Was there something else, then, something far more recent and equally sinister? Ah bon! St-Cyr and his partner hadn’t believed for a moment that Adrienne de Langlade had accidentally drowned. An accabussade… was that what he was thinking, the girl stripped naked and then given repeated dunkings in the river? Her piercing cries for mercy silenced only after Absolution as those who judged stood round with mud on their boots, the rain beating harder on her pale white skin, harder, the dappled light from the lanterns falling over her kneeling frame, the girl terrified and shivering uncontrollably even when in prayer, the cage ready. Her hair … her lovely hair …‘This interview is concluded, Inspector. I have duties I must attend to and unfortunately they cannot wait.’
Christ walked through lavender wearing clothing from the fourteenth century. Mary stood in the attitude of prayer wearing the same, her straw-coloured hair not the black or dark brown it might well have been. Her eyes were very blue, the plaster ‘sculptures’ garish and unforgivable.
‘It’s the Italian influence,’ Louis would have muttered, but was still probably with the bishop or wondering where the hell his partner had got to. ‘Fair hair was prized so much, Hermann, the women who could would spend hours in the sun to bleach it and tried all manner of rinses, even mule’s urine. They bleached their skins too, but covered up when attending to the hair, and wore white lead as a base to their cosmetics but couldn’t change the shade of their eyes.’
An encyclopaedia of the times, snorted Kohler silently at the thought of his partner. From floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and on table, counter and shelf, the rat hole of Les Fleurs du Petit Enfant was a carnival of objects of piety. Bits of mirror and picture glass threw back the light. Candles burned in these hard times, perfuming the air with ersatz cinnamon behind tightly drawn black-out curtains. But still there was no sign of what he’d come looking for. Portraits of the Christ Child, in violent shades, clashed with those of the Virgin who held Him but was never seen here to suckle her babe like a normal mother. And in a stable, no less!
Crucifixes of zinc had been painted silver for those foolish enough to part with ten times the price of those that had been dipped in black. Madonna-and-Child medallions were so poorly stamped they echoed the one Louis had found on Mireille de Sinéty’s dressing table.
Kohler picked up a framed portrait. Did some of them have postcards hidden behind their backings — bare breasts and curls, other things too, or was the switch made while taking the cash?
‘I can’t decide,’ he said, giving a helpless shrug to the patron who was in his late forties, short, rotund, and wearing gold-rimmed specs and a rumpled dark brown business suit. A failed novice, was that it? Life in the seminary too confining? The peach-down covered cheeks were pink and fair and had never seen the touch of a razor. Moles sprouted unclipped dark brown hairs. The greeny brown eyes had begun to water.
‘The wife’s very religious,’ said Kohler. ‘I promised to send her a little something.’
That wife of too many neglected years back home on the farm near Wasserburg had just recently got herself a divorce and had married an indentured farm labourer from France but no matter. This was Avignon where lies counted.
Dangling a Bakelite rosary in front of the patron, he grinned and asked, ‘How much?’
‘Two hundred francs.’
‘Hey, it’s a bargain. I’ll take it. Here, I’ve got lots in this canvas sack. I just came into a fortune.’
There were at least 25,000 francs in the bundle that was taken out. Armand Corbeau furtively looked over the rest of the clientele, all of whom had paused in their infernal pawing to listen as he gave up and sighed, ‘Inspector, one can’t but recognize a policeman no matter his country of origin. What can I do for you?’
A wise man. ‘A few small words into the shell of your ear, mon fin. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’
The shop emptied. In one minute, two nuns, a priest, three soldier boys with their girlfriends and a couple of ordinary citizens looking as if they were after other things had fled.
‘Papiere bitte. Schnell! I haven’t got all night.’
The residence listed on the carte d’identité was the shop, but where did he eat and sleep?
Kohler tapped the identity card with evident uncertainty before pocketing it only to hear the expected gasp of, ‘Monsieur …?’
The Kripo’s representative leaned on the counter, pushing trash aside. ‘Hey, you’d already decided it was Inspector. Use some respect. It’s Herr Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central.’
The fleshy lips quivered. Pudgy fingers hesitated but moved secretively along the back of the cash counter to a hidden push-bell.
‘Don’t! It wouldn’t be wise, now would it?’
The Gestapo … Corbeau sucked in a breath and fought with himself not to let his eyes stray from the detective’s empty gaze but the temptation was too great.
He darted a glance to the back of the shop, then waited.
‘So, we understand each other,’ breathed Kohler, enjoying getting the jump on such leeches. ‘Now you’re not to lock the front door and hang up the fermé sign. That wouldn’t be fair. You’re to leave that door open to all comers while we have ourselves a little chat.’
Darkness had come quickly. The bishop’s courtyard was pitch black, the mistral fierce and icy.
Hermann had departed with the car.
‘Ah mon Dieu …’ muttered St-Cyr uneasily to himself. No stranger to the dark, he had to admit he was afraid. Adrienne de Langlade must have been murdered — he was all but certain of this now but as yet had no final proof.
Mireille de Sinéty must have been about to confront Rivaille and the other judges with the girl’s murder or perhaps had done so.
‘And this is Avignon,’ he softly breathed. ‘An Avignon which still hungers for and exudes its past.’
He started out. It could have been six hundred years ago. The smell and sound of the dogs were there on the air. Had Hermann found Nino dead? Had Xavier taken that dog up river a piece to make certain it wouldn’t be found? Was that why Hermann had left his partner all alone?
The branches of the bishop’s plane trees were in torment. The scent of burning olive logs and coal mingled with those of sage and thyme and ah! so many things that grew wild on Mount Ventoux and elsewhere to the north. The smell of the river was there too, that of decay, of cold black mud and dead reeds, and why had that girl been drowned?
Oh bien sûr, the singers were a closed group and very protective of their positions and Adrienne had been the newcomer. And, perhaps, even last autumn Xavier’s voice would have shown signs of changing and the boy would have become increasingly desperate at the thought of losing everything.
But to kill her over something like that didn’t make sense, did it?
Reaching the courtyard gates at last, he clung to them to steady himself. By continuing to the left up the rue Sainte Catherine, he could then keep to the right and hopefully reach the Palais. Once in its shadow, there would be some relief from this infernal wind.
And from there he could strike south along the rue de Mons to that religious shop, if he could find it.
The sound of steps behind him didn’t come easily and it was some time before he realized he was being followed. Brother Matthieu, he wondered, or had the bishop or Alain de Passe sent someone else? A hired assassin?
Hermann, as keeper of their guns, had this Sûreté’s treasured Lebel hidden under the driver’s seat of the Renault. It was Hermann’s responsibility to look after the weapon and to assign it to his partner only when needed.