‘Mine Jansen is her sister. Where did you get this photograph of my wife? Have you been ransacking through my papers?’
The inspector took up the photograph and looked at it. ‘She resembles her sister,’ he said.
‘Did you have a search warrant?’ said Harvey.
‘You will be free to contact a lawyer as soon as you have answered our questions. I presume you have a lawyer in Paris? He will explain the law to you.
‘I have, of course, a French lawyer,’ Harvey said. ‘But I don’t need him at the moment. Waste of money.
Just then a thought struck him: Oh, God, will they shoot Ruth in mistake for Effie?
‘My sister-in-law, Ruth Jansen, is, as you say, very like her sister. She’s caring for the baby of nine months. Be very careful not to confuse them should you come to a confrontation. She has the baby there in the chateau.’
‘We have the baby.’
‘What?’
‘We are taking care of the baby.’
‘Where is she?’
The sandy-faced policeman spoke up. He had a perfectly human smile: ‘I believe she is taking the air in the courtyard. Come and see out of the window.’
Down in the courtyard among the police cars and motor-bicycles, a large policeman in uniform, but without his hat, whom Harvey recognised as one of those who had escorted him from the museum, was holding Clara in his arms, wrapped up in her woollies; he was jogging her up and down while a young policewoman was talking to her. Another, younger policeman, in civilian clothes, was also attempting to curry favour with her. Clara had her chubby arms round the large man’s neck, enjoying the attention, fraternising with the police all round.
‘Is she getting her feeds?’ said Harvey. ‘I believe she has some special regular feeds that have to be —’
‘Mine Jansen is seeing to all that, don’t worry. Let’s proceed.’
‘I want to know where Ruth Jansen is,’ said Harvey.
‘She’s downstairs, answering some questions. The sooner we proceed with the job the sooner you will be able to join her. Why did you explain your baby clothes to your brother-in-law Edward Jansen in the words, ‘“The police won’t shoot if there’s a baby in the house”?’
‘Did I say that?’ said Harvey.
‘Mme Jansen has admitted it,’ said the inspector. Admitted it. What had Edward told Ruth, what was Ruth telling them downstairs? But ‘admitted’ was not the same as ‘volunteered’ the information.
‘You probably suggested the phrase to her,’ said Harvey. The old police trick: Is it true that he said ‘The police won’t shoot …’?
‘Did you or did you not say those words last April when M. Jansen came to see you?’
‘If I did it was a joke.’ ‘Surrealism? ‘‘Yes, call it that. ‘‘You are a man of means?’ ‘Oh, yes.
‘Somebody is financing the FLE,’ said the inspector.
‘But I am not financing it.’
‘Why do you live in that shack?’
‘It doesn’t matter to me where I work. I’ve told you. All I want is peace of mind. I’m studious.’
‘Scholarly,’ said the inspector dreamily.
‘No, studious. I can afford to study and speculate without achieving results.’
The inspector raised his shoulders and exchanged a glance with the sandy-haired policeman. Then he said, ‘Studious, scholarly … Why did you buy the chateau?’
‘It was convenient for me to do so. Mine Jansen thought it desirable for her to have a home for herself and the baby.’
‘It isn’t your child.’
It was Harvey’s turn to shrug. ‘It’s my wife’s child. It makes no difference to me who the father is.’
‘The resemblance between your wife and her sister might be very convenient,’ said the inspector.
‘I find them quite distinct. The resemblance is superficial. What do you mean — “convenient”?’ Harvey, not quite knowing what the man was getting at, assumed he was implying that an exchange of lovers would be easy for him, the two sisters being, as it were, interchangeable. ‘They are very different,’ said Harvey.
‘It would be convenient,’ said the inspector, ‘for two women who resemble each other to be involved in the same criminal organisation. I am just hypothesising, you understand. A question of one being able to provide an alibi for the other; it’s not unknown …’
‘My papers are in order,’ Harvey said now, for no reason that was apparent, even to himself.
The inspector was very polite. ‘You maintain your wife financially, of course.’
‘I’ve given her no money since I left her. But if I had, that wouldn’t signify that I was financing a terrorist organisation.’
‘Then you know that your wife is an active member of the FLE, and consequently have refused to supply money.
