The Best British Mysteries III

A Tale of One City by Anne Perry

Sydney Carton sat alone at a table near the door of the Café Procope, staring at the dregs of the red wine in his glass. He did his best to ignore the voices shouting, laughing, swearing around him in the suffocating heat. It was the seventh of July, 1793, and Paris was a city oppressed by hunger and fear. In January the Convention had sent the strangely dignified figure of Louis XVI to the guillotine. Predictably, by February France was not only at war with Austria and Belgium, but with England as well.

In the Place de la Révolution the scarlet-stained blade rose and fell every day, and tumbrels full of all manner of people, men and women, old and young, rich and poor, rattled over the cobbles on their last journey. The streets smelled of refuse piled high and rotting in the heat. Fear was in the air, sharp like sweat, and people along the Rue St Honoré complained because the streets stank of blood. You could not drive cattle down them any more because the stench terrified them and they stamped out of control, mowing down passersby and crashing into house and shop windows.

All that Carton cared about was Dr Manette’s daughter Lucie, whose husband was locked up in the prison of La Force, with no hope of escape. Carton would have done anything he could to ease her distress, but he was utterly helpless.

The café door was wide open to let in a little air, and he did not notice anyone coming or going until a small man with tousled hair and a cheeky, lopsided face sank into the chair opposite him, having ordered wine from Citizen Procope as he passed.

‘At least there’s still wine, even if there’s no bread,’ he said with a grunt. ‘Do you know what they’re charging for a loaf now?’ he demanded Carton’s attention. ‘Three sous! Twelve sous for four pounds! That’s more than a carpenter earns in a day, and twice a week’s rent. And the laundresses down at the river are creating hell because there’s no soap! Never mind a Committee of Public Safety! What’s the point of being safe if the sides of your belly are sticking together?’

‘I’d keep a still tongue in your head, if I were you, Jean-Jacques,’ Carton replied dryly. ‘If you criticise the good citizens of the Committee, your belly’ll think your throat has been cut, and likely it’ll be right!’

Jean-Jacques’s wine came; he thanked Citizen Procope and handed him five sous. He sniffed the bottle and pulled a face. ‘Not bad,’ he observed. ‘Want some?’

Carton never refused wine. ‘Thank you.’ He held out his glass.

Jean-Jacques filled it generously. ‘You know my sister?’

‘Amélie?’

‘No, no! Amélie’s a good woman, she never does anything except what she’s told. Marie-Claire.’ He drank half of his glass. ‘I wish I had some decent cheese to go with this.’

Carton liked Jean-Jacques. There was a good humour about him, an optimism, misplaced as it was, that lifted the spirits. He was pleasant company.

‘What about Marie-Claire?’ he asked, to be civil. He did not care in the slightest. To tell the truth there was very little he did care about. He had no belief in himself, nor any in justice or the goodness of life. Experience in London as a lawyer had proved his skill, but it had not always led to victory, acquittal of the innocent, or punishment of the guilty.

Jean-Jacques leaned forward over the table, his round eyes bright, his face alive with suppressed excitement. ‘She has a plan,’ he said softly. ‘To get a whole crateful of cheeses, and not just any cheeses, but perfectly exquisite, ripe Camembert! And a side of bacon!’

In spite of himself Carton’s imagination was caught. Even the bare words conjured up the fragrance of rich, delicate flavour, food that satisfied, that filled the nose and lay on the tongue, instead of the rough bread and stew with barely any meat in it that had become the common fare. Even though these days one was glad enough to have more than a spoonful or two of that. ‘What sort of a plan?’ he said dubiously. Marie-Claire was an erratic creature. Younger than Jean-Jacques, probably not more than twenty-two or three, small like him, with wide brown eyes and wild hair that curled just as hectically as his, only on her it was pretty. She had been one of the women who had marched on the palace at Versailles demanding food and justice in the early days of the Revolution when the king was still alive – fruitlessly, of course. The king had listened to everybody, and then done whatever he was told by the last person to speak to him, which was always some minister who did not listen at all.

Jean-Jacques was still smiling. His teeth were crooked, but they were very white. ‘There is a particularly large and greedy fellow called Philippe Duclos on the local committee,’ he replied. ‘The man with the cheese, whose name I don’t know, has hidden them so well no one knows where they are, except that they are somewhere in his house, of course. Marie-Claire is going to use Philippe to put his men there, so that the good citizen can no longer get to his cheese in secret.’ He smiled even more widely. ‘Only he is, of course, going to warn Citizen “Cheese” beforehand, so he will have the chance to move them. Then…’ He clapped his hands together sharply and made a fist of the right one. ‘We have them!’ he said with triumph. ‘Half for Philippe, half for Marie-Claire. She will eat some, and sell some, which I will buy.’ He opened his hands wide in a generous, expansive gesture, and his irregular face was alight with pleasure. ‘In two days’ time we shall dine on fresh bread. I have some decent wine, not this rubbish, and ripe Camembert! How is that, my friend?’

‘Unlikely,’ Carton replied ruefully, but he did smile back.

‘You are a misery!’ Jean-Jacques chided, shaking his head. ‘Are all Englishmen like you? It must be your climate: it rains every day and you come to expect it.’

‘It doesn’t rain in London any more than it rains in Paris,’ Carton answered him. ‘It’s me.’ It was a confession of truth. His general cynicism stretched beyond his own lack of worth to include everyone else.

‘Cheese,’ Jean-Jacques said simply. ‘And more wine. That must make you feel better!’ He reached for the bottle and poured more for both of them. Carton accepted with a moment of real gratitude, not so much for the wine as for the friendship. He thought the plan was doomed to failure, but it would be pointless to say so.

Carton deliberately put the cheese out of his mind. Even in Paris torn apart by the violence of revolution and sweating with fear, it was necessary to earn a living. He could seldom practise his usual profession of law, but he had a superb gift of words, even in French, which was not his own language, and Paris was awash with newspapers, pamphlets, and other publications. There was the highly popular, scurrilous Père Duchesne edited by the foul-mouthed ex-priest Hébert, which slandered just about everyone, but most particularly the Citizeness Capet, as Queen Marie Antoinette was now known. The latest suggestion was that she had an unnatural relationship with her own son, who in the normal course of events would now have become Louis XVII.

And of course there was L’Ami du Peuple, edited by that extraordinary man, Jean-Paul Marat, who liked to be known as ‘The Rage of the People’. Someone had had the audacity, and the lunacy, to haul him up before the Revolutionary Tribunal in April. He had stormed in, filthy and in rags as usual, carrying the stench of his disease with him. The whole body of them had quailed before him, terrified, and he had been carried out shoulder-high in triumph. There was now no stopping him. The Paris Commune was his creature, to a man.

Carton always took good care to avoid him. Even though Marat lived here in the Cordeliers District, as did most of the revolutionary leaders, it was possible to stay out of his way. Instead Carton wrote for small, relatively innocuous publications, and earned sufficient to get by.

