The Three Evangelists

XXIX

JUST UNDER TWO HOURS LATER, MARC AND LUCIEN WERE PROSPECTING the allée des Grands-Ifs. A gale was blowing in Dourdan and Marc took deep breaths of the north-westerly. They stopped in front of number 12, which was surrounded by protective walls either side of a high wooden door.

‘Give me a leg-up,’ Marc said. ‘I’d like to take a look at Sophia’s place.’

‘What’s the point?’ Lucien asked.

‘Just curious.’

Lucien put his bag down carefully, checked that nobody was around in the street and linked his hands.

‘Take your shoe off,’ he told Marc. ‘I don’t want muck on my hands.’

Marc sighed, pulled off one shoe and, holding on to Lucien, climbed up to peer over the wall.

‘Can you see anything?’ Lucien asked.

‘There’s always something to see.’

‘Well, what?’

‘It’s a big place. Sophia was very rich, of course. The garden goes down in a slope behind the house.’

‘What’s the house like? Ugly, I guess?’

‘No, not at all,’ Marc replied. ‘It looks a bit Greek, but with a tiled roof. It’s long and white, single-storey. She must have had it built. That’s odd, the shutters aren’t even closed. Wait, no, there are wrought-iron bars on the windows. That’s Greek too. There’s a garage and a well. It’s all modern, the only thing that’s old is the well. Nice place in summer.’

‘Can you come down?’

‘Why? Are you getting tired?’

‘No. But someone might come.’

‘Yes, you’re right, I’ll come down.’

Marc put his shoe back on and they walked along the street noting the names on doors or letterboxes, when there were any. They preferred not to ask anyone, so as to be as discreet as possible.

‘There,’ said Lucien, after about a hundred yards. ‘That smart little house with flowers round it.’

Marc made out the name on a tarnished brass plate: K. and J. Siméonidis. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Remember what we agreed.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ said Lucien.

‘OK, OK.’

A rather fine-looking elderly man opened the door. He looked at them without speaking, waiting for an explanation. Since his daughter’s death, he had had to open the door to many people: police, journalists, Dompierre.

Lucien and Marc took it in turns to explain the reason for their visit, trying to put it as kindly as possible. They had agreed on this in the train, but the great sadness on Siméonidis’ face made it come naturally. They spoke very gently of Sophia. By the time they had finished, they almost believed their story, which was that Sophia, as their neighbour, had entrusted them with a personal mission. Marc told the story of the tree. It’s always best to have an element of truth in a made-up story. After the tree incident, Sophia had still been anxious. One evening when chatting to them in the street, she had made them promise that if anything happened to her, they would try to find out what had happened. She was not confident in the police, because they have so many missing persons. But she would trust them not to give up. That was why they were there, out of respect and friendship for Sophia, and feeling they should carry out her wishes.

Siméonidis listened attentively to this story, which started to sound more and more clumsy to Marc as they went on with it. He invited them in. A uniformed policeman was in the sitting-room, asking questions of a woman who must be the second Madame Siméonidis. Marc did not dare to look hard at her, especially since their entrance had interrupted the session. He noted out of the corner of his eye a woman of about sixty, rather plump, with her hair in a chignon, who only made the vaguest of greetings towards them. She was concentrating on the policeman’s questions and had that energetic look of people who wish to be considered energetic. Siméonidis crossed the room briskly, taking Marc and Lucien with him and being deliberately careless of the policeman who was occupying his sitting-room. But the policeman brought all three of them up short, jumping to his feet. He was young, with that obstinate, closed look, typical of the worst kind of short-sighted idiot who obeys orders without thinking. They were out of luck. Lucien sighed in an exaggerated way.

‘I’m sorry, M. Siméonidis,’ said the policeman, ‘but I can’t allow you to let any persons into your property without telling me their names and addresses and the reason for their visit. Those are orders and you’ve been told about them.’

