Madrigal (9 page)

Von Mahler was in his early forties, but was the expression always so severe, the frown so constant? The dark brown hair was crinkly and cut short. The wide-set eyes under knitted brows were iron-grey, the lips firm in resolve and slightly turned down at their corners as if to silently cry out, Don't you dare involve me.

He'd probably been an academic in civilian life, an economist in the military until the war had torn him from his desk. Good at polo and the steeplechase – he had that look about him. He'd have got to know the powers that be among the French in Avignon and the Vaucluse. He'd have made a point of that. ‘Herr Oberst, what can you tell me about the night of the murder?'

‘What have the others told you?'

No cigarettes were in evidence, no ashtrays either. ‘The others?' asked Kohler.

‘Rivaille, de Passe and Simondi.'

‘Very little, and I've yet to speak to the singing master.'

‘Then you'd better. It was Simondi's idea to hold yet another of his infernal auditions. I refused to sit in on it. I'm not competent to judge such things. To me Mireille was an absolutely beautiful musician. Pure magic. A natural.'

‘This audition, Colonel. If you refused …'

‘I did.'

‘Then who took your place?'

‘I've no idea. Simondi may, for all I'm aware, have cancelled it yet failed to notify Mireille.'

There it was again. Not Mademoiselle de Sinéty or even the girl, but Mireille, one of the family. ‘The concierge says no audition was planned.'

‘Then it had been cancelled.'

‘Could she have gone there to meet someone?'

‘I'd spoken to her about the boy she was infatuated with. I'd told her it was foolish of her to even think of him and that she had best, for all our sakes and particularly that of herself, keep her distance.'

One of the
maquis
, then, as de Passe had said. ‘And how did she greet this advice?'

‘With fortitude and with that inherent practicality both my wife and I found so engaging. She wasn't ordinary, Inspector. She was extraordinarily gifted and, in another age, would have been the daughter of a nobleman, the wife of a king.'

Subconsciously a fist had been clenched. Irritably a hand was now passed over the crinkly hair to hide the fact, thought Kohler wryly.

‘She was extremely well versed in the city's past and very much wanted others to see it as she did. Heroic in spite of the pit of sin, the “sewer” of Petrarch.'

Von Mahler hadn't demanded to know if he and Louis had discovered anything. Instead, he had avoided asking. ‘Colonel, in the course of our enquiries might we talk to your wife?'

Verdammt
! The insolence of the police. Could Kohler not take the hint? ‘Absolutely not. There's no need. You'd only upset her and I can't have that.'

‘But an independent view? A German view? The girl may have confided things or let something slip.'

‘Ingrid sees no one but the staff and myself, and that, my dear
Hauptmann Detektiv Inspektor
, is an order.'

Okay, okay. ‘Then can you tell us anything you think might be useful, apart, that is, from questioning Bishop Rivaille, the préfet and the singing master?'

Would Kohler now leave things well enough alone? ‘Just start with Simondi. He's a superb musician in his own right.'

‘He owns a cinema.'

The concierge of the Palais must have informed Kohler of this. ‘He owns several – both here and in Orange, Aries and Aix. In smaller centres too. He operates theatres as well and has additional properties either under option or outright ownership. He's a very astute businessman, Inspector, but music, not money, is the guiding passion of his life.'

‘A hobby,' muttered Kohler. And among the
petite bourgeoisie? Merde
, did the Colonel take this Kripo for an idiot?

A faint grin wouldn't be remiss, thought von Mahler. ‘Far more than a hobby. He's extremely gifted and therefore intense when it comes to his music. Mireille was very loyal to her teacher and grateful for his help. “He believes in me,” she would say to my wife. “He says I'm almost there.”'

And kept on the hook, was that it, eh, but for what purpose? ‘So, an audition was planned for the night of Monday 25 January. You were asked to sit in as the third judge but refused. Concierge Biron attended your
soldaten-kino
to take in a screening of
The Grapes of Wrath
and didn't check through the Palais, as the bishop always insisted, until well after twenty-two hundred hours, after which, Colonel, he went to notify Brother Matthieu and then Bishop Rivaille but could locate neither of them.'

‘And why was that?'

