Strange Images of Death

by Barbara Cleverly

Estelle was a silent sheeted figure, conveying nothing when Joe was shown into the room of the institut médico-légal where her body lay on a channelled marble slab. The pathologist had accepted the handwritten note of introduction from Jacquemin with a surprised and slightly amused lift of the eyebrow.

  The hand he extended to Joe was rough and warm, the eyes friendly, as he introduced himself. Lemaître was an ex-army doctor, middle-aged, confident and direct. The perfect antidote to his gloomy and dripping surroundings.

  ‘Ah! The Entente Cordiale at work at last,’ he said. ‘I wondered if we would ever see such a thing.’

  ‘Well, it’s not much of an entente and I would hardly call it cordiale,’ said Joe with a rueful grin.

  ‘No. We Frenchmen are fond of the sea. We particularly appreciate the bit that separates us from Albion.’ The doctor returned his grin. ‘And I’ve worked with Commissaire Jacquemin,’ he added and was content not to embroider on his comment.

  ‘First things first.’ The doctor took a bulky paper bag from a locker and handed it to Joe. ‘The Commissaire asked us to return to you everything we found on her body for his further inspection instead of putting it into storage here. You’ll find everything in there. All the items found were removed, catalogued and put away by my assistant before the autopsy. He’s meticulous. They’ve been finger-printed, combed and swabbed, as appropriate. Make what you will of it.’

  He drew the sheet down to uncover Estelle’s face. ‘Well, here she is. All done. I’ve even got the report typed out. I had my secretary come in at six this morning. I had the impression that there was some urgency?’

  ‘There may be danger of a repeat performance,’ said Joe.

  ‘Ah? The English crime? Multiple slayings? Slaughter on the streets? I wouldn’t be so sure. Your bloke is no Jack the Ripper! I’ve never seen a neater, more effective wound. If anyone back there needs to know—she didn’t suffer. Was probably hardly aware of what was happening to her. What you haven’t got here is a maniacal sex-driven disembowelling and mutilation. But tell me, detective—served up on an altar tomb top? How can that have come about?’

  ‘We have some theories which I won’t expound in case what you have to tell me subsequently makes them sound ridiculous,’ said Joe. ‘You go first! And perhaps we could well start with how she got there. Was she was stabbed in the place and position in which she was discovered?’

  ‘No doubt about that. The blood had sunk down and found its level.’ He delicately turned the sheet down further and pointed. ‘Gravitational discoloration. You see the dark blue tide line? The lividity shows the body had not been moved after death. She died where you found her. And the estimated time of death Jacquemin gave me is as exact as is possible to give. He rightly calculated that she died in the late afternoon or early evening of the day before. I was informed of the ambient temperature of the chapel and took that into consideration. It’s all in my report. Calculations and all. Do I need to mouth the usual caveats?’

  ‘No. Not at all. Bodies cool in the same way in London. At annoyingly variable rates.’ Joe smiled. ‘And the wound itself? Anything of interest?’

  ‘As I say—neat. Strong wrist on him, whoever it was. Though perhaps I should stress the precision? We should remember that her flesh offered little resistance—rather a skinny girl—and the nightdress she was wearing was old and fragile. The blade, being some eight inches long, wasn’t engaged to the hilt. Just the right length of steel used. All the same—we have a transfixing wound. In the region of the right ventricle. Death within seconds, possibly hastened by cardiac tamponade.

  ‘But now you’re here you can tell me: on which side of what we will call “her husband” was she lying?’

  Joe explained that she was on the warrior’s right side and that the girl’s right lay next to the aisle of the chapel. He demonstrated.

  ‘I see. Then we can add—precise right wrist. I’m assuming the killer stood in the aisle and leaned over her prone body—up to you to find out why she kept still and let him—and dealt the blow like this.’ The doctor mimed. He transferred an imaginary dagger to his left hand and tried again. ‘Awkward. Unnatural. And you’d expect a corresponding change in the orientation of the blade. East—west instead of north—south. A left-hander could have approached from behind, I suppose …’ He changed position and repeated the killing stroke over Estelle’s head. ‘It seems very unnatural to me. But then, sticking a blade into a lovely girl like this from any angle seems unnatural to me.’

