‘Louis, de Passe went through her things all by himself. There was no one else with him.’
‘Then let us find what he missed.’
Two tins of sardines were from Marseille and they matched, exactly, the one Louis had taken from the victim.
Kohler reached well into the hidey-hole he had found under the floorboards beneath a wooden box that was full of fabric remnants. A corked, dark green wine bottle was next. ‘Extra Vierge,’ he breathed.
There were freshly harvested black olives as big as small plums. Dried figs and apricots had been threaded on to braided lengths of straw for ease of carrying to and from market or hanging up in the kitchen, but few would have done so these days for fear of a visit from Vichy’s hated Service d’ordre, soon to become the Milice, who, among other tasks, hunted for hoarders and the lesser black-marketeers, the little men, the lampistes. Never the big ones. Never! It was only the little ones who couldn’t buy their way out of trouble.
A beating and arrest were guaranteed; theft, too, of the offending items and anything else that might appear appealing.
The braiding of the straw and style of tying matched that of the recently acquired ropes of garlic and sun-dried tomatoes that hung freely in sight above the tiny basin she had used as a sink.
A cake of homemade olive-oil soap smelled of honey, too, and lavender, not of ground horse chestnuts, sand and slaked lime as did the infamous ‘National’ soap, which was always served up in grey, pasty two-centimetre-sized cubes and rationed. Nor would this soap have burned her skin and scratched it as the National’s did Giselle’s and Oona’s. Not used until recently, the soap had to have come with the olives and the oil. None of these items was ever seen in Paris by ordinary people. And as sure as that God of Louis’s had made olives to ripen like that near les Baux, the shepherd boy had some answering to do.
A small round of chèvre de crottin had been dusted with herbs. Three slices of honey-drenched, fried bread were golden in colour and lying under a cover on a plate – the tranches dorèes the peasant would take at his mid-afternoon goûter, his little ‘tea break’ among the groves or vineyards and fortified by at least four litres of red wine. Had the shepherd boy been bribing the victim or just trying to encourage her favour?
A last item was harder to retrieve and it caused consternation for it couldn’t have come from a similar source.
‘Hédiard,’ he muttered. ‘Kumquats. Merde alors, she’s full of surprises!’
The pale green glass jar, with its gold lettered and embossed label, spoke of luxuries not seen by most since before the war and then only from the street side of a shop window.
There was dust on the lid; the seal was intact, a puzzle these days.
From behind the false backing of the small cupboard that served as her kitchen counter and drainboard, he took a jar of English marmalade, one of candied ginger, a tin of litchi nuts and another of crystallized, unrefined sugar from Barbados. Again, all the items had come from Hédiard’s. Again there was dust on all of the lids and this was thickest on the jar of marmalade. From there through to the kumquats it varied, indicating the items hadn’t come in all at once but had been given to her in payment perhaps, and at intervals. But why had she partaken of none of them?
Everyone knew or had heard of Hédiard. One of Paris’s venerable institutions, and much revered not just for its delicatessen but for its upstairs tearoom, the shop had occupied premises at 21 place de la Madeleine since 1851. And oh bien sûr, had they closed it in protest at the Defeat of June 1940, they would have lost the business to a friend or friends of the Occupier. That had been one of the many ordinances of the time, and had been obeyed or else.
Among other things, she had been working on an order for six replacement surplices for the Cathedral’s choir, a donation of her already overstressed time, no doubt, since there was no mention of the order in her ledger.
But then, of course, Alain de Passe, that warner of Don’t mess with the Host and the Blood of Christ, had torn out page after page.
When he found a false panel beneath the top of her main worktable, his fingers trembled and he had to calm them. Infrequent sleep and meals hadn’t helped the nerves, nor had the pace of things. Always it was blitzkrieg for them, and always of late those little dove-grey pills of Benzedrine the fighter pilots took to stay awake and alive had been necessary.
