Madrigal Read Online Free Page A

perpetual smile registered in once broad lips, the lower of which had been tightly folded up and in by the surgeons of twenty-five years ago. The rugged, scarred cheeks, with the grey-black bristles of a thin and closely clipped beard, hid nothing. Not the terrible shrapnel wounds of that other war; not the fear, the pain of knowing one had been about to die – that never left a person; not the reprieve and the disfigurement. Une gueule cassée , one of the Broken Mugs.
    There were pouches under the dark grey eyes, one of which was permanently half closed, but the intensity of the gaze had mellowed a little as sympathy had registered starkly in the face of the detective.
    Without a word, Kohler dragged out the apology of cigarettes and, offering each of them a smoke, reached into the fire to take up a light.
    â€˜Inspector,’ said Brother Matthieu, ‘you must forgive my recent absence, but you see, I was worried. Xavier is my responsibility and I was certain you might think his presence untoward when the préfet and the bishop had ordered that no others were to enter the Palais. The repast also had to be shared. It’s our custom, and I knew the stew would not keep hot and he’d be hungry.’
    Ravenous, no doubt, and probably fresh in from trapping game in the countryside, and with a corpse up there on the first floor neither of them seemed to care to mention.
    The remains of a salad of Belgian endive, marinated green beans, sweet red peppers and chopped chives lay on a soiled napkin before the boy, as did a half-eaten round of goat’s cheese that had been wrapped in a grape leaf, marinated in olive oil and dusted with herbs.
    The kid had tried to hide the cheese. Oil glistened on the slender fingers. He was nearly thirteen years old, tall for his age, old beyond mention, willow-shoot thin and with blue eyes that, though stunningly wide, held a peasant’s watchfulness and were otherwise empty of all feeling.
    He smoked his cigarette like a pro. He’d flick the butt away when done. He had that insolent look about him.
    The dark brown hair was parted in the middle, cut in a pageboy style and bobbed about the ears. The lips were wide and sensuous, the cheeks thin, the bone structure fine, the brush of the eyebrows full and wide. A pretty boy, one might have said, if his clothes hadn’t been so worn and filthy. The lashes were long and curved upwards, the nose was aquiline and of some passing nobility deep in his family’s ancestry, the skin that soft shade of brown so typical of the Midi.
    â€˜ Ihre Papiere ,’ breathed Kohler, hating himself for getting Gestapo-like, but somehow he had to get through to them. ‘Your Ausweis , too. Bitte , eh? Schnell !’ Hurry! He snapped his fingers.
    The monk threw the boy a warning glance and blurted, ‘Inspector, is this necessary?’
    â€˜It is, if we’re ever to find out where he’s been, Father, why he’s really here, and what connection if any he has to the murder. Oh by the way, what was her name? You haven’t forgotten it, have you?’
    â€˜Mireille de Sinéty. That … that is all I am permitted to tell you for the moment.’
    â€˜The bishop’s got your tongue, has he? Hey, mon fin , refusing to give information is a criminal offence.’
    With vegetable slowness, the boy hauled out a dog-eared ID, a residence permit and ration booklet from which, since it was close to the end of the fortnight, virtually all of the tickets had been removed. One thousand one hundred and fifty calories a day if one could get them.
    Kohler held the ID photos to the light. An altar boy’s white surplice had been worn for the head-and-shoulders and profile shots. The kid had been scrubbed clean and looked like an angel without its wings.
    â€˜They made me bathe,’ he taunted insolently.
    â€˜Who?’
    The boy indicated his mentor. ‘ Les pères de Jésus. Mon père.