‘Not certain, but why doesn’t Simondi have one? If the group sings here, they must practise here.’
‘All right, he has one too.’
‘Good. Now tell me a little about our victim.’
‘There isn’t much to tell. She made the costumes as well as doing sewing for others. Right from when she started working for Maître Simondi, and it’s some years now, I think she had it in mind to join the singers, but theirs is a tight little group, you understand. They’re very possessive of their positions and guard them well. Jealous of one another, oh bien sûr, but fiercely united too. Simondi is very particular who he lets in and they know this and govern themselves accordingly. She had a very high voice, clear and sweet, but the Italians are fussy when it comes to Monteverdi and others of their composers, and the six-part singing places terrible demands on its participators, or so I am often told.’
‘Six parts.’
‘Three young men, two girls, and the boy, Xavier. Mademoiselle Mireille would fill in when the soprano or the shepherd boy was ill or away. She could also play the lute beautifully and sometimes was allowed to accompany them.’
‘And Brother Matthieu … does he have any part in looking after the group?’
Biron’s head was tossed as if struck.
‘Him? Why should he have?’
‘I’m simply asking.’
‘Then the answer is he has nothing to do with the singers. Hah! He sings his own tune and makes a big noise of it, but he ran, you know. His God deserted him on the battlefield and ever since then he has been trying to find Him.’
‘And the shepherd boy?’
‘Xavier is trouble, but has a voice that enraptures the bishop.’
‘Just like our victim’s.’
Biron fussed with the lantern. He clucked his tongue and muttered impatiently, ‘I really wouldn’t know, Inspector. The grenade left me deaf in one ear.’
And blinded in that eye. ‘Come on. Let’s take a little walk. Show me through the palace. I want to get the feel of it.’
As she must have had – was this what the detective was implying? ‘What are you looking for, Inspector?’
‘Reasons as to why she was here at that hour and obviously not alone.’
The morgue was across town, near the Porte Saint-Lazare, deep in the cellars of the hospital and adjacent to ramparts that had been built in the fourteenth century. It wasn’t pleasant, thought St-Cyr. Hearing that the exemption for students was soon to be annulled and that all Frenchmen born between 1 January 1912 and 31 December 1921 would have to register for the Service de Travail Obligatoire – the forced labour in Germany – medical students had spent the night dissecting corpses to fulfil assignments before they escaped to join a maquis or resigned themselves to fate. Preservative jars yet to be removed held every imaginable organ. The younger of the sisters vomited repeatedly into a deep stone basin which had, unfortunately, been used for other things.
‘Sister Marie-Madeleine, I really must insist. Please get a hold of yourself!’ scolded the elder of the two.
‘I can’t! Sister, what is this place? Hades?’
‘Now listen, she’s dead, do you understand? Dead. Take two deep breaths and hold them until your stomach settles.’
‘Sister Agnés …’ hazarded St-Cyr.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘Why not take her upstairs? A tisane of linden blossoms or of camomile?’
The Chief Inspector was simply trying to get rid of them. ‘That is impossible. The Holy Father told us to remain with the child.’
Could nothing turn her stomach or her mind? ‘But surely not when Coroner Peretti cuts into her?’
‘Cuts? But … but why should he do such a thing?’
‘The stomach contents, Sister. The large intestine. What she last ate and drank. Such things can tell us much.’
In tears, Sister Marie-Madeleine rushed to the nearest drain to empty whatever remained in her own stomach. Wrenching on the tap, she splashed her face. Pale and shaking, she turned to confront them but steadied herself against the stone pallet. ‘Sister, you’re used to the slaughterhouse but me … Mireille was not an animal!’
She wept. She clenched her fists in rage at herself, and begged the sister to release her from her duty.
Finely boned, her face thin, the large dark brown eyes revealing the depths of her despair, she was only twenty-one, if that, thought St-Cyr. The elder sister, in her mid-sixties, stepped up to her charge and let her have it across the face, once, twice and …
‘Doucement!’ he exclaimed. Now just a moment.
