Madrigal (22 page)

‘Adrienne de Langlade. Is it true?'

‘Very, I'm afraid.'

‘Marie-Madeleine, please go to the kitchen and bring the Inspector some refreshment. I … I have something I must say to him in private.'

‘Absinthe … The singers, they—'

‘Marie,
please
! I … I must insist.'

As the wind embraced the place de I'Horloge, Kohler stood still. Tiny blue lights would wink and duck and run but stop. Dark silhouettes would fight. Angry shouts would be tossed into the frigid air to be ripped away.

The citizens of Avignon were fighting over the branches that had been torn from their beloved plane trees. One man had a handsaw which he brandished when approached. ‘Back off! I'm warning you!' he screamed.

‘Hey, I only want to find the cinema,
L'Odyssée de la grande illusion.
'

‘
Idiot
! Who has time for that?'

‘Couldn't you just tell me?'

‘That way. Downwind. The far end of the
place.
'

‘
Merci.
'

‘Who asked you to be polite?
Piss off
!'

The fuel hunters were freezing at home and he couldn't blame them for not being happy about it. People burned everything they could these days. Sawdust was like gold. Libraries were sacrificed to the papier-mâché balls everyone made and dried. Tarmac, that was found loose and not so loose around the potholes of
les routes nationales
, was torn up, bagged and carted off in the dead of night. Furniture: chairs, tables, the bookshelves that were no longer needed.

When he reached the Kommandantur and Hotel de ville, the sounds of madly flapping canvas tarpaulins all but drowned out those of the diesel engines that told him four Fiat lorries had just come in. Von Mahler's tourer was in front of them. Had the
ratissage
been successful? Had they bagged their quota of
maquisards?

The troops were huddled inside their lorries, von Mahler's driver was scraping frost from the windscreen. ‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, my friend. How did it go?'

‘
Go?
' shouted the driver. ‘The boy wasn't with them but the tip was good. Four of the bastards. Run …
mein Gott
but they ran. Here, there, like rabbits. All dead. One screamed at us that the boy had got away, but that one died before we could question him further.'

‘What boy?'

‘Dédou Favre. The Kommandant insists Favre must have killed the girl.'

‘But … but the boy was taken well before dawn on Monday. Two days ago.'

‘
Taken?
Are you crazy? Hey,
mein lieber Schweinebulle
, we've been out in the fucking hills hunting that son of a bitch!'

‘What tip?'

‘The préfet's
Spitzel
, who else?'

De Passe's informer. Xavier … The reward had been paid. Then had it been the torture of the coal shovel for Dédou, wondered Kohler. Through broken lips and shattered teeth, had he coughed up the whereabouts of his friends? He must have, but de Passe had failed to let the Kommandant know of the arrest and interrogation.

‘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.'