The Madonna of Notre Dame Read online

  “Obviously not. Too busy chasing after bikinis. And yet you should have noticed this one, she was in a miniskirt.”

  Once again, the sacristan made eye contact with the police captain. Claire Kauffmann sent Gérard back to his sacristy and asked him to remain at the disposal of the authorities. Then she turned to the two police officers. “What about the tourist? The American? Where is she? Can we talk to her?”

  Landard was finishing his cigarette with a slightly vacant expression. Gombrowicz, who was following the outline of a black paving stone with the tip of his foot, finally answered. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

  “The cathedral evacuated the tourists and the congregation right after the firefighters arrived. It seems the American got thrown out with the bathwater.”

  The magistrate raised her voice. “The cathedral? For heaven’s sake. Just who is the cathedral?”

  “I am the cathedral.”

  It was the taller and older of the two priests standing a few yards away who had spoken. The old man with the bald head went up to Claire Kauffmann stiffly, dressed in an elegant black suit where the only white that showed was the Roman Catholic clerical collar. He approached the young deputy magistrate, over whom he towered by a good eleven inches, and leaned a gaunt face toward her, cheeks covered with a carefully trimmed silvery beard. “I am Monsignor de Bracy, Rector of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Whom do I have the honor of addressing, mademoiselle?”

  She stated her name and job title. The prelate seemed surprised to be dealing with such a young-looking magistrate.

  “I’ve already told these gentlemen from the police, to whom we are very grateful, mademoiselle, that I would appreciate it if you could keep me informed of the development of the investigation in real time, so to speak. Our archbishop, the cardinal, is currently away in the Philippines. I contacted him this morning and told him about this regrettable accident.”

  “We’re talking about a murder, not an accident, monsieur.”

  “Monsignor.”

  “As for the investigation, Monsignor, you’ve already stuck your oar in by evacuating hundreds of potential witnesses before the investigators had even arrived.”

  The prelate scowled. “Mademoiselle, on average, fifty thousand visitors come to Notre Dame every day. Having been told that there was a deceased person within the cathedral walls, I thought it right not to offer her as a spectacle to a horde of Far Eastern tourists armed with camcorders and cameras. This is a place of prayer and contemplation, mademoiselle. Of course, it is also a tourist monument, and we sometimes regret this fact, trust me. However, what it certainly is not, and never will be, is the scene of a macabre spectacle to then be displayed all over the Internet. My dear young woman, I’d like to impress upon you that the place where you find yourself isn’t just a piece of wasteland where the body of a drug addict or prostitute has been discovered. Do we understand each other?”

  Her eyes raised to the prelate, Claire Kauffmann struggled to respond. Seeing he had reached his objective, the old man seemed to soften a little.

  “Please be so kind as to let me know the name of the committing magistrate as soon as he’s appointed.”

  He turned to Landard and Gombrowicz, and gave them a firm but warm handshake. “Goodbye, messieurs. I’m counting on you to allow us to reopen the cathedral very soon and, as much as possible, to keep reporters away. The cathedral suffers enough attacks as it is, without needing to be fed once again to the section of the press that’s hostile to us. Of course, I remain at your full disposal for all that concerns the investigation, and will do my utmost to make your job as easy as possible. Good luck, captain. You will be kind enough to refrain from smoking inside the cathedral.”

  Father de Bracy walked away as he had come, with large strides, stiff and dignified, followed by Father Kern, who had been waiting for him at the entrance to the sacristy. Landard took the cigarette butt out of his mouth and drowned it in the nearest basin of holy water. Gombrowicz went over to him, smiling.

  “Did you see how he cut the little deputy down to size?”

  Landard took out his pack of cigarettes and immediately lit another one. “What do you make of the old man?”

  “He’s a bit like that actor, the tall one, you know, the one in Westerns.”

  “John Wayne?”

  “That’s it, John Wayne.”

