‘Stop at nothing now?’
‘Please!’ she begged. ‘Just leave while you can. They’ll blame me. They’ll hold me responsible for warning you but-’
‘Stick closely. Just do as I say and don’t bugger about. Hey, you’re with the police, eh? The honest ones.’
The fresco was magnificent and a tribute to the villa’s former owner who had had it patiently restored, thought St-Cyr. In it, shadows from columns fell across an archway beyond which there was a road that wound downhill through field and farm towards the viewer. In the foreground, to the left, there was a group of six monks and a cardinal. A white mule stood in their midst, they having just arrived on their pilgrimage to the Avignon of the mid-fourteenth century.
To the right, across the gap through which one saw the archway, there stood a group of maidens, of whom the cardinal was inquiring. Only two of the girls faced him; the one a princess, by the look, the other her lady-in-waiting. All of the others, though just as comely and beautifully dressed, were frivolously discussing the visitors.
The lady-in-waiting had thrown her princess a questioning glance. The princess’s long blonde hair was tied behind as befitted an unmarried girl of her day. Her expression was at once one of sincere concern at the travellers’ plight, and of innocence.
St-Cyr drew in a breath. ‘That’s the first Mireille before she was married.’
‘Perhaps. One can never really tell with such things, can one?’ countered Simondi. ‘But I thought you would like to see it.’
‘That cardinal is asking if she can provide lodgings. Avignon was very overcrowded at the time of the popes.’
‘But did she refuse him the use of her father’s house as her lady-in-waiting appears to demand, or did she agree?’ asked Simondi.
‘Are you suggesting Mireille de Sinéty’s judgement of the distant past was perhaps too harsh?’
‘Inspector, I’m only making you aware that within the passage of the centuries must exist an element of doubt.’
There’d been no sign of Hermann, thought St-Cyr, though he was certain he had heard his partner’s name being called. A worry.
‘Come,’ said Simondi. ‘The library is just this way.’
Verdammt! There must be three of them after him, thought Kohler. Gardener, caretaker … what did it matter? They’d be young and agile and everywhere, and they’d damned well know the layout of this pile of stones. They’d make no sound, would move with swiftness. Now from out of a corridor; suddenly from a room … Corsicans … Retainers … ‘ Cagoulards,’ he breathed.
‘You will never know when they’ll come up behind you!’ shrilled Christiane. He was hustling her along a corridor, was pushing her ahead of him.
‘Easy, kid. Take it easy. Where does that staircase lead?’
He wouldn’t listen to her! He was still going to try to get free of them and find Madame! ‘The roof, I think,’ she blurted.
Driven ahead of him, she went up the steep and narrow staircase into darkness. He would have to stop if she stopped. He would bang right into her. And hadn’t Préfet de Passe told her to distract him? Hadn’t he warned her of what would happen to her if she didn’t? ‘The door?’ she said, catching a breath. ‘It’ll be locked.’
‘Let’s try it.’
She could feel him against her. Everything in her said to cry out, to push him back and away from her, to turn and shriek …‘I can’t. I …’
Clinging to him in the darkness, she wept. ‘Forgive me. Please forgive me. I’m so afraid.’
The door burst on to a narrow walkway between tiled roof and battlement. The stones were icy, the walkway long. When she fell, she cried out, ‘They’ll kill me if you don’t give yourself up!’ and rolled from side to side, gripping herself by the shoulders in despair.
Kohler yanked her to her feet and shook her. ‘They killed Adrienne, didn’t they?’
Adrienne … Adrienne …
‘Answer me, damn you!’
Christiane blinked several times. The wind came but gently. The air was very cold, the sunlight bright. A perfect morning. ‘She … she was there with us and … and then she wasn’t. Please, you must believe me.’
‘Where?’
‘The … the Îie de la Barthelasse. César has one of his farms at the northern end of the island. There are reeds, a dock, some punts and an old mill … a mill. He and his friends use it as a hunting lodge.’
‘Last October?’ he demanded harshly and when she didn’t answer, shook her hard.
He couldn’t see the sunlight burnish the scars on his face as it would glint off the stiletto that would be driven into his back. He couldn’t realize that they were about to kill him. Kill him … She would throw her arms about his neck, would hug him tightly and let him feel the trembling in her.
‘Yes, last October. A … another picnic. A bonfire and singing … much singing. We … we all got very drunk.’
‘On absinthe?’
Sunlight flashed as it would have done when cardinals’ messages were passed to the Palais. ‘Marius had some bottles Madame had given him. She wanted Bishop Rivaille to see what she thought Adrienne was really like. A slut, a little whore. She … she made us do it.’
‘Ispettore,’ said Simondi warily to St-Cyr in the library, ‘if Mireille de Sinéty thought Adrienne de Langlade was murdered, she was very much mistaken.’
‘My partner and I’ve been led to believe that was why she was silenced.’
‘Dio mio erano molto amici.’ He threw out his hands. ‘Lei era molto bella, molto incantevole. Ah! Scusate, I forget myself again. It’s so easy to do. My God, they were the best of friends. She was très belle, très charmante.’
‘An accabussade.’
‘Ah pouf! Quelle absurdité.’
‘Now calm down or you’ll have us shouting at each other.’
‘Then you tell me what reason was there for anyone to have murdered her? Adrienne was a mezzo-soprano like few others and the beauty of it was … ah, si, si, she didn’t think herself better than the others. She listened. She cooperated. She worked terribly hard. Always there was great attention, the desire to become better and the willingness to subordinate the self so that the voice could develop and blend with the others.’
‘She became tractable, is that what you’re saying?’
Simondi’s dark brown eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Tractable? Why do you ask? I laboured long and hard writing parts for that girl and adjusting those of the others so that her voice would be what I was convinced it could be. Not just a welcome addition but that which would take our madrigals to even finer heights.’
‘How profitable are the concerts?’
The head was tossed as if struck. ‘Profit? You ask of profit and murder in the same breath? Molto lucroso.’ He shook a hand whose fingertips were pressed together.
‘And yet you postdated, by several months, the miserly cheques you gave Mademoiselle de Sinéty in payment for her work.’
‘Bastardo! Fottuto di poliziotto, how do you know of this, please?’
‘Let’s just say we are aware of it.’
‘Then let me say in return that as a businessman I have many accounts. That’s only understandable. Some are overdrawn, others might be and I can’t always remember what balance there is in each account, so am cautious.’
Hermann should have heard it! ‘You and two of your associates sat in judgement of our victim, Maître. Whether true or not, that girl thought one or all of you either guilty of Adrienne de Langlade’s murder, or of trying to cover it up to protect someone.’
It would do no good to argue. This Sûreté, with his holier-than-thou attitude, had convinced himself that something was not right. He had smelled the fish and found it tainted. ‘Mireille was a creature of the past, Inspector. Because of what had happened to her namesake six hundred years ago, the girl was overly suspicious of and all too ready to harshly judge the Church. It was una piccola leggenda she’d been fed by that mother of hers. Une petite légende de famille, n’est-ce pas? With no father there to raise her, the girl grew up under the mother’s wing.’