Madrigal

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Monsieur …’ she crooned and snapped her fingers. ‘The card, if you please.’

  Kohler handed it over and watched as she fondled the curl and studied the breasts before drawing in a breath. ‘A musician brought us the negative and some samples of the hair. He said she was a student and needed the money but was too embarrassed to come herself.’

  ‘You can do better.’

  ‘His name?’ she asked, frowning now as he waited. ‘That I don’t know and didn’t ask but I think he was a singer.’

  ‘You’re lying. I think you know exactly who sold that negative to you and when. You’d seen and heard that person singing often enough in the Cathedral. Even such as yourself must go to Mass.’

  ‘The baritone, Norman Galiteau.’

  ‘Ah bon. Now was more than one copy made?’

  ‘One only.’

  ‘That’s not true. How come I’ve got one?’

  ‘Ten … no, twenty.’

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Perhaps. Some were sent to … to other shops.’

  ‘Where?’

  Maudit salaud! ‘Marseille … Aix … We often swap so as to meet demand.’

  ‘Okay, now who bought this one from you and for whom?’ Each card carried a number and he had noticed this.

  ‘It was stolen.’

  ‘When?’

  She shrugged. Her painted lips opened up with a torrent of langue d’oc, the last of which suggested the theft might quite possibly have taken place during the first week of December. ‘After the flooding. Yes. Yes, I am positive.’

  ‘By whom?’

  She had him now but wouldn’t rejoice. ‘Two girls, one of whom was a nun.’

  Sister Marie-Madeleine …

  ‘Armand had gone out, Inspector, so I was tending the shop myself, you understand. So many customers, Christmas approaching … Those little thoughtfulnesses that mean so much. The—’

  ‘Ja, ja, get to the point.’

  ‘She was with a girl of about her age. Twenty, I think.’

  ‘The petite lingère who was murdered?’

  ‘The one who was married to God purchased some things, while … while the other one entered here to steal. To steal!’

  But took only what she must have known exactly to look for.

  Kohler found a cigarette and paused to light it before placing it between her lips. ‘Now I’m going to ask you once, and then it’s up against the post for you.’

  The firing squad …

  He gave her a moment. ‘Who did you sell copies of this to?’

  ‘A priest. Une gueule cassée. No others. I swear it.’

  She was lying again – several had been sold – but he had what he wanted. ‘Brother Matthieu, when?’

  ‘Late last June. He was very excited when he first saw it and trembled at the touch.’

  ‘Okay, I believe you, but let’s cement our bargain. Was he a frequent buyer?’

  May God forgive her and keep the knife from her back. ‘Yes, but … but only of the bosoms, never of the others which shamed him. He was not like most of the holy fathers who make their way to us, the sisters also, some of them. When he would come, I … I would have to cover everything else up before he would dare to enter la caverne de joie to … to make his selection.’

  A collector, and not the bishop. Not Rivaille.

  St-Cyr held his breath. Subtle differences of darkness gave silhouettes. The one who had been following him hesitated. The urge to cry out, Sûreté, you’re under arrest!, was there but suppressed. Uncertain if the quarry had been lost, the man moved off, the darkness of the street swallowing him.

  Two minutes later, the Sûreté began to follow him. Hermann was better at this sort of thing. No one could touch Hermann when being followed by him, or being allowed to follow him. It was uncanny how such a giant could walk so lightly. The poacher in him, perhaps.

  The man hesitated. St-Cyr hesitated. Here and there, but at some distance, were tiny, furtive, blue-shaded lights – other pedestrians – and then, its wheels squeaking as it fought the wind, a vélo-taxi.

  The bicycle-rickshaw, one of the Occupation’s greatest indignities, trundled past, its driver cursing the mistral as the couple in the back giggled and laughed. A German soldier or officer and his Avignonnaise, his petite amie.

  Silence overcame all sounds save those of the wind, but then the droning, muffler-banging, incessant throb of a motorcycle patrol plundered the silence. Four bikes with sidecars, their headlamps squinting blue-shaded slit-eyes into the darkness, roared up the narrow street, the sound of their engines crashing from the walls until …

  The sound had faded and he realized again – how often had it been since the fall of 1940? – that for Hermann and himself it was only a matter of time.