  ‘Could the blow have been delivered two-handedly, like this?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Yes. Entirely possible. The handle is quite long and stout, you see, with a good grip on it. To allow for use by a gauntleted hand. But I was assuming that your bloke would need to keep one hand free to control the victim and stab with the other. Why would the girl just lie there and watch a blade descending on her? She’d have rolled away. She’d have tried to defend herself. You noticed there were no scratches or cuts on her hands and arms?’

  He took the murder weapon from a tray under the table and handed it to Joe. ‘Take it. It’s clean. The print chaps have finished with it. Nothing apparent—rubbed clean, they say. It’s not as old as you might have thought, by the way. These things came into use in the 1300s but this is a copy. Probably Italian work, 1600 or so.’

  ‘Yes, it falls naturally and comfortably into one’s hand,’ said Joe. ‘Excellent quality.’

  ‘Had to be. Those things were in the hands of butchers. Battlefield executioners who’d spend hours despatching the enemy wounded. Delivering the coup de grâce.’ The pathologist smiled. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you haven’t worked out for yourself yet, am I? Never mind. I’ll plough on with the reassuring thought that I have at least one surprise for you …

  ‘Death came within seconds. The aorta was penetrated with precision. Sketches and copious Latin references of the report, you’ll find. Whoever it was seems to have had all the time in the world to focus on his spot and line up his blade. He knew what he was about … He had a knowledge of anatomy and a certain strength of arm. That’s as much as I can say.’

  From the cause of death the doctor moved on to general comments on the state of the body. He confirmed that toxicology tests had revealed the victim to have no traces of drugs or poisons in her system.

  ‘No cocaine?’

  ‘That’s right. None. She was fit and healthy and completely compos mentis at the time of her death. And you will need to know that there was no trace of sexual attack. There had been sexual activity some hours before, we can assume the previous night, but nothing unnatural. No sign of violence.’

  Joe sensed they were coming to the end of the interview. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. It occurred to me there was something else I perhaps ought to look at …’

  Joe smiled to hear the casual warning. Pathologists, in his experience, liked to do this. The few words added as an ‘oh, by the way,’ at the end of a discussion so often shredded his theories or set him off on a completely different tack.

  ‘She was pregnant. Ah! That you didn’t know! Yes. Undetectable to the eye of the general public, but there was a foetus. Two months … nine weeks … thereabouts.’

  ‘Sounds a bit ridiculous but—would she have been aware?’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh, yes. I think we could bet on that! She was no ingénue. She’d know the symptoms, I’m sure. And she would have missed two monthly indications. She’d probably gone off her food. There was very little in her stomach …’

  Joe stood in silence, dumfounded and deep in thought.

  Dr Lemaître was clearly used to such behaviour from policemen on receipt of his devastating remarks and fell into a companionable study of the body. The clock on the wall of the morgue ticked loudly twenty times before one of the men moved.

  Joe went to stand by Estelle’s head. Silently, he moved a wisp of damp hair from her forehead, yearning for a last waft of her perfume to rise and torment him. He sm
elled nothing but carbolic. Lightly he touched her cold cheek with his hand. He leaned over and, not caring whether he was overheard, whispered: ‘I’ve heard you, Miss Smeeth. Loud and clear. I know why you were killed. I think I know how. I just need now to find out which one of three men you trusted, hated you enough to plunge a dagger into that generous heart. And I will find him. Soon.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Joe left his car at the commissariat and walked in towards the centre of the small city. This morning he was going to try to ignore its beauty and its tempting cafés; he was going to ignore the warnings of a stomach that had missed breakfast and was rumbling at every waft of coffee-roasting and bread-baking from the shop fronts he passed along the boulevard.