So it was that two days later on July 9 he sat in the Café Procope again, near the door in the clinging, airless heat. He was eating a bowl of stew with rough bread – more than some could afford – when Marie-Claire came in. Even before she turned toward him he could see the fury in her. Her thin little body was rigid under its cotton blouse and long, ragged blue skirt, and her arms were as stiff as sticks. She looked left and right, searching, then turned far enough to see Carton and immediately came over to him. Her face was white and her eyes blazing.

‘Have you seen Jean-Jacques?’ she demanded without any of the usual greeting.

‘Not today,’ he replied, clearing a little space on the table so she would have room for a plate. ‘But it’s early. Have some stew while there still is some. It’s not bad.’

Her lip curled. ‘What is it? Onions and water?’ She sat down hard, putting her elbows on the table and both hands over her face. ‘I’ve lost my cheeses! That son of a whore took them all! It was my idea, my plan!’ She looked up at him, her face burning with indignation. ‘He didn’t even know about them, Fleuriot, until I told him!’

Carton was disappointed. He realised he had been looking forward to the richness and the flavour of cheese. It seemed like a long time since he had eaten anything that was a pleasure, not merely a necessity, although he was aware how many had not even that. The crowds pouring out of the areas of factories, abattoirs, and tanneries, such as the Faubourg St Antoine, with their acid-burned, copper-coloured faces, hollow-eyed, dressed in rags and alight with hatred, were witness enough of that. They were the people who worshipped Marat and gave him his unstoppable power.

Citizen Procope came by, and Carton requested a bowl of soup and bread for Marie-Claire. She thanked him for it, and for a moment the rage melted out of her eyes.

‘Forget the cheese,’ he advised regretfully. ‘There’s nothing you can do anyway. It’s gone now.’

Her face hardened again. ‘The pig! Slit his throat, and he’d make a carcass of bacon to feed us for a year! He won’t have got rid of all that food, he’ll have it stored somewhere. The Committee could find it, because they’d take his house apart, if they had to.’

Carton’s stomach tightened. ‘Don’t do it!’ he said urgently. ‘Don’t say anything at all! It’ll only come back on you. You’ve lost them – accept it.’ He leaned forward across the table, stretching out his hand to grasp her thin wrist. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself!’

She glared back at him. ‘You’d let that pig get away with it? Never!’ Her teeth were clenched, the muscles tight on her slender jaw. ‘I’ll make him sweat as if the blade were already coming down on his neck. You’ll see!’

Citizen Procope brought her soup and Carton paid for it.

She took her bowl in both hands, as if it might escape her. ‘You’ll see!’ she repeated, then picked up the spoon and began to eat.

The next morning Carton was again sitting at his usual table at the café with a cup of coffee that tasted like burnt toast, and possibly bore a close relationship. At the next table three men were laughing uproariously at the latest joke in Père Duchesne, and adding more and more vulgar endings of the tale, when Jean-Jacques came storming in through the open door, his hair tangled, his shirt sticking to his body with sweat. His face was white and he swivelled immediately toward Carton’s table and staggered over, knocking into chairs.

Carton was alarmed. ‘What is it?’ he asked, half rising to his feet.

Jean-Jacques was gasping for breath, choking as he struggled to get the words out. ‘They’ve arrested her! Marie-Claire! They’ve taken her to the prison! You’ve got to help me! They’ll…’ He could not bring himself to say it, but it hung in the air between them.

Carton found his own voice husky. ‘What have they charged her with?’ It was all unreal, like a fluid fear turned suddenly solid. He knew when Marie-Claire had spoken of it that it was a bad idea to seek revenge, but this was different, it was no longer thought but fact, shivering, sick and real.

‘Hoarding food!’ Jean-Jacques said, his voice rising toward hysteria, as if he might burst into mad laughter any moment. ‘She doesn’t even have the damn cheeses – or the bacon! Philippe has!’

‘I don’t suppose that makes any difference.’ Carton sank back into his chair and gestured for Jean-Jacques to sit down also. It was always better to be inconspicuous. They did not want anyone looking at them, or remembering.

‘That’s enough to send her to the guillotine!’ Jean-Jacques obeyed, the tears running down his face. ‘We’ve got to get her out of there! You’re a lawyer – come and tell them that she wasn’t even there. If someone stands up for her, we can make them realise it’s him. They’ll catch him with the cheeses, and that’ll be proof.’

Carton shook his head. ‘It won’t be so easy.’ In spite of the heat there was a coldness settling inside him. ‘Philippe will have thought of that…’

Jean-Jacques half rose to his feet, leaning forward over the table. ‘We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to help! She didn’t take them. There has to be a way to prove it!’

Carton rubbed his hand wearily across his brow, pushing his hair back. ‘It isn’t about them,’ he tried to explain. ‘It’s about reporting Philippe. The cheeses are gone. He can’t afford to be blamed, so he’s blaming her. If they can’t find them, who’s to say which one is guilty?’

Jean-Jacques straightened up with a jolt. ‘Exactly! No one at all! Come on! We’ve got to hurry. For that matter, who’s to say there ever were any? Citizen Fleuriot can’t admit to having lost them without admitting to having had them in the first place! It’s perfect. Hurry!’

Carton stood up and went after the rapid and highly agitated figure of Jean-Jacques. There was a kind of logic to it. The only trouble was that logic counted for very little in Paris these days.

Outside the street was hot and the sour smells of rubbish and effluent assaulted the nose. The air itself tasted of fear. A wagon rumbled by, half empty, a few casks in the back. An old newspaper stirred a little in the gutter and settled again. There was a group of Revolutionary Guards at the corner, laughing at something, muskets slung idly over their shoulders, red, white, and blue cockades in their hats.

Jean-Jacques was almost at a run, and Carton had to increase his pace to keep up with him. They had not far to go; there were district headquarters and prisons all over the place. Carton’s mind was racing, trying to think what to say that would help Marie-Claire now, and not simply make it worse. He would have to offer some explanation as to why Philippe was blaming her. And it would have to be a story that left no guilt with him! If only Jean-Jacques would slow down and allow more time to think!

They passed a woman on the corner selling coffee, and a group of laundresses arguing. There were people in queues for bread. Of course they were far too late! Or perhaps it was for the candle shop next door, or soap, or any of a dozen other things one could not buy since spring.

Then they were at the prison. A huge man with a red bandanna around his head stood outside the doorway, barring their entrance. Jean-Jacques did not even hesitate. ‘I have business with Citizen Duclos,’ he said confidently. ‘Evidence in a case.’ He waved his arm in Carton’s direction. ‘Citizen Carton is a lawyer…’

‘We have no need of lawyers!’ the man with the bandanna spat. ‘Justice gets no argument here.’

‘Never say that, Citizen,’ Jean-Jacques warned, glancing over his shoulder as if he feared being overheard. ‘Citizen Robespierre is a lawyer!’

