Kaleidoscope (11 page)

‘A little blue notebook, my friend,' said the Gestapo, waving that thing at him. ‘Telephone numbers and telephone numbers. Yours is among them.'

He patted the nymph's bum and stepped round her so that now there wasn't a metre between himself and the dealer. ‘Sweating, eh?' he said. ‘Does the name Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi mean anything?'

The little bastard winced again, the eyes darting about to take in all the lovely things the shop had been able to acquire in the past two and a half years at very reasonable prices. ‘I gave her things – little things,' confessed Marchal, ‘but only from time to time.'

‘Innocent, eh? And the Carlton?' demanded the Gestapo whose French, it was quite good because that was the way one got things done.

‘The Carlton's head chef, he would … would take the jars of preserved tomatoes from Madame in exchange for the Russian snuffbox which she would then deal off to me in exchange for my accepting another six of
these
for cash at twenty-five francs apiece!'

The frames. Kohler glanced up the length of that gorgeous nude and wondered if it was true that all such sculptors had found it necessary to use a model. ‘Sing on, my friend. I'm listening, eh? The cook over at the Carlton got the snuffbox from one of the waiters who stole it or received it from one of the guests in exchange for a little something extra at dinner, right?'

He felt an ankle, gripped a calf and let his fingers trickle over the toes.

‘Madame … she … Ah look, Monsieur the Inspector, I was only a part of it. I did nothing wrong.
Nothing
, I assure you. The snuffbox was in payment for the sweetbreads Madame had secured that very morning.'

‘Nothing wrong?' demanded Kohler. ‘You were bartering, my friend, and that is against the law.'

‘Then let us sit down, monsieur. Please choose … choose any chair you wish. Take that one. Charlemagne is said to have sat in it.
There
is the bed he used when not on the march.'

Kohler swung away to take a look, only to swing right back. ‘Hey, listen, my fine. My cow died, eh? I don't need your bull.'

‘It is not
bull
. It is the truth.
Everything
in my shop is certified.'

‘Then start by telling me the truth.'

Marchal stared ruefully at the stack of picture frames. How could he explain such a thing to this Nazi boor who could know nothing –
nothing
about art and things of great value? ‘Madame, she … she has telephoned me.'

‘When? When did it first begin?'

‘About two years ago. About six months after the Armistice when … when things began to come into short supply. Her father had bought from me in the old days, you understand, and we knew each other a little but not much.'

‘Yes, yes, get on with it. I'm in a hurry and have eighteen more numbers to follow up.'

‘Then I can save you much time.'

Kohler grinned. ‘You do, and I'll see that they leave you alone. Okay?'

Marchal did not like the look, the scar on the face, or the wounded thumb whose bandage had come undone …

The Gestapo squeezed the thumb and let the pus erupt. ‘A girl bit me,' he said. ‘I don't like girls that bite but this one was ill.'

The hint was ignored, the panic was there in any case.

‘Madame had a network of numbers – people from all over and all walks of life. From one she would obtain a quantity of shoelaces, from another the buttons or the gilded picture frames, from another the pair of theatre tickets or the visit to her
coiffeuse
or the massage and the hot mud treatment which is very good for the rheumatism.'

‘Keep talking. Got any tobacco?'

The dealer shook his head, then thought better of it and picked his way through the clutter to a display case.

When he came back, he had a humidor full of cigars. ‘Havanas,' he said. ‘For you, Inspector.'

Kohler pulled out a wad of bills that would have choked a horse and peeled off a five-franc note. ‘Just give me one for now. My partner's French and I'm feeling righteous. Now talk.'

One could not avoid the look in those pale blue eyes. It was as if of death yet wounded to the quick by events perhaps far beyond control.

‘The picture frames are being burned as firewood, monsieur. I could not see them being so foolishly destroyed. The centuries, they are recorded in the styles of the carving, in the gilding. Master after master …'

‘Yes, yes.'

