Playground for Misunderstanding

By Ellen Hampton

When Nick Layton finds a girl lying dead in the courtyard of his Paris apartment, it sets in motion a police investigation searching for answers in skinhead violence at the mosque, arson-by-real estate, flashmobs in the Luxembourg Gardens, and an international Nietzsche hacker who wants the public to think, rather than consume. Nick's girlfriend Anne-Sophie gets in trouble deeper than she planned, as Commandant Chastel tries to sort out the virtual from the actual. Paris becomes a sublime Playground for Misunderstanding as the past reverberates into the present, throwing up sparks and threatening total paralysis. Or was it all an accident?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Hampton
• Release date: Oct 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301163397

Book preview

Playground for Misunderstanding

Ellen Hampton

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due in many directions. While writing is a solitary occupation, we never really do it alone. Family, friends and even occasionally strangers contribute in ways that are diffuse but fundamental. I would like to thank my early readers, whose comments and enthusiasm encouraged me to continue down this fictional path: Susan Sachs, Anne Swardson, Clare Brennan, Tracy Hampton, Liz Maiche and Kathryn English. Other friends contributed advice, or their own stories and adventures in Paris, including Bill Beauclerk, Annaleena Soult, Stephanie Wajntraub, Jessica Luckett, Yannick Fielder, Heather Mortimer, Mireille Prodeau, Florence de Ruyter-Goyet, Fabienne Duvigneau and Laura Hobson Faure. I would like to thank all my students at Sciences Po for their fine-edged curiosity and transcendant brilliance: you make the classroom a magic place to be. I also would like to thank my hard-working production team of Benoit Pergent (trailer), Meghan Keane (cover art) and Maxime Bruardel (website), without whom this project would not have been published. And especially, everlasting thanks to my frontline of support and criticism, my sons Julien and Austin Urraca.

This book is dedicated to my husband, Claude Urraca, who actually understands everything.

This book is a work of fiction, and is not meant to have any resemblance to any actual persons.

Playground for Misunderstanding

Published by Ellen Hampton at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Ellen Hampton USA

http://ellenhamptonbooks.com

Part One

Nick Layton stood at the pastry case at Pierre Hermé awed by the kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, and flavors. Raspberry pistachio caramel passionfruit, stacked and swirled and sliced into forms artful and geometric and smooth, and bearing no family resemblance to anything displayed in a New York City doughnut shop. He had heard Anne-Sophie rave about the pastry chef to a friend, and thought he’d surprise her with a wicked dessert. But what? Chocolate was always good. Or maybe chocolate was a cliché. No, chocolate was good, maybe with cherries.

Sorry sir, cherries are not in fashion. The sales clerk seemed very clear on this point. Nick hadn’t realized fashion applied to fruit.

Why do you not tell me how you conceive your idea of dessert and I could perhaps suggest something?

Just a nice surprise for a friend. He felt immediately unprepared and underequipped, ambushed by uncertainty and ignorance. He had no theory on dessert. Clearly, he should have thought this through in advance of walking into the shop. This was Paris. He should know not only what he wanted, but why he wanted it. Nick tried his best engaging grin on the salesgirl. She did not seem to notice.

Your friend is French?

She is indeed.

Is she very chic? Or perhaps she has more simple tastes?

Both. Neither. What was the right answer? She likes chocolate. He thought he had never sounded so inane in his life, and was glad Anne-Sophie wasn’t there to hear him. He surrendered to a small sculptured disc with a powdered top and textured sides and a crystallized antenna on top. The salesgirl had assured him that Anne-Sophie would be impressed, it was their latest creation. When she told him the price, he thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. She tucked it carefully into a cardboard box and handed it over the counter to him. He carried it home with both hands, like a crown jewel.

