The Orchid Shroud (5 page)

LATER WEDNESDAY, 28 APRIL

B
ut why?” Christophe cried. “Why the police?” He sat in a chintz-covered armchair, brown eyes sweeping from face to face. “Why not just a priest? I really think a priest would be much more appropriate.”

They were in Thérèse’s parlor, adjoining the kitchen. The room bore her mark—white lace curtains, not a speck of dust, a threadbare carpet worn as much by cleaning as by use, old furniture polished to a mellow glow and smelling of beeswax.

“Use sense,” Thérèse snapped. She stood at a table, pouring brandy. She had been told about the baby, although she had refused to view it. Her hand shook. Liquid slopped onto the tabletop. She wiped it up with her apron. “Here. Drink this.” She thrust a glass at her employer, served Mara, Julian, and lastly herself. “It’s what comes of laughing at evil,” she scolded them all. “God save us.” Her voice broke.

Julian saw that she was close to tears. He put his glass down and guided her to a chair. The old woman huddled there, looking suddenly very frail.

Christophe returned to his main theme. “I don’t see why we can’t just leave it where it is. Seal it back up. I mean”—the pink had returned to his cheeks; he had regained some of his bounce—“it’s not as if this were a … a recent event. Look, the main part of the house was built in 1505. The north wing was added in 1642. That
—thing—
could have been in the wall for centuries.”

Julian scratched his head thoughtfully. “Or put there more recently.”

“But it’s clearly,” Christophe almost shouted, “an
old
baby. You can tell from its appearance. Thérèse, what do you know about it?”

The old woman goggled at him. “Me?
Mon dieu
. It’s not my bastard!”

“For heaven’s sake,” shrilled Christophe. “I mean, you’ve lived here all your life. So did your parents. Surely you must have heard something.”

“I’ve never had time for gossip,” Thérèse told him with a lift of her bony chin. “All I can say is, it’s somebody’s illegitimate kid. Whoever it was had to get rid of it.”

Mara went a little pale. “Are you saying someone buried a live baby in a wall?”

“Of course not,” the housekeeper muttered sulkily. “They would have killed it first.”

“I should never have let myself be talked into this insane renovation,” Christophe moaned, rocking to and fro. “Knocking down walls. See where it’s gotten me! Mara, you must get hold of those men. Your wreckers. Tell them to hold their tongues. At least until we figure out how to deal with this horrible situation. If need be, I’ll make it worth their while to keep quiet.”

“I expect it’s too late.” Mara ignored his implication of blame and glanced out a window giving onto the forecourt. The Serafims had gone. They had left without a backward glance, slamming the doors of their battered truck and shooting away in a spurt of gravel. “They’ve probably spread the story everywhere by now.”

“Oh my god,” Christophe wailed as the reality broke on him. “I’m about to publish a luxury quarto edition, Garamond type, calf-bound, on the glorious history of the de Bonfonds. We are one of the first families of the land, representing generations of achievement and unstained family honor. And now a dead baby
turns up to be explained. Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is to me?”

“Oh, come on, Christophe,” Julian objected. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Exaggerating! This thing is a corpse, literally, at the de Bonfond banquet. You seem to forget that my book is not only intended to honor the long line of de Bonfonds before me, it also commemorates the quarter-century anniversary of Editions Arobas and the impeccable standards Arobas represents. The proofs are nearly ready, and suddenly I have a cadaver to account for. Can’t you see the position this puts me in? Moreover, for your information, small publishing houses like mine are struggling to stay alive. It’s only my personal fortune that’s been keeping things afloat. I don’t necessarily expect the history of the de Bonfonds to cover costs, but I can’t afford to be a laughingstock. This could ruin me. It could bring Arobas to its knees.”

“Surely it’s not as bad as that,” Julian laughed uneasily. “Is it?” It occurred to him that perhaps the fate of his own
Wild Orchids of the Dordogne
also hung in the balance.