The man with the bandanna rubbed the sweat off his face and looked nervously at Carton.

Carton cursed Jean-Jacques under his breath. ‘We have our uses,’ he said aloud.

‘Go in, Citizen.’ The man ushered them past.

Jean-Jacques obeyed with alacrity, Carton with great reluctance. The place seemed to close in on him as if the walls were human misery frozen solid. Their footsteps had no echo, and yet there were sounds all around them, snatches of voices, cries, someone weeping, the clang of a door slamming shut. He had been here only minutes, and he was already longing to leave, his body trembling, his stomach knotted tight. He thought of Charles Darnay locked in the prison of La Force nearly a year now, not knowing if he would ever leave, and Lucie outside, every day trying to see him, imagining his suffering, helpless to affect it at all.

Jean-Jacques had reached the official in charge and was speaking to him. He was a lean, ferret-faced man with a scar on his shaven head, and most of his teeth missing. What hunger and injustice there had been in his life one could not even guess. He gestured to Carton to come forward.

Carton obliged, his hands slick with sweat, his shirt sticking to him. How had he ever allowed himself to get caught up in this? It was insanity! He stood in front of the man with the scar and forced himself to speak.

‘Citizen, I have certain information you may not have been given regarding a matter of hoarding food. Cheeses to be exact.’

‘We know all about the cheeses, and the bacon.’ the man replied. ‘We have the hoarder in custody. She will be dealt with. Go about your business, Citizen, and leave us to do ours.’

Jean-Jacques was fidgeting, wringing his hands, moving his weight from one foot to the other. It was hopeless, but Carton was terrified he would say something and so involve both of them. It did not need much to make people suspicious.

‘Ah!’ Carton burst out. ‘Then you have recovered the cheeses! I was afraid you would not!’ He saw the man’s expression flicker. ‘Which would mean you had not caught the principals in the act.’

Jean-Jacques froze.

The man scowled at Carton. ‘What do you know about it?’ he demanded.

Carton’s brain raced like a two-wheeled carriage cornering badly. ‘I think you are a just man and will need evidence,’ he lied. ‘And if goods are in the wrong hands, then the matter is not closed until that is put right.’

The man leaned toward him. He smelled of stale wine and sweat. ‘Where are these cheeses, Citizen? And how is it you know?’ His eyes were narrowed, his lip a little pulled back from his gapped teeth.

Carton felt his body go cold in the stifling heat. Panic washed over him, and he wanted to turn on his heel and run out of this dreadful place. Memories of past prison massacres swarmed in his mind like rats, the priests hacked to death in the Carmes in September of ninety-two, and the women and children in the Salpetrière. God knew what since then.

‘We know where they were taken from, Citizen, and when!’ Jean-Jacques broke in. ‘If we put our heads together, find out who knew of them, and where they were, we can deduce!’

The man scowled at him, but his eyes lost their anger, and interest replaced it. ‘Wait here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll go and find out.’ And before Carton could protest, he turned and strode away, leaving them under the watchful eyes of two other guards.

The minutes dragged by. There was a scream somewhere in the distance, then dense, pulsing silence. Footsteps on stone. A door banged. Someone laughed. Silence again. Jean-Jacques started to fidget. Carton’s fists were so tightly clenched, his nails cut the flesh of his hands.

Then there were more screams, high and shrill, a man shouting, and two shots rang out, clattering feet, and then again silence.

Jean-Jacques stared at Carton, his eyes wide with terror.

Carton’s chest was so tight he was dizzy. The stone walls swam in his vision. Sweat broke out on his body and went cold when his wet shirt touched him.

There were footsteps returning, rapid and heavy. The man with the scar reappeared, his face bleak. He looked at Carton, not Jean-Jacques. ‘You are wrong, Citizen lawyer,’ he said abruptly. ‘The woman must have been guilty. Maybe she gave the cheeses to a lover or something.’

‘No!’ Jean-Jacques took a step forward, his voice high. ‘That’s a lie!’

Carton grabbed his arm as the man with the scar put his hand on the knife at his belt. Jean-Jacques pulled away so hard he lost his balance and fell against Carton’s side. Stumbling.

The man with the scar relaxed his hand. ‘It’s true,’ he said, staring at Jean-Jacques. ‘She attacked Citizen Duclos, then tried to escape. The innocent have nothing to fear.’

Jean-Jacques gave a shrill, desperate cry. It was impossible to tell if it was laughter or pain, or both.

Carton’s lips and throat were dry. ‘Did you get them back?’ He had known this would be hopeless, whatever the truth of it. He should never have come. ‘Maybe she was just…’ He stopped. There was no air to breathe.

The man with the scar shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now, Citizen. She was shot running away. Your job is finished.’

He smiled, showing his gapped teeth again. ‘I guess you won’t get paid!’

Jean-Jacques let out a howl of grief and fury like an animal, the sound so raw even the man with the scar froze, and both the other guards turned toward him, mouths gaping.

‘Murderers!’ Jean-Jacques screamed. ‘Duclos stole the cheeses, and you let him murder her to hide it!’ He snatched his arm away from Carton’s grip and lunged toward the man with the scar, reaching for his knife, both their hands closing on the hilt at the same time. ‘Her blood is on your soul!’ He had forgotten that in Revolutionary France there was no God, so presumably men had no souls, either.

The other guards came to life and moved in.

Suddenly Carton found his nerve. He put his arms around Jean-Jacques and lifted him physically off the ground, kicking and shouting. His heels struck Carton’s shins and the pain nearly made him let go. He staggered backward, taking Jean-Jacques with him, and fell against the farther wall. ‘I’m sorry!’ he gasped to the man with the scar, now holding the knife with the blade toward them. ‘She was his sister. It was his responsibility to look after her.’ That was a stretching of the truth. ‘You understand? He doesn’t mean it.’ He held Jean-Jacques hard enough to squash the air out of his lungs. He could feel him gasping and choking as he tried to breathe. ‘We’re leaving,’ he added. ‘Maybe we didn’t really know what happened.’

Jean-Jacques’s heels landed so hard on his shins that this time he let go of him and he fell to the ground.

The guards were still uncertain.

Philippe Duclos could appear at any moment, and Carton and Jean-Jacques could both finish up imprisoned here. Ignoring his throbbing leg, Carton bent and picked up Jean-Jacques by the scruff of his neck, yanked him to his feet, and gave him a cuff on the ear hard enough to make his head sing – please heaven – and rob him of speech for long enough to get him outside!

‘Thank you, Citizen,’ he called to the man with the scar, and half dragged Jean-Jacques, half carried him, to the entrance and the blessed freedom of the street.

He crossed over, turned right, then left down the first narrow alley he came to before he finally let go of Jean-Jacques. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘But you can’t help.’

Jean-Jacques shook himself. ‘Let me go back and get her.’ His voice was thick with sobs. ‘Let me bury her!’

