There was a filthy woollen sock lying on the ground nearby, and in its mended toe a pétanque ball. Metal and hard as hell. ‘Xavier was to have killed you,’ he said, opening his coat a little to comfort her. ‘But the one who could finger a maquis couldn’t bring himself to do it and left you to die all on your own like the coward he is.’
When he got back to the mill, Kohler lit a fire in the kitchen stove and began to warm a saucepan of water. Still there was no sign of Louis and he thought this odd, but the dog had to be cared for. He couldn’t leave her yet. ‘And you need a little something to eat,’ he said.
‘Louis,’ he called out. ‘Hey, Louis, guess what I’ve found?’
There was no answer. The loft was much as they’d left it. The frugal legacy of the gueule cassée was still spread out on its napkin, the humble repast to one side …
The grappa was fierce, the view from the portal bleak. Brother Matthieu seesawed gently. ‘Louis …’ he bleated, sickened suddenly by the thought that something untoward must have happened to his partner.
There were no signs of blood in the loft, none of a struggle. Had de Passe had a pistol? He cursed himself for not having sensed trouble and come back sooner. ‘But I wouldn’t have found you, would I?’ he said frantically to Nino.
Man’s best friend wolfed the greasy, oil-soaked artichoke hearts and finished up the stray crumbs of the chèvre before starting in on the olives.
*
The Villa Marenzio had become too quiet, thought Christiane, pausing to listen intently to the house. Marius and the others had stopped arguing and raising their voices over the chances of the singers surviving as a group, but Brother Matthieu had hanged himself and now … now … Were Marius, Norman and Guy whispering to each other about Genèvieve and herself? Were they saying it was all her fault and that each part of the song must live in absolute harmony with the others?
‘It’s all going to end for us!’ she cried. ‘St-Cyr and Kohler will find out you were going to be dismissed, Genèvieve, and that César felt we had grown too close.’
Genèvieve didn’t hold her. Genèvieve didn’t come closer but remained apart and standing just inside the bathroom door.
‘You know it’s bad luck for a Pisces to possess a stone like this,’ said Christiane bitterly. ‘Then you tell me why Mireille had to give it to you last Monday after practice? Last Monday, Genèvieve!’
The face, the cameo of the fourteenth-century pin she had been cleaning, looked up at her. Slowly at first, and then more and more as must have happened with Adrienne’s body, the flood-waters from the tap began to drag it free and towards the drain. A beautifully carved portrait of a young girl of substance, that other Mireille, the stone no longer a dirty greyish green but a lovely delicate oval of soft yellowish green, the name of the stone combining two words from the Greek. ‘Krusos,’ she wept and tried to stop herself. ‘Golden, Genèvieve, that’s what it means, and prasos, their word for the leek. The golden leek – chrysoprase, damn you!’
‘Stop it. Stop it now!’
‘I can’t! I mustn’t. I have to say things to you.’
‘Then give that thing to me and I’ll take care of it!’
‘No you won’t! It’s mine now. With me it’s safe.’
A Gemini …
Christiane snatched it up and turned swiftly to face her. ‘Who really killed Mireille?’
Her slightly parted lips began to tremble as she waited for an answer. She was so tense and afraid, thought Genèvieve. No longer was there any light in her eyes, only suspicion. ‘I … I don’t know. I swear it, chérie.’
‘I went to bed early that night. You know I did.’
Her voice had climbed. She had to say something. ‘There are no secrets between us, Christiane.’
‘There can never be any, Genèvieve.’
The softness of a smile would be best. ‘I wasn’t long but you had already fallen asleep when I went in to see you.’
‘Liar! You went to the Palais. You were there, Genèvieve. Madame came here to get the sickle from the props’ room and you … you followed her. César wanted Mireille for himself. You know he did but Madame is very jealous. She tolerates you and me only because she knows about us and to her it doesn’t matter if César takes either or both of us whenever he feels like it and you … Sometimes I think you enjoy it!’
The price they had had to pay, and an honest assessment given by one who could well have gone to the Palais herself. ‘But Mireille was different – is this what you’re saying?’ said Genèvieve cautiously.
