Madrigal (26 page)

‘Mine, I think,' said Christiane, colouring quickly at the attention Genèvieve was giving him.

‘No, mine. A suit of armour or a shield will resonate perfectly in tune with its note. The metal of a cross, a candelabra … all such things will do the same.'

‘Wash my back, will you?' he said to Christiane, handing her the bar of soap, she to search him out and earnestly say, ‘Each object in the hall is capable of picking up the note that suits it and of vibrating at the same pitch.'

His left arm was again hesitantly touched, a reminder Genèvieve gave of her presence. ‘Thus each of these objects contributes its echoing note. A fulfilment perhaps.'

A brittleness entered Christiane's voice. ‘Hence what you hear are many more sounds than you would normally hear, were we positioned together.'

‘Up front, before the audience,' interjected Genèvieve, smiling softly at him. ‘Yet all are united. Each voice is totally of its own but dependent on all the others for the life it gives the song.'

Verdammt
, but Oona's eyes were just as blue as this one's and she was every bit as tall and beautiful and wouldn't like it one damned bit if she knew he was here alone with them. Giselle neither. ‘And totally dependent on the singing master's benevolence,' he said flatly.

‘Of course,' confessed Genèvieve.

Christiane began to use the soap on his back but suddenly leaned over to put a cheek next to his, she standing on tiptoes on the edge of the bath. ‘Unlike the present day, harmonic systems and chords were not available to medieval composers. Everything had to be built upwards from the
Basso Continuo.
'

‘The thorough or continuous bass, Inspector,' acknowledged Genèvieve. ‘Very few keys were used and yet … and yet such a richness was obtained. It's a totally different way of composing music.'

‘And very exciting,' said Christiane, now soaping his neck and leaning over him to do his chest.

‘We have not only to
think
as the medievals did, but in some ways to live like them, Inspector. We learn to play their games and to sing their songs.'

And I'm way past my depth, aren't I, thought Kohler ruefully. Louis … where the hell was Louis? ‘Okay, then let's start with you both and with Brother Matthieu and his postcards.'

The centuries withdrew into themselves in the cellars, thought St-Cyr. Under vaulted ceilings that were low and dank, the refuse of the ages had been left as if forgotten. Crates, old leather trunks, bits of heavy furniture, porcelains and pewter … He passed the beam of his torch over them.

Crumbled plaster broke underfoot. Bare limestone was exposed. Mould was everywhere; frost too. Medieval iron rings, black iron hooks and sconces protruded. Water had seeped up through the floor to form sheets of
verglas
, black ice that was often unseen until too late. There were locks upon locks and when, finally, he had found what he was after, racks and racks of wine bottles, some so old the fingers trembled when mould and cobweb were brushed from stained labels.

There were cases, too,
Pernod et fils
having built a distillery at Tarragona in Spain when the production of absinthe had been banned in France on 16 March 1915. Banned not just because it had erroneously been blamed for having caused the drastic drop in the birthrate before and into the Great War, but because, beyond initial feelings of exaltation and abandon, it had excited the central nervous system in ways little understood. Violently antisocial behaviour in the bars and cafés had often culminated in knife fights – its addicts often succumbing to spasmodic fits of delirium, of which, when sober, they had no recollection.

Numbness and passivity had affected other addicts, often masking a mind tortured by violent hallucinations and delusions. Ringing in the ears – the disease of Van Gogh – had been another side effect, as had feelings of constant anxiety and unquenchable thirst.

‘A hundred and thirty-six proof,' he said tartly to himself, examining a bottle upon which there was neither dust nor cobweb. ‘Sixty-eight per cent alcohol.'

In this most recent shipment, there were ten wooden cases, 120 bottles, each of a litre. Four bottles had been taken upstairs last night. At least two of those, he knew, had been consumed.

Jammed on to a rusty iron spike that dangerously protruded from the end of a nearby wine rack were bills of lading, all of them written in Spanish no French customs clerk, unless paid off, would ever have seen.

