Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier Read online

  The rain had stopped the moment the woman entered the shop, as though the weather gods were after her and her alone. Mancebo doesn’t throw her out straight away, instead he observes her from a distance. She laughs and drops the jar on the counter, even though she’s paid for it.

  ‘Just so you don’t think I’ve stolen it.’

  She’s playing for time, maybe she doesn’t want to go back onto the street. But if she’s scared of something out there, why would she seek refuge here, Mancebo thinks. Plenty of bars and restaurants are still open, there’s even a McDonald’s not far away. Mancebo’s shop is shut and she couldn’t have even been sure he would hear her knocking and come downstairs. She runs her long white fingers over the tins and jars, as though she’s checking them for dust.

  ‘How can I help you, madame?’

  She looks disappointed, as though his question has come too soon. As though there was something she wanted to do before the question arose.

  ‘You can call me Cat,’ she whispers, holding out her hand.

  Mancebo instinctively shakes her hand. ‘Madame Cat?’

  ‘Cat will do fine.’

  ‘Like the animal?’

  She nods. Mancebo nods back, and decides the story is getting better and better. By now he has forgotten the cakes and tea upstairs.

  ‘So how can I help you … Madame … Cat?’

  The woman suddenly looks uncertain.

  ‘So how can I help you?’

  ‘You’re the only one who can help me, Monsieur …’

  ‘Mancebo.’

  ‘Can we talk in peace here?’

  Mancebo nods and straightens his back. He likes this feeling of importance. Never before has he been the only one who could help somebody. He might have been the one to save a party when all the other food shops were shut, or to supply an item for a half-mixed cake or a spontaneous picnic. But no one has ever told him that he is the only one who can help them.

  ‘I want to ask you a favour. Or rather, I want to offer you a job.’

  ‘I’ve got a job.’

  ‘And it’s precisely because you’ve got this job that I want to offer you another.’

  Mancebo gives her a sceptical look.

  ‘No one could do this job better than you, Monsieur Mancebo.’

  The rain resumes and a couple of happy teenagers dash across the boulevard, hand in hand. Their laughter makes Madame Cat jump.

  ‘I want you to spy on my husband.’

  For the first time, Mancebo starts to wonder whether this is all a joke. But when he looks into Madame Cat’s eyes, he realises this woman isn’t joking. She looks as earnest as any woman could possibly look.

  ‘What, me, spy on your husband? Why? And why on earth me, of all people? I haven’t got time to tail a stranger all day long. Can’t you see how much I have to do here? I get up at five in the morning to go to the market, and I don’t turn off my light until midnight.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she says, ‘you’ve answered all your questions. See that building over there?’

  She points across the street and Mancebo looks at the building above Tariq’s cobbler’s. It’s identical to the building they are standing in. It has a shop on the ground floor and two apartments on the floors above. The only difference is that the building opposite is free-standing, and there’s a fire escape running down one side.

  ‘My husband and I live in the apartment on the top floor. The apartment beneath us is empty. For a while now, I’ve suspected that he’s cheating on me. I work away a lot, travelling, I’m an air hostess, and since he’s a writer he works from home. Or he used to work at home, but he’s suddenly changed his habits. He doesn’t write as much … And my friend has seen him out and about during the day.’

  ‘But what makes you think he’s cheating on you?’

  ‘A woman can feel these things.’

  Mancebo’s back is starting to feel stiff, but his brain has perked up, not to mention his heart, which isn’t used to pumping red excitement round his body. He puts up one hand to indicate that she’s not to go anywhere, and disappears behind the counter. He quickly returns with two stools. She takes a seat and unbuttons her raincoat. Mancebo takes it as a sign that she trusts him and he feels honoured. He puffs himself up like a proud toad before he sits on his stool.

  Madame Cat’s hair has started to dry and Mancebo can see that its true colour is more of a chocolate brown. Even though he has asked her to sit, Mancebo has no intention of taking on the job. But he very much wants to hear more of her story. He gets to hear gossip about his neighbours every day, but he’s never heard anything like this.

  ‘But you surely must have more proof that he’s having an affair than the fact that he sometimes goes out during the day?’

  ‘I do. He seems stressed.’

  Madame Cat goes quiet, as though she’s trying to think of something else that has changed recently.

  ‘And he brings books home.’

  ‘So? I thought you said your husband was a writer, surely there’s nothing odd about that?’

  ‘You’re right … he writes crime fiction and it’s the only thing he likes reading, but he’s been coming home with all kinds of books lately. One day, I found a book about pruning fruit trees.’

  ‘So?’

  Madame Cat looks at Mancebo.

  ‘We live in an apartment.’

  Shame washes over Mancebo. He doesn’t feel like the most quick-witted of detectives, but the fact that her husband has stopped writing surely doesn’t have to mean that he’s unfaithful? There is such a thing as writer’s block, Mancebo thinks. And he can’t be accused of marital infidelity just because he has been seen out and about during the day.

  ‘And how would I recognise your husband?’ Mancebo asks, mostly to show that he can be capable of clear thinking.

  Madame Cat gives Mancebo a questioning look.

