Volnay understood only too well. He had no liking for this monarch, who was indifferent to the everyday lot of his people and loved only hunting and women. Before the Marquise de Pompadour had ‘furnished’ the king’s house, or houses, in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, Louis XV had enjoyed the services of a small harem of three: shop girls or artist’s models who were recruited officially as wig-makers, and housed in the attics of his palace: Mesdemoiselles Fouquet and Hénaut, and the victim, Mademoiselle Hervé. They were a lively trio, noted for their gaiety, and for making more noise overhead than a colony of rats. Now one of these petits rats had been silenced.
‘I don’t want the king mixed up in this, at close quarters or from afar,’ ordered Sartine. ‘You don’t need me to remind you of the usefulness of all this to the king’s enemies. Calumny is rife against him as it is.’
‘Let them talk,’ said the Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths, in a careless tone that was very unlike him.
Sartine raised an ill-tempered eyebrow.
‘I attach a great deal of important to public gossip. A docile populace is a subject populace. When the people talk, the established order is threatened!’
Volnay’s face darkened.
‘There is worse to come, I fear. People are taking an interest in the case.’
The chief of police eyed him coldly.
‘What “people” are they, if you please, Chevalier?’
Volnay shrugged slightly.
‘How should I know? Everyone spies on everyone else in Paris and Versailles.’
And perhaps the ‘people’ are you? he added to himself.
Sartine opened a tobacco pouch, sniffed a pinch or two then brushed the remaining strands from his jabot with a long, slender white hand. He had a high forehead, a receding hairline and a pointed nose. With age, his complexion had acquired the colour of old ivory. He adjusted his wig, as he did a hundred times a day, with the regularity of a metronome. The headpiece was one of a whole collection he kept closely guarded in a steel closet. His only foible and, all things being equal, a relatively harmless one at that.
‘The perpetrator of this outrageous murder must be found,’ declared the chief of police, drily. ‘But I hesitate to leave you in charge of the inquiry. The precinct chief could handle it just as well as you.’
Volnay felt his heart beat faster. Paris was divided into forty-eight precincts or quartiers, each with its own police chief under royal authority, but who among them had the scientific expertise that was needed to solve this mystery? He reminded Sartine of the fact.
‘It’s a strange death, I grant you that,’ muttered the chief, ‘but it’s uncomfortably close to the king himself. Well, do what you can! Act swiftly, but be discreet. If speech or silence must be bought, you have limitless credit. Throughout this whole business, you will have in your sights nothing but the service of our king and the country under his care.’
He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a purse full of écus, tossing it noisily onto the desk.
‘Keep me informed regularly of progress, as soon as you have anything new to report. Are there no leads?’
‘Not as yet,’ replied Volnay with superlative calm.
Sartine shot his colleague a suspicious glance, then walked quickly up to him and stared him in the eye.
‘Are you hiding something, Volnay?’
Volnay made no reply. His impassive expression matched Sartine’s own. Not a muscle in his face twitched. Sartine scrutinized the inspector’s expressionless blue-grey eyes in vain. His stiff bearing, distance and reserve were as impregnable as any armour. If it were not for that madman, the monk, Sartine would have had no idea how to keep such a man down.
‘Tell me everything, Volnay!’ he growled.
But Volnay said nothing. He knew that Sartine had spent three years searching on the king’s behalf for a young girl who had caught his attention while out riding in his carriage. When he found the girl, her father had tried to protect her virtue, and the king had threatened him with imprisonment in the Bastille. The girl had been taken to the king’s house on Avenue de Saint-Cloud. Volnay had no more respect for Sartine than the man deserved. The inspector’s blank composure exasperated the chief of police still further.
‘Truth be told, Volnay, I’ve never fully understood why you entered the police in the first place! The profession has no appeal for you—you are interested solely in the workings of the criminal intellect. People are raped, robbed and have their guts spilt on every street corner in Paris, day and night, yet you are content to solve two or three fine mysteries a year and nothing more! Is that what this city needs, in your opinion? Watch yourself, Volnay—you’re far from untouchable! Like everyone else in this kingdom besides the monarch himself. Remember, your own father was almost burnt at the stake!’
