Kaleidoscope (29 page)

‘And the Inspector Delphane?' he asked.

She swallowed. ‘After my father had given Angélique her archery lesson, I found the bow in the grand salon and realized that someone else had come into the house but had not let them know of his presence. The crossbow was not exactly where my father would have left it, Inspector, so I knew that someone must have moved it.'

There was no one in the armoire. Just dresses and more of them. He nodded for the girl to continue. ‘They had a little something to eat, Inspector, then Angélique went upstairs and my father, he has followed her into this room. Together they went through mother's jewel case. Angélique wanted the diamonds; my father chided her and said she would have to wait, that soon she could have whatever she wanted.'

The second armoire also held no one. St-Cyr gave an exasperated sigh. Beneath a richly gilded mirror there was an escritoire whose hinged lid was open, revealing the many compartments. Had either of those two, or both of them, gone through the woman's desk? Had they been searching for something, only to have their search interrupted by some sound?

‘There is a wall safe, Inspector, behind that painting of the pomegranates by Courbet.'

Apples and Anjou pears as well as opened and uncut pomegranates and raspberry leaves. The painting was magnificent, the depth of colours so real he wished for time to examine it, but knew there was none.

‘Its frame was tilted to one side, Inspector. I straightened it.'

‘Does your father know the combination?' he asked desperately. Delphane was still somewhere very close. He felt it, was terrified of it and yet … yet could find no other place for that one to hide.

‘Only mother knew the combination, Inspector. Not Viviane or Josette-Louise or myself, not my father either. She kept all such things to herself and carefully hidden.'

‘Then the Germans will have to blow it,' he said more loudly than necessary. ‘We will leave while it is still light, mademoiselle. Perhaps it would be best for you to close up your mother's jewel case and hide it under the bed.'

That didn't work either. There was no one else in the room yet he swore there must be. It was uncanny this feeling. It was more than a sixth sense. It was an uncomfortable realization of one's vulnerability and a bond that went right back to Chamonix, yes, but had recently been present in that dressing-room at Les Naturistes. A knowing that his presence was very near.

Then suddenly the feeling was gone and he knew Jean-Paul had left the house.

Josianne-Michèle sat on the edge of her mother's bed, silently watching as he examined the wall safe. He would turn the dial to the right, listening for the tumblers to fall into place; then, exasperated by his inability to hear them, he would turn the dial to the left and back again.

‘Mother kept something in the safe for Viviane,' she said, letting him catch the note of sadness in her voice. ‘Viv wanted the combination desperately, Inspector. She was frantic for it and begged mother several times, all to no avail.'

‘Then Madame Buemondi came out to see you on her birthday?' he asked.

‘Yes, only … only someone killed her.'

He found the girl unable to take her eyes from the crossbow. He saw her reach out to it in uncertainty only to withdraw her hand at the last moment. ‘How many spare bolts are there?' he asked.

‘Six,' she said, not looking across the room at him. ‘Six and the one that is in the attic door.'

He went back to the safe. Now he worked in earnest and she could not understand what she'd said to make him do so. But then he gave a sigh of triumph. ‘
Voilà
,' he said. ‘There, it's open.'

Pleased with himself, St-Cyr turned towards her only to find the girl and the crossbow had vanished. ‘Hermann,' he gasped anxiously. ‘Hermann, what have I done?'

Carlo Buemondi's studio made one feel uncomfortable. Body casts and masks in plaster and papier-mâché crowded the walls, were piled into the corners or hung suspended by wires from the ceiling. Stark-white, bone-white, often chillingly coloured and patterned in the face, they stared at one or slowly turned as stray draughts caressed them. And everywhere there were his lithographs in orange, in black or brown or red and yellow and green – penises, full erections, hairy lips that were parted, knees up or down; eyes that darted, tongues that licked, teeth, ears, breasts of all sizes and shapes, buttocks and anuses too. All in pieces, all broken as if by a demented child, then often broken again. The drawings first –
merde
! had he drawn them that way? – and then, when overprinted, the casts themselves.

One recent creation without a head lay smashed to smithereens on a bed of loose sand among cluttered work tables and the tubs of water, bags of plaster and piles of handmade paper. It was obvious Buemondi would pause from time to time, puffing on a cigarette or wiping plaster from himself, to rearrange the pieces. Art evolved that way. Every day the arrangement would cast some new light that could only be satisfied if a piece or two were moved.

