A Citizen Of Nowhere Read online

  A Citizen Of Nowhere

  This edition first published 2017 by Fahrenheit Press

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  www.Fahrenheit-Press.com

  Copyright © Seth Lynch 2017

  The right of Seth Lynch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  F 4 E

  A Citizen Of Nowhere

  By

  Seth Lynch

  The Salazar Mysteries

  Fahrenheit Press

  For Isla, with love

  CHAPTER ONE

  Paris, 1930

  I am a citizen of nowhere, escaped from the tribe, an Englishman living in Paris. My head beats like the drum roll before an execution. Why does my hand hurt?

  A coffee follows a cigarette. My head beats like the drum roll before an execution. Why does my hand hurt?

  A coffee follows a cigarette, then some orange juice and a breakfast of bread and jam. My kitchen is small with a table, a tiny stove, a basin and a cupboard. French cuisine is famous but they don't actually cook - that's what restaurants and bistros are for. In Paris the kitchen is a place to drink coffee, smoke, and be thankful you don't live in a stinking hotel anymore. It's silent here, aside from the constant dripping of a tap. For over a year I lived next door to a room used by prostitutes. The novelty of hearing them wears off fast. Well, it's early and my blessing has now been counted.

  The wintry sun casts long shadows across the kitchen. My coffee pot sits on the stove and shines like a jewel in a magpie's nest. I should have shaved by now. I'm thirty-four years old; there are many things I should've done by now. Not so many as the things I've done and shouldn't have. Unshaven or not, I shall go out for my bread and jam.

  'What makes you think you are welcome here?' André, the waiter and proprietor, stands arms akimbo as if acting in some Molière play.

  André is an unpleasant creature. He has a pot belly and the lingering smell of horse-flesh soup. I'm not certain if he eats it or bathes in it; either way if he gets too close I feel like vomiting. His hair is Italian-black and shorn away at the sides. It also sprouts from his ears and nose. His skin glistens through a film of sweat and grease which grows deeper through the day. If this café weren't so damn close to my bed I'd never come here. André is punishment for my laziness.

  'I know I'm not welcome, André, but my money is, so cut the crap and fetch me some bread and jam. Bring coffee too.' I take out a Gitane, light it, and make a dismissive gesture with my free hand.

  André huffs as he leaves. At least he didn't spit on the floor first. He has all the pride of his profession but little of the skill and none of the tact. What does it matter if I turned over a table and punched some half-wit? It wasn't André's fat ugly lip I'd left dripping with blood. He saunters back with a small stick of bread and a pot of strawberry jam on a metal tray. As if parodying the more talented waiters in the established restaurants, he holds the tray with one hand above his head. The coffee cup he holds in his other hand; he'd spill it otherwise.

  'Who's that girl over there?' I ask.

  'I don't know, I don't care. She has a coffee and she's been nursing it for an hour. So, whatever else you may say about her she fits in well here.' He walks off before giving me the chance to question him further.

  The woman has a pallid complexion with exceedingly dark eyes. She looks like the kind of girl Keats would think about before sighing and jumping out the window. I'm not too good with ages but I'd say she's in her early or mid-twenties. Damn! She's caught me looking and has turned away. A subtle enough defence, and if we lived in gentler times it may have been enough to deter me. I've faced German machine gunners, withstood artillery bombardments that went on for days, and I've seen human flesh hanging from trees, being picked at by carrion crows. A cold shoulder doesn't cut it any longer.

  'Mind if I sit here?' I ask pulling out the seat opposite her and sitting on it.

  Up close she is much paler than she appeared from across the café. The only bright colour on her face comes from a trace of lipstick. Her body is thin framed, with small breasts and only the slightest intention of a waist. The prostitutes in Arras had looked like this after a couple of years on starvation rations. She could be a drug addict; they tend to wither away, the colour going first and then the flesh. Her eyes are too alert for an addict.

  'I mind, but does it matter? You look like a pest. Are you a pest?'

  She lights a cigarette, refusing my offer of a light with the shake of her head. She turns to face away from me and looks out of the café door. It comes to something when, rather than look at you, a woman would rather watch a rag and bone man's horse taking a crap.

  'Pest is a matter of perspective. I'll leave if you really want me too.'

  'I really want you to.'

  'How can any of us know what we really want? We should analyse your dreams and try to understand your subconscious longings and desires.'

  She rolls her eyes and mutters something I don't quite catch.

  'Look, mister, I'm not interested in you. If you want to be of help you can tell me how to get to rue Challot.' She starts pulling her coat on and lays a few coins on the table. I glance at them briefly. They make for a pretty slight tip.

  'I can do better; I can show you the way,' I say moving alongside her.

  'How would that be better? Are you going to go or am I going to call the flics?'

  'I live at 24 rue Challot - it's just around the corner. I'll leave now and you can follow me, we don't have to walk together.' There comes a time when you have to admit defeat.

  'Oh Christ! I might have known it. A detective would be the sort of low life who tries to pick girls up at breakfast.'

  'Not exclusively at breakfast.'

  'Not exclusively girls either I'll bet.'

