Mr Rama hopped out to join them on the ground, as if he didn’t think it appropriate to be standing so far above them.
‘That is indeed good news. We must tell Auguste and the others.’
‘Before we do that, do you know, Mr Rama, whether the brother who officiated at the funeral service was Frère Michel?’
‘I believe so, Madame.’
‘Is he still with you?’
‘That I do not know. We shall see. We shall ask Auguste, who is his particular friend here.’
Auguste occupied the third wagon along. With its brash depiction of a strongman in leopard-skin lifting a weight, it could hardly belong to anyone else.
When Mr Rama knocked and called out Auguste’s name, the door opened on a spectacle which made Marguerite take a backwards step in sudden fear. Bald-headed and bare-chested, the strongman’s arms and head gleamed with oil. Emblazoned on his torso was a dragon breathing fire. As he bent towards her, the beast leapt forwards. It took her a deep breath and a long moment to realise that she was looking at an elaborate tattoo that moved with the man’s muscles. Standing to his side was P’tit Ours, a bottle in his hand. He was staring at them, waving the bottle. He looked as if he might run straight out and over them.
The strongman growled, his features fierce with untrained as well as trained pugnacity.
Marguerite could only stare at his chest. Something Martine had reported that P’tit Ours had said on that first meeting in the grounds of Saint-Gilles came back to her. A winged creature. Fire. So despite the difficulty they had in understanding him, the strange youth spoke sense.
‘Madame has kindly come to tell us that the mayor has agreed to let us stay.’
‘Bully for him,’ Auguste slurred. His eyes didn’t quite focus.
‘You must thank Madame.’
Auguste mumbled something and slammed the door.
Mr Rama’s face grew long with dejection. ‘I am sorry, Madame. Auguste is very upset. About Danuta. I thank you for him, Madame.’
‘That’s all right, Mr Rama. And Frère Michel?’
Rama looked round dispiritedly. ‘I believe he’s already left, Madame. Ah, but look.’ He pointed in the direction of the road. Walking away from the site, they saw a thin figure cloaked in brown.
‘Run after him for me, Monsieur Villemardi. I need to speak to him.’
Villemardi raced away, while Marguerite said goodbye to Mr Rama and told him to communicate with her if they met with any problems or if he had any news that might help them locate the person responsible for Danuta’s murder.
The man’s brow creased beneath the jewelled turban. ‘So you think it was murder, Madame? Not an accident.’
‘I believe so, Monsieur.’
She could feel his eyes still on her as she walked towards Villemardi and the friar. Children were following her now, one of them holding out his hand in a begging gesture. Mr Rama slapped him away and held them back.
Villemardi and Frère Michel were waiting for her by the side of the road, and Marguerite urged them towards the carriage where they could sit in greater comfort.
But the friar held back. He had a thin, hollowed-out face, as old as the caves of the region. But a calm sweetness hung over him. His soft voice commanded attention. Marguerite took an instant liking to him.
‘Non, Madame. Thank you. I prefer to walk. But Madame wished a word with me…’
‘Mon frère,’ she lowered her voice because the curious children had followed them, a small procession, and were hanging about as if waiting for a performance. ‘I was told by Monsieur Tournevau, the chemist, that you had picked up a prescription some time back for a young woman I am trying to trace.’
The friar looked at her. His eyes were watery. Only now did she notice that they were asymmetrical, one a deep sea-blue, the other as pale as a cascading stream.
The man said nothing and, after a moment, she understood that he wouldn’t divulge anything unless she explained further.
‘She is the sister of a young friend, my current secretary, Mlle Branquart. This sister is frantic with worry. She fears she may be dead. She has heard nothing from her for many months.’
‘Too many months,’ Villemardi echoed with a note of threat.
The friar looked only at her. He studied her, then gazed through the shadows cast by the straight line of bare trees and up at the darkening sky. Marguerite wondered whether he was entering into some form of communion or asking heavenly permission to address her.
At last he said, ‘Please tell her sister that, as far as I know, Mademoiselle is safe. There is no need to worry. But she cannot receive visitors. Not at the present time.’
‘Why ever not?’ Marguerite was more abrupt than she had intended. To have found this man and then not to find anything out was more than her patience could bear.
He gave her his slow, watery stare, as if he were plumbing some depths of soul and integrity she wasn’t certain she possessed.
‘Her sister cannot bear it,’ Marguerite said. ‘They were very close. Orphans. They have only each other.’
‘Silence is imposed on me from above, Madame. There is nothing I can do for it. Her sister will have to wait. But let her wait in peace and pray.’
He nodded once, offered a gesture that she thought might be a benediction and started to trot down the road, his shoes, too large for his feet, squelching as he went.
Marguerite stared after him. The man seemed oblivious either to slush or cold. She wondered whether the silence imposed on him from above was the silence of the confessional or something quite different.
Montoire’s single brothel occupied a small, nondescript stone house in the less salubrious part of the town, right at the end of one of the old winding streets on the ruined fortress side of the river, beyond the priory. Town had almost become country here. There was a small stable to one side. The sole distinguishing feature of the place was a series of curving wrought-iron railings at gate and windows. They gave the premises the air of an abandoned Spanish hacienda that had migrated to the wrong part of the world. It wanted only women in veiled coifs peeking out through half-opened shutters to complete the picture.