The ledger she had hidden was complete. Greatly humbled by the thoroughness of this petite lingère, he began to peruse it.’ Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Toulon and Aries … The tour after the concert on the thirtieth.’
Beneath each of these place names she had noted the costume changes the singing master had demanded. Detail after detail followed in columns and sketches so orderly he had to recall the Kommandant’s admiration of her practicality. She had even used a code – in glyphs – to denote the singers’ names and those of others, and nowhere here did the actual names appear. A kind of shorthand, he supposed, but another rebus for them to sort out.
Beneath the glyphs and the details there were notations of payment: for the costumes at Aix, a mere 205 francs; for those at Marseille, 103; for Aries only 63 francs.
The singing master must have had her modify existing costumes, but even so it was far too little, far too parsimonious.
At the bottom of the page she had written: Maître Simondi’s cheque for 876 francs has been postdated to 25 April- three months, no less! – and given on the Aries branch of the Banque des Pays du Sud this time.
Two things were immediately clear: the singing master was a demanding, cheap son of a bitch – an astute businessman, the Kommandant had said. And Mireille de Sinéty had felt it necessary to keep hidden a far more detailed copy of her ledger.
They’d been watching her, and she had damned well known it.
Xavier had brought her gifts from his father’s farm, and things he had stolen when the group had broken into abandoned villas. Someone else – he didn’t think it could have been the shepherd boy – had paid her in, or given her, the tins of sardines. And yet again, someone had done so with the items from Hédiard’s, but at intervals.
Up in the tower, Louis was lost in thought, puzzling over something on the girl’s dressing table and sucking on a pipe he had forgotten to light.
Fingering a cheap, ersatz pewter crucifix and a rosary of black Bakelite beads, the Sûreté said, ‘This medallion, Hermann. The image of the Holy Mother has been so poorly stamped, the second impression blurs the first.’
Yet their victim had been a perfectionist, a lover of the past, her family once of the lesser nobility.
The items were next to her hairbrush and comb as if, in a final gesture, it had been they to which she had turned before leaving for the Palais. A pair of scissors lay on top of a four-centimetre-long lock of her hair …
‘A label provides the source of the religious bric-a-brac, which has only just recently been purchased from Les Fleurs du Petit Enfant,’ said St-Cyr. ‘It’s on the rue de Mons not far from the Palais and the Cathedral, but what does a shop which sells religious motifs of the worst kind have to do with this?’
Of postcard size, but definitely not a postcard, the black-and-white photographic print was of a young woman’s naked breasts. No shoulders, arms or waist were visible, no name either. Instead, one end of a curl of their owner’s hair had been glued to the lower right corner of the card so that the hair could be fingered while gazing raptly at the breasts.
The card had been hidden behind the backing of a gaudily framed sketch of the Petit Jésus, complete with phosphorescent halo and angels in the sky.
The hair was distinctly reddish, a pronounced strawberry blonde and soft, but with a sheen like burnished copper in strong sunlight. There were scattered freckles on the breasts. The skin was very white – ‘creamy’, a fétichiste de cheveux might have whispered during his orgy of gawking and self-masturbation. The nipples had been stiffened, probably at the photographer’s insistence and simply by their owner having f
irst wetted her fingers. Chorus girls did this as a matter of routine at the Lido and other such places, so much so that in winter they were always bitching about their being chapped.
‘The Silver Swan …’ hazarded Kohler, indicating the post-card.
‘“When death approached unlocked her silent throat,”’ said Louis, comparing the hair with the loose strands Mireille de Sinéty had cut from herself and had left for them or others to find.
‘De Passe must have seen the hair she left but not the photograph, Louis.’
‘But did he leave it for us to find as a warning to us, or not think it important?’
Kohler indicated the card. ‘Is this the reason she was silenced? Is the fétichiste the bishop?’
It had to be faced. ‘He practises flagellation, Hermann. He’s one of the Pénitents Noirs. I’m not sure that such a practice is common to them now, but there was also the enseigne of a martinet on her belt.’
