Madrigal

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Where … where were you today?’ The news had unsettled the detective.

  ‘In the hills of the Montagnette, well to the south of a monastery.’

  ‘The one at Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet?’

  ‘Ja, ja, that’s the one, but like I said, the boy wasn’t with them.’

  De Passe must have wanted von Mahler out of the way and had found a good enough reason.

  ‘When you have to hide something, you soon find you have to hide a lot more,’ muttered Kohler sadly to himself as he walked off into the night. ‘Especially when you’ve two Schälingen who won’t leave things alone until they find the truth.’ Two irritating pests. ‘Two thorns, I think,’ he snorted, and wondered where Louis was. ‘Christ, we haven’t eaten yet, haven’t slept! I’m dying for a cigarette, dying for a little warmth.’

  L’Odyssée de la grande illusion was just that. Hot, the air was ripe with the smell of farts, boot grease, stale sweat and tobacco smoke. In row after row, seat after seat and up in the balcony, too, the troops sat stolidly mesmerized by the dust storms of Oklahoma. And wouldn’t you know it, the bankers had sent in giant caterpillar tractors to flatten some poor sharecropper’s house!

  The Great Depression of the 1930s. Every last one of these boys had memories of it, himself as well. Every one of them had been raised on the dream of Wie Gott im Frankreich, to live like God in France where the food was always so good and plentiful. There were tears. Cigarettes had been forgotten, yet few of the eight hundred or so could understand a word of English. And all around them in the smoke-filled dusk, bas-reliefs of warring Roman foot soldiers led captured slaves to the lions or dragged away half-naked females, while high above everything, cove lights threw a pale glow towards a sun that was at full eclipse, since the show was on.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Maître Simondi. I’ve come to see him.’

  ‘Is he expecting you?’ asked the usherette.

  ‘Sort of, I think.’

  The boys didn’t pay any attention to her tightly fitted blouse and skirt, nor did they to any of the others, so mesmerized were they. Sitting among the men were a few of the grey mice, the Blitzmädels from home who had rushed to help their Führer in his hour of need. One had her tunic open and sweater and throat supporter up, but her breasts and lips had been forgotten. A few others among the men were just as forgetful. When presented with the dust storms of Oklahoma and life in the United States of America, nothing else seemed to matter.

  ‘The lobby and the stairs,’ said the usherette. ‘César’s office is next to the projectionist’s booth, his flat is just down the hall.’

  ‘You sure know the way, don’t you?’ quipped Kohler.

  Her smile must be soft even though there was a terrible scar on his cheek and, when seen under the light from the projector, he was formidable. ‘César is in a meeting with Monsieur Renaud.’

  ‘Bon. That’s exactly what I want, but do you know something? My partner would really like to see this film.’

  ‘Then you must ask César, who is the giver of all things.’

  *

  ‘Inspector, I hardly know where to begin,’ said Frau von Mahler. ‘César … his grandiose schemes, his friends and business associates. The consortium they never mention but to themselves. Oh bien sûr my husband is certain Alain de Passe is one of them. So, too, is Albert Renaud, the writer of mortgage agreements which suit only the buyer. Themselves! Derelict monasteries, maisons de maître, hotels particuliers, the livrées that were built in the fourteenth century in Villeneuve-les-Avignon by the cardinals – César has a magnificent one. It’s where he keeps that wife of his. She seldom leaves the house, is nearly always “not well”, but spins a web of her own, we’re certain.’

  Frau von Mahler paused but couldn’t let discretion interfere. ‘Farms, théâtres, cinemas, chateaux, even a gambling casino in Nice, and all of it legally bought for next to nothing and yet still on a shoestring the bishop tugs since he, too, is among them. They’re very powerful and they secretly rejoice in the power they hold over others. Of course it’s all very self-righteous, but what one does for the good of another is done for the good of all.’

  A cover-up, then, was that what she was trying to say? ‘And this other girl?’ hazarded St-Cyr.