Siméonidis gave a fleeting malicious smile. ‘This isn’t my property, it’s my house,’ he said in a resounding voice, ‘and these are not persons, they are my friends. And let me tell you that a Greek born in Delphi, half a mile from the Oracle, doesn’t take orders from anyone. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.’

‘Nobody is above the law, monsieur,’ replied the policeman.

‘You know where you can put your law,’ said Siméonidis evenly.

Lucien was delighted. Exactly the kind of cussed old bugger with whom they could have had a good laugh, if only circumstances hadn’t left him so unhappy.

The palaver went on for a few more minutes, while the policeman took down their names and quickly identified them from his notebook as neighbours of Sophia’s. But since there was no rule to stop them going to look at someone’s papers, if he was prepared to give them permission, he had to let them pass, not without informing them that he would have to search them when they left. No document was to be taken out of the house for the time being. Lucien shrugged and followed Siméonidis. Suddenly, in a moment of fury, the old Greek turned back and gripped the flic by his lapels. Marc thought he was going to punch him, and that that would be interesting, but the old man hesitated.

‘No,’ said Siméonidis after a moment. ‘It’s not worth it.’

Letting go of the policeman, as if he were some grubby object, he left the room to join Marc and Lucien. They went upstairs, along a corridor, and the old man used a key hanging from his belt to unlock the door to a poorly lit room, with bookshelves full of files.

‘Sophia’s room,’ he said quietly. ‘I presume that’s what interests you?’

Marc and Lucien nodded.

‘Do you think you’re going to find anything?’ asked Siméonidis. ‘You really think so?’

He was looking at them intently, with pursed lips and sadness in his eyes.

‘What if we don’t?’ asked Lucien.

Siméonidis banged his fist on the table. ‘You’d better find something!’ he ordered. ‘I’m eighty-one years old, I can’t get about as well as I could, and I can’t always get the hang of things these days either. You might be able to. I want this killer caught. We Greeks never give up, that’s what my dear old Andromache used to say. Leguennec is blinkered by his job. I need someone else to work on it, someone with an open mind. I don’t care whether or not Sophia really asked you to carry out any “mission”. Whether that’s true or false-I think maybe it’s false?’

‘Well, yes, it’s not quite true,’ Lucien admitted.

‘That’s better,’ said Siméonidis. ‘Now we know where we stand. But why have you come poking about?’

‘It’s our job,’ said Lucien.

‘Why, are you detectives?’ said Siméonidis.

‘No, historians,’ said Lucien.

‘I don’t see what that has to do with Sophia.’

Lucien gestured towards Marc. ‘It’s because of him. He doesn’t want your granddaughter Alexandra Haufman to be charged with this murder. He’s prepared to point the finger at anyone else, even an innocent party, rather than at her.’

‘Excellent,’ said Siméonidis. ‘If it helps, Dompierre didn’t stay long. I think he only looked at one file, and he knew exactly where to go. You can see, the files are arranged by year.’

‘Do you know which one he looked at?’ asked Marc. ‘Did you stay in the room with him?’

‘No, he was anxious to be left alone. I brought him a cup of coffee. I think he was looking around the year 1982, but I’m not sure. I’ll leave you. You haven’t much time to lose.’

‘One more thing,’ said Marc. ‘How has your wife taken all this business?’

‘Jacqueline didn’t shed any tears. It’s not that she’s hard-hearted, but she always wants to “face up to things”. “Facing up to things” for her is a great sign of character. And it’s become such a habit with her, you can’t get round it. Above all, she’s concerned to protect her son.’

‘And what about him?’

‘Julien? He’s not up to much. A murder would be way beyond him. Especially since Sophia was kind to him and helped him when he didn’t know what to do with himself. She got him a few walk-on parts. He never made anything of them. He did shed a few tears over Sophia. He used to like her a lot back then. He had photos of her in his room when he was younger and used to listen to her records. But not these days.’ Siméonidis was getting tired. ‘I’ll leave you,’ he said again. A little siesta before dinner is no disgrace at my age. And my wife rather likes to see me give in to it. Go on, you don’t have much time. It’s quite possible that flatfoot downstairs will find some way to stop me letting anyone consult my archives.’

