‘Are you sure you weren’t followed here?’

‘Certain, and you?’

‘I’m certain as well. I’m expert now at complicating my route — needs must. Well, it’s happened! I’ve met them!’

He recounted the events that had led to his admission to the organisation, and what Charles de Varencourt had told him. ‘And

what about you? What have you learnt about our suspects?’

Lefine sat down and leant against a tree, in the shade. Margont followed suit. The birds were singing at the tops of their voices, as though to hurry the arrival of spring.

‘Everything I’m about to tell you comes from the police files that have been “enriched” by Charles de Varencourt’s reports. Sometimes I was able to add to the information with my own research.’ ‘Which police? There are so many ...’

‘Joseph’s personal police. They’re the ones controlling the investigation. But they’ve also used information gathered by Fouche’s police when he was Minister of Civilian Police but had also developed his own networks, and by the civilian police—’

‘What do they think of Charles de Varencourt?’

‘They think he’s trustworthy and worth listening to. He’s furnished information that the police have been able to double-check against information they already had. So they know he doesn’t feed them nonsense.’

‘Right. I’m listening.’

‘Let’s start at the top with the leader, Vicomte de Leaume. Varencourt has already told you a good deal about him. But do you know how he escaped?’

‘No, tell me!’

‘He pretended to be dead. It sounds simple when you say it like that, but when the gaolers see a prisoner is apparently dead they stab the body with a lance or bayonet. All the fakers yell immediately or writhe in pain. But Louis de Leaume didn’t move a muscle. As it was during the Terror, when there was killing and maiming left, right and centre, the guards thought he had succumbed to his injuries. He was thrown into a communal grave with the guillotined bodies of the day and the bodies of the poor wretches who had died of starvation in the streets. When night fell he pulled himself out from under the dead bodies.’

Margont could not help imagining the scene. He saw the man extricating himself from the decomposing dead bodies — his silhouette, illuminated by the pale light of the moon, looking more like a ghost than an escapee. The thought was chilling. ‘Where did the gaoler wound him?’ he asked.

‘What a question! I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘The scar would be a way of identifying him. Because where’s the proof that the real Louis de Leaume climbed out of that mass grave? Someone could have usurped his identity ...’

‘I asked myself the same thing, but the police dossier backs up that version of events. And what’s more, the description you’ve just given me corresponds to the one the Revolutionary Tribunal gave at the time of his trial.’

‘I see. Co on.’

‘He was believed to be dead. But instead of adopting a new identity and changing his life, Leaume once more joined a royalist group, the Alliance, and under his real name! He eventually came to the notice of the Commune police three years after his death. There was an investigation into the exact circumstances of his demise, which concluded that he had in fact escaped alive.’

‘That was all he had left: his real name. He had no family, no house, no money, and not even any country ... I don’t know if he’s

an impostor or if the real Louis de Leaume did escape and keep his real identity, through pride, to defy his enemies and humiliate them by letting them know that he had fooled them. But I can tell you this. If someone pretends to be dead, is wounded, thrown in a communal grave and spends hours entombed under corpses, when he finally gets out of the charnel house, he’s no longer the same man. Perhaps that’s the reason Louis de Leaume kept his real name. He wanted to keep a link with the man he had been before his ordeal.’

Margont had spent his childhood steeped in religion, and now he thought of Christ, who had also been ‘dead’. To confirm it, a legionary had wounded his right flank with his lance. Could one consider Louis de Leaume like a sort of perverted Christ, resurrected not to love, but to avenge himself?

Lefine disliked speaking of death. He therefore moved swiftly on to the next phase of Louis de Leaume’s life. ‘In 1796, he left the Alliance because he found its members too moderate. He emigrated to London where he spent at least two years. The police lost track of him until he reappeared in Paris in January 1813, where he formed a new group, the Swords of the King. That’s all I can tell you about his past. As you know, I have many “friends”, some reputable and others less so. But I have not managed to hear any mention of him. So this Leaume knows the capital extremely well!’ ‘If he’s the murderer, you can understand why he left the symbol of his group on the corpse. If you had seen them dithering about me ... He would be the type to cut to the chase to force them all into action. But why the fire?’

‘They wanted to cut his head off, he burns their faces ... And I do agree with you: after you’ve escaped from a grave, your ideas must become somewhat warped.’

‘That’s not what I said. I was only emphasising that an ordeal like that would change you.’

‘Well, anyway, I wouldn’t trust him if I were you. Because if he finds out who you really are ... He’s sure to have left his mercy behind in the communal grave. That’s all I’ve found out about him.’ ‘You don’t know anything about his stay in London?’

‘No. All our suspects live very secretly, so the facts are incomplete.’

The facts are like the people: you just have time to glimpse them in silhouette before they disappear again into the shadows. Tell me about Charles de Varencourt.’

‘Again, almost nothing is known about his past. He was born in 1773, near Rouen. His family belonged to the Norman nobility. Nothing else is known about them. In 1792, he emigrated to England. And after that we have very little. He claims to have lived in London. In January 1814, he contacted the police and offered to sell them information. As he distrusted the civilian police, he approached Joseph’s personal police force. He knew the names of some of them because the royalists kept tabs on the people hunting them. Joseph’s agents accepted his offer. He had to provide them with a variety of his own documents. He showed them his passport, which stated that he had returned to France in 1802.'

‘Ah, the great amnesty of 6 Floreal, year 10. Just like me.’

‘Exactly. And, as you know, it is widely acknowledged, given the level of corruption at the time, that many of those passports were handed out to royalists who did not actually return to France until much later. As Varencourt did not tell them anything concrete about what he did in France between 1802 and 1814 - he said he travelled around the country earning his living by playing cards -it’s quite possible that the documents are fake. That’s what the police suspect. In any case, thanks to that “valid” passport, which “proves” that he was pardoned for his crime of emigration, he lives comfortably at home, whilst Louis de Leaume, Honoré de Nolant and Jean-Baptiste de Chatel are on the run and spend their time moving from house to house.’

‘Right. And what have you found out about the Charles de Varencourt of today?’

‘I arranged for two men to take turns keeping an eye on him day and night, as agreed. I went back to see Natai - I wish you’d seen his face when I asked him for a hundred francs to pay the men.’

‘A hundred francs? That’s going it a bit. You’re taking a cut, I assume?’

‘You misunderstood when I said “I wish you’d seen his face”. He recognised that this was an extraordinary situation and found my bill quite normal — I just had to sign a receipt in the name of Gage, the pseudonym I use when I go and see him. For months now soldiers have not been paid, yet any old spy employed for less than ten days can walk away with a hundred francs! That’s nearly five months’ sergeant’s pay!’