  Adrienne de Langlade. ‘Even though greatly distressed by her death, my husband insisted the matter be left up to the French. Kurt claimed it was an internal affair and he’d no right to interfere. My husband believes in letting well enough alone, Inspector. It makes life easier for him. Adrienne was the protegee César desperately wanted the others to accept. Everyone knew this, herself especially, I suspect. He has the eye and ear for them, hasn’t he? Young and tractable. Cultured, well-educated and well-bred, a marvellous voice … a truly gifted girl with a beautiful body. In many regards, the equal of Mireille who would never have agreed to be tractable and thus could never be accepted because hers would have been the one voice of dissent in an otherwise sweet harmony. But then Adrienne de Langlade went away to Paris, it was said, to see her family.’

  ‘Who said she had done so?’

  ‘Who indeed? These things are simply said in Avignon and then passed around so much that no one knows who first said them. Haven’t you sensed it too? The secrecy. The feeling that things are about to happen and yet you have no control over them. You try to appease wherever possible but these people are far more powerful than you. They’re so set in their ways, in their judgement, nothing you can do or say will ever have the slightest effect. And please let’s not forget that the Occupier couldn’t occupy without their help and sanction.’

  Again she paused. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I … I let my feelings show. Adrienne … you were saying?’

  ‘She was drowned between two and three weeks before her body was recovered.’

  ‘In an accabussade? As punishment for what, please? For refusing to have sex with someone? César … was it César? He possesses Christiane Bissert and Genèvieve Ravier, holds the lives of them and the other singers in his hands at all times. Kurt is certain of it, but …’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a French matter, n’est-ce pas? Les culs des jeunes filles sont à elles.’

  The asses of young girls are their own. ‘We don’t know yet how she came to drown.’

  ‘But Mireille felt it had been done in the old way, didn’t she?’

  ‘This, also, we really don’t know yet.’

  ‘Bishop Rivaille thought very highly of Adrienne, Inspector. To him she was perfection, and her hair exactly the shade and texture of Christ’s Mother. Still a virgin, too. He was positive of this and who’s to say, since no coroner was ever allowed to examine her corpse.’

  When he didn’t respond but only waited for more, she said, ‘Mireille was going to confront the judges with hiding the truth about the girl’s death. I’m sure of it now.’

  The woman watched him with an intensity that demanded utter honesty. ‘I really don’t know that yet, but I think it too.’

  ‘Then you had best have this, hadn’t you?’

  Frau von Mahler dug a hand into the remnants and, finding what she wanted, took it out. ‘The Cross of Lorraine,’ she said, looking at a small enamelled brooch in the palm of her withered hand. ‘The symbol of the Resistance. I … I found this under the lapel of Mireille’s overcoat about two weeks after Adrienne’s body had come to light. Mireille and the singers had only just returned from their tour to learn what had happened. I removed it, of course. Perhaps she came to believe I had taken it. No doubt she searched everywhere and worried desperately, for that, too, was in her nature. But I never told her what I’d done, nor have I told my husband. That death hardened her attitude, Inspector, and firmed her resolve.’

  Was there more to it, then, he wondered, and tucked the pin out of sight. ‘Dédou Favre was to have met her well before dawn on Monday but failed to show up, or so we’ve been told. She sent Thérèse Godard to the mas of Madame de Sinéty with a note for him.’

/>   ‘And even now, at this hour, my husband hasn’t returned from searching the countryside for Dédou. Another tip of the préfet’s he couldn’t refuse to act upon. Tell me something, Inspector. Will we lose the war? Please, you can speak freely. Although it’s forbidden, I listen to the BBC news broadcasts, to those of the Free French in Britain and to both wavebands of the Voice of America.’

  ‘And what do you think, madame?’

  How cautious of him. ‘It was I who asked you.’

  She was begging him. Hermann and he needed desperately to gain her confidence if they were ever to solve this thing, but Hermann wasn’t here to preach caution.

  The Inspector cited Napoleon’s defeat in Russia and then said, ‘Stalingrad.’

  The whole of the Sixth Army had been lost there, over 150,000 men had been taken prisoner to say nothing of the almost equal number who had perished or been terribly wounded. ‘And the Allies, now that the Americans have joined them?’ she asked.

  ‘Will invade when they judge it best. The Côte d’Azur or the toe of the boot.’

