‘Who said she had done so?’
‘Who indeed? These things are simply said in Avignon and then passed around so much that no one knows who first said them. Haven’t you sensed it too? The secrecy. The feeling that things are about to happen and yet you have no control over them. You try to appease wherever possible but these people are far more powerful than you. They’re so set in their ways, in their judgement, nothing you can do or say will ever have the slightest effect. And please let’s not forget that the Occupier couldn’t occupy without their help and sanction.’
Again she paused. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I … I let my feelings show. Adrienne … you were saying?’
‘She was drowned between two and three weeks before her body was recovered.’
‘In an accabussade? As punishment for what, please? For refusing to have sex with someone? César … was it César? He possesses Christiane Bissert and Genèvieve Ravier, holds the lives of them and the other singers in his hands at all times. Kurt is certain of it, but …’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a French matter, n’est-ce pas? Les culs des jeunes filles sont à elles.’
The asses of young girls are their own. ‘We don’t know yet how she came to drown.’
‘But Mireille felt it had been done in the old way, didn’t she?’
‘This, also, we really don’t know yet.’
‘Bishop Rivaille thought very highly of Adrienne, Inspector. To him she was perfection, and her hair exactly the shade and texture of Christ’s Mother. Still a virgin, too. He was positive of this and who’s to say, since no coroner was ever allowed to examine her corpse.’
When he didn’t respond but only waited for more, she said, ‘Mireille was going to confront the judges with hiding the truth about the girl’s death. I’m sure of it now.’
The woman watched him with an intensity that demanded utter honesty. ‘I really don’t know that yet, but I think it too.’
‘Then you had best have this, hadn’t you?’
Frau von Mahler dug a hand into the remnants and, finding what she wanted, took it out. ‘The Cross of Lorraine,’ she said, looking at a small enamelled brooch in the palm of her withered hand. ‘The symbol of the Resistance. I … I found this under the lapel of Mireille’s overcoat about two weeks after Adrienne’s body had come to light. Mireille and the singers had only just returned from their tour to learn what had happened. I removed it, of course. Perhaps she came to believe I had taken it. No doubt she searched everywhere and worried desperately, for that, too, was in her nature. But I never told her what I’d done, nor have I told my husband. That death hardened her attitude, Inspector, and firmed her resolve.’
Was there more to it, then, he wondered, and tucked the pin out of sight. ‘Dédou Favre was to have met her well before dawn on Monday but failed to show up, or so we’ve been told. She sent Thérèse Godard to the mas of Madame de Sinéty with a note for him.’
‘And even now, at this hour, my husband hasn’t returned from searching the countryside for Dédou. Another tip of the préfet’s he couldn’t refuse to act upon. Tell me something, Inspector. Will we lose the war? Please, you can speak freely. Although it’s forbidden, I listen to the BBC news broadcasts, to those of the Free French in Britain and to both wavebands of the Voice of America.’
‘And what do you think, madame?’
How cautious of him. ‘It was I who asked you.’
She was begging him. Hermann and he needed desperately to gain her confidence if they were ever to solve this thing, but Hermann wasn’t here to preach caution.
The Inspector cited Napoleon’s defeat in Russia and then said, ‘Stalingrad.’
The whole of the Sixth Army had been lost there, over 150,000 men had been taken prisoner to say nothing of the almost equal number who had perished or been terribly wounded. ‘And the Allies, now that the Americans have joined them?’ she asked.
‘Will invade when they judge it best. The Côte d’Azur or the toe of the boot.’
The truth, then, and no lies from him. ‘I … I couldn’t face being a refugee. Everyone would see me.’
‘How did you acquire that pistol?’
‘I’ve ways.’
He had to reach out to her with a comforting thought. ‘Please believe that before it’s too late, your husband will see that you and the children are safely returned to your family.’
‘To Köln? Ah! It’s true our girls were fortunately with my parents at their estate when this … this happened to me. But they will have everything taken from them if the Russians are the first to enter what is left of the city. And if I was to be with my parents by then, I would have to face the Communists too. My skin … I … I can’t be touched, not yet. You do understand?’
Rape … they’ll rape the women. The Propagandastaffel had certainly done their work in the Reich.
When he nodded grimly to indicate he understood, she bowed her head and said, ‘My husband was very fond of Mireille. He enjoyed seeing her with our two little girls. A wife notices such things, Inspector. I had planned to leave him with her. It would have taken a little time for them to have grown together, but my Kurt desperately needs someone like her. So, you see, that little pin she so foolishly and bravely wore was a very great worry to me, as was Dédou Favre.’
‘Frau von Mahler …’
‘Madame, please.’
‘Madame, what are you trying to tell me?’
‘She came to see me at about five o’clock on Monday afternoon, after having endured hours of practice with the other singers at the Villa Marenzio. She was very worried and upset — harried, and not herself at all.’
‘And?’ he asked.
He could be so gentle, this detective, so sincere, but would he really understand? ‘You must have seen that my music stand lies broken. When that happened, Mireille burst into tears. She was exhausted. They had hammered at her incessantly all through practice. To the singers she was never right, always wrong — terrible, awful. She had been up night after night preparing for that damned audition. I insisted she confide in me. They didn’t want her joining them. She was certain of it. “They don’t want me with them,” she said. “I know they don’t.”’
‘And?’ he asked again. How cautious of him.
‘Dédou was to have been with her at the Palais. He was to have waited, hidden from those who were to judge her, but as you’ve said, he failed to show up.’
It was coming now, and to give him credit, the Chief Inspector had some inkling of it, for he again waited for her to continue. ‘Dédou didn’t want her joining the group, Inspector. He was very possessive of her, very jealous … but also there was this other business of his belonging to the Resistance, the “terrorists”. To them she must have presented a grave and constant danger that could not have been overlooked any more and would have to be dealt with. His comrades, his chief, would have insisted. A collaborator, a friend of the Bodies? Had he not agreed to do something about it, they would have banished him. You know it as well as I.’
The boy had killed her — was this what the woman believed? ‘At dinner that evening, madame, you made what for you must have been an extreme sacrifice. You dined with Maître Simondi, Bishop Rivaille and your husband.’
‘I wanted Kurt to be that third judge in case Dédou should show up. I was afraid Préfet de Passe might have planned to take the boy. With Kurt there, things would go easier for the couple, but my husband refused to do what the husk of his wife begged. Oh bien sûr he had his reasons. Perhaps he felt he shouldn’t interfere any more. Berlin … who knows what ears Berlin have or what they will think? I knew Mireille was very afraid and not just of their decision — ah no, that was nothing new, really. She had failed many times before, but this other matter was something else. What I didn’t know at the time.’