‘Rouge and lipstick from one source, can-openers from another. Soap – always she would tell me she could get this fantastic soap from a friend in the hills. The grey paste we have today burns the skin and the sensitive parts, monsieur. My wife, she suffers terribly from the haemorrhoids and the boils, the erysipelas for which even the lancing is of little good. It's the lousy food one gets these days, what there is of it. The grey bread with the sweepings, the rat droppings and the sawdust. The swedes and the lack of potatoes. Madame Buemondi could find almost anything. Nutmeg, I remember, and cinnamon. Me, I gave her a Sèvres tureen in exchange and this, she bartered for brocade curtains from one of the hotels.'

‘And the brocade?'

‘For the wine, I think. Who knows? The Bar Modiste kept cigarettes for her – you'll find their number in that little book of hers.'

‘And you'll not tell anyone I've got it, will you?'

‘Of course not. Women are not allowed the tobacco ration, monsieur. But Madame Gilberte of the Bar Modiste bleaches the hair, yes? And bleach is unobtainable but for Madame Buemondi's service.'

‘What did the two of you do? Have tea in here every afternoon?'

‘She was very free with her information, monsieur.'

‘Only because you made her tell you.'

Marchal tugged at a sleeve. This one would find out everything. ‘She often used our telephone, monsieur, as I am sure she did everyone else's when needed. Me, I … ah, I have overheard the snatches from time to time. From the nuns of the Blessed Virgin she obtained the braided silks stiff with gold and silver thread, and much bed linen that could be dyed any colour one wished if one was a fashion designer and had nothing else with which to work. For these things, Madame gave the nuns toothpaste, the soap, the sandpaper sticks for the fingernails, the wine, the vegetables, the sausage and the granulated sugar.'

The Gestapo made no comment but only drew on the cigar. Marchal told him that Madame must have at least fifty names on her list of contacts. ‘Each morning she would begin her day by telephoning someone. Always the bright, cheery voice, always the optimist until … Monsieur, has anything happened to her?'

‘No … No, it's all just routine. We have to follow everything up. It's part of the job.'

‘Then why have you got her notebook?'

‘Bayonne … Why not tell me what she did there?'

‘Bayonne …? But … but why would she travel so far when she had all the business she could possibly handle here?'

‘Medicines?' shot Kohler. ‘Look, I can let the boys over at the Hotel Montfleury know all about your part in this affair or I can forget I ever saw you.'

‘All right, all right, then yes, yes, she went to Bayonne to obtain the medicines. If that is what you wish to hear, monsieur, then that is what I will say but me, I know nothing of this.'

That was fair enough. ‘When was the last time you saw her?'

‘Three days ago. Wednesday, the 16th. She telephoned first as she always did before coming over. She was in great distress and quite unlike her usual self. Would I take this lot of frames – sixteen of them.
Mon Dieu
, what am I to do with them? I said I could not pay the usual price, as I had already far too many of them but she said I would have to just this one more time as something important had come up and she needed cash. “Cash,” she said. “I must have the cash or all is lost.”'

4

For some time now they had been moving through the silent house, ethereal and remote – ah, it was so eerie, this last vestige of grace. In every room there were priceless antiques; from every window and door, exquisite views of the gardens, and in the distance, always the sea, the hills or a breathless panorama of both.

Yet it was uncanny how the weaver searched for Anne-Marie Buemondi. Viviane Darnot
expected
to catch a glimpse of her companion in every room, round every door and in every corridor, or to hear her voice in the distance on the telephone perhaps.

They were upstairs now and St-Cyr saw the face of tragedy mirrored in one image after another, she holding back to let him go on ahead.
Ah, Mon Dieu
, what was this? Another killing? Another body? The husband, the daughter Josette-Louise, or someone else?

The face was broken by some trick of optics into juxtaposed slices. Pale and shaken, the eyes … the eyes …

She was perhaps some three metres behind him yet appeared in the far distance and back again repeatedly until splintered into slices. The soft smell of woven wool, the pungency of Dutch tobacco, a sound, some sound and that same face, those same dark grey-blue eyes and paleness of skin. White … all but chalk-white. Lips that were pensive and red yet quivered. Nostrils that were pinched in fear.

Where had he seen her in Chamonix and why had she lied about it being at the railway station?

Yet he had to be kind. ‘Grief builds its castles of hope, mademoiselle, then tumbles them down. Why not tell me who was the owner of that splendid cloak you wove?'