  He struck out with the river Rhône on his left, heading for the tight swirl of medieval buildings still standing inside the city walls. He steered by the white towers of the Pope’s Palace rising, with a careless disregard for symmetry, to lord it over the huddle of pink-tiled roofs. This was the point of his day. The visit to the morgue, though it had in the end proved more fruitful than he could have expected, was a cover for his next assignation.

  He found what he was looking for in a back street near the Place de l’Horloge and entered the double-fronted premises to the sound of a jangling bell over his head through a door marked ‘For Public Access’. The offices of La Voix de la Méditerranée were not exactly buzzing. He reminded himself that this was August and the middle of the holiday season. The papers were still being produced but probably working with a skeleton staff. On the high mahogany counter a printed notice told members of the public that this was the place to present your news (at any time), your personal advertisements (before twelve noon), or request to consult the archive (between ten and eleven, Wednesday to Saturday). Clearly browsing was not encouraged.

  Joe checked his watch. He was five minutes into the narrow time slot. He rang the counter bell for attention.

  This came two minutes and three rings of increasing volume later and was offered by a distracted and peaky-looking youth in a long green apron. Joe sighed. The skeleton staff. After the exchange of greetings he announced cordially: ‘I’d like to consult your archive, please.’ He presented his credentials. ‘This is a police request for access to certain of your back numbers.’

  ‘Year, please?’ The boy had barely glanced at his warrant card.

  ‘Between 1906 and 1911 …’

  ‘Sorry, sir. You’ll have to be more precise.’ The unhelpfulness turned to truculence. ‘I can’t bring all that lot out. They’re down in the cellar! And they’re bound, you know. By the month. That’s … that’s …’

  ‘Seventy-two bound volumes,’ said Joe. ‘At least it would be if I wanted every month. But let me finish. I want to see the papers printed for the second week of the month of July. That’s six folders only. And look—I’d like some advice from one of your editorial staff—someone over the age of forty for choice.’

  ‘Not possible, I’m afraid. There’s only Monsieur Rozier in and he won’t come. He’s busy.’

  Joe leaned across the counter. He took from his inside pocket the letter of introduction from Jacquemin. With his thumb carefully placed over the ‘Dear Dr Lemaître’, he passed it under the eyes of the clerk. The impressive letter heading and the swirling signature brought a spark of interest.

  Joe heaped kindling on the spark. ‘Recognize this signature? Well, why would you? But you’ll recognize the man who scrawled it next week when his heroic features appear on the front cover of Le Petit Journal. Commissaire Jacquemin is in town, my lad. Yes, The Implacable One himself! And he’s flushing out the villains and personally filling them full of lead. Three dead in Marseille over the weekend. You’ll read about it. He requires co-operation.’

  The boy hurried away with a mumbled ‘Leave it with me, sir … I’ll see what I can do …’

  Rozier took less time to appear than the counter clerk. The bespectacled, moustached man in shirt-sleeves came bustling in, mild annoyance losing the fight with extreme curiosity. He examined Joe’s warrant card, talking as he did so. ‘Rozier. Deputy editor. I’m forty-four. Hair’s going grey but I still have my teeth. Good enough for you? What’s all this shit about Jacquemin? And what’s an English policeman doing in Avignon running errands for that pitiless old prick?’

  ‘Long story. A peek at some of your papers, accompanied by some insights from a man who knows the local area, would help me to solve a fifteen-year-old mystery, reunite a pair of young lovers driven apart by the war and restore a lost child to its mother.’

  ‘Is that all? You drag me from my fat heifer sales report for this?’

  The hard eyes gleamed and Joe decided that, though the man showed no sign of having a heart, at least he had a sense of humour. It was a start.

  ‘Michel says 1906 to 1911, week two of July,’ Rozier went on briskly. ‘I’ve asked him to haul them up and wheel them in. If you’d like to take a seat at the reading table over there I’ll come round and scan them with you. Know what you’re looking for, or are we just browsing?’

  ‘I know exactly. A name. The name of a village.’ Joe presented his problem as an enquiry for a missing person. He added his invention of the question of an inheritance which seemed to go down well with listeners.

  ‘A girl from one of our villages … Hmm …’

  Joe had gently stressed the local aspect of his problem and embroidered on the aspect of mystery.