  We have survived so far, but no one else really cares about common crime, not any more, he said to himself. And those who get in the way only get removed.

  Far to the west, along the whole of the Spanish Frontier, the Wehrmacht had stationed some of its finest alpine troops. Whereas in 1940, ’41 and even in ’42, night crossings to freedom had always been difficult, now they were exceedingly hazardous. Gone were the days of a 12,000-franc passeur, a guide. Now it was 1,000,000 francs. Hermann knew it, too, but kept talking about taking Giselle and Oona to safety before it was too late. A bar, a tobacco shop … the retirement options were always well off on the horizon and always golden.

  ‘Inspector, is that you?’

  ‘Ah merde!’ he cried. ‘Madame …’

  ‘Sister. It’s Sister Marie-Madeleine. Forgive me for following you but … but I had to see you before it was too late and this … this was the only way.’

  Armand Corbeau stood on tiptoes clasping the bell above the door, but he hadn’t been quick enough. Some of the sound had escaped to reach the back of the shop.

  Kohler reminded him of this. The shop bell was hesitantly released, Corbeau warily looking over a shoulder and down the long, narrow tunnel of the shop to where they stood as if in judgement of him.

  Dénise Corbeau hesitantly wet a hairy upper lip and let a breath escape. ‘You fool,’ she softly exhaled.

  The customer who had entered earlier had just departed.

  ‘De Passe,’ blurted Corbeau. ‘The préfet has said we are to keep silent and to destroy immediately our stock of … of photographs, even though he knows you have just seen them.’

  ‘And Brother Matthieu?’ asked Kohler.

  ‘Wasn’t with him. I swear it.’

  ‘But de Passe asked you if the brother had been in?’

  ‘He said he wished to speak to him. He … he was worried, I think, about him.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘A little. Inspector, Brother Matthieu had a terrible time in the Great War. Everyone is aware of this. We … we all must make allowances for la gueule cassée. The constant doubts about God, the …’

  ‘Desires?’ asked Kohler.

  ‘You fool,’ said the sister again to her brother. ‘Idiot! Why can’t you keep your mouth shut?’

  ‘What desires?’ demanded the Kripo.

  ‘Desires to touch and to explore,’ she said, tossing the words aside at him. ‘Those are nothing, Inspector. Always there is the desire; always the fear. Both are in balance before God with such a one, and therefore left undone. Well, almost.’

  ‘The hair,’ said Kohler.

  ‘He just touches it,’ blurted Corbeau from the other end of the shop. ‘He doesn’t touch the Virgin’s breasts. He wouldn’t dare to do that.’

  ‘The Virgin … You said, the Virgin.’

  ‘That’s what he called her,’ said the sister tartly.

  Adrienne de Langlade …

  Darkness was complete, the sound of the wind total as St-Cyr and Sister Marie-Madeleine fought their way along a street that, by the funnelling force of the wind, could only be narrow.

  A shutter flew off. An iron gate swung shut. Then the wind let up and the sound of it dropped off so suddenly
that the steps behind them were momentarily heard before they, too, had ceased.

  St-Cyr swore and, pulling the sister with him, took refuge against the gate.

  The steps didn’t start up again. Straining to hear them, he felt the trembling in her and knew at once that she’d been the quarry all along.

  The damned gate was stuck fast. Yanking on it, he tried to open it and silently cursed as her breath moistened his cheek. ‘Forgive me for bringing him to you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Who?’ he asked so softly she understood the word only by feeling it on his lips.

  ‘One of them,’ she whispered. Nothing else.

  La Cagoule? he silently demanded of himself and, putting her behind him, faced the street and the darkness.

  A bicycle passed by, its lonely blue-shaded light a faint welcome that all too soon departed. An ancient carriage sounded in the distance. On and on it came, but the bastard who had been following them was now very close. And what will it be, eh, shouted St-Cyr into the silence of his thoughts. The knife? The wire garrotte?

  The scent of black tobacco came harshly with that of the aniseed that was being chewed since no cigarette could be alight.

  Through the darkness, the hooded silhouette grew until, at last, he was able to see the man. Even in a good light, the face would have been all but hidden.

