‘He cabled them that an offer had been made, and the owner, feeling it prudent, agreed.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it exactly.’
Jewish, then, and lucky to have escaped with their lives, thought St-Cyr sadly. ‘So, tell me about the disease.’
Ah bravo, caro Ispettore, you have come back to what I wanted you to ask! But I must remove the cigar to consider it and give an expression of concern. ‘Ever since she came here to live, my wife has yearned to return to the Paris she loves. Surely you can understand such a thing, you who are known to love Paris and to miss it constantly? I did what I could. A little trip now and then, the shopping, the restaurants, but the pressures of work … One simply can’t give up everything, and increasingly there was what we say in Italian, le esigenze del successo, the demands of success.’
‘And when the supply of what the former owner had left, and the hoodlums who ransacked the house had missed, had finally run out?’
‘I ordered it in from the only place I could.’
‘You have friends.’
St-Cyr had already looked at the bills of lading. ‘Of course I have “friends.” Without them life would be very dull.’
That, too, had been a warning. ‘Those bills suggest—’
Simondi blocked the way. ‘You don’t have to look at them, Inspector. I’m not obliged to let you.’
A bribe, then. ‘But we can discuss it, eh?’
No bribe would be accepted. ‘As if among friends, yes.’
For the detective to get around him to snatch the most recent bill away would be all but impossible. The nail was sharp and rusty – a dangerous thing. ‘Find your murderer, Inspector. Go about your business with that partner of yours. This house and my wife hold nothing for you. She’s not well. Now that you’ve seen so yourself, you must appreciate that even if she did manage to make it to the Palais on the night of the murder, what possible part could she have played in that tragic affair?’
‘I don’t know yet, Maître, but as in part song, so, too, in murder, each voice carries its own measure. I think you deliberately withheld this latest shipment from your wife. A few days at least before the murder of Mireille de Sinéty.’
Some men would never learn and this was one of them. ‘Five days, as you already know,’ said Simondi coldly. ‘Ask anyone. All will tell you I have repeatedly tried to wean her from that poison.’
‘Ah yes, of course, but when in withdrawal, is the absinthe addict not capable of other things? That is the question.’
The sigh he would give this fottuto di poliziotto would be long and deep and of a death anticipated. ‘Then come upstairs and I will tell you what you want to know.’
8
The singers were hunting for him in earnest now, thought Kohler. One here, one there, but he had no problem, really, in evading them. Simondi’s villa was huge.
‘Herr Koh … ler,’ shouted Marius Spaggiari, only to have Christiane’s voice anxiously chase the echoes with, ‘Inspector … where are you?’
YOU …YOU …
‘Please don’t do this to us.’
TO US …
‘Signore …’ cried the housekeeper. ‘It is not permissible. You must show yourself at once.’ AT ONCE … And over to the left, he thought, but these old places. Rooms on rooms, with columned, echoing ambulatories between …
‘He’ll try to question madame,’ shouted Genèvieve and well to his right, he was certain of it.
‘She’s awake now,’ answered Spaggiari from the head of the staircase.
‘She’s at her best. She’ll say something she shouldn’t.’ SHOULDN’T, gave back Genèvieve.
‘He’ll find her room!’ shrilled Christiane. ‘Stop him. We must stop him.’
‘Go then, Genèvieve. Go!’ shouted Spaggiari. ‘I’ll catch up with you. Christiane, keep looking for him here.’
HERE …
The Grand Tinel of the livrée seemed to run on for ever beneath a vaulted ceiling that reached to the gods. Repeated patterns of lilies and trumpet vines were interlocked with cameos of saints and cardinals, while far below them large canvases in oils were hung from floor to ceiling, with tapestries between them. Churchy scenes. Popes, nuns and priests. Scenes of the hunt. Murals of the Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion. Peasants flailing their harvest. Life in the mid-fourteenth century. The Palais des Papes, a cardinal on a white mule …
A girl in raiment so fine …
The painting was large and it made him ask, Had she been a petitioner to the Papal Court? There was a tight circlet of silver brocade around her forehead – there were enamelled blue violets in it. The hair was golden, the eyes were of that softest shade of amber and just like Mireille de Sinéty’s. De Sinéty’s …
There were several rings on each finger. A pendant box hung from her belt, her girdle, damn it!