He went away and they heard him open a door further along the corridor.

‘What d’you think of him?’ asked Marc.

‘He’s got a good voice, must have passed it on to his daughter. He’s argumentative, bossy, intelligent, entertaining and dangerous.’

‘And his wife?’

‘Just a stupid woman,’ said Lucien.

‘You’re ruling her out pretty quickly.’

‘Stupid people can kill, there’s no rule against it. Especially people like her, putting on some kind of silly show of being strong. I was listening to her when she was talking to the policeman. She’s so sure of everything she says, and she’s very pleased with her own performance. Self-satisfied idiots are quite capable of killing.’

Marc nodded and walked round the room. He came to a box-file labelled 1982, looked at it without touching, and went on examining the shelves.

Lucien was fumbling inside his bag. ‘Get down the box for 1982,’ he said. ‘The old man’s right. Maybe we don’t have much time before the law puts a stop to us.’

‘It wasn’t 1982 that Dompierre consulted. Either the old man made a mistake, or else he wasn’t telling the truth. It was 1978.’

‘The dust has been disturbed in front of that one, is that it?’ asked Lucien.

‘Yes. None of the others has been moved for ages. The flics haven’t had time to come nosing round here.’

He took down the file for 1978 and carefully spread the contents onto the table. Lucien leafed through it quickly.

‘It’s all about one opera,’ he said. ‘“Elektra”, in Toulouse. Doesn’t mean anything to us. But Dompierre must have been looking for something there.’

‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ said Marc, who was a little discouraged by the mass of old newpaper cuttings, some with handwritten commentaries probably by Siméonidis, photographs and interviews. The press cuttings were carefully held together with paperclips.

‘Look for any paperclips that have been moved,’ said Lucien. ‘This room’s a bit damp. They’ve probably left rust-marks. It might help us see which articles Dompierre looked at in this pile.’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m doing,’ said Marc. ‘These reviews are all favourable. Sophia was good. She said she was only so-so, but she was better than that. Mathias was right. What are you doing, come on, help me!’

Lucien was putting something back into his bag.

‘Look,’ said Marc, raising his voice. ‘Five bundles where the paperclips have been moved.’

He took three and Lucien took two. They read quickly and silently for a while. The articles were long.

‘Did you say all the reviews were good?’ said Lucien. ‘Here’s one that isn’t very kind to Sophia.’

‘I’ve got one too,’ said Marc. ‘He’s really nasty. That won’t have pleased her-or her father. He’s written in the margin “stupid bastard”. Wonder who the stupid bastard was.’

Marc looked for the signature. ‘Hey, Lucien,’ he said, ‘the “stupid bastard” critic, he’s called Daniel Dompierre. What d’you make of that!’

Lucien picked up the review. ‘So, our Dompierre, who’s dead, must have been some relation? Nephew, cousin, even son perhaps? Was that why he knew something about this opera?’

‘Something like that, I suppose. We’re getting warm. What’s the name of your reviewer who didn’t like Sophia?’

‘René de Frémonville. Doesn’t ring any bells. But I don’t know anything about music anyway. Oh, wait, this is really something!’

Lucien started reading again, with a changed expression. Marc looked hopeful.

‘Well?’ he asked.

‘No, don’t get excited, it’s nothing to do with Sophia. It’s on the back of the review. Another article by Frémonville, but about a play, a real flop, a totally incoherent piece about the inner life of a guy in the trenches in 1917. A monologue nearly two hours long and boring as hell, it seems. Bother, the end of the article’s missing.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lucien, don’t start doing this to me. We didn’t come all the way to Dourdan to read about that stuff, d’you hear me.’

