Sunday

     Jean and Josianne Lascaux returned from the funeral for Père Philippe, held in Carcassonne with all pomp and circumstance, even the hierarchy in Montpellier having roused itself to come and pay homage.  The priest was remembered for the many spiritual insights he helped those who sought him out achieve, as well as for the charm of his homilies.

     One in particular stood out in Jean's mind.  Père Philippe was saying that the goodness of God was such that, not only had he given his only Son to redeem man, but that, notwithstanding the trials and tribulations of this world, in the end, even the devil would submit.  And did that fact not illustrate how small, when you came right down to it, the devil really was, that he could be defeated by goodness?

     Delphine had been summonsed, Cibiche had been hailed, the man in the red T-shirt, the smoker, had been arrested for the murder of Père Philippe, as well as the attempted murder of Delphine.  A Frenchman from Carcassonne, whose family went back generations in Languedoc-Roussillon, he had a history of offenses against women.  The Police Nationale were interested because he was from Carcassonne, but because the murder took place in Caunes, the gendarmerie arrested him. It was the Police Nationale, however, that suspected he might have played a role in a few local cases involving women and told the gendarmerie to go through their cold case files, one of which was Irine Fantôme's.   Put in a line-up, Irine recognized the man as the tile installer about whose work she had filed a complaint demanding his license be revoked.

     The disfigured woman testified at his trials for the murder of Père Philippe, the attempted murder of Delphine, and her own.  Delphine was not permitted to testify, despite her many protestations.  Her history of insanity made her an unreliable witness, even if, in fact, she was the only witness to Père Philippe's courage.