‘And wouldn’t you know it, eh? The sins of the flesh needing to be scourged.’
‘Whoever tidied up after the murder took the time to cut off a lock of our victim’s hair.’
‘To go with a photograph of her breasts – is that it, eh? Is that why she cut this off herself?’
‘Calm down. We must think as she would have had us think.’
‘The Church, you idiot! The préfet and his warning!’
Early in the afternoon long shadows were cast by the Palais, and the town, with its ramparts seen from the tower room, held narrow streets, some of which already appeared as if at dusk, such was the flatness of the sun’s trajectory in winter.
The clouds had vanished; the mistral still blew every bit as fiercely.
‘Monsieur le Préfet said I was to keep silent,’ confessed Thérèse Godard faintly. ‘He told me that if I did not wish to embarrass myself, I should remember that silence protected a girl’s honour.’
The son of a bitch!
‘We’ll protect you,’ said the one called Kohler but she knew this could never be and said, ‘You don’t know what it’s like here! They have their ways. People like me are nothing to them. Nothing, do you understand?’
‘Who do you mean?’ urged St-Cyr.
‘Them! I …’ The girl shrugged and wiped her eyes with her fingertips.
‘Listen to me, mademoiselle …’
‘Go easy, Louis. She’s really upset.’
‘And so will we be, mon ami, if there are more killings!’
‘More killings …?’ shrilled Thérèse. ‘Myself and Sister Marie-Madeleine, perhaps?’
Louis calmed his voice. ‘Please, mademoiselle, you are our closest link. You owe it to her to tell us everything you know of what happened.’
‘So as to empty my head before I am drowned in the river, monsieur? Drowned in an accabussade?’
Ah nom de Dieu, what the hell was this? wondered St-Cyr. Six hundred years ago husbands, masters and fathers could deal with recalcitrant and errant females in their charge by locking them into a wooden cage which was then repeatedly and publicly dunked in the river like a crayfish trap.
‘An accabussade?’ he asked.
‘I … I didn’t mean to say that. It … it was only because of Mireille’s telling me what had happened to the other Mireille, the one she was named after.’
There, she had told them, but they would never understand. How could they?
In a whisper, she said, ‘Sister Marie-Madeleine knows far more about it than I do. She … she came here late on the night before Mireille was murdered. They spoke quietly. I know they must have talked of this other Mireille, of what it must mean, but I … I do not know what they said up here in the tower – how could I? I sleep downstairs under one of the tables. Mireille let me do that. Mireille was my friend, my best friend!’
It was Louis who asked of Xavier. Still choked up, she blurted, ‘Before the sister left, and still well before dawn, he … he brought us things from the farm. He’d been away for the harvest. He always goes home for it. A week, ten days …’ She ran a hand through her hair in anguish and wiped her nose on a sleeve. ‘The bishop … he has to let him. It’s part of the agreement the Church made with Xavier’s father. In return, the monseigneur sends a car to … to collect the olive oil and … and other things.’
‘Verdammt, Louis, that little son of a bitch was here in Avignon before the murder. He’s been here since then and didn’t run away at news of it!’
Thérèse wanted to ask who had lied to him but knew she was too afraid, and to hide her fear, tried to straighten her dress. ‘Mireille was “special” to Xavier. He was always dropping in, often using the excuse of things he and the others had found. Cloth, fabulous dresses, skirts and silk blouses, waistcoats of gold lame, buttons and thread – we had to take these things for the costumes. We had to! This time more food from les Baux, but fish he had caught in the river, hares and rabbits too, sometimes. Once a grive – did you find it, messieurs?’ she asked and hastily wiped her eyes with the hem of her dress.
‘Tell us,’ urged Kohler gently.
He had such nice eyes, this detective, but such terrible scars. ‘Let me go downstairs and get it,’ she said.
Louis nodded and Kohler went with her. The cigar box, one among several that were used to store buttons, held a mummified thrush.