The flames. Again! Suddenly, Volnay was a child of ten, watching as his father was strapped naked to a post. The executioner arranged a pile of wood and bundles of sticks at his feet. If the wood had been green, his father would have died swiftly, from smoke inhalation, but it was dry, and he would burn to death, in agony. While the executioner smeared oil on the condemned man’s torso and armpits, to exacerbate the burns, the child pleaded with his father to abjure his heresy and be spared. Weeping, his father had replied that Volnay was all he loved in the world, but that he could not deny the truth. The executioner set about attaching small packets of gun powder to his father’s genitals and ears, designed to explode with the advancing flames, and the little boy had fainted.
Sartine’s iron gaze remained fixed on Volnay, whose complexion had paled to transparency. Satisfied that he had asserted his rank by summoning the frightful memory, the chief of police dismissed the inspector with a scornful flick of the hand.
It took all Volnay’s authority and powers of persuasion to reach the two wig-makers in Versailles. One was absent on the day of his visit, and he was forced to confine his questions to the other. Her name was Chloé, a lithe creature with a slender, nymph-like waist. Her wicked countenance and small, upturned nose were a delight to behold. The Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths found himself alone with her in her bedchamber under the eaves. It was suffocatingly hot. A sickening smell of excrement filled the air, though it seemed not to bother her at all. With nothing else in the room, he had ordered her to sit on the straw mattress on the floor, and as if by force of habit, she had made to stretch out at full length. Volnay’s outraged glare had stopped her short.
‘Have you seen Mademoiselle Hervé recently?’ he asked, careful not to arouse suspicion.
‘No, Monsieur, I haven’t seen her these past two days.’
‘She lives here with you?’
‘Yes.’
She pointed to another mattress in a corner of the room. Volnay searched it, quickly. Nothing. He sat down next to the young woman and felt the warmth of her body close to his.
‘Has she any other lodgings, elsewhere?’
He thought of her corpse, discovered on a quiet street with no place of entertainment nearby. Chloe frowned delicately.
‘I heard her say she had a room at her disposal, in Paris. She would meet men friends there, sometimes. I don’t know where exactly. She told me once that at night, her room was lit up by the glow from a bread oven in the courtyard.’
Volnay listened intently, trying to spot any chinks in her story, any waver in the tone of her voice. Immediately, he connected her description with the place where the body had been found.
‘Do you know any of these… friends whom she meets?’
The young girl shook her head, and with it the two, pretty kiss-curls that hung down over her forehead. Her chest betrayed her quick, staccato breathing. She knew she was losing control of the conversation, and attempted to redress the balance of power by pressing against Volnay’s side. She was anything but shy, and clearly knew men’s weaknesses. Volnay swallowed, uncomfortably.
‘No fiancé?’
‘No, Monsieur.’
> ‘Any family?’
She seemed ill at ease.
‘A grandfather. A strange man…’
‘What does he do?’
Again, she hesitated.
‘He works for the jewellers on Ruelle de l’Or, but…’
‘Yes?’ asked Volnay, encouragingly.
She gave him an enticing look and leant closer still, as if she were about to fall forward. She leant her weight against his shoulder and continued in a conspiratorial whisper:
‘They say he’s been trying to make gold, too.’
Volnay received the information without flinching. They were living in the century of enlightenment, yet never before had so many gone chasing after such idle nonsense.
‘And where does he live?’ he asked casually.
She told him. He shifted away from her. Her strong, carnal smell was masked by a heavy, woody fragrance over a heart note of jasmine. Volnay recovered his own space, and his self-control. His mind was lucid once more—a cold, perfectly balanced machine that had found the answers to so many unexplained crimes.
‘Was Mademoiselle Hervé pretty?’
The girl’s face lit up with a sardonic smile.
‘She knew how to please a man, Monsieur, as we all do.’
And she accompanied her remark with a sustained and knowing stare. But it took more than a flash of eyes to deflect the inspector.