Home, for the 2009-2010 academic year, was a tiny ground-floor studio apartment off the boulevard Saint-Germain. He tapped in the code to the outer door of his building. The main door, of heavy, carved oak, lacquered in dark blue paint, had been made for footmen to swing open and carriages to clatter through to the courtyard. Modern exigencies had meant cutting a smaller door within the greater door which clicked open electronically to admit an individual. Nick had to duck his head to get through. He punched the light button in the passageway, in case it had been fixed. The passageway was dark, except for the light spilling from behind the concierge’s white lace curtains. The sound of her nightly soap, Plus Belle la Vie (More Beautiful Life), blared from the television. Nick headed toward his door on the far side of the courtyard, thinking that maybe he and Anne-Sophie could skip dinner and just have dessert. And then he snagged his foot on something, tripped and went flying forward, both hands in front of him trying desperately to hold onto the cakebox and break his fall at the same time. It flew, hit the wall in front of him, and slid to the ground. Nick landed hard on his forearms and let loose a stream of variations on the f-word. He picked himself up and shook his arms. They did not seem to be broken. He walked back to the passageway and hit the light switch hard with his fist, to no result, and was about to pound on the concierge’s door to ask when the fuck she was going to replace the bulb when he saw the outline of what he had tripped over. It was a pale white arm, outstretched, hand palm up. His eyes followed the outline to a shoulder, a face, a girl. He seemed to be processing in slow motion; what he saw made no sense, therefore he couldn’t be seeing it.

Are you okay? he said tentatively. He knelt down beside her and saw that her eyes were open. He shook her shoulder lightly. She didn’t respond. Nick pulled out his phone to call 911, and thought, no, what is it here, if it’s not 911, what’s the number? He ran to the concierge’s door and knocked hard and fast, his heart pounding and his pulse racing, and when she opened it, he could not remember how to say emergency in French. He pointed to the young woman lying on the ground, and to his phone. Before he could finish saying Call for help the concierge had slammed the door in his face and locked it behind her. Nick could hear her shouting into the phone through the door. Urgences, that’s it, he said to himself. He looked over at the girl again and knew he was going to be sick. He ran to his apartment and dove into the bathroom.

When the weather was fine, clusters of hypersexual youth gathered on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge over the Seine linking the Louvre courtyard with the Institut de France, the Right Bank to the Left, the old to the young. Oblivious both to these bookends of Western civilization and to the large No alcohol signs posted, modern-day Hebes and Heracles strolled, sipped and sighed until dawn, drenched in romance, sealing the moment with a padlock on the chain-link sides of the bridge. Police commandant Jean-Loup Chastel had nothing against love, but he was glad the weather had turned nasty. He crossed the empty bridge, flicking the end of a cigarette into the already nicotine-stained river. All that romance on the Pont des Arts was looking like the opening act of a tragedy, kids + alcohol + bridge. Chastel had recommended putting a gate on either end and closing it at night. That would be a simple and direct solution, and thus was entirely out of consideration. Chastel’s boss liked to cite an old saying: There is no problem that the absence of solution will not end by resolving. It explained why paralysis was so popular. It suited nearly everyone, a continuation of politics by other means. Even if the city powers liked the idea of a gate, approval was not up to them. Chastel had been told that Bâtiments de France, the national architectural preservation agency, would have to approve the slightest modification to the appearance of the Pont des Arts. Bâtiments de France controlled the exterior aspect of any building, park or street within 500 meters of an historically classified monument. With 1,800 such monuments in Paris alone, that pretty much wrapped up the whole city. Paris was not in the hands of the politicians or the police, but rather in those of the architects, whose main mission was to prevent change from infiltrating the cityscape. They had succeeded, in that Paris was arguably the most beautiful city in the world; they had failed, in that modern life in 18th century design was frequently catastrophic.

Chastel stepped off the narrow sidewalk to let a woman pushing a stroller pass, and was nearly run down by a black SUV, whose wide body took up the entire street as it roared by. "Putain de merde! he swore under his breath. He walked on to the commissariat on rue Bonaparte, nodded at the officer at the front door and climbed the stairs to the second-floor investigations unit. Two younger officers were seated at their desks in front of computer screens, logged onto Facebook. Bonjour Commandant," they said, and turned back to their screens.