The earliest of the bills dated from 11 June 1941. To enter the country, the shipments would have to cross the
zone interdite
, the Forbidden Zone that extended along all frontiers and seacoasts and inland for a good twenty kilometres. And that meant, of course, with the willing cooperation of the Occupier. A bribe paid, a nod given.

Cast aside, but often gone through in a feverish search for dregs, were empties from Pernod's factory at Montfavet.
L'Extrait d'absinthe
. ‘1892 …' he muttered. Picking up another, ‘1907 …' There were dozens of empties, and several of the labels gave the names of other distilleries in France. Even at the height of its popularity, over 10,000,000 litres a year had been imported from Switzerland alone. The canton of Neufchâtel had been its most important centre of production. But the Swiss had banned absinthe in 1908.

When he looked up, a shadow moved and he suddenly realized he was no longer alone.

They sat on the edge of the bath with legs dangling in the water and the gossamer of their sheaths clinging to them. Kohler could just touch bottom when standing in the middle of the pool facing them, and maybe it really was like it had been back then in 1343 or thereabouts.

‘Of course we sold photos of our breasts to that shop,' confessed Genèvieve unsmilingly.

‘Locks of our hair, too,' offered her playmate.

‘Inspector, students always need money. Brother Matthieu and others like him simply stare at the cards and finger the hair in private. What harm is there in our letting them?'

‘A kindness, I think,' said Christiane. ‘After all, our
gueule cassée
has suffered much and feels deeply that no woman or girl would ever wish to be intimate with him. And he a man of the cloth, we mustn't forget.'

‘And Adrienne de Langlade?' asked Kohler, making them both feel uneasy.

‘She would never have agreed to such a thing,' said Genèvieve.

‘She was too modest,' echoed Christiane.

‘But Brother Matthieu wanted a photo of her breasts?'

‘Xavier …' began the raven-haired one only to be nudged into silence by the blonde who said levelly, ‘What she was about to say, Inspector, was that Brother Matthieu had made things very hard for Xavier. Brutally so. Nothing Xavier did was right. The bishop's kennels were never properly cleaned. Night after night we'd find Xavier scrubbing the floors. Control of the hounds when on the hunt was never satisfactory.'

‘Nino was always causing trouble, always going off somewhere,' said Christiane earnestly.

‘You have to understand how compelling is the desire in Brother Matthieu. But his
fétichisme de cheveux
is never totally satisfying, never complete,
n
'
est-ce pas?
Not like a man with a woman,' said Genèvieve.

‘We would see him averting his gaze every time she entered a room, Inspector. We knew what he desired.'

‘He trembled in her presence.'

‘He sweated.'

‘Inspector, Brother Matthieu put the squeeze on Xavier so hard, we … we had to do something,' confessed the blonde.

‘Xavier was losing his voice, wasn't he?' asked Kohler.

‘Yes, and this was causing trouble enough so we … we did what we felt had to be done,' offered the
Alto
, lowering her eyes.

‘The picnic in early June.'

‘She never knew about the photos. I swear it,' blurted Christiane.

‘But she sure as hell discovered she was pregnant, didn't she?'

Herr Kohler wanted them to say Xavier wasn't the only one who had used her, thought Genèvieve, nor was that the only time they had got her drunk on absinthe. He wanted to say, How could you have done that to her? But he didn't say any of these things because he was thinking of something else.

‘I'm puzzled,' he said. ‘You see, you madrigalists do everything as one. You follow orders, too. You have to, right? How else could that
Basso Continuo
of yours and his two pals have avoided the forced labour draft?'

The STO, the
Service de Travail Obligatoire
, a constant threat …

Herr Kohler swam up to them, his big, strong arms moving water back and forth to keep him in position. ‘Who suggested the picnic?' he asked. ‘Was it Madame Simondi?'

When they didn't answer, he said, ‘I think you'd better tell me.'

‘Before it is too late for us?' blurted Christiane, her dark eyes rapidly moistening.

‘I suggested the picnic, Inspector,' said Genèvieve levelly. ‘Guy had always wanted to see the
mas
César had leased to Mireille's mother. It was a chance, then, for him to do so.'

