‘What time was her audition set for?’
‘Ten o’clock, I think.’
‘Why so late?’
‘Other commitments, perhaps. Really, Inspector, I couldn’t possibly know — none of us could. Bishop Rivaille dined with César and the Kommandant, and that one’s wife. I … Ah! Forgive me. That sounds as if we did know.’
She forced a faint smile he ignored. Damn him …
‘Who, then, was the third judge? The Kommandant has told us he had refused.’
So don’t try to suggest him — was that it? ‘Why not ask César?’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
Her tone of voice had been desperate. ‘Try,’ he breathed.
‘Monsieur le Préfet or … or Madame Simondi. Others, too. I … I wouldn’t know, Inspector.’
‘Who let the victim into the Palais?’
Merde, why must he be so difficult? ‘She had a key. Didn’t your partner find it when he discovered her things in the Latrines Pit?’
‘Who told you he’d discovered anything there?’
‘I …’ She felt herself blanching, and swallowed hard. ‘I can’t remember. Monsieur Biron, perhaps. Yes. Yes, it must have been him.’
The concierge. ‘Who gave her that key?’
‘Brother Matthieu, I think. Yes … Yes, I’m sure it was him.’
‘Tell me what you know of the boy Mademoiselle de Sinéty was in love with.’
Like the absinthe, he had abruptly left the matter of the key so as to unsettle her. ‘Dédou? I hardly knew him. He … he was of the age of the troubadors, I think. A throwback, you understand, and fiercely so. He was her mother’s shepherd among … among other things but … but had joined the …’
Again her head was bowed, this time as if she’d known she had said too much and was truly shaken. ‘The …?’ he asked gently.
‘The maquis. Mireille always said he was very possessive of her and insanely jealous.’
A killer, then, was that it, eh? He scoffed inwardly but asked, ‘Would she have planned to meet him in the Palais after her audition?’
Now she must look up at him and her answer must come softly. ‘Yes. Yes, she could well have planned this. Dédou, he … he didn’t want her to join our little group, nor did he like Bishop Rivaille’s having arranged for her to live in this house with the rest of us. Marius is very handsome and … and so is Guy.’
Two of the male singers.
The detective turned abruptly away from the windows and, walking over to her dressing table, sat down before its mirror to look at her reflection in it.
She met his gaze. He didn’t ask more of Dédou. Instead he asked, ‘Have there been others who aspired to join your little group?’
‘Others since when?’ she heard herself bleating.
‘Within the past year, perhaps.’
Ah no, how had he learned of it? ‘One,’ she said faintly.
‘Only one?’
‘Yes! She … she didn’t work out either.’
He removed his pipe and, searching for an ashtray, found none. ‘What happened to her, Mademoiselle Bissert?’
His tone of voice had been très insistant and he’d come to stand in front of her, looking down at the crown of her head. ‘I … I don’t know, Inspector.’
‘Look at me when you say that.’
Ah Jésus, sweet Jésus … ‘She died. She was …’
‘Murdered?’ he asked, dropping his voice.
Vehemently she shook her head. ‘She drowned in the river. She couldn’t swim.’
He waited. He forced her to gaze up at him through her tears and when he asked, ‘What colour was her hair?’, she blanched and said, ‘Her hair? Why, please, do you ask?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Red … it was distinctly reddish. A … a strawberry blonde.’
The men, the boys, were in the wardrobe room, unseen as yet among the maze of hanging cloaks and capes and headless mannequins that wore the brightly coloured costumes of six hundred years ago. Kohler could hear them softly calling out to him, presumably as they put away the clothes they had worn to change into others. Everything in the room Mireille de Sinéty had made and he couldn’t help but note the sacrifice, her utter dedication to reawakening the past.
‘You took a clochette from Xavier,’ said one.
‘That boy sleeps with the dogs,’ said another.
‘Is of the dogs.’
‘His voice departs.’
‘Oh futile love!’
‘He dreads its absence.’
‘Longs for its return.’
‘Kisses the bishop’s ring.’
‘Prays for his life here with us.’
‘With us.’
‘With us.’
There was silence. And when Kohler found the shepherd boy’s costume for that day, he knew Xavier wasn’t present. Letting his fingers trail down over the shimmering sky blue of a satin cape that was edged with gold embroidery, he saw that there were six coal black cassocks nestled beside it. Any of them could have been worn to the Palais on the night of the murder, and so much for the clot of black wool Peretti had found in the victim’s hair.
‘A bird’s nest was found,’ sang out one of the three.
‘Her locks were cut,’ sang out another.
‘Her boots cast down.’
‘Her overcoat.’
‘Her purse.’
‘A key … had she a key?’
‘Who let her in?’
‘A key.’
‘A key.’
More silence followed, while softly now, the scent of musk, of clary sage and verbena came to him. Other things too … Scents Louis could easily have identified, but Louis wasn’t here. He was still upstairs with Christiane Bissert.
‘Extreme Unction was called for,’ sang out one — the bass.
‘Two sisters accompanied the corpse,’ sang out another — the tenor.
‘To the morgue,’ gave the baritone.
‘She was undressed.’
‘Has no modesty now.’
‘Is of the thorn.’
‘A thorn was found.’
‘The thorn of Christ.’
‘But not the hair.’
‘The Virgin’s hair.’
‘The hair.’
‘The hair …’
An unlaced bodice revealed an underdress whose rose-coloured silk was as of lingerie.
It was being fondled by fingers as calloused and sure as those of a fourteenth-century stonemason who had made mischief with the count’s wife. The jet black hair was thick and wavy and fell to broad shoulders. The eyes were a dark olive brown, the gaze level.
‘Inspector, I’m Marius Spaggiari.’
‘And I’m Norman Galiteau,’ sang out another well to Kohler’s left.
‘I, Guy Rochon,’ came from far to the right and still unseen.
Two faces only, thought Kohler, and this one still fingering the bodice as if to now seduce the lady-in-waiting.
‘Basso Continuo,’ said Spaggiari.
‘Baritono,’ said Galiteau, his chin resting on pale white hands atop a mannequin’s wooden neck-knob and wearing wire-rimmed spectacles that made his cherubic face appear rounder, the inquisitive smile even more mischievous.
‘E io sono il Tenore,’ said Guy Rochon, the third and youngest of the three, suddenly appearing.
‘Look, let’s just find us a place to talk.’
‘But we are of this?’ hazarded Spaggiari.
‘And this is what you must understand,’ said Galiteau.
‘Slaves to the past, we can never leave it.’
St-Cyr resisted the urge to show the postcard to Christiane Bissert. He let her worry over how he and Hermann had found out about the strawberry blonde, would leave her now.
‘Inspector …?’ she blurted as he reached the door to her bedroom. ‘Don’t you want to know the girl’s name?’
The white, laced bodice of the cote-hardie rose a little as she took a deep breath and held it.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If you must.’
She cringed at the put-down. ‘Adrienne de Langlade. Like Genèvieve, her family lived in the north but not in Beauvais, in Paris. They still do, I guess. She and Madame Simondi used to talk about the city for hours. Fouquet’s, Maxim’s, the rue Royale …’