He pressed on without a break in his stride down towards the bridge. The bridge itself wasn’t much but he’d always been fascinated by the four stone figures that decorated it. Once, when he was a small boy, his father had brought him here and pointed them out. He’d thought that’s what a soldier’s grandson would like to see. He was right. Vincent had been enchanted by the four Second Empire soldiers. The Zouave was his favourite. He stood, left hand on hip, neatly bearded chin raised defiantly against the current, swagger in his baggy trousers, tightly cinched jacket and fez.
His father had been pleased with his reaction. ‘Les Zouaves sont les premiers soldats du monde,’ he’d said. ‘That was the opinion of General St Armaud after the Battle of Alma when we licked the Russians. And your grandfather was one of them. A real Zouave. Not one of the ruffians they recruit from the east of Paris these days – no, he came straight from the mountains of Morocco . . . Kabili tribe. Second regiment, the Jackals of Oran. No finer fighters in the world.’
Vincent had signed on as soon as they would take him. He’d managed to see action in North Africa before the war broke out in Europe. He’d been a seasoned hand-to-hand fighter like the rest of his men, wearing just such a flamboyant uniform. A lieutenant by then, he’d slashed, burned and bayoneted his way through the forests of the Marne at the beginning of the war, realizing that he and his regiment were finished. The red trousers, the twelve-foot-long woollen sash, the red fez all cried, ‘Here I am! Shoot me!’ And the Germans, lying holed up in every village, wasted no opportunity. He’d witnessed the arrival of the British gunners, coming up late to their aid. Not creeping or dashing along – marching as though on the parade ground, camouflaged in their khaki clothing, stern, calm, standing firm when the sky above them was exploding. Machines of war.
And, of course, his regiment had adapted. They’d been kitted out in bleu d’horizon, issued with more suitable weapons. He’d survived until Verdun. He’d been there at the storming of the fort of Douaumont. He’d been collected, one of a pile of bodies, and sorted out at the last minute by an orderly more dead than alive himself, into the hospital cart instead of the burial wagon. Months later, he’d come back to his old mother in Paris and she’d seen him through the worst of it. And he was flourishing. Not for Vincent a nightly billet under a bridge with the other drunken old lags. He had his pride and as soon as he had his strength back he’d got himself a job. It had taken a stroke of luck to get him going but he was in full-time employment. Employment that demanded all his energy and used all his skills. What more could a retired soldier ask? The pay was better than good, too, and his mother appreciated that. She had a fine new apartment. When he’d told her he was in the meat industry, she’d not been impressed but she’d accepted it. Something in Les Halles – a manager in the transport section – she told her friends. Out at all times of night, of course. She didn’t know he was still soldiering.
He smiled and strolled the few metres down to the place de l’Alma where he greeted the old lady keeping her flower stall by the entrance to the Métro. He spent a few rare moments idling. Paris. He never took it for granted. After the grey years of mud and pain, the simplest things could please him. The walnut-wrinkled face and crouched figure of the flower seller, surrounded by her lilies and roses, beyond her the glinting river and the Eiffel Tower, so close you could put out a hand and scratch yourself on its rust-coloured struts, this was pleasing him.
His smile widened. He’d buy some flowers. And he knew exactly which ones to choose.
‘Two inspectors and both speaking French? Monsieur Derval understood that we were about to receive a visit from a gentleman of Scotland Yard. I was sent along in case there were language problems. I do not represent the theatre, you understand, but I speak English. Simenon. Georges Simenon. How do you do?’
Joe handed his card to the young man. ‘Monsieur Simenon? You are French?’ Joe asked.
‘No. Belgian.’ The man who greeted them at the stage door was reassuringly untheatrical, Joe thought. Of medium height and soberly dressed in tweeds with thick dark hair and a pale complexion, he looked like a lawyer or an accountant. Although not far into his twenties, Joe judged, he had already developed a frowning seriousness of expression. But the lines on his forehead were belied by a pair of merry brown eyes, peering, warm and interested, through heavy-framed spectacles. A strong, sweet smell of tobacco and a bulge in his right pocket told Joe he’d been passing some time at the stage door waiting. He seemed genuinely pleased to see them.