Kate knelt beside her on the floor, wondering what she had meant by her last remark. Awkwardly, Adam did the same.
‘I believe you were at the college with Pierre Laurent?’ Kate asked.
‘That is correct. We were students together.’ She removed a small tinfoil