‘Does she have clients here in Versailles?’
She nodded cautiously.
‘And elsewhere?’
Another nod.
‘And where would that be?’
He had slipped a silver écu into the palm of her right hand. She closed her fingers around it, but instinctively she placed her left hand over Volnay’s. He played along, entwining his fingers in hers. He felt his pulse quicken.
‘In Paris?’
‘In the Châtelet,’ she whispered.
‘And who would that be?’
He was stroking her hand now. She was enjoying it and made no attempt to stop him. He insisted, and she whispered in his ear:
‘I don’t know his name, but she told me he often changes his wig and keeps a whole closet full of them.’
Her fingers played with his. She seemed anxious. Volnay felt acutely uncomfortable, too. He knew the shadowy figure’s name all right: Sartine, chief of police. A man who had received the news of his young lover’s death with scarcely more emotion than a wall of stone.
He felt suddenly giddy. Sartine’s every move was calculated. Doubtless he had made Mademoiselle Hervé his mistress, to spy on the king or secure a reliable informant from the royal bed itself. Or perhaps Mademoiselle Hervé had been his spy, and nothing more. Heart pounding, he extricated his hand from Chloé’s grasp and removed the gold mask from his satchel.
‘Is this Mademoiselle Hervé’s face?’
The girl gave a low cry, before stifling it immediately with both hands.
‘Is this her?’ He pressed the young woman, knowing he should take advantage of her state of shock.
‘Yes. But what’s all this about?’
He leant over her and breathed her smell once more. It filled his senses, and excited him. Experience had taught him that witnesses spoke the truth only in the first few seconds following a shock or surprise, and seldom when they had time to think.
‘Mademoiselle, I know that Mademoiselle Hervé was with child. Can you say by whom?’
The girl opened her mouth as if to gasp for air. Volnay leant closer still, never once taking his eyes off hers. When he spoke, his voice was a barely audible murmur:
‘Was she carrying the king’s child?’
The wig-maker had turned deathly pale. She glanced at the door. Volnay leapt to his feet and ran to open it. The man crouching on the other side straightened up quickly and observed him with breathtaking indifference and aplomb.
‘Who the hell are you?’ growled Volnay.
The other man scrutinized him in dignified silence.
‘I am Le Bel, first valet of His Majesty’s bedchamber,’ he said at length. ‘I came to enquire as to the reason for your thoroughly inappropriate presence here.’
Volnay glared at the king’s private pimp with all the scorn he could muster. The other man paled.
‘Monsieur, you are in Versailles!’ he declared, as if that alone were sufficient explanation.
Volnay glanced at the wig-maker and noted her stricken expression. There was nothing more to be gleaned now, and it would be pointless to try: the girl’s terrified reaction had told him everything he needed to know. He was practically certain the victim’s child was of royal blood. He left the room, pushing roughly past Le Bel, who received this parting affront with hate-filled silence.
Dusk was falling as Volnay fetched his horse and turned towards Paris, advancing at a walk through the crowds and vehicles thronging the road. Along the way, he thought again of the young woman, and the smell of her body. Gradually, his feelings of disarray subsided, and he felt sick at heart: they had murdered a young wig-maker, who was carrying the king’s child.
IV
On the eve of my birth, my mother felt a great craving for shrimps
CASANOVA
Casanova had taken advantage of his good fortune and bought himself a country house near Paris. He fancied he would call it La Petite Pologne—Little Poland. He kept chickens, feeding them on rice, and cultivated a kitchen garden as a source of fine, fresh vegetables. He had opened a workshop, too, employing twenty women, all of whom—naturally—had come to his bed, individually, and two by two, in various combinations. His little helpers all adored him, and he was mindful of their lot and their condition, paying them a higher salary than they would find anywhere else in Europe. Inexorably, he was running his business into the ground, though this did not concern him excessively. Money should be redistributed. Casanova upheld the free movement of people, goods and capital in equal measure.
