“There’s someone like that who goes to meetings. Jean-Paul. He came off the streets and looked a mess, but after he sobered up, he didn’t look at all like the same person.”
“Could we meet him?”
“Actually I have his phone number.” Phyllis took out her mobile and dialled and then proceeded to speak in French. When she rang off, she said triumphantly, “He lives near here and is coming to join us. He won’t be long.”
Agatha began to feel excited. Oh, please let this Jean-Paul be the spitting image of Jeremy.
Ten minutes later, Phyllis exclaimed, “Here he is.”
Agatha swung round in her chair and her heart sank. Jean-Paul had white hair streaked with grey and his eyes were blue-grey. He was tall but had a stoop. But his main feature was a very large, very prominent nose.
He joined them and listened carefully while Charles and Phyllis, speaking in French, explained what they were looking for. Agatha sat in frustrated silence, privately vowing to take French lessons as soon as this wretched case was over. If ever.
Charles said, “It’s certainly not him and he can’t think of anyone it might be.”
Agatha’s heart sank. The police would be looking for her because she hadn’t turned up to give a statement. If they checked the airports, they would find she had left the country and would alert the French police.
Phyllis, Jean-Paul and Charles proceeded to chat in French while Agatha sat in a sullen, worried silence.
When they at last said goodbye, Charles suggested that as their plane wasn’t until the morning, they might as well take a walk along the Seine and visit Notre Dame.
“Seen it,” said Agatha crossly.
“Well, see it again.”
They turned off Place Maubert and down Rue Frederic Sau-ton. “Oh, look,” said Charles. “There’s an AA office, right across the road from that Lebanese restaurant. Shall I ask there? I mean, Phyllis only goes to English- speaking meetings.”
“If we must,” sighed Agatha. “But I’m beginning to feel very silly. I mean, why would he get a drunk to impersonate him when he could possibly have found someone sober?”
“Maybe it was hard to find someone sober who looked like him.”
Charles pressed the bell and spoke into the intercom and they were buzzed in. Agatha sank down onto a chair and stared numbly into space while Charles rattled away in French.
And then she noticed that Charles was beginning to look excited. She straightened up. “What’s going on? What’s he saying?”
“Listen to this one, Aggie. There’s a clochard—you know, a drunk—who passes his time with the other drunks by the fountain on Place Maubert. Sometimes he’s sober, sometimes not. He’s usually there in the evenings. His nickname is Milord. He has white hair and blue eyes. He occasionally comes down to this office, swearing he wants to get sober, but he never manages it.”
“Do you think he could have managed it for long enough to keep up a pretence?”
Charles spoke in French again. When he heard the reply, he turned to Agatha. “They say he might if there was enough money in it for him.”
When they left, they were both too excited to do anything other than go to the Metro brasserie, which had outside tables facing the fountain, and wait.
They waited and waited. They could hear the great bells of Notre Dame beginning to chime at five-thirty. The brasserie began to fill up and people dropped in for coffee on their road home from work. There were still plenty of tourists around. Cycling tours glided past and then roller-blading tours. Around them, American, Dutch and German voices mingled with the French ones.
As dusk fell, several drunks could be seen sitting at the fountain, some with their worldly goods in shopping carts, others with their dogs.
And then they saw a white-haired man approaching. He sat down on the edge of the fountain and pulled a bottle from the ragged pocket of his jacket and took a swig.
Charles paid the bill and they got up and approached him.
Charles began to speak while Agatha’s heart beat faster. Milord had the same blue eyes and white hair, though his once-handsome face was marred with red veins. Charles turned to Agatha. “He says he’ll sober up for money,” he said. “He’s called Luke.”
“Do anything for money,” said Luke in perfect English.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” said Agatha. “Let’s go somewhere quiet. Are you very drunk?”
“Not yet,” said Luke amiably. “Just woke up.”
“We’ll head down to the Seine,” said Charles, “and sit down by the river.”
They went down to the river and walked down the steps and sat on a bench facing the floodlit bulk of Notre Dame.
“How much?” asked Luke.
Agatha thought quickly. “One hundred euros.”
He shrugged. “I got a thousand from the other one.”
Agatha had collected exactly a thousand euros from a post office on her road to Birmingham Airport. She had spent some of it but knew she could get more with one of her bank cards at a cash-dispensing machine.
“All right,” she said. “But you’ve got to make a statement to the police.”
“No, that’s out.”
“Look, tell us the story. I don’t think you’ve anything to fear from the police. I mean, he didn’t say, ’Impersonate me while I go and murder my wife,’ did he?”
“No, he said it was a joke, that was all.”
“Then you have nothing to fear. One thousand euros.”
There was a long silence. A bateau mouche sailed past, lighting up their faces and turning the plane trees on the quay above them bright green.
He reached for his bottle, but Charles said firmly, “No drink.”
He shrugged and then began to talk. His name was Luke Field, son of a French mother and an English father. His father had left them and his mother had moved back to Paris from England. He had worked as a graphic artist but had been fired from a succession of jobs. This Englishman had approached him and had suggested he help him play a trick. Luke had agreed because he thought with the money, he could get sober and get a job again. The man called Jeremy had taken him to a flat in the Rue Madame.
“Top flat?” asked Agatha breathlessly.
“Yes. There was a blonde woman there. He called her Felicity.” She had left soon after Luke arrived. Jeremy had gone back to the hotel and reappeared with one of his suits, shoes and shirt and tie. Luke actually had a passport, although he said he often thought of selling it for money. He was bathed and shaved and his face was made up to cover the broken veins. He had to practise imitating Jeremy’s voice and manner. The deal was that he was to stay at the hotel one night. Then this Jeremy would take his passport and fly to England while Luke was to follow the next day on Jeremy’s passport. Once there, he was to phone Jeremy, who would meet him. They would exchange passports and then Luke would get paid and fly back.
“But why did you speak French at the hotel?” asked Charles. “Laggat-Brown didn’t know any French.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Luke. “He told me his French was excellent, but he spoke to me the whole time in English. I thought I’d go to a meeting and then go straight to bed to keep me sober.”
But then Luke became truculent. He said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the police.
“All right,” said Agatha, “but come with us to our hotel and I’ll get you the money. It’s in the hotel safe.”
And please let the French police be waiting for us, Agatha prayed silently.
But her heart sank when they arrived at the hotel. Not a uniform in sight. “Come up to my room,” she said to Luke. She felt if she stalled for time, they might arrive. Why was Charles coming with them? Couldn’t he go to his own room and phone the police from there? But she was frightened to do anything to scare Luke off.
Once in her room, she went to the safe and pulled out her wallet. After her last experience, she had decided to carry as little money with her as possible when she went out.
She slowly began to count out the money and then stopped half-way. “I don’t really feel I should pay you anything because you won’t go to the police. In fact,” she said, scooping up the money and putting it back in her
