‘It helps, doesn’t it?’ Kohler indicated the garlic, startling him. ‘It stays with you longer than most things and gives the illusion of a stomach at work.’
The chewing stopped. The mouse-brown, unblinkered eye began to moisten.
Salvatore Biron dragged off his beret, the garlic chips tumbling from the bread to lie sweating their juice under the flickering light. ‘Forgive me,’ he said and ducked his good eye down.
Immediately he began to tidy things, the left hand busy, the hook that served as the right hand unoccupied. One of the anciens combattants from the last war, like Brother Matthieu, he was, in addition, a grand mutilé, an amputee. ‘Verdun,’ he muttered, not looking up. ‘Your side’s machine-gun nest. In the carelessness of my grenade attack the bunker was removed but so was my forearm, and fortunately for me, but a portion of my parties sensibles. One testicle, not the member.’
‘A fag?’ said Kohler, hauling them out only to see Biron shake his head and hear him mumble, ‘I have my own and because tobacco is so severely rationed, must limit myself lest the desire become too great.’
‘Nicht deutschfreundlich, eh?’
Not friendly to Germans. ‘Should I be?’ he asked, looking up at last but not defiantly. ‘They removed my right leg below the knee. Another mistake of mine, but no matter.’
The face was pinched, the hair dyed jet black, as were the eyebrows to match the layers of cloth that had been glued to the inside of the right lens of his specs.
‘And yet you’re here, guiding “tourists” through the Palais, seven days a week at their command.’
‘One has to live, and since the pension is small, we Avignonnais tend to take care of one another. The bishop has a kind heart.’
Had Biron turned grey overnight during the war? wondered Kohler. Many of the boys had. ‘So, okay then, start telling me about the girl.’
‘I found the child on Monday night at about ten minutes before the curfew started.’
At 10.50 p.m. on the twenty-fifth. The wire summoning Louis and himself to Avignon had arrived in Paris at about 8.00 a.m. on the twenty-sixth. ‘What made you go up there at that hour?’
‘The bishop always requires that I go through the Palais to make certain all is well and no one has remained behind to make mischief.’
‘But someone did.’
‘Our “tourists” often throw stones at the statues or yell so as to hear the echoes of their voices.’
‘Soldier boys will be boys. When do you usually check through?’
Salaud! Son of a bitch! ‘After closing. At … at five thirty in the afternoon, unless, of course, there is one of the concerts. The madrigal singers perform here and when they do, la chambre de la grande audience is always full. A crowd, some of whom like to wander off, especially in summer when it’s warm outside, but cool in the darkness here.’ If the Inspector thought anything of this, he gave no indication.
‘What detained you from five thirty until ten minutes before the curfew?’ he asked.
Jésus, merde alors, why must he persist? ‘A film. It’s not often I get to see one but …’
‘But on Monday evening you just had to go to the cinema,’ snorted Kohler. ‘Which one, eh? The film, I mean, and then, the cinema.’
‘The … The Grapes of Wrath.’
‘Pardon?’
‘An American film left over from the evacuation.’
The Occupier had moved into the Free Zone to occupy the whole of France on 11 November 1942. On the 8th the Allies, the Americans, having joined them, had landed en masse in Algeria and Morocco. On 27 November the French had scuttled the French fleet in Toulon Harbour — over seventy ships — and on 17 December General Niehoff, now based in Lyon, had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the France-Sud military region.
‘The cinema?’ asked Kohler, a breath held.
The detective would find out anyway — he had that look about him. ‘L’Odyssée de la grande illusion. It’s one of your Soldatenkino but Monsieur Simondi, the owner, turns a blind eye sometimes.’
‘Nur für Deutsche, eh?’
Only for Germans. ‘Yes.’
‘So you spent the evening watching The Grapes of Wrath.’
‘It’s … it’s supposed to show your soldiers what things are really like in America. Such poverty, Inspector. Such dust. Do they have the mistral there too?’
Had there even been subtitles to tell the boys what was being said? ‘I’ll ask my partner to check into it. He’s a film buff. Simondi, did you say?’
‘César Simondi.’
‘Any connection to the victim?’
‘She was one of his singing students in addition to her being the group’s costumière. Still, for her there were the auditions, the constant need to prove herself when she … she was ten times better than any of the others.’
‘A golden voice?’
‘That of an angel.’
This time the offer of a cigarette was accepted. The concierge’s fingers trembled. He coughed twice, shook some more, and finally got to inhaling the smoke.
‘When I found her, Inspector, there was no one with her — I swear it — but the blood was still hot. It was running down the wall and from that terrible gash in her slender throat, a throat I …’.
‘You what?’
Ah Jésus! ‘I admired as much as did many others. It’s no sin, is it, for a broken man to admire a pretty girl?’ The detective would file- the remark away. He had that look about him constantly.
‘Did you touch anything — apart from dipping a finger?’
‘Touch …? I heard a sigh but it couldn’t have come from Mireille, this I know, for I’ve seen death often enough.’
A sigh …‘At ten fifty p.m., or very close to it.’
‘Yes. I … I went at once to inform Brother Matthieu but couldn’t find him. I then went to see the bishop.’
‘Hang on a minute. Was there any sign of the murder weapon?’
‘The weapon? No, I … I didn’t look closely, though.’
‘But you definitely heard someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘A man or a woman?’
‘I … All right, I didn’t hang around to find out who it was.’
‘You went to inform the bishop. Where was he?’
The eyeglasses were removed and the good eye wiped with a handkerchief. ‘Bishop Rivaille was out — that is what his housekeeper told me when I woke her. A dinner engagement, things to discuss. The concert on the thirtieth. The singers. This new tour they are planning — Aix, Marseille, Toulon, Aries also, I think. The bishop takes a very special interest in the madrigal singers because they also sing the Masses, the Magnificat and other canticles. Simondi is choirmaster and director of music at the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame-des-Doms.’
Right next door to the Palais. ‘Either that girl had a key to the front entrance here or someone left the door open for her. Who has keys?’
‘Only the bishop, myself and Brother Matthieu. The door wouldn’t have been left open, Inspector. How could it have been? Are you certain she had a key?’
‘Not certain, but why doesn’t Simondi have one? If the group sings here, they must practise here.’
‘All right, he has one too.’
‘Good. Now tell me a little about our victim.’
‘There isn’t much to tell. She made the costumes as well as doing sewing for others. Right from when she started working for Maître Simondi, and it’s some years now, I think she had it in mind to join the singers, but theirs is a tight little group, you understand. They’re very possessive of their positions and guard them well. Jealous of one another, oh bien sûr, but fiercely united too. Simondi is very particular who he lets in and they know this and govern themselves accordingly. She had a very high voice, clear and sweet, but the Italians are fussy when it comes to Monteverdi and others of their composers, and the six-part singing places terrible demands on its participators, or so I am often told.’