Carton seized his shoulder again. ‘No! They’ll take you too!’

‘I haven’t done anything!’ Jean-Jacques protested furiously. ‘For what? For coming for my sister’s corpse? What are you, stone? Ice? You English clod!’

‘I am alive,’ Carton responded. ‘And I mean to stay alive. And yes, coming for her corpse would be quite enough for them to blame you, and if you used a quarter of the brain you’ve got, you’d know that.’

Jean-Jacques seemed to shrink within himself.

Carton was twisted inside with pity. He refused to think of Marie-Claire’s bright face, her vitality, the dreams and the anger that had made her so vivid.

‘Come on, friend,’ he said gently. ‘There’s nothing we can do, except survive. She’d want you to do that. Come and have some wine, and we’ll find a little bread, and perhaps someone will have onions, or even a piece of sausage.’

Jean-Jacques lifted up his head a little. ‘I suppose so.’ He sighed. ‘Yes – survive. You are right, she would want that.’

‘Of course she would,’ Carton said more heartily. ‘Come on.’

They started to walk again, crossing the river and turning south for no particular reason, except that neither of them was yet ready to sit still. Finally they came to a wine shop with the door open. The smell of the spilled wine inside was inviting, and there was room to sit down.

The proprietress was a handsome woman with a fine head of black hair, long and thick like a mane. She stared at them, waiting for them to speak.

‘Wine?’ Carton asked. ‘Start with two bottles. We have sorrows to drown, Citizeness. And bread, if you have it?’

“You would feed your sorrows as well?’ she asked without a smile.

‘Citizeness…’ Carton began.

‘Defarge,’ she replied, as if he had asked her name. ‘I’ll bring you bread. Where’s your money?’

Carton put a handful of coins on the table.

She returned with a plate of bread, half an onion, and two bottles. Half an hour later she brought another bottle, and half an hour after that, a fourth. Carton kept on drinking – his body was used to it – but Jean-Jacques slumped against the wall and seemed to be asleep.

Citizeness Defarge remained, and in the early evening brought more bread, but by then Carton was not hungry

Jean-Jacques opened his eyes and sat up.

‘Bread?’ Carton offered.

‘No.’ Jean-Jacques waved it away. ‘I have worked out a plan.’

Carton’s head was fuzzy. ‘To do what?’

‘Be revenged on Philippe Duclos, of course! What else?’ Jean-Jacques looked at him as if he were a fool.

Carton was too eased with wine to be alarmed. ‘Don’t,’ he said simply. ‘Whatever it is, it won’t work. You’ll only get into more trouble.’

Jean-Jacques looked at him with big, grief-filled eyes. ‘Yes, it will,’ he said with a catch in his voice. ‘I’ll make it work…for Marie-Claire.’ He stood up with an effort, swayed for a moment, struggling for his balance. ‘Thank you, Carton,’ he added formally, starting to bow, and then changing his mind. ‘You are a good friend.’ And without adding any more he walked unsteadily to the door and disappeared outside.

Carton sat alone, miserable and guilty. If he had really been a good friend, he would have prevented Marie-Claire from setting out on such a mad plan in the first place. He had spent his whole life believing in nothing, achieving pointless victories in small cases in London, and now here writing pieces that did not change the Revolution a jot. It carried on from one insane venture to another regardless. The Paris Commune, largely ruled by Marat, whatever anyone said, made hunger and violence worse with every passing week. France was at war on every side: Spain, Austria, Belgium, and England. Since the hideous massacres last September when the gutters quite literally ran with human blood, Paris was a city of madmen. Charles Darnay was a prisoner in La Force, and Lucie grieved for him ceaselessly, every day going to wait outside the walls, carrying their child, in the hope that he might glimpse them and be comforted.

And here was Carton sitting drunk in Defarge’s wine shop, sorry for himself, and ashamed that Jean-Jacques called him a friend, because he had no right to that name.

Two days later, on July 12, Carton was back in the Café Procope, taking his usual midday bowl of soup when two soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard came in, red, white and blue cockades on their hats, muskets over their shoulders. They spoke for a moment with the proprietor, then walked over to Carton.

‘Citizen Carton,’ the first one said. It was not a question but a statement. ‘You must come with us. There is a matter of theft with which we have been informed that you can help us. On your feet.’

Carton was stunned. He opened his mouth to protest, and realised even as he did so that it was totally pointless. It was his turn. Sooner or later some monstrous injustice happened to everyone. He had been informed on and there was no use fighting against it. He obeyed, and walked out between the guards, wondering what idiotic mistake had occurred to involve him. It could be something as simple as the wrong name, a letter different, a misspelling. He had heard of that happening.

But when he got as far as the Section Committee prison where Marie-Claire had been shot, and walked along the same stone corridor, with the smell of sweat and fear in the air, he knew there was no such easy error.

‘Ah – Citizen Lawyer,’ the man with the scar said, smiling. ‘We know who you are, you see?’ He nodded to the soldiers. ‘You can go. You have done well, but we have our own guards here.’ He gestured toward three burly men with gaping shirts and red bandannas around their heads or necks. In the oppressive heat their faces and chests were slick with sweat. Two had pistols, one a knife.

The soldiers left.

‘Now, Citizen Carton,’ the man with the scar began, taking his seat behind a wooden table set up as if it were a judge’s bench. Carton was left standing. ‘This matter of the cheeses that were stolen. It seems you know more about that than you said before. Now would be a good time to tell the truth – all of it. A good time for you, that is.’

Carton tried to clear his brain. What he said now might determine his freedom, even his life. Men killed for less than a cheese these days.

‘You don’t have them?’ He affected immense surprise.

The man’s face darkened with anger and suspicion that he was being mocked.

Carton stared back at him with wide innocence. He really had no idea where the cheeses were, and he had even more urgent reasons for wishing that he did.

‘No, we don’t,’ the man admitted in a growl.

‘That is very serious,‘ Carton said sympathetically. ‘Citizen…!’

‘Sabot,’ the man grunted.

‘Citizen Sabot.’ Carton nodded courteously. ‘We must do everything we can to find them. They are evidence. And apart from that, it is a crime to waste good food. There is certainly a deserving person somewhere to whom they should go.’ The place seemed even more airless than before, as if everything which came here, human or not, remained. The smell of fear was in the nose and throat, suffocating the breath.

Along the corridor to the left, out of sight, someone shouted, there was laughter, a wail. Then the silence surged back like a returning wave.

Carton found his voice shaking when he spoke again. ‘Citizen Sabot, you have been very fair to me. I will do everything I can to learn what happened to the cheeses and bring you the information.’ He saw the distrust naked in Sabot’s face, the sneer already forming on his lips. ‘You are a man of great influence,’ he went on truthfully, however much he might despise himself for it. ‘Apart from justice, it would be wise of me to assist you all that I can.’