The last slap resounded. It knocked the tears from the young one, causing her to grip her cheek. ‘Forgive me,’ she blurted. ‘I needed that, didn’t I, Sister?’
They faced each other, these two who were married to God. Her dark eyes livid, the older sister’s jowls quivered at the retort. An attendant in a filthy, bloodstained smock snickered joyously through the silence from across the room.
‘She has nerves of steel,’ said the younger one bitterly.
‘Sister Agnés, let’s all go upstairs,’ cautioned St-Cyr. ‘No one will touch the body, but if you wish, I’ll have the attendant put her into one of the lockers and will personally present you with the key.’
Touché, was that it? wondered Sister Agnes, folding her arms across her ample bosom and drawing herself up. ‘Leave if you wish. For myself, I will remain and so will she.’
The bare hands with their bony knuckles were thickly calloused and raw from constant work in the kitchens and fields.
‘Very well,’ sighed St-Cyr. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what you know of the victim.’
It was Sister Marie-Madeleine who, finding an inner strength that was admirable, answered, ‘She was of the lesser nobility from the provinces – what the Parisian nobility used to derogatively call les hobereaux after the little falcon that is satisfied with small prey – but her family had fallen on hard times.’
‘When?’
A fleeting smile revealed the stomach, not the grief, had been conquered. ‘Six hundred years ago. De Sinéty was a name to be proud of in the Avignon of those days, Inspector, but there were some who were jealous of such wealth and position and took steps to remove it.’
‘The girl was from the hills,’ spat the older nun.
‘She was not, Sister, and you know it. She was very well brought up and, as a result, was an elegant seamstress who could work wonders with very little. Oh bien sür her mother fell on hard times and had to move out to a mas to try to eke out an existence by buying a flock of sheep others would then have to tend, but Mireille … She came to live and work in Avignon, Inspector, for Maître Simondi, and took home every sou she could.’
‘And this farmhouse and farm, where are they?’ he asked.
‘In the hills behind Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet,’ said Sister Agnes, glaring defiantly at her companion who gazed right back at her with the sympathy of one who was trying to understand and to forgive such venom.
‘Fifteen or so kilometres to the south of Avignon, Inspector,’ said Sister Marie-Madeleine. ‘Mireille lived here in the Balance Quartier which is just below the Palais.’
‘A place of slums and gypsy hovels,’ seethed the older nun.
‘Rooms of her own, Sister,’ entreated the younger of them, ‘whose rent was paid each week and always on time.’
‘You know it was sinful of her to live in that house. You know the Holy Father wanted her to move out of that quartier and had arranged far better lodgings.’
‘But she had refused his offer?’ hazarded the Sûreté, startling them both and causing the younger one to blurt, ‘Forgive me, Sister,’ and to silence her tongue.
‘There are no more gypsies. It’s all over with those people,’ said Sister Agnès. ‘They’ve been sent away just like the Jews.’
To camps in Eastern Europe and in the Reich, said St-Cyr sadly to himself, he, too, falling into silence but adding, Hermann, I don�
�t like this. The younger one knows too much, and the older one is now only too aware of it and will be certain to inform the bishop.
Kohler let the concierge continue ahead of him. They were upstairs again, on the first floor, and had passed through and beyond the room where the girl had been killed. The chamber they were now in, the Grand Tinel, was huge. Light from the still-smoking lantern made a feeble pool about Biron but seldom touched the walls and not the vault of the ceiling above.
‘What is it?’ asked the concierge uneasily as he sensed he was no longer being followed and turned to look back.
‘Just keep going. Don’t stop until you get to the end.’
‘A fire here in 1413 destroyed the magnificent frescoes with which Giovanetti decorated the walls. The ceiling also.’
‘I’m not interested in the past, not yet.’
