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“Yes.”
“You want him to feel the full consequence, Inspector? Will you ask Monsieur Paris to take the cover off the guillotine so he can see the blade, sober, with his vision unclouded?”
“My reasons are my own. What you will not do is give him laudanum. If I find him under the influence of laudanum you will never hold a medical license in France: Look at that with your vision unclouded.”
Hannibal saw that the room didn’t bother Popil. He watched the inspector’s duty come up in him.
Popil turned away from him to speak. “It would be a shame, because you show promise. I congratulate you on your remarkable grades,” Popil said. “You have pleased … your family would be—and is— very proud. Good night.”
“Good night, Inspector. Thank you for the opera tickets.”
38
EVENING IN PARIS, soft rain and the cobbles shining. Shopkeepers, closing for the night, directed the flow of the rainwater in the gutters to suit them with rolled scraps of carpet.
The tiny windshield wiper on the medical school van was powered by manifold vacuum and Hannibal had to lift off the gas from time to time to clear the windshield on the short drive to La Santé Prison.
He backed through the gate into the courtyard, rain falling cold on the back of his neck as he stuck his head out the van window to see, the guard in the sentry box not coming out to direct him.
Inside the main corridor of La Santé, Monsieur Paris’ assistant beckoned him into the room with the machine. The man was wearing an oilskin apron and had an oilskin cover on his new derby for the occasion. He had placed the splash shield before his station in front of the blade to better protect his shoes and cuffs.
A long wicker basket lined with zinc stood beside the guillotine, ready for the body to be tipped into it.
“No bagging in here, warden’s orders,” he said. “You’ll have to take the basket and bring it back. Will it go in the van?”
“Yes.”
“Had you better measure?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll take him all together. We’ll tuck it under his arm. They’re next door.”
In a whitewashed room with high barred windows Louis Ferrat lay bound on a gurney in the harsh light of overhead bulbs.
The plank tipping board, the bascule, from the guillotine was under him. An IV was in his arm.
Inspector Popil stood over Louis Ferrat, talking quietly to him, shading Ferrat’s eyes from the glare with his hand. The prison doctor inserted a hypodermic into the IV and injected a small amount of clear fluid.
When Hannibal came into the room Popil did not look up.
“Remember, Louis,” Popil said. “I need for you to remember.”
Louis’ rolling eye caught Hannibal at once.
Popil saw Hannibal then and held up a hand for him to keep back. Popil bent close to Louis Ferrat’s sweating face. “Tell me.”
“I put Cendrine’s body in two bags. I weighted them with plowshares, and the rhymes were coming—”
“Not Cendrine, Louis. Remember. Who told Klaus Barbie where the children were hidden, so he could ship them East? I want you to remember.”
“I asked Cendrine, I said, ‘Just touch it’—but she laughed at me and the rhymes started coming—”
“No! Not Cendrine,” Popil said. “Who told the Nazis about the children?”
“I can’t stand to think about it.”
“You only have to stand it once more. This will help you remember.”
