They sat in the Renault, staring bleakly out at the wind-ravaged rue du Rempart du Rhone. Each waited for the other to speak, until Kohler could stand it no longer. ‘La Cagoule, Louis. Two of their outfits were rolled up in that kid’s straw mattress but I didn’t let on I’d found them.’
‘De Passe?’ asked St-Cyr emptily.
‘It has to have been him. No wonder she was afraid.’
‘She spoke of being put into an accabussade …’
‘That little bit of history can’t apply to the present, can it?’
Hermann was really worried, but it had to be said, ‘Our victim must have been aware of those cassocks.’
‘An order, Louis, but it’s not even mentioned in the book she kept to herself.’
‘Ah mon Dieu, Hermann, what had she discovered?’
Unbidden, Kohler hauled out his cigarettes and offered one, only to see Louis shake his head and find pipe and tobacco pouch.
Not until the pipe was going to his satisfaction did the Sûreté say, ‘De Passe agrees to turn aside while Rivaille works on our victim to see if he can’t convince her to betray her boyfriend – let us put it no other way.’
‘The bishop lends her things and sends the sisters to watch over her corpse in an attempt to retrieve at least two of the items before we take too great an interest in them.’
‘A ruby ring,’ said Louis, ‘and a pendant box. One of the thorns supposedly from Christ’s crown.’
‘The elder of the nuns succeeds with the ring, but not with the box. The younger one is marked down by her as knowing too much.’
‘That sister was a close friend of our victim. They spoke in private on the night before the murder.’
‘Did Sister Agnès realize this at the morgue, Louis?’
‘I’m certain of it, but … ah merde alors, we must think as Mademoiselle de Sinéty would have had us think!’
‘Then start by telling me are you certain it was the bishop himself who loaned her all those trinkets?’
‘Simondi?’
‘We’ll have to ask him.’
‘But must proceed carefully, since the Cagoule may well be involved,’ mused St-Cyr.
‘Both Rivaille and de Passe are members of the Black Penitents.’
‘Our singing master may also be one of them.’
‘But is Simondi the leader of the local Cagoule, Louis? Is de Passe or Bishop Rivaille?’
The Hooded Ones. The action squads of the Comité secret d’action révolutionnaire, a fanatical far-right political organization of the 1930s that had dedicated itself to the overthrow of the Third Republic by any means. In Nice, in 1938, cagoulards had murdered the Rosselli brothers, two prominent anti-fascists Mussolini had wanted eliminated.
In return for the favour, a substantial shipment of small arms had crossed into France from Italy only to be intercepted by agents of the Deuxième Bureau.
The leaders of the CSAR had been arrested. They’d been brought to trial in July of ’38 but the war had soon intervened.
‘End of story,’ said Kohler, picking up the thread of Louis’s thoughts, ‘but sadly not so, eh?’
‘No, not.’
On the night of 2/3 October 1941, perhaps as Bishop Rivaille was looking forward to a morning’s shooting courtesy of the Kommandant’s ignoring the ordinance against hunting and possessing guns of any kind, cagoulards in Paris had dynamited seven synagogues in a show of solidarity with Nazi policies against the Jews.
‘And now?’ asked Louis, lost to it and still staring at the street. ‘Now Ovid Peretti has twice made a point of warning me to watch our backs, and the bishop dreams of returning the Papacy to Avignon.’
‘It all has to mean she was killed because she damn well knew too much,’ swore Kohler.
‘But what, Hermann? That is the question.’
They began to look through the order books, comparing the one she had kept privately with that from which de Passe had torn so many pages. ‘All references to Simondi’s post-dated cheques have been removed,’ said Louis. ‘Some of these have even put payment off by as much as six months and yet all are for the most insignificant of sums.’
‘Overextended, is he?’ snorted Kohler. ‘He owns several cinemas and theatres but loves music more than money, or so von Mahler took pains to claim.’
‘But is Simondi alone in owning them or merely the front man?’
