Page 21 of The Midnight Carousel

‘Please take a seat,’ Laurent says, as though they are sitting down to coffee at Café de Flore and not crammed into this dank room that smells of the effluent pumped into the Seine. This is worse than the cells at Notre-Dame, and they are notorious as the most dreadful in France.

As he watches the woman hesitate before sitting, Laurent is taken by surprise.

When he left Paris, the American police were looking into a number of potential culprits.

It was only when he reached Chicago yesterday that he became aware that the list has been whittled down to this individual, and he was expecting someone older; if this is, in fact, the person behind Clementine Pickford’s going missing, it is obvious that she is too young to have had any direct involvement in Gilbert Cloutier’s disappearance nineteen years ago, and, therefore, the later French cases.

Perhaps the Chief Inspector had been right.

‘This did not happen in France, correct? So it is coincidence and our investigation remains closed,’ he had declared when a stunned Laurent presented him with the afternoon edition of Le Figaro , which featured the photograph of a distressed actress sitting on the platform of a carousel that he would recognize anywhere, along with the story of a missing girl.

And the boy vanishing four years ago mentioned in the second to last paragraph– those details had not reached France at the time, but both cases are all too familiar.

A part of Laurent had agreed with his boss.

Fairgrounds are full of distracted people and therefore riddled with crime.

But his gut told him there was more to it than that.

Perhaps Victor had had an accomplice who evaded capture in France, and possibly tracked down the carousel.

On the spot, he made the decision to take a full month’s leave and journey to America.

With a six-day voyage on the SS La Savoie to New York , and then a train to Chicago– and one week back– he is left with two weeks in which to explore whether there is a link between the cases.

It is ironic, really. When Laurent authorized the sale of the carousel to America, he was thinking of nothing more than where such a pretty folly would achieve the best price. If only he had chosen somewhere nearer– the Netherlands, perhaps. Or Sweden.

Packing in haste, he had promised a tearful Amélie that he would return soon. ‘Do you have to go, Laurent?’ Odette sighed as he kissed her goodbye. He did, yes, because this case has always had a strange hold over him.

The woman in front of him now plays with her fingers.

Her clothing is rough and stained, her face covered in bruises and filth and goodness knows what else, her hair a knotted mess.

Accustomed to the sorry condition of incarcerated suspects, Laurent quickly gets down to business.

Since he is here, it is worth exploring every angle, and there is no telling what she might disclose.

‘I am told that you are called Maisie. Pretty name. There is a flower called similar, non?’

His English is rusty, and he forgets the exact name.

But the specific flower is not the point of his question.

Over the years, Laurent has discovered that a calm demeanour and a compliment or two at the beginning of an interrogation soothes everyone.

It is when suspects are most relaxed that they tend to slip up.

She fails to smile and sits quietly.

‘This disappearance of the actress’s niece is known everywhere. I myself am a detective from Paris with an interest in the case.’

As he watches Miss Marlowe shrug, he experiences a tinge of exasperation.

‘Shouldn’t we wait for my lawyer?’ she asks.

Her voice is bold, but she works to avoid meeting his eye. If he dips to bring his face level with her own, her focus darts left. If he cranes his neck to match the direction of her gaze, she looks to the space behind him. It is the mark of a guilty person.

‘If you wish. But I am not here in any official capacity. Consider me simply a visitor.’

It is very fortunate, indeed, that Laurent’s colleague Constable Segal, has a second cousin working in a New Jersey police department who is owed a favour by a close associate of Agent O’Connell, one of the team from the Bureau assigned to the Pickford case.

A jocular sort with a fondness for rum, the man has given him an ‘in’ with the American authorities, and a direct insight into the findings here.

‘But I told the guards I wouldn’t accept any visitors,’ she replies with a frown. ‘I thought I was brought here to be interviewed by the same agents as before.’

‘So you are not interested in the fate of those children?’

She considers the question for several seconds. ‘Well, I’ve already told them everything I know, and it didn’t seem to help,’ she says.

Shivering, she bites her lip. For the first time, Laurent notices that her feet are bare. He has an idea to lower her guard.

