The crowd had dispersed and Marguerite had retired to her instrument. Only Martine was in the room with her, sitting a little to one side of the piano, visibly moved by the music.
The music soothed. It spoke for her. It allowed her mind to make the connections that too much thought often refused. It also gave her patience. She needed it, she thought, as she let her eyes rove through the row of French windows on to the grounds from which the sun had now vanished to leave everything an uninflected, uniform grey.
There was no sign of the chief inspector. His train must have been delayed.
The rise and fall of the music took her attention again and she poured her sadness over the death of the woman whose body she had found into its strains. Had Olivier had anything to do with her death? The thought floated up into the room’s painted ceiling where a mythical Pan wooed nymphs with his pipe and lost itself amongst fleeting clouds.
There was another death to mourn, she remembered, even if she felt more distant from it. The man on the tracks, still unnamed.
She saw his face again, as she had seen it in those grainy photographs Labrousse had shown her, all bruised and lumpy, pores enlarged. Suddenly something glimpsed and not focused on swam into her vision. Another picture, this time in oils, mustard colours and sienna with glints of pink in the skin above a blue, braided uniform. In Madame Tellier’s house. The two images slotted in, one over the other. Yes.
Her fingers tripped, producing the clatter of a false chord. She lifted her hands from the piano.
‘Martine! Martine.’ Her tone made the girl leap nervously from her chair. ‘Martine. Do you remember you said to me you thought the dead man on the tracks was someone … someone you knew? Big and ugly, you said. You were thinking of Madame Tellier’s father. Old Napoléon Marchand?’
The girl hung her head. ‘Yes, Madame.’
‘Well, do you think you might in fact have recognised him, really recognised him, because he was the incarnation of a painting you had seen on the stairs in Madame Tellier’s house? Some kind of relative, no doubt.’
Marguerite gave her a look of consternation. ‘I don’t know, Madame. I don’t know.’ She closed her eyes, as if she were trying to recreate an internal sense of the house that so distressed her. ‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, hanging next to a portrait of the old master.’ She shuddered. Her eyes started open and grew wide. ‘Do you think it was him, Madame? Do you think it was that man?’
‘It could well be, Martine. Since both of us have now noticed the resemblance … without at first realising it. We shall have to tell the police.’
Behind her, Marguerite heard a throat being cleared.
‘Dr Labrousse is here, Madame. Will you see him?’
‘Yes, of course, Jeanne. Show him right in.’
Labrousse was wearing a well-brushed frock coat and what looked like a new tie carefully propped over a high-necked collar. It was clear he had been expecting a confrontation with Olivier, who might loudly resist the services of a less than impeccably turned-out doctor.
‘How are you feeling, Madame?’
‘Quite well, as you can see,’ Marguerite played a chord with her injured arm and smiled at him. She started to unbutton the myriad tiny buttons on the sleeve of the burnished soft woollen dress she had worn precisely because of this feature. Jeanne rushed to her aid.
‘I trust you’ve brought me news, as well as new dressings, Doctor. I’m hungry for news. It will do me far more good than any unguents.’
He glanced at the two young women, greeted Martine with a little smile that softened his long face and said nothing until Marguerite had urged the girl from the room.
‘Were you able to examine the woman, Doctor? I heard this morning she was identified as Danuta the Dancer, one of the fairground performers.’
Labrousse’s face grew longer with visible discomfort. He was paying attention only to her arm.
‘Well, were you, Doctor?’
‘Only cursorily, I’m afraid.’
How did the woman die?’
‘From what I could see, a blow killed her. To the head. There was another at the nape of the neck. Violent. Of course, the second could have provoked a fall that caused the first.’
‘A blow from a bare hand?’
‘I could detect no sign of a weapon, but as I say the examination was cursory. She might have fallen after a struggle. Either way, the police are simply not interested. The woman’s not important enough to waste their time on. It’s just like the man on the tracks. Their line is simply that she was up to no good in the woods, fell, injured herself and died of cold. If someone knocked her about, that’s par for the course. She was reported missing, it seems, some days back.’