In several places where the pages had been removed, the complete copy revealed she had used alchemical glyphs for the signs of the zodiac as a shorthand for the names of her customers and had paired these with measurements and other notations for each costume. Where more than one customer had been born under the same sign, she had used a vertical line, placed on one side of the glyph or on the other, to distinguish them. ‘But again, Hermann, why would the préfet remove such pages unless he had been warned by Bishop Rivaille that she had left the riddle of it all on her belt?’
A rebus … the talismans, enseignes and cabochons, the signs of the zodiac themselves …‘Salvatore Biron is adamant there wasn’t an audition, Louis, but there was one. He was delayed and claims to have come upon the body seconds after the killing, only to hear a sigh that clearly couldn’t have been hers.’
‘But was it the killer’s or that of someone else – a witness perhaps?’
‘And why didn’t he run into whoever had tidied up?’
‘A lock of her hair was cut off and that would have taken time …’
‘And now we have similar locks from her dressing table and from a strawberry blonde, and this last is glued to a photo.’
‘Mireille de Sinéty wears ancient keys that can’t have been of any use to her, Hermann. She takes rooms in the ancestral home, gathers artefacts from the same, clasps a pomander that is as old as the Palais and modelled after its Bell Tower.’
‘Has a namesake from those times.’
‘Has recipes and letters that can be attributed to this other Mireille. Merde, mon vieux, why can I not recall more of the very early Renaissance? Did my professors at the lycée freeze their minds into accepting rigid dates – Early, Middle and Late, and never mind that such dates are normally far from perfect, and that the Renaissance began much earlier here and in Italy?’
‘But we have her record book, Louis, and we now know how she used the glyphs. Hey, that’s progress. Cheer up.’
‘We still don’t know which glyph represents which name.’
‘Was Dédou the Archer?’ asked Kohler.
‘Was the bishop the Goat, the Scorpion or the Cancer?’
‘Xavier must have tidied up, Louis. I’m certain of it.’
One of the bishop’s hounds had been with the boy and must have come into the Palais with him, said St-Cyr to himself. She had known the dog and had removed its little bell so as to prevent its sound from giving away her position, but had broken a fingernail in the process …
‘Rivaille wanted her to move into the Villa Marenzio with the other singers,’ said Kohler.
‘Then let us hear what they have to say. Let us listen to the madrigal of them.’
‘You’re forgetting the sardines. You can’t do that. Three tins, one of which she took with her.’
‘Along with a wealth of old coins, one of which held a maze, mon ami. A maze!’
4
The Villa Marenzio could not help but engender admiration, thought St-Cyr. Seventeenth-century diamond leading and stained-glass armorial shields faced the rue Banasterie with a quiet calm that belied the centuries.
Kept in excellent condition – worked on even now when materials were so hard to come by – the villa was to the northeast of the Palais. A delightful bas-relief of pomegranates, grapes, eagles and grinning, hollow-eyed masks surrounded the family crest above the carriage entrance, while matching life-sized statues of the Virgin flanked it. A superb pentagonal stone staircase was directly across a large inner courtyard where ancient plane trees were partially sheltered from the mistral. At the north of the courtyard, su
nlight glowed from the soft, buff-grey of the walls.
‘Hermann. It’s magnificent.’
‘But a bugger to heat.’
‘Merde alors, must you always look on the bad side of such things?’
‘Wenn der Führer wusste, eh, mein lieber Oberdetektiv? That’s woodsmoke and coal smoke coming from the chimneys.’
If only the Führer knew … People had taken to saying this in Paris when such privilege was witnessed. Twenty-five kilos a month was the coal ration – enough to heat one small room for a few brief hours, if one could get it. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, mon vieux, that is Mademoiselle Bissert who has been watching for us from one of the second-floor windows.’
Though distant, and seen but fleetingly, for she soon ducked away, the girl looked like a moth trapped behind leaded glass, and must have been anxiously awaiting their arrival for hours.
There were two storeys. An open balcony and its ground floor arcade looked out on to formal gardens in the centre of which, drained for the winter and bleached by the half-light of partial shade, stood a fountain. But such a one. In summer, in the midday heat especially, and under moonlight too, stone carp would piss their streams on to the heads of cavorting naked nymphs as cicadas sang.