Anything new? Chastel put his bag on his desk and booted up his computer. A stack of envelopes awaited his attention. He shoved it to the side. If it came by post, it wasn’t urgent. Besides, it was Monday, he had the week before him.

Looks like they’re trying to organize another flashmob, Champs de Mars, for Saturday night, said one of the officers.

Discourage them. Complain about the weather. Worry about the police. Remark that it wasn’t fun last time.

The officer nodded. Bruno Galère was logged in under a pseudonym, one of several characters he created specifically to interact with flashmob organizers. This one was a girl whose profile photo was of a tattoo across the lower part of her back. He had taken it of his girlfriend. Just a little bit of butt crack showed, he didn’t think she’d mind. He’d given the character an appropriate smattering of musical taste and radical politics and then friended her with his other characters. Her mission was to undercut enthusiasm for the event. She had to be subtle or the other readers would smell a rat. Or worse, a cop. Bruno tossed in a long feminine Eeewww… about the weather along with an OMG soooooo booooring and a ;-µ for good measure. Then he sat back and waited for a response. He liked his job. Most of his friends had to sneak their Facebook time at work.

Chastel had been opposed to the tactic at first, but Bruno had presented a good argument for online infiltration, and the higher-ups were running scared. He had been at the first flashmob gathering at the Louvre the summer before and had ordered the police units to stand down and intervene only in case of violence or potential harm. That had been a fairly small group of several hundred, and they hadn’t been too rowdy. But he had seen the potential for big trouble, just as the participants had seen the potential for big fun. It was bound to get worse. In his day, only the Communist Party, a union demonstration or a rock festival could turn out the really big crowds. And there was nothing spontaneous about any of those. He had drawn, for the commissioner, a scenario of squads of riot police chasing crowds out of one locale only to have them pop up somewhere else. If we aren’t online, we won’t have a clue, he had argued. The clincher was simple: Besides, we don’t need a warrant.

Chastel was glad Bruno was there. Bruno had shown him how the thing worked, though the why of it still escaped him. If he wanted to talk to someone, he called them on the phone. And talked. He felt like he was technologically competent, but maybe that was last week. He had tried to play his knowledgeable older-guy card with Bruno one day and remarked that he had started on computers with DOS, and Bruno had looked at him with such horror and incredulity he felt like a dinosaur. He decided not to mention the Minitel.

Chastel had stopped in his favorite café before heading home. It was a dark room, the windows were small, and the bar curved around so that he could stand with his back to the wall, facing the door. Customers who went there mostly did not want to be seen; privacy was the main décor. The bartender nodded to him, poured him a draft. Chastel hooked his boot heel up on the brass rail and leaned his elbows against the polished wooden bar. He started to relax, let go of the day’s tension. His phone beeped. He pulled it out, saw there was a text message, tried to find the right slant of light to read it, the right distance from his eyes to focus. Then he realized it was written in SMS abbreviations, and it was from Bruno. He hit number 4 on speed dial.

What.

I just sent you a message, Bruno said.

I can’t read it right now. What’s up.

A guy called, there’s a body, boulevard Saint Germain.

Address.

Bruno gave it, and Chastel said he would meet him there. He put three euros on the bar and waved at the bartender as he left. He would’ve liked to grab a quick smoke, but he had given up smoking and driving a motorcycle at the same time. He shoved his helmet on his head and headed for the boulevard. So much for the end of the day.

The boulevard took its name from the neighborhood, Saint Germain-des-Près, which in turn took its name from the church on the corner of rue Bonaparte, which had been an abbey long, long before anyone called Bonaparte would have a street named after him. In the older parts of Paris, dynasties and conflicts had sifted through time immemorial into geophonic layers of names. Germain himself, the man at the heart of abbey-neighborhood-boulevard, had been a 6th century Merovingian bishop of Paris, known as the Father of the Poor. There weren’t many of those around his neighborhood any more.