  ‘Hang on a minute, I’ll call for coffee. How do you take yours? Croissant with that? I usually have one at this time of the morning.’ He yelled into the back quarters: ‘Dorine! Nip next door and tell them to make it two servings of café complet, will you? Priority!’

  The coffee arrived before the volumes and was served in heavy green china from the local café. A basket of croissants was a blissful sight to a man who’d not yet had time for breakfast and Joe helped himself with pleasure.

  When the six bound copies of La Voix appeared on a trolley, Rozier handed the 1906 volume to Joe and himself took the 1911 one, sitting next to him at the table. ‘Twice as fast this way. We’ll start at opposite ends. If you can keep up a reasonable speed, we should meet up in July 1908. Now tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

  ‘I’m interested in a news item for a very particular area. Somewhere between here and Apt.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s not Chicago! The inhabitants tend to lead God-fearing, well-ordered, excruciatingly dull lives. Try the centre pages first. “News from the Villages” section.’

  Joe leafed swiftly through his volume and grimaced. ‘See what you mean! Pig-rustling and chicken-snatching would appear to be the crimes of the month. We’re looking for the week announcing the programme for the Bastille Day jollifications, remember. I’ve finished with this one. Pass me the next lot, will you?’

  Rozier was working more slowly, constantly distracted by news items that rang a bell with him. ‘Good God! So that’s how the turd got started! You’d never credit what heights this chap’s risen to! Député now … Before my time, of course … Ah! Storms over the area—that’s what buggered up the vintage …’ His comments were salted with a vocabulary Joe hadn’t heard since the trenches.

  And then: ‘Well, here’s the programme for 1911. July 7th. Opera and plays on at the theatre … folklore extravaganza on the Rocher des Doms, gypsy bands, dancing—wouldn’t you guess?—on the Pont Bénézet. Grand parade on the day itself. Now what are we really looking for?’

  ‘Any reference to a priest by the name of Father Ignace. I need to know in which village he had his cure of souls.’

  ‘Is that it? Couldn’t you just have looked him up in whatever lists the Church keeps? They must know where their blokes are.’

  ‘Well, apart from the fact that I have very little time available to me and you know with what speed the wheels of the Church turn when they’re determined not to be helpful, I don’t think my enquiries would get anywhere. Bit
of an obstacle been raised …’ he said conspiratorially. ‘Whoever he was or is, this priest has been effaced from the records.’

  ‘Oh, ho! One of those! No. Sorry. You won’t find any record of him in here either then,’ he said firmly, but Joe noticed that he was continuing to lick one long bony finger and scan the pages as he turned them. ‘Catholic city, you know. The new Vatican in the new Rome from the fourteenth century when the popes took up residence here.

  The Palace has always been the heart of the city, a mighty and controlling presence. Anything disrespectful about the clergy just wouldn’t get through on to the pages. A curé could go berserk, slaughter half his parishioners and rape the rest and you wouldn’t read about it. Now, a bad olive harvest … Oh, Good Lord! Look here!’

  The long finger was pointing to the centre.

  ‘“Mysterious disappearance of priest from village”,’ he read. ‘That’s the headline.’

  The much-loved curé of the church of St Vincent-les-Eaux, near Avignon, has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Villagers report they had no warning of his departure and his superiors are unable to state what has happened to him or where he has gone.

  It is understood that no steps had been taken to replace him or redeploy him.

  His distraught housekeeper claims that the young priest, 29-year-old Father Ignace, who is as good as a son to her, had packed none of his things and had not called for his suitcase to be made ready.

  Father Ignace, a renowned scholar and musician of note, is a lively and popular member of his village community and will be sadly missed, in particular by the young people to whom he was especially close.

  ‘Heavens!’ said Joe. ‘Rozier, you replace one question with a dozen others! But I have what I was seeking—the name of the village. Now I can find traces of the young girl who was in his confirmation class in 1906. A certain Laure of St Vincent-les-Eaux! She’s firming up. I’m getting close now.’