  “I guess so. John Wayne in a cassock. With a beard and no hair.”

  “My cousin has a fifteen-year-old Great Dane that’s his spitting image.”

  “Your cousin? The one who tinkers with cars near Porte de Bagnolet?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you ever go to Mass, Gombrowicz?”

  “Me? No. Why?”

  The medical examiner had just reappeared. Looking perplexed, he went to the magistrate and gestured at the two police officers to approach. “It happened roughly between ten p.m. and midnight. It’s possible she may have been moved after she died: the body is still quite rigid.”

  “Could she have been killed somewhere else, then brought here?”

  “I’m not sure yet whether she was killed here or someplace else. I hope to be able to tell you more after the postmortem, madame.”

  “In any case, could she have spent the night on this bench?”

  “It’s the most likely theory.”

  The magistrate turned to Gombrowicz. “Is there a janitor here?”

  The young lieutenant consulted his notes before replying. “He lives on the ground floor of the presbytery. Didn’t see or hear anything. Slept like a log.”

  “Doesn’t he do the rounds inside? I mean during the night?”

  “Never.”

  “How do you know? Did you ask?”

  “Of course, madame.”

  “And?”

  “What for? At night the cathedral is locked. That’s what he said, madame.”

  “I see. And when they opened it this morning, nobody noticed anything? The guard on duty, the sacristan, the priests, not to mention the hundreds of tourists who walked by for two hours and didn’t notice she was dead?”

  “Hundreds. I’d say thousands. I wrote down somewhere that in this cathedral on average ... Just a moment.”

  “Yes, I know, lieutenant, fifty thousand visitors every day. All right. Captain Landard, start the criminal investigation. Let’s circulate the victim’s photo in the press. Keep me posted when you discover anything about her identity. Doctor, will you make sure the body is removed? I must go, messieurs, I’m due at the Palais in less than five minutes.”

  The medical examiner had taken his glove off once again, and was scratching his head.

  “Is there something else, doctor?”

  “Yes, madame. Earlier, when I took her temperature, I noticed a detail. Actually, it’s more than just a detail.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s been sexually abused. Here? In the middle of the cathedral?”

  “One could say it’s the opposite.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You see, madame, the entrance to the vagina is covered in wax.”

  “Say that again, doctor.”

  “After she died, her vagina was sealed with melted wax. To be precise, with candle wax.”

  Landard was hungry. Landard was bored. Crime scenes pissed him off to no end, with their packs of technicians and photographers in their immaculate overalls. You had to refrain from smoking, refrain from walking, refrain from coughing, and practically refrain from breathing. In his twenty years in the Crime Squad, he’d had time to watch and learn. In the easy cases, yes, the white suits proved useful. Sometimes, the work of the investigators was limited to waiting for the results of crime scene tests and post-mortems. A hair, a print, a trace of DNA, and problem solved. The judge would have his evidence, the judge would be delighted. So would the families of the victims, to whom science would give the irrefutable proof that allowed them to mourn in front of television cameras o
nce the culprit was locked up. The investigators, the real ones, the ones who worked up a sweat in the field, could go home without even firing a shot, so to speak. The profession was becoming endangered.

  During the course of the morning, three other Crime Squad officers from the same mold as Gombrowicz had been sent as support staff from the offices on Quai des Orfèvres. Less than five minutes’ walk. A veritable neighborhood investigation. They had to question all the cathedral staff and anyone involved with the place, before letting them go for the rest of the day. Sacristans, guards, the man who kept all the keys, cleaning women, service technicians, the church’s printer, postcard and rosary sellers, people who rented out audio guides, volunteer lecturers, organists, singers from the School of Music, clerks and, obviously, priests.

  After the deputy had left, Landard delegated the management of all the interviews to Gombrowicz, and went back to look at the corpse. Still lying on the tiled floor, the poor girl was being photographed from every angle. If she’d known, would she have worn such a short dress the day before?