  'Then you'll lose your bet. Wait a minute... how did you know I was a detective?'

  She fumbles in her bag and produces my business card: Salazar Detective Agency, 24 rue Challot. I'd handed them out around the cafés and a few bistros a while ago. Well, business is business, and I could use the distraction.

  'You're in luck; I do discounted rates for pretty women.'

  'I really couldn't give a damn,' she says. 'I guess you're all going to be as bad as each other so there's little point me trying to find someone else. Let's go, monsieur Salazar, and please don't try to touch me: and if you can help it, don't talk to me either.'

  I leave some cash for my breakfast then follow her out of the café. She's waiting for me to take the lead. A Citroën automobile pulls up and parks on the side of the road opposite us. Why would anybody with an automobile choose to drive it here? A knife sharpener moves from building to building, he's doing a good trade too by the look of him. The wind picks up and sweeps along the road, ignores my overcoat, and enters my bones. I hate the cold.

  'It's not far,' I say, 'a couple of streets from here.'

  My potential client tags along in silence. I'm going too fast for her but she doesn't complain and I don't slow down. 'What's your name?' I ask the question over my shoulder as she's now beginning to lag behind.

  'Marie Thérèse Poncelet.' She holds out her hand for me to shake. I stop to take hold of it and then continue walking at a slower pace.

  'Pleased to meet you, mademoiselle Poncelet. Would you mind if I call you Marie? I'm going to anyway - I can't stand all the Monsieur this and Madame that ca
rry-on. The formality reminds me of school and the army.'

  'I don't care, monsieur Salazar.'

  'My name isn't monsieur Salazar - it's Salazar.'

  I can see my building so I point it out to her.

  'So, Salazar is your first name. It's odd that you called the agency Salazar Detective Agency. If your name were Jean, would you have called it Jean Detective Agency?'

  'If my name were Jean I would rename myself Salazar and the agency would be as it is.'

  'Is your real name Jean then?'

  'No, it's Salazar.'

  We reach the steps to the front door and I pull the key from my waistcoat pocket.

  'Before we enter I want to make something clear to you,' she says.

  'What?'

  'This,' she says and pulls out a silver dagger. The sun causes it to twinkle in her hand. 'If you try anything, I'll stab you in the eye.'

  'I'm not going to try anything, Marie, and I'd appreciate you putting that away.' Seeing the blade has left me feeling uneasy. It isn't the idea of her attempting to stab me which I find disturbing, it's the thought of breaking her arm if she tries it.

  At the top of the first flight of stairs we pick our way through the dismantled pieces of my bicycle which are scattered all over the floor. I'd taken it apart in a fit of enthusiasm intending to clean and grease every moving part. I'll put it together again when the level of frustration at not being able to cycle is greater than my laziness.

  My office is on the first floor. On the second floor, together with some rooms in the attic, is my apartment. The ground floor is occupied by Filatre, a notary, who doubles as my landlord.

  I open the door to my office. 'In here,' I say.

  I hadn't been expecting anyone so the place is a mess – I'm not a man who cleans from habit or custom. Books and magazines are scattered about the floor. On the desk there are four part-finished coffee cups on as many saucers. One saucer has been doubling as an extra ashtray. The ashtray itself is overflowing on the window sill.

  I pick a jacket and a book off a chair and tell Marie to sit in it. She pulls an unfiltered Gauloise from a packet, not a case, and lights it. She doesn't offer me one nor does she attempt to find an ashtray. Smoking her cigarette, she sits and looks at the corner of the room near the window. I stand to one side of her and feel like a waiter; does she want me to take her order? I notice that, within the darkness which surrounds them, her eyes are a pale blue. Her dress, of good quality, is a little frayed and has splashes of mud on it. She has slung her coat over the back of the chair.

  I offer her a scotch which she declines. I take a glass for myself. I watch as she lights a second cigarette, leaving the first, still burning, balanced on the edge of my desk. I ask if she would care for an ashtray. She flashes an ever-so-quick smile but says nothing. I bring over the one from the window sill and place her cigarette amongst the dead butts already there. It continues smouldering.

  'If you only wanted to sit and smoke you could have stayed in the café.' I walk over to the door and open it. She'd called my bluff with the ashtray; I'm intent on regaining the upper hand. 'You don't have to stay.'

  'I want to hire you. That is if you can spare the time from your rigorous cleaning routines.'

  The ash from her cigarette falls on my parquet flooring. Why does that disturb me more than my fallen ash by the window sill? I close the door.

  'Try to tell me, without embellishments, in as few words as possible, what it is you need me for.'

  'I would like you to find somebody.' She speaks to the space I'd occupied before going to the door.

  'Who?'

  'A man - Gustave Marty.'

  'Go on.'

  I take my seat at the desk, get out my notebook and begin jotting down the salient points. When she has finished I read them to her: 'Gustave Marty, believed to be in Paris. Aged 29. Ex of Namur, Belgium. Height: One metre seventy. Dark haired and tanned. Was or is a stockbroker.'

  'That's about it.'

