‘Well?’ he demanded, the sound of his voice breaking over her.
Pulled back, she fell to a sitting position, couldn’t bring herself to look up at him, was so ashamed, so afraid and waiting for his condemnation. ‘Please, they’re not nice, these men of the Cagoule. They can be so very cruel to a girl like me or to Genèvieve. One does what one is told to do, n’est-ce pas? One looks the other way and doesn’t question. I … I thought they … they were going to kill you.’
‘Things got a little out of hand, didn’t they, at that picnic on the Îie de la Barthelasse last October?’
‘I … I can’t really remember. I was drunk. Dead drunk! And so were Genèvieve and the others. Absinthe isn’t kind, Inspector. It makes some men insane and they do things to a girl they, too, have little or no memory of.’
‘And afterwards?’ he asked, crouching before her so that she had to face him.
‘Adrienne went away to Paris … but … but couldn’t have done so.’
From a covered veranda where, in ancient times, the laundry would have been dried and on summer evenings the cardinal would have taken the air, Kohler looked down into the courtyard. Behind him was the roof that ran at a right angle to that of the Grande Chapelle. Hand in hand, he and the girl had travelled the length of it. Pale and shivering and still very afraid for her life, the Alto waited for him to decide what to do next.
‘Our friends are in disagreement,’ he said of those in the courtyard. ‘Apparently there’s some argument as to whether they really should put the knife into a member of the Führer’s Gestapo.’
Grabbing the girl by the arm, he hustled her to a side door and from there, hurried down a spiral staircase to the floor below. When they reached Madame Simondi’s room, he locked them in and let her walk on ahead, only to see her hesitate.
‘Madame …’ she began, only to suddenly lose all faith in herself.
‘What have you been saying to him, you little fool!’ grated the woman.
‘Nothing! He demanded it of me. I …’
‘Nothing? But if nothing, then what … is there … for you …’
To distress yourself about?
Kohler knew he’d have to fill in the blanks. Madame Simondi had been bathed and dressed. Ear-rings and a three-strand pearl and garnet cameo choker were worn with a dark crimson dress. There were silk stockings, too, and matching high heels. Very much the Parisienne, she was languidly stretched out on the divan, propped up by cushions. Her jet black hair had been combed and brushed and was pinned back, her lips and dark eyes were made up.
Drip glass, bottle, bowl of broken sugar, ice bucket and pitcher of water were close to hand. An hour of drinking already, he thought ruefully. Spaggiari and the others must have been told to bugger off long ago.
‘My little friends,’ she said and fondled the glass when she caught him looking at her side table. ‘They keep me … going.’
A sip was taken, her lips pursed as it went down, she studying the milky-green liqueur in the glass before adding a touch more water. ‘An audition …’ she said, and then after a long pause, ‘at the Palais. I understand two detectives …’
Are in my house.
‘Did César sleep with you last night, chérie?’ she asked sharply, acidly. ‘Did you let that husband of mine stick that sausage of his into your ass, eh?’
‘Madame, one of the detectives is here now!’
Her lips tightened, her eyes became momentarily livid. ‘I’ve seen this putain de bordel at it, Inspector. I know what she lets my husband do to her. She and Genèvieve are lovers, but … César, he … He has the use of them both and often together.’
‘Madame …’ tried Christiane.
Kohler moved the girl out of the way. ‘Kripo, Paris-Central,’ he said firmly.
‘At last you’ve found your voice. Do I …’
There was another long pause. ‘Shock you, Inspector? A little, perhaps? Ah! You’re from Paris. Laperouse … Do they still have …’
She tried to find the words and pursed her lips. ‘Their cabinets particuliers?’
Their private little dining cubicles.
Taking a long pull at her glass, she gave him a fleeting smile, half disarming, half knowing. ‘I scratched my name …’
Again she paused to find the words. ‘In one of the mirrors,’ she managed. ‘The … The diamond solitaire César …’
Had just given me, said Kohler to himself.
‘Silly girl … Silly not to have kept my clothes on. I was a fool!’ she shrieked and quivered with indignation until the thought left her and she had to hunt for it. ‘Now I’m a martyr to this mausoleum of his and he wants to fuck Mireille. Mireille! Just as the cardinal wanted her ancestor. Her ancestor.’
Her voice fell back. ‘Laperouse … Is it still on the quai des Grands-Augustins? On the …’
Corner.
‘Numéro cinquante et un?’ she asked coyly. ‘The canard natais was …’
Pure magic.
‘The mousse au chocolat amer was webbed among the hairs of my little forest. César …’
‘We get the picture,’ said Kohler tartly.
‘Mon cul … I was his petite nymphe en rhapsodie, Inspec … tor.’
Entreatingly she extended a hand, beckoning him to join her. ‘The Galeries Lafayette … Do you …’
Know it? Tears were now smearing the mascara and eye shadow. One of Paris’s giant department stores, the Galeries was a ready-to-wear emporium for shopgirls, housewives, chorus girls and maids of all work. Shoddy goods and bare shelves these days, but he hated to tell her.
Hands shaking, she took a deep pull at her glass, then let her tongue linger lovingly on its rim.
A whining tone crept into her voice. ‘Can you still buy the cherries that are dipped in dark chocolate?’ And moments later, ‘The candied ginger aussi?’
Unheard of now, except in certain places.
‘Ragueneau’s … Is it still on the rue Saint-Honoré at numéro 202? The tearoom …’
When he didn’t answer and didn’t come to sit beside her, she grated, ‘I had my own little place on the ave’ Frochot, damn you! Fuck whom I want. Come and go as I please.’
It was just off place Pigalle.
‘The Cabaret Pigalle, the Narcisse and then the Alhambra. Les nus les plus oses du monde, n’est-ce pas? she rasped. ‘And thousands of men — yes, thousands — wanted me.’
The most daring, most risque nudes in the world, and oh for sure that was still true, thought Kohler wryly, what with the boys in grey-green lining up night after night! But they were getting nowhere.
‘Madame …’ he began, only to hear her slackly say, ‘Les Halles,’ while lewdly spreading her legs in an attempt to embarrass him.
Paris’s central market was a cavernous shadow of its former self due mainly to the curfew which allowed no one, including the farmers, into the city after 11 p.m., and refused to let anyone leave before 5 a.m. Requisitioning most of the horses and lorries hadn’t helped, and neither had the drastic reduction in the availability of gasoline.
‘Adrienne de Langlade, madame …’
‘That whore? César … To think that I actually wanted his … child! Me? Who had never had any brats before but …’
She struggled for words, muttered things about Simondi’s not wearing riding coats and leaping from the train while the locomotive was still in full power, then said acidly, ‘He didn’t want to have one with me. He wanted her to have it!’
‘Madame, are you saying your husband was the father of that girl’s unborn child?’
‘Say what you think. Leave me to know the truth.’
Simondi was pounding on the door and crying out her name, but she didn’t even realize this.