For Casanova, fine cuisine was a source of enjoyment almost as vital as the pleasures of the flesh. He savoured the aroma of his dishes, their colours and flavours, be they rich or light. He loved all foods, bitter or sweet. He could not bear to take to his bed without eating first, and regaled his conquests with oysters, game, sturgeon and truffles.
Boasting proudly that his table was as divine as his love-making, he had invited Madame Ferraud, the wife of a public prosecutor, to dinner at his home. Every woman had her weak spot, and Casanova delighted in instinctively identifying the foible that would ensure he had his way. Madame Ferraud was a delicious, full-bodied woman of barely twenty-five, whose sensual nature revelled in the pleasures of the flesh, not least when it was perfectly cooked and served.
Naturally, the lady’s visit began with a guided tour of the kitchens. The aroma of vegetables fresh from the garden, cooking gently in warm butter, assailed them at the very top of the stairs leading down to the lower floors. At the bottom, they were engulfed in the stifling heat. Logs were fed regularly into the bread oven and the roasting pit. Beneath the low, vaulted ceiling they admired the great stone potager oven, with fifteen separate compartments and plates, and the endless ballet of cooks adding truffle essence to the fish stock or whisking the lobster butter.
‘Can you believe, dear lady, that lately, at a princely table, I was served a dish of peacock’s brains and parrot tongues?’ said Casanova. ‘It was quite extraordinary.’
‘Goodness me!’
‘Well, that’s what our host told us,’ he added, delighting her now with his scurrilous gossip. ‘It might very well have been cat’s brains and old wives’ tongues for all I know!’
Crooking his arm gallantly for the lady to take, he escorted her to the dining room, hung with tapestries in delicate pastel shades. The table was decorated with flowers, and the crystal glasses gleamed in the light from the wall sconces. Shrimps were served.
‘On the eve of my birth,’ remarked Casanova, ‘my mother felt a great craving for shrimps. Imagine this: I was born on Easter Sunday, the
day of the Resurrection, with my mother’s complexion still tinged pink by the shrimps she had eaten the day before!’
They laughed together, then savoured a generously salted dish of eels’ livers and rockfish. Casanova was careful to accompany the succession of dishes with equally piquant observations, to titillate his prey. His gaiety, perfect manners and tremendous good humour worked marvels, as they always did.
‘What are we to have next?’ asked his guest, in total innocence.
‘Carp stuffed with butter, egg yolk and crushed almonds, the whole seasoned with fragrant herbs,’ replied Casanova. ‘But we’ll take a moment’s repose in the small salon first, where we shall be served apple sorbet, and a liqueur of the same fruit.’
The Chevalier de Seingalt was anxious for his guest not to become drowsy. Hence he had ordered refreshing sorbets and liqueurs to be served in an intimate setting, after which they were to be left alone. Madame Ferraud thought this a fine idea. He led her to a panelled room painted in eau de Nil, in the middle of which stood an expansive, voluptuous ottoman couch decorated with gold fringe-work and laden with red silk cushions. The shutters were closed, and the slats drawn down. The room was suffused with soft light. In each corner, on the rosewood floor, an exquisite scent of violets and jasmine rose from a ceramic jar. Whenever Casanova was in funds, he spent lavishly, as if the money burnt his fingers.
‘What a great shame it is, Chevalier,’ said Madame Ferraud, ‘that people speak only of your prowess in certain endeavours, and not in others.’
‘But those “certain endeavours” are not to be scorned, Madame. Every woman expects a man to show vigour in the rites of Venus. And God has granted me such extraordinary vigour that I am capable of satisfying any and all who desire it…’
‘Chevalier, what language! Truly, I regret having accepted your invitation.’
She affected a pained expression, while the Venetian enveloped her in the velvet gaze of his soft, dark eyes.
‘Your regrets are unjustified, Madame. I aspire to delight you with nothing but the story of my life, and the latest gossip from every royal court in Europe. And in return, perhaps you will favour me with the news at Court here in Paris? That public prosecutor husband of yours must know a thing or two about all the worst crimes!’
Casanova and the Faceless Woman Page 7
