Free Speak Softly My Love by Louis Shalako Page B

exactly the same time.
    It was
one of the risks, of their line of questioning, of where they
wanted to go and also what they had to hold back—what they didn’t
necessarily need to tell her. Yet living right there, surely she
had heard about the body in the park. Even if someone else did the
shopping, the cook or the maid, news traveled fast. Her friends at
least, would read the newspapers and remark upon it. At this point
Tailler was realizing just how fishy it was getting. On balance,
there was such a thing as social isolation, even among the
well-to-do. There were questions of mental hygiene…
    Murder,
front page copy in the the more lurid journals, was nothing if not
geared to the vulgar, the lowest common denominator of society.
Some people just preferred not to read it! There were days when
Emile basically skimmed through the paper himself.
    Even
so.
    Fishy, fishy, fish.
    The
three of them sat in her modern and tasteful salon. It was the
fifth-floor loft, usually the lowest in rent. What was interesting
was the upper-class young couple going up and down all those
stairs. That was unusual, but perhaps the compromise was worth it.
The single bedroom, and the bathroom were out of sight, presumably
behind closed doors. A place like this would have a small dressing
room between bedroom and bathroom. Everything else was one big
space, with pale wood flooring, a dark, plain green Danish couch
and chairs. Some odd-ball, shiny accessories came from a prominent
Italian designer. Nothing was made in Japan. There were stained
glass lamps, hanging from a sort of bronze brazier. The lights were
not turned on just then, and the thin pale curtains were thrown
back to admit a lot of light and air. Lush plants and even a lemon
tree in the corner by the big front windows rounded out what was a
very nice living space. It was avant-garde but tasteful. None of it
looked cheap, but he didn’t know much about it. They would get
around to asking about money and income soon enough.
    The
woman herself looked washed out. The waiting and the wondering were
taking their toll.
    “ Did you ever wonder if he had a mistress, or anything like
that?” Tailler would be asking about prostitutes and child brothels
next.
    He’d
never seen an entire room painted white with one red wall before.
The effect was stunning enough. He was supposedly trained in the
art of observation.
    Her face
was beet red and she wouldn`t look at him.
    It came with the job, and he cast his eye over the low teak
coffee table, with its jumble of women’s magazines and some pulpy
romance magazines in digest format. There was a much-folded copy of
one of the major Paris dailies. Someone had at least made a stab at
the crossword puzzle. Clearly her heart hadn’t been in it. There
was the stub of a pencil right there and cryptic things written
faintly on the margin and available spaces. She had Vu and La Vie, artsy lifestyle
magazines, which was only to be expected in one of her class. One
would never see them in working class homes. The cover price was
outrageous even on a cop’s salary. Tailler wondered who in the home
read them, Didier or Lucinde. Vu for Lucinde and the much more political La Vie for Didier, he
thought.
    Somewhere in the background goldfinches or something cheeped
and he wondered where she normally kept them. The kitchen might be
their home, which would sort of imply that she either never cooked
or never let them out of the cage.
    The
silence was going on too long.
    “ Well?” Hubert was back in the conversation after pretending
to go through a couple of pages of his notebook.
    Silence
was a pressure tactic.
    “ Ah, no. Never. Should I have thought of it?” She was hurt,
angry, and resentful.
    Not
unexpectedly.
    “ No, Madame and please forgive us. It’s just that we can leave
no stone unturned. It’s a serious business, to go away without
word. Leaving a nice lady like you completely in the dark. Or so it
would seem…” Tailler plowed on. “Seems