Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

‘You can handle it. It’s been sterilized.’

‘Why would you need to do that?’ asked Joe, cautiously.

‘I removed it from the bloodied bandage lodged in the throat of the corpse of Professor Joachim Lebreton. It was sticky with various body fluids and an oil that had been used to ease the descent of the fabric down the tubes.’

‘Charming!’ Joe took the golden object gingerly and held it to the light between finger and thumb. ‘An amulet?’

‘No. Not my job, of course, to establish the provenance of exhibits but no one else seemed interested enough to do it. In the police report it’s listed as “imitation gold medallion, value 5 francs”. It would have been chucked out after a year but I was curious enough to preserve it. Oh, it’s not valuable. It’s not even ancient. A modern copy — gilded. Crudely done. Anyone with a bit of tin, a chisel and a pot of gold paint could produce the equivalent. Any mouleur-plaquiste could churn them out by the hundred. But you’d need to know your Egyptology. This is a bona fide, head and shoulders portrait, you might say.’

‘It’s a disgusting image! Whoever is this fellow? Or is it an animal?’ Joe peered more closely. ‘It seems to be half god, half bad-tempered greyhound. I know just enough to recognize that it’s not the rather stylish jackal -headed god, Anubis.’

‘You’re right. But he is a god all the same. And at one time widely venerated in Egypt. It’s the son of Ra and brother of Osiris.’

Joe shook his head. ‘We’re not acquainted. Don’t particularly wish to be.’

‘You show good taste! His name’s Set. Set murdered his brother and scattered his body parts all over Egypt. He debauched his own nephew Horus. In his capacity as Lord of the Desert, he had the power to stir up terrible storms. For the Ancient Egyptians, Set was utterly terrifying — the embodiment of Evil. The God of Evil.’

Joe put the gilded trinket back into its box. ‘I’m bringing no charge, Moulin. Let’s just keep the lid on him, shall we?’

Moulin, smiling, agreed. ‘And why don’t you take him away with you? I think I was just hanging on to him until someone who knew what he was about took an interest. You know, Sandilands, I think the purpose of that thing was to drop a hint as to motive for the crime. Out of the victim’s mouth came evil? Something on those lines? Again — no suspect was ever arrested. But, bearing in mind the closed circumstances, you’d have to say — an inside job. The man had many enemies. Archaeologist himself, he’d been ruthless in his acquisition of artefacts and had plundered his students’ and his fellows’ learned works for his own glory. He’d wrecked promising careers by his vitriolic criticism, his sly innuendoes. At least fifty academics must have raised a glass on hearing about the circumstances of his death. Now, they couldn’t all have been present at the discovery of the body but, Sandilands, a good many were. It never occurred to anyone pursuing the case to ask why so many experts, all known to the deceased, were right there on the spot.’

The doctor fell silent. Then: ‘There was a moment. . When the amulet emerged, it dropped to the floor. Someone fainted at the sight of it and had to be taken out and I had the strangest sensation. . I was acting in a drama. Onstage. Pushed on into the middle of a scene and left to improvise my part. The crowd — who should never have been allowed to remain — weren’t a crowd. They were. . an audience. An invited audience.’

Moulin took a deep breath, relieved to have unburdened himself. ‘I say, Sandilands, does any of this make sense?’

‘Certainly does. My friend Sir George was himself pushed in, almost literally onstage, last night to perform the same function. And he was actually sent a ticket to the event! But, being an Englishman of a type you recognize, he bustled in rather too actively and got himself arrested for the murder. But, Moulin — four cases, in as many years? Is that all?’ Joe asked. And, tentatively: ‘If this were some sort of syndicate — shall we say? — taking commissions to carry out crimes spectacular to the general public or crimes deeply satisfying to the one who orders them up, well — we are rather assuming a business, I suppose. And businesses exist to make money. Not sure I’d take the enormous risks involved for the return. Are you? What must they charge? One killing per year? Overheads, knifemen, underlings to pay? Hush money! It wouldn’t work.’

Moulin’s expression was grim. ‘There are many more than four possibilities. I didn’t want to over-face you with detail but, if you can give me a week, I’m sure I can make out an expanded list for you. And there might be as many as twenty cases on it. Some less uncertain than others. And that’s just Paris. What do we know of other towns? But I agree with your unstated thought — it’s not just the financial returns, is it? There’s an underlying sense of. . enjoyment?’

‘A sadistic indulgence?’ Joe said. ‘And with an added element of self-forgiveness — a twisted feeling of justification for the crimes. Someone else has paid for this. Someone else supplied the ingenious requirements of the death — the means, the scenario. So — someone else is to blame. The brain which devised the murders, the executive producer if you like, holds himself no more to blame than the dagger that came bloodstained from the heart of the victim. The guilt can be as easily washed away as the blood. Am I being fanciful?’

‘I’ve no training in psychology!’ said Moulin. ‘So you must put your theory to others. But I have to say I’ve travelled that same path, Sandilands.’

‘And the latest victim, congealing in one of your drawers? I wonder who dialled up his death?’ Suddenly decisive, Joe said: ‘I’m going to find out who’s behind the mask, Moulin. Whose hand held the Afghani dagger and whose voice asked for it to be done. I’m going to have ’em both. I can’t go back four years in a foreign country, crusading for belated justice, but I can get to the bottom of this one that’s landed in my lap. And I’ll only get close to the truth by digging up the nastier bits of Somerton’s past. Not much chance the widow will confide but I know a man who I can persuade to cough up some details.’

Sensing that his guest was ready to leave and on the point of exhaustion, Moulin got to his feet. ‘Wait here, Sandilands, while I nip out and whistle up a taxi for you. Oh, and thinking of the rogue Somerton. .’ He tapped the cover of the book Joe was still clutching. ‘ Le mort qui tue. Read the title again. That’s le mort , not la mort . Dead man — not Death itself. The corpse that kills. Be warned! Have a care for your friend. We don’t want an innocent man, blundering in on a sorry episode, to pay for his well-meaning interference on the guillotine. I suspect this man, Somerton, has caused enough havoc in his life, I don’t want to think that, from the depths of the morgue, he has the power to kill again.’

He chose a dark side street behind the place de la Contrescarpe to pay off his taxi. Feeling mildly foolish but in no way allowing this to make him lower his guard, he waited in a doorway until he was sure he hadn’t been followed. When he was fully confident, Joe wandered into the small square lined with cafés and restaurants. The aperitif hour was swinging to a close and the tables were rapidly filling with diners. He browsed the menus displayed on boards outside or scrawled on the windows and made his choice. The Café des Arts, being the biggest and noisiest, had claimed his attention and he went inside to the bar, ordered a Pernod and paid for a telephone connection.