J. Janes - Madrigal

‘Christ wore a crown of thorns,’ murmured Peretti, ‘but this one bathed herself before going to her death. After the bath, an oil of some kind was used.’

‘One that she had made herself?’

‘Perhaps.’

In the pendant box, in translucent enamel, Christ was depicted on the Cross, and being lifted gently down from it. The tiny figures wore vivid colours of blue, green, red and saffron yellow. The clothing of the Virgin Mary and of Mary Magdalene and the Disciples was medieval and of a style probably worn fifty to one hundred years earlier than the Babylonian Captivity.

‘Louis the Ninth led the Seventh Crusade,’ muttered St-Cyr, his mind lost to the relic. ‘In 1250 he was defeated at El Mansura and held for ransom, after which he remained in the Holy Land until 1254. He died of the plague in Tunis in 1270, soon after landing at the head of another crusade. History has it that he purchased the Crown of Thorns from the Emperor of Constantinople.’

‘Even canonized kings can be conned,’ said Peretti dryly.

‘Ah yes, but did the bishop lend it to her? The fastener was loose as though an attempt had been made to take it back.’

And hidden away among the folds of a black habit. ‘Then you’d better ask him in the presence of those two sisters.’

‘I’ll attempt to, but first I must catch up with my partner.’

‘Then before you go, please take a look at this. It was caught in that broken fingernail.’

The image of a single hair rushed up the ocular to meet the eye — short, stiff and tan-coloured, and most probably from a dog.

‘I’ll need to make microscopic comparisons, and of sections too,’ said Peretti, ‘and for this I must have samples. But I leave the matter in your good hands lest the bishop question my sudden interest in his hounds.’

‘Be careful.’

‘You too.’

Mullioned windows, punished by hoarfrost, overlooked the place de Horloge in the centre of town. St-Cyr didn’t remove his overcoat, scarf and fedora. One seldom did these days due to the lack of heat and threat of theft. ‘A tisane of rose hips, madame,’ he called out.

‘At this hour?’ she shot back from behind the brass scrollwork of her cage. It was not yet eleven in the morning.

‘At any hour,’ he said.

Ah! A Parisian as well as a Sûreté — the blind could have sensed it; for herself, it was written all over him, but to his credit, he didn’t attempt to hide it. ‘The girl …’ began Madame Emphoux, indicating the headlines of the Occupation’s thin and tightly controlled Provençal . ‘ “Découverte du cadavre d’une jeune fille au Palais,” ’ she read the headline aloud as if for the first time. ‘Is it true, Inspector?’

She would have heard plenty by now but he met the gaze she gave, one of brutal assessment, given from under fiercely knitted brows, as if she had heard nothing. ‘True,’ he said warily.

‘Violated?’ asked the woman, leaning closely so that unclipped nasal hairs and florid cheeks unbrushed by rouge or powder were more than evident beyond the scrollwork. There was butter on the double chin. Butter ! He was certain of it. The hair was frizzy, a mop of tired auburn curls that hung over the blunt forehead. The cardigan, of wine-purple wool, had frayed holes at the elbows and was too small for her. Tightly buttoned, it gave glimpses of a turquoise blouse and a flannel shirt. ‘Violated?’ she prodded.

‘That I cannot say,’ came the still wary response, the Sûreté not budging unless … unless, perhaps, the offer of something useful was made. ‘They come here,’ she confided, her voice still low but her hard brown eyes flicking over the clientele who, disinterested or otherwise, appeared to keep entirely to themselves.

These days such a manner was mandatory. ‘They?’ he asked, giving his head a slight upward lift.

Her pudgy, ringless fingers moved things aside. ‘ Les chanteurs de Monsieur Simondi . The madrigal singers are habitués of Le Café de la mule blanche affolée. ’ The cafe of the panic-stricken white mule.

As proof, she found a greasy, sweat-stained bit of cardboard on which had been written a list of six names. Beside each one, the latest credit extended was shown next to all other additions and cancellations. Two hundred and seven francs … four hundred and thirty …‘Mademoiselle de Sinéty’s name isn’t on your list,’ he said.

‘That one seldom had the time, or the money. Nor would she beg for credit like the others. Too proud, if you ask me. She only came here if in need of one of them.’

‘And Monsieur Simondi?’

Had the Sûreté smelled trouble already? ‘Sometimes he joined them. Sometimes he took one of them away with him, or two, or three as the need demanded, the others always letting their eyes and thoughts hunger after those who were departing. He has, of course, a wife.’

The taint of trouble with that wife was all too clear. Swiftly Madame Emphoux watched him to see if her confidence had registered and when he returned nothing, she let escape, ‘An absinthe drinker.’

‘That’s impossible. It was outlawed in 1915.’

Her rounded shoulders lifted with an uncaring shrug. ‘So it was,’ she said, fingering her left cheek as if in thought, ‘but one cannot help but overhear students. Absinthe was often discussed.’

‘In relation to Madame Simondi?’

And to the students themselves? She could see him thinking this, but said simply, ‘Yes.’

Jules Pernod had had an absinthe factory at Montfavet not six kilometres to the east of Avignon … St-Cyr indicated the card with its accountings. ‘Was Madame Simondi known to all of them?’

‘Including Mademoiselle de Sinéty?’ fluted the patronne , her eyebrows knitted fiercely again.

This one was deep, thought St-Cyr, but no well should ever be overdrawn lest there no longer be water to drink. ‘Including her.’

‘Then, yes. The girl did sewing for Madame Simondi as well as for the Kommandant’s wife and others.’

A small token would have to be offered in expectation of more information later. ‘She wasn’t violated but I am curious as to why you should think she might have been.’

Now she had his ear, and now he wouldn’t give up trying to get her to whisper little things into it! ‘Because she was pretty and full of joie de vivre when so many these days are not, and because … Ah! What can one such as I say, Inspector?’

He waited. Again he held his breath — was this a sign with him, she wondered. Every muscle was tense, so, bon; oui, bon , she had him hooked. ‘Because I have seen the way others have looked at her. The singers, especially the two girls among them. Monsieur Simondi aussi — ah! One can see such a thing in a married man’s eyes, is it not possible? Brother Matthieu also, but only when she and others couldn’t see him doing so and then the eyes quickly averted.’

She compressed her lips, grunted firmly and nodded tersely.

‘And Bishop Rivaille?’ he asked, wincing at the possibility of being totally out of his depth with her.

‘That one also. From time to time in the dark of night, even the Bugatti Royale of a bishop can draw up to a café such as this and its owner enter to enquire of where he might find a young girl to mend a robe, sew on a button he has somehow misplaced, or sing a little to soothe a soul in torment. God forgives all such thoughts, is that not so, Inspector?’

The table was at the left side of the café, and halfway to the back. It was surprising how intuitively one sought such seating but, like the réfractaires , the draft dodgers of the Forced Labour, and others in trouble with or simply avoiding the Occupier and the Vichy police, one tended automatically to sit where one could observe and yet blend into the crowd. It was never customary for a patron or patronne to give credit to students and seldom if ever to others, so there had to be a little something on the side, but one didn’t ask of such things. One sat quietly minding one’s business and, in between one’s thoughts, observed.