Read Online For the King by Catherine Delors - Free Book Online Page B

there were any chance of a risk to his personal safety.”
    “So what do you think that splashing noise was?”
    “Could be anything, related or not to the attack. Perhaps one of the assassins jumped into the river, but he must have had a damned good reason to do so. No one could survive more than a few minutes in the river in this season. Perhaps the man was burnt by the explosion and wanted to quell the pain.”
    “Or perhaps the assassin did not jump into the river at all. He could have thrown something away.”
    “If he did, we have yet to discover what it was.”
    Roch went to take the statement of Vigier, who had nothing more to say, and again joined Sobry on the deck of the barge until dusk. The Seine only yielded more garbage as they looked on.

11
    I t was full dark when Roch reached the Prefecture after his afternoon at Vigier’s Baths. The streetlights barely pierced the fog that rose from the river. He did not follow Sobry’s recommendation to go to the Prefect to express contrition. Instead, he was content to prepare his daily report to his superior, along with an unofficial copy he would send discreetly to the Minister. Then, with his colleagues, Roch spent the rest of the night in his office, receiving more statements from witnesses, or people who fancied themselves witnesses. Hundreds of men and women were still patiently waiting for their turn to be interviewed.
    Roch’s eyes were burning from fatigue, and he could not help yawning while taking one statement after another. He had almost abandoned any hope of garnering useful information when, well past midnight, a Widow Peusol, a street vendor, was shown into his office. The woman entered cautiously. She clutched her tattered skirts with both hands, her chest slightly bent forward in a half bow. At least here was a witness who was not full of her own importance and did not address him in a conspiratorial tone. He rose and offered her a chair, scratching his ear while he waited for her to speak.
    “It’s my daughter, Citizen Chief Inspector, Sir,” she began, “my little Marianne. She didn’t come home two nights ago.”
    Roch stared at the woman. “Do you mean the night of the attack? The 3rd of Nivose? You waited two days to report your daughter missing?”
    The woman opened her mouth like a fish out of water and looked at him with a mix of fear and desperation.
    “It’s all right, Citizen Peusol,” he continued in a softer tone. “I understand.” Indeed he knew that the poor preferred, sometimes with good reason, to limit their dealings with the police to a minimum.
    “So I won’t be in trouble, Sir?”
    “No. I guarantee it. Please tell me what happened to Marianne on the 3rd.”
    “She left with her tray full of biscuits, like every day. I buy’m at the pastry shop, see, an’ then she sells’m on the streets for a sol more a piece. That’s not much, Citizen Chief Inspector, but at least this way she earns a bit of money. We’re so poor that more often’n not I worry we won’t have twelve sols pay next week’s rent. Then we’d be thrown out by the lan’lord an’ we’d end on the streets, abeggin’ for our bread . . .”
    “Yes, Citizen Peusol. So where does Marianne usually sell her biscuits?”
    “She goes stand by those barracks near the Pont-Royal—” The woman stopped suddenly and cast a worried look at Roch. “Scuse me, Sir, the Liberty Bridge, I should’ve said. You know, where the Hackneys’ Office used to be in the ol’ days. It’s a good place, with all the soldiers comin’ in an’ out. So she left with Jeanne, the girl nex’ door. An’ Jeanne told me that a man came to talk to Marianne.”
    “A soldier?”
    “No, Jeanne didn’t say it was a soldier.” Citizen Peusol wiped her eyes with a corner of her ragged apron. “He gave Marianne twelve sols if she’d come an’ take care of some horse. Jeanne saw him put a silver coin in Marianne’s hand. An’ she was so happy, and she followed him