More historical fiction from Gallic
STRANGLED IN PARIS
CLAUDE IZNER
Translated by
Jennifer Higgins
To our darling mother
To Monique who will always be with us
Many thanks to our friend Jacques Rougemont for his invaluable research
The past and the future slumber in the eye of the unicorn.
Adage from the Middle Ages
The pitiful, battered voices
Of the old hurdy-gurdies
First caressing, then biting
Are like the sad, reedy cries
Of a madman who sniggers and sobs
On his deathbed.
Jean Richepin
(The Song of the Beggars, 1876)
Contents
Title Page Dedication Epigraph CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 EPILOGUE NOTES About the Author Also by Claude Izner The Victor Legris Mysteries Copyright
Sunday 7 January 1894
The storm was battering the Normandy coast. It had swept through the British Isles, attacked the Pas de Calais and had now reached the Cotentin peninsula, where it was venting its full force on the La Hague headland.
Corentin Jourdan lay fully dressed on his four-poster bed listening to the great gusts and squalls shaking the walls. The fire flickered. A piece of canvas hung from the mantelpiece to stop the smoke filling the room. The flames threw bright, fleeting tongues of light onto the copper cistern and the old grandfather clock. Two carved birds’ heads seemed about to fly away from the corners of the wardrobe. A raucous miaowing briefly made itself heard above the tumult: the terrified cat was scratching at the front door. Corentin sat up. A ball of dirty fur with a pink nose and curly whiskers hurtled in through the cat flap and burrowed into the warmth of the eiderdown.
‘Now, Gilliatt, is that any way for an old ship’s mascot to behave? There’s nothing to get excited about!’
An explosion of noise drowned out his words: the thatched roof of the shed had just been torn off. Corentin grew more and more anxious as he heard the tempest attack his stock of dry logs, and he tried to calculate the damage. He would have to get the roof seen to by old Pignol, a real crook but the best thatcher for miles around. A loud neighing suddenly erupted from the stable next door: Flip was getting nervous. Just as long as he didn’t start kicking the walls down!
No doubt hoping to evade the worst of the weather, the old tomcat curled up under his master’s arm, purring loudly. Corentin smiled.
‘Chin up, Gilliatt! It’s only a little shower!’
He had seen worse when he used to navigate the Marie-Jeanneton around the Channel Islands. If it hadn’t been for that confounded spar, which had split during a squall and crushed his foot, he would never have left the navy.
He sighed deeply. Even though his house was a quarter of a mile from the shore, the sound of the breakers filled his room like the baying of a ghostly pack of hounds. The pounding of the surf reverberated inside him, soothing him. He sank into sleep.
When he woke, he felt once again the subtle stirring of fear he had battled ever since the accident. He had had to make a supreme effort to prevent the combination of inactivity and physical suffering getting the better of him. He had hated lying immobile on a hospital bed, dependent on the goodwill of others and far away from the salt air of the open sea. The enforced confinement had left him with no choice but to reflect on his past. For weeks he tried to work out whether he had made a mistake; why the stupid accident? At forty, with two-thirds of his life already gone, what did he have to look forward to? He had quickly recognised the brutal truth that no ship’s captain would ever trust a cripple. At that realisation he had fallen into deep despair as he thought longingly of the familiar, reassuring atmosphere of the Marie-Jeanneton.
A sickly, yellowish dawn was struggling to break, and in its pale light he saw Gilliatt, perched on a cupboard with incriminating crumbs of meat and pastry stuck to his whiskers.
Corentin stretched, and remembered his dream. Once again, Clélia had appeared, transparent and inaccessible. The only woman he had ever loved, the only woman he had never possessed, still haunted him. The memory of all the others, kitchen maids or working girls, whose services were freely offered, faded as soon as his desire was satisfied: only the unattainable woman had been able to capture and hold his imagination for such a long time.
He decided to go out. There might be someone in need of his help. Despite his general misanthropy, he was careful to maintain good relations with his neighbours; after all, it had been his decision to limit his life to this little huddle of cottages.
A squall of rain whipped his face. He jammed his hat more firmly on his head, glanced at the increasingly grey sky and pushed open the stable door. Flip’s tail and mane were ruffled by the wind. The mice feasting in the hay ran off, squeaking. He lit his lamp.
‘Hello there, Flip!’
The horse quivered at the sight of his master. Corentin patted his flank and fed him a sugarlump from his open palm.
‘A little treat from your groom, you old misery. There there, easy now, the storm’s dying down.’
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