Hastily the girl crossed herself and said, ‘It was shot by the monseigneur. Xavier was positive of this and laughed when he presented it to Mireille last year in late November, but by then it had been dead for about a month. Yes, a month at least.’
Thrushes were tasty, thought St-Cyr. Not gutted, they were hung and allowed to rot and then were roasted on a spit so that the juices from their entrails could rain on to the backs of their fellows. Before the war, those who could hunt them had taken hundreds in a single day’s shooting. The best time was in the autumn and at dawn, just as the birds were feeding and preoccupied. ‘But why would she have wanted this in the first place?’ he asked.
He was genuinely puzzled. Dear God forgive and protect her, then, for telling him. ‘She … she said she had to see what His Eminence could kill with such impunity no remorse was felt, only joy. She …’
They waited for her to continue. Finally the one called Kohler asked, ‘Who accompanies the bishop when he’s out hunting?’
Her heart sank, and she could feel it doing so. ‘The Kommandant, the préfet, Maître Simondi and … and others. The Chief Magistrate. Lots of others, for the bishop and Maître Simondi, they … they know many important people. All are friends and business associates. Isn’t that the way of things among such people?’
‘What about Xavier?’ asked the one from the Sûreté.
‘Xavier?’ she squeaked. ‘The dogs are in his care. He’s very good with them and … and knows exactly where each one is at … at all times.’
Kohler resisted the temptation to show her the dochette. There’d be time enough to settle that little matter. ‘After Xavier left the house on Monday well before dawn, what did your friend and mistress do?’
There had been two of the hooded, ankle-length cassocks to finish. Hideous things they had hated having to make, but Préfet de Passe had warned her not to mention them …‘She worked all day on her costume. Everything had to be absolutely perfect. Late in the afternoon she must have gone to the bains-douches municipaux, at the other end of the street.’
The public bathhouse. ‘She didn’t practise?’ asked Kohler gently.
‘I … I don’t think so. I was away and didn’t get back from the mas near Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet until well after dark. By then Mireille was … was all but ready.’
‘You went to see her mother?’ asked the one from the Sûreté.
‘Who issued your laissez-passer?’ asked the other one.
The two of them were crowding her again and she wanted to cry out, Please leave before it’s too late for me! She wanted to weep in despair and clench her fists. ‘The Kommandant himself, and yes, I went to see Madame de Sinéty. Mireille �
� Mireille wanted me to take a letter to a friend.’
‘What friend?’ breathed the Sûreté softly.
They wouldn’t leave things alone now! ‘Dédou Favre, the boy she loved.’
‘And did he love her in return?’ asked the Sûreté.
Would they arrest her for delivering the letter? ‘He doubted her. He always felt she might give him up to … to the authorities.’
‘In order to advance her career?’ asked Kohler. ‘Hey, don’t worry about your having broken the law.’
‘Then yes, but you … you have to know Dédou to understand. He’s terribly afraid of what they’ll do to him if he’s caught. It’s only natural because he’s on the run and in hiding.’ There, she had told them. That, too.
‘And did you deliver this letter to him personally?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘No! I … I couldn’t find him so I left it in the mill, in a special place he would know of. He and Mireille had used it lots of times. The stones … a crack between the stones.’
When the detectives were gone from the house, she went down into the workrooms to search for the hooded shrouds – she could call those hateful things nothing else. They were not grey or black. They were of coarse white woollen cloth and when, at last, she had found them – rolled up with her mattress, her paillasse! – their empty eyesockets stared accusingly up at her, she realizing then that Monsieur le Préfet hadn’t taken them as he should have but had left them here for her as a further warning.
‘La Cagoule,’ she wept and, flinging them from her, stood among the silks and satins, the patterns of the past, with head bowed.
It was Madame Guillaumet, the concierge, who, coming upon her like this and seeing the hooded shrouds on the floor at the girl’s feet, said, ‘Thérèse, what have you to do with those?’
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