Part 7 (1/2)

'Why would I do that?' he protested, his voice rising sharply.

Clearly, he did not like being questioned by a Prussian. And by a Prussian magistrate even less.

'I can think of a few good reasons,' I replied flatly. 'She was young and fit. She may have been a beauty before someone went to work on her face. Did she refuse to let you have your way with her?'

He pulled himself stiffly to attention, but he did not answer.

'Why was she naked, Grillet? Did you tear her clothes off before you raped her?'

His cheeks were two inflamed red spots.

'I'll speak to the colonel about this,' he muttered.

'The colonel ordered you to speak to me,' I snapped. 'When I have finished, you may tell him what you wish. Why was the woman . . .' I stopped, corrected myself. 'Why do you think that she was naked, then? What logical explanation would you give for that fact?'

'That's obvious, sir,' he spat back.

'Not to me, it isn't.'

He sighted down his long nose at me before he spoke.

'They're wh.o.r.es, sir. Every last one of them! They won't consort with us, not openly, but they won't stay put at night. I'd been on duty, as I told you. We guard the compound where those women sleep, or they'd all be off to the village, and half of them would never come back. We've lost many in the last few months . . .'

'Lost, or gone?'

The idea that there might be other bodies struck me forcefully. The fact that les Halles had not informed me of the situation seemed like a grave omission. Did he suspect what I suspected? Was he covering up for his men? Did he believe that one of them was guilty of this murder? And of other murders, too?

Grillet shrugged. His bony shoulders grazed his ears. 'They could be anywhere, sir. They are here one minute, gone the next. Smugglers head for the Russian border, I have heard. That's where the women may have gone.' He grunted mirthlessly, and I realised that he was laughing. 'If that's the case, we may catch up with them. Moscow. That's where we'll be heading next.'

Unless they send you off to Spain, I thought.

'You have not answered my question,' I said. 'What do you believe may have happened to the dead girl's clothes?'

He seemed to relax a fraction. 'I've got two ideas on that front, sir,' he said, then he made a loud clicking sound inside his mouth. 'Either she was trying to swim out, or . . .'

'Swim?'

'That's right, sir. They do it all the time.' He pointed to the east. The fog had almost disappeared at the far end of the beach. A group of huts raised on stilts seemed to float above the waters of the lagoon half a mile away. 'The women live down there,' he pointed. 'They swim to the sh.o.r.e at night. I reckon she met with something in the water. Some sea-monster probably dug that hole in her face.'

'Oh, yes?' I encouraged him.

'A basking whale, or something similar. Catch that fish, I bet you'd find a bundle of rags in its guts. Like Jonah in the Bible.'

Against my will, I let out a chuckle. 'That is an ingenious explanation,' I complimented him. 'But you mentioned two possibilities. Let's see if your second is as clever as the first, Grillet.'

'Thieves,' he said, and added quickly, 'Prussian thieves.'

What else? I should have expected it. If I asked a Frenchman for an opinion, he would tell me that the guilty party was certainly a Prussian.

'Prussian thieves, indeed!' I challenged. 'Excluding myself, I have not seen a single Prussian man in this encampment. Or are you talking about the Prussian women? Do you suspect the girls of murdering their workmate to rob her clothes?'

'Not just her clothes, sir.'

He looked at me attentively, as if considering how much to tell me. Wondering, perhaps, if he had been too quick to tell a Prussian magistrate where he laid the blame for the murder of a Prussian girl.

'Monsieur Magistrate, the situation here is complicated. We are French soldiers. We have no wives, no women of our own. And there are no wh.o.r.e-houses nearby, like you'd find in a decent town. Some of these girls are up for it, though. Why would we kill them? You could buy all the girls on Nordcopp sh.o.r.e for a napoleon d'or! Dead girls are no use to any man. No use to us, nor to the colonel.' He jerked his thumb decisively back over his shoulder. 'But for them it's different!'

'Who do you mean?' I asked.

His eyes fixed mine again, and held them. 'The local men, monsieur. There are Prussians living near to the sh.o.r.e. They have a different trade with the women. Stolen amber, monsieur. There's a motive for you! The girls must put some by. They're always trying to smuggle it out under our noses. They'd have to try and sell it to someone, don't you think? Those men have wives and women of their own, they are not like us. What's a dead Prussian wench to them?'

'Are you suggesting that the girl was murdered by a smuggler?'

'I am, monsieur.'

I nodded, thinking of the amber in my pocket.

'Let's say, Grillet, for just one moment, that this idea of yours is correct. The girl broke out of the compound and swam to the sh.o.r.e, intending to sell her amber to a local man, and, for some reason, he murdered her.'

That piece of amber was worth a lot of money. But Grillet's reasoning was faulty. Kati Rodendahl had never been given the opportunity to sell it. She'd been murdered before she got the chance to make a trade. Whatever it was, the motive was not theft.

'Why would the killer strip the body naked?' I challenged him.

Grillet looked at me for a moment, then he smirked. 'Why not, monsieur? If you have stolen a life, you might as well steal her clothes. And every other thing that she had hidden about her person.'

Did Grillet know Kati's secret?

Did all the French soldiers on the sh.o.r.e know where the girls hid their amber?

'What things are you speaking of?' I asked him.

He was still smiling. The roots of his teeth were black with the stains of tobacco wads. 'I'm guessing,' Grillet went on. 'She might have had a ring, earrings, a sacred medallion. Depends on whether she was planning to leave, or not.'

'It is certainly possible,' I conceded.

'Then again,' he pressed on, 'if a deal had been already struck, he might have cheated her. If she threatened to report him to the colonel, he might have killed her to protect his ident.i.ty. For me, it's Prussian business,' he concluded emphatically, and he appeared to believe what he said.

I did not react.

Grillet proposed that Prussians were killing the girls for profit, or to maintain the secrets of their illegal trade in amber. But what if the nationalities were changed about? Might the French be staging murders for political reasons known to themselves alone? Might the French officers-and les Halles himself-be involved in the conspiracy? The idea that girls had run away to Russia was plausible, but was it true? What if they had died like Kati Rodendahl? What if the bodies had never been found? If the French could frighten the women into avoiding any contact with the smugglers, wouldn't it be to their own advantage?

Was that why they had sent for a Prussian magistrate? In the hope that he would find a Prussian scapegoat? Was that why Malaport had called for a man whose wife was in the final stages of a difficult pregnancy? Knowing that I would agree to anything for the sake of a quick and easy pa.s.sage home?

The sun was burning off the fog like a bright phosph.o.r.escent flame.

'Very good, Grillet,' I said, shading my eyes. 'Colonel les Halles will be told that you have answered all my questions. Now, where can I find the women who work the amber? Her friends, for instance. I'll need to speak with them . . .'