Sabot was mollified. ‘Yes, it would,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll give you two days. Today and tomorrow.’

‘I’ll report to you in two days,’ Carton hedged. ‘I might need longer to track them down. We are dealing with clever people here. If it were not so, your own men would have found them already, surely.’

Sabot considered for a moment. Half a dozen Revolutionary Guards marched by with heavy tread. Someone sang a snatch of ‘The Marseillaise’, that song the rabble had adopted when they burst out of the gaols of Marseilles and the other sea ports of the Mediterranean, and marched all the way to Paris, killing and looting everything in their path. Carton found himself shaking uncontrollably, memory nauseating him.

‘Tomorrow night,’ Sabot conceded. ‘But if you find them and eat them yourself, I’ll have your head.’

Carton gulped and steadied himself. ‘Naturally,’ he agreed. He almost added something else, then while he still retained some balance, he turned and left, trying not to run.

Back in the room he rented, Carton sank down into his bed, his mind racing to make sense of what had happened, and his own wild promise to Sabot to find the cheeses. He had been granted barely two days. Where could he even begin?

With Marie-Claire’s original plan. She had intended to have Philippe tell Fleuriot that he was going to post guards, so he had moved the cheeses and the bacon to a more accessible place. Only he had done it earlier than the time agreed with Marie-Claire. Presumably his plan had worked. Fleuriot had moved the cheeses, and Philippe had caught him in the act, and confiscated them. Fleuriot had said nothing, because he should not have had the cheeses in the first place. So much was clear.

Marie-Claire had heard of it and attempted to accuse Philippe, but either she had not been listened to at all, or if she had, she had not been believed, and Philippe had silenced her before she could prove anything. According to Sabot, no one had found the cheeses, so Philippe must still have them.

Maybe Carton should begin with Fleuriot. He at least would know when the cheeses had been taken, which – if it led to Philippe’s movements that day – might indicate where he could have hidden them. Carton got up and went out. This was all an infuriating waste of time. He should be working. His money was getting low. If it were not his own neck at risk, he would not do it. All the proof of innocence in the world would not save poor Marie-Claire now. And it would hardly help Jean-Jacques, either. No one cared because half the charges made were built on settling old scores anyway, or on profit of one sort or another. Those who had liked Marie-Claire would still like her just as much.

He walked along the street briskly, head down, avoiding people’s eyes. There was a warm wind rising, and it smelled as if rain were coming. Old newspapers blew along the pavement, flapping like wounded birds. Two laundresses were arguing. It looked like the same ones as before.

He went the long way around to the Rue St Honoré, in order to avoid passing the house where Marat lived and printed his papers. He had enough trouble without an encounter with the ‘Rage of the People’. A couple of questions elicited the information as to exactly which house Fleuriot lived in, next to the carpenter Duplay. But Fleuriot was an angry and frightened man. The loss of a few cheeses was nothing compared with the threatened loss of his head. He stood in the doorway, his spectacles balanced on his forehead, and stared fixedly at Carton.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Citizen. There are always Revolutionary Guards about the place. How is one day different from another?’

‘Not Revolutionary Guards,’ Carton corrected patiently. ‘These would be from the local Committee, not in uniform, apart from the red bandanna.’

‘Red bandanna!’ Fleuriot threw his hands up in the air. ‘What does that mean? Nothing! Anyone can wear a red rag. They could be from the Faubourg St Antoine, for all I know. I mind my own business, Citizen, and you’d be best advised to mind yours! Good day.’ And without giving Carton a chance to say anything more, he retreated inside his house and slammed the door, leaving Carton alone in the yard just as it began to rain.

He spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening getting thoroughly wet and learning very little of use. He asked all the neighbours whose apartments fronted onto the courtyard, and he even asked the apothecary in the house to the left, and the carpenter in the yard to the right. But Philippe was powerful and his temper vicious. If anyone knew anything about exactly when he came with his man, they were affecting ignorance. According to most of them, the place had been totally deserted on that particular late afternoon. One was queuing for candles, another for soap. One woman was visiting her sick sister, a girl was selling pamphlets, a youth was delivering a piece of furniture, another was too drunk to have known if his own mother had walked past him, and she had been dead for years. That at least was probably honest.

Carton went home wet to the skin and thoroughly discouraged. He had two slices of bread, half a piece of sausage, and a bottle of wine. He took off his wet clothes and sat in his nightshirt, thinking. Tomorrow was July 13. If he did not report the day after, Sabot would come for him. He would be angry because he had failed twice, and been taken for a fool. And what was worse, by then Philippe himself would almost certainly be aware of Carton’s interest in the matter. He must succeed. The alternative would be disaster. He must find out more about Philippe himself, where he lived, what other places he might have access to, who were his friends. Even better would be to know who were his enemies!

He finally went to sleep determined to start very early in the morning. He needed to succeed, and quickly, for his own survival, but he would also like to be revenged for Marie-Claire. She had not deserved this, and in spite of his better judgement he had liked her. It would be good to do something to warrant the friendship Jean-Jacques believed of him.

In the morning he got up early and went out straight away. He bought a cup of coffee from a street vendor, drank it and handed back the mug to her, then walked on past the usual patient queues of women hoping for bread, or vegetables, or whatever it was. He passed the sellers of pamphlets and the tradesmen still trying to keep up some semblance of normality at what they did: millinery, barrel-making, engraving, hair-dressing, or whatever it was, and retraced his steps to the local committee headquarters. It was a considerable risk asking questions about Philippe Duclos, especially since he was already known and Philippe would be on his guard. He knew he had taken the cheeses and would see threat even where there was none. But Carton had to report to Sabot by midnight tonight, and so far he had accomplished nothing. It was not impossible that in his fear of Philippe, Fleuriot had already warned him that Carton was asking questions.

Affecting innocence and concern, Carton asked one of the guards where he might find Citizen Duclos, since he had a personal message for him.

The man grunted. ‘Citizen Duclos is a busy man! Why should I keep watch on him? Who knows where he is?’

Carton bit back his instinctive answer and smiled politely ‘You are very observant,’ he replied between his teeth. ‘I am sure you know who comes and goes, as a matter of habit.’

The man grunted again, but the love of flattery was in his eyes, and Carton had asked for nothing but a little harmless information. ‘He is not in yet,’ he replied. ‘Come back in an hour or two.’

‘The message is urgent,’ Carton elaborated. ‘I would not wish to disturb him, but I could wait for him in the street near his lodgings, and as soon as he comes out, I could speak with him.’

The man shrugged. ‘If you wake him you’ll pay for it!’ he warned.

‘Naturally. I am sure his work for liberty keeps him up till strange hours, as I imagine yours does, too.’

‘All hours!’ the man agreed. ‘Haven’t seen my bed long enough for a year or more!’

‘History will remember you,’ Carton said ambiguously. ‘Where should I wait for Citizen Duclos?’

‘Rue Mazarine,’ the man replied. ‘South side, near the apothecary’s shop.’

