‘Since well before the Defeat.’
‘Yes. It’s been good. Secure, if you know what I mean. My parents live in the north, in Beauvais. I’d no one. César, he … he gave me both a family and a purpose to my life.’
‘A sense of order, a regimen and a job, eh? A good roof over your head, three square meals and a fire. The clothes on your back, especially those.’
Does he take them off me – is this what you’re wondering? she wanted to ask but calmly said, ‘A sense of being. A place, a profession. We’re all professionals, Inspector. Please don’t think otherwise. What we do, we do as one because that’s the way it has to be.’
Genèvieve Ravier’s expressions could be hawkish, warm, coy, intensely interested, concerned, flirtatious or tender and innocent of all wrongdoing.
‘You wear no jewellery …’ he hazarded, and she could see that the closeness of her was disturbing him in more ways than one.
‘Why don’t you have a cigarette?’ she asked softly. ‘It will help, I think.’
Verdammt! The girl was electric. ‘Please just answer.’
He fidgeted. He looked her up and down and then fully met the frankness of her gaze. ‘Did Mireille wear lots of little things?’ she asked.
He waited. She would have to tell him and would therefore be firm about it. ‘To be complete, we should each have worn such things during every concert but you see, the Church, though its collections are very good, no longer possesses enough, and even the private collection of His Eminence Bishop Rivaille is …’ She shrugged. ‘Insufficient. Mireille was a perfectionist, Inspector. That was a part of her problem. Always she would insist; always the monseigneur or César would say it just wasn’t possible and she would “sigheth oh so gently, then …”’
‘Okay, okay, I get the point. Bishop Rivaille was the source of the trinkets your costumière wore to her death.’
‘The rings and … and other things but.’ Again he would have to be told. ‘But not all of them.’
Herr Kohler’s sigh was one of exasperation and she could see that he was distressed at the thought of others having loaned Mireille things. ‘She knew people who were well versed in the past, Inspector. Some she could count as friends; others still as enemies but only because of what had happened to her family during the Babylonian Captivity. Once tainted, always tainted, is this not so? And there are whispers even in a little place like Avignon and especially under les Allemands, though they do not encourage such things as whispers, do they?’
Merde, but she was really something. ‘Would one of these other custodians of bric-a-brac have sat in judgement of her on Monday night?’
Herr Kohler’s eyes had emptied themselves of all feeling. Suddenly she wanted to get up, to stretch her legs, but knew his knees were deliberately touching hers for just such a signal. ‘I really wouldn’t know, Inspector. Mireille kept things to herself – that was a part of our problem with her. She had secrets she shared with no one, whereas we of the singers have none any more.’
‘Where were you on Monday night?’
‘Here with the others. Ask any of them. All will tell you the same thing. We are our own alibi, Inspector, or had you not thought of this? Christiane will only echo my words, as she often does in part song.’
The cote-hardie was of an emerald green velvet whose sheen rippled softly as Christiane Bissert moved about her bedroom. The bodice was of white silk with gold piping and brocade, and was crisscrossed by lacing that extended from the belted slender waist to the gently curving neckline.
Beneath the cote-hardie, the gown was of burnt sienna with the faint imprints of halved pomegranates, and as with the victim, thought St-Cyr, jagged cuts from the hem upwards for about thirty centimetres revealed tantalizing triangular wedges of the gown.
With the raven curls and the dark, now uncertain eyes, the girl was an enigma. She had said so little since coming to her room it was as though, once its door had been closed behind her, she had lost all confidence and had become another person.
He said how lovely the room was.
‘A fire? Would you like one?’ she asked hesitantly.
The bed was that of a Provençal bride, its coverlet white and trimmed with white lace. A simple wooden crucifix was attached to the wall above the ornately carved headboard. A small, stiff leather suitcase lay under carefully folded slips, silk stockings and underwear. There were three perfume vials as well, and he wondered if she had just received the largesse.
‘Gina looks after us. Gina picks up,’ she said, searching desperately for the right words. ‘That suitcase is mine. She uses it to keep our laundry separate.’
