‘Nom de Jésus-Christ, bâtard, what things?’
‘Photographs.’
‘There are no photographs. None were taken.’
‘But then you must have been here, Préfet, and have just admitted it.’
From the crest of a low hill near the eastern shore of the island, Kohler watched as de Passe’s car left in one hell of a hurry. Long lines of spindly poplars crossed the bocage at regular intervals, hiding the car and there to shield the cropland from the worst of the mistral. Idly he wondered if he could calculate the préfet’s speed, given the width of the strips of land between the rows of trees and the time it took to cover five or ten of them.
Mathematics — that kind — he’d had enough of in the Great War. Where more shelter was needed — for melons, strawberries and other tender crops — woven screens of reeds had been used. But the landscape was a tangle. The flood hadn’t been kind and Simondi had thought it best to leave well enough alone and not call in the clean-up crews.
Hence the préfet’s speed? he wondered, knowing Louis must have said something.
De Passe hit a washout and very nearly left the road. Long before he would have reached the bridge, Kohler had lost sight of him, yet kept on gazing that way.
‘Mein Gott,’ he said. ‘How the hell are we to find anything in this?’
The poplars looked bleached and old in the sharp, cold light of the afternoon. Some still had a few dead leaves clinging to their branches and these mirrored the sunlight so that as he looked across the fields, he saw these lights blinking at him.
Longing for a gentler time, he started out towards a tangle of battered, woven screens of reeds. When he found the dog, it was chained to the trunk of one of the poplars and all but hidden among the mats of reeds. Ice was thickly clumped about its paws. It didn’t bark, didn’t whine. It just shook hard, was so tired after twenty-four hours or so of trying to break free that it could only raise its sorrowful deep brown eyes to him. Frost clung to its whiskers.
‘Nino,’ he crooned and grinned like a schoolboy in spite of the state the poor thing was in. ‘Hey, you’ve found a friend. Come on, let me get you out of this.’
Undoing the chain, he lifted the dog and soon had her tucked inside his greatcoat. Freezing, she shivered constantly while he had a little look around.
There was a filthy woollen sock lying on the ground nearby, and in its mended toe a pétanque ball. Metal and hard as hell. ‘Xavier was to have killed you,’ he said, opening his coat a little to comfort her. ‘But the one who could finger a maquis couldn’t bring himself to do it and left you to die all on your own like the coward he is.’
When he got back to the mill, Kohler lit a fire in the kitchen stove and began to warm a saucepan of water. Still there was no sign of Louis and he thought this odd, but the dog had to be cared for. He couldn’t leave her yet. ‘And you need a little something to eat,’ he said.
‘Louis,’ he called out. ‘Hey, Louis, guess what I’ve found?’
There was no answer. The loft was much as they’d left it. The frugal legacy of the gueule cassée was still spread out on its napkin, the humble repast to one side …
The grappa was fierce, the view from the portal bleak. Brother Matthieu seesawed gently. ‘Louis …’ he bleated, sickened suddenly by the thought that something untoward must have happened to his partner.
There were no signs of blood in the loft, none of a struggle. Had de Passe had a pistol? He cursed himself for not having sensed trouble and come back sooner. ‘But I wouldn’t have found you, would I?’ he said frantically to Nino.
Man’s best friend wolfed the greasy, oil-soaked artichoke hearts and finished up the stray crumbs of the chèvre before starting in on the olives.
*
The Villa Marenzio had become too quiet, thought Christiane, pausing to listen intently to the house. Marius and the others had stopped arguing and raising their voices over the chances of the singers surviving as a group, but Brother Matthieu had hanged himself and now … now … Were Marius, Norman and Guy whispering to each other about Genèvieve and herself? Were they saying it was all her fault and that each part of the song must live in absolute harmony with the others?
‘It’s all going to end for us!’ she cried. ‘St-Cyr and Kohler will find out you were going to be dismissed, Genèvieve, and that César felt we had grown too close.’
Genèvieve didn’t hold her. Genèvieve didn’t come closer but remained apart and standing just inside the bathroom door.
‘You know it’s bad luck for a Pisces to possess a stone like this,’ said Christiane bitterly. ‘Then you tell me why Mireille had to give it to you last Monday after practice? Last Monday, Genèvieve!’
The face, the cameo of the fourteenth-century pin she had been cleaning, looked up at her. Slowly at first, and then more and more as must have happened with Adrienne’s body, the flood-waters from the tap began to drag it free and towards the drain. A beautifully carved portrait of a young girl of substance, that other Mireille, the stone no longer a dirty greyish green but a lovely delicate oval of soft yellowish green, the name of the stone combining two words from the Greek. ‘Krusos,’ she wept and tried to stop herself. ‘Golden, Genèvieve, that’s what it means, and prasos, their word for the leek. The golden leek — chrysoprase, damn you!’
‘Stop it. Stop it now!’
‘I can’t! I mustn’t. I have to say things to you.’
‘Then give that thing to me and I’ll take care of it!’
‘No you won’t! It’s mine now. With me it’s safe.’
A Gemini …
Christiane snatched it up and turned swiftly to face her. ‘Who really killed Mireille?’
Her slightly parted lips began to tremble as she waited for an answer. She was so tense and afraid, thought Genèvieve. No longer was there any light in her eyes, only suspicion. ‘I … I don’t know. I swear it, chérie.’
‘I went to bed early that night. You know I did.’
Her voice had climbed. She had to say something. ‘There are no secrets between us, Christiane.’
‘There can never be any, Genèvieve.’
The softness of a smile would be best. ‘I wasn’t long but you had already fallen asleep when I went in to see you.’
‘Liar! You went to the Palais. You were there, Genèvieve. Madame came here to get the sickle from the props’ room and you … you followed her. César wanted Mireille for himself. You know he did but Madame is very jealous. She tolerates you and me only because she knows about us and to her it doesn’t matter if César takes either or both of us whenever he feels like it and you … Sometimes I think you enjoy it!’
The price they had had to pay, and an honest assessment given by one who could well have gone to the Palais herself. ‘But Mireille was different — is this what you’re saying?’ said Genèvieve cautiously.
‘You know she was perfect for that livrée of his. César would have given her time but would have wanted her as his wife. Nothing less would have satisfied that ego of his. She and Adrienne were to have replaced you and Xavier. I was to stay on.’
‘And now … now you think I killed her,’ said Genèvieve.
‘You had to!’
‘But so did Xavier.’
Christiane ducked her eyes away. ‘And … and so did Madame,’ she said, taking a quick breath. ‘I … I admit this freely.’ Genèvieve still hadn’t come to her. Genèvieve wasn’t going to and yet … and yet an earnestness had softened the hardness as her lips began to form words — would they be of kindness?