‘You know she was perfect for that livrée of his. César would have given her time but would have wanted her as his wife. Nothing less would have satisfied that ego of his. She and Adrienne were to have replaced you and Xavier. I was to stay on.’
‘And now … now you think I killed her,’ said Genèvieve.
‘You had to!’
‘But so did Xavier.’
Christiane ducked her eyes away. ‘And … and so did Madame,’ she said, taking a quick breath. ‘I … I admit this freely.’ Genèvieve still hadn’t come to her. Genèvieve wasn’t going to and yet … and yet an earnestness had softened the hardness as her lips began to form words – would they be of kindness?
‘Then ask yourself, ma petite, how could César allow Mireille to destroy everything he and the bishop and the others had put together? César wanted Madame to kill Mireille – he planned it that way. It was that or do it himself. Regrettably he had no other choice. She’d get the guillotine because de Passe and the magistrate would make certain of it. One has to protect one’s business associates and fellow penitents noirs, n’est-ce past Why else would César have starved her of absinthe for five days, Christiane? You know the state Madame was in by Monday.’
Answers had to be found and one always had to weaken when challenged by Genèvieve. ‘Xavier is her confident. He got her the sickle. He went with her and … and let Nino into the Palais to find Mireille when … when César and the others had left. Mireille was in tears after the audition and felt she had lost everything. She had stupidly confronted them with the truth about Adrienne but Dedou hadn’t come to back her up. She was all alone and … and soon left the Grand Tinel.’
And it was very dark in the Chambre du cerf, wasn’t it? asked Genèvieve silently. ‘Then Xavier could have killed Mireille for Madame.’
‘Yes. Yes, that is so.’
‘Then, there, now you know everything. Feel better?’ she asked, tenderly enfolding her. ‘Cry. Let it all come out, petite. I know you didn’t mean to say that about me. I know you still love me.’
A hesitant breath was taken. Warm, wet lips were pressed to a cheek as arms were wrapped more tightly about her. Tears flooded.
‘When … when you came into my room I pretended to be asleep. I … I went to your room, Genèvieve, but couldn’t find you. I looked everywhere and … and then I left here and went after you. I had to stop it from happening. I couldn’t have you dismissed from the singers and found guilty of Mireille’s murder. I couldn’t have us parted because of her.’
‘You fool. You little fool.’
A few parishioners were scattered about the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame-des-Doms. But the chancel was unattended. No confessions were being heard, the Blessed Sacrament was not being made available.
Alain de Passe cursed the absence and hurried to the left, past the carved white marble throne of a twelfth-century bishop and on into the sacristy, but still there wasn’t a sign of any of them. ‘Merde,’ he breathed.
They were in the adjacent chapel. ‘César … Ah mon Dieu, at last I’ve found you.’
‘Un momento, amico mio. Let us wait until Henri-Baptiste is finished.’
Prostrate in the coarse black cassock of a simple priest, and with his face pressed painfully to the floor and arms outstretched with hands clasped, Bishop Rivaille prayed before the tomb of Pope John XXII.
The reclining stone figure of the pope had been destroyed during the Revolu
tion and later replaced by that of a bishop. Six of the elegant statues which had once adorned the tomb had long ago been removed to decorate the Église de Saint-Pierre which was just to the south-east of the Palais.
‘He’s begging His Eminence to intercede with the Holy Father on his and our behalf,’ confided Simondi wryly.
And so much for stringing up a pregnant naked girl in his room at the mill and thrashing the hell out of himself while standing before her. ‘He worshipped that girl even more than he did Mireille de Sinéty. A virgin, he thought,’ clucked de Passe and sadly shook his head as if to say, How naive can the clergy get? ‘We have to talk, César. St-Cyr didn’t believe for a moment that Brother Matthieu had done it, nor that he had killed the petite lingère. To him Henri-Baptiste must have violated Adrienne de Langlade while in a drunken rage.’
‘And everything we see here suggests that he did,’ muttered Simondi sadly. ‘The remorse for breaking his vows, the tears of anguish at the threatened loss of the dream, not to mention that of everything else.’
Across the place de Horloge, the swastika flying from the Kommandantur and Hotel de ville seemed larger than most. In the fast-greying light, the colours were darker, the design sharper, more ominous.
