‘Was an amateur.’
‘Ah nom de Dieu, how can you be so sure?’
Immediately she gestured with a hand, letting the stub of her cigarette cling to her lower lip. ‘Photography, like good painting, good modelling, good anything, isn’t just experience but art which is that joyous combination of the soul, the subject, the camera or whatever, the light and the lighting, the mood, Jean-Louis. The willingness to give everything even if it takes for ever. Intuitively there is an understanding of this. One either knows how to do it or doesn’t. For me, it can’t be taught. I think one has to be born to it. Picasso and Braque would probably agree most heartily.’
Muriel had paintings by both artists in her collection. Like all good collectors, she had bought early so as to encourage the artists and had held on to their works even in hard times or when profit tempted.
‘An amateur photographer,’ he said.
‘A good one-oh he’s had some experience. I won’t deny that, but he shows his lack of judgement by trying for special effects that only distract. The reflections of this girl in this vitrine, the shadows that are cast on the breasts of this other one-did he think to show that fate was closing over her life like the Nazi shadow over Europe?’
‘A man?’
‘Mais certainement. A woman would have concentrated on the tragedy of those lives even though she took part in the killing. There is … there is also the suggestion of an eagerness I do not like.’
‘Pardon?’
The rheumy eyes were sad. ‘The photographer and his assistant, Jean-Louis. Were they both about to humiliate and destroy these girls right after their final entrapment had been recorded?’
‘Have sex with them?’
‘Yes!’
Their tea came. Composed at last, Chantal followed one of the shop’s mannequins in. The girl said a quiet, shy hello to St-Cyr. She was an absolutely gorgeous creature-exquisitely formed, with superb hazel eyes and wavy, curly hair.
Wearing only briefs and a flimsy brassiere, she asked how he took his tea and said, ‘It’s Darjeeling. May I suggest it clear?’
‘You are absolutely beautiful, mademoiselle, and very, very charming.’
‘She’s very special,’ said Chantal. ‘Spoken for, of course, and exceptional in her work. Dominique, darling, I bring you in only to refresh my Muriel’s eyes and to illustrate to Monsieur the Chief Inspector that, in my humble opinion, only two of the girls in those photographs had any hope of ever being mannequins.’
‘Two?’ he asked.
‘Your little Joanne, Jean-Louis. If you find her alive, you may send her to us so that she does not have to search the newspapers ever again for such … such advertisements!’
‘And the other?’ he asked. Anger was helping Chantal to overcome the tragedy.
‘Renee Marteau, of course. Had we known Renee was desperate for work, we would have taken her in. She was good-very dependable, very keen to please and very professional. Indeed,’ said Chantal fiercely, ‘I have to ask, Why should she have answered such an advertisement? Why would she not have come to us or to others?’
Something had to be said however feeble. ‘Perhaps she did? Perhaps you were not in the market at the time?’
That wasn’t good enough. With her teacup in hand, Muriel went over the photographs again. ‘Chantal, please come and help me. Your eye is often better.’
‘This one, I think, dearest. The lips, that smile-it’s so like Renee’s. The forehead, the eyes … ah, the hands, Muriel, and the way she holds them. Exactly. Exactly!’
They both looked up at him. ‘Did Renee have a sister? A younger sister perhaps? This girl,’ asked Chantal.
He felt so helpless. ‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Then you must find out. It may well be that Renee followed in her sister’s footsteps to find out what became of her,’ said Muriel firmly, holding up the photo.
Two girls, taken from one family … Was it possible? A terrible tragedy in itself …
‘This the police may not have realized,’ said Chantal quietly, ‘and thought, instead, that poor Renee was simply out of work and looking for a job.’
‘The jewellery?’ he asked with a catch in his throat.
‘It’s not new but stock, perhaps, that has been rescued from another time,’ said Chantal.
‘The twenties and the early thirties,’ said her companion. ‘Eighteen carat gold and superbly crafted. Far, far better than most of such pieces we have seen, but perhaps first brought on to the market after the demand for such things had fallen off. Timing is everything, luck but a figment of the imagination.’
Their shop had never carried jewellery so whoever had first offered it for sale, would not have come to them. ‘Mademoiselle de Brisson …? Have you anything to say about her?’ he asked.
‘She’s good at her job,’ confessed Chantal, ‘and we would wish she were employed elsewhere but that one … ah, what can be said? She refuses all offers and stays with her friend. Perhaps it is that such loyalty stems from an attraction to Mademoiselle St. Onge, perhaps from something else, a debt still unpaid. Together their little shop must float or sink.’
‘Could it have been two women?’ he asked, ‘The one to instruct the girls and the other to photograph them?’
‘Mademoiselle de Brisson and Mademoiselle St. Onge?’ asked Chantal.
It was a thought repugnant to them. Vehemently they shook their heads, but he could tell they would have to think about it.
And he would have to be satisfied with that for now. As he gathered the photos, he said, ‘There is one further matter.’
They waited and when he handed them the announcement of the engagement between Angelique Desthieux and Gaetan Verges, Muriel gripped Chantal’s wrist and said, ‘Steady now. Be brave. Don’t embarrass yourself again with tears.’
It was Chantal who sadly said, ‘They made such a beautiful couple, Jean-Louis.’
Muriel lit another cigarette and fiercely blew smoke through her flattish nostrils. ‘Angelique would have put even our Dominique to shame.’
‘She had such gorgeous hair and eyes. That deep chestnut shade of hair, long and thick and lustrous, the eyes …’
‘Dearest, please,’ said Muriel.
‘She was lovely,’ whispered Chantal. ‘Is it that you can still remember her nakedness, my Muriel? The sweet and delicate breath, the loveliness of her composure-grace in every movement, even the simplest turning of the little finger? Her laughter, her smile, her warm and outgoing nature? The exceptional quality of her skin-isn’t that what you once said, Muriel? The texture of boiled almonds that have lost their overcoats!’
Even after all these years Chantal was still fiercely jealous. Muriel chose the mannequins. Muriel …
‘She came to us, Jean-Louis, and we used her but only for special occasions,’ said Muriel tartly. ‘Angelique Desthieux was very good and very expensive.’
‘She had an agent who guarded her talents as the Shah of Persia his harem!’
‘Chantal, stop it! This attitude of yours will get us nowhere.’
‘An agent, Jean-Louis. A business manager.’
‘Albert Tonnerre,’ snorted Muriel with obvious dislike.
‘Luc,’ whispered Chantal. ‘Albert Luc Tonnerre. Though a ladies’ man and a seducer, a deflowerer of silly young teenaged girls, he … he has fallen in love with her several times, Monsieur Louis. Love, he has called it. Love! The fornication! And if you ask me, she believed him. Oh yes she did! It was most unprofessional of him, especially since she was pledged to another.’
Muriel tapped the announcement and said, ‘To the son, the drooler.’
‘What happened?’ he said, suddenly at a loss to fathom the depths of their memories.
‘Did she take up again with Monsieur Tonnerre after she had rejected the horror of her fiance’s face?’ asked Muriel, harshly giving him his very thoughts. ‘No, she did not’