Had the detective cared nothing for the palace’s history he’d been given? Nothing for the painstaking details of the restorations whose work had ceased because of the Occupation? ‘We are now once again in the “old palace” Inspector. By “old” I mean the Palais of Bénédict the Twelfth, which was built between 1334 and 1342 and well illustrates the austerity of the Cistercians, whereas in the “new palace” there are the pointed arches of the Renaissance Gothic, the splendid frescoes and magnificence of Clément the Sixth, who was a Bénédictine and therefore far more worldly.’
‘He built his palace on to the other one between 1342 and 1352. Keep talking.’
Their voices easily filled the hall – superb acoustics, an ideal setting for a concert … The grey overcoat and black beret of the grand mutilé receded, the concierge lopsidedly rocking as his weight fell on the prosthesis that had replaced his right fore-leg.
When he reached a canopied fireplace at the far end of the hall, Biron, dwarfed by the size of the room, held the lantern above himself as he turned to face the Inspector who had remained at the other end. ‘It is forty-eight metres long by ten and a quarter wide but is not nearly so wide as la chambre de la grande audience.’
The Great Audience Chamber was on the ground floor of the new palace, recalled Kohler, and, to let Biron know he’d been paying attention, said, ‘That one’s length is about the same as this but the width is nearly fifty-two metres and it has fantastic arches in the ceiling. Can you sing?’
‘With the voice of an étourneau?’ A starling. ‘Inspector, what is it you really want of me?’
‘Answers, mon fin. Answers.’
It would have to be said. ‘The madrigal singers use this chamber as their practice hall.’
‘For auditions too?’ hazarded Kohler, the rich baritone of his voice filling the hall and startling the concierge who uneasily muttered, ‘Those also but … but none was scheduled. I would have been informed.’
‘So she wasn’t here to audition and yet was dressed like that?’
No answer was forthcoming. ‘Who judges the auditions?’
Biron hesitated. ‘The singing master, Monsieur Simondi and …’
‘The bishop?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who else?’
Ah merde alors! ‘One other. Always there are three, and always the third person’s identity is kept secret so as to make the audition entirely fair.’
‘Kept secret by whom?’
‘The bishop and Monsieur Simondi. Well before each audition they always discuss this and then … then agree upon who to ask.’
‘If she had come here for an audition …’
‘She couldn’t have.’
‘But if she had …’
‘She didn’t! I’m always informed of them beforehand. The candles, the black-out curtains over the windows, the chairs …’
Finally they were getting somewhere. ‘Where would the chairs have been placed?’
Must the Inspector pry into everything? ‘Two metres from the wall nearest yourself. The singer then enters from the doorway in the far left corner here behind me and comes to stand an equal distance from this wall. Here the floor is marked with a cross for just such a purpose.’
She’d have been all keyed up. ‘Would she have recognized the third judge if there had been an audition?’
Biron gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Avignon is a large town, Inspector. Some who fled here during the Defeat have been allowed to remain. The contestant might realize the judge was new to us citizens but wouldn’t likely know who he was.’
‘Or her – could it have been a woman?’
Ah damn this one and his questions! ‘Sometimes but … but not often and then only after a first refusal.’
‘Stay there. I might need you to.’ Switching on his torch, Kohler shone it along the wall but, search as he did, he couldn’t find the chairs.
‘Inspector, they are kept in the stairwell to my right. This area by the fireplace was once a pantry and separated from the hall to hide the dressoir upon which the Pontiff’s meals, brought from the Kitchens Tower to my left, were placed so that after rewarming them at the fire, they could be properly served on the finest pewter and then taken to his table and to those of his distinguished guests, the lords and ladies of the …’
‘Ja, ja, skip the details, will you?’ Was Biron always such a windbag? If so, it was no wonder the troops threw stones at the statues and yelled their lungs out during his guided tours. ‘Get the chairs. Bring them out here and set them up.’
‘Of course. But please forgive the wounds I received at the hand of my own grenade. They will cause me to drag the chairs across the floor.’