‘Thank you.’ Carton nodded to him and hurried away before he could become embroiled in any further conversation.

He found the apothecary’s shop and stood outside it, apparently loitering like many others, occasioning no undue attention. People came and went, most of them grumbling about one thing or another. The pavements steamed from the night’s rain and already it was hot.

Twenty minutes later a large man came out, bleary-eyed, unshaven, a red bandanna around his neck. There was a wine stain on the front of his shirt, and he belched as he passed Carton, barely noticing him.

Carton waited until he had gone around the corner out of sight, and for another ten minutes after that, then he went under the archway into the courtyard and knocked on the first door.

A woman opened it, her sleeves rolled up and a broom in her hand. He asked her for Philippe Duclos and was directed to the door opposite. Here he was fortunate at last. It was opened by a child of about eleven. She was curious and friendly. She told him Philippe lodged with her family and he had one room. Carton asked if Philippe were to be given a gift of wine, did he have a place where he could keep it.

‘He could put it in the cellar,’ she replied. ‘But if it is a good wine, then one of the other lodgers might drink it. It would not be safe.’ Was there not somewhere better, more private? No, unfortunately there was no such place. Might he have a friend? She giggled. The thought amused her. She did not imagine his trusting a friend, he was not that kind of man. He didn’t even trust her mother, who cooked and cleaned for him. He was always counting his shirts! As if anybody would want them.

Carton thanked her and left, puzzled. Again he was at a dead end. He went back to the neighbours of Fleuriot to see if he could find anyone, even a child or a servant, who might have seen Philippe’s men moving the cheeses, or if not cheese, then at least the bacon. One cannot carry out a side of bacon in one’s pocket!

He spoke to a dozen people, busy and idle, resident and passerby, but no one had seen people carrying goods that day, or since, with the exception of shopping going in. Even laundry had been done at the well in the centre of the yard, and the presence of the women would have been sufficient to deter anyone from carrying anything past with as distinctive a shape as a side of bacon, or odour as a ripe cheese.

He saw only one rat, fat and sleek, running from the well across the stones and disappearing into a hole in the wall. Then he remembered that there was a timber yard next door, belonging to the carpenter Duplay. Shouldn’t there be plenty of rats around?

What if no one had seen Philippe move the cheeses because he hadn’t? They were still here – the safest place for them! Fleuriot would guard them with his life, but if Sabot should find them, then Fleuriot would take the blame, and Philippe would affect total innocence. He would say he knew nothing of them at all, and Marie-Claire, the only person who knew he had, was dead and could say nothing. It made perfect sense. And above all it was safe! Philippe simply took a cheese whenever he wanted, and Fleuriot was too frightened of him to do anything about it. Certainly he would not dare eat one or sell one himself.

Carton walked away quickly and went back to the Café Procope and ordered himself a slice of bread and sausage and a bottle of wine. He sat at his usual table. Every time the door swung open he looked up, half expecting to see Jean-Jacques, and felt an unreasonable surge of disappointment each time it was not. He had nothing in particular to say to him, apart from to forget his plan for revenge, whatever it was, but he missed his company, and he hurt for his grief. Perhaps he even would have liked to talk of Marie-Claire and share some of the pain within himself.

If the cheeses were still in Fleuriot’s house, then it would take a number of men, with the authority of the Commune itself behind them to search. The local authority was no good, that was Philippe himself. How could Carton get past that? He stared into his glass and knew there was only one answer – the one he had been avoiding for the last half year – ask Marat! Marat was the Commune.

There must be another way. He poured out the last of the wine and drank it slowly. It was sour, but it still hit his stomach with a certain warmth. So far he had avoided even passing the house in the Rue des Medicines where Marat lived. He had rather that Marat had never even heard of him. Now he was about to ruin it all by actually walking into the house and asking a favour! Never mind drunk, he must be mad! He up-ended the glass and drained the last mouthful. Well, if he were going to commit suicide, better get on with it rather than sit here feeling worse and worse, living it over in his imagination until he was actually sick.

He went outside and walked quickly, as if he had purpose he was intent upon. Get it done. The fear of it was just as bad as the actuality. At least get this achieved.

He was there before he expected. He must have been walking too rapidly. There was an archway on the corner leading into a cobbled yard with a well in the centre, just like any of a thousand others. At one side a flight of steps led up to an entrance, and even from where he stood Carton could see bales of paper piled up just inside the doorway, boxes beyond, and printed newspapers ready to deliver. There was no excuse for hesitation. It was obviously Marat’s house.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then walked across and up the steps. No one accosted him until he was inside and peering around, looking for someone to ask. A plain, rather ordinary woman approached him, her face mild, as if she expected a friend.

‘Citizeness,’ he said huskily. ‘I am sorry to interrupt your business. But I have a favour to ask which only Citizen Marat could grant me. Who may I approach in order to speak with him?’

‘I am Simone Evrard,’ she replied with a certain quiet confidence. ‘I will ask Citizen Marat if he can see you. Who are you, and what is it you wish?’

Carton remembered with a jolt that Marat had some kind of common-law wife – Marat of all people! This was her, a soft-spoken woman with red hands and an apron tied around her waist. ‘Sydney Carton, Citizeness,’ he replied. ‘It is to do with a man hoarding food instead of making it available to all citizens, as it should be. Unfortunately he has a position in the local committee, so I cannot go to them.’

‘I see.’ She nodded. ‘I shall tell him. Please wait here.’

She was gone for several minutes. He stood shifting his weight from foot to foot, trying to control the fear rising inside him. It even occurred to him to change his mind and leave. There was still time.

And then there wasn’t. She was back again, beckoning him toward her and pointing to the doorway of another room. Like one in a dream he obeyed, his heart pounding in his chest.

Inside, the room was unlike anything he could conceivably have expected. It was small, a sort of aqueous green, and the steam in it clung to his skin and choked his nose and his throat. The smell was ghastly, a mixture of vinegar and rotting human flesh. In the centre was a tin bath shaped like a boot, concealing the lower portion of the occupant’s body. A board was placed across it on which rested a pen, inkwell, and paper. Even through the heavy steam Carton could see Marat quite clearly. His toadlike face with its bulging eyes and slack mouth was almost bloodless with the exhaustion of pain. There was a wet towel wrapped around his head. His naked shoulders, arms, and upper chest were smooth and hairless.

‘What is it, Citizen Carton?’ he asked. His voice was rough and had a slight accent. Carton remembered he was not French at all, but half Swiss and half Sardinian. The stench caught in his throat and he thought he was going to gag.

‘Would you rather speak in English?’ Marat asked – in English. He was a doctor by profession and had held a practice in Pimlico in London for some time.

‘No, thank you, Citizen,’ Carton declined, then instantly wondered if it was wise. ‘Perhaps you would indulge me should my French falter?’