  The medical examiner assured him that the body would be removed as soon as possible. The investigation, the real one, would begin late afternoon, after the white overalls had left, and after Gombrowicz had done the preliminary triage. Landard looked at his watch: ten to twelve. He had at least two hours for lunch.

  Once he was out, he turned left, leaving behind the enormous line of visitors that had formed in front of the gates, still shut, of the cathedral, and which was now snaking around the whole width of the square. Monday, August 16th. The tourist season was in full swing. They could wait if they wanted, but the monument would reopen the following day at the earliest. For the time being, the cathedral had swapped its fifty thousand daily visitors, its priests, its masses, and its organ recitals, for a team of cops from the Quai.

  He crossed Pont Marie, walked into the first brasserie, and sat indoors despite the heat, at a table with a stunning view of Notre Dame. He ordered steak tartare and fries, with a beer, then sank in his armchair, his hands crossed over his round stomach.

  Landard was thinking.

  First of all, coming across a deputy magistrate who was slightly interfering and full of initiative could be a good thing. This morning, for instance, it had allowed him, hands in his pockets and cigarette in his mouth, to calmly ogle little Kauffmann’s thighs while she crouched by the corpse.

  Landard ordered another beer.

  Moreover, there were worse ways for a veteran of the Crime Squad to start the day than coming across a corpse like the pretty little thing still lying on the Notre Dame stone floor. Throughout his career, he’d seen all sorts of atrocities at all hours of day and night. He’d seen human flesh in quite a few forms: putrefied, burned, cut up, drowned, bled to death, riddled with bullets, busted with a baseball bat or an crowbar, dissolved in acid, slashed with a razor, eaten by dogs or rats, pulverized by the wheels of an underground or suburban train.

  The waiter brought the steak tartare and Landard used the opportunity to order a third beer.

  There was something exciting, sexually, of course, but also morally, about the dead woman in Notre Dame, with her clean little dress and her thighs exposed: a nauseating yet irrepressible feeling he had shared with all the men who’d seen or photographed her throughout the morning, including the priests—of that he was certain. There was something about this girl who was so pretty, so charming in that quiet death which made her look like a young woman asleep, that stimulated you, as though her death had to trigger in any good, self-respecting cop the desire to turn into a righter of wrongs and cut the balls off the bastard who’d dared kill such a beauty.

  The waiter removed the carefully polished-off plate. Landard skipped the dessert list, and ordered coffee and a Calvados.

  Finally, there was something eminently pleasing, from an intellectual point of view, about coming across a murderer who was clearly a fanatic but nevertheless discreet, intelligent, and well-organized. Because he must have wanted it at all costs, this staging of a death worthy of an occult thriller: a victim dressed in white, breathtakingly beautiful, found in the sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin, nobody with any idea of how she was placed there, a wax hymen reconstituted between her thighs.

  A moralizer. Landard was dealing with a moralizer. A killer who wanted to restore the virginity of all the Paris girls in short outfits, and who’d staged this little number in order to make his mark. Landard was now certain—the murderer would revisit the scene of the crime. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself, he’d be too eager to see the impact of his first sermon on people’s minds.

  At about a quarter past two, pleased with his work session, Landard asked for the bill and went downstairs to take a leak.

  The cathedral looked like a huge police station, with plainclothes, uniformed, and overalled cops milling around. Leaving the technicians to work in the ambulatory, Gombrowicz and his three investigators had taken over the nave and divided it into four sections, which they’d turned into as many interrogation bureaus, so to speak. At the back of the church, spread over the rows of chairs usually reserved for worshippers, waited the entire Notre Dame staff. One by one, each employee, each priest, and each volunteer was called by a police officer to be questioned about that morning’s events, or about a totally different incident possibly connected with the murder of the mysterious girl in white. Seen from a distance, with their buttocks on the edges of the thatched seats, their voices drowned in a murmur, their busts leaning forward toward men who appeared to be listening to them religiously, they could have been mistaken for sinners at the confessional, except it wasn’t in a priest that they were confiding but in a police officer.

