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SABINE
PARIS, 1987
Antoine poured another glass of wine. They were on to their second bottle already.
They had taken their discovery to Monsieur Géroux’s apartment in the Batignolles. The passport she had found hidden in the poster with the odd name Elodie Clairmont, the recipe book, as well as the box where she was keeping the other documents, like her mother’s birth and adoption certificates.
When Monsieur Géroux had phoned Sabine to tell her about his own discovery, the fact that Marianne had left a note for Henri telling him implicitly not to go to the restaurant the night she poisoned those people, changed things.
Everything they thought they knew seemed turned around; it was exciting. It might mean that there was a lot more to this story than they’d realised. A version where Marianne Blanchet or Elodie Clairmont or whoever she was hadn’t actually intended to kill her young friend.
It still didn’t answer the question of what had happened or why she’d wanted to kill those people though. But they had a good idea. Thanks to Monsieur Géroux.
Shortly after they’d arrived, and Sabine had introduced Antoine, the older man had led them into his living room, where a folder was open on the dark wood coffee table. He took out something to show them.
‘This is a press clipping from that night. It’s the only one I kept. It came out a few years ago when a journalist ran a piece on it for the local newspaper. I don’t know why I kept it, really, perhaps it was because it had photographs of the people who died. It felt wrong to throw it away… but I didn’t read it, I couldn’t,’ he admitted.
Sabine’s eyes widened. ‘May I?’ she asked.
He nodded, and she knelt down before it.
Putting a Face on the Victims of Murder Restaurant
More than thirty years ago, at the restaurant Luberon, known to most of us in the village now as ‘Murder Restaurant,’ which opened during the Occupation of Paris in 1942 as the owner, Marianne Blanchet, poisoned and killed six people. She was later executed for her crimes. It’s a story that most people in the Batignolles village know even if they don’t know all the details, like who were killed. They were French locals, Henri Géroux, aged twelve, and Louisa Tellier, aged twenty-two, German officers, Otto Busch, thirty, the Nazi cultural liaison officer for Paris, Karl Lange, senior Nazi public relations officer for Paris, Hans Winkler, his junior officer, and Frederik Latz, Busch’s secretary.
To this day it was never understood why Marianne Blanchet did what she did. We asked some of the locals their thoughts.
‘I think she was just evil,’ said Eva Moulin, aged forty-nine. ‘We all try to make sense of things like this, but there often isn’t a reason for it other than that.’
Likewise, Paul Dupont, local baker, seventy-three, notes that she was probably just disturbed in her head, or womb. ‘Hysteria – plain and simple, a disturbance in the womb most likely, what sane person would kill a child?’
While modern scientists no longer believe in the diagnosis of hysteria, or conditions affecting the mind from the womb, the idea that Madame Blanchet was clinically insane is one that persists. Doctor Samuel Allard, who lives in the village, agrees. ‘The signs really do seem to point to something like schizophrenia – this was a woman who it seems served most of these same clients for over a year, without incident, until something went wrong, perhaps in her mind. You have to remember that back then treatment for such conditions wasn’t well understood…
Sabine stopped reading. ‘They clearly all think the same thing.’
‘That she was mentally ill,’ said Antoine, reading it over her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ said Monsieur Géroux. ‘I don’t think I ever did, though.’
She frowned. ‘Why not?’
‘I was with her every day, and if that was true there would have been signs, particularly in the days before it happened. My wife’s brother, Giles, suffered from that illness, and you could tell whenever he was off his medication or needed to have it adjusted. He would start to say strange things, often showing signs of paranoia or acting like he was suffering some delusion. I mean, I’m no expert, but there was nothing like that. I think that’s why it was harder for me – if I could have just believed that she had had an episode like Giles used to have, I could have forgiven her. I would have known she wasn’t herself, that she would never ordinarily have done what she had. But I never felt that to be the case here. It was so… cold. And even the fact that she knew to run away: I mean, had she been ill I’m not sure she would have had the self-preservation to run away… Giles would not have been able to, not that everyone is the same of course, but even so it just never rang true for me.’
Sabine nodded. ‘I agree. I mean, personally, if that was the case – that she was just ill – I could feel better about it in a way. Things are changing with mental health nowadays. Slowly, sure, I mean,’ she rolled her eyes as she muttered, ‘hysteria, a disturbance in the womb, for goodness’ sake. But the passport definitely makes me think it was something else, not mental illness.’
Antoine nodded. ‘Me too.’
Sabine looked at the photograph of the victims. ‘I can’t believe I’m seeing them,’ she said. Busch was blond, with pale eyes. His features were symmetrical and some might consider him good-looking. He wasn’t her type, but there was a manly, farm boy sort of wholesome look about him that would appeal to many. The other men had brown hair. Latz had sharp features and dark eyes. Lange looked older, and had a moustache and light eyes. Winkler’s hair was wavy and he had small sunken eyes that looked slightly menacing.
Louisa Tellier was a brunette, with a sharp, intelligent-looking face. She had a small painted mouth and wide eyes studded by black mascara.
Seeing Henri, though, was the worst. He had eyes that crinkled in the corners and freckles, he was laughing. She touched the image and bit her lip. It was a nice face, she thought. She could see Monsieur Géroux in it.
Monsieur Géroux came to stand next to her. His eyes grew sad as he looked at his brother’s face.
‘I have been thinking about something else too, that might have been motivation. Not for Henri, but in terms of this woman,’ he said, pointing at the Frenchwoman, Louisa. ‘She was in the Resistance with me – except that for a long time the leader of our chapter, Sara, believed that she was an informant.’
They all gasped.