Labrousse wasn’t meeting her eyes. Now that he was finished with her arm, other objects in the room had taken on an inordinate interest – the polished candelabra atop the grand, the gilded frames of the many mirrors, most certainly his own boots.
Once more she was aware of the southern aspect of him, the olive tinge to his skin.
‘What is it, Doctor? There’s something you’re not saying to me. Did you get a chance to see if the woman had recently been delivered of a child? Madame Germaine told me it was a simple matter to check for.’
‘Been delivered of a child? Why … Oh, I see … You think the foundling … But Madame, that’s simply not possible.’
‘Why not?’ Marguerite hid her disappointment in curtness.
‘Well,’ he met her eyes at last with his polished ones. ‘Danuta the Dancer … I saw her. Saw her perform. Not so long before Christmas. On her horses. She twirled and turned and leapt and stood upside down. Difficult enough without the protuberance of a pregnancy. And there certainly wasn’t one visible through what was a rather scant costume. So if I’m to trust my eyes, as you say…’
He turned a face on her that was all innocence. ‘But there is something you might like to know.’ His features grew heavy again.
‘Go on.’
‘She was the woman I told you about. The one I was certain had recognised the dead man in the photographs. She was there when I went to the campsite.’
‘I see,’ Marguerite started to pace. ‘So there is a link between the two deaths. We simply don’t know what it is.’
‘My fear is that I may in some way I don’t understand have contributed to the poor woman’s demise.’
She stared at him. ‘Doctor, both Martine and I thought of something, just a short time ago. We both think we recognise your dead man. We think he is the same man as one depicted in a painting in Madame Tellier’s house. I want you to go and check. It could be very important.’
‘Madame Tellier’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘If the police and particularly the investigative magistrate care not a jot about these cases, have ceased to pursue them, there is little I can do.’
‘I can assure you, Doctor, they will pursue them. Don’t let their momentary lack of interest hold you back. For the sake of your own conscience, too.’ She paused. ‘By the way. I notice you are nervous of my husband. Would it help if I knew why?’
Labrousse straightened his tie as if Olivier had walked into the room.
‘He shan’t be back until tomorrow.’
‘I … I don’t know. He … he may have heard some of the rumours about me. They’re rife, you know. And I haven’t told you. Perhaps he has. They say I let my brother die. And it’s true, Madame. That’s why I left Montpelier.’
Tears welled in the man’s dark eyes. The well-scrubbed hands clenched into tight fists. ‘I take complete responsibility. But it was an exercise of misjudgment, not a lack of medical knowledge. Or so I tell myself.’
‘Tell me…’ Marguerite said softly.
‘I didn’t get to him in time, you see. I didn’t think it was serious. He was always complaining, calling for me. A stomach ache it was this time, apparently. So I didn’t rush over.’
‘You were busy with other patients.’
‘Yes, yes.
You understand. I tended to what I assumed were more urgent needs. I had no idea.’ He sat down in a chair and buried his large head in his hands. ‘By the time the servant found me again, it was too late. Acute appendicitis. There. Now I’ve said it. Before you hear it behind my back. If you haven’t already.’
‘And Montoire presented itself?’
He nodded. ‘Now I’m assiduous in tending to even my most plaintive of patients.’
‘Even Yvette and Madame Tellier…’
She didn’t understand the look he cast her, but she went on.
‘I’m glad you’ve told me, Doctor. I shall quash any rumours I hear. I’m certain you have paid enough of a price.’ She waited a moment. ‘As for these other matters, I would be truly grateful to you if you paid a visit to the woman and had a good look at her picture collection. The police would certainly trust an identification based on your scientific assessment and backed by Martine and myself.’
‘Martine saw the resemblance too?’ His face brightened.
Marguerite sighed. ‘Who knows … an identification might even take us a step closer to her sister!’
