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.
Simeonidis 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 Simeonidis. 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. Simeonidis 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. Simeonidis,’ 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.’
Simeonidis 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 Simeonidis 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 Simeonidis. Suddenly, in a moment of fury, the old Greek turned back and gripped the
‘No,’ said Simeonidis 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 Simeonidis. ‘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.
Simeonidis 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 Simeonidis. ‘Now we know where we stand. But why have you come poking about?’
‘It’s our job,’ said Lucien.
‘Why, are you detectives?’ said Simeonidis.
‘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 Simeonidis. ‘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.’ Simeonidis 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
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 Simeonidis, photographs and interviews. The press cuttings were carefully held together with paperclips.
