Madrigal Read Free Page B

voice have been? ‘A contralto?’ he asked. ‘A soprano?’ Had it been a lover who had killed her? A boy, a young man, a former shepherd, former altar boy, a baritone now, a tenor or bass among the madrigal singers?
    â€˜You were dressed for your part,’ he said. ‘There were four, five or six of you in the group. Together you sang so well the préfet, the Kommandant and the bishop must have known of you and had their reasons for coming.’
    There were so many things that needed looking into. Her belt, the cabochons, they’d tell a story with the enseignes and talismans. There were pewter scissors hanging from the girdle. There was a dirk in its richly tooled sheath of silver and leather. There was also a plain soft brown velvet pouch – needles and thread, no doubt. Did she carry the tools of her trade as well? he wondered.
    Easing his back, he stood a moment. ‘You are begging us to become detectives of those times. For myself that may be possible, but for my partner, let me tell you he is definitely of the present. He lives with two women and enjoys them both but rarely, and never at the same time, or so I am given to understand. It’s curious, isn’t it, seeing as the one is almost twice the age of the other? Both are très gentilles, très belles, très differentes , yet are fast friends. War does things like that.’
    He knew she would have been shocked – intrigued, but so modest her eyes would have ducked away. She was young – perhaps two years younger than Hermann’s Giselle – and pretty. Not beautiful, but lovely – très charmante . One could tell she’d been decent, honest, diligent, steadfast and true, but the detective in him had to say, ‘I mustn’t be a sentimental fool.’
    No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t avoid the gaping throat. Had she the voice of an angel? Just what had she known and had her killing really been to silence her?
    Hatred, rage – so many things were evident in her murder, a total lack of conscience, a ruthless arrogance that frightened. She’d have been alone, must have been terrified. Had sex been denied? One always had to ask, and where, please, was the murder weapon?
    Caught in the flesh there was another bit of winter-grey lavender. Bending closer, he teased it away, said, ‘This clung to the haft of the sickle, if that really was the weapon.’ And furious with himself for not having any envelopes – the constant shortages these days – found a scrap of paper in a pocket, another of the leaflets the Allies were dropping to encourage resistance. Carefully he gathered the bits from the floor, then used yet another leaflet to hold the hairs that had fallen when her assailant or someone else had cut off a sample.
    Though faint, there was the scent of coriander and cloves.
    â€˜A toilet water,’ he said. ‘Did you make it yourself, according to a recipe from those times?’
    Mon Dieu , but she was so of the past, her skin had even been anointed with one of the unguents of those days. ‘You’re a puzzle,’ he said, and then, ‘Forgive me.’
    Abruptly he broke the fingers of her left hand. Her little treasure rolled away, and for a moment he was too preoccupied to say a thing.
    â€˜A pomander,’ he managed at last. ‘Of gold and in the shape of a medieval tower with battlements, whose lid is hinged and with a fine gold chain and clasp.’
    There were second- and third-storey windows in the walls, and embrasures for firing arrows – openings from which the scent could constantly escape in those times of plague to momentarily purge the stench of raw sewage and rotting refuse in the streets. But there were few of these openings and he had the thought that the pomander must have been modelled after an actual tower in the Palais.
    The pomander was filled with half-centimetre-sized spheres of grey, polished ambergris.