After he left, Marguerite returned to her piano. She found herself playing a fugue, lost herself in the counterpoint of voices, the identities which turned away into differences, the flight of her fingers like her racing legs masquerading as Antoine. All the while her mind hurtled through the woods and back to the Tellier house, the old man, Yvette, so like her sister, the portrait … She barely heard Martine come into the room.
When the crash came, she leapt as from a trance. The heavy satin train of her dress caught on the piano stool, trapping her, so that for a moment all she saw were shards of glass rushing towards her. A window pane had been smashed. Pieces lay scattered over the gleaming beech floor. Through the French doors, in the murky half-light that marked the coming of dusk, she now saw a growling, bare-headed P’tit Ours. The buttons of his ragged trousers were open to display a half-erect member. She moved backwards, slowly, as if in a dream in which her legs were paralysed.
Martine was screaming. She had fled to the far side of the room. Before Marguerite could unlock her legs, behind the bulk of P’tit Ours, she discerned a second shape. That second, smaller form was holding the giant youth’s arms pinned back in a sharp grip. It was during his struggle to break free that the windowpane had been broken.
Now Georges and one of the groundsmen ran up to take hold of P’tit Ours’s arms. Behind the burly youth, she recognised the barrel chest, well-fitted coat and bowler hat of Emile Durand. It was a relief and a pleasure to see the stout, dapper little man with the heavy brows and big broom of a moustache.
‘Perhaps you should have him do his trousers up, Chief Inspector. My young companion here is still at a shockable age.’
‘I’m sorry, Madame. This was not the entrance I had planned.’
Emile Durand extricated himself from the group and stood directly in front of P’tit Ours. He smoothed his coat, stood to attention with military precision, bowed, and doffed his bowler hat.
‘I do apologise, Madame, but as we drove up I saw this large figure by the window. It took me a moment to realise that he was staring in at you. You were outlined in the light, reflected in the mirrors. You and the girl,’ he bowed now towards Martine. ‘When I realised what this lout of a peeping Tom was up to, I raced here.’
A loud wail came from P’tit Ours. ‘Let go. Let go. Let P’tit Ours go.’ He lunged and tried to shrug the men off, but despite his bulk they kept a firm grip. Tears were pouring down his face. His mouth was a gaping hole with unruly stumps of teeth. ‘Let go.’
‘You were bad, P’tit Ours. Very bad,’ Marguerite said, surprised at her own gentleness. The overgrown boy terrified her more than ever, yet still he evoked her pity.
‘Maman say P’tit Ours bad. But not bad. P’tit Ours not bad. Not lazy good for nothing. No dragon. No tattoos. P’tit Ours listen to sounds. Sad sounds. Like river. Running. Sad running. Sad. Big sad.’
The tears still poured from his eyes and as they all tried to make out what he meant, he lunged again, this time backwards, and with a wild shriek broke the grip of the men. And then P’tit Ours was running. Running like some kind of untamed creature. Hopping, shuffling, running for all he was worth, down the hill and into the copse and away.
‘Let him go, Inspector. I know where to find him if we need to,’ Marguerite said, hoping she wasn’t doing the wrong thing.
THIRTEEN
Little had gone as she might have wished since she had come to La Rochambert, but Marguerite judged herself lucky in the timing of the chief inspector’s arrival. Not only because it coincided with P’tit Ours’s disturbing and potentially dangerous intrusion, but also because it coincided with Olivier’s absence. Her husband would spend the night in Tours. The chief inspector and she were free to talk and talk until the small hours if necessary. Certainly until her strength or his gave out. She was so relieved to see his face with all its worn humanity that for the first time since she had arrived at La Rochambert, she relaxed utterly.
Her first task was to introduce the inspector properly to Martine. She had the young woman tell him in her halting way about Yvette’s disappearance and the lack of headway they had made in locating her.