‘No, shut up, listen. Frémonville says here that he’s kept his own father’s war diaries and that the author of the play would have done better to consult some real documents, instead of making up imaginary stuff. Do you realise what this means? Authentic diaries, written at the time from August 1914 to October 1918, seven notebooks! My God, it’s fantastic. A whole series. Oh, if only the father was a peasant, please let him be. It would be a goldmine, Marc, it’s so rare. Oh, please God, let Frémonville’s father be a peasant. Oh, wow, what a good thing I came with you!’

Elated and hopeful, Lucien had got to his feet and was walking round the dark cramped room, reading and rereading the torn piece of old newspaper. Exasperated, Marc went back to the documents Dompierre had consulted. Apart from all the favourable reviews, there were three bundles containing more gossipy pieces about a serious incident which had affected the performances of ‘Elektra’ for several days.

‘Listen,’ said Marc.

But it was pointless. Lucien was completely oblivious, unreachable, so full of his discovery and unable to think of anything else. And yet he had been equally full of goodwill to start with. What bad luck that he’d found that reference to the war diaries. Marc sat down crossly and read to himself what had happened. Sophia Siméonidis had been in her dressing-room on the night of June 17, 1978, an hour and a half before the performance, when she had been attacked and an attempt had been made at a sexual assault. According to her, the attacker had fled on hearing a noise. She could not provide a description. He had been wearing a dark jacket, a blue woollen balaclava, and had punched her, forcing her to the ground. He had taken off the balaclava, but she was too dazed to be able to identify him and he had turned off the light. Sophia Siméonidis, badly bruised and in a state of shock but not seriously injured, had been taken to the hospital for observation. In spite of that, she had refused to lodge a formal complaint, and there had been no police enquiry. Reduced to conjecture, the press had supposed that the attack had been by someone from the chorus, since the theatre was closed to the public at that hour. The five principal singers had immediately been ruled out. Two of them were well known, and all of them had arrived at the theatre later, as had been confirmed by the janitors, who were elderly men and also not suspects. Reading between the lines, it was also clear that the sexual preferences of the five male singers eliminated them more certainly than their renown or their time of arrival. As for the many members of the cast with walk-on parts, since Sophia had not been able to provide a clear description, nothing in particular pointed to any one person. Nevertheless, reported one journalist, two of them had not reported for work next day. But he admitted that this was not unusual in the world of part-timers, where extras were paid daily rates and might disappear now and again for an audition somewhere else. And he also granted that the technicians could not be ruled out.

The number of possible suspects was large. Marc frowned and returned to the reviews written by Daniel Dompierre and René de Frémonville. They were both music critics and did not go into details about the attack, but did report that Sophia Siméonidis, who had been the victim of an incident, was replaced for three days by the understudy, Nathalie Domesco, whose dreadful imitation had really finished off the production. The show was not rescued by Sophia’s return: the singer, once out of hospital, had yet again demonstrated her inability to sing this great dramatic soprano role. They concluded that the interruption could not excuse the inadequacy of her technical performance and that she had indeed been most unwise to tackle the demanding role of Elektra in the first place, because it was beyond her vocal talents.

Marc felt exasperated. Sophia had told them herself that she was no Callas. Maybe she should not have attempted Elektra. Maybe. He knew no more about music than Lucien. But the devastating hostility of these two critics infuriated him. No, Sophia had not deserved this. Marc pulled down a few more box-files and looked through other operas. The critics were generally favourable, or flattering, or satisfied, but there was invariably a hostile and barbed review from both Dompierre and Frémonville, even when Sophia stayed within the repertoire of a lyric soprano. These two had really had it in for Sophia, from the very beginning. Marc put the boxes back and thought, his head in his hands. It was almost dark and Lucien had lit the two desk-lamps.