  The steps departed quietly. He and the sister were suddenly alone and he felt her tears hot against the fiercely cold air as she kissed his cheek and held him tightly. ‘Forgive me,’ she said again but now …‘I … I forget myself.’

  ‘You’ve left the convent, Sister. You no longer wear your wedding ring.’ Her hands were freezing.

  ‘I had to. I couldn’t stay there a moment longer.’

  ‘Where were you leading me?’

  ‘To the Kommandant’s house on place des Carmes. To Frau von Mahler, my only hope of refuge.’

  6

  Two Wehrmacht sentries, wearing goggles and armed with Schmeissers, barred the entrance to von Mahler’s house. On the shrieking of the wind came the Oberfeldwebel’s grunt in broken, brutalized French. ‘That one stays, Sister. The Colonel was positive about it.’

  ‘But the Chief Inspector’s with me. Frau von Mahler has to hear what we each have to say.’ The torch beam indicated the flagstone path she was to take. ‘Wait here,’ she said in dismay.

  ‘He will,’ came the savage rejoinder.

  His back to the tall iron gates that had shut him out. St-Cyr pulled up his overcoat collar and gripped his fedora more fiercely. One couldn’t lose one’s hat, not these days. And damn Boemelburg for sending them on this investigation. To be followed like that, to have the former sister targeted, was not nice – but had Walter known such things would happen? As Head of Section IV in France, Hermann’s boss hadn’t liked what had gone on during their last investigation … a safe-cracker, a Resistance thing that had struck too close to home. And what better way to get rid of two disloyal detectives than to send them into the arms of the Cagoule?.

  Only the sound of the wind came to him but was he being watched from out there in the ink? There was, he knew, a fourteenth-century cloister across the square. The Barefoot Carmelites had established a monastery there. At the far end of the square the remains of the bell tower were all that was left of the convent they had established in 1261.

  And, yes, the square would still exude that same sense of calm. And, yes, with a young wife who had been badly scarred by the incendiary fires of Köln, von Mahler had chosen the house wisely. But did that wife of his never go out? And why, having told them not to question her, had von Mahler then thought it necessary to make absolutely certain they didn’t’?

  Hungry and tired – exhausted – he waited. It was now about 8.00 p.m. on Wednesday. Since arriving at midnight yesterday, he and Hermann had been constantly watched, and those who made certain of this had taken the trouble to find out everything they could about them. Not every item Mireille de Sinéty had worn would have its story, but many of them must have.

  Longing for a quiet moment to go over things, he turned to face the wind and force himself to remain alert.

  Kohler hit the door to the Cafe of the Panic-Stricken White Mule or whatever. Madame Emphoux, the patronne, let out a screech of anguish. Newspapers fluttered in hands that froze.

  ‘Ah! Now that this Gestapo Schweinebulle has everyone’s attention, madame, where’s our little group?’ he demanded.

  The frizzy mop of tired auburn curls jerked towards the rear of the café. No one moved. A tableau of terror was registered in faces caught. Old, young, not so young …

  ‘Ah, merde,’ he muttered in defeat. ‘I’m an idiot, mes amis. Relax.’

  He’d seen it too, thought Madame Emphoux. At a table next to the black-out curtains, the woman with the little boy had burst into tears and now Herr Kohler couldn’t seem to move. He had realized what he’d stumbled into.

  ‘The … the ones you want, monsieur, are over there,’ she said and heard her voice breaking. ‘Please, I … I will take you to them.’

  Kohler let his eyes drift over the assembled, most of whom might or might not have suspected a thing until he had barged in. Oh bien sûr he could pick out the madrigal singers but so, too, could he not fail to notice those who had been watching a middle-aged woman and her ‘son’, a kid of about eight years of age.

  ‘I’m a fool,’ he said softly as he passed the woman’s table en route to the two plain-clothed sons of bitches who had been waiting to nail the passeur who would take the boy to another safe house. They’d have nailed the woman also, and the kid.

  These things happen, he said sadly to himself, for he couldn’t know where they would lead. And reaching the table at last, grabbed a chair and sat down.

