The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge (36 page)

‘Are you mad?’

‘No. This is the honeymoon suite, remember. I think it’s included in the price. Anyway, I gave them my personal credit card number. We’re not on the fiddle and it’s Saturday. Order another bottle, André. But remember, they think that you are now Monsieur Carpentier.’ She flung back her head and laughed.

He gave up, staggered forth into the bridal drapes and fumbled about for the telephone.

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She remained both affectionate and preoccupied throughout that long afternoon. Towards the end of the day they walked down through the vines to the woods by the lake’s edge. The dry earth crumbled under their shoes and they disturbed a hare on the brink of a tall mass of uncut maize. The creature shot away from them, its huge arched legs forming a jagged pattern as it vanished up the bank and into the golden woods. The light shivered and slid across the surface of the water and tiny waves lapped against the pebbles on the artificial beach. The hotel owned a brace of small boats, padlocked to the jetty. Schweigen and the Judge sat side by side on the warm planks, their feet hanging just above the water.

Only now did Schweigen remember what he had intended to tell her. And, mirabile dictu, they began to take up the investigation again. Whatever she thought about the impassable abyss between herself and the Composer, she still stood beside him, on the same side. The Faith, and the dismantling of its power, still bound them together.

‘Dominique, I found something in the documentation for the Foundation set up by whoever is now running the Faith. Weiß is the director of the fund, but there is a legal Deed of Trust, properly drawn up and witnessed, which names two other trustees in the event of Weiß’s demise: Professor Hassan Hamid and Friedrich Grosz.’

The Judge caught both knees with her arms and rested her chin between them. She thought for a while, but made no reply.

‘Do you think they’re creaming it off?’ André desired this with all his soul. He wanted to believe every possible ill of the Composer.

‘Did either of them sign this Deed of Trust?’

‘No. They’re just named.’

‘Then they probably know nothing about it. What is the purpose of this Foundation?’

‘I don’t know. Not yet.’

‘Then keep digging.’

‘You want me to go on?’

‘But of course.’

Schweigen shuddered, incredulous. He imagined the Judge, now coiled like a spring beside him, as the crusading saint, bearing the white banner of righteousness, the sword of justice unsheathed in her bare hands, sea-green incorruptible, and possessed of no human feelings whatsoever. She says she loves this man; yet she would put the handcuffs on him herself. He imagined her as the Grand Inquisitor – cold, ruthless, obsessed. Her next question was therefore unexpected.

‘And what, may I ask, have you told your wife this time?’

There was no animosity or judgement in her voice. She simply sounded curious. He looked at her, puzzled, and then suddenly certain that the fact he was married had mattered to her, all along.

‘The truth. That I had spoken to your Greffière who feared that you were in some sort of danger, and so I was going to find you.’

‘And what did she say to that?’

André Schweigen hesitated, sheepish, rueful.

‘She asked me if I cared about you in a way that I shouldn’t.’

‘And you replied –?’

‘That I was in love with you. That I had been in love with you for years, and that I always would love you more than anything or anyone else. I felt better saying it. That’s the truth.’

The Judge whistled and took his hand in her own. He crushed her lizard cool in his warmth. They sat side by side for many minutes without speaking. The times they had spent together rose before her. She could no longer see the shadow of parting which had haunted every encounter. The Judge heard the echoes in the simplicity of his declaration and recognised the resemblance between André Schweigen and the Composer; they were both given to extremity, generous men swept by the giant winds of irrational, powerful emotions and tempted to take mad risks. And they both trusted in truth. The truth cannot be spoken, clearly and with conviction, and remain unheard. When my love swears that he is made of truth – she stopped the thought before it formed, and wisely kept her insight to herself. They watched the mist thickening on the lake.

‘Well, André, I’m amazed. And very flattered. I have heard exactly what you said. But I will need to think about that too. And you’d better drive straight home and face the music.’

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Gaëlle sliced open the post in the office, sitting bolt upright. She had been transformed, by a mere three weeks on an Egyptian beach, into a bronzed god. Her Cleopatra haircut blocked into an exact geometry of lines and layers was held steady by the same transparent gel that had maintained the original black spikes. Her eyes, rimmed with kohl, re-created the looming gaze of Isis, and a large beaded collar, brilliant with white threaded shells, yellow ceramics, jade, onyx, and cobalt blue stones of lapis lazuli replaced the death’s heads, silver rings and chains.

‘It cost a month’s salary. Do you like it?’

‘Yes, I do. It looks unbelievably vulgar, but wonderful. You can carry it off.’ The Judge thumped her briefcase on the desk and kissed her Greffière.

‘Are you livid with me for putting Schweigen on your tail?’

The Judge paused; it had never occurred to her to be angry with someone whose only motives were loyalty and love.

‘No, of course I’m not cross. It was actually very useful to have him there in the end.’

‘There are two e-mails from him already – both marked urgent and personal and tagged with receipts. Do you want me to open them? And are you going to tell me what you were doing in Switzerland?’

‘No, I’ll read what Schweigen has to say. And yes, of course I’ll tell you, but all in good time.’ The Judge settled her glasses and peered into her screen.

Dominique – my belle-mère has moved in and I have moved out. I’m living with my brother. Please use his home e-mail. Or ring me. André.

‘Oh no. Schweigen has finally lost his mind,’ groaned the Judge.

‘What’s he done?’ Gaëlle practically leaped over the desk. The Judge closed the screen.

‘He’s left his wife.’