Emile Durand gave Marguerite a look somewhere between exasperation and admiration at her tenacity as he helped her out of the carriage and ushered her up the short path to the front stairs. He pulled the bell cord quickly.
A sturdy young man with a gash of a mouth displaying large, crooked teeth opened the door to them. He couldn’t have been more than twenty and he was improbably attired in a frock coat that was too large for him and striped trousers. The locale had aspirations to a certain kind of gentility. But when the inspector announced who he was, it was clear that these didn’t extend to unknown members of the police force.
The door was closed in their faces only to reopen a moment later on a well-rounded woman in a low-cut satin gown and a bodice that propelled her bosom forwards. The strong scent of her perfume and powder forced itself on the cold air. The shape of her mouth, despite the slash of lipstick, announced her relationship before she spoke it.
‘My son said you wanted to see me, Monsieur.’ The ‘Madame’ came as an afterthought. She barely looked at Marguerite.
‘May we come in?’ The inspector gestured vaguely, indicating that their conversation was not one for the open air. He gave the woman a brief smile and she stepped back to usher them into a darkened hall, then on second thoughts into a small salon, hung everywhere with red drapery. The floor was a faded carpet of floral inspiration that boasted a few Turkish bolsters. In the dimness of scattered candlelight, they had only a passing glance of the three women who sat in an alcove playing cards. Marguerite noticed that they were scantily clad, one in a dancer’s tulle skirt and a flimsy bodice, another in a shift ruched up to her knees. One was a redhead, one dark, the smallest blonde. All three seemed too old to be Yvette. Before she could ascertain any more, the curtain on the alcove was released by their Madame and they disappeared behind red
velvet that had imbibed years of tobacco smoke.
‘I haven’t much time,’ the Madame said. ‘We’re busy in the cold weather.’ She stared at them suspiciously.
‘This won’t take long. We’re looking for a young woman by the name of Yvette Branquart, blonde, blue-eyed, slight. She might of course be using a different name.’
‘No one here like that. All my girls are legal. Clean. They go for regular examination. What’s she done?’
‘She’s come into some money, Madame,’ Marguerite intervened. ‘She would be grateful to you for locating her.’
From beneath mascara-thickened lashes, the woman’s small brown eyes suddenly took on a gleam of greed. Marguerite felt each step of their examination, now, as they moved over her, taking in her worth, noting the fur on her coat, the sweep and the cut of it, the discreet but well-made matching hat, the soft gloves.
‘She could have come to you at any time since the summer. Perhaps she didn’t stay long.’
Calculation played over the woman’s face. She didn’t look at the inspector any more. ‘There was a girl who worked here briefly, but she went … when was it, September. Not that name, of course. But it’s possible … I’ll just check with the girls. Is there a reward?’
‘Yes, Madame.’ Marguerite nodded. She felt a sudden rush of hope for Martine.
The woman was about to disappear behind the curtain when the inspector pulled it back for her with a graciousness that masked his real intent. The three prostitutes seemed not at all troubled at their presence and as soon as the Madame put the question to them, they started to chat away, making an inventory of the women who occasionally came to swell their numbers in busier seasons.
‘Remember, when I was sick over the summer, there was that cousin of Marielle’s who came in?’
‘Dark as coal. No way she was a blonde. And thirty, at least.’
‘No, no, not that one. The one old Monsieur Plon took a shine to. Tubercular she was. On her last.’
‘Oh ya. What was her name?’
‘Louise.’
Marguerite drew in her breath and held it.
‘Louise Vanès.’
So it wasn’t the maid that had left La Rochambert.
‘Don’t know where she went. Probably dead by now. So cold.’ The redhead drew a shawl over her shoulders.
‘I wonder,’ Marguerite intervened, remembering something else, ‘have you had any African women here or from the Caribbean colonies.’
‘Certainly not.’ The Madame was adamant.
‘Don’t know why you say it like that,’ one of the women giggled. ‘There’s one or two of our regulars who’d like a little variety. Keep them from going all the way to Blois. Fargeau told me he went there just for that. The spice of life, he said.’
‘And tell me, ladies, have any amongst you or who have come through had the misfortune of conceiving.’ The inspector put it bluntly before Marguerite had a chance.
A hush fell over the room. Two of the women crossed themselves quickly. The other shuddered and seemed about to tip off her stool.
‘What kind of question is that, Monsieur? Really. I told you this is a clean establishment.’
‘Accidents happen,’ Marguerite murmured. She had a sense that the blonde might recently have had an abortion. Was it possible in a town as small as Montoire, she wondered.
‘Upsetting my girls like that. If anyone was pregnant it was that Louise girl. Pale as sin. And with a mouth on her to take on the president.’
So it might just be La Rochambert’s Louise after all. They would have to find the girl. If she had come to Montoire after her post in Château du Loir, it was likely that she would stay in the vicinity.
The Madame’s eyes darted towards the door, where Marguerite saw her son had come in. He had another woman in tow. A girl. She looked barely old enough to be out of school. She stared at them in terror.