‘You are cold?’

‘Yes, a little,’ she replies, her mouth twisting as if it takes great effort to admit this weakness.

Without hesitating, he removes his jacket and offers it to her.

She looks so grateful for this small gesture that Laurent feels a glimmer of sympathy.

He shifts on his seat. He must be careful this isn’t fake emotion to manipulate him.

Thinking back to the information shared by Agent O’Connell, Laurent remembers an interesting fact.

‘You were born in England?’

She nods, huddling under the jacket.

‘Does the name Victor Cloutier mean anything to you?’

‘I don’t know that name.’

‘Perhaps a photograph will remind you,’ he pushes. Digging into his briefcase, he produces a thick file and rifles through until he finds the newspaper article from five years ago. ‘You will not understand the French, but news of the case may have travelled to England?’

She leans forward, studies the photograph of Victor flanked by four constables on his way to court and shakes her head. ‘No.’

‘The second photograph is of me and the Chief Inspector on the day of Victor’s execution in 1914.

Unfortunately, it is not the most flattering,’ he explains, hearing himself justify his appearance.

‘Victor Cloutier was tried and beheaded for murdering his uncle– the man in the second photograph– as well as other persons including a child.’

‘I don’t know who Victor Cloutier is. I was in America by 1914, so, even if word of his execution had reached England, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t keep in touch with anyone there, you see,’ she says in a quiet voice.

‘When did you arrive in this country?’ he asks.

‘1910. When I was twelve.’

Laurent makes a mental note to verify these claims in order to tie up any loose ends.

‘And the carousel? How and when did you come across it?’

Her brow furrows in confusion.

‘At Grand Central Station in the late summer of 1914. I saw it being unloaded from a freight train.’ She pauses, tilting her head a fraction. ‘But I don’t see how that’s relevant.’

So she must have been one of the first individuals to witness its arrival here. If there is an accomplice, it is not Miss Marlowe due to her age– but perhaps whoever it might be followed the carousel’s journey, and was at the station at that time.

‘And was there anyone you remember lurking around it? Anyone who seemed out of place?’

She gives him a strange look. ‘Everyone seemed out of place, including me,’ she responds. Pausing, she ponders for a few moments. ‘No, no one I can think of. But I still don’t see what this–’

He flips over the news article. The story about Victor runs to a second page, accompanied by a photograph of Gilbert Cloutier’s carousel assembled in all its glory at the Paris Exposition. Crowds swarm around it. Perhaps there was an accomplice photographed there.

He hears a sharp intake of breath as Miss Marlowe’s eyes widen. She looks at the image, up at Laurent, and then down to the image again.

‘It’s our carousel,’ she gasps. ‘Has it got something to do with what happened in France?’

Laurent considers his answer before replying. It would not do to reveal details that might jeopardize the Bureau’s case, especially since he is relying on their goodwill for information.

‘Victor owned it at the time of the disappearances,’ he says carefully. ‘Is there anyone in the photograph you recognize?’ he presses.

Head bent over the newspaper, Miss Marlowe scrutinizes the photograph for several minutes. Eventually, she looks up.

‘I’m sorry, no. I wish I did,’ she answers.

Laurent has already been apprised by Agent O’Connell of her statements regarding the disappearances– she witnessed no suspicious-looking individuals in the vicinity. Hence, there is nothing else to be achieved here.

‘Thank you for your help, mademoiselle. If anything occurs to you, please let me know. I shall leave my card at the front desk.’

As he begins to tidy away his papers, a delicate hand with the grip of the boa constrictor in the Ménagerie du Jardin circles his wrist. ‘If you think it’s connected, and you think I’m not involved in the French disappearances, please convince the American police to release me. Please.’

In his mind, Laurent has neither confirmed nor ruled out a link between the investigations in the two countries.

He glances at Miss Marlowe. She is looking at him with a directness that makes the blood rush to his face.

For a moment, he is caught off balance by a flicker of recognition.

They have never met before today, but there is something about this waif of a woman that is strangely familiar.

He wills himself to keep his composure. ‘I will see what can be done.’