‘Une mèche rebelle,’ said Simenon. ‘Yes, she had. There’s a pair of scissors – over there on the floor.’ He went to peer at them, carefully refraining from touching them. ‘And there’s a black hair trapped between the blades.’ He looked back at Francine. ‘She’s cut it off. Perhaps that was yesterday’s fashion?’ Concerned, he went to the waste basket and turned over the contents. ‘No hair.’ He checked the crowded surface of the dressing table. ‘No hair anywhere.’
With mounting dismay, Joe pointed to the girl’s mouth. ‘Her lipstick’s badly smudged.’ He touched her cheeks gently. ‘And her face is puffy.’
‘Time for the opening of the mouth ceremony?’ said Bonnefoye quietly. ‘What did you say, Joe? Release the ka? Let’s do it, while we can – before rigor starts to set in!’
He delicately ran a finger between her lips and slid it under her top teeth. With his other hand he tugged gently on the lower jaw and the mouth sagged open. The fingers probed the inside of her mouth and drew out the contents.
With an exclamation of disgust, Joe spread his handkerchief on the floor by the corpse to receive the damp bundle.
Bonnefoye poked at it. ‘A wad of currency and . . .’ He flipped the folded notes over revealing something wrapped tightly up in them. ‘There it is – the curl of hair.’
He sat back on his heels, confused and defeated. ‘Now what the hell are we supposed to make of that?’
‘Mèche! That’s what we’re meant to understand!’ Simenon’s voice was urgent, trying to stifle triumph. ‘It’s a play on words! It means “kiss curl, strand of hair” but it’s also a candle wick . . . or a fuse. And if someone informs on you in criminal circles you’d say: on vend la mèche. They’re selling out. Selling information. They got the girl they wanted, you know. It was Francine they intended to kill. No mistake!’
‘And the choice of currency, I believe, was not random,’ said Joe bitterly. ‘Significant, would you say? That the notes are English ones? Have you noticed? Those elegant white sheets of paper are English treasury fivers. They’re saying she sold out to me. To the English cop. They’ve crammed in ten of them. Fifty pounds! No expense spared on the death of a little Parisian ouvreuse? More money than she ever had in her life.’
He turned away to hide his sorrow and anger.
Simenon’s eyes flashed from one policeman to the other. ‘Ah. Little Francine whispered more than she ought to have done into a sympathetic English ear, did she? Alfred? He’s the connection. He talked to her and she talked to you, Sandilands. Brother and sister both got their rewards then. They’re suspicious of family relationships. One sees why. Word of this will be on the street by the end of the day. And people like me will be silenced for another year.’ He turned to Joe and finished quietly: ‘Whatever you charmed out of her, keep it to yourself, will you? I don’t want to hear. Not sure it’s even safe to stand next to you.’
Joe began to pull himself together and turned again to the body, though he noticed the younger men looked away, unable to meet his eye, alarmed by his expression. For a fleeting moment, the two sides of his face came together, disconcertingly in harmony, uniting to give out the same message. A message of fierce hatred.
Joe made the sign of the cross over the dead girl and knelt, tugging down and straightening the hem of the green satin dress. ‘Even in death, she looks beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘She’d be pleased to be making her last appearance in something special. Not her black uniform. What is this little number do you suppose, Bonnefoye?’
‘I know what this is. I checked the label. It’s a Paul Poiret. Her favourite.’
The three men gathered at the door, pausing to adjust their expressions, regain control and prepare for the flood of questions waiting for them in the corridor.
On the point of leaving, Simenon took a parting glance around the room, then, one element of the chaos evidently catching his attention, he pointed and exclaimed.
‘Look! Over there! That’s how he got in!’
Chapter Twenty
They followed his pointing finger to a lavish bouquet of two dozen large white lilies abandoned behind the door and beginning to wilt on the floor. The smell of death. Funerals and weeping. Joe had seen too many lilies.
Bonnefoye sighed. ‘A special delivery! They must be three feet high! Walking along behind those, no one’s going to notice your face or challenge you. “Who are you and what’s your business here?” Pretty obvious, I think. You’d feel silly asking!’