‘But you'd seen it before, hadn't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘You'd gone out there to see if it would be suitable.'

‘No.' How can you think such a thing? I …'

‘We … we rode out on our bicycles just after Easter, Inspector,' said Christiane, not looking at him but steadily at her friend. ‘Mireille was with us. We had a lovely day because when … when one was with Mireille, one always shared her love of Provence, of its great beauty and … and history.'

‘Did she know you would take Adrienne there for a “picnic”?'

The
Alto
bowed her head and, subdued, answered, ‘She … she thought it a good idea.'

‘She trusted you both, didn't she?'

‘Yes.'

‘She wanted to join us as a full member herself,' said Genèvieve, ‘but knew that Adrienne had the better chance.'

‘She accepted this,' said Christiane, still not looking up at him. ‘Mireille was goodness itself, Inspector. Dedicated always to our success. Praising it, too. Always.'

He began to mount the steps, and when he had stopped on the third one, he was nearest to Christiane, and Genèvieve told herself she knew what he was about to do. He would single Christiane out now, demanding answers only from her.

Be careful,
petite
, she said silently. He cares passionately about those answers and is not distracted in the slightest by our nakedness.

‘Tell me about Dédou Favre,' he said and, as she had thought, held a hand up to silence her.

‘Dédou must have seen us at the picnic,' confessed Christiane stupidly. ‘That … that is the only way Mireille could possibly have found out about the … the postcards and … and Brother Matthieu's little affliction.'

‘Then Dédou knew, didn't he,
ma belle
, exactly who had raped Adrienne and, yes, how many of them had gone at her?'

She tried to blink away her tears but they wouldn't stop. ‘It was only Xavier, I swear it!' she shrilled. ‘We … we were all up in the house except … except for him.'

‘And drunk.'

‘Drunk, yes.'

‘On absinthe.'

‘Yes, damn you! Like last night. Last night …' She gripped her mouth.

‘Dédou was arrested well before dawn on Monday, wasn't he?'

‘Inspector …'

‘Shut up! Speak only when spoken to.'

Water was trickling slowly down his legs through the hairs. There were other scars, old scars, wounds from shrapnel; from bullets too. ‘Xavier said that if it wasn't done, Dédou and Mireille would confront Bishop Rivaille with the matter. The Kommandant might be there – this we didn't know at the time. You must believe me.'

‘The audition …'

‘Yes.'

‘So you all agreed to let Xavier turn Dédou in?'

‘We are one, Inspector.
One
because we have to be!'

‘Then why didn't you share up the reward?'

‘What reward? There was no reward.'

‘Oh, but there was,
meine kleine Liebling
.'

‘Genèvieve, what's this he is saying?'

‘The hundred thousand francs, I think. That can take time, Inspector. Xavier simply hasn't received it yet.'

He wouldn't tell them, thought Kohler acidly. He'd let them think what they would. As sure as these two had bodies to bring joy to themselves and to others, their young lives were over should the Resistance discover what they'd done. ‘Four
maquis
have died because of this,' he said, ‘and that's not counting Dédou.'

A great sadness had entered his eyes. ‘And what of Adrienne de Langlade?' he asked, seemingly condemning them.

‘Brother Matthieu,' grated Genèvieve. ‘Why not ask it of him? Of
him
! We know nothing of that business.
Nothing
, do you understand? We were away on tour.'

He flicked water at her as he went up the steps. ‘Oh but you weren't. You were in Avignon. And what's more, Mireille de Sinéty wrote it all down and hid it away for my partner and I to find.'

They were alone at last, and in the all but silent room the sound of still-lapping bathwater came harshly.

‘Is it really true what Herr Kohler said?' asked Christiane in despair.

‘That bitch
would
leave things for them to find. I
knew
it!' swore Genèvieve, getting up to pull off her sheath and throw it into the water.

‘She wrote it down, he said.'

‘The
enseignes
, you little fool. The talismans and cabochons – the rebus every young maid wore to tease and taunt the hearts and minds of her admirers.'

‘Her killers. Those who couldn't have her telling others what had really happened to Adrienne.'