Hobbs tapped a pen against his cheek for a few seconds. “Mysterious.”
Mallery moved to the coffee machine and laughed out loud. “Really? Why?”
“Good-looking, single, addicted to caffeine and nicotine, savvy dresser and with a bevy of ladies at the touch of a button. Am I right?”
Max looked down at the phone that he’d instinctively pulled from his pocket to check the messages and hurriedly returned it.
“You’re so far off the mark, Jacques. Now, let’s see what you’ve found.”
“Bianca de Fontanges,” Jack read, swivelling around to face Max who was sipping coffee from his favourite mug. “Mistress to French nobleman Louis Cliquot in the seventeenth century.”
“What about her?”
“Well, she’s the only Bianca I can find of significance, and there’s an interesting backstory that connects to this area.”
Mallery crossed his legs and leaned back against Thierry’s desk. “Go on.”
“Bianca was low-born, worked as a prostitute in her teens, but gained favour with the nobleman from Bordeaux when he came across her at a horse fair. As far as I can make out, Bianca was there plying her trade, but Cliquot took a shine to her and invited the young woman to accompany him back to his country estate. She was given the position of lady’s maid and introduced to Louis’ wife, although it wasn’t long before Monsieur Cliquot took Bianca to his bed and she became his mistress.”
“So, the wife was jealous?”
“Well, apparently, the wife didn’t find out for almost a year, and by that time Bianca was behaving well above her station, flirting with the nobleman in public, openly wearing jewels that he’d bought her and telling the other staff that he intended to marry her after their mistress had died.”
“Was the noblewoman ill? Why was she expected to die?”
“That’s just it. She was in good health, but once the rumours started circulating, the poor woman feared that she was going to be poisoned.”
Max set down his empty mug and folded his arms, urging Jack to continue.
“Anyway, as it happened, the noblewoman turned the tables on both her husband and his mistress and, when they both fell ill at the same time, was suspected of poisoning them with arsenic. The doctors and courtiers couldn’t prove that she’d actually administered the poison herself though, and Madame Cliquot was acquitted without charge.”
“So how does this connect to the graves? What am I missing?” Mallery asked.
“Louis Cliquot was buried in a family tomb, at the church in Salbec.”
The inspector’s eyes shot open. “Is Bianca there, too?”
“No. It seems that Madame Cliquot couldn’t bear to think of them being buried close to one another, so she ordered all the jewels and trinkets that her husband had bestowed upon Bianca to be buried with the young woman’s body in an unmarked pauper’s grave in another cemetery.”
“But you have no idea which graveyard Bianca is buried in?”
“Unfortunately not,” Hobbs shrugged, “but I’d bet you a pint that she’s in one of the local churchyards. Have you finished checking the parish records?”
Max shook his head. “The early ones are almost illegible, the ink has faded too much and the handwriting is so small.”
“Let me see,” Jack offered, springing to his feet. “I’ve got a superb magnifying glass in my rucksack. It should do the trick nicely.”
“Of course you have!” Max laughed. “You probably have the kitchen cupboard in there, too.”
“Kitchen sink,” Hobbs corrected, reaching for his bag. “Here it is.”
Taking out a heavy-rimmed eyeglass, Jack held out his hand for the printouts that Max had been studying.
The inspector looked at his watch for the umpteenth time that day and shook his head. “Leave it until tomorrow, Jacques. We’ve been here long enough, it’s nearly six o’clock. I’ll call the others, tell them to go home.”
“Fair enough, but, if you don’t mind, I’ll take them home and have a look through them after my tea. It’ll save time tomorrow. Angélique’s not due back until tomorrow night, so I’ll be glad of something to occupy me.”
“What? You don’t watch television?”
The Yorkshireman blushed. “It’s in French, so, you know, not so easy?”
“I get it,” Max grinned, “but I’m buying you a beer first, okay, Jacques?”
