Folly Du Jour

Pollock slumped in his seat, lost in thought. Finally he waved them back to their chairs. ‘I think you’d better hear this,’ he said, heavily.

‘I fetched up here in . . . what was it, George? . . . 1923. I liked my employment. I’m good at what I do. Round peg in round hole. Ask anyone. Only two things I missed, really.’ He looked shiftily at Joe. ‘Yes, you’ve guessed – the cricket. But apart from that – female companionship. I had a mistress . . . or two . . . in Egypt, my last posting, and I was lonely here in Paris. Yes – lonely. They do things differently here.’ He smiled. ‘Oh, lots of commercial opportunities, street girls, chorus girls available. Not my style. I like women, Sandilands. I mean, I really like them. I like to talk with them, laugh, swap opinions, have a nice hug as well as the more obvious things.

‘I met Alice at the theatre one night. She spilled her drink on my shoes in the bar. Scrambled about on the carpet with her handkerchief, trying to make all well. One of her tricks, I was to discover later. Who can resist the sight of a beautiful, penitent woman at his feet? She took my address, saying she wanted to write a note of apology. She was swept off at that moment by a large and protective gentleman. You can imagine my astonishment when, next day, a box arrived for me. Containing a wonderful pair of shoes. My size – she’d established that much while she was down there. And much more expensive than any I could have afforded. I was flattered, intrigued, drawn in . . .’

Bo

‘Upshot was – I met her for tea. She told me about herself . . . quite openly . . . and the way she made a living. I was interested. I went along and approved. And then I realized what she really wanted me for.’

‘Go on.’

‘Contacts! I was to be her opening into the diplomatic world.’ He paused, reflecting, and then smiled his boyish smile again. ‘Not quite the teeming pool of skirt-chasers she had anticipated, varied lot that we are here! But I liked what she had to offer. I liked Alice! I became a regular customer. And, I had thought, until you burst in here with your hair-raising and ludicrous stories, a friend. I trusted her. I had thought we were very close. How could she? I don’t understand . . .How could . . .?’

To Joe’s horror, he saw the blue eyes begin to fill with tears and looked tactfully away.

‘My poor chap!’ said Sir George. ‘Many suffered similarly in India. Ask Joe! We all learn that the woman keeps no friends. She is totally self-interested. Unscrupulous.’ He turned angrily on Joe and Bo

‘You’re generous to say “we”, George. You should know, Pollock, that your cousin would hear not a word against you. He didn’t believe Alice’s story. And he was right. She used your relationship, the details of her close familiarity with you, to convince us that you were the guilty party behind these crimes.’ He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. ‘She traded a man’s reputation and possibly his life for her freedom. And who knows where the hell she is now?’

‘Out in the mists, armed, calling her Zouave to heel, pla

‘More of a Kali, perhaps,’ muttered George. ‘Indian Goddess of Death.’

‘Look, you fellows, you’ve already ruined my evening. Bursting in here like Ratty and Moley with old Badger brandishing his stick, come to tell me the game’s up . . .’ Jack Pollock gri

He went over to the desk and plucked a red rose from the vase. ‘Must get into the part, I suppose. Der Rosenkavalier – here he comes!’ He nodded his head to the three of them, stuck the rose defiantly between his teeth and made for the door.

With a sickening vision of the red roses swirling away on the current down the Seine, Joe called after him impulsively: ‘Pollock! If you have to go over a bridge, take care, won’t you? Oh, I’m so sorry! How ridiculous! Do forgive me!’

Pollock, wondering, took the rose from his teeth and threaded it through his buttonhole. ‘No bridges between here and the Opéra, Ratty. It’s a straight dash down the river bank. See you all again tomorrow, then? Harry will show you out.’

‘Bridges?’ said Bo

‘Oh, a phobia of mine. Some people fear snakes, some spiders, others heights . . . me – I can’t abide crossing rivers. It was the rose that triggered that display of weakness.’

George wasn’t listening. ‘Look – Jackie’s got the telephone,’ he a

‘But I never ring my mother –’

‘Then I think you should start. Not easy being the mother of a policeman.’

Bo

After the usual arrangement of clicks and bangs they heard Madame Bo

‘Yes, it is me, Maman. Oh – well! Yes, it went well. A waste of our time, I think. False alarm. Nothing sinister to report. Look, we’re all going to climb into a taxi and come back for supper. We’ll need to stop off for a minute or two at the Quai to brief Fourier . . . we don’t want him inadvertently to go laying siege to the British Embassy . . . and then come straight on home. Half an hour.’

As their taxi moved off, a second, which had been waiting across the road and a few yards down, started up and slid into the busy traffic stream behind them.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They had left George sitting in the back of the taxi in the courtyard while they trudged up the stairs to confess to Fourier that they’d been given misleading information. They emerged fifteen minutes later, silent, dismayed by the Chief Inspector’s glee at their predicament.

Before they could cross the courtyard, they were alerted by the sound of ru

‘No. I’m busy,’ said Bo

‘That’s the point, sir,’ said the sergeant, puzzled. ‘Can’t be found. They’ve buzzed off somewhere. What should I do then, sir? You’d better tell me . . . just so as it’s clear.’ He evidently didn’t want to go back upstairs and report the Inspector’s refusal of an order.

Bo