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That, too, had been a warning. ‘Those bills suggest-’

Simondi blocked the way. ‘You don’t have to look at them, Inspector. I’m not obliged to let you.’

A bribe, then. ‘But we can discuss it, eh?’

No bribe would be accepted. ‘As if among friends, yes.’

For the detective to get around him to snatch the most recent bill away would be all but impossible. The nail was sharp and rusty — a dangerous thing. ‘Find your murderer, Inspector. Go about your business with that partner of yours. This house and my wife hold nothing for you. She’s not well. Now that you’ve seen so yourself, you must appreciate that even if she did manage to make it to the Palais on the night of the murder, what possible part could she have played in that tragic affair?’

‘I don’t know yet, Maître, but as in part song, so, too, in murder, each voice carries its own measure. I think you deliberately withheld this latest shipment from your wife. A few days at least before the murder of Mireille de Sinéty.’

Some men would never learn and this was one of them. ‘Five days, as you already know,’ said Simondi coldly. ‘Ask anyone. All will tell you I have repeatedly tried to wean her from that poison.’

‘Ah yes, of course, but when in withdrawal, is the absinthe addict not capable of other things? That is the question.’

The sigh he would give this fottuto di poliziotto would be long and deep and of a death anticipated. ‘Then come upstairs and I will tell you what you want to know.’

8

The singers were hunting for him in earnest now, thought Kohler. One here, one there, but he had no problem, really, in evading them. Simondi’s villa was huge.

‘Herr Koh … ler,’ shouted Marius Spaggiari, only to have Christiane’s voice anxiously chase the echoes with, ‘Inspector … where are you?’

YOU …YOU …

‘Please don’t do this to us.’

TO US …

Signore …’ cried the housekeeper. ‘It is not permissible. You must show yourself at once.’ AT ONCE … And over to the left, he thought, but these old places. Rooms on rooms, with columned, echoing ambulatories between …

‘He’ll try to question madame,’ shouted Genèvieve and well to his right, he was certain of it.

‘She’s awake now,’ answered Spaggiari from the head of the staircase.

‘She’s at her best. She’ll say something she shouldn’t.’ SHOULDN’T, gave back Genèvieve.

‘He’ll find her room!’ shrilled Christiane. ‘Stop him. We must stop him.’

‘Go then, Genèvieve. Go!’ shouted Spaggiari. ‘I’ll catch up with you. Christiane, keep looking for him here.’

HERE …

The Grand Tinel of the livrée seemed to run on for ever beneath a vaulted ceiling that reached to the gods. Repeated patterns of lilies and trumpet vines were interlocked with cameos of saints and cardinals, while far below them large canvases in oils were hung from floor to ceiling, with tapestries between them. Churchy scenes. Popes, nuns and priests. Scenes of the hunt. Murals of the Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion. Peasants flailing their harvest. Life in the mid-fourteenth century. The Palais des Papes, a cardinal on a white mule …

A girl in raiment so fine …

The painting was large and it made him ask, Had she been a petitioner to the Papal Court? There was a tight circlet of silver brocade around her forehead — there were enamelled blue violets in it. The hair was golden, the eyes were of that softest shade of amber and just like Mireille de Sinéty’s. De Sinéty’s …

There were several rings on each finger. A pendant box hung from her belt, her girdle, damn it!

There were tiny silver bells, a sewing kit, a purse for alms — coins! and a tin of sardines, eh?

The dark green woollen cloak was trimmed with white ermine tails.

It was her, that other Mireille, looking down at him from across the centuries.

Her mantle was of rose madder, her gown of saffron silk, the cote-hardie of cocoa-brown velvet, its bodice of gold brocade and tightly laced up the front. A girl of nineteen. Proud, not haughty; determined, not weak, her lips slightly parted in hesitation as she awaited the verdict of the Court. And Pater noster, qui es in caelis

The belt was of very soft suede and studded with an absolute rainbow of stones, replete with enseignes and talismans. Helmeted guards with pikes stood ready to take her away.

‘I’ve got to keep moving,’ he told himself, but suddenly the livrée had gone to silence, suddenly, instead of there being no problem in evading the singers, an ominous feeling had crept in. Had others taken over the hunt? Others … La Cagoule? He cursed his luck.

Gilded Louis XIV fauteuils and sofas lined the hall. A herringbone pattern of brick-red tiles ran to the far end where, across its full width, a floor-to-ceiling arched window let in the sunlight. There were figures down there. Maybe four, maybe five of them and, Gott im Himmel, where the hell was Louis when he needed him most?

‘La Danse,’ quavered Christiane Bissert, coming softly upon him to indicate the life-sized marble sculpture at the other end of the hall. Nervous … Mein Gott, she was afraid.

‘Carpeaux …’ breathed Kohler, stunned by how lifelike the figures appeared. ‘The façade of the Paris Opera.’

Hand in hand, buxom naked girls danced madly around a naked boy who held aloft a tambourine. There was laughter, licentiousness, a ribald joy in their expressions. Motion …

‘Madame Simondi is … is so lonely for Paris,’ said Christiane, fighting for words and hesitantly having taken him by the hand to lead him away from the painting … the painting. ‘This copy, found quite by accident in an antiques shop on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, was one of César’s many attempts to appease her desire to return.’

Her voice had climbed but she’d been unaware of it. ‘And at the picnic early last June?’ he asked. The Cagoule … where were they?

They would want her to answer, to keep him talking, she told herself. Distract him … I must distract him. ‘We danced. We … we often recreate this sculpture for madame. It … it’s her wish to see us that way and … and making love to … to each other.’

She swallowed tightly and he knew she was afraid.

‘Simondi sent you here last night knowing my partner and I would want to question her. We were to “see” her as she is, weren’t we?’

‘He … he couldn’t have known you would come last night.’

‘But he didn’t take a chance, did he, and now has brought in a little company.’

The Hooded Ones … had he already seen them? Had he? Somehow she found the will to say, ‘She sips constantly. Even now there will be a glass ready for her to begin her day.’

‘And if denied her craving?’

‘She becomes irritable.’

‘Restless?’

‘Highly agitated.’

‘Aggressive?’

‘You’re hurting me, Inspector. My hand …’ She threw an anguished glance over her shoulder.

‘Paranoic?’ he demanded. ‘Bugs crawling all over her? Worms in her guts? Sheer terror? Hatred?’

‘Lapses of memory. Blackouts, yes.’

‘Vivid hallucinations?’

‘Seizures.’

‘Jealousy?’

Ah no …‘She … she thinks things about people that … that are not always true. She-’

‘Has the urge to kill them? Is that it, eh? Come on, damn it, answer me!’

Answer … Answer …

Anxiously Christiane looked away again to the opposite end of the Grand Tinel, but no one had come to deal with him. Not yet … But he would know now that she had been sent to distract him.

‘What really happened Monday night?’ he asked, startling her into answering hotly, ‘Why must you make trouble for yourself? You don’t know what they’re like. They’ll-’