No lover of the avant-garde, Kohler grumbled, ‘He's sick. What's he do? Get his students to throb their erections while he tries to draw them or lathers some sweet young thing with goo?'

He picked up an open jar of petroleum jelly and wondered how Buemondi had come by the stuff in such hard times. No one could possibly want to buy any of his creations, could they?

The weaver summed things up. ‘Carlo thinks he's clever, Inspector, and he has the ego of a goat. There is this thing about his “work”. Thinking it controversial, he tries to draw out the snail of suppressed sexuality and nail the flesh of it up for all of us to see, but the man's a charlatan. Neither master of drawing in a medium where skill is demanded, nor anywhere near one of sculpting – how could he be? He hasn't a ghost of an idea of what art is all about. He's simply a phony.'

On another bed of sand two female casts lay smashed to pieces, and Kohler thought he knew whence some of the weaver's feelings came.

‘Has he always rebelled at the thought of his wife having female lovers?' he asked.

‘Wouldn't you?' she demanded hotly.

She had a point but didn't stop there. Soon she was rooting through things in a far corner, raising clouds of dust into the greying light.

‘There!' she said at last. ‘Look at this one.'

It was the shell of a girl of ten or twelve. Completely blank. Just bone-white and with no head. ‘Now that one,' she said. ‘No, no, Inspector, the one that's hanging upside-down from that wire.'

Ah Jesus, Jesus. Kohler wet his throat. Overprinted on the plaster shell were the masks of so many faces. Some leered, others lusted; some grinned or simply stared blankly from among the full and half-erections or patches of flaccid limpness.

‘That … that is Josianne-Michèle,' she said, turning suddenly away. ‘When she was at the age of twelve, he raped her here in this … this barn he calls a “studio”. But children do not tell us of such things, Inspector. Besides, she was his favourite and she did not want to bring trouble to him, poor thing. My poor Josianne. Ah God, God forgive me for not seeing it soon enough.'

Her head was bowed, the face covered by a hand. Kohler went to hold her by the shoulders but she shrugged him off. ‘
Don't
!' she said. ‘Please don't. I'd only scream. I cannot bear the touch of a man, Inspector. I'm sorry, but that … that is the way it is for me.'

The detective was disconcerted, the weaver tense. Buemondi gave them a moment before launching himself into the studio. ‘Inspector,' he boomed in a strongly Italian accent. ‘Mademoiselle Viviane, I'm enchanted. But … but why did you not telephone ahead?' He threw out his arms gregariously. ‘Some wine. The lights – ah! you will need to see things properly. Take your time. Yes, yes, Inspector. Stroll at liberty.
Study
, my friend. Absorb. Question. The only secrets here are in the self. Lie naked upon the table and let the self come out. Be the body cast and the mask. Recognize the truth within and welcome it.'

‘Carlo, shut up! The Inspector's no fool. He wants to ask you some questions.'

‘The murder. Yes, yes, of course. An unfortunate affair. A great loss.'

‘There. Don't you see what I mean, Inspector? Now he moans about her death!'

‘Whereas before he couldn't have cared less,' said Kohler, welcoming the exchange. ‘You've been sexually abusing one of your daughters, monsieur, and I've the thumb to show for it. What other sort of hold have you got over her?'

Startled – alarmed – Buemondi threw the weaver a questioning glance. ‘Josianne-Michèle lied about it, Inspector. Me, I swear I never harmed the girl. She was my …'

‘Your
sweetheart
! Your little Josianne …' began Viviane Darnot.

She was close to tears.

‘Viviane, get a hold of yourself, eh? Don't lie to the Inspector. Don't try to pin the murder on me!'

They were shouting now.

‘You bastard! You think I did it – is that what you've been saying? Oh, I understand you, Carlo. I must have seen Anne-Marie with that girl, that gorgeous creature in her arms, eh? Kissing and fondling Angélique Girard, one of your little pets! Well listen, my fine egomaniac. I understood your wife. Though she was always difficult, I loved her and forgave her. And,' she dropped her voice, ‘I understand you also, Carlo. Ah yes, but I do, you old rooster. Lecher! Whore-master! If I could, it's you I'd kill for what you did to that child.'