  ‘We’re the only people living in the building opposite, and he usually wears a brown cap. I was thinking of hiring a private detective. I even called a few. Did you know that there are two thousand and thirty-seven private detectives in Paris?’

  Mancebo shakes his head and eagerly absorbs this fact. He likes short, pithy gobbets of information that he can show off later at Le Soleil.

  ‘But then last Saturday, around lunchtime, when he went out to buy cigarettes, I looked through his computer, and that was when I caught sight of you, sitting on your stool outside the shop. I must have seen you there a thousand times, but that was when the idea first came to me. I realised there was no one who could carry out the task better than you! Nobody would suspect a thing because you’re always sitting there, from morning until night. And you wouldn’t have to do much.’

  Madame Cat lowers her voice and moves closer to Mancebo.

  ‘All I want is for you to give me written reports of what goes on during the day and in the evening. When he goes out, when he comes back, who goes into the apartment, or anything else you think might be of interest. You’ll be paid handsomely, let’s say the same rate as a professional private detective. The money will be in one of these, every Tuesday morning.’

  She holds up the olive jar. Mancebo scratches his head and is about to take off his cap when he changes his mind.

  ‘The money will be in a jar of olives?’

  Madame Cat nods.

  ‘I’ve lived here long enough to know that every Sunday evening you put out the glass for collection, don’t you? So you’ll put the week’s report into an empty olive jar, and I’ll make sure to collect it early the next morning, before seven. The week’s new delivery of bottles arrives early on Tuesday mornings, usually before you’ve had time to open the shop. That’s where you’ll find your payment.’

  Mancebo scratches his head again.

  ‘I need your answer right away, if you don’t mind, Monsieur Mancebo. I’ve waited long enough.’

  It didn’t feel particularly special to be back in the café, oddly enough. The last time I’d been there, I was
being interviewed about the revelation that HSBC had helped its clients to place their capital in Switzerland, evading hundreds of millions of dollars in tax.

  I hadn’t been the only one to investigate HSBC. There were 140 of us, journalists from forty-five countries, but the work itself was solitary. Towards the end, I was working day and night because Le Monde had set a strict publication date. Our research also showed that the bank had been doing business with arms dealers who supplied weapons to child soldiers in Africa. The affair grew, and with it the pressure.

  I was back at square one, the café, looking for new commissions. The tablets were in my bag. Just in case. I hadn’t really been taking them for long enough to have seen the promised benefits. During the months I was working on the HSBC case, I had been hoping the result and eventual revelations would be appreciated. But when it finally came around, the whole thing felt meaningless. And with that meaninglessness came the collapse.

  I’d seen the warning signs, the trouble sleeping and strange physical ailments. Depression caused by exhaustion, that was the diagnosis, but I didn’t feel depressed, just indifferent. The medicine I was prescribed was for anxiety. And that was the knotty equation which made me wait before starting the tablets. Though with the wait came the anxiety, as though on command, which made it easier to start the medication.

  There was nothing strange about the way he entered the café, but then he paused in the middle of the room as though he was some kind of chosen one. His eyes darted from person to person. I glanced up at him. In the man’s eyes there was an unusual but very attractive blend of uncertainty, hope and tenacity. Once he had scanned the customers nearest the till, he moved on to the group sitting closer to him. Then he looked directly at me and I held his gaze, while not exactly returning it. The man continued to peer around intently and I had the feeling he was looking for a woman. I lowered my eyes and went back to my work.

  ‘Are you waiting for Monsieur Bellivier, madame?’

  His tone was formal, and implied the answer itself was unnecessary. It was more like a greeting, a message or code. There was no hope in it, nothing personal, his voice expressed no emotion whatsoever. I shook my head, almost instinctively. The man looked at me as though he was giving me time to change my mind. He took several steps back and returned to his spot in the middle of the café. Then he began scanning the customers again.

  I studied him and became increasingly convinced that it had to be a woman who was waiting for Monsieur Bellivier. The man was paying no attention to the male clientele.

  He turned to another woman, and though I couldn’t make out what he said, I was sure he was asking her the same question. She shook her head. I put a full stop at the end of my sentence and studied the woman. She had brown hair in a pageboy cut, just like me. The man was beginning to look a little desperate. Was he Monsieur Bellivier? Or was he his representative?

  The man was still standing in the middle of the café, resolute. That was when I had the idea. It was a banal act in and of itself, but it both frightened and appealed to me. The woman was meant to be there. I waved him over. The first step. A slight movement of the hand. He didn’t seem surprised, more embarrassed that I hadn’t waved him over sooner. I whispered:

  ‘Yes, I’m waiting for Monsieur Bellivier.’

  He extended his hand and I shook it, but we didn’t exchange names. For a moment, I found it strange that he didn’t introduce himself, but I decided it must be because he was, in fact, Monsieur Bellivier. And introducing myself was unnecessary, since he clearly ought to know who was waiting for him. A silent handshake was therefore the most appropriate greeting. The fact he shook my hand told me that we didn’t have any sort of personal connection. If we had, he would have kissed me on the cheek. So, this was a professional encounter.

