Woman in the Fifth

Seventeen

‘WHAT DID YOU just say?’ I asked.

‘Madame Kadar killed herself in 1980,’ Coutard said.

‘Very funny.’

‘It is not at all funny. Suicide never is.’

‘You expect me to believe—?’

‘Monsieur, the question should be rephrased: “You expect me to believe that you spent yesterday evening at the apartment of a woman who has been dead for twenty-six years?”’

‘What proof do you have that she died in 1980?’

‘I ask the questions here, monsieur. You tell me you were at her apartment last night.’

‘Yes,’ I said, deciding fast that, under the circumstances, it was better to maintain the lie than to backpedal.

‘How long have you been involved with Madame Kadar?’

‘Several months.’

‘You met her where?’

I explained about Lorraine L’Herbert’s salon. Coutard noted this on a pad and asked for her address.

‘And you’ve regularly seen Madame Kadar since that first meeting?’

‘Twice a week.’

‘And you were “intimate” with her?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You are being serious here?’

‘I am completely serious.’

He looked at me and shook his head. Slowly.

‘Have you suffered hallucinations like this in the past?’

‘Inspector, I am telling you the truth.’

‘Have you ever been hospitalized — committed — for psychotic disorders? I can — will — run a complete check on your medical history and—’

‘I am not delusional, Inspector.’

‘And yet you insist that you’ve been having an affair with a dead woman. That certainly exceeds the definition of “delusional”.’

‘Show me some proof that she is dead.’

‘In time,’ he said quietly. ‘Describe Madame Kadar to me.’

‘Late fifties. Striking face, sharply etched features, not much in the way of age lines, a shock of black hair —’

‘Stop. Madame Kadar was thirty when she died in 1980. So the woman you were allegedly seeing was over twenty-five years older.’

But if she was thirty in 1980, wouldn’t she be in her late fifties now?

‘Do you have a photograph of her in 1980?’ I asked.

‘In time,’ he said again. ‘Anything else you wish to tell me about her physical appearance?’

‘She was — is — beautiful.’

‘Nothing else? No distinguishing marks or characteristics?’

‘She had a scar across her neck.’

‘Did she tell you how she received such a scar?’

‘She tried to cut her own throat.’

Coutard seemed thrown by my answer, but was simultaneously trying to mask his bemusement.

‘Tried to cut her own throat?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘The suicide was not successful?’

‘Well, evidently not, if she was telling me about it.’

He reached for a file in front of him. He opened it. He turned several pages, then looked up at me again.

‘Did she explain why she tried to kill herself?’

‘Her husband and daughter were killed in a hit-and-run accident.’

Coutard stared down at the file again. His eyes narrowed.

‘Where exactly did this accident take place?’

‘Near the Luxembourg Gardens.’

‘When exactly?’

‘1980.’

‘What month?’

‘June, I think.’

‘And what were the circumstances of the accident?’

‘Her husband and daughter were crossing the road—’

‘The husband’s name?’

‘Zoltan.’

‘The daughter?’

‘Judit.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘She told me.’

‘Madame Kadar?’

‘Yes, Madame Kadar told me. Just as she told me the driver of the car—’

‘What was the make of the car?’

‘I forget. Something big and flashy. The guy was a businessman.’

‘Why do you know all this?’

‘Because Margit was my lover. And lovers tell each other their pasts.’

‘Did your “lover” tell you what happened to the driver of the black Jaguar—’

‘That’s right — she said it was a Jag … and the man lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.’

Again he glanced down at the file, then looked up at me. His cool was cracking. He now seemed angry.

‘This game is no longer amusing. You have obviously engaged in some sort of warped research about a dead woman who murdered the man who ran over her husband and daughter and then—’

‘Murdered?’

‘That’s what I said. Murdered.’

‘But she told me he was killed by a burglar.’

‘How was he killed?’

‘Knife wound, I think.’

‘When?’

‘Around three months after the accident.’

‘You’re right. Henri Dupre—’

‘That’s the name she mentioned. A pharmaceuticals executive, right … ?’

‘Correct. And Monsieur Dupre — a resident, as you said, of Saint-Germain-en-Laye — was murdered at his home on the night of September 20, 1980. His wife and children were not at home at the time. In fact, his wife had just filed for divorce. The man was a hopeless alcoholic and the hit-and-run accident which killed Madame Kadar’s husband and daughter also ended Dupre’s marriage. However, Dupre was not killed by a burglar. He was killed by Madame Kadar.’

‘Bullshit.’