There were tiny silver bells, a sewing kit, a purse for alms – coins!, and a tin of sardines, eh?
The dark green woollen cloak was trimmed with white ermine tails.
It was her, that other Mireille, looking down at him from across the centuries.
Her mantle was of rose madder, her gown of saffron silk, the cote-hardie of cocoa-brown velvet, its bodice of gold brocade and tightly laced up the front. A girl of nineteen. Proud, not haughty; determined, not weak, her lips slightly parted in hesitation as she awaited the verdict of the Court. And Pater noster, qui es in caelis …
The belt was of very soft suede and studded with an absolute rainbow of stones, replete with enseignes and talismans. Helmeted guards with pikes stood ready to take her away.
‘I’ve got to keep moving,’ he told himself, but suddenly the livrée had gone to silence, suddenly, instead of there being no problem in evading the singers, an ominous feeling had crept in. Had others taken over the hunt? Others … La Cagoule? He cursed his luck.
Gilded Louis XIV fauteuils and sofas lined the hall. A herringbone pattern of brick-red tiles ran to the far end where, across its full width, a floor-to-ceiling arched window let in the sunlight. There were figures down there. Maybe four, maybe five of them and, Gott im Himmel, where the hell was Louis when he needed him most?
‘La Danse,’ quavered Christiane Bissert, coming softly upon him to indicate the life-sized marble sculpture at the other end of the hall. Nervous … Mein Gott, she was afraid.
‘Carpeaux …’ breathed Kohler, stunned by how lifelike the figures appeared. ‘The façade of the Paris Opera.’
Hand in hand, buxom naked girls danced madly around a naked boy who held aloft a tambourine. There was laughter, licentiousness, a ribald joy in their expressions. Motion …
‘Madame Simondi is … is so lonely for Paris,’ said Christiane, fighting for words and hesitantly having taken him by the hand to lead him away from the painting … the painting. ‘This copy, found quite by accident in an antiques shop on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, was one of César’s many attempts to appease her desire to return.’
Her voice had climbed but she’d been unaware of it. ‘And at the picnic early last June?’ he asked. The Cagoule … where were they?
They would want her to answer, to keep him talking, she told herself. Distract him … I must distract him. ‘We danced. We … we often recreate this sculpture for madame. It … it’s her wish to see us that way and … and making love to … to each other.’
She swallowed tightly and he knew she was afraid.
‘Simondi sent you here last night knowing my partner and I would want to question her. We were to “see” her as she is, weren’t we?’
‘He … he couldn’t have known you would come last night.’
‘But he didn’t take a chance, did he, and now has brought in a little company.’
The Hooded Ones … had he already seen them? Had he? Somehow she found the will to say, ‘She sips constantly. Even now there will be a glass ready for her to begin her day.’
‘And if denied her craving?’
‘She becomes irritable.’
‘Restless?’
‘Highly agitated.’
‘Aggressive?’
‘You’re hurting me, Inspector. My hand …’ She threw an anguished glance over her shoulder.
‘Paranoic?’ he demanded. ‘Bugs crawling all over her? Worms in her guts? Sheer terror? Hatred?’
‘Lapses of memory. Blackouts, yes.’
‘Vivid hallucinations?’
‘Seizures.’
‘Jealousy?’
Ah no …‘She … she thinks things about people that … that are not always true. She—’
‘Has the urge to kill them? Is that it, eh? Come on, damn it, answer me!’
Answer … Answer …
Anxiously Christiane looked away again to the opposite end of the Grand Tinel, but no one had come to deal with him. Not yet … But he would know now that she had been sent to distract him.
‘What really happened Monday night?’ he asked, startling her into answering hotly, ‘Why must you make trouble for yourself? You don’t know what they’re like. They’ll—’
‘Stop at nothing now?’