Sophia had been attacked. She had not made a formal complaint, despite suffering grievous bodily harm. He returned ‘Elektra’ and leafed through all the other articles on the opera, which all said more or less the same thing: the staging was mediocre, the sets were unimpressive, Sophia had been attacked, she was expected back, with the difference that the other reviewers all appreciated Sophia’s performance, compared to the demolition jobs by Dompierre and Frémonville. He really did not know what to make of the 1978 file. Perhaps he ought to compare and check over the reviews which Christophe Dompierre had singled out. But that would mean transcribing each one. At least those which Dompierre appeared to have read. It would mean hours and hours of work.

Just then, Siméonidis came back into the room.

‘You’re going to have to hurry up,’ he said. ‘The police are looking for some way of stopping me opening my archives to people. They haven’t got time to look at them themselves, and they’re afraid of being beaten to it by the murderer. I heard that idiot downstairs telephoning while I was taking my siesta. He wants seals put on the room. It sounds as if he’s getting his way.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lucien. ‘We’ll be finished in another half-hour.’

‘Good. Are you making progress?’

‘Can I ask you something?’ said Marc. ‘Did your stepson have a part in “Elektra”?’

‘The Toulouse production? I think so,’ said Siméonidis. ‘He was in all her shows between 1973 and 1978. It was later that he gave up. But don’t waste time on him, it’s not worth it.’

‘When Sophia was attacked that time, during “Elektra” did she say anything to you?’

‘Sophia didn’t like talking about that,’ said Siméonidis after a silence.

When the old Greek had gone downstairs again, Marc looked at Lucien, who had flopped into a battered armchair with his legs stretched out in front of him, fiddling with his press cutting.

‘Half an hour?’ he cried. ‘You’re doing bugger all, you’re dreaming of your war diaries, there are masses of things to copy out, and you think you’ll be away in half an hour?’

Without stirring, Lucien pointed to his rucksack. ‘In my bag,’ he said, ‘I have two-and-a-half kilos worth of laptop, nine kilos of scanner, some aftershave, spare underclothes, heavy-duty string, a duvet, a toothbrush and a baguette. Now do you see why I wanted to take a taxi from the station? Get your documents ready, I’ll scan anything you like, and we can take them back to the house with us. See.’

‘How did you manage to think of all that?’

After what happened to Dompierre, it was foreseeable that the flics would want to stop anyone else copying the archives. To anticipate the actions of the enemy, my friend, is the secret of successful warfare. The official order will come soon, but we’ll be out of here. So get a move on.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Marc. ‘I’m very jumpy just now. So are you, in point of fact.’

‘No, I get carried away, in one direction or another. It’s not the same.’

‘Is all that stuff yours?’ asked Marc. ‘Is it valuable?’

Lucien shrugged. ‘It’s on loan from the university. I’ve got to give it back in four months. Only the cables belong to me.’

He laughed and switched on the machines. As they copied the documents, Marc started to breathe more easily. Perhaps there wouldn’t be anything to find in them, but the idea that he could consult them at his leisure, in his medieval study on the second floor was comforting. They copied most of what was in the file.

‘Copy the photos,’ said Lucien with a wave of his hand.

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, send them through.’

‘They’re all just of Sophia.’

‘No general view of the company on parade, or after their dress rehearsal?’

‘No. Just Sophia. I told you.’

‘OK, we won’t bother.’

Lucien wrapped his machines in the old duvet, and tied it all up firmly with string, leaving one long end. Then he opened the window and lowered the fragile bundle carefully to the ground.

‘Every room has an outlet,’ he said, ‘and where there’s an outlet there must be some kind of surface underneath. This one is the yard with the dustbins in, which is better than the street. It’s reached the ground now.’

‘Someone’s coming up,’ said Marc.

Lucien let go of the string and closed the window without a sound. He returned to his armchair and took up his nonchalant pose once more.

The policeman came in with the satisfied air of one who has just shot a brace of pheasants.

