Madrigal (15 page)

Brother Matthieu swore.

Xavier hesitated and then said calmly, ‘César. He didn't want her to be late.'

Christiane Bissert had said Brother Matthieu had given the victim the key. ‘And Monsieur Simondi told you this?' asked St-Cyr.

The boy shook his head. ‘Mireille did. She wondered if the third judge would be Madame Simondi since Avignon's
petite pomme frite
had told her the Kommandant was certain to refuse.'

Avignon's little French fried potato … Frau von Mahler. How cruel of the boy to have called the woman that, a victim of Köln's firestorms. ‘And was Madame Simondi that third judge?'

The urge to ask, What do you think?, was there but unwise. ‘That little matter was always kept secret, Inspector. How could I possibly know?'

‘There was also Monsieur Renaud, Inspector. A notary,' interjected Brother Matthieu. ‘An old friend of Monsieur Simondi and of the girl's family. Mademoiselle de Sinéty often went to see him when in search of information or to borrow things.'

‘
Enseignes
, jewels and coins?' asked the Sûreté and waited for the brother to oblige.

‘The rue des Teinturiers, near the fourth waterwheel, or is it the fifth?'

The street of the dye-workers.

The door was closed, the storeroom soon quiet. For a moment St-Cyr argued with himself. Should he have Xavier taken into custody, or could he leave things for the present?

When he found, under folded tapestries in an old trunk, a wine-purple, gold-embroidered ecclesiastical pouch, he sighed.

There were wrist-watches, diamond rings, necklaces, brooches, cufflinks, several pairs of ear-rings, a gold lipstick, gold compact, a cigarette lighter and two cigarette cases, both of which were engraved with the names, no doubt, of the owners of the abandoned villas from which they'd been taken.

Xavier's little hoard had been laid by for a rainy day, and from this, quite obviously, had come the wrist-watch Hermann had found in the victim's handbag. But there was more, much more.

There was a thick twist of reddish blonde hair.

‘Herr Kohler, why do you ask about a girl we hardly knew?' Marius Spaggiari, the bass, looked to the others for support.

‘Students come and go all the time,' offered Norman Galiteau, the baritone.

‘Few succeed, no matter their discipline, be it the violin, piano or voice,' hazarded Guy Rochon.

They'd made damned certain he wouldn't talk to them one at a time. ‘Something's come to light. My partner will be expecting me to see if I can't find out a little more.'

‘But … but what's there to tell? A strawberry blonde …?' blurted Galiteau.

‘We get a few of those,' countered Spaggiari.

Fixed up by the students as a lounge, the lower of the tower rooms was furnished with sagging armchairs, chaise longues and sofas from the twenties. The carpet was worn and stained by booze, vomit and food. The flea-market lamp shades were yellowed and unravelling. Above a marble mantelpiece, a gilded Venetian mirror, with streaked and stained backing, was being held by the outstretched arms of sumptuous, avant-garde nudes who licentiously defied the viewer not to look at them while gazing in the mirror.

The. room wasn't used for ‘their music and … and other things in winter', the girl Gina had said and been censored. It had been Galiteau who had led the way, hoping, no doubt, to soon freeze him out, but they'd been getting nowhere until he'd mentioned the girl – not the postcard, never that until needed.

‘Her name was Adrienne de Langlade,' said Guy Rochon. The boy was twenty-two years old, very fit, tall, good-looking and with wavy, auburn hair and the finely boned features of the French aristocracy. The eyes were a greeny brown, the brows wide and curved, the smile engaging, open and honest if one wanted to believe this.

I don't, said Kohler to himself. ‘How old was she?'

Rochon shrugged. Galiteau answered. ‘Twenty … the same age as Christiane.'

They were just too wary, and oh
bien sûr
they had a lot to lose if their little group should be broken up – years of forced labour for them. They were ripe for it. ‘Let me question this one first, eh? Then I'll get to the two of you.'

