed by The Child, and The Mother.

The author, who was born in France and lives in the United States, has had a long academic interest in pre- and post-WWII France, the chosen setting in Parisian Detective Tales. He has also published and lectured on French film and crime fiction, his other two areas of special interest.

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Two Sisters, the first part of a trilogy, takes place in Paris and the surrounding area shortly after the end of WWII, when France had barely started to recover from four years of Nazi occupation. It was a time of political turmoil and labor unrest but also of intense intellectual debates, and the ongoing war against the Viet Minh in Indochina was a prelude to the decolonization process. Toni Bonnet, who was a Prisoner of War in Germany, returns to Paris, manages to find an apartment in the Marais area, and sets up his one-man detective agency. However, the post-WWII economic climate is unfavorable, and he struggles to make ends meet. He is no risk taker and specializes in cases of infidelity that do not require feats of daring, but his life takes a different turn when he is hired by a horsemeat butcher who thinks that his wife is being unfaithful. The butcher does not believe her when she says that she spends time with her older sister, who is supposedly gravely ill and in need of constant assistance. This assignment initially promises to be easy and lucrative, but Toni discovers that the butcher's wife had not lied about visiting her sister, except that the two women meet secretly in an abandoned house in the forest of Fontainebleau and that the allegedly sick woman, who happens to be a Resistance hero, is the picture of health. Although Toni does not have solid evidence, he becomes convinced that the sisters are linked to the deaths of former resistants. He also finds out that the butcher's wife had a baby by a German officer during the war and that her toddler has disappeared. The Child, the second part of the trilogy, focuses on the search for the missing toddler.

Textauszug

1

He let out a loud curse, loud enough to be heard by some passersby. A lady was amused while a man frowned, clearly displeased by this display of bad manners, but when he saw that Toni had stepped in a deep puddle, his frown turned into a smile. For Parisians, getting your shoes and socks soaked appeared to be a cheap source of entertainment. Toni, who was in a hurry and had foolishly attempted to cross the busy street, had failed to assess the danger posed by an oncoming city bus apparently driven by a homicidal employee of the Société des Transports en Commun. Fearing for his life, he had quickly retreated, only to find himself in water up to his ankles.

It had been raining relentlessly for days, which was enough to turn an optimistic and good-natured person into the most morose and irritable individual. It was springtime in Paris, the season most hallowed by American movie makers, who inevitably portrayed the French capital under persistently azure skies, with desert-dry streets, and locals sporting summer attire as they went about their daily routines of purchasing baguettes and flowers. In reality, it rained most of the time; jackets and coats were still required; and leaving your apartment without an umbrella was foolish, even if, in the morning, it looked like it was going to be a dry and pleasant day. You could never trust Paris skies.

Toni had not been in the best of moods to begin with, and having wet shoes, socks, and feet had made things worse. Business had not been great, but that was hardly surprising. The war had not been over for that long; the huge wave of euphoria that had come with the liberation of the capital had ebbed; and it was clear that the hardships of the German occupation would still be felt for months, if not years. The unavailability of many products meant that many restrictions had not been lifted yet, but for Parisians, it was a relief no longer to see Wehrmacht uniforms on the streets, in the Métro, and at outdoor cafés.

So things were looking up, but business was slow. Not that Parisians were more faithful to their spouses than before. In fact, it was as if liberating the country had also liberated libidinal urges. So the potential for business was there for someone like Toni, who specialized in cases of infidelity. The problem was the lack of lucre after years of economic stagnation. Toni thought that the general situation would have to improve soon, though. It was just a matter of time, and in fact, there were already signs of recovery. In any case, he did not feel sorry for himself. He had recently moved into a comfortable little apartment on the Right Bank close to the Marais, and he was fairly sure that the man who had come to see him the day before to inquire about his fees would return as planned. Toni was in a hurry precisely because he wanted to be back at his place before the man arrived for his appointment. He would have to put on dry shoes and socks.

As expected, that man was back, and right on time. He had rung the bell, and stood ill at ease on the threshold, which was very much in keeping with the standard behavior of spouses who were about to divulge family secrets, particularly when they had to do with marital infidelity. Toni welcomed him with a firm handshake meant to be reassuring, and he showed him into the little room he had turned into an office, which was adjacent to the apartment’s tiny foyer.