‘Please!’ she begged. ‘Just leave while you can. They’ll blame me. They’ll hold me responsible for warning you but—’
‘Stick closely. Just do as I say and don’t bugger about. Hey, you’re with the police, eh? The honest ones.’
The fresco was magnificent and a tribute to the villa’s former owner who had had it patiently restored, thought St-Cyr. In it, shadows from columns fell across an archway beyond which there was a road that wound downhill through field and farm towards the viewer. In the foreground, to the left, there was a group of six monks and a cardinal. A white mule stood in their midst, they having just arrived on their pilgrimage to the Avignon of the mid-fourteenth century.
To the right, across the gap through which one saw the archway, there stood a group of maidens, of whom the cardinal was inquiring. Only two of the girls faced him; the one a princess, by the look, the other her lady-in-waiting. All of the others, though just as comely and beautifully dressed, were frivolously discussing the visitors.
The lady-in-waiting had thrown her princess a questioning glance. The princess’s long blonde hair was tied behind as befitted an unmarried girl of her day. Her expression was at once one of sincere concern at the travellers’ plight, and of innocence.
St-Cyr drew in a breath. ‘That’s the first Mireille before she was married.’
‘Perhaps. One can never really tell with such things, can one?’ countered Simondi. ‘But I thought you would like to see it.’
‘That cardinal is asking if she can provide lodgings. Avignon was very overcrowded at the time of the popes.’
‘But did she refuse him the use of her father’s house as her lady-in-waiting appears to demand, or did she agree?’ asked Simondi.
‘Are you suggesting Mireille de Sinéty’s judgement of the distant past was perhaps too harsh?’
‘Inspector, I’m only making you aware that within the passage of the centuries must exist an element of doubt.’
There’d been no sign of Hermann, thought St-Cyr, though he was certain he had heard his partner’s name being called. A worry.
‘Come,’ said Simondi. ‘The library is just this way.’
Verdammt! There must be three of them after him, thought Kohler. Gardener, caretaker … what did it matter? They’d be young and agile and everywhere, and they’d damned well know the layout of this pile of stones. They’d make no sound, would move with swiftness. Now from out of a corridor; suddenly from a room … Corsicans … Retainers … ‘ Cagoulards,’ he breathed.
‘You will never know when they’ll come up behind you!’ shrilled Christiane. He was hustling her along a corridor, was pushing her ahead of him.
‘Easy, kid. Take it easy. Where does that staircase lead?’
He wouldn’t listen to her! He was still going to try to get free of them and find Madame! ‘The roof, I think,’ she blurted.
Driven ahead of him, she went up the steep and narrow staircase into darkness. He would have to stop if she stopped. He would bang right into her. And hadn’t Préfet de Passe told her to distract him? Hadn’t he warned her of what would happen to her if she didn’t? ‘The door?’ she said, catching a breath. ‘It’ll be locked.’
‘Let’s try it.’
She could feel him against her. Everything in her said to cry out, to push him back and away from her, to turn and shriek …‘I can’t. I …’
Clinging to him in the darkness, she wept. ‘Forgive me. Please forgive me. I’m so afraid.’
The door burst on to a narrow walkway between tiled roof and battlement. The stones were icy, the walkway long. When she fell, she cried out, ‘They’ll kill me if you don’t give yourself up!’ and rolled from side to side, gripping herself by the shoulders in despair.
Kohler yanked her to her feet and shook her. ‘They killed Adrienne, didn’t they?’
Adrienne … Adrienne …
‘Answer me, damn you!’
Christiane blinked several times. The wind came but gently. The air was very cold, the sunlight bright. A perfect morning. ‘She … she was there with us and … and then she wasn’t. Please, you must believe me.’
‘Where?’
‘The … the Îie de la Barthelasse. César has one of his farms at the northern end of the island. There are reeds, a dock, some punts and an old mill … a mill. He and his friends use it as a hunting lodge.’
‘Last October?’ he demanded harshly and when she didn’t answer, shook her hard.