And yet here am I, one of the Occupier, seeking sanctuary; thought Kohler, wishing Louis was with him. But Louis wasn’t. Louis hadn’t been in the Cafe of the Panic-stricken White Mule. He hadn’t been at the prefecture, he had simply vanished – had he vanished? The river? Mein Gott, the river!
Von Mahler was busy at his desk and didn’t appreciate the sudden intrusion. Nino barked. Kohler shouted, ‘She’s with me. She’s brought along evidence to match the other shoe she found and good for her, eh, Nino?’
Taking the frayed tennis shoe from her, he patted the dog warmly, then thumped the shoe on the desk. Sand flew up. ‘Herr Oberst, my partner’s missing.’
‘He’s at the morgue.’
‘And dead! The morgue. I knew it.’
Kohler looked ill. For perhaps ten seconds the detective couldn’t seem to move as the colour drained from the scarred and frost-burnished cheeks. Then he yanked at a chair and sat down heavily.
‘I need a drink, damn it, and a cigarette!’
Cognac in hand, and doors closed, he stared in silence at his glass before muttering, ‘The morgue … I always knew it had to end. Salut, Jean-Louis. Salut, mon vieux. Here’s to the best damned partner there ever was.’
Tears fell and he didn’t care if he was seen with them. ‘You son of a bitch!’ he said scathingly. ‘You could have stopped this whole thing from happening but oh no, you had to cosy up to those bastards. You had to be seen to get along with them and to tolerate their schemes!’
‘Kohler, pull yourself together.’
The closely trimmed, crinkly dark brown hair and good looks of von Mahler only infuriated. ‘What’s the use of my “pulling” myself together, Colonel? With one down, they have only one more to go and everything will be neat and tidy.’
‘Now listen—’
‘No, you listen. They drowned Adrienne de Langlade, and when Mireille de Sinéty found out about it, they realized she was about to sing. No matter who used the sickle on that girl, it has to have been done with the sanction of all of them. And don’t give me any of that Quatsch about the bishop and Simondi worshipping the girl and needing her. To them she was a threat they couldn’t tolerate.’
Von Mahler searched for something. A paper-pusher all his life, was that what he’d been? snorted Kohler and said, ‘When we first met, Herr Oberst, you told me you had no idea who had replaced you as the third judge. For all you knew, Simondi could have cancelled the audition. Since the concierge hadn’t been aware of one, you stated that this must mean there hadn’t been one.’
‘And?’
Von Mahler’s iron-grey eyes met his without a waver. ‘Those were all lies, Colonel, and you knew it even then. That concierge was in a cinema that was reserved for your men.’
‘The projectionist and usherettes are French. One more would not have mattered.’
‘But it did, Colonel, and I think you’re more than a little aware of this. Salvatore Biron was purposely delayed until after Rivaille and the others had left the Palais – if they did leave it, as they claim. He found the body moments too late and heard a sigh that couldn’t have been hers.’
‘All right. Simondi did ask me to allow Salvatore to watch that film. At the time, I thought it could do no harm.’
‘And your wife, Herr Oberst?’
Kohler wasn’t going to leave things alone, not now, ‘Was at the Palais. It was she who gave the sigh Salvatore heard. I … I was merely trying to protect her.’
‘From the Cagoule or from justice? Bitte, mein lieber Oberst, I must ask it.’
‘From exposure, then. I couldn’t have her forced into facing yours and St-Cyr’s questions and then those of an official inquiry.’
‘She saw someone.’
‘She thinks she did, but it was far too dark.’
Von Mahler’s expression was firm in resolve, but what the hell …‘I’m going to have to speak to her, Colonel. You can’t refuse. Maybe you could with my partner, but not with me, my friend. Not with me.’
‘Perhaps, then, you had best read this. It’s from Gestapo Mueller in Berlin but was forwarded to me via Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris.’
GEHEIME
Achtung. The Avignon murder under investigation by St-Cyr and Kohler is an internal matter for the French to settle. No assistance is to be given.
HEIL HITLER
‘Then it’s up to them, is it,’ asked Kohler, ‘and the Cagoule they control?’