They didn't like it. Spaggiari drifted off to the windows. ‘Monique is returning,' he announced. ‘She's talking to one of our German tenants who's asking her what's in her string bag. “Some carrots, Herr Freisler. A cabbage,”' he fluted. ‘Freisler's suspicious of her violin case and wants her to open it, Inspector, but knows she'll refuse unless ordered to. Drugs, alcohol, condoms … who knows what students will try to hide? Our Otto is with the Ministry of Trade, an exporter of olive oil, among other things, and a closet pornographer.'

‘His wife attends our concerts,' offered Galiteau, whose beatific expression suggested mischief, only to hear Kohler saying, ‘I thought I told you two to be quiet?

‘Now where were we?' he said, flipping open his little black notebook to look over the pages of answers with nothing in them so far.

‘She drowned. An accident, we were told,' offered Rochon. There was a seven-centimetre scar on the back of his left hand. ‘A cut I received last autumn from a broken bottle.'

‘Drunk were you?'

‘A little. It … it was really nothing. An accident.'

‘Just like this drowning you were telling me about.'

‘Inspector, we've already told you, students come and go,' insisted Spaggiari, not turning from the windows. ‘At times we have fifteen or so living here in addition to our group, at present only five others. All girls. The boys …'

‘Have thought better of hanging around, eh?'

Kohler was referring to the forced labour call-ups. A shrug would be best. ‘We're “essential” workers and must remain in France, or hadn't you noticed?'

Very much of the Midi, the
Basso Continuo's
strongly boned face wore an expression that seemed always to be grave. In his mid-thirties, a professional singer for years and probably exceptional, thought Kohler, one thing was clear. He knew exactly what had happened to this other girl but wasn't about to say a damned thing. A leader, and what was it Louis had muttered on the train south from Paris? ‘Everything in a madrigal is built from the bass up.'

The baritone sat on the couch with cushions pulled tightly in on either side of him, for security perhaps – did he need that? He was rotund, cherubic behind those specs of his, very musical no doubt but did he always delight in mischief and in showing up dumb-assed detectives from Bavaria?

Something would have to be done to break the impasse. Never one to sit still for long, Kohler got up and took out his cigarettes but was forced to set his notebook and pencil on the mantelpiece.

Verdammt
! Now what was this? he wondered. ‘Hey,
mes fins
, it's the little things in life that matter, isn't it?' he quipped, not looking at any of them but rather into the mirror. ‘These days the chance happening can so easily change everything. One moment the street is calm and everyone is going about their business, the next you accidentally trip and draw attention to yourself. They rush you. They grab you. “I've done nothing!” you cry. “Nothing!”'

He hesitated. He had their attention now. ‘But then those bastards question you for hours, eh? And maybe they beat the shit out of you and make you swear to anything.'

The Gestapo or the Vichy goons, the
Service d'Ordre
, too, and others. The French Gestapo …‘Inspector, what have you found?' asked Rochon who was still standing closest to him.

‘A photograph. It's slipped down behind the mantelpiece but once must have rested on it.'

Taking out the pocket-knife the Kaiser had given to him and countless others in those early days before the Great War, Kohler began to prise the photo from its depths. Smoke from the hearth had darkened the upper half a little, the photo having turned itself around as it had slipped. But it was still clear, still good enough …

The girl was leaning against the stone wall of a windmill or
mas
.

‘Inspector …' began Spaggiari, only to hear the Kripo caution him with, ‘Why not use your head and keep your mouth shut for now?'

She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit and espadrilles. Her hands were behind her back and she was smiling demurely at the camera. Moisture beaded her skin. Her hair was pinned in a tight chignon that was very wet. She had only just come out of the water.

‘Was she a good swimmer?' he asked, ‘seeing as she “accidentally” drowned?'

They didn't answer. It was so damned dry in summer in the hills, the pond or whatever would have to have been deep enough for bathing. Later, or beforehand, she had bared her breasts and had let someone photograph them, but this one showed every sign of being modest.

‘Okay, so we've got her name and now a snapshot of her, and one of you – I don't give a damn which one since you're all in the same bucket of shit as far as I'm concerned – stated clearly that you hardly knew her.'