‘An addition an eighteenth-century owner must have felt necessary,’ commented the Sûreté drolly. ‘Our Monsieur Simondi has an eye for value, Hermann; our bishop, one for accommodations.’
The concierge, his wife and fourteen-year-old daughter had braved the wind and cold to dutifully stand outside their loge, which was near the staircase and next to what had, until the advent of the motor car, been both stables and storage sheds.
None of them was tall, but the daughter had awkwardly shot up past her parents, leaving her ankle socks to lose their elastics above well-worn, laceless black boots. The man’s beret was crumpled into a tight fist. The wife’s dark brown eyes were impassive; those of the daughter, modestly averted.
With a guarded tongue, this grizzled patriarch in brown cords, boots and a flannel shirt, his skin the colour of tannin, said in manageable langue d’oc, ‘Maître Simondi wishes us to bid you welcome, messieurs, and to assist your enquiries. Please, he has put us completely at your disposal. I am Octave Leporatti and this is my wife, Mila, and daughter. The house, it is big, but most of it was made into flats some time ago and now only the north wing is reserved for the students.’
At the far end of the courtyard, where Christiane Bissert had watched for them, the brick-red tiles so common to the south climbed to the line of the roof beyond which rose a two-storeyed square tower. The wind plucked at the concierge’s close-cropped grey hair and brought water to his watchful eyes – he’d seen the girl too. And forget about that crap of their being at our disposal, thought Kohler. This one’s family, and that of his wife, had hailed from Sicily two hundred years ago, but always the code of silence had governed life. Omertà.
‘I’m to take you to the singers, messieurs. As it is the afternoon, you will find them at practice in the salon where there is a fire.’
‘They never use the tower for their music and … and other things in winter,’ chimed in the daughter only to receive the sharp sting of, ‘Gina!’ Nothing else.
At least thirty-five years separated the father from the mother. The daughter burst into tears but wept silently. She’d have had to, poor kid, thought Kohler, not liking it.
‘Come on, Louis. Let’s see what the singers have to say.’
It was the Sûreté who cautioned the father. ‘We may want to question your daughter, monsieur. Please be certain she isn’t punished for anything she might wish to confide in private or anything you might think she has said even though she denies it.’
They fell behind the bastard so as to have a quiet word as they went up the spiral staircase to the first floor. ‘You’ll get a knife in the guts one of these days if you’re not careful,’ hissed Kohler softly. ‘Tout doux, eh?, and that’s an order!’
Take it easy … ‘Bon, then I’ll let you miss what you should have seen.’
Startled, Kohler stopped him. ‘What?’
St-Cyr gave a nod towards the concierge’s retreating boots. ‘Rabbit dung and hairs. Bits of winter grass too, and lavender.’
‘Ah Christ …’
Genoese velvet, silk and wool; damask from the north. Cotton, muslin, quilted muslin, linen with a plain weave, a twill weave, block-printed cloth, plain cloth, fine cloth, ivory silk and gold brocade, silver, too, the silk so fine it was as if transparent, the colours so striking they clashed, they harmonized, they leapt at one. Emerald green, matt red, sky blue, sea blue, dove blue, orange, a fiery orange, burnt umber, a beige, a cocoa-brown, a soft yellow, saffron yellow, purple … wine purple flowing, melding as the part song raced to fill the ears, its background, ‘ch’i … ch’i… ch’i … rom-, rom-, rom-,’ the melody and words leaping away in, ‘So-spi-ra Dolce-men … te et s’a di-ra Con pa ro – le ch’i sas –’.*
She sigh-eth oh so gent-ly, then fli-eth in a ra-ging with words …
The six of them sat to one side and with their backs to a magnificently carved Renaissance fireplace. A blonde girl was on a dais, with an exquisite lute in her hands and outspread lap. Christiane Bissert sat below her and to the left, a recorder ready; Xavier the same but to her right, while the young men, the boys – everyone still called them that these days – flanked him, voice following voice, the part song light and full of laughter, yet sad, too.