And the perfume? he wanted to ask but let the matter rest – she could see him thinking this and cursed herself for not having put the things away and stuffed the suitcase under the bed.
On a round, marble-topped table by the windows, there was a vase of dried flowers and a half-empty bottle of Campari amid a clutter of books, some of which were still tied in their bundles.
He picked up the bottle, and with a sinking feeling in her heart, she knew he would miss nothing.
‘César loves his apéritif. Would you like some?’ she asked and saw those priest’s eyes of his looking at her.
‘That would be nice,’ he said. ‘Please. Allow me.’
He gave her time. He let her take a sip to recall the cafe this morning. Then he said, ‘I understand his wife is an absinthe drinker.’
Ah maudit, Madame Emphoux, that bitch! ‘It’s only talk. Absinthe is no longer legal so how, please, could this be possible?’
Among the books were several of Simenon’s train novels, inexpensive paperbacks, but also hardbound first editions of Gone With the Wind and The Sun Also Rises.
Her dressing table doubled as a writing desk, and on this, among the tidy clutter, were a Parker fountain pen with a verd antique finish, and monogrammed notepaper that didn’t bear her initials.
Next to these items there was a beautifully engraved gold compact with the linked gold chain of the belle époque, complete with diamonds and the enamelled portrait of a reclining nude on a bed of flowers amid a deep blue background.
‘Tiffany and Company,’ he said of the compact, completely ignoring the matter of the absinthe. ‘1900 or thereabouts. It even has a little compartment to hold a lady’s dance cards.’
‘I love it.’
‘Whose was it, please?’
Ah damn him! ‘My grandmother’s.’
A lie. ‘Bon, so …’ He tossed off his Campari and said, ‘A few small questions. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’
She, too, tossed off her drink, grimaced at its bitterness and, sitting on the edge of her bed, glanced briefly at the light of day and waited. ‘I’m ready, Inspector.’
She looked so fragile. A classic Midi beauty. ‘Let’s begin with Xavier,’ he said, coming to stand next to those same windows and to gaze out of them as she had.
‘Xavier?’ she asked.
‘He was in Avignon well before dawn on Monday.’
Her voice must sound innocent of all wrongdoing and with just a touch of apprehension. ‘The monseigneur sent the car for him, as … as he does every year at the close of each harvest. The oil, the wine and olives – garlic, too, and honey. Many things are loaded into the car. Perhaps … perhaps there wasn’t room for Xavier and that … that’s why he came back early.’
Thérèse Godard had said as much, but would this one now begin to tell him the truth? wondered St-Cyr.
The Inspector had taken out his pipe and tobacco – he sensed that she was really apprehensive at this activity, for it signified hours of questions and that he had all the necessary time to spare.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked.
‘No. César doesn’t wish us to smoke – the voice, you understand – but he doesn’t prevent us from allowing others to do so in … in our presence.’
‘What time was her audition set for?’
‘Ten o’clock, I think.�
��
‘Why so late?’
‘Other commitments, perhaps. Really, Inspector, I couldn’t possibly know – none of us could. Bishop Rivaille dined with César and the Kommandant, and that one’s wife. I … Ah! Forgive me. That sounds as if we did know.’
She forced a faint smile he ignored. Damn him …
‘Who, then, was the third judge? The Kommandant has told us he had refused.’
So don’t try to suggest him – was that it? ‘Why not ask César?’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
Her tone of voice had been desperate. ‘Try,’ he breathed.
‘Monsieur le Préfet or … or Madame Simondi. Others, too. I … I wouldn’t know, Inspector.’
‘Who let the victim into the Palais?’
Merde, why must he be so difficult? ‘She had a key. Didn’t your partner find it when he discovered her things in the Latrines Pit?’
‘Who told you he’d discovered anything there?’
‘I …’ She felt herself blanching, and swallowed hard. ‘I can’t remember. Monsieur Biron, perhaps. Yes. Yes, it must have been him.’
