Cold Winter in Bordeaux Read Free

pupils, she taught piano, see. Only to girls, though, and only in the afternoons.’
    * * *
    ‘I didn’t even bother to ask the usual question,’ Lannes said. ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill her? The poor child knew nothing; that was obvious.’
    ‘The concierge wasn’t much help either,’ Moncerre said. ‘Madame Peniel was “always correct”, but “not one to talk”. However, she is sure, insists really, that she didn’t open the door to any stranger over the weekend. Which must mean that the dead woman brought her murderer home with her. Assuming the concierge is speaking the truth, of course, which there’s no reason to suppose she isn’t.’
    ‘What about the pupils?’
    ‘Well-turned-out girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen, more or less. That’s what she says, anyway. Can’t see one of them wrapping a stocking round her neck.’
    They had repaired, as so often, to Fernand’s brasserie, and as usual there were more German officers there than Bordelais. Their mood and demeanour had changed. They were still ‘correct’ as instructed, but there was a difference, an edge to them, and one sensed their awareness that they were fortunate to be stationed here in France, while their Sixth Army was engaged in Stalingrad, and were uncertain how long their luck would hold. Lannes knew little of how that battle was going, nothing indeed for certain, but, since he had started listening surreptitiously to the BBC, he had begun to hope that Hitler had, as Fernand said, ‘bitten off more than he can swallow’. Moncerre on the other hand was still sure that ‘the Russkies will crack’. It was in his nature to expect the worst. Not that they talked much about the war, or indulged in speculation. What was the point? It was out of their hands.
    Fernand’s son Jacques brought them their dish of calf’s liver and pommes lyonnaises.
    ‘You’re fortunate,’ he said. ‘That’s the last of the liver.’
    Even Fernand, who was on good terms with the men who ran the black market and had, moreover, farmer-friends who kept him supplied, was experiencing difficulties. Fortunately his cellar was still well-stocked and the St-Emilion he had recommended went happily with the liver.
    Lannes could see that young René was eager to discuss the case, even though he had found nothing of interest among the dead woman’s papers, only a list of her piano pupils and a timetable of their lessons.
    ‘That helps us a lot,’ Moncerre said.
    ‘Their parents may be able to tell us something about the dead woman,’ Lannes said. ‘Anyway, that’s the first thing we have to find out. What sort of person she was.’
    It was always the same. Except for a killing in the course of a botched robbery, it was more often than not what you learnt of the victim that opened up a case.
    ‘It’s odd, though,’ Moncerre said, ‘the concierge is sure she never had a lover. I asked about men visitors and she said “certainly not”; only an elderly man, might be an uncle, she said. It’s the sort of thing concierges usually know.’
    ‘Usually,’ Lannes said, ‘but we’ve known them to be mistaken – and to tell lies. All the same the little maid was clear on one point. I mean about the champagne and cigar.’
    ‘You get black market Havanas for the Alsatian, don’t you?’ Moncerre said. ‘So let’s put the boss in the frame.’
    Lannes studied the list of pupils’ names René had passed him. He put his finger on one.
    ‘I’ll deal with this girl,’ he said. ‘Divide up the others between the two of you and make a start this afternoon.’
    ‘What about the uncle?’
    ‘We’ll have to find out who he was, if indeed he was her uncle. You got a description from the concierge?’
    ‘A description, for what it’s worth, but no name.’
    ‘I’ll have a word later with her myself.’
    ‘Do you think the technical boys can tell us what brand of cigar it was?’ René said.
    ‘They’ve got to be