St-Cyr brought the truffle up to his nose, breathing in the heady aroma of imagined omelettes and pates. ‘They must feel solid, isn’t that so?’ he said watchfully. ‘The rounder the better; the blacker the better.’
‘But always with the white marbling. Monsieur, what is it you really want of me?’
St-Cyr glanced uncertainly towards the boy, who was digging nearby. ‘Merely a few questions.’
‘How did she die?’
Audit set the truffle carefully back in the basket and, thinking the leaves not hiding the recent excavation well enough, tidied a few of them. ‘I don’t need to do this sort of thing any more, monsieur. I buy most of the two hundred tonnes we process or sell but,’ he gave a shrug, ‘one has to come back for a few days at least. One can’t forget. One mustn’t.’
‘She was garrotted with wire and savagely raped.’
The narrowed eyes didn’t flicker. There was such control. Ah, Mon Dieu, it was magnificent. The shotgun still ready at a moment’s notice.
‘I see,’ was all Audit said.
Some moments passed. The boy put a little distance between himself and his father, but was it deliberate or merely that he’d best get on with the hunt?
The two sows were grunting softly among the underbrush.
Audit stood up. ‘I knew I had been targeted by those idiots in the so-called Resistance. Thugs, students, imbeciles, dodgers of the call-ups of 1939 and ‘40, cowards.’
‘Hotheads,’ said St-Cyr, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch, his hands still steady.
‘Fools who think men like myself are traitors. If I did not co-operate with our German friends, monsieur, you and I would not be here.’
That was fair enough and admirably cautious for one who’d benefited so well from dealing with them. ‘Just tell me what happened on Thursday night.’
The Sarete’s detective would take a half-hour to pack that pipe. No chance to reach for that revolver, eh? Ah merde, what was he to do? ‘I came a little early – it’s become a habit these days, eh? One checks the ground first. The street made me edgy. In business, as in anything, Inspector, one develops a sixth sense. There was a girl I’d spotted several times before. She watched for me. Sometimes by that bakery, sometimes from inside it. Often she would be just down the street, pretending to fix her bicycle.
‘I left a note for Christabelle, warning her to leave the hotel immediately and not go up to the room, because that is where they would have tried to get at me.’
A few oak leaves were taken up to be felt by Audit’s strong fingers. Had he needed the reassurance they would bring? ‘Why would they have come for you in that room, monsieur? Why not simply in the street?’
Only frankness would suit. ‘Because they would have thought me in bed with Christabelle. She can’t have received my note. Why didn’t she?’
St-Cyr struck the match but allowed a moment’s pause. ‘That we do not know yet, monsieur, but we think the note may have been taken by someone and then put back later.’
Audit gave an understanding nod but added, as if puzzled, ‘Who would have done such a thing?’
Drawing the flame into the bowl, St-Cyr let the smoke billow around him. The boy was now out of sight. Ah no! ‘The killer perhaps, or someone else.’ He extinguished the match with spittle out of habit. ‘Tell me, monsieur, why she used an alias.’
The leaves were tossed aside. There was no sense in denying he’d known about the name. ‘Because it was best that way. Though our meetings were harmless, Inspector, Christabelle wanted her identity protected. There was also the very real problem of her having two places of residence when only one is allowed.’
That seemed to suit the Surete. Audit drew out the silver flask he always took with him in the woods. ‘It’s plum brandy, Inspector, one of our own.’
‘My thanks.’ The brandy was fiery and excellent, the very essence of the fruit, and in better times it would have been much appreciated. ‘You knew she was living with your brother Charles, monsieur. Did you not question why she was meeting you?’
There could be no smiles, no grins. ‘Why should I have, eh? I understood her, monsieur. Men like myself do. Besides, my first wife and I had raised her from birth until the age of six. When one does such a thing, one comes to know a person best since all else is dependent on those first tender years.’
‘Perhaps, but then …’ He’d leave it at that and see what happened.
‘My first wife was killed in an auto accident in 1926, Inspector. When my brother learned of this, he returned to France to look after his granddaughter. I hoped for a reconciliation and allowed him to take Christabelle away, since she was no relation of mine. Well, not really.’
Thus does the close relative excuse himself, thought St-Cyr. ‘You advanced him money with which to purchase the carousel?’
‘He was strapped for funds and had wired me from Rio de Janeiro. A small loan, which was repaid with interest. The thing was harmless and it offered my brother a modest living.’
‘Did you see each other at all?’
Audit held the flask out to him again. ‘Did the reconciliation work, is that what you mean?’ It was. ‘Then no, Inspector. The wound was too deep, so’, he gave the shrug of one who had tried, ‘I left them to themselves.’
It would be best to suck dreamily on his pipe. The boy and the pigs had still not returned. The shotgun now rested against a nearby boulder but well within easy reach, ah yes. ‘Tell me about Christabelle, monsieur.’
‘There’s little to tell. I paid for her studies, if that’s what you’re asking. In return, we agreed to meet, and I took her a few little things from time to time.’
‘Was she the one to come to you for money for her studies or did you …?’
‘Yes … yes, she approached me. Charles would have no part of it – we both knew this. Christabelle agreed to meet once in a while, just to talk, to have a coffee or an aperitif. Later, she suggested the hotel and I, well what would you have done, what would any man have done, eh? I agreed.’
‘Why did she dye her hair like that?’
They’d have seen the body in the morgue. ‘Her hair, ah yes.’
Audit found papers and tobacco and proceeded deftly to roll himself a cigarette. A man of millions who chose not to show it here but to live as he’d first lived before the fortune had come.
‘She said she had done that because as an artist’s model she wanted to protect her “real” self.
‘You accepted that answer?’ breathed the Surete with surprise. ‘Come, come, monsieur, the girl bore a striking resemblance to her grandmother, Michele-Louise Prevost; so much so you could not face up to the lie of what she’d done to you.’
Audit kept his eyes from the shotgun. ‘And what was that?’ he asked cautiously.
‘She forced you to see the resemblance – forced you to agree to meet with her once or twice a week because, monsieur, you could not have said no.’
It would be best to tough it out, best not to deny everything. ‘So we met. What harm was there in that?’
‘You bought her things, monsieur,’ reminded St-Cyr gravely.
Was this idiot a saint? ‘Some lingerie. Ah, Mon Dieu, Monsieur the Inspector, you’re a man of the world, eh? You know how it is. Young girls, pretty girls … All right, I bought them for her, but at her suggestion.’
‘Did you fall in love with her?’
‘Love? A man like myself? In the Name of Jesus, have I taken you for a realist, Inspector, only to have uncovered a romantic? I understood Christabelle, just as that one understood me. About six months ago she asked if I would like to see what the artists saw. Oh she knew I’d been to the studios. She knew I’d already seen her like that. Of course I said I would like to see her undress – you’d have done the same, eh? But I also told her only if she wanted to. There was to be no pressure – none whatsoever. It was a game we played. Nothing happened. A harmless hour or two, never more. A room to which we both went. Myself for the look; she for the tease. Of course I asked for the use of her body. I suggested we might … I offered to pay her, but she …’