Some men would never learn. ‘Though it will sound lame, and it was myself who requested the two of you, my hands are tied. I’m sorry, but apparently the Reich has far more need of them than it has of you and St-Cyr.’
Kohler sighed heavily at the ways of the Occupation, and for a moment devoted himself entirely to Nino. Then he looked up, took his time, and said, ‘At the conclusion of our last investigation, Colonel, my partner and I filled Gestapo Boemelburg’s car with loot we had recovered. All my boss really wants is to make certain he keeps it.’
‘And the others? The rest of Gestapo Paris-Central, the SS of the avenue Foch, the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston, and, yes, Gestapo Mueller?’
‘Want an end to us, but obviously they’ve not heard Louis is no more.’
‘No more? But he’s at the morgue as I told you. I saw de Passe let him out of the car not two hours ago.’
Alone with the body of Mireille de Sinéty and the things she had worn, St-Cyr tried to concentrate. There was so little time. There was the threat of the Cagoule – de Passe and the others would have to put a stop to Hermann and himself. They’d have no other choice, not after what had happened at the mill, and yet … and yet time had to be taken. ‘You are demanding it of me,’ he said to her shrouded corpse. ‘You expect me to put my mind back into the very early Renaissance and to think as one would have then, but I have to tell you that that order book you kept with the glyphs as a shorthand is sadly with my partner in the car.’
Spread out on one of the pallets was the jewel-and-enseigne-studded belt with its talismans and tiny silver bells. The aumônière sarrasine was there but he had emptied the purse and had fanned out its contents.
Taking up the tin of sardines, he asked himself why, if she had known Dedou wasn’t to be at the Palais, had she included it? The thing was entirely out of keeping with the rest of her costume, but she must have had a reason. Hope perhaps, that after all, the boy would come. Some reason anyway. Or two, or three, he reminded himself. ‘For that was the way of things. The little games one played in those courtly days, but you weren’t playing a game, and neither are my partner and I.’
The dirk, the sewing kit, scissors and keys were there and he had to ask himself, as he had when first encountering her body, why had she not used the dirk to defend herself? There really had be
en virtually no sign of a struggle. Signs of hide and seek, the hunt, the chase, of course; the prayers on her knees also, and in the Chambre du cerf, the Pontiff’s study, which had direct access to his bedchamber next door …
‘Ah nom de Dieu,’ he breathed. ‘That first Mireille must have gone to that same chamber late at night to beg His Eminence Clement the Sixth for mercy.’
Unsettled by the thought, for it implied again that history really was repeating itself, he looked at the belt.
‘You knew which of them would kill you. It’s all here in front of me, isn’t it? Bishop Rivaille – was it him? Was it Simondi or that one’s wife? Was it one of the singers – Genèvieve Ravier perhaps, or her lover, or Marius Spaggiari? Xavier?’ he asked. ‘The Cagoule?’
High on her left hip she had pinned her own sign, that of the House of Balance in gold, its weighing pans upended as if the hand-held balance had been flung far up into the heavens to hang suspended there for ever. And from its pans had been strewn the cabochons of meaning, the jade and lapis lazuli, moss agate, chrysoprase, amethyst, ruby and malachite – opal, too, and coral and jet. Beautiful things, lovely things, but …
The fleurs-de-lis brooches that had fastened her mantle were next to the coins, as were the fine gold neckchain and two of the three rings she had displayed there, since she couldn’t have worn any more of them on her fingers. Rings given in friendship or exchanged perhaps to celebrate some event, for people did that sort of thing during the Renaissance. But had the hair in the bishop’s ring really matched that of Adrienne de Langlade? Would it ever be possible to lay the two side by side under a microscope?
Rivaille had recovered the pendant box. He practised flagellation and there was the image of a tiny silver martinet on her belt and directly above the sign of the Goat, a Capricorn.
Again, as before, he noticed that the Archer’s arrow was pointed at this sign, but beyond the goat there was a moonstone cabochon over which was a cluster of pearls, each in the shape of a teardrop.
She couldn’t speak, he couldn’t seem to put his mind completely into the framework of her own. Anxiety … the threat of the Cagoule … were interfering.
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