‘She was of the Parisian
beau monde
,' offered the cherub, nervously darting little looks at his confreres. Did he like to feel a girl's hair when looking at a photograph only of her uncovered breasts? wondered Kohler.

‘Her family sent her to Avignon to get her away from an affair they didn't want to happen,' said Guy Rochon.

‘A mezzo-soprano,' interjected Spaggiari with an exasperated sigh. ‘She had passed her final audition and was to have joined our little group. César had written in a part for her halfway between those of Christiane and Genèvieve.'

‘Or Xavier. We mustn't forget him,' offered the cherub hesitantly. ‘Xavier's voice …'

‘What Norman means to say, Inspector, is that Xavier and Genèvieve often sing the same part. Their voices are equally pitched, though hers is fuller and far more mature.'

Like wine, eh?, Kohler wanted to snort, but said, ‘So why was this photo up here if you hardly knew the girl?'

‘A Requiem of our own,' said the cherub softly, the mischief all too clear.

‘A drunken orgy, was that it, eh?'

Again Spaggiari sighed heavily. ‘Her drowning has nothing to do with what happened to Mireille, Inspector.'

‘And she was a good swimmer?'

‘We swam in a cistern, Inspector. A cave, but our feet could touch bottom if desired.'

‘So, when and where was this taken?'

He'd have to be told. There was no way of avoiding it – Kohler would stick to the matter until satisfied. ‘Early last June, at the
mas
Madame de Sinéty leases from César. The windmill is no longer in use. It's on a hill behind what remains of a small retreat that was once used by the monks at Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet. The cistern is a little farther into the hills, but is easy to find.'

A ready source of water in a normally parched and thirsty land. ‘And Simondi owns the place?'

‘As he owns many places. After all, there are lots of bargains these days and even six hundred hectares of good farmland in several choice parcels will bring only 30,000 francs if one is lucky.'

‘Could she swim?'

‘Why not?'

They sat in the car, letting the engine warm while knowing they were being watched through more than one of the Villa Marenzio's windows.

‘Spaggiari made a point of telling me his boss could buy farmland for a song, Louis. Hell, everyone knows the farmers can't get their produce to market and the Occupier steals it anyway, so the price of land has plummeted. And sure, what few tractors they had before the war have long since been taken and the Russian Campaign has left so few horses, pulling a plough is now damned hard on the wife's shoulders, but did our
Basso Continuo
tell me that about Simondi to take the heat off himself and the others?

‘The
accabussade
…' muttered St-Cyr. ‘For Thérèse Godard the threat of being locked into one was real enough.'

‘And drowned?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘Spaggiari indicated Adrienne de Langlade could swim.'

‘Whereas Christiane Bissert stated positively that the girl couldn't.'

Kohler waited. After nearly two and a half years of working together, he knew Louis hadn't finished.

‘A sickle is missing from among the stage props. Xavier tried to lie about it and in the process convinced me he had done the tidying up.'

Again Kohler waited.

‘The boy hides a thick twist of Adrienne de Langlade's hair, Hermann. Dried twigs, waterweeds, sand grains and fragments of snail shells were caught in it, so the hair was taken
after
she had drowned. I took only sufficient for Peretti to match with the curl on our postcard, but visually there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.'

‘Did the boy kill her?'

‘Or find her body under the water?'

‘What now, then, Chief?'

‘The Préfecture and a file others may hope remains dosed.'

Police photographers, lacking in sensitivity, welcomed the thought of lesser beings vomiting on seeing their photos; detectives especially.

Hermann was using a waste-paper basket as a receptacle. Once, twice …
ah mon Dieu
, couldn't someone give him a brandy?

Buried up to the waist in the bottom muds, the girl had obviously been in the water a good two or three weeks before the floods of last November n to 18 had dislodged her corpse. Swept along, tumbled, dragged, her skin pierced by sticks, rusty bits of metal, broken glass, pebbles and sand, she'd been jammed among the debris – caught against an abutment of the Pont Saint-Bénézet.

Her seat was up, her legs spread at odd angles among the timbers, the rest of her half hidden. A frayed bit of rope was still tied around her right ankle but the boulder that had anchored her to the bottom was now missing.