  The truth, then, and no lies from him. ‘I … I couldn’t face being a refugee. Everyone would see me.’

  ‘How did you acquire that pistol?’

  ‘I’ve ways.’

  He had to reach out to her with a comforting thought. ‘Please believe that before it’s too late, your husband will see that you and the children are safely returned to your family.’

  ‘To Köln? Ah! It’s true our girls were fortunately with my parents at their estate when this … this happened to me. But they will have everything taken from them if the Russians are the first to enter what is left of the city. And if I was to be with my parents by then, I would have to face the Communists too. My skin … I … I can’t be touched, not yet. You do understand?’

  Rape … they’ll rape the women. The Propagandastaffel had certainly done their work in the Reich.

  When he nodded grimly to indicate he understood, she bowed her head and said, ‘My husband was very fond of Mireille. He enjoyed seeing her with our two little girls. A wife notices such things, Inspector. I had planned to leave him with her. It would have taken a little time for them to have grown together, but my Kurt desperately needs someone like her. So, you see, that little pin she so foolishly and bravely wore was a very great worry to me, as was Dédou Favre.’

  ‘Frau von Mahler …’

  ‘Madame, please.’

  ‘Madame, what are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘She came to see me at about five o’clock on Monday afternoon, after having endured hours of practice with the other singers at the Villa Marenzio. She was very worried and upset – harried, and not herself at all.’

  ‘And?’ he asked.

  He could be so gentle, this detective, so sincere, but would he really understand? ‘You must have seen that my music stand lies broken. When that happened, Mireille burst into tears. She was exhausted. They had hammered at her incessantly all through practice. To the singers she was never right, always wrong – terrible, awful. She had been up night after night preparing for that damned audition. I insisted she confide in me. They didn’t want her joining them. She was certain of it. “They don’t want me with them,” she said. “I know they don’t.”’

  ‘And?’ he asked again. How cautious of him.

  ‘Dédou was to have been with her at the Palais. He was to have waited, hidden from those who were to judge her, but as you’ve said, he failed to show up.’

  It was coming now, and to give him credit, the Chief Inspector had some inkling of it, for he again waited for her to continue. ‘Dédou didn’t want her joining the group, Inspector. He was very possessive of her, very jealous … but also there was this other business of his belonging to the Resistance, the “terrorists”. To them she must have presented a grave and constant danger that could not have been overlooked any more and would have to be dealt with. His comrades, his chief, would have insisted. A collaborator, a friend of the Bodies? Had he not agreed to do something about it, they would have banished him. You know it as well as I.’

  The boy had killed her – was this what the woman believed? ‘At dinner that evening, madame, you made what for you must have been an extreme sacrifice. You dined with Maître Simondi, Bishop Rivaille and your husband.’

  ‘I wanted Kurt to be that third judge in case Dédou should show up. I was afraid Préfet de Passe might have planned to take the boy. With Kurt there, things would go easier for the couple, but my husband refused to do what the husk of his wife begged. Oh bien sûr he had his reasons. Perhaps he felt he shouldn’t interfere any more. Berlin … who knows what ears Berlin have or what they will think? I knew Mireille was very afraid and not just of their decision – ah no, that was nothing new, really. She had failed many times before, but this other matter was something else. What I didn’t know at the time.’

  ‘Her intention to accuse them of the murder of Adrienne de Langlade or of its cover-up.’

  ‘To her it must have been a repetition of what had happened six hundred years ago. That’s why she dressed the way she did. I’m certain of it. The unmitigated arrogance of those – the Church especially – who, for whatever reason, would take the law into their own hands. But how could she possibly have known who did it?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. My partner may have something. I …’ He shrugged.

  ‘Bishop Rivaille suggested they ask Monsieur Renaud to be the third judge, and a call was put through to his house but …’

  ‘But what, madame?’

  ‘But I was certain César had anticipated my husband’s refusal and had already taken steps to fill that post.’

  ‘With Madame Simondi?’