  That was it, wasn’t it? I’d satisfied my sudden urge. But the thought of playing along for a little bit longer was tempting. I could just as well take a few more steps. He would realise I wasn’t the right person as soon as we started talking.

  I closed my laptop. It could give the game away about who I was. If he was angry when he realised I wasn’t the right woman, it would be better that he didn’t know my real identity. The man suddenly looked around, as though to check whether we were being watched. He sat down in the armchair opposite mine and smoothed his trousers a little, while I took the opportunity to drop my phone into my bag. I was shedding as much of myself as I could.

  He got to his feet and asked whether I wanted anything. I shook my head because I was afraid to use my voice. Could we have spoken on the phone? He went over to the counter. The green armchair I was sitting in seemed to grow when he left me. The seat that normally felt so safe, so enveloping, suddenly felt far too big for me.

  The man added sugar to his coffee and stirred it. I stayed silent. I tried to work out a way of calling the whole thing off, but my fantasies about who the man was and what sort of person might be waiting for Monsieur Bellivier took over. Maybe he thought I was an escort? Wasn’t that how it worked? You agreed on a public meeting place and then went to a fancy hotel afterwards?

  ‘Have you been waiting long?’

  Perhaps he was simply being polite, but it could also have been a trick question. Maybe he was an hour late, or an hour early.

  ‘I wanted to be in good time,’ I replied. My voice had returned.

  It seemed like he wanted to smile, but he resisted, his face remaining neutral.

  ‘Let me explain that Monsieur Bellivier sent me. He couldn’t come himself, unfortunately, but I’m sure you’ll get the chance to meet him.’

  So, the man opposite me wasn’t Monsieur Bellivier. Not that this information was much help. He could be absolutely anyone, which meant I knew as little as I had before.

  ‘We’re glad that you wanted to do it, and I hope you’ll be happy.’

  That you wanted to do it. So there was a task to be performed. My mind turned back to escorts.

  ‘Tired?’

  I shook my head and smiled.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose I ought to tell you too much more right now, we’d be better off taking a look at the place. I can explain everything when we get there and you can settle in.’

  He held open the café door and we stepped out into the wall of heat. My decision to work in that particular café in the Paris business district was based largely on the quality of its air conditioning. Working in a café also meant that I got out into the real world, which made me feel normal.

  I stole a glance at the man as we took the escalator down to the plaza and wondered how to find a natural opening that would enable me to extract myself. I could pretend to get a text from the person I’d actually been waiting for and apologise – it was all a misunderstanding. I could pretend I felt ill …

  ‘It’s not far,’ the man said with a smile.

  Suddenly, we were in front of Areva, the tallest tower in La Défense. I abandoned the escort idea. Areva was one of France’s leading energy companies, and it had recently been in the news for questionable business practices. I had often come across the company’s name in my work on HSBC’s dealings in Africa.

  Was this where Monsieur Bellivier worked? Would I be given access to confidential documents? Could this be a scoop? My interest had been piqued and my fear abated a little. I wanted to know more. The man went through the swing doors and over to the vast reception desk to exchange a few words with the receptionist. Suddenly, a little more rapidly than I’d expected, he came back with a pass.

  ‘Don’t lose it.’

  I turned it over to see who I was, apprehensive I might read my own name. But I hadn’t been given a name, only a title. ‘Sales Manager’, the blue pass said. The man studied my face and then said something more cryptic than anything he’d said before:

  ‘He’s got a sense of humour.’

  I couldn’t be sure, but I imagined he must mean Monsieur Bellivier. Which meant I wasn’t actually a sales manager. My idea about being shown document
s started to seem more likely.

  The man had a pass of his own, and I tried to read it but I couldn’t. He placed it gently on the barrier, there was a beep, and he was through to the other side. I needed to do the same. I’d missed my chance to extract myself naturally, or as naturally as I could in the circumstances.

  We stopped to wait for the lift. A few people were already queuing, which meant I wouldn’t have to be alone with the man. That very moment, in front of the lift, my appetite for work returned. It was a long time since I had felt that way.

  We entered the lift with men in suits and a woman in a red dress. Her beautiful legs looked surreal against the bright red colour. I saw the man press the button for the top floor. It merely strengthened my theory about confidential documents, which would probably be stored well out of the way. The two men wished us a good afternoon before they got out of the lift. We continued on up. The shapely legs also left us. I kept a firm grip on my pass.

  For the first time, we were alone together, and I sensed that he was nervous. Maybe I wasn’t the only one being forced to play someone I wasn’t. Time seemed to stretch. But all lifts stop eventually, and this one was no exception. The doors opened and the man gestured theatrically for me to get out first. The floor was silent. I couldn’t see another soul.

  There was an emergency exit sign on one of the doors. It wasn’t far from the lift. But what would I do if the door was locked? A feeling of panic washed over me and I started running towards the emergency exit. I grabbed the door, which swung open, and heard the buzz of people. I turned around. The man had made no attempt to stop me. He was still by the lift, watching with dismay. I was breathing heavily. I looked down, took a few steps downstairs and caught sight of a suited man hurrying past with a cup of coffee.

  I went back up. Several hundred people were working right beneath me. I could reach them easily, and they could reach me.