‘What is it you want?’ Marat repeated. His expression was hard to read because of the ravages of disease upon his face. He was in his fifties, a generation older than most of the other Revolutionary leaders, and a lifetime of hate had exhausted him.

‘I believe a certain Citizen Duclos has discovered a quantity of exceptionally good food, cheeses and bacon to be exact, in the keeping of a Citizen Fleuriot, and has blackmailed him into concealing that food from the common good.’ Carton was speaking too quickly and he knew it, but he could not control himself enough to slow down. ‘Citizen Duclos is in a position of power in the local committee, so I cannot turn to them to search and find it.’

Marat blinked. ‘So you want me to have men from the Commune search?’

‘Yes, please.’

Marat grunted and eased his position a little, wincing as the ulcerated flesh touched the sides of the bath. ‘I’ll consider it,’ he said with a gasp. ‘Why do you care? Is it your cheese?’

‘No, Citizen. But it is unjust. And it could be mine next time.’

Marat stared at him. Carton felt the steam settle on his skin and trickle down his face and body. His clothes were sticking to him. The pulse throbbed in his head and his throat. Marat did not believe him. He knew it.

‘A friend of mine was blamed for it, and shot,’ he added. Was he insane to tell Marat this? Too late now. ‘I want revenge.’

Marat nodded slowly. ‘Come back this evening. I’ll have men for you,’ he assured. ‘I understand hate.’

‘Thank you,’ Carton said hoarsely, then instantly despised himself for it. He did not want to have anything in common with this man, this embodiment of insane rage who had sworn to drown Paris in seas of blood. He half bowed, and backed out of that dreadful room into the hallway again.

He returned to his rooms and fell asleep for a while. He woke with a headache like a tight band around his temples. He washed in cold water, changed his clothes, and went out to buy a cup of coffee. He would have to think about something more for publication soon, as he would run out of money.

It was half past seven in the evening. He had not long before he would have to report to Sabot.

He was almost back to Marat’s house when he heard shouting in the street and a woman screaming. He hastened his step and was at the archway when a Revolutionary Guardsman pushed past him.

‘What is it?’ Carton asked, alarm growing inside him.

‘Marat’s been killed!’ a young man cried out. ‘Murdered! Stabbed to death in his bath. A mad woman from Calvados. Marat’s dead!’

There were more footsteps running, shouts and screams, armed men clattering by, howls of grief, rage and terror.

Dead! Carton stood still, leaning a little against the wall in the street. In spite of all his will to stop it, in his mind he could see the ghastly figure of Marat in that aqueous room, the steam, the shrivelled skin, the stench, the pain in his face. He imagined the body lifeless, and blood pouring into the vinegar and water. And with a wave of pity he thought of a quiet woman who for some inconceivable reason had loved him.

He must get out of here! Maybe he would be lucky and the widow would not even remember his name, let alone why he had come. He straightened up and stumbled away, tripping on the cobbles as he heard the shouts behind him, more men coming. Someone let off a musket shot, and then another.

All his instincts impelled him to run, but he must not. It would look as if he were escaping. A couple of women accosted him, asking what was wrong. ‘I don’t know,’ he lied. ‘Some kind of trouble. But stay away from it.’ And without waiting he left them.

When he finally got inside his own rooms and locked the door, he realised the full impact of what had happened. Marat, the head of the Commune, the most powerful man in Paris, had been murdered by some woman from the countryside. The revenge for it would be unimaginable. But of more immediate concern to Carton, he did not have Marat’s men to search Fleuriot’s house for the cheeses. And Sabot would expect an answer tonight or Carton himself would pay the price for it. He would have to do something about it himself, and immediately.

He dashed a little water over his face, dried it, put his jacket back on, and went outside again. The one idea in his mind was desperate, but then so would the result be if he did nothing.

Rats were the key. If he could not get Marat’s men to search Fleuriot’s house, then he would have to get someone else to do it. The carpenter Duplay, with his wood yard next door, was at least a chance. He could think of nothing better.

He walked quickly toward the Rue St Honoré, hoping not to give himself time to think of all the things that could go wrong. He had no choice. He kept telling himself that – no choice! It was a drumbeat in his head as he strode along the cobbles, crossed to avoid a cart unloading barrels, and came to the archway at the entrance to the carpenter’s house. He knocked before he had time to hesitate.

It was opened within two minutes by a young woman. She was small and very neat, rather like a child, except that her face was quite mature, as if she were at least in her middle twenties. She inquired politely what she could do to help him.

‘I believe the Citizen who lives here is a carpenter,’ he said, after thanking her for her courtesy.

‘Yes, Citizen. He is excellent. Did you wish to purchase something, or have something made, perhaps?’ she asked.

‘Thank you, but I am concerned for his stock of wood, possibly even his finished work,’ he replied. ‘I have reason to believe that food is being stored in the house next door – cheese, to be precise – and there are a large number of rats collecting…’ He stopped, seeing the distaste in her face, as if he had spoken of something obscene. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘Perhaps I should not have mentioned it to you, but I feel that the Citizen…’

There was a click of high heels on the wooden stairway and Carton looked beyond the young woman to see a man whose resemblance to her was marked enough for him to assume that they were related. He was about thirty, small and intensely neat, as she was, almost feline in his manner, with a greenish pallor to his complexion, and myopic green eyes which he blinked repeatedly as he stared at Carton. He was dressed perfectly in the manner of the Ançien Régime, as if he were to present himself at the court of Louis XVI, complete with green striped nankeen jacket, exquisitely cut, a waistcoat and cravat, breeches and stockings. It was his high heels Carton had heard. His hair was meticulously powdered and tied back. He fluttered his very small, nail-bitten hands when he spoke.

‘It is all right, Charlotte, I shall deal with the matter.’

‘Yes, Maximilien,’ she said obediently, and excused herself.

‘Did you say “rats”, Citizen?’ the man asked, his voice soft, accented with a curious sibilance.

With a shock like icy water on his bare flesh, Carton realised what he had done. Of all the carpenters in Paris he had knocked on the door of the one in whose house lodged Citizen Robespierre, and apparently his sister. He stood frozen to the spot, staring at the little man still on the bottom stair, as far away from him as he could be without being absurd. Carton remembered someone saying that Robespierre was so personally fastidious as to dislike anyone close to him, let alone touching him. He had constant indigestion for which he sucked oranges, and anything as gross as a bodily appetite or function offended him beyond belief.

‘I am sorry to mention such a matter,’ Carton apologised again. He found himself thinking of Jean-Jacques and his grief, and how alive Marie-Claire had been, how full of laughter, anger, and dreams. ‘But I believe Citizen Fleuriot next door is hoarding cheese, and it is unfair that he rob the good citizens of food by doing so, but it is also a considerable danger to his immediate neighbours, because of the vermin it attracts.’

Robespierre was staring at him with his strange, short-sighted eyes.

