Barbara Cleverly - Strange Images of Death

The coffee arrived before the volumes and was served in heavy green china from the local café. A basket of croissants was a blissful sight to a man who’d not yet had time for breakfast and Joe helped himself with pleasure.

When the six bound copies of La Voix appeared on a trolley, Rozier handed the 1906 volume to Joe and himself took the 1911 one, sitting next to him at the table. ‘Twice as fast this way. We’ll start at opposite ends. If you can keep up a reasonable speed, we should meet up in July 1908. Now tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

‘I’m interested in a news item for a very particular area. Somewhere between here and Apt.’

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s not Chicago! The inhabitants tend to lead God-fearing, well-ordered, excruciatingly dull lives. Try the centre pages first. “News from the Villages” section.’

Joe leafed swiftly through his volume and grimaced. ‘See what you mean! Pig-rustling and chicken-snatching would appear to be the crimes of the month. We’re looking for the week announcing the programme for the Bastille Day jollifications, remember. I’ve finished with this one. Pass me the next lot, will you?’

Rozier was working more slowly, constantly distracted by news items that rang a bell with him. ‘Good God! So that’s how the turd got started! You’d never credit what heights this chap’s risen to! Député now … Before my time, of course … Ah! Storms over the area-that’s what buggered up the vintage …’ His comments were salted with a vocabulary Joe hadn’t heard since the trenches.

And then: ‘Well, here’s the programme for 1911. July 7th. Opera and plays on at the theatre … folklore extravaganza on the Rocher des Doms, gypsy bands, dancing-wouldn’t you guess? — on the Pont Bénézet. Grand parade on the day itself. Now what are we really looking for?’

‘Any reference to a priest by the name of Father Ignace. I need to know in which village he had his cure of souls.’

‘Is that it? Couldn’t you just have looked him up in whatever lists the Church keeps? They must know where their blokes are.’

‘Well, apart from the fact that I have very little time available to me and you know with what speed the wheels of the Church turn when they’re determined not to be helpful, I don’t think my enquiries would get anywhere. Bit of an obstacle been raised …’ he said conspiratorially. ‘Whoever he was or is, this priest has been effaced from the records.’

‘Oh, ho! One of those! No. Sorry. You won’t find any record of him in here either then,’ he said firmly, but Joe noticed that he was continuing to lick one long bony finger and scan the pages as he turned them. ‘Catholic city, you know. The new Vatican in the new Rome from the fourteenth century when the popes took up residence here.

The Palace has always been the heart of the city, a mighty and controlling presence. Anything disrespectful about the clergy just wouldn’t get through on to the pages. A curé could go berserk, slaughter half his parishioners and rape the rest and you wouldn’t read about it. Now, a bad olive harvest … Oh, Good Lord! Look here!’

The long finger was pointing to the centre.

‘“Mysterious disappearance of priest from village”,’ he read. ‘That’s the headline.’

The much-loved curé of the church of St Vincent-les-Eaux, near Avignon, has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Villagers report they had no warning of his departure and his superiors are unable to state what has happened to him or where he has gone.

It is understood that no steps had been taken to replace him or redeploy him.

His distraught housekeeper claims that the young priest, 29-year-old Father Ignace, who is as good as a son to her, had packed none of his things and had not called for his suitcase to be made ready.

Father Ignace, a renowned scholar and musician of note, is a lively and popular member of his village community and will be sadly missed, in particular by the young people to whom he was especially close.

‘Heavens!’ said Joe. ‘Rozier, you replace one question with a dozen others! But I have what I was seeking-the name of the village. Now I can find traces of the young girl who was in his confirmation class in 1906. A certain Laure of St Vincent-les-Eaux! She’s firming up. I’m getting close now.’

The editor snorted, reading the article again. ‘Now how in hell did the old bugger get this one through?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The pre-war editor, old Goutière. He took some risks! Must have stirred up a hornets’ nest. He was in his last year here when I signed on. A raging red! Communist sympathies, you know. Anti-monarchist, anti-Church. You name it-he was against it. But especially the Church. He hated the authorities. Always scrapping with them. Getting back at them by inserting bits of innuendo like this one.’

‘Innuendo?’ said Joe. ‘What am I not seeing?’

‘Look at the last bit: “lively … popular … missed by the young … especially close …” Shorthand for taking advantage-sexually no doubt-of the young things under his influence. It had to be hand-under-the-skirt-stuff-I doubt fiddling with their minds would have got old Goutière excited. Everybody in the area would know how to interpret this but-clever old sod-there’s nothing there that could trigger a legal challenge.’

‘But the Church must have put the boot in,’ said Joe, ‘since this is the one and only reference to the priest. No follow-up, I’m told. Though it’s not all that damaging. I’m surprised they got so hot under their collars.’

The editor had fallen silent, distracted. The finger pointed to a further column, level with, but at one remove from, the article about Father Ignace.

‘What did you say the girl’s name was?’ he asked.

‘Laure.’

‘Ah. Not the same one then. But all the same, this is interesting. And may be exactly what upset the Church!’ He grinned. ‘Cheeky bugger! Do you see what he’s done? On the same page! Look at the headline! “Mysterious disappearance of young girl from village”. And-wouldn’t you know-it’s the same village! The depopulation of St Vincent-les-Eaux? Is that what we’re looking at? Anyway, it’s not your girl. It’s plain Marie-Jeanne Durand who shows a clean pair of heels. Anxious parents call in the police, reporting the disappearance of their daughter. Ah-now she had packed a case. Her friends claim Marie-Jeanne gave them no reason to believe she was about to abscond.

‘… Watch being kept at railway stations … Public asked to be on the alert for a five-foot-three-inch, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed, seventeen-year-old. Well, that narrows the field to about ten thousand! And-here it is! — Marie-Jeanne was a member of the church and had been prepared for her communion by the village priest, Father Ignace, to whom she was thought to be very close. If she’d had something on her mind, she would certainly have confessed her problems to him. Father Ignace was unavailable for comment on the disappearance of his young parishioner.’

‘Due to his own mysterious disappearance.’

‘And the fact that he was himself most likely her problem.’ Rozier sighed gustily. ‘Bloody hell! It’s Abélard and Héloïse all over again. Young girl falls for unattainable man. They will do it!’ He shook his head in despair. ‘I expect he’ s joined the Foreign Legion and she’s a worn-out tart plying her trade on the streets of Paris by now. Have you got what you want?’

‘More than I want,’ said Joe, grasping the editor’s hand. ‘Sadly, much more. Monsieur Rozier, let me thank you for your excellent coffee, your life-saving croissants, your welcome and your invaluable help. I think you could just have ruined at least three lives.’