‘What did you do, Jane?’ Joe asked, trying not to smile.
‘It’s not funny, Commander! Girls, even hard-boiled ones like Estelle, can be psychologically damaged by such evidence of rejection by their peers, you know … I told her if she didn’t undo it at once and be nice, someone might think of putting a snake in hers.’
‘That was telling her,’ said Joe.
‘If it was, she wasn’t listening. Cecily did it anyway as soon as my back was turned.’
Joe swallowed uneasily. ‘And …?’
‘There’s a nest of adders on the fringes of the woodland.’ Jane grinned. ‘We’ve had no trouble with Cecily since.’
‘I sincerely hope the snake suffered no psychological damage,’ said Joe faintly. ‘An enforced appearance in Cecily’s bed could leave its mark on man or beast.’ He instantly regretted his startled aside.
Jane considered him through narrowed eyes. ‘I say again, Commander-it’s not funny.’ She waggled a finger at him in joking reprimand. ‘Interview over, I think.’
She began to collect up the teacups in a marked manner and added: ‘But I was forgetting-when it comes to gathering information, Joe, you hardly need to listen to me. You’re on the inside of the bend! Estelle’s cold lips may yet whisper into your attentive ear. I’m sure you’ll listen to her.’
Jacquemin would not appreciate a second female corpse appearing on his patch, Joe judged, so he decided to put off strangling Jane Makepeace for the moment. Really, he’d rather listen to the dead Estelle than the very much alive and unfortunately named Miss Makepeace.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Avignon, Friday
Estelle was a silent sheeted figure, conveying nothing when Joe was shown into the room of the institut médico-légal where her body lay on a channelled marble slab. The pathologist had accepted the handwritten note of introduction from Jacquemin with a surprised and slightly amused lift of the eyebrow.
The hand he extended to Joe was rough and warm, the eyes friendly, as he introduced himself. Lemaître was an ex-army doctor, middle-aged, confident and direct. The perfect antidote to his gloomy and dripping surroundings.
‘Ah! The Entente Cordiale at work at last,’ he said. ‘I wondered if we would ever see such a thing.’
‘Well, it’s not much of an entente and I would hardly call it cordiale,’ said Joe with a rueful grin.
‘No. We Frenchmen are fond of the sea. We particularly appreciate the bit that separates us from Albion.’ The doctor returned his grin. ‘And I’ve worked with Commissaire Jacquemin,’ he added and was content not to embroider on his comment.
‘First things first.’ The doctor took a bulky paper bag from a locker and handed it to Joe. ‘The Commissaire asked us to return to you everything we found on her body for his further inspection instead of putting it into storage here. You’ll find everything in there. All the items found were removed, catalogued and put away by my assistant before the autopsy. He’s meticulous. They’ve been finger-printed, combed and swabbed, as appropriate. Make what you will of it.’
He drew the sheet down to uncover Estelle’s face. ‘Well, here she is. All done. I’ve even got the report typed out. I had my secretary come in at six this morning. I had the impression that there was some urgency?’
‘There may be danger of a repeat performance,’ said Joe.
‘Ah? The English crime? Multiple slayings? Slaughter on the streets? I wouldn’t be so sure. Your bloke is no Jack the Ripper! I’ve never seen a neater, more effective wound. If anyone back there needs to know-she didn’t suffer. Was probably hardly aware of what was happening to her. What you haven’t got here is a maniacal sex-driven disembowelling and mutilation. But tell me, detective-served up on an altar tomb top? How can that have come about?’
‘We have some theories which I won’t expound in case what you have to tell me subsequently makes them sound ridiculous,’ said Joe. ‘You go first! And perhaps we could well start with how she got there. Was she was stabbed in the place and position in which she was discovered?’
‘No doubt about that. The blood had sunk down and found its level.’ He delicately turned the sheet down further and pointed. ‘Gravitational discoloration. You see the dark blue tide line? The lividity shows the body had not been moved after death. She died where you found her. And the estimated time of death Jacquemin gave me is as exact as is possible to give. He rightly calculated that she died in the late afternoon or early evening of the day before. I was informed of the ambient temperature of the chapel and took that into consideration. It’s all in my report. Calculations and all. Do I need to mouth the usual caveats?’
‘No. Not at all. Bodies cool in the same way in London. At annoyingly variable rates.’ Joe smiled. ‘And the wound itself? Anything of interest?’
‘As I say-neat. Strong wrist on him, whoever it was. Though perhaps I should stress the precision? We should remember that her flesh offered little resistance-rather a skinny girl-and the nightdress she was wearing was old and fragile. The blade, being some eight inches long, wasn’t engaged to the hilt. Just the right length of steel used. All the same-we have a transfixing wound. In the region of the right ventricle. Death within seconds, possibly hastened by cardiac tamponade.
‘But now you’re here you can tell me: on which side of what we will call “her husband” was she lying?’
Joe explained that she was on the warrior’s right side and that the girl’s right lay next to the aisle of the chapel. He demonstrated.
‘I see. Then we can add-precise right wrist. I’m assuming the killer stood in the aisle and leaned over her prone body-up to you to find out why she kept still and let him-and dealt the blow like this.’ The doctor mimed. He transferred an imaginary dagger to his left hand and tried again. ‘Awkward. Unnatural. And you’d expect a corresponding change in the orientation of the blade. East-west instead of north-south. A left-hander could have approached from behind, I suppose …’ He changed position and repeated the killing stroke over Estelle’s head. ‘It seems very unnatural to me. But then, sticking a blade into a lovely girl like this from any angle seems unnatural to me.’
‘Could the blow have been delivered two-handedly, like this?’ Joe asked.
‘Yes. Entirely possible. The handle is quite long and stout, you see, with a good grip on it. To allow for use by a gauntleted hand. But I was assuming that your bloke would need to keep one hand free to control the victim and stab with the other. Why would the girl just lie there and watch a blade descending on her? She’d have rolled away. She’d have tried to defend herself. You noticed there were no scratches or cuts on her hands and arms?’
He took the murder weapon from a tray under the table and handed it to Joe. ‘Take it. It’s clean. The print chaps have finished with it. Nothing apparent-rubbed clean, they say. It’s not as old as you might have thought, by the way. These things came into use in the 1300s but this is a copy. Probably Italian work, 1600 or so.’
‘Yes, it falls naturally and comfortably into one’s hand,’ said Joe. ‘Excellent quality.’
‘Had to be. Those things were in the hands of butchers. Battlefield executioners who’d spend hours despatching the enemy wounded. Delivering the coup de grâce.’ The pathologist smiled. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you haven’t worked out for yourself yet, am I? Never mind. I’ll plough on with the reassuring thought that I have at least one surprise for you …