‘Anne-Marie. It … it was hers.'

‘Then who borrowed it? Who defiled it, mademoiselle?'

‘She did. That one did. And now you know.'

The head nodded curtly towards the nearest door and he knew then, too, that she had led him here as well.

St-Cyr opened the door but stood aside to let her pass only to find her ashen and trembling in her grief. ‘Anne-Marie will hate me for what I've just done,' she said.

‘The daughter?' he asked, not knowing quite what to make of things. ‘Josette-Louise …? The one who is in Paris?'

The eyes flashed up more darkly. The head was tossed. ‘Angélique Girard, Anne-Marie's latest …'

Ah no. ‘Her latest lover,' breathed St-Cyr, still watching the images in the mirrors, still struggling to recall where they'd seen each other in Chamonix. ‘Did you kill Madame Buemondi, mademoiselle?' he asked quietly. ‘Come, come, to love so deeply is as understandable as it is to feel so deeply betrayed.'

The weaver did not answer. Trapped – caught in the mirrors fragment by fragment – she watched as the castle of all her hopes began suddenly to fall apart.

She buried her face in her hands. The raven hair spilled forward and with a ragged sob, grief took hold of her.

Alone, St-Cyr went into the bedroom. Bars of sunlight threw their pale yellow slats across the open mahogany armoire and he saw at once the hanging silks and satins, the négligés, the slips and half-slips of the careless and untidy, but matched to those in the drawer at the cottage. Ah yes.

The crumpled underpants whose lace fringes were gossamer to the Prussian blue pile of an Aubusson carpet.

The canopied bed was rumpled, the covers flung back. The shutters, when open, gave out on to a small balcony and from there, a view of the rear gardens – vegetables still in their winter plots, orange and lemon trees, and almond trees.

‘
Ang
é
lique Girard
,' he heard her say, the voice vicious and grating now, the jealousy all too clear. But when he went out into the corridor, the weaver was hurrying downstairs.

‘I
gave
her that cloak, monsieur. I worked my fingers to the bone for her and she … she … she gave it to another.
Another
!'

The cry of it echoed throughout the silent house and he heard it as the broken heart of the betrayed.

Ah, Nom de Dieu
, what was he to do now? Arrest her? Take her into custody – what custody? Gestapo Cannes, eh? They'd strip this place of everything but the paint or they'd requisition it, if not for themselves then for the Wehrmacht.

The coloured silks and satins were as light as a feather – azure blue, deep green, amber and gold – and he had the thought that Muriel and Chantal might have sold them to the woman, yet their shop in Paris was so far from here.

When he found the photograph, its glass and frame broken, he found Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi standing behind the girl and he had to wonder who had taken the photograph.

The girl was young and very beautiful, even though pouting fiercely. There were dark circles around her lovely eyes. The hair was thick and light-coloured, teased forward and out into masses of curls and waves.

The soft oval of her face was about twenty-two years of age.

Both women had expressions caught as in defiance. Angélique Girard clasped Madame Anne-Marie's hand which rested possessively on the girl's right shoulder. They were both very serious. A moment of defiant commitment, then, to each other and recorded on film by someone else. He was certain of it. Though one or the other could have set the timer delay on the shutter, the expressions revealed far too much for them to have been held for more than a moment. The daughter in Paris? he wondered. Was this one a friend of Josette-Louise? Ah, there were so many questions to answer, so little time. A real murder – was it really so? He felt this, was all but certain of it. Would have sworn to it in front of any priest or Gestapo chief.

The girl wore a black, tightly collared top of crushed velvet and a strand of large costume pearls. An ornate pin, high on the left shoulder, held a floppy but stylish satin bow. Pink probably.

Anne-Marie Buemondi wore a beautifully woven and very fashionable, loose-fitting sweater of black design on a crimson background perhaps. Small ropes of gold hung from her ears, the hair was not braided into the severe diadem they'd seen in the hills but was worn loosely, combed back behind the ears and parted to the left. A pin – some costume designer's bit of fancy, a golden mask with vacant eyes and gaping mouth – was worn in exactly the same position as the girl's pin.