The room had acquired an indisputably professional look when an oak file cabinet, a good-size desk, and a magnificent Underwood typewriter had been brought in. All these pieces came from the local Gestapo building. When its German occupants had left in a hurry, leaving behind the accouterments of their trade, including bathroom tubs for forced immersion of prisoners and other assorted torturing devices, they had also abandoned their office furnishings. Flea market entrepreneurs had had a small window of opportunity to loot the place immediately after the occupants’ departure and before the Paris police realized that access to the abandoned building would have to be denied. Toni had thus been able to buy his furniture from a retailer specializing in stolen German goods which, as the merchant pointed out, had simply been repossessed since the enemy’s presence in Paris was totally illegitimate to begin with. The logic was convincing enough for someone with little means and the need to furnish an office.

The file cabinet was mostly empty, but its imposing size had a reassuring effect on visitors. Toni had added labels reflecting a rigorous alphabetical filing system, which he had laboriously typed, and he was proud of the result. When the dealer had offered to sell him the typewriter for a pittance, he had at first refused, since he had never used one, but he thought that it would look good on his desk and add an aura of American efficiency. He had also benefited from another unexpected windfall, when France’s brothels were officially closed in 1946, after Marthe Richard’s successful campaign to combat prostitution. Marthe Richard was a former prostitute turned political activist. The immediate result had been the sale of hundreds of beds used for the trade, and Toni had acquired one along with a couple of matching bedroom pieces, a little armoire and bedside table, for a ridiculously low price. In sum, he had fully benefited from the combined departure of torturers and prostitutes. The rest of the apartment had remained unfurnished for lack of funds.

“Please be seated, Monsieur . . .”

“Marchand, Jérôme Marchand.”

The man was a red-cheeked and rotund fellow of average height, probably in his mid-forties. His thinning hair was parted in the middle, giving him the comical appearance of a turn-of-the-century café waiter. He was wearing a suit and tie, but Toni, who had immediately noticed his large and seemingly powerful hands, suspected that he had dressed himself up just for the occasion. Furthermore, the unmistakable odor of mothballs that emanated from the fabric was a sure sign of exceptional use. It was most likely his wedding attire. A blue-collar worker? No. That did not seem to fit, but he was definitely someone used to physical labor. It turned out that he was a local horse meat butcher, whose shop was two blocks from Toni’s building.

The consumption of horse meat was fairly widespread, mainly because it was cheaper than beef or veal, but Toni found the thought of biting into a steak from an elegant trotter highly displeasing. Not to mention the fact that these shops were inevitably adorned with the actual-size metal heads of noble steeds that hung above the entrance doors like hunters’ trophies in châteaux. He thought that this form of advertising was in very poor taste. So he had never patronized the man’s establishment. Marchand . . . An appropriate name for a retailer.

“How can I be of assistance, Monsieur Marchand?”

Now came the awkward moment, particularly when men came to see him. Women seemed to be more at ease when disclosing family secrets, but males inevitably felt embarrassed and needed a longer warm-up.

“It’s about my wife.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“It’s about some trips my wife, Sandrine, has been taking.”

“Without your . . . knowledge or approval, you mean?”

“Yes and no. Sandrine has always visited her sister on a regular basis. The two women are very close. Her sister lives near Melun.”

“Not very far then . . . fifty kilometers or so to the south-east of Paris. I know.”

“Have you been there, Monsieur Bonnet?”

“A couple of times, for business. I had to pay visits to an inmate at the prison.”

“Ah, yes, the prison, of course, in your line of work . . . so as I was saying, it’s not unusual for Sandrine to take a train from Gare de Lyon to go see Claudine, her sister that is. Her full name is Claudine Duchêne.”

“So, her trips to Melun are not out of the ordinary.”

“Not at all, but she used to go about once a month, and recently her visits have been much more frequent. In fact, lately she’s been going every week, and sometimes even twice a week.”

“How recently, would you say, has this change occurred?”

“About a couple of months ago, perhaps a little more. I don’t remember exactly.”

“So around the end of January, or mid-January?”

“Yes. Sandrine says that her sister needs her more than before because she’s been seriously ill: a collapsed lung, she says. I’m not exactly sure what that is, but it means that the woman is basically incapable of leaving her house, and Sandrine has to go help her with everyday chores. She goes grocery shopping for her, that sort of thing.”

“I assume she goes on Sundays, when you’re closed, right? She must work in the shop with you . . .”

Toni knew that small butcher shops, like most other small retail businesses, were usually run by both husband and wife. As a rule, the man took care of the carving and weighing, and the wife sat at the cash register and was in charge of the financial side of the operation.

“Actually, she has a different job, but she still has a fair amount of freedom. You see, my wife is . . . an...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.9.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-6833-0 / 9798350968330