The concierge. ‘Who gave her that key?’
‘Brother Matthieu, I think. Yes … Yes, I’m sure it was him.’
‘Tell me what you know of the boy Mademoiselle de Sinéty was in love with.’
Like the absinthe, he had abruptly left the matter of the key so as to unsettle her. ‘Dédou? I hardly knew him. He … he was of the age of the troubadors, I think. A throwback, you understand, and fiercely so. He was her mother’s shepherd among … among other things but … but had joined the …’
Again her head was bowed, this time as if she’d known she had said too much and was truly shaken. ‘The …?’ he asked gently.
‘The maquis. Mireille always said he was very possessive of her and insanely jealous.’
A killer, then, was that it, eh? He scoffed inwardly but asked, ‘Would she have planned to meet him in the Palais after her audition?’
Now she must look up at him and her answer must come softly. ‘Yes. Yes, she could well have planned this. Dédou, he … he didn’t want her to join our little group, nor did he like Bishop Rivaille’s having arranged for her to live in this house with the rest of us. Marius is very handsome and … and so is Guy.’
Two of the male singers.
The detective turned abruptly away from the windows and, walking over to her dressing table, sat down before its mirror to look at her reflection in it.
She met his gaze. He didn’t ask more of Dédou. Instead he asked, ‘Have there been others who aspired to join your little group?’
‘Others since when?’ she heard herself bleating.
‘Within the past year, perhaps.’
Ah no, how had he learned of it? ‘One,’ she said faintly.
‘Only one?’
‘Yes! She … she didn’t work out either.’
He removed his pipe and, searching for an ashtray, found none. ‘What happened to her, Mademoiselle Bissert?’
His tone of voice had been très insistant and he’d come to stand in front of her, looking down at the crown of her head. ‘I … I don’t know, Inspector.’
‘Look at me when you say that.’
Ah Jésus, sweet Jésus … ‘She died. She was …’
‘Murdered?’ he asked, dropping his voice.
Vehemently she shook her head. ‘She drowned in the river. She couldn’t swim.’
He waited. He forced her to gaze up at him through her tears and when he asked, ‘What colour was her hair?’, she blanched and said, ‘Her hair? Why, please, do you ask?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Red … it was distinctly reddish. A … a strawberry blonde.’
The men, the boys, were in the wardrobe room, unseen as yet among the maze of hanging cloaks and capes and headless mannequins that wore the brightly coloured costumes of six hundred years ago. Kohler could hear them softly calling out to him, presumably as they put away the clothes they had worn to change into others. Everything in the room Mireille de Sinéty had made and he couldn’t help but note the sacrifice, her utter dedication to reawakening the past.
‘You took a clochette from Xavier,’ said one.
‘That boy sleeps with the dogs,’ said another.
‘Is of the dogs.’
‘His voice departs.’
‘Oh futile love!’
‘He dreads its absence.’
‘Longs for its return.’
‘Kisses the bishop’s ring.’
‘Prays for his life here with us.’
‘With us.’
‘With us.’
There was silence. And when Kohler found the shepherd boy’s costume for that day, he knew Xavier wasn’t present. Letting his fingers trail down over the shimmering sky blue of a satin cape that was edged with gold embroidery, he saw that there were six coal black cassocks nestled beside it. Any of them could have been worn to the Palais on the night of the murder, and so much for the clot of black wool Peretti had found in the victim’s hair.
‘A bird’s nest was found,’ sang out one of the three.
‘Her locks were cut,’ sang out another.
‘Her boots cast down.’
‘Her overcoat.’
‘Her purse.’
‘A key … had she a key?’
‘Who let her in?’
‘A key.’
‘A key.’
More silence followed, while softly now, the scent of musk, of clary sage and verbena came to him. Other things too … Scents Louis could easily have identified, but Louis wasn’t here. He was still upstairs with Christiane Bissert.
‘Extreme Unction was called for,’ sang out one – the bass.
‘Two sisters accompanied the corpse,’ sang out another – the tenor.