‘Oh no!’ Gaëlle clamped her hand across her mouth, smudging her Death-Ray Red lipstick. ‘What will you do?’

‘For the moment, nothing whatever. I’ve made no promises.’

‘Do you think it will blow over?’

‘No.’

‘Did she find out?’

‘No. He told her.’

‘He must be mad.’

‘As I said.’

And so the two women settled back to work and the rhythm of each other. The Judge hunched down over her desk to read her incoming reports and prepare the week’s interviews. An incendiary incident involving an adolescent gang on the outskirts of Béziers had led to the destruction of an entire Renault showroom. The gang, all aged under eighteen, and of encouragingly mixed ethnic origins, confessed their intention of peacefully setting fire to one or two cars on the forecourt. The spectacular blaze and accompanying fireworks were entirely unexpected, although delightful, and therefore not their fault.

‘Help me process the little shits,’ snapped her colleague. ‘You and Gaëlle can deal with the girls. I know two of them. Their social workers are already here and the police are trying to track down the parents.’

The affair made the national news. Every single member of the gang had numerous warnings and previous convictions: handbag snatching, car theft, selling drugs in class, burglary and vandalism. They had all been excluded from the local schools and were now being educated through a special scheme in a boot camp run by ex-army officers. And so the Judge had little time to reflect on her strange situation or the Composer’s proposal. But she was not easy in her mind, or even entirely certain that she knew exactly what she had agreed to consider. What alarmed her more than anything else was the sinister sensation that she had overstepped a professional line and was now standing on the brink of something unthinkable. Was she simply the chosen dupe of a powerful, charismatic lunatic? She took off her glasses. The text before her became a blur and the Composer took shape as she had last seen him, exhausted, urgent, passionate. Why had he excluded his daughter from any knowledge of the Faith? Did he in fact doubt the credo he preached with such intensity?
If anything should ever happen to me, take care of my daughter. She admires you so much. She wants to study law and to learn how to dance. She wants to be like you. I am afraid for her, Dominique. I would be easy in my mind if I knew that you would watch over her
. And that promise she had made, without reflection or hesitation, because the care of one slender, fragile girl seemed a little thing compared to the enormity of a secret faith, thousands of years old, whose nature was beyond reason or understanding. For if I studied the Faith with an open mind surely all I would see would be a fraudulent pack of cards, like a Tarot reading, specially adapted to seduce the gullible and the frail. Surely I would see what I always see – mendacity and delusion? Study the Faith? As a serious task? I cannot, I cannot. The only proofs that exist are those provided by my own senses, and they tell me that there is no other world but this, no supernatural patterns, and no destiny charted in the stars. I would have to see first, before I could believe. Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. But even then, could I ever bring myself to believe in anything irrational, mystical, uncanny? Or make myself sufficiently fanatical to convince anyone else? This is ridiculous. My job is hard enough as it is.

Dominique Carpentier no longer had any clear plan of attack against the Composer; he was obviously a madman if he thought that he could persuade ‘la chasseuse de sectes’ to become the titular head of the very sect that had given her the most trouble. Yet the Faith had proved to be the one sect that had piqued her interest and commanded her attention, precisely because it was not fraudulent or corrupt. The eerie familiarity of the Composer’s certainties confirmed one thing: the Faith existed as a wild river running parallel to the disciplined canals of orthodox monotheism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Faith was the night side of conventional belief, the Dark Host itself. How could she argue the Composer into disbelief? He had already given most of his life to the Faith. This was the peculiar problem which agitated the Judge through the days and nights that followed her wild drive to Switzerland. But she had promised to give him her answer within seven days and she intended to keep her promise.

‘What are you thinking about?’ demanded Gaëlle.

‘I was arguing with the Composer in my head,’ said the Judge, replacing her glasses. Gaëlle began to say something, thought better of it, and bit her tongue.

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One of the delinquent adolescents became suddenly violent on Wednesday afternoon and destroyed a chair and the water cooler in her colleague’s office. He was overpowered by two gendarmes and removed in handcuffs with a cagoule over his head to stop him biting his captors.

‘It’s the drugs,’ said Gaëlle, calmly trying to salvage the flood of paper cups floating on the carpet. ‘The poor lad’s probably in the withdrawal stage. And they aren’t being held in prison, so his supply’s been cut off.’

The Judge frowned upon this worldly knowledge. Wherever she looked, inadequate human beings, driven desperate by demand and desire, lashed out in perpetual protest. The Judge drew a line across the pad upon her desk.

‘I’m going home, Gaëlle, to watch something exceedingly silly on the television.’

But the world would not back away from her door. She lay down, her bare feet unfurled upon the sofa and a tall glass of apple juice in her hand, when her mobile, which she had set to Vibrate, wobbled across the glass on her cane table and threatened to explode upon her cold white tiles. If it’s Schweigen I’ll turn the damned thing off. But here is the voice of Marie-Thérèse.

‘I’m sorry I missed you at the Château last week. I’d set my heart on seeing you there. I’ve left two messages and sent an e-mail. Did you get them? Are you fearfully busy? I expect you always are. You’re mentioned in the paper as one of the judges dealing with the Renault showroom fire. Is it awful? Must be. One of the boys is only thirteen. Can I come and see you tomorrow? We’re going to London on the afternoon flight this Friday to be all ready for the concert. You are coming to London, aren’t you? Friedrich thinks you are coming. He won’t be discouraged. He keeps saying you must come and that he’s sent you the tickets. You will come, won’t you? It’s the weekend. May I take you out to lunch tomorrow? Please say yes.’