‘It’s forbidden to make copies of anything or to consult any of these papers,’ said the policeman. ‘New orders. Bring your things and leave this room.’

Marc and Lucien obeyed, grumbling, and followed him. When they went into the sitting-room, Mme Siméonidis had laid the table for five. So they were expected to stay for dinner. Five, thought Marc, the stepson must be coming too. It would be good to set eyes on him.

They expressed their thanks. The young policeman frisked them before they sat down, and emptied the contents of their bags, which he turned inside out and examined every which way.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘You can pack it all up again.’

He left the room and went to station himself in the hall.

‘If I were you,’ said Lucien, ‘I would stand in front of the door to the archives until we leave. We might go back up again. Aren’t you taking a bit of a risk, officer?’

Looking annoyed, the policeman went upstairs and posted himself right inside the archive room. Lucien asked Siméonidis to show him the way to the yard with the dustbins and retrieved the bundle, which he stuffed back inside the rucksack. Dustbins seemed to be looming large in his life just now.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said to his host. ‘All your originals are still up there, I give you my word.’

The son arrived rather late to take his place at the table. A slow-moving, plump forty-year-old, Julien had not inherited his mother’s anxiety to appear indispensable and efficient. He smiled nicely at the two guests, but looked unprepossessing and indeed rather pathetic. This seemed a pity to Marc. He felt sorry for this so-called useless and indecisive character, stuck between his busy-busy mother and his patriarchal stepfather. Marc was easily impressed when people smiled nicely at him. And after all, Julien had cried when he heard about Sophia. He was not ugly, but his face was rather puffy. Marc would have preferred to feel distaste or hostility for him, or at least some more convincing emotion, to turn him into a murderer. But since he had never seen any murderers, he told himself that a malleable person, dominated by his mother and smiling sweetly, might very well be the type. Shedding a few tears was neither here nor there.

The mother might also be the type. She was fussing about, far more than was necessary to serve the meal, and was more talkative than necessary trying to make conversation. Jacqueline Siméonidis was tiring. Marc took in her neat chignon, her busy hands, her artificial voice and manner, her stupid insistence as she served everyone with their chicory and ham, and thought that this woman might stop at nothing to acquire more power, and more capital to help resolve her son’s precarious finances. She had married Siméonidis-out of love? Because he was the father of a famous singer? Because that would help Julien get on in the theatre? Yes, either one of them might have a motive for killing, and possibly a good opportunity. Not the old man though. Marc watched him cutting up his food with firm gestures. His authoritarian ways would have made him a perfect tyrant, if Jacqueline had not been well able to defend herself. But the patent distress of Sophia’s father ruled out any suspicion they might have. Everyone could agree on that.

Marc hated ham and chicory unless it was very well cooked, which was not often the case. He watched Lucien wolf it down, while he toyed with the bitter slimy vegetables that nauseated him. Lucien had taken a leading role in the conversation, which was now turning to Greece in the early twentieth century. Siméonidis was replying with short answers, and Jacqueline was showing an exaggerated interest in everything.

Marc and Lucien caught the 22.27 train home. Siméonidis took them to the station, driving fast and competently.

‘Keep me informed,’ he said as he shook their hands. ‘What’s that in your bundle, young man?’ he asked Lucien.

‘A computer with all we need on it,’ said Lucien, smiling.

‘Well done,’ said the old man.

‘By the way,’ Marc said. ‘It was the file for 1978 that Dompierre looked at, not 1982. I thought I should let you know, in case you find something we missed.’

Marc watched the old man for a reaction. It was offensive of him, a father doesn’t kill his daughter, unless he’s Agamemnon.

Siméonidis did not respond. ‘Keep me informed,’ was all he said.

The journey back took an hour, during which neither Marc nor Lucien spoke. Marc was thinking that he liked being in a train late at night, and Lucien was thinking about the war diaries of Frémonville senior, and how he might get hold of them.