‘Then ask yourself, ma petite, how could César allow Mireille to destroy everything he and the bishop and the others had put together? César wanted Madame to kill Mireille — he planned it that way. It was that or do it himself. Regrettably he had no other choice. She’d get the guillotine because de Passe and the magistrate would make certain of it. One has to protect one’s business associates and fellow penitents noirs, n’est-ce past Why else would César have starved her of absinthe for five days, Christiane? You know the state Madame was in by Monday.’
Answers had to be found and one always had to weaken when challenged by Genèvieve. ‘Xavier is her confident. He got her the sickle. He went with her and … and let Nino into the Palais to find Mireille when … when César and the others had left. Mireille was in tears after the audition and felt she had lost everything. She had stupidly confronted them with the truth about Adrienne but Dedou hadn’t come to back her up. She was all alone and … and soon left the Grand Tinel.’
And it was very dark in the Chambre du cerf, wasn’t it? asked Genèvieve silently. ‘Then Xavier could have killed Mireille for Madame.’
‘Yes. Yes, that is so.’
‘Then, there, now you know everything. Feel better?’ she asked, tenderly enfolding her. ‘Cry. Let it all come out, petite. I know you didn’t mean to say that about me. I know you still love me.’
A hesitant breath was taken. Warm, wet lips were pressed to a cheek as arms were wrapped more tightly about her. Tears flooded.
‘When … when you came into my room I pretended to be asleep. I … I went to your room, Genèvieve, but couldn’t find you. I looked everywhere and … and then I left here and went after you. I had to stop it from happening. I couldn’t have you dismissed from the singers and found guilty of Mireille’s murder. I couldn’t have us parted because of her.’
‘You fool. You little fool.’
A few parishioners were scattered about the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame-des-Doms. But the chancel was unattended. No confessions were being heard, the Blessed Sacrament was not being made available.
Alain de Passe cursed the absence and hurried to the left, past the carved white marble throne of a twelfth-century bishop and on into the sacristy, but still there wasn’t a sign of any of them. ‘Merde,’ he breathed.
They were in the adjacent chapel. ‘César … Ah mon Dieu, at last I’ve found you.’
‘Un momento, amico mio. Let us wait until Henri-Baptiste is finished.’
Prostrate in the coarse black cassock of a simple priest, and with his face pressed painfully to the floor and arms outstretched with hands clasped, Bishop Rivaille prayed before the tomb of Pope John XXII.
The reclining stone figure of the pope had been destroyed during the Revolution and later replaced by that of a bishop. Six of the elegant statues which had once adorned the tomb had long ago been removed to decorate the Église de Saint-Pierre which was just to the south-east of the Palais.
‘He’s begging His Eminence to intercede with the Holy Father on his and our behalf,’ confided Simondi wryly.
And so much for stringing up a pregnant naked girl in his room at the mill and thrashing the hell out of himself while standing before her. ‘He worshipped that girl even more than he did Mireille de Sinéty. A virgin, he thought,’ clucked de Passe and sadly shook his head as if to say, How naive can the clergy get? ‘We have to talk, César. St-Cyr didn’t believe for a moment that Brother Matthieu had done it, nor that he had killed the petite lingère. To him Henri-Baptiste must have violated Adrienne de Langlade while in a drunken rage.’
‘And everything we see here suggests that he did,’ muttered Simondi sadly. ‘The remorse for breaking his vows, the tears of anguish at the threatened loss of the dream, not to mention that of everything else.’
Across the place de Horloge, the swastika flying from the Kommandantur and Hotel de ville seemed larger than most. In the fast-greying light, the colours were darker, the design sharper, more ominous.
And yet here am I, one of the Occupier, seeking sanctuary; thought Kohler, wishing Louis was with him. But Louis wasn’t. Louis hadn’t been in the Cafe of the Panic-stricken White Mule. He hadn’t been at the prefecture, he had simply vanished — had he vanished? The river? Mein Gott, the river!
Von Mahler was busy at his desk and didn’t appreciate the sudden intrusion. Nino barked. Kohler shouted, ‘She’s with me. She’s brought along evidence to match the other shoe she found and good for her, eh, Nino?’
Taking the frayed tennis shoe from her, he patted the dog warmly, then thumped the shoe on the desk. Sand flew up. ‘Herr Oberst, my partner’s missing.’
‘He’s at the morgue.’
‘And dead! The morgue. I knew it.’
Kohler looked ill. For perhaps ten seconds the detective couldn’t seem to move as the colour drained from the scarred and frost-burnished cheeks. Then he yanked at a chair and sat down heavily.
‘I need a drink, damn it, and a cigarette!’
Cognac in hand, and doors closed, he stared in silence at his glass before muttering, ‘The morgue … I always knew it had to end. Salut, Jean-Louis. Salut, mon vieux. Here’s to the best damned partner there ever was.’
Tears fell and he didn’t care if he was seen with them. ‘You son of a bitch!’ he said scathingly. ‘You could have stopped this whole thing from happening but oh no, you had to cosy up to those bastards. You had to be seen to get along with them and to tolerate their schemes!’
‘Kohler, pull yourself together.’
The closely trimmed, crinkly dark brown hair and good looks of von Mahler only infuriated. ‘What’s the use of my “pulling” myself together, Colonel? With one down, they have only one more to go and everything will be neat and tidy.’
‘Now listen-’
‘No, you listen. They drowned Adrienne de Langlade, and when Mireille de Sinéty found out about it, they realized she was about to sing. No matter who used the sickle on that girl, it has to have been done with the sanction of all of them. And don’t give me any of that Quatsch about the bishop and Simondi worshipping the girl and needing her. To them she was a threat they couldn’t tolerate.’
Von Mahler searched for something. A paper-pusher all his life, was that what he’d been? snorted Kohler and said, ‘When we first met, Herr Oberst, you told me you had no idea who had replaced you as the third judge. For all you knew, Simondi could have cancelled the audition. Since the concierge hadn’t been aware of one, you stated that this must mean there hadn’t been one.’
‘And?’
Von Mahler’s iron-grey eyes met his without a waver. ‘Those were all lies, Colonel, and you knew it even then. That concierge was in a cinema that was reserved for your men.’
‘The projectionist and usherettes are French. One more would not have mattered.’
‘But it did, Colonel, and I think you’re more than a little aware of this. Salvatore Biron was purposely delayed until after Rivaille and the others had left the Palais — if they did leave it, as they claim. He found the body moments too late and heard a sigh that couldn’t have been hers.’
‘All right. Simondi did ask me to allow Salvatore to watch that film. At the time, I thought it could do no harm.’
‘And your wife, Herr Oberst?’
Kohler wasn’t going to leave things alone, not now, ‘Was at the Palais. It was she who gave the sigh Salvatore heard. I … I was merely trying to protect her.’
‘From the Cagoule or from justice? Bitte, mein lieber Oberst, I must ask it.’
‘From exposure, then. I couldn’t have her forced into facing yours and St-Cyr’s questions and then those of an official inquiry.’