St-Cyr raised his arms. She could not avoid seeing the beaker. Ah Nom de Jesus-Christ, where was Jean-Paul? ‘You were sent to school; Josianne-Michele supposedly for treatment, and so it all began, the lie of your double existence.’
St-Cyr waited. The light was so unbelievably clear over the mountains, incredible beauty and … and this. ‘Only Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi was not your natural mother. That one resented the increasing burden of what was happening to you, Josette-Louise. Two sisters, an actress, a dancer and a mannequin in Paris; yes, yes, you tried, succeeding immensely well only as the sister you had loved and accidentally killed.’
He had believed her about the accident, but would it matter? ‘It was the Madame’s birthday and Viviane my real mother, was very upset with her.’
‘Anne-Marie knew the weaver was going to kill her,’ said St-Cyr. ‘That is why she had a bobbin wrapped with russet wool in her pocket. She wanted the truth known if what she feared came to pass.’
The beaker would break as he fell. It was so very beautiful and Josianne, she had kept it hidden from her all these years and only now had let her find it. ‘Anne-Marie did not want to help my real father, Inspector, my uncle, the Inspector Jean-Paul Delphane. She wanted the money for herself.’
‘And by then you had come to hate her.’
His back was straight. He had braced his booted feet so as to better receive the arrow’s shock. The beaker would fly to pieces. Those things, they were so delicate. Like paper sometimes, thin, so thin and flashing bluey-green and gold or yellow when the sunlight touched them. ‘Yes, yes, I hated her, Inspector. She was greedy and selfish and domineering, and she had betrayed my mother for the last time.’
Dear Jesus help him. ‘Both of you were on that hillside to meet her, Mademoiselle Josette-Louise. The weaver and yourself. Bebert saw it all happen, and now the village is being held hostage.’
‘The village, yes, and … and Carlo, the maker of masks and body casts.’
‘And your mother, the weaver whom I think you love more than anyone.’
When he turned, the girl stood cautiously up, but he could not tell which of them held the crossbow. Josianne-Michele or Josette-Louise? The one would not kill him, and the other would have to.
Kohler tried to ease his aching arms. The bastard was right behind him with that gun of Louis’s. They were making their way down a central avenue among the ruins. Columns stood on either side. There were stone basins that had once held olive oil perhaps. More than a fortress or citadel, the place must have had its market. But he had no time for idle speculation. They came out into a small amphitheatre and saw at once an empty bowl with dregs of cafe blanc now frozen, and the footprints of Louis and the girl …
The wind whispered among the ruins. Overhead the sky was very blue. Delphane cocked the Lebel. ‘What’d you do to the weaver, eh?’ shouted Kohler, angrily tossing the words over a shoulder. ‘Rape her? Is that how she got the twins? Did she scream and throw her head about? Did you have to hold her down or tie her wrists and ankles to the bedposts?’
The sun threw the long shadow of the Bavarian across the snow. ‘Viviane and Anne-Marie had decided they wanted a child neither could give the other. Anne-Marie chose me.’
‘An old friend of the family, eh?’ snorted Kohler. ‘Wasn’t her father the one who made a bundle before the Stavisky Affair erupted?’
A bundle … a bundle … The Bavarian’s words were echoing. Good! A small smile would not hurt when he turned, and then the bullet in the chest – yes, yes, that would be best. Kohler ‘killed’ by the partner and friend he had come to put a stop to, Jean-Louis St-Cyr the traitor. ‘She screamed so hard we had to jam a stick between her teeth. Indeed, for myself, I thought the whole thing a piece of foolishness.’
‘But you enjoyed it,’ sighed Kohler, easing his arms a little. ‘Your kind always would.’
‘Yes, yes, keep me talking, my fine detective from Wasserburg! That is precisely what I want.’
Ah merde, the bastard wanted Louis to come out here! ‘What’d Madame Buemondi do? Sit on her lover’s head while you went at the weaver, eh? Did you have to do it several times until the fix was in? Did she enjoy watching you torture that poor woman? Did she try to kiss her as it was happening?’
‘Antagonize me, my friend. Come, come, a little more of the acid, please. Yes, I went at her several times and yes, Anne-Marie probably watched and listened! Viviane cannot stand the touch of a man but to please her lover, she would endure even that.’
‘Even murder the financier?’ hazarded Kohler, dropping his voice.
Delphane raised the Lebel. He would aim it at the centre of the Bavarian’s back instead, and would let Louis see the coup de grace. ‘The financier Stavisky. First, my friend from the other side, you must understand that Anne-Marie’s father had written in his will that all his wealth was not to go to her, but to her children.’
‘And she had none,’ snorted Kohler. ‘Ah Nom de Dieu, so much for her wanting kids by Viviane! She married the first jackass that came along, and Buemondi couldn’t believe his luck but was never able to consummate the marriage and had to lie about it.’
Kohler had shifted his weight to the left foot – he would throw himself to the right but by then it would be too late. ‘Anne-Marie’s father and others could not allow the financier to talk. Too much was at stake.’
‘So the weaver let you into the villa and gave you a key to that room.’
It could do no harm to tell him. ‘Ah yes, of course. Viviane got me into the villa just ahead of Louis and the others, but forgot to give me the key to the room the financier had locked himself into.’
‘The room she kept her daughter locked in when not at the clinic,’ sighed Kohler. ‘The girl saw her mother leave the clinic again and followed her back to the villa. Josette knows you murdered Stavisky.’
‘With Louis’s gun, yes,’ said Delphane. There was no other sound but that of his voice. Now everything was so still and Kohler’s shadow no longer moved.
‘How’d you convince the weaver to let you into that villa, eh? Her father had lost a fortune. By rights, she should have wanted him alive.’
A dry chuckle was followed by a derisive snort. ‘Viviane believed me when I told her Stavisky was going to get off scot-free.’
Slowly Kohler turned to face him and lowered his hands. ‘No, my fine, you threatened to tell the world that Josette-Louise had killed her sister.’
Delphane’s dark, bushy eyebrows arched. ‘And now, my friend? What now, eh?’
The bastard was going to shoot him. ‘Munk, my friend. Munk is down there waiting for you to bring him the leader of the “maquis”.’
The one from Bayonne shrugged. ‘Oh for sure, for me it does not matter, monsieur. Viviane will be shot, so, too, the herbalist and the hearse-driver, the abbe and the boy. All others. The black market, eh? Escapers did pass through here. But these hill people, they are nothing in the struggle ahead, and we will win it. Someday the trash you Germans have brought to France will be gone for ever.’
Louis … where the hell was Louis? ‘Bravo! One dead girl of seventeen in the cellars of the Hotel Montfleury. Hey, my fine, did you enjoy stuffing that hose up inside her, eh? One dead dancer and the drowning in mud of Angelique Girard. The laugh is that Munk let you kill that kid in the cellars, and wanted only to see how far you’d go to protect yourself!’
It was all so still. Surely he would have heard Louis and Josette? Had she killed him? ‘And now a tunnel, a passageway, Herr Kohler, that leads to freedom but,’ Delphane lifted the gun slightly, ‘but only for myself.’
‘Idiot! What passageway? If there’d been one, the Romans or the Saracens or whatever would have used it.’
‘A fissure that leads to a cavern. Josette has told me of it.’