Annalise Van Beek sat slumped in the family room at Saint André’s hospital. She was growing cold but had refused to move until someone from the monastery came in to see her. Eventually, after a couple of hours of saying prayers at the late abbot’s bedside, signing documents and making arrangements to have his body returned to Saint Augustin’s, Brother Cédric pushed open the squeaky door and cleared his throat.
“Madame Van Beek?” he said in little more than a whisper. “I believe that Abbot Arnaud and yourself were… acquainted.”
The last word sounded clumsy, as though the monk couldn’t find quite the right etiquette to describe Anna’s history with Arnaud.
“I loved him,” she said faintly, looking down at her hands. “I never married nor saw another man my entire life. Benoît was the only one I ever wanted.”
“Benoît?” Cedric repeated, looking slightly confused.
“Benoît was the name that he took on first entering the monastery,” Annalise explained. “I don’t know why he changed it to Arnaud.”
“I see.” The monk smiled gently, keeping his hands tucked inside the wide sleeves of his cassock. “Perhaps I can stay a while. We can say a prayer for Benoît.”
Annalise nodded, tears once again beginning to tumble down her pale cheeks.
Alone in his city centre apartment, Max Mallery stood at the hob making himself a mushroom omelette. He wasn’t really hungry but felt that he’d survived solely on coffee and cigarettes that day and should at least get some nutrition into his body. As he cracked eggs and whisked, Max thought about the conversation he’d had with Jack Hobbs in the bar a short time ago.
The Yorkshireman had talked openly about moving to France for his wife’s sake, to be closer to her family, and how the relocation had given him a new perspective on his marriage. Together with the birth of their young son, Jack and Angélique were content with their lot. Max hadn’t pried, the information had been given willingly and with a few amusing anecdotes thrown in. Now, alone in his spacious modern kitchen, the inspector wondered whether it was too late to change his own life. He looked at the sleek, shining work surfaces, sparkling sink and marble floor tiles. Granted Max’s cleaning lady had been there mopping, dusting and vacuuming while he’d been at the station, but this was what the police officer returned to every night of the week: silence.
Mallery longed for someone to share a bottle of wine with on a Monday night; chat over the day’s highs and lows with; eat a meal together in his state-of-the-art kitchen. Having a woman in his bed on random weekend visits wasn’t the same as having someone to share his life with. Perhaps it’s time to change, Max thought, as he sprinkled chopped mushrooms and chives on top of the egg mixture.
As if prompted into action by Max’s personal thoughts, a text message arrived from Vanessa: C’est finis? V. xx, it read simply. Is it finished?
Max typed three letters, NON, and switched the ringer to silent.
He knew that Vanessa was asking about the investigation, eager to catch a train back down to Bordeaux as soon as it was over, but after tonight’s chat with Jack, Mallery felt that something had shifted inside him. Did he really want to spend his whole life waiting for snatched moments, odd weekends and secretive sexual encounters with another man’s wife?
Commissioner Chirac had taken a pivotal role in enhancing Max’s climb up the rungs of his career ladder, and he’d been repaid by his protégé sliding into bed with his beloved wife. Being reassigned to Bordeaux had been like a backwards step to Mallery, a nod to his indiscretion for the whole force to see.
Pushing the cooked ome
lette onto a plate, Max contemplated his future.
Jack Hobbs had spread the copies of the Saint Margaux, Salbec and Riberon parish records over the kitchen table and sat hunched over them with determined concentration. With a bottle of beer in his left hand and the magnifying glass in his right, Jack doggedly deciphered the burial information line by line.
There was a loud ping from the microwave oven, announcing the readiness of his lasagne meal, but the Yorkshireman stayed put for another five minutes, risking the pasta becoming congealed as it settled.
Jack had phoned Angélique as soon as he arrived home. Despite the peace and quiet in their small apartment, he was missing the warmth of his wife’s body late at night, not to mention the freshly ironed shirts. He’d then made a brief call to the in-laws, wanting to say goodnight to Thomas before the baby was put down to sleep. All seemed fine, leaving Jack with the evening ahead to focus on finding Bianca’s grave.