  They were both French Gestapo – gangsters; members of the pégre rescued from jail and put to work on, among other tasks, hunting down Jewish children to send to the camps.

  ‘Look, let’s not argue,’ he said. ‘My partner and I are on to something big and can’t have you two messing things up. Forget you ever saw her and the boy. Let it go.’

  This was heresy of him. They said nothing. They didn’t even move and that could only mean they were dangerous. Kohler raised both hands and spread his fingers. ‘Hey, mes amis, I’m not going for my gun, but for a little present. I just came into my inheritance and would like to share it with you. Okay?’

  Not even the briefest nod was given.

  First twenty-five thousand francs brushed the table, disappearing immediately, and then another twenty-five. ‘You go after her and I’ll hear about it and come after you. Right?’ he said. And offering cigarettes no one would refuse these days, sat there for about five minutes, never once taking his eyes from them.

  Again, they said nothing, but when he got up to leave the table still wishing Louis was behind him, the woman and the boy had left the café.

  Now it was Madame Emphoux who, the tears streaming from her, nodded ever so slightly. ‘It’s okay,’ she said under her breath. ‘May God be thanked.’

  Bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano sat still bundled up in their overcoats and hats like most everyone else in the unheated café. With a forefinger, Christiane Bissert coyly traced the rim of a glass that held one of the Occupation’s ersatz aperitifs, since the Pas d’alcool sign was out. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays now, and a lime-green, godawful, cloudy concoction that had been sweetened with saccharin. A ‘liqueur’.

  ‘That was impressive,’ she said and thought to heave a mothering sigh. ‘Here, sit beside me. Join us, please.’

  Herr Kohler was still trembling from his little encounter. He took out a glass vial and, uncorking it, shook two grey-white pills into his giant’s hand.

  ‘For the digestion,’ he said.

  A near-beer, one of the ‘approximate’ drinks for such days, was set before him. Looking up, and suddenly subdued, he thanked Madame la patronne who said, ‘Please, it is on the house.’

  ‘My partner
, madame. Has he been in?’

  He was so anxious, so much a man, a real man, she hated to shake her head but would have to. ‘Drink. You will need to with … with your tablets.’

  The near-beer was half brandy! The tablets were Benzedrine. ‘Now where were we?’ he said, and hauling out his little black notebook, gave the five of them a moment. ‘Ah yes, a picnic, I think it was. A mezzo-soprano who had just passed her final audition and was to have joined your little group. Early June, wasn’t it? – the picnic, that is. At the mas Mireille de Sinéty’s mother leases from your boss. One of you said Adrienne de Langlade couldn’t swim, and one of you indicated she damned well could.’

  The townhouse, overlooking place des Carmes, had been remodelled in the late eighteen hundreds. An eloquent staircase curved gracefully upwards from the tiled foyer to a landing before whose leaded windows and black-out curtains hung a magnificent Beauvais tapestry.

  Leaving hat, overcoat and scarf with a very disgruntled Haushälterin who hadn’t liked his being admitted, St-Cyr followed Marie-Madeleine. There were Old Masters, some very good pieces of sculpture, exquisite porcelains and figurines in vitrines. Swans, pastoral scenes … Everything had, apparently, been carefully chosen so as to offer peace of mind.

  There were no candles in evidence for when the electricity would go off, as it surely must these days and did in every town and city in France. There were no lanterns, no ashtrays, no sign of any matches. Only cold fireplaces. Not even the lingering smell of tobacco smoke apart from that of himself. Simply sachets and bowls of dried, fragrant petals or chopped leaves and stems. Lavender, verbena, wild rose and sage – pomanders of a sort to calm a frightened mind that must be constantly terrified of the firestorms.

  Mireille de Sinéty had placed each bowl or sachet at convenient and frequent intervals so that Frau von Mahler could reach out to touch sanity and pull herself back from terror.

  They entered a salon and passed by a Louis XIV bergére where quiet little tête-a-têtes must once have been held. In the adjoining salon de musique there was an eighteenth-century harpsichord, one of Blanchet le Vieux’s masterpieces. A lute equalled that of the petite lingère and he had the thought the girl must have been given hers by the Kommandant’s wife.