Kohler let him be and shone his torch up over the outer wall. There were windows inset into tall, arched alcoves. The leaded glass wore the Occupation’s coat of laundry blueing. Heavy black curtains had been installed but had been flung open here and there, the irregularity of their openings causing him to wonder if the girl had waited in any of the alcoves, listening for the slightest sound. Ah yes, after the rustling of her skirts had first been silenced and the sounds of the tiny silver bells, the trinkets, the scissors and the coins had been finally quietened by her.
Right in the middle of the outer wall there was the entrance to a square stone tower with a staircase. Perfect ease of access and departure, then, and with heavy curtains to seal it off.
‘That is the Saint John’s Tower,’ sang out Biron. ‘There are two lovely chapels. The one you’re facing is above the other. Giovanetti painted the frescoes. If you would care to …’
Ignored, or so it seemed, Biron carried on with the chairs. They were old, of darkly stained wood, and they folded outwards to form gracefully curved Xs with no backs, but with plain, straight armrests.
He lined them up. Under the light from the lantern they threw the shadows of their slats on the floor behind.
Three chairs, side by side and sitting as if in judgement in the flickering light of a smoky lantern, thought Kohler. Had they been there on the night of the murder? Had they been used during the Renaissance – were they that old?
The thought was eerie and unpleasant, for the length and size of the hall made one automatically focus on them. Brutally Kohler rang the clochette. Instantly Biron was alerted and never mind his having a deaf ear.
‘Inspector, where did you get that?’ he shrilled.
It was rung again and then again – clear, sharp, musical tinkles – and when they were back in the Chambre du cerf, light from Herr Kohler’s torch fled over the frescoed wall down which her blood had run. The hare they’d seen before must have been chased by hounds towards the monk, the Pontiff Clement VI, some said, upon whose gloved fist a hawk waited to make the kill but—
‘Inspector, what is it you wish me to see?’
‘The monk … He’s distracted and is looking the other way, even though the hounds are driving that hare towards him and he has yet to release the hawk.’
Six hundred years ago each of the hounds would have worn a clochette similar to the one the Inspector was holding but why had he to notice this? wondered Biron. It could only mean troubl
e.
‘The monk, the pontiff or whatever, should have heard those dogs,’ breathed Kohler.
One would have to try to divert him. ‘Perhaps he did. Perhaps one of his hounds had wandered off and he heard its clochette against those of the others and wondered what it was driving towards him.’
‘A hound that likes to wander, eh, and a wild boar after truffles and disturbed at its repast?’
‘Inspector, the maquis of our hills, the garrigue, is very rough. The little bells make it possible for the hunters to know where each of their dogs is as the game is driven towards them.’
‘But this hound couldn’t have been running with the pack, could it?’
‘I … I wouldn’t really know. I’m just a simple man.’
‘Then tell me, mon fin, if the girl knew the dog that wore this bell and if that dog would have come to her as a friend?’
Ah merde alors! ‘I have nothing to do with the bishop’s dogs, Inspector, and couldn’t even keep one as a pet. Indeed, they are each served more meat in a day than I, or most of my fellow citizens, taste in six months.’
Apart from the meatless days, the adult ration, if one could get it, had been pared from 184 grams per week in September 1940 to 100 grams with bones, 75 without.
‘Then the dog wouldn’t have been hungry?’
‘Inspector, dogs are always hungry, some more than others, and the bishop always oversees their feeding so as to make certain nothing is wasted or inadvertently taken, but they are kept in the stables at his residence. They don’t come here.’
‘Then you tell me why there’s a bird’s nest over in the window alcove closest to that fireplace?’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, what was this? ‘The mistral, Inspector. From time to time things are blown in from the battlements. There are pigeons … Traps have been set. The birds are always causing a problem. The Kommandant has seen the need and … and allows them to be taken.’
There, he had said it, thought Biron, and the detective knew he was sweating.
‘Tasty are they? Hey, that’s no pigeon’s nest, mon fin. It’s a reed warbler’s, and you’re talking to an ex-farm boy who loved dogs and always had one or two.’
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