On the outskirts of Saint Margaux, Brothers Cédric and Alberon had returned to Saint Augustin’s and were in the chapel, preparing for the arrival of Abbot Arnaud’s body. As the hospital were perfunctory in issuing the necessary forms, there being no cause for concern surrounding the abbot’s death, the monks had been told to expect the corpse within a couple of days, after Coroner Theron had issued a detailed death certificate. Abbot Arnaud would then be taken to the morgue for embalming before being returned to the monastery.
The pair worked in silence, bringing a trestle table covered in a blue silk cloth towards the altar, intending to lay out the abbot’s body in order for the rest of the brotherhood to pay their respects to the man who had cared for them for over thirty years. Every once in a while, Brother Cédric would pause, turn his head away and wipe at the tears that relentlessly sprang up. Alberon was more in control of his emotions, having been used to seeing death first hand in his position as Infirmary Medic, although the passing of Arnaud would eventually take its toll on him, as it would the rest of the brotherhood.
“Ou est Bénédict?” Cédric asked, realising that he hadn’t set eyes upon the senior monk since his return to Saint Augustin’s some hours ago.
“Je ne sais pas,” Alberon returned, lifting his shoulders slightly. “Je vais chercher.”
Brother Ernest lay huddled sideways in the corner of a bare cell, a thin sheet drawn up over his head like a cotton shroud. The young man’s shoulders flinched as a leather whip was brought down upon his slender body, causing him to bite harder on his bottom lip to prevent himself from crying out. Blood seeped through the fabric in thin red lines as the open wounds trickled like sap from a tree.
The inflictor thrust his meaty arm forwards, ensuring that the end of the lash hit its target, careful to avoid the young monk’s face as he struck again and again. He couldn’t risk visible scarring, so anything above Ernest’s neck was out of bounds. Beads of sweat clustered on the man’s forehead as he exerted himself, eager to assure himself that Brother Ernest would speak of his nightly rendezvous neither to the police, nor his fellow Brothers. Panting, huffing, almost losing balance, the whip was wielded one last time before Francis was finally left alone to sob into the night.
Footsteps alerted him to the man moving away. He heard the cell door closing with a slight jolt, a key turning in the lock and feet padding down the deserted corridor, until the young monk could hear no more as he lay shivering in fright.
“Frère Bénédict, tu voilà,” Brother Alberon muttered, poking his head around the open door of the senior monk’s room. “Pourquoi es-tu ici?”
Brother Bénédict jumped slightly on hearing the other man’s voice and rapidly pushed the dresser drawer closed before turning towards the door.
“Ah, Frère Alberon,” he sighed, “je range.”
Alberon looked around the immaculate but sparse room, wondering what on earth Bénédict could possibly have found to tidy up, as he claimed. The monk’s belongings were few and each had a duty to sweep through once a week during their household chores rota.
“As-tu besoin de moi?” Bénédict shrugged, bringing his hands together.
Alberon beckoned his Bother to follow him to the chapel, feeling slightly confused about Bénédict’s strange demeanour and the fact that he felt it appropriate to be cleaning his room late in the evening, especially considering it was less than an hour ago that Brother Cédric had notified the Brotherhood of their Holy Father’s passing.
Jack Hobbs squinted, his left index finger tracing the curves of the writing on the duplicate records. He was certain this was it; there was no mistaking the large, bubble-like letter ‘B’ on the entry, and the surname was certainly long enough to be ‘de Fontanges.’ He followed the curve of an ‘F’ and sat upright, stretching the taut muscles in his back and shoulders. This is it, he told himself. I’ve found it!
Jack took another cold beer from the fridge, reminding himself to put the empties in the recycling bin the following morning before Angélique discovered his overindulgence. Anyway, the Yorkshireman thought, this last one is celebratory, we can finally pinpoint Bianca de Fontanges’ grave.
Hobbs picked up his mobile phone and sent a brief text message to Mallery.
