She appeared disconcerted when she opened the door to me, but she patted her hair into place and smiled, pulling the door to behind her and wrapping her thin shawl tighter around her shoulders against the night air.
‘Monsieur. Dwarves after you again tonight?’
‘Not this time. I am sorry to disturb you so late, madame, but I have some items here that urgently need washing. They may require more effort than usual,’ I added. ‘For which I will pay extra, of course.’
Lips pursed, she took the sack from my hand and opened it to peer inside; she recoiled, suppressing a slight retch.
‘Mother Mary! Did you fall in a privy?’ From the look on her face, I guessed whatever appeal I might once have held was rapidly diminishing.
‘Something like that.’
She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand; the skin on her fingers was cracked and raw.
‘I will pay well,’ I said, again, wishing now that I had not thrown those gold écus to Paget.
She considered, then gave a brief nod. ‘I’ll need to look at them in daylight. Give me a few days – they won’t dry quick in this weather anyway.’ She hesitated, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her ragged bun, and darted another glance into the house.
‘Thank you. There was something else I wanted to ask you. Those men you saw – the ones who were looking for me. You said one was a cleric.’
She frowned. ‘He wore a black robe. Looked like a religious. I saw him again today.’
‘The same man? You are sure? Where was this?’
‘Here, in the street. Around noon – I was on my way home to give the children their dinner. I wouldn’t have paid any attention but I recognised his face under his hood. He was going into one of the buildings.’
‘Which one?’
‘The house you asked me about before. Where the curé lived, the one from Saint-Séverin.’
I ran a hand through my hair. So Joseph – for it must have been him – had been back to Paul’s lodgings today. He must still be looking for whatever he had come in search of the first time, when he and the dwarf had almost caught me, and it had to be important, for him to risk being seen here again now that he knew he was suspected of Paul’s murder, despite his powerful friends. Some evidence, then, which might connect him with Paul or with a bigger plot. Perhaps he would have left traces behind that might indicate what he needed to find.
‘Did you see him leave again?’
She shook her head. ‘I was out delivering laundry all afternoon. You could ask the old widow who lives downstairs in that building, she might remember.’
I thanked her and walked down a few houses to the door of Paul’s lodgings. The bells had not yet struck six but the street was empty; a few windows showed the glow of candlelight through gaps in shutters, and voices carried from inside, the noises of evening meals ending and families settling for the night: a clatter of plates, an infant’s thin wailing, a woman’s voice singing, the words indistinct. Frost crunched under my boots in the ruts left by carts. The houses were sunk in shadow; only a thin rind of moon and a scattering of stars behind drifting clouds offered light and there was no one but the circling gulls to watch me slip my knife into the lock of the street door. At least, so I hoped.
I closed it behind me as soundlessly as I could manage but was certain I caught the click of a latch from inside. The small entrance hall by the stairs was darker than the night outside, but I sensed a tension, as if someone were holding his breath. I could not see if the door into the ground-floor room was open. I paused briefly, wondering if I would do better to knock and speak to this old woman the laundress had mentioned, rather than risk being caught breaking in like a thief, but decided against it; with so many people interested in Paul’s death, it was quite possible she had already been suborned by somebody to report on anyone prowling around the dead priest’s rooms. I climbed the stairs slowly, wincing at every creak and groan of the old wood that echoed around the ceiling. Unless the woman was stone deaf, I might as well have flung the door wide and announced myself.
The door to Paul’s rooms was locked, suggesting that Frère Joseph had been in possession of a key and sufficient time to have conducted his search without being disturbed. I strained to catch any sound but could hear nothing from within the room, and when I peered through the keyhole I saw, to my relief, that the key had not been left in the lock. After some work with my knife, the bolt yielded and I slipped inside the room once more. The air was cold; a sharp draught chased around my legs and the curtain closing off the bedchamber billowed as I closed the door behind me. I rummaged in my bag for a candle stub and tinder-box; once it was alight, I kept it shielded with my hand and turned slowly so that I could take in anything that struck me as different from the last time I had seen this room.
The smell of old woodsmoke still lingered, overlaid with a new scent, delicate and noticeable only in patches, as if it were shifting just out of reach: perfume, spicy and rich, a scent that made me think of Henri and the rarefied air of the