He couldn’t see the sunlight burnish the scars on his face as it would glint off the stiletto that would be driven into his back. He couldn’t realize that they were about to kill him. Kill him … She would throw her arms about his neck, would hug him tightly and let him feel the trembling in her.
‘Yes, last October. A … another picnic. A bonfire and singing … much singing. We … we all got very drunk.’
‘On absinthe?’
Sunlight flashed as it would have done when cardinals’ messages were passed to the Palais. ‘Marius had some bottles Madame had given him. She wanted Bishop Rivaille to see what she thought Adrienne was really like. A slut, a little whore. She … she made us do it.’
‘Ispettore,’ said Simondi warily to St-Cyr in the library, ‘if Mireille de Sinéty thought Adrienne de Langlade was murdered, she was very much mistaken.’
‘My partner and I’ve been led to believe that was why she was silenced.’
‘Dio mio erano molto amici.’ He threw out his hands. ‘Lei era molto bella, molto incantevole. Ah! Scusate, I forget myself again. It’s so easy to do. My God, they were the best of friends. She was très belle, très charmante.’
‘An accabussade.’
‘Ah pouf! Quelle absurdité.’
‘Now calm down or you’ll have us shouting at each other.’
‘Then you tell me what reason was there for anyone to have murdered her? Adrienne was a mezzo-soprano like few others and the beauty of it was … ah, si, si, she didn’t think herself better than the others. She listened. She cooperated. She worked terribly hard. Always there was great attention, the desire to become better and the willingness to subordinate the self so that the voice could develop and blend with the others.’
‘She became tractable, is that what you’re saying?’
Simondi’s dark brown eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Tractable? Why do you ask? I laboured long and hard writing parts for that girl and adjusting those of the others so that her voice would be what I was convinced it could be. Not just a welcome addition but that which would take our madrigals to even finer heights.’
‘How profitable are the concerts?’
The head was tossed as if struck. ‘Profit? You ask of profit and murder in the same breath? Molto lucroso.’ He shook a hand whose fingertips were pressed together.
‘And yet you postdated, by several months, the miserly cheques you gave Mademoiselle de Siné
ty in payment for her work.’
‘Bastardo! Fottuto di poliziotto, how do you know of this, please?’
‘Let’s just say we are aware of it.’
‘Then let me say in return that as a businessman I have many accounts. That’s only understandable. Some are overdrawn, others might be and I can’t always remember what balance there is in each account, so am cautious.’
Hermann should have heard it! ‘You and two of your associates sat in judgement of our victim, Maître. Whether true or not, that girl thought one or all of you either guilty of Adrienne de Langlade’s murder, or of trying to cover it up to protect someone.’
It would do no good to argue. This Sûreté, with his holier-than-thou attitude, had convinced himself that something was not right. He had smelled the fish and found it tainted. ‘Mireille was a creature of the past, Inspector. Because of what had happened to her namesake six hundred years ago, the girl was overly suspicious of and all too ready to harshly judge the Church. It was una piccola leggenda she’d been fed by that mother of hers. Une petite légende de famille, n’est-ce pas? With no father there to raise her, the girl grew up under the mother’s wing.’
‘No father?’
‘He lost his nerve when he lost everything in the Great Depression. He killed himself. A hunting “accident” which left the mother and child in near destitution. We did what we could in the years before the war. We Avignonnais are not above helping the less fortunate. You’ve seen this. In the late autumn of 1940 I was able to buy a small farm that might suit, and the mother agreed to lease it for, I must add, a pittance. So little, Ispettore, my associates and I don’t even bother to record the rent since it is never collected.’
A saint and a group of them. ‘Take me through that evening, Maître. You and Bishop Rivaille dined with the Kommandant. I gather Frau von Mahler joined you at dinner.’
Merda, what had that woman revealed? ‘Ispettore, I’ve already told your partner that when the Kommandant refused to be the third judge, I telephoned Albert Renaud who agreed, and that Henri-Baptiste and I then picked him up in the car.’
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