Moved by the girl’s narrative, her worry and her elfin charm, aware of the shock P’tit Our’s eruption into their midst had caused, the inspector treated her with such gentle protectiveness, such paternal warmth, that she might have been his own child. Marguerite knew that he had two of his own, a daughter of thirteen, not all that much younger than Martine, and a smaller boy. She also knew that he doted on them, though occasionally the remarks he let drop gave her intimations that his relations with a plaintive wife were less than ideal. None the less, he was a firm believer in the family, and was prone to rant periodically against escalating divorce rates and loose morality. It came to her that despite his ardent Republicanism, on that score at least, the inspector would not find himself all that distant from Olivier’s new position.
Martine basked in Durand’s warmth and talked with more freedom than Marguerite had ever quite witnessed in her before. Perhaps the inspector allowed her to forget that she was the recipient of favours, something Marguerite, because of her position, had been unable to do. Gratitude, in Marguerite’s experience, was rarely an emotion that came without a darker side.
Yes, Durand distinctly had the common touch. She had discovered recently that he was one of seven children from a poor farming family on the further reaches of the Île de France. He had worked himself up by dint of his own efforts and with the selfless help of a village schoolteacher who had seen potential in him. The experience had made him into a firm and shrewd meritocrat. With thrift and education and effort, anyone could make a go of it, he believed. His past made him hard on criminals. They were intent on cheating or destroying the society that had been kind to him. It made him hard on slackers and on a self-indulgent aristocracy. It also made him excessively kind to Martine and for some reason to Marguerite, whom he had exempted from the crimes of her birth.
When Marguerite focused in on the inspector’s interview once more she heard Martine telling him something she hadn’t yet heard. Martine was confessing to him that she thought Yvette would not have been as frightened of P’tit Ours as she was, not even today.
‘And why is that, Mademoiselle?’
‘Yvette is strong. She likes helping people. All kinds of people. She can talk to anyone. It’s probably because of that P’tit Ours keeps coming here.’
‘So when he came to the window, you think it was for you. You as Yvette?’ Marguerite asked in great excitement, since it confirmed her suspicions about where they might find the girl. She read Martine’s comments as an indication of Yvette’s more indulgent, though at times self-punishing, ways with men. Her hopes that Yvette might be traced to a brothel, as so many vanished young women before her had been, kept her greater fears for the young woman at bay. A brothel was
not a cemetery.
Martine was blushing scarlet. Had she followed the full trajectory of Marguerite’s thoughts?
‘I don’t know, Madame, I really don’t.’
‘But that’s been very helpful, Mademoiselle. You skip off now and rest after all the excitement, while Madame and I talk things over.’ The inspector smiled his warm, disarming smile, as if he were simply an ordinary chap who enjoyed a little chit-chat, not the cool, punctilious observer Marguerite knew him to be.
Having shooed the girl away, it turned out he wanted to conduct a thorough inspection of the château before they did anything else. He had a notion that P’tit Ours might come back. He was also concerned that it had taken his arrival for the giant youth’s presence at their windows to be noticed.
‘Madame should not discount the possibility that other foul acts will occur. They rarely come singly. And sometimes it takes a rank outsider to see even the most obvious things. People in the area will undoubtedly know that you’ve been taking an interest in the cadaver. They may not like it. This oaf may be a spy in the interests of someone else and simply taking his perverted pleasure on the way. And if he’s had it once, he’ll come back. We can’t be too careful.’
Marguerite waited her moment to tell him about Danuta the Dancer and how she had been assaulted in the woods. Meanwhile, the inspector tried doors and windows, noted the position of stairwells and servants’ quarters and greeted an array of chambermaids and footmen with an affable smile that permitted him to watch the degree of nervousness his title evoked.
When they finally sat down to dinner in happy seclusion, it was to a feast she trusted Durand, who was something of a gourmet, would welcome after his exertions. She had alerted Madame Solange, who had prodded cook to excel. They ate a Crème Germiny followed by a buttery fillet of sole, a boeuf en croûte prepared to perfection and garnished with green beans and parsley potatoes, a platter of cheese, fruit and petit fours, all accompanied by an array of wines from Olivier’s cellar and a fragrant after-dinner Courvoisier to sweeten the inspector’s pipe tobacco.
Sacred Ends Page 13