  On his return, Landard found Lieutenant Gombrowicz in such a state of pronounced excitement that he wondered if his young subordinate had been drinking.

  “I think we’re making progress. Enormous progress. Apparently, it all happened yesterday afternoon. We have corroborating accounts.”

  Landard lit his umpteenth Gitane and blew the smoke toward the high vaults of the nave. The curls rolled over themselves before dissipating in the incense-steeped air. “Go on, Gombrowicz. I’m all ears.”

  The day before, the ceremony of the Assumption had been disrupted by an incident, right in the midst of the Marian procession, as an unbroken line of ten thousand worshippers was stretching out under the blazing sun between Île saint-louis and Île de la Cité, and loudspeakers fitted on four vans were blasting Hail Marys at full volume. There had been an altercation, brief but violent, between a cathedral regular and an unknown woman dressed in white. At the head of the procession, just a few yards from the silver statue of the Virgin carried by six knights of the Holy Sepulcher, before the incredulous eyes of auxiliary bishop Monsignor Rieux Le Molay, the priests of Notre Dame, and numerous witnesses, a young-looking man with blond, curly hair had tried to exclude the young woman from the procession, pushing her onto the sidewalk, waving a crucifix, and finally using it as a weapon to try to hit her in the face. One of the cathedral guards, Mourad, had intervened to separate them, helped the victim up, and sent the aggressor unceremoniously to the back of the procession.

  Landard put out his cigarette in the nearest holy water basin and cleared his throat. It was his cue to step onto the stage. “Your auxiliary bishop, yesterday ...”

  “Rieux Le Molay?”

  “Can we see him?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “To Lourdes.”

  “Since when?”

  “This morning. He took an early train.”

  “So the cardinal’s gone to the folks with slanting eyes, and the bishop’s in Lourdes. Great. All the bosses here are packing their bags.”

  “No wonder. They’ve left the shop and the hassle to the old rector.”

  “What about this Mourad? Has he also retreated to his mud hut?”

  Gesturing at the first row of employees, Gombrowicz summoned a man built like a ta
nk, wearing a tired blazer, woolen trousers that were too thick for that time of year, and a carabiner on his belt from which jangled at least twenty keys.

  “Are you Mourad?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “Were you here this morning?”

  “No, monsieur, I started work at twelve-thirty because I finished late last night.”

  “And what did they tell you when you arrived today?”

  “I was surprised the cathedral was shut. I thought, ‘There’s been a problem, Mourad.’ I called my morning colleague. He was still inside even though normally he’d have been on his lunch break. It was he, and a policeman, who let me in.”

  “Did they tell you what happened?”

  “They said they’d found a girl at the back of the cathedral.”

  “So, tell me, Mourad, you were working yesterday?”

  “Yes, monsieur. Twelve-thirty to ten-thirty p.m.”

  “And how did it go?”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yesterday. Try and tell me in detail.”

  “August fifteenth, like Christmas, is one of the most difficult days of the year. At twelve-forty-five, there’s the Assumption mass, at three-forty-five the Assumption vespers, at ten past four the Assumption procession starts, they take out the large silver statue of the Virgin and everyone has to follow. Priests, faithful, tourists—everybody. Nobody is allowed to stay behind in the cathedral. We always have to negotiate with the little old ladies who want to wait inside but we follow the rector’s instructions: there mustn’t be anybody in the cathedral until the procession returns at about six. Once everyone’s out, the other guards and I shut the gates and we join the procession.”

  “Whereabouts were you in the procession?”

  “At the head. They always put me at the head, with the bishop, the priests, and the statue of the Virgin.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I’m the strongest among the guards. Usually, if there’s any problem, it’s at the head of the procession.”

  “And what kind of problem could there be, Mourad?”