‘To the morgue,’ gave the baritone.
‘She was undressed.’
‘Has no modesty now.’
‘Is of the thorn.’
‘A thorn was found.’
‘The thorn of Christ.’
‘But not the hair.’
‘The Virgin’s hair.’
‘The hair.’
‘The hair …’
An unlaced bodice revealed an underdress whose rose-coloured silk was as of lingerie.
It was being fondled by fingers as calloused and sure as those of a fourteenth-century stonemason who had made mischief with the count’s wife. The jet black hair was thick and wavy and fell to broad shoulders. The eyes were a dark olive brown, the gaze level.
‘Inspector, I’m Marius Spaggiari.’
‘And I’m Norman Galiteau,’ sang out another well to Kohler’s left.
‘I, Guy Rochon,’ came from far to the right and still unseen.
Two faces only, thought Kohler, and this one still fingering the bodice as if to now seduce the lady-in-waiting.
‘Basso Continuo,’ said Spaggiari.
‘Baritono,’ said Galiteau, his chin resting on pale white hands atop a mannequin’s wooden neck-knob and wearing wire-rimmed spectacles that made his cherubic face appear rounder, the inquisitive smile even more mischievous.
‘E io sono il Tenore,’ said Guy Rochon, the third and youngest of the three, suddenly appearing.
‘Look, let’s just find us a place to talk.’
‘But we are of this?’ hazarded Spaggiari.
‘And this is what you must understand,’ said Galiteau.
‘Slaves to the past, we can never leave it.’
St-Cyr resisted the urge to show the postcard to Christiane Bissert. He let her worry over how he and Hermann had found out about the strawberry blonde, would leave her now.
‘Inspector …?’ she blurted as he reached the door to her bedroom. ‘Don’t you want to know the girl’s name?’
The white, laced bodice of the cote-hardie rose a little as she took a deep breath and held it.
‘Very well,’ he said. �
��If you must.’
She cringed at the put-down. ‘Adrienne de Langlade. Like Genèvieve, her family lived in the north but not in Beauvais, in Paris. They still do, I guess. She and Madame Simondi used to talk about the city for hours. Fouquet’s, Maxim’s, the rue Royale …’
‘Hédiard’s?’ he asked.
The delicatessen. ‘Yes.’
A wary answer …
The Inspector stepped out into the corridor and softly closed the door behind him, suddenly leaving her alone and feeling abandoned. Long after he had gone she stood uncertainly before the windows. Fog clouded the bevelled diamond glass whose leading was so old it made her think of the Catacombs and of Adrienne’s descriptions of them as given to the devouring ears of Madame Simondi who yearned constantly for news of Paris, her Paris … Hédiard’s, ah damn.
‘They know about Adrienne,’ she said when Genèvieve came into the room to stand behind her. ‘They’ll soon find out everything.’
‘Not if we’re careful.’
‘She shouldn’t have had to drown.’
‘It was the only way.’
‘It was cold. It was foggy. The river was swollen. There’d been heavy rains in the Cévennes. The Ardèche had become a raging torrent. Everyone had been warned. A flood …’
‘Calme-toi, chérie. Calme-toi. Here, let me help you out of those things.’
‘He saw the books, Genèvieve. He knows I took some of them to Madame Emphoux. That bitch told him about César’s wife.’
Arms encircled her waist and drew her tightly. Lips brushed a cheek, then embraced it firmly, the two of them looking down into the courtyard, brocade upon brocade, velvet upon velvet. ‘Courage,’ whispered Genèvieve. ‘Courage. You know we have to put up with a lot, the two of us. You know how much we mean to each other and exactly how much we might lose.’
‘Everything,’ managed Christiane. ‘Just everything.’
When Brother Matthieu, in grey sackcloth with hood up and wearing black trousers and boots, hurried across the courtyard through the wind, they knew exactly what he was after. Xavier had missed an audition before the bishop.
‘In the Cathedral,’ said Genèvieve, her arms still encircling Christiane’s waist.
‘The Requiem for Mireille.’
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