Carton gulped. ‘I have not the power to do anything about it myself,’ he went on, ‘but I can at least warn others. I imagine Citizen Duplay has a great deal of valuable wood which could be damaged.’ He bowed very slightly. ‘Thank you for your courtesy, Citizen. I hope I have not distressed the Citizeness.’

‘You did your duty,’ Robespierre replied with satisfaction. ‘The “Purity of the People’“ – he spoke as if it were some kind of divine entity – ‘requires sacrifice. We must rid France of vermin of every kind. I shall myself go to see this Citizen Fleuriot. Come with me.’

Carton drew in his breath, and choked. Robespierre waited while he suffered a fit of coughing, then when Carton was able to compose himself, he repeated his command. ‘Come with me.’

Carton followed the diminutive figure in the green jacket, heels clicking on the cobbles, white-powdered head gleaming in the last of the daylight, until they reached Fleuriot’s door. Robespierre stepped aside for Carton to knock. The door opened and Fleuriot himself stood in the entrance, face tight with annoyance.

Carton moved aside and Fleuriot saw Robespierre. A curious thing happened. There could not be two such men in all France, let alone in this district of Paris. Fleuriot’s recognition was instant. He turned a bilious shade of yellowish-green and swayed so wildly that had he not caught hold of the door lintel he would have fallen over.

‘I have been told that you have some cheeses,’ Robespierre said in his soft, insistent voice. ‘A great many, in fact.’ He blinked. ‘Of course I do not know if that is true, but lying would make you an enemy to the people…’

Fleuriot made a strange, half-strangled sound in his throat.

Carton closed his eyes and opened them again. His mouth was dry as the dust on the stones. ‘It’s possible Citizen Fleuriot does not own the cheeses?’ he said, his voice catching. He coughed as Robespierre swivelled around to stare at him, peering forward as if it were difficult to see. Carton cleared his throat again. ‘Perhaps he is frightened of someone else, Citizen?’

‘Yes!’ Fleuriot said in a high-pitched squeak, as if he were being strangled. ‘The good citizen is right!’ It was painfully clear that he was terrified. His face was ghastly, the sweat stood out on his lip and brow, and he wrung his hands as if he would break them, easing his weight from foot to foot. But the fear that touched his soul was of Robespierre, not of Philippe Duclos. He gulped for air. ‘The cheeses are not mine! They belong to Citizen Duclos, of the local committee. I am keeping them for him! He has threatened to have my head if I don’t…’ His voice wavered off and he looked as if he were going to faint.

Robespierre stepped back. Such physical signs of terror repelled him. The Purity of the People was a concept, an ideal to be aspired to, and the means to achieve it was obviously fear, but he did not want ever to think of the reality of it, much less be forced to witness it. ‘Philippe Duclos?’ he asked.

‘Yes…C-Citizen…R-Robespierre,’ Fleuriot stammered.

‘Then Citizen Carton here will help you carry the cheeses out, and we will give them to the people, where they belong,’ Robespierre ordered. ‘And Citizen Duclos will answer with his head.’ He did not even glance at Carton but stood waiting for an obedience he took for granted.

Carton felt oddly safe as he followed Fleuriot inside. Robespierre was a tiny man with no physical strength at all -Philippe could have broken him with one blow – but it was not even imaginable that he would. Robespierre’s presence in the yard was more powerful than an army of soldiers would have been. Carton would not even have taken a cheese for Sabot without his permission.

When the food was all removed, the yard was completely dark, but Robespierre was easily discernible by the gleam of his powdered hair. Carton approached him with his heart hammering.

‘Citizen Robespierre?’

Robespierre turned, peering at him in the shadows. ‘Yes, what is it? You have done well.’

‘Citizen Sabot of the local committee is a good man.’

His voice shook, and he despised himself for his words. ‘I would like him to have an opportunity to be rewarded for his service to the people by receiving one of the cheeses.’

Robespierre stood motionless for several seconds. He drew in his breath with a slight hiss. ‘Indeed.’

‘He works long hours.’ Carton felt the blood thundering in his head. ‘I must report to him tonight, to show my honesty in this matter, or…’ he faltered and fell silent.

‘He does his duty,’ Robespierre replied.

Carton’s heart sank.

‘But you may be rewarded,’ Robespierre added. ‘You may have one of the cheeses.’

Carton was giddy with relief. ‘Thank you, Citizen.’ He hated the gratitude in his voice, and he could do nothing about it. ‘You are…’ he said the one word he knew Robespierre longed to hear, ‘…incorruptible.’

He took the cheese and went to the local committee prison. Sabot was waiting for him. He saw the cheese even before Carton spoke.

Carton placed it on the table before him, hating to let go of it, and knowing it was the only way to save his life.

‘I found them,’ he said. ‘Citizen Robespierre will arrest the hoarder. You would be well advised to take this home, tonight – now! And say nothing.’

Sabot nodded with profound understanding and a good deal of respect. He picked up the cheese, caressing it with his fingers. ‘I will leave now,’ he agreed. ‘I will walk along the street with you, Citizen.’

Philippe protested of course, but it availed him nothing. Fleuriot would never have dared retract his testimony, and apart from that, there was a sweetness in having his revenge on Philippe for having stolen his hoard, and then terrified him into guarding it for him, adding insult to injury.

Reluctantly Sabot was allowed his one cheese in reward. It was all over very swiftly. Robespierre was not yet a member of the Committee of Public Safety, but it was only a matter of time. His star was ascending. Already someone whispered of him as ‘The Sea-Green Incorruptible’. Philippe Duclos was found guilty and sentenced to the guillotine.

Robespierre never personally witnessed such a disgusting act as an execution. The only time he ever saw the machine of death at all was at the end of the High Terror still a year in the future, when he mounted the blood-spattered steps himself.

Carton had not intended to go, but the memory of Marie-Claire was suddenly very sharp in his mind. He could see her bright face under its tumbled hair, hear her voice with its laughter and enthusiasm, as if she had gone out of the door only minutes ago. Half against his will, despising himself for it, he nevertheless was waiting in the Place de la Revolution, watching with revulsion Citizeness Defarge and her friends who sat with their knitting needles clicking beside the guillotine when the tumbrels came rattling in with their cargo of the condemned.

As usual they were all manner of people, but not many of them wore the red bandanna of the Citizen’s power, and Philippe was easy to see.

Carton felt a joggle at his elbow, and turning for an instant, he thought it was Marie-Claire. It was the same wide, brown eyes, the tangle of hair, but it was Jean-Jacques, his face still haggard with grief. He looked at Carton and his cheeks were wet.

Carton put out his hand to touch him gently. ‘I’m glad you didn’t try your plan,’ he said with intense gratitude. He liked this odd little man profoundly. It was stupid to have such a hostage to fate, but he could not help it. Afterward they would go and drink together in quiet remembrance and companionship. ‘It would never have worked,’ he added.

Jean-Jacques smiled through his tears. ‘Yeah, it did,’ he answered.