A coldness had entered von Mahler's voice, a stiffness. Had it been a warning to push this particular part of the matter no further? wondered Kohler, not liking the thought. ‘No reasons were given, Herr Oberst.' This was a lie, of course. Rivaille had been at a dinner party to discuss the concert the madrigal singers were to give, and then the tour. Aix, Marseille, Toulon and Aries had been mentioned by Salvatore Biron. But a dinner party with whom? The Colonel and his wife – was that it, eh?

‘Then is there anything else I can do for you at present?' asked von Mahler. ‘I've a busy afternoon ahead and must check in on my wife and children before we head out into the hills.'

After
Banditen? Un ratissage?
wondered Kohler. A ‘raking' of the countryside – Kommandants didn't usually do such things, but he had mentioned the boy the victim had been infatuated with. ‘I can't think of anything, Herr Oberst. Both my partner and I appreciate the help.'

A hand was extended, the typical salute, Heil Hitler and the crashing of jackbooted heels, not given, the lie of not thinking of anything to ask accepted.

The Balance Quartier, lying between the Palais and the river, was desperately in need of renovation. Shoulder-to-shoulder slum houses of two and three storeys surrounded once lovely inner courtyards. The years of siege, the visitations of the plague – wars, fires and utter poverty – had left many of them ramshackle and ready to be torn down.

Though Sister Agnès had roundly condemned it, Number 63 rue du Rempart du Rhône was better than most and had, at the rear of the house, a square tower that rose a storey above the other two so that its windows overlooked both the river to the west and the courtyard and the Palais to the east.

‘Our victim chose well, Hermann,' said St-Cyr. ‘Plaster over the holes, replace the shutters, fix the chimneys and roof tiles and
voilá
, you will have the fourteenth-century villa of a merchant, the scant remains of whose coat of arms suggest an importer of cloth.'

Carriage entrances were to the left and right – great, solid, weathered oaken doors with rusty driftpins. All windows at ground level were tightly shuttered, though some of the slats had disappeared. On the floor above, some windows had closed curtains. In others, these had been drawn aside. In one, there were pots of herbs and green onions the frost had killed. In another, a caged rabbit was trying not to think of things as it awaited the stew pot.

The concierge, grey and toothless, her hair pinned in a tight chignon, was in tears. ‘Inspectors!' she wailed. ‘Who would do such a thing?'

A tattered black lace shawl was pulled tightly about the tiny shoulders. More tears fell and then she said accusingly, ‘What is Thérèse to do?'

‘Thérèse?'

‘Oui. Her assistant. The girl can't sew without her fingers being guided.
Mon Dieu
, how could she carry on such work? A girl with a dead mother and a father who has fortunately been absent all her life except for the moment of conception? Mademoiselle Mireille was teaching her. Painstakingly, I must add!'

Tears were abruptly wiped away but then, of a sudden, the woman turned aside and broke down completely. ‘Forgive me,' she blurted. ‘The child was like a daughter. Her throat slashed! Ah let me get my hands on
his
filthy throat. I will wring his neck like a chicken's!'

A doubter of all such outbursts, Kohler looked up at the ceiling to where flaking paint and ancient wallpaper threatened to join the plaster as it caved. ‘The key, Louis. Ask her for it.'

‘Thérèse is up there waiting for her to return,
monsieur
!. Always I've seen the way he has secretly watched the tower room from the ramparts. Always he has stood clothed in darkness while he planned to steal her little capital.'

Ah
nom de Dieu
. ‘Who, madame?' asked Louis.

She raked them with a savage look. ‘He took it, didn't he?'

Her virginity. ‘No. No, she remained pure to the last.'

‘Ah
grâce à Dieu.
' The bosom was hastily crossed, the fingertips kissed and then the black beads of an ancient rosary were sought and also kissed.

‘Who?' repeated St-Cyr.

They had both crowded into her
loge
. ‘I …' She threw them a tortured look. ‘I … I don't know. I spoke out of grief. You … you can see how distressed I am.'

Kohler sighed and then said, ‘Withholding information is a criminal offence. We'll have to see that she's charged, Louis. Otherwise she'll only set a bad example.'

‘Dédou Favre. The one who is wanted by the authorities so much that Monsieur le Préfet has the house watched constantly.'

‘Her lover, Louis. The boy the bishop was trying to get her to give up. The Kommandant spoke of him. De Passe told me he had agreed to look the other way while Rivaille worked on her.'

