“You are welcome here in our home, and you are entirely welcome to speak with us together.”
Hannibal spoke from the stairs. “Good evening, Inspector.”
He turned to Hannibal. “Young man, I want you to come with me.”
“Certainly, Inspector.”
Lady Murasaki said to Serge, “Would you get my wrap?”
“That will not be necessary, Madame,” Popil said. “You won’t be coming. I will interview you here tomorrow, Madame. I will not harm your nephew.”
“It’s fine, my lady,” Hannibal said.
Inside her sleeves Lady Murasaki’s grip on her wrists relaxed a little in relief.
25
THE EMBALMING ROOM was dark, and silent except for a slow drip in the sink. The inspector stood in the doorway with Hannibal, raindrops on their shoulders and their shoes.
Momund was in there. Hannibal could smell him. He waited for Popil to turn on the light, interested to see what the policeman would consider a dramatic interval.
“Do you think you would recognize Paul Momund if you saw him again?”
“I’ll do my best, Inspector.”
Popil switched on the light. The mortician had removed Momund’s clothing and put it in paper bags as instructed. He had closed the abdomen with coarse stitching over a piece of rubber raincoat, and placed a towel over the severed neck.
“Do you remember the butcher’s tattoo?”
Hannibal walked around the body. “Yes. I hadn’t read it.”
The boy looked at Inspector Popil across the body. He saw in the inspector’s eyes the smudged look of intelligence.
“What does it say?” the inspector asked.
“Here’s mine, where’s yours?”
“Perhaps it should say Here’s yours, where’s mine? Here is your first kill, where is my head? What do you think?”
“I think that’s probably unworthy of you. I would hope so. Do you expect his wounds to bleed in my presence?”
“What did this butcher say to the lady that drove you crazy?”
“It did not drive me crazy Inspector. His mouth offended everyone who heard it, including me. He was rude.”
“What did he say Hannibal?”
“He asked if it were true that Japanese pussy runs sideways, Inspector. His address was ‘Hey Japonnaise!’ ”
“Sideways.” Inspector Popil traced the line of stitches across Paul Momund’s abdomen, nearly touching the skin. “Sideways like this?” The inspector scanned Hannibal’s face for something. He did not find it. He did not find anything, so he asked another question.
“How do you feel, seeing him dead?”
Hannibal looked under the towel covering the neck. “Detached,” he said.
The polygraph set up in the police station was the first the village policemen had seen, and there was considerable curiosity about it. The operator, who had come from Paris with Inspector Popil, made a number of adjustments, some purely theatrical, as the tubes warmed up and the insulation added a hot-cotton smell to the atmosphere of sweat and cigarettes. Then the inspector, watching Hannibal watching the machine, cleared the room of everyone but the boy, himself and the operator. The polygrapher attached the instrument to Hannibal.
“State your name,” the operator said.