  How quick to suspicion the Inspector was. ‘He said nothing of it. Monsieur Renaud agreed to be there. The time was given, and still César said nothing of that wife of his. I worried. The woman would have been drunk – “not well”, as César is so fond of saying, but if not drunk, what then, I asked myself. Kurt had to return to the Kommandantur. He often works late. The telexes and coded messages from Berlin, from General Niehoff in Lyon. I—’

  ‘A moment, please,’ interjected St-Cyr. ‘This Madame Simondi … why were you so concerned about her being there?’

  ‘Why? She knew Adrienne well, knew that girl inside out, I think, for she forced her to visit with her constantly. Paris … always they talked of Paris, but secretly Marceline Simondi is a very jealous, very conniving woman, or so I’m given to understand, and César … César was entranced with the girl. He wanted her, Inspector.’

  The marmite perpétuelle, the constant soup that simmers on the backs of all stoves in the provinces, was getting thicker.

  ‘She knew Mireille, too, Inspector – of course she did – and had presented her with little gifts in payment for work done. Gifts Mireille swore she couldn’t bring herself to touch, so repugnant did she find the woman. You see, Marceline eggs the singers on. Mischief … wild parties. She insists they do her bidding or face dismissal and they, in turn, are afraid of her.’

  ‘You forced yourself to go to the Palais.’

  ‘I felt I had to.’

  The salon of César Simondi’s pied-à-terre was like the sun seen at its setting beyond the dust storms of Oklahoma. It was fiery red in plush, velvety carpets and armchairs with footstools where triflings of gilding flamed to long vertical shafts of saffron yellow on the walls beyond them. Gold was everywhere in draperies and hangings that rose to an expansively timbered, carved ceiling and let the night come down with visions of loveliness. Forest nymphs playing lutes, flutes and recorders. Satyrs leering at mischief among the undergrowth while a well-hung Bacchus bathed with several voluptuous things in a secreted pool and lifted a delighted young creature out of the water by the hips.

  There were marble statues, bronze busts, amphorae … islands of privacy among the furnishings. And oh mein Gott, what a place, breathed Kohler as the usherette, her shoes left at the door, finally brought them to
a halt.

  ‘César …’ she hazarded, for the two men had been caught closeted over their wine glasses and papers. ‘César, forgive me, please, but I have had to bring you a visitor who would not take no for an answer,’

  ‘Figlio di puttana!’ Son of a bitch! ‘Ispettore,’ boomed Simondi. ‘What a pleasant surprise. Buona sera, amico mio. You are just the man we want to see.

  ‘Merda, Renée. Proprio a me dovevi fare questo?’ Did you have to do this to me? ‘Bring another glass and quickly, eh? Then leave us. Vanish. É finito per te, do you understand? Finito!’ It’s finished for you. Finished! ‘We must let the Inspector taste the milk of Provence.

  ‘Entrate, prego, Ispettore. Come in, please. Alberto …’ He indicated his companion. ‘You know of Avignon’s premier notaire public? You don’t? Ah, how can this be? Alberto, this is the Detective Inspector Hermann Kohler from Munich first, Berlin second, and Paris at present and for the past two and a half years. A man who lives with two exquisitely beautiful women, I am told.’

  Simondi settled back to hook a thumb into the left armhole of the soft cream waistcoat he wore. The black suit jacket was open, the white dress shirt had been freshly laundered. The polka-dot bow tie was of another age, one of refinement, culture and the belle époque, if one cut out the swearing. A throwback, wondered Kohler. A showman certainly. A man in his mid-fifties. Shrewd, tough, ambitious, a schemer and dreamer, a manipulator, the look Simondi gave him was one of penetrating assessment. The face was wide and strong, the brow high. A cigarette, forbidden to his singers, held a good centimetre of forgotten ash. The lips were wide, the moustache dark brown and bushy, the nose Roman and pronounced, the greeny-brown eyes swift to sense trouble, the hair well-groomed, unparted, pomaded and without a wave.

  ‘Herr Kohler, before you jump to conclusions, let me say how upset we both are at the loss of our beloved Mireille. Frankly, I don’t know how I’m to replace her. She took care of everything. A brilliant girl, so talented, so conscientious.’ He clenched a raised fist. ‘A tower of strength. You know, of course, that costume is half of great theatre; la voce, la musica, it’s equal.’