  I ask why she wants to find him. She tells me to mind my own business. I detail my fees and she pays for two weeks up front along with a retainer. There's nothing about her which suggests she can afford this. The dress she is wearing needs repair; she only bought a single coffee at the café and then left a minimal tip. When I'd named my price I'd been expecting her to haggle – then, as a favour, I would accept her reduced offer. Now I feel like a penny-pincher. This money means a lot less to me than it must do to her.

  'You are not French are you Salazar?'

  'No, I am English. Does that bother you?'

  'Finding Marty matters to me, you do not.'

  With that, and a curt goodbye, she departs, leaving behind a slight scent of lavender.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I stand at the window and watch as Marie walks up the street towards the boulevard St. Germain and the Métro station. A nanny pushes her charge along the street in large black perambulator. A window cleaner has set his ladders up against a building half-way down the road. The cleaner is on the pavement smoking a cigarette and talking with a man who looks like he's on his way home from work at the market. Two autobuses try to pass each other in the road as a man sitting in a horse drawn cart throws insults at them. At least I assume he's insulting them - I can't hear what he's saying but those gesticulations would look odd accompanied by pleasantries.

  Marie walks with a hesitant gait making her easy to pick out as she begins to merge with the crowds near the boulevard. From here she looks as if she's challenging people. It's as if she isn't certain she has the right to be walking down the street but is doing it anyway. Earlier, when she'd told me to mind my own business, she'd cocked her head slightly as if daring me to ask more. I didn't - there are only two reasons why a woman wants to track down a man: he either did her wrong or owes her money. I wonder if her hand is still clutching that silver dagger.

  I fall back into my chair and begin spinning myself around. I'd carry on all day, but my head objects after thirty seconds. I feel dizzy, an unpleasant sensation which does provide a slight distraction from life – other slight distractions from life: lighting a cigarette, drinking, narcotics, cycling, hashish, chasing women, and now chair spinning. A further distraction: sticking my nose into other people's business.

  The euphoria of getting a new client evaporates when they leave the office. Once they are out of sight I feel reluctant to begin. I've come to realise my reluctance stems from a strong aversion to this work. Generally speaking I have an aversion to all work. If I could sit content all day for months on end I would. Unfortunately I'm cursed and the curse forces me to seek distraction. For a time I lived a playboy lifestyle. It lasted until the day I came to in a grotty flat in Limehouse, London. I was cold with a foggy head and lying on a dirty bed with a corpse on either side of me. The corpses had been living breathing human beings a few hours earlier when we'd smoked our opium pipes. Soldiering provided four years of diversion. It also beat and twisted my brain until I could think of nothing but dying. I'm not like the younger generation where everything is a drag and life a series of yawns. I find contentment in boredom. It comes down to this: I'd rather spend two hours waiting for a train with nothing to read than sitting in a trench waiting to go over the top. But boredom stretched to infinity is death.

  I read from my notebook: Gustave Marty is or was a stockbroker. That means just about nothing. Since the crash of twenty-nine, brokers are either richer than ever or destitute. If he's among the ones who lost it all he could be in the cemetery. If he is, then the death will have been recorded somewhere. Unless he died in a back-alley and lay undisturbed for a few days. If the city authorities found his corpse, half-eaten by rats and rabid dogs, they'll have slung it into an unmarked grave without as much as a by-your-leave. The real problems will come if he's a down and out: then he could be anywhere. One thing I know for certain is that everyone notices a tramp walk by, but nobody notices who the tramp was.

  I doubt tha
t Marty would have reached that level of destitution yet, unless he ploughed all his money into American equities. I'm sure the crash will hit us soon enough but as yet it's only the American colonists of Left Bank who are suffering. With their dollars drying up back home it's only those with jobs in Paris who remain. The cocktail sluggers are leaving and you can hear people speaking French in-stead of American down on the boulevard Montparnasse. That doesn't mean the all-night parties and crowds on the terrace have given up the ghost. There are still some English and American die-hard hedonists there, partying away, unconcerned by events around them. Then there are the ones who were already broke when they arrived and are happier being broke in Paris.

  I go downstairs and fill Filatre in. Apart from being good company, Filatre also has a list of researchers I can use. These researchers will check the death registers. They will also check employment records, marriage records and newspapers; they will visit the prefecture to find out if Marty is registered as an alien worker; they will even go to the Belgian embassy and enquire within. They do the general plodding and time-consuming reading - I get a summary and a bill.

  Having made a few telephone calls, and engaged a researcher named Hervé, I settle down to an evening of chess and wine with Filatre. Due to our shared lack of clients we spend a lot of time playing chess. Neither of us is in need of money so we studiously ignore the fact that we have scant work to do. We could claim to be living a life of leisured refinement if it weren't for the different ghosts and demons which haunt us. I say we are men who could never be happy. Filatre replies: I could, if only things had been different.

  'What's she like, your client?' Filatre puffs on his tiny black pipe and keeps his eyes on the chess board as he asks his question. Is he doing this to distract me? The sneaky so-and-so would ask a question like that to stop me noticing I have a piece in jeopardy. I scan the board for a good five minutes before replying.