The Islands of Safety, the penal colony that was just off the coast of French Guiana. More specifically, Îie Royale and Îie Saint Joseph. Notorious for the tiny triangle they formed with the Îie du Diable, Devil’s Island, there being no more than 200 metres of shark-infested ocean between each of them and only the immensity of a tractless jungle to tempt escape.
‘In 1922 Brother Matthieu violated and murdered a sixteen-year-old farm girl. Oh mais certainement, he vehemently denied having done so. He claimed to have come upon her quite by accident and after the fact, had been out collecting morels, and gave her the last rites. But you see, his rosary was found clutched in her fist and he hadn’t gone for help, nor had he told anyone about her. He’d been too afraid, he claimed. But with his history of wanting female hair and postcards like those, what was the examining magistrate to think, and then the court? Her blouse, shift and brassiere had been torn away and her throat opened with a pocket-knife not dissimilar to the one he has left on that napkin.’
It gets worse and worse, said St-Cyr to himself, but is it yet another part of the song they must sing?
De Passe took out a cigarette case and offered one and a light, as a chief administrator should to a detective of long standing. ‘They gave Brother Matthieu fifteen years, but reduced the sentence to twelve in consideration of his war wounds and his being a man of the cloth. The girl had been seen teasing him about his face and had been known to flaunt herself in front of the boys, but by rights he should have got the guillotine.’
The islands were tiny — the Îie du Diable being less than two square kilometres in area and flat under the blistering equatorial sun but, unlike the other two, it had been reserved for the politicals. The penal colony had been closed in 1938 but several had been left to languish, the war having delayed their repatriation indefinitely for all they knew, since no news of its progress would likely have reached them.
‘The Church couldn’t turn its back on him, Jean-Louis. I myself always felt the bishop too kind. I warned him of repeat offenders. I cautioned prudence, but …’ He gave a tiny shrug. ‘Henri-Baptiste is a true servant of God. He said that it wouldn’t be right of us to condemn a man beyond the years of his sentence.’
The cigarettes were American and had, no doubt, been confiscated from a downed airman. ‘But why should Brother Matthieu kill Mireille de Sinéty, Préfet? Oh for sure he had a key to the Palais and couldn’t be found when the concierge went looking for him, but a girl with the voice and fingers of an angel … one whom everybody revered and admired? What possible reason could he have had, since she wasn’t sexually interfered with in any way?’
Jean-Louis wasn’t going to take the proffered help and leave the matter well enough alone thought de Passe and said, ‘You know the de Sinéty girl intended to confront Henri-Baptiste and the other judges with what she mistakenly felt had happened to Adrienne de Langlade.’
It was time to put out the cigarette and to do so carefully. ‘And what did happen to Adrienne, Préfet?’
Would they now attempt to stare each other down? wondered de Passe. St-Cyr and Kohler had seen the police photographs of the girl’s body but had told the clerk not to notify him of this. ‘She disappeared.’
Such levelness of tone was all too clear. ‘And when, please, did she “disappear”?’
‘Maudit salaud! Did you think that file deliberately thin — is that it? It is! But you … you think I’m hiding things from you? Me?’ He tapped his chest. ‘How could you when I want more than anything to clear this matter up?’
It would be best not to shout as well. ‘Thin? There is so little in it, Préfet, Adrienne de Langlade’s passing hardly drew breath.’
The bastard! ‘Then understand, mon fin, that we couldn’t pin things down. César came to me on the thirtieth of October last. He couldn’t understand her having left without telling anyone. He felt betrayed but thought she could well have paid her parents in Paris a little visit.’
That could have been so easily checked with the Kommandant. ‘And did she?’
‘Jean-Louis, listen to me. These things … You know how they are. A pretty girl goes missing. We wonder what could have happened to her and, yes, we think the worst. Telegrams are sent to the district prefecture of the family but … Ah! What can one say, but that they revealed she wasn’t there.’
There’d be a record of those as well as the Kommandant’s issuing of the necessary laissez-passer for such a trip, and he could see St-Cyr thinking this but couldn’t stop now. ‘Nearly three weeks later her body turns up, but the flooding is so extensive we hardly have a moment. There are no signs of violence other than those of the flood. Decay is advanced — you yourself saw the state the corpse was in. What were an overworked, exhausted préfet and his men to have done?’
There’d been the frayed end of a rope tied to her right ankle but he’d leave that for now, thought St-Cyr, and so much for there having been ‘no signs of violence’. ‘Yet Mireille de Sinéty suspected Brother Matthieu of the killing, Préfet? This is what you’re saying.’
Jean-Louis still wasn’t going to look the other way. Pride was one thing, stubbornness another, misguided patriotism yet another.
‘That girl was mistaken. Tragically so.’
‘Then how, please, did Brother Matthieu learn of her intention to accuse him if, as we have been given to understand, she only confided in a very few?’
Merde alors, the son of a bitch! ‘A few? What few, please?’
Bon! ‘For now that information must remain confidential, Préfet. But I can tell you Dedou Favre knew what she intended to do.’
One had best look away and drop the voice. ‘The Favre boy. Another tragedy.’
‘For which you are not to get off so lightly. You had that boy arrested before dawn last Monday, Préfet. Did you use the coal shovel on him?’
Kohler had still not appeared. Jean-Louis had his back to the portal and was dangerously close to it. A slip … A step backwards? wondered de Passe. ‘The boy gave us what we wanted.’
‘The location of his maquis? We know this because you sent the Kommandant out to bring him in, certain he’d bag a few but not the one you had in custody.’
Four steps, possibly five, separated them. ‘I did what I had to. These are difficult times. Von Mahler would have been far too soft on the boy.’
‘Of course, but you desperately had to find out exactly how much Mireille de Sinéty really knew and then … then you had to make certain the girl was silenced.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’
A fist was clenched. Spittle erupted. ‘How dare you? He killed her. A former resident of the grand collège. No examining magistrate will argue with this, Jean-Louis, only with what you and that partner of yours think is the truth!’
De Passe had inadvertently stepped on the artichoke hearts. He seemed not to have noticed as he wiped his mouth.
‘Then listen to me most carefully, Préfet. Adrienne de Langlade was murdered. You know it, we know it, and so did Mireille de Sinéty, Dedou Favre and the others she confided in.’
‘What others? I ask it again, damn you!’
‘That’s not for you to know yet. You were present here during the picnic at which she was drowned in that iron accabussade. You were a part of what happened to her, Préfet. Admit it!’
You fool, said de Passe, silently cursing him. ‘I was not present.’
‘You were! With all the arrogance and stupidity of privileged men who think they can hide what they’ve done, you and your companions left telltale things.’