The Madame made a quick calculation. ‘If you leave me your card, I shall let you know if this Yvette you’re looking for comes to someone’s mind.’
‘The thing to do, Madame, is to contact Constable Rosier at the prefecture. He’ll know where to get hold of us.’
‘But Madame said…’
The muted clang of the bell interrupted them.
The inspector gave Marguerite a quick look and turned to the brothel owner.
‘Madame, it would be best if your client is shown to a different room while we take our leave. If you can help us to Yvette Branquart, have no fear about your reward.’
Having left his young charge in a corner chair, Madame’s son was already at the door.
‘Take him upstairs a moment, Hebert.’
Marguerite lowered the fishnet veil she had worn specifically for this eventuality and turned up the collar of her coat. Walls in small towns had eyes. Once more she rued the gold crest on the carriage door, which advertised its owners to all and sundry.
FIFTEEN
Despite Durand’s insistence that they had done enough for one day, Marguerite wanted to use the rest of the light. Olivier would inevitably make it difficult for her to go out tomorrow. The day of his grand party approached and she would be needed.
‘It’s only a small detour, Inspector. And since you’ve just seen the cadaver, it will be fresh in your mind. To take in the painting straight away can only be a plus in terms of identification.’
Reluctantly, since he had a habit of being gallant and was thinking of her state of inevitable feminine fatigue, Durand agreed.
Marguerite had an ulterior motive for going to Troo. She didn’t speak it, since she sensed the inspector wouldn’t approve her chasing after child’s play. But like some terrier worrying a bone, a part of her had been gnawing away at the strange, scrappy note with its cry for help that had blown into the orangerie. Martine had shuddered over it, saying it made her think of Yvette, not of some children’s game. But what if the note were both? What if it had been brought by a child, or even P’tit Ours, as he stood there peering in at them from the window, but was a genuine plea for help from some poor, incarcerated being?
With his insistence on facts, only facts, Durand would consider all this fanciful. And after they had shared their impressions of the brothel and what Frère Michel might have meant by his comments, they fell into a companionable silence for the remainder of the journey and concentrated on their own thoughts.
Marguerite’s certainty that the dead man had some link to the Tellier household made her more worried than ever about Martine’s sister. Could the girl be being kept hostage somewhere?
Servants were so often privy to secret knowledge it would have been better not to have overheard. Had Yvette gleaned or discovered something that incriminated her masters? Was she as a result a prisoner held in one of their properties? Is that what the friar had meant when he said that the girl was alive, but couldn’t be reached now? Could Frère Michel’s vow of silence really be a promise he had made to the Telliers in exchange for their keeping the girl alive, rather than dumping her, too, on some lonely stretch of track?
Questions. All she had were questions. Marguerite wrapped her coat more firmly round her and rubbed the mist from her window. Above its wall, the Tellier house rose solid and square in the near distance. Again she had an intense sense of Martine’s delicate lookalike sister being pummelled and buffeted by her coarse masters. A fine-boned bird amidst predators who were holding her in a cage.
There was another possible prisoner in the vicinity. Marguerite thought of the handsome, dark woman she had seen in the adjacent garden, the woman the children called the witch. P’tit Ours had leapt down to her all smiles and offerings. But Madame Tellier had bristled and flared, surprised by her presence. Whether it was because she had something against her race or because she recognised her or both was unclear. And what of the ever absent Monsieur Tellier, her husband?
On a whim, Marguerite pushed the little flap on the window separating them from Georges and asked him to take them round to the
Telliers’ from the other direction. They would stop, if only for a moment. Amandine, P’tit Ours had called her. Amandine who had made what could well have been a supplicant’s gesture towards Marguerite.
The visible floors of the house were shuttered. The premises looked desolate. No lights flickered. Could the witch have moved or been moved away? The high, heavy wall now sported a white ledge where a robin perched, its breast blood-red against the snow.
She asked Georges to ring the bell at the gate. Quickly she explained to Durand, who nodded affably. Again she had the impression the chief inspector was finding his country escapade something of a relief after the pressures of Paris, where ministers breathed down his stiffly collared neck with too much regularity.
Perhaps the tragic circumstances of Olympe’s death, which had thrown the dapper little policeman into her salon and then kept him in the world of the Faubourg and the Assemblée because of his ruthless honesty, had removed him from work he ultimately preferred. Last night she had started on the work he had asked her to help him with. She had written two diplomatically worded but searching letters to friends in the Radical Party to find out more about the wayward deputy’s habits. She would write another few tonight.
From somewhere she heard the howl of a dog. It seemed to be coming closer and getting fiercer, but the thick wooden doors in front of which Georges stood didn’t budge. And there was still no glimmer of light from the windows. If the so-called witch Amandine was being kept prisoner here, she was no longer even able to come to the windows.
There had been a change, too, at the Tellier house. It was not Madame Molineuf who opened the door to them, but a dour, stolid man with a square face and a flattened nose that had visibly been broken in several places. He was improbably decked out in a uniform of a dove grey far subtler than his voice.
‘Madame and Monsieur are away,’ he grunted at the inspector’s query.
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