‘Contents of a theatre box not much use, I’d have thought. Could you throttle someone with all that gold braid?’
‘I wouldn’t want to try it. No. Someone chose to take this dagger into the box and use it. And leave it behind for all to see. This particular dagger. It’s distinctive. Meaningful. Personal, I’d say. The victim had fought in Afghanstan, his fellow soldier tells me. There’s a possibility that it may be from his own collection. Carried there by the victim himself and turned against him in an unpremeditated attack?’ Joe sighed. ‘Much work to be done yet, I’m afraid.’
Rising from his chair, Joe was struck by a sudden thought. He walked over to the corpse and lowered his head to sniff the improbably dark hair. He looked up and said: ‘Pomade?’
Moulin joined him and repeated the process. ‘Certainly,’ he agreed. He sniffed again. ‘Unpleasant. Not French. Much too heavy. I’d say something like Bay Rum, wouldn’t you? And it’s sticky.’ He took off a glove and tested a strand of hair between thumb and forefinger.
Joe did the same. He peered at the crown of the man’s head. ‘Well-barbered hair though a little long for most tastes, I’d have thought. Plentiful and would give a very good grip to anyone choosing to sink his fingers into it. As you demonstrated. Left parting and – look – it’s disordered on top. Could have happened involuntarily at any moment after the death of course, during the manhandling of the body by the authorities. But if your theory’s right, doctor, the killer must have had a disgustingly sticky left hand – and not sticky with blood. It’s not much but . . .’
He accepted Moulin’s offer of soap and water and towel in a side room and they washed their hands in a companionable silence together, each deep in thought. ‘I thank you for working through all this with me, doctor,’ Joe said, walking back to pick up his briefcase. He hesitated and then made up his mind to ask: ‘Shall I hope to see you later on today when I bring the widow Somerton? Or will you have handed over to a colleague by then?’
Moulin smiled. ‘I shall arrange to be here, Commander. More dead than alive myself by that hour but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You’ll find me here. I’m very bad about delegating. Particularly when a case has caught my attention as this one has.’
Emerging from the depths of the stone Palais de Justice building, Joe experienced again a rush of relief and pleasure. He took a minute or two to raise his face to the sun, to breathe in the not-unpleasant river smell, to be thankful that he wasn’t laid out on a slab or filed away in one of the steel drawers that lined the walls. He’d taken a liking to Moulin – an admirable man, professional but not stuffy. A brother. But he did wonder how he managed to stay sane working in that chill, haunted place. Above all he asked himself how bearable would be the claustrophobic effect of those thick walls on a recently widowed Home Counties lady. He looked at his watch and calculated that she was in mid-air over the Channel, delicately refusing the oysters most probably.
Lunch! Suddenly hungry, Joe decided to make for a café and find something he could eat within half an hour. The place St Michel was just over the river. Food over there on the Left Bank was cheap and quickly prepared. The were mostly students and Joe enjoyed the informality, the laughter and the sharp comments he heard all around him. He settled at a pavement table on the square and decided to order a croque-monsieur. Always delicious and quick to produce. He wondered what to drink with it and thought his usual beer might finally send him to sleep. A bottle of Badoit or a plain soda water might be more –
Soda! Campari-soda! The shock of realization was so intense he looked furtively around him to see if anyone was conscious of his reaction to the sudden thought. Ridiculous! These chattering strangers, even if they’d been looking in his direction, wouldn’t have given a damn for an Englishman whose startled expression was that of a man who’d just remembered – too late – his wife’s birthday.
‘Campari-soda’! George had been trying to pass on a message and he’d missed it. Pink and decadent, light but lethal. And always, for him, to be associated with that woman.
George had been attempting to let him know he’d spent the evening trapped in a box with a viper.
Joe, all appetite vanished, chewed his way through his sandwich and planned his next move. Looking around him, he remembered that he was just a few steps away from the rue Jacob and he frowned.
Good Lord! It seemed a week ago he’d met that redhead on the plane. What was her name? Heather, that was it. And she was staying at a small hotel down there. Raking his memory, he had a clear impression he’d promised to meet her again, though he’d left it all a little vague. He doubted she was the kind of girl to sit in her room waiting for him to contact her but, all the same, it would be too rude to do nothing. He could at least explain that he’d run head-first into the most frightful bit of trouble and wouldn’t be at liberty to enjoy Paris with her as he’d hoped. Paying his bill, Joe strode off down the rue St André des Arts and crossed over into the rue Jacob. He wandered along until he found a pretty, flower-bedecked hotel whose name rang a bell.