‘Then use my crossbow. Shoot me also!' Buemondi leapt away to a drawing cabinet. Yanking on a drawer, he pulled a sheet of paper out and shouted triumphantly, ‘Here, Inspector. Here it is and I have saved it for just such a moment!'

The life-sized charcoal drawing revealed at once both the professor's character and the skill of the artist who had done it, the weaver no doubt. Ah yes. Buemondi stood as if caught crossing a lawn about to deflower his daughter. The barrel gut was there, the fleshy hips, hairy shoulders and big lips, the bull neck and arms. Licentiousness was in every particle. He didn't just lust after the girl he was after, he ravaged her with his eyes and
Gott im Himmel
, he looked exactly like II Duce. That same sense of omnipotence, that same comic posturing, yet behind it all, a real bastard.

In hole after hole those two women had shot the hell out of him with that crossbow he so cherished. Several of the bolts had hit the groin area and that prick he so loved to scribble. Two had passed right through the heart, another had hit him right between the eyes.

Buemondi took a deep breath. ‘Now, Inspector, ask this one who was the archer. Ask her to deny that she went often into the hills to see the herbalist Ludo Borel and to hunt with that one for the plants with which to dye the wool for her weaving. Ask why she took my daughter Josette-Louise, not Josianne-Michèle, to a clinic near Chamonix when your financier was killed. Ask what happened in the past to make the present so unpleasant.'

Ah damn! ‘Carlo,
please
! Enough is enough.'

The bitch! ‘Is it? Come, come, Viviane. Take off your things. Lie naked on my table. Let me make the cast of you and the mask, eh? Let the world see the truth you have hidden for so long.'

‘What truth?' asked Kohler darkly.

The weaver's troubled eyes sought him out. ‘It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with Anne-Marie's murder. Ask Jean-Paul, Inspector. Ask that one. Maybe he will give you all the answers you want.'

‘And Angélique Girard?' asked Kohler of Buemondi. ‘Where is she?'

The professor shrugged effusively. ‘How should I know? Me, I do not keep track of my students, Inspector. Not beyond the hours of study.'

‘And those of bathing in the mud? Listen, my fine, you've still got traces of ochre round your eyes. That receptionist I asked to find you knew exactly where you were. In the mud again.'

‘Then you will find Angélique there, Inspector. Her back, it was bothering her. A lower vertebra, I think.'

‘Her ass?' snorted the weaver. ‘Admit that you've been fucking her, Carlo, and that the poor creature is simply worn out and sore right up to her lovely lips.'

Oh-oh. They were a pair, the two of them. Kohler heaved a detective's sigh. ‘The professor drives his car; you ride in the back. We'll know soon enough where she aches.'

Viviane Darnot said, ‘I'd rather not come. I'd rather stay here.' She had meant it too.

‘Delphane?' he asked, but she did not answer.

There were footprints in the snow at the weaver's house and immediately St-Cyr recognized Hermann's and the woman's – it must be her. But the tracks showed they'd been and gone. A fresh grave, no sign of the hearse or of Dédou Fratani.

He found the tracks of the red Majestic bicycle. Two sets: the one leaving early in the morning for the villa in Le Cannet; the other returning only recently.
Ah Nom de Dieu
, was Josianne-Michèle now waiting for him in that house?

Another set of tracks all but matched Hermann's. This set had come only recently, he thought, but had it also left the house? He gripped his chin in doubt and favoured the scruffy moustache to which the frost now clung.

Delphane, was he in there with the girl, and where the hell was Hermann?
Hermann
! he wanted to shout. I need you.

Snow covered the shoulders of the terracotta urns that stood about the weaver's back garden in clusters among the abbey ruins. The door to her kitchen was open, the house in darkness. Stars were beginning to appear through the faint dusting of crystalline snow that fell to mock the very thought of Christmas that was only three days away.

Immediately and unbidden the scent of Mirage came to him and he heard a voice bell-clear and strong in praise and hope, singing ‘Oh Holy Night'. But across the silk screen of his imagination flashed the stark image of a group of shabby men, one boy in particular and their priest. A tiny village square. Walls of stone; the sound of water running somewhere … yes, yes, a tap, a stone basin that had been in use for centuries.