A ‘terrorist'. One of the
maquis
. ‘And you think he killed her, madame?' asked Louis pleasantly.

‘She said he would misunderstand and that for him, it would be enough.'

‘Misunderstand what?' asked St-Cyr.

‘The attentions of others. Those of the madrigal singers of Monsieur Simondi, and of that one
aussi
. What they want, they take. A girl's virtue is nothing to such as them, and she was totally aware of this. “Dédou will be insanely jealous,” she said. “He will think that in joining the group I've succumbed, that even I can be led astray in order to advance my career.”'

And in Avignon such jealousy was cause enough for murder. History was replete with the evidence.

‘Inspector, that was one of the reasons she wouldn't leave this house to take up the lodgings Bishop Rivaille had arranged for her. She also said, “Here I keep my independence. Here I can stand on the side of what is right as I reach out to clasp the true hand of God.” Every day, on waking, she would make that little vow to herself as she gazed up at the Palais. A saint.'

The German lit a cigarette for her and left her two others for later. ‘Thérese?' he asked. His voice was gentle for one so formidable and with the mark of a terrible scar down the left cheek – how had he got it? she wondered.

‘Barbed wire,' lied Kohler. ‘The Great War. My partner and I were enemies then, but we're friends now.'

The other scars from that war were much older, except for the graze across his brow which was still very fresh. ‘Thérèse hasn't eaten, hasn't slept, nor will she listen to me, messieurs. Please do what you can for her. Mademoiselle de Sinéty would wish this of us all.'

‘Won't the sisters take her in?' asked St-Cyr, only to see the woman's expression tighten and to hear her rasp, ‘The sisters? You mustn't ask them to do that. Not until you've brought the one who did this terrible thing to justice.'

‘But … but you've just told us Dédou Favre must have killed her in a jealous rage.'

She gave him a piercing look. ‘One can still be wrong, is that not so, Inspector? And if I am wrong, why then it would have to have been someone else.'

Pure logic. ‘But the sisters?' snorted Kohler in disbelief.

‘Have among them, messieurs, the disease of those who are capable, especially if they believe it is God's work.'

‘Did Sister Marie-Madeleine come here often?' asked St-Cyr.

Had this one from the Sûreté seen it too, the bond between Mireille and her friend? ‘Often enough and not always with one of the other sisters, though it is their rule to go two by two when escaping the tight embrace of their walls.'

Thérèse Godard was about fifteen years old – thin, frail, not healthy-looking at all. ‘Tuberculosis …?' breathed Kohler – the door had been left open.

‘The flu …' cautioned Louis, perturbed that God should do such a thing to them at a time like this.

She was shivering, was sitting at a cutting table, staring emptily at an upturned pair of dove-grey woollen gloves whose fingers, especially in these days of so little fuel, had been cut away at the first joint.

Gently Kohler spoke her name. She tossed her head. ‘Mireille …?' she managed, only to see the two of them and to turn swiftly away.

The auburn hair, once curled, was unkempt. ‘I'll take her downstairs to madame, Louis. See what you can make of this clutter.'

‘It is not clutter!' blurted the girl angrily. ‘Everything is in its place just as we kept it. They came. They searched. They did that to her privacy but I … I have put things back exactly as we kept them.'

Ah
merde
…‘De Passe, Louis?'

‘The police,' she managed.

Kohler dug into a pocket and dragged out the wrist-watch he had found in the victim's purse. ‘Was this hers?'

The girl buried her face in her employer's gloves and wept.

‘Sorry … Look, I'm sorry,' he said gently. ‘Please forgive me.'

‘Xavier gave that to her. She needed a watch and he … he said he could get her one.'

The shepherd boy.

The rooms – there were two of them – opened into each other through double doors that had been permanently flung wide. In a far corner, a spiral staircase led up to the tower.

Rescued, pieced together, were the stone fragments of letters which had once been a part of the coat of arms. ‘De Sinéty …' exhaled St-Cyr. The time, the diligence needed to gather and fit the artefacts together said much about the victim. A scattered collection of pieces, obviously uncovered from courtyard and cellar excavations, yielded a bent and much corroded ducat, the remains of an ancient pair of shears, those also of fourteenth-century clothing pins and clasps, and those of what must have been the original keys to the house.