“It will be once the word gets out.
Arobas Anniversary Release Stifled at Birth. De Bonfond History Hides Skeleton in Closet
. Headlines like that can be extremely damaging.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Loulou,” Mara said suddenly.

“Eh?” said Christophe.

“Loulou La Pouge. He’s a friend. Used to work with the Police Judiciaire in Périgueux. I’ll give him a call. He’ll know how to handle this.”

D
ead, you say?” the ex-cop’s voice boomed cheerfully into Mara’s ear.

She replied, “Very. It’s probably been in there for a long time, and it looks like a very young baby.”

“Hmm. Born out of wedlock and murdered at birth, the body concealed in a wall. Infanticides. Always nasty affairs.”

“Loulou,” Mara pleaded, “we need your help. We called you because Christophe doesn’t want a lot of publicity. He’s desperate to keep a lid on things.”

“I can imagine,” said Loulou. “Well, tell him it will probably be entirely straightforward. The gendarmes will come, do their thing, and
ça y est
. If the body is as old as you think, there’ll be the routine follow-up, more for the sake of form than anything. After all, the perpetrator will be long dead. A headline in
Sud Ouest
, some local curiosity perhaps. But that’s all.”

“Good,” said Mara.

“Although”—Loulou seemed to reconsider—“we must take into account that it’s getting on for summer, and the media are usually hungry for news. This could be just the kind of thing they’d sensationalize. Ridiculous, but there you are.” He went on with growing enthusiasm, “Moreover, if this proves to be a more
recent
murder, then that’s a different matter entirely. A full police investigation will be required, the baby’s identity will certainly have to be established, so a search will be done—church registries, birth records, even the national archives—and everyone who had access to the house for the past so many years will have to be found and interrogated. I expect Child Welfare will also want to be involved. The case will probably make headlines everywhere, and so forth.”

“Er, yes.” Mara glanced over her shoulder at Christophe, who sat sunk in the armchair staring at his feet. She cupped her hand over the phone and hissed, “Look, Loulou, I’m quite sure this death goes back a long way, and I’m asking you as a personal favor to do everything possible to make sure the matter is handled discreetly. It would make things easier all around.”

“What? Oh. Do what I can,” Loulou promised happily. “Always glad to help.”

W
ithin an hour, a lone officer from the Gendarmerie in Brames arrived, which was unusual because gendarmes always worked in pairs. Somehow neither Mara nor Julian was surprised that he was closely followed by Loulou. The two men, who appeared to know one another, got out of their cars, conferred briefly, and then walked together across the forecourt. Or, rather, Loulou led the way with the young gendarme seemingly in tow.

Julian, Mara, and Christophe hurried out to meet them.

“Alors, mes amis,”
Loulou hailed Mara and Julian. He was tubby and bald with a shining, cherubic face. Gravely he pumped Christophe’s hand.
“Quelle mauvaise affaire!
But never mind. The lad here will take care of everything. Had to come on his own, and you’re lucky they could spare him. Everyone’s out beating the woods for this killer dog, or wolf, or whatever it is. It was spotted last night near Petit Tournant. Killed a sheep. I’m here informally, of course.”

The lad was Sergeant Laurent Naudet, a gangling young man with a round face, sympathetic eyes, and big ears. His uniform seemed too large for him through the body and too short in the arms. “Really, Uncle, this is highly irregular,” he started to object, but Loulou thumped him soundly on the back.

“Don’t worry, lad. I’ll let you do your job. I’m just an old man along for the ride.” To the others he explained proprietarily, “My niece’s boy.” To Christophe he said, “And don’t you worry. Had a little talk with his commanding officer, Adjudant Compagnon. Know him well. Good man. Although he was just a bit touchy at first, my being ex-PJ and all. They’re sensitive about things like that.” Loulou referred to the double structure of the French police system, the Gendarmerie Nationale, which was organized along military lines and reported to the Ministry of Defense and had under its jurisdiction small towns and rural areas; and the Police
Judiciare, which policed larger centers and reported to the Ministry of the Interior. Ideally, the two branches, although quite separate, worked together when required, but there was a natural competitiveness between them in matters of turf and the solving of crimes. Loulou, with his Police Judiciaire links, was clearly stepping over the line. In fact, as a retired PJ with no official status, he had no business there at all. Not that this deterred him in the least. He squinted up at the imposing façade of Aurillac Manor with the air of a connoisseur.