They didn’t hesitate. They carried right on into the Silver Swan which they sang in French with evident delight and then … then a long madrigal in which occurred the line, ‘Tue! à mort’.*
Kill! To the death!
The fire was of olive logs, the salon hung with tapestries and filled with far more recent fine antique furniture and sunlight, so that one saw the group bathed in soft gold, while across the blonde’s hair and the shoulders of the crimson cloak she wore the firelight flickered. Stunning blue eyes there, but dark brown eyes, too, grey eyes, greeny-brown eyes … None of the singers wore jewellery of any kind, noticed St-Cyr, but they sang so perfectly each was completely at ease with the others.
The introduction over, their response to the killing, given each in his or her own words, was also as one.
‘Mireille didn’t work out.’
‘We tried, but with some, no matter how great the desire, they simply do not have what it takes.’
‘The intonation.’
‘The tenuosity.’
‘The ability to hear all other parts while singing precisely as directed.’
‘With a full voice.’
‘From the heart.’
‘Or not at all.’
‘From the soul.’
‘With love.’
‘Desire.’
‘Hatred too.’
‘Merde! What’re we to do with them?’ blurted the Sûreté.
‘Use the scissors and cut each one off from all the others,’ said Kohler firmly.
‘Find the music, read the part and let us each audition for you.’
Christiane Bissert had said this and, swiftly exchanging a knowing glance with the lute player, bid the Sûreté to follow. ‘Ma chambre à coucher, Inspector,’ she said. ‘It’s very private and will allow me to strip the soul bare without the distraction of other voices.’
Kohler chose the blonde who, having swiftly turned her back on her fellow musicians, and having carefully set her lute aside, warmed her hands while gazing raptly into the flames.
The men, the boys, drifted off as males will do when uneasy, with the cops around.
She was almost as tall as he was, she thought. ‘Name?’ he said, and he was formidable. A scar … but such a scar. Could he bed a woman with that? What sort of woman? she wondered.
‘Genèvieve Ravier, Canto Primus.’
‘Pardon?’
The smile she gave was frail and disconcerting.
‘Primo Soprano, Ispettore. First Soprano. Xavier is the other but
his voice …’ she said hesitantly and left the thought hanging but the detective didn’t ask further. ‘Shall we sit, Inspector, or do you always prefer to stand when questioning a suspect?’
‘No one said you were suspected of anything.’
‘Merci,’ she said so softly he could hardly have heard her, and turning her back to the fire, added, ‘That is good to know. We all thought … I mean, she was one of us. Well, almost. We were with her that afternoon. She came here – were you not aware of this? We sang together for two hours, at least. Over and over again. The works of Landini, Marenzio and Monteverdi. Lots of others, too, for none ever know what the judges will demand. Xavier hadn’t returned from the harvest – at least, I don’t think he had – so Mireille sang his part but …’ She shrugged. ‘But what can I say?’
‘No good, eh?’
She faced him silently for a moment, her expression candid and searching.
‘We are a unit and complete, Inspector. It’s like two lovers engaged in the act of giving themselves to each other. The energy of each, the will, the striving to le grand frisson – I’orgasme – is shared equally if success is to be guaranteed, but with us, you understand, there are six.’
A regular partouse, an orgy, was that it, eh? ‘Let’s sit down, then.’
‘Let’s.’
Not dyed, her hair was parted in the middle and fell almost to her shoulders, but two tresses at the front had been shortened and these framed the soft oval of her face, half hiding her eyes, which were widely set and of clear conscience, perhaps. The skin was smooth and creamy, but definitely not that of the postcard. ‘Your age?’ he asked.
‘You like pretty girls, Inspector, but I am, I fear, making you nervous.’
‘It’s the costume, the six hundred years that separate us. I don’t want to see another murder like that. The throat …’
‘Me?’ she cried, startled.
‘Your age?’ he demanded.
His little black notebook was pressed open on the left knee of his trousers. Involuntarily a shiver passed through her and she cursed herself for having let it escape. ‘Twenty-three. I’ve been a student of César’s for the past five years, one of his singers now for three and a half.’
Madrigal Page 9