GOT IT. SHE’S BURIED IN RIBERON. JACK
He waited, letting the cool liquid trickle down his parched throat. Ten minutes passed and Jack wandered through to the lounge with his lasagne and switched on the television set. Despite his lack of French, as he’d told his boss, there were quite a few programmes with subtitles available in English. The mobile phone lay dormant. No reply. Hobbs felt slightly deflated. It was only ten o’clock and he wanted to share the good news with Max; he thought he’d be delighted at the discovery. After a few more minutes, Jack pressed the remote control and the T.V. screen went black. Mallery must have gone to bed already, he concluded. The revelation would have to wait until tomorrow.
The monks assembled in Saint Augustin’s chapel, prepared to spend the night alternating between religious chants and commemorative speeches in order to remember their beloved abbot and wish his soul well on its journey to the afterlife. As the eldest men took their seats in the front pews and the novices huddled together at the back, Brother Alberon looked around for any absent faces. There was only one.
Whispering to Brother Cédric, Alberon lifted the cassock to reveal his ankles and walked swiftly to the isolation cell where Brother Ernest was being held as punishment for his recent midnight wanderings.
“Bonsoir,” the elder man called out, pushing an ancient key into the lock. “Frère Francis?”
Light flooded the dark cell as soon as the door swung on its hinges, illuminating the shape of a man in the far corner of the room. He was bent over, wrapped in a thin, stained sheet. At first, Alberon thought that Ernest might be embarrassed… perhaps an upset stomach had caused some untoward bodily function… but as he drew near, the smell of iron and sweat filled the monk’s nostrils.
“Qu’est-il arrivé?”
Brother Ernest gave a low moan, throaty like a frightened animal, a trickle of spittle trailing from his mouth and pooling in the cleft of the young man’s chin.
Alberon slowly bent down and touched Ernest’s shoulder, causing the youngster to cry out in pain. With gentle fingers, Alberon pulled back the cotton sheet and examined the wounds. Tears pricked at his eyes. Whoever could have done this? There was no way that Brother Ernest could inflict such horrific wounds upon himself, Alberon mused. Someone had been in here and beaten the poor boy senseless. These weren’t ordinary wounds, either, he noted. The straight lines and deep cuts indicated some kind of whip or cane.
Hurrying to the infirmary to collect iodine, a warm poultice and bandages, Brother Alberon creased his brows in deep thought. The young man’s inflictions were recent, as some of the cuts were still weeping, which meant it could have been no more than an hour since the torturer was in Ernest’s cell.
It was unthinkable, Alberon told himself, but there was no other explanation. Only three of them held keys to Brother
Ernest’s cell, himself, Cédric and Bénédict. The elderly monk knew one thing for sure, and that was that Brother Cédric hadn’t been out of his sight for one moment since they’d jumped in the van earlier that afternoon.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – MUDDY FOOTPRINTS
As the detectives searched tirelessly for clues on the internet and police databases in their office inside Bordeaux police station, a hefty figure navigated the steps down into the cold and musty depths of Saint Augustin’s monastery. Below ground, a locked gilded cage held items of extreme value – gold crosses, jewelled cups, and all manner of ornate decorative chalices – but most importantly, it contained a plain wooden ballot box.
Brother Bénédict lifted the item with both hands, surprised at the weight of it and, with plenty of huffing and puffing, climbed back up the ancient sandstone steps. The senior monk felt confident that he would win the day’s important vote easily. The novices and brothers with less than a decade of experience would undoubtedly want him to take over the post of abbot. Running against Brothers Cédric and Alberon, it might not be a full majority vote, but Bénédict felt sure enough to begin packing his meagre possessions in preparation for moving into Arnaud’s recently cleared quarters.
The box itself was worn with time, but externally was as polished and shiny as it had been on the day of its creation several centuries before. Brother Bénédict calculated that it must have been used only three or four times every one hundred years and then carefully returned to the cool, dark depths of the cavernous cellars below. He ran a thumb carefully along the smooth patina of the corners, imagining the triumphant moment when the last ballot paper was counted and his victory revealed. Bénédict knew that Cédric would be more than disappointed with the outcome. Alberon would take things in his stride. But overall, the result would be the right one, of that he was sure.
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