“Scene of the crime, eh?” he chortled.

Christophe went pale. Just then Thérèse shouted down from the front door that he was wanted on the telephone.

Christophe said to Mara, “Take them up, will you? I’ll be along shortly. And Mara”—his voice dropped to a murmur—“use the servants’ stairs.” He hurried into the house.

As Christophe had requested, she took them around the north wing to the back of the house, up the staircase leading to the antechamber, and into the room where Smokey had revealed his find. Everything seemed strangely hushed. The dust had settled. With its rubble-strewn floor and piles of stone blocks, the place had the timeless air of an abandoned archeological site.

Mara pointed to the partially demolished wall. “It’s in there.”

Naudet stuck his head into the cavity.

Loulou pulled him back. “You’ll need this, I think.” He produced a flashlight from a capacious trouser pocket. “A good cop is always prepared.”

Laurent Naudet made a gesture of despair and went quite red.

With the aid of the flashlight they looked down on the dead child. It had been placed in a scooped-out cavity under one of a series of bondstones that served to tie the two faces of the wall together. The Serafims, in breaking through the wall, had taken out each course of stones, starting at the top and working down on
their respective sides, clearing away the riprap fill as they went. At a point about a meter and a half from the floor, they had lifted out a bondstone and made their startling discovery.

The body, preserved by the cold, airless environment of the wall, lay covered in dust and surrounded by rubble. Viewing it a second time, Mara noted that the baby’s wrapping was of faded blue silk, fringed with tassels of darker blue. As the beam of light played over dried flesh the color of tea, she saw a quiff of bleached-out hair, shrunken arms dressed in fine cotton sleeves trimmed with lace. A cross of filigreed silver attached to a rosary of ivory and amber beads had slipped down along the baby’s side. Someone had loved this child enough to lay it out with care and commit its soul to God before closing it up in its rough, inhospitable tomb. Inevitably, her eye was drawn to the terrible void of the mouth. The natural result of the collapse of flesh in death, she told herself firmly. But she found she had to turn away, her ears once again assailed by a soundless, deafening cry.

Perhaps the others heard it, too. Loulou, for once, was silent. Julian looked somber. Young Naudet stared, deeply disturbed. At this point Christophe burst into the room.

“You won’t believe this.” His small, pale hands fluttered up around his face like panicked moths. “The press have already got wind of the story. That was them on the phone. I’ve put them off for now, but it won’t be long before the dam breaks.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Julian.

“I told them …” Christophe gulped. “I told them it was a cat.”

“Un chat?”
marveled Loulou. “How?”

“It was the only thing I could think of. I said it was a cat that the workmen had mistaken for a … for a …”

“Never mind,” said Mara. “Sergeant Naudet, how quickly do you think this matter can be taken care of?”

“Well.” The gendarme pushed his
képi
back on his head. “For now, my instructions are to secure and guard the site and take
down preliminary information. The Procurer’s Office in Périgueux as well as the Criminal Brigade Team will have to be informed. They’ll come out to do their stuff. Then the body will be sent for examination to determine the cause of death. If it turns out a crime has been committed—”

“All that?” broke in Christophe. “It hardly seems worth it.”

“Yes, well, it’s not up to me, I’m afraid.” Naudet returned the flashlight to his uncle and took out a notebook and a pencil. “Who exactly was it who found the, um, cadaver?”

“My workmen,” Mara answered. “Theocritus and Aristophanes Serafim.”