Chastel reached the front door at the same time as a siren-blaring patrol car. He left his motorcycle on the sidewalk and tried to open the door. The digicode was on, it was locked. He banged on the heavy wood. It clicked open, and a small square woman with panic on her face began spieling in a mix of Portuguese and French. Chastel cut her off. Where? She pointed toward the courtyard. Chastel signalled to one of the uniformed officers to take her statement, if possible. He walked through to the courtyard, a wide, rectangular area surrounded on four sides by apartments, five stories high with a sixth floor of maid’s rooms under the eaves. Lights in several apartment windows provided some illumination. He saw the body of a young woman lying on her side on the wet stone. She was blonde, maybe 20, unremarkable clothing. A gold necklace indicated robbery was not the motive. Suicide? Even if so, the criminal brigade would get this investigation.

Nick stepped out of his apartment when he heard the sirens arrive. A short, lean guy in a black leather jacket pulled out his gun and barked at him in French to stay where he was. Nick froze and raised his arms slowly, in case that had been part of the directions, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to appear uncooperative. He stood silently while a uniformed officer patted him down. The detective holstered his gun. He had dark hair going to gray, a two-day stubble and an intense look in his eyes. "Quel est votre nom?"

Nick Layton. I tripped over the… body.

You are American. The man switched to English. Heavily accented, but more or less understandable English. Nick was relieved. What French he had seemed to pack its bags and flee when he was stressed out.

Tell me what you saw. Nick did. There wasn’t much to tell.

After you tell the concierge, what did you do? Did you touch the body? Nick said no, he’d gone in his apartment and puked and washed his face. The policeman nodded.

And you wear these clothes at the time? Nick nodded.

And my jacket. He was getting cold standing outside in his shirt. In fact, he realized he was shaking. It’s right here… he turned to go into the apartment. The detective grabbed his arm and signalled to the uniformed officer to go inside. He returned with the coat. Nick reached out for it, but the policeman said something to the officer and he walked away with it.

I’m kind of cold.

It is shock. He beckoned to the ambulance crew standing by. They will take care of you. Then you will go to the commissariat to make a statement.

The forensics team had arrived and were examining the body and the courtyard. Nick saw them puzzle over a slightly crushed cardboard box.

Oh, he said. The detective looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

That was dessert.

A disturbance at the entrance to the building made them turn their heads. Nick saw Anne-Sophie gesturing in his direction to a uniformed police officer. He waved at her over the head of the medic, who had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and was trying to shine a light in his eyes. Nick asked the detective if she could come through. As though anyone would be able to stop her. She strode into the courtyard in boots with four-inch heels and gave Nick a big hug. When I saw the police I was so afraid something had happened to you… Her voice choked a little and her eyes started to tear up. Nick was touched. He pulled her into a hug, wrapping the ambulance blanket around both of them. She straightened up crisply, emotion-on went to emotion-off like a light switch, and looked around. The body was now covered by a sheet. Nick briefly recounted events. Anne-Sophie was immediately furious. "What kind of security does this building have?! A young girl can be assaulted and killed in a neighborhood like this, c’est pas possible!"

The detective had been watching quietly and now asked Anne-Sophie in French: What makes you think she was assaulted and killed?

Anne-Sophie turned to him as though, previously invisible, he had suddenly manifested himself from thin air. She looked down from the heights of her bootheels. "Vous êtes?"

"Commandant Chastel, commissariat du 6ème. And you? Can I see your papers please?"

Anne-Sophie dug in her immense leather shoulder bag for her wallet, pulled out her national identity card and handed it over.

Mademoiselle de Saint-Posnée. And what are you doing here? Nick was following their conversation so far. He could see that Anne-Sophie was putting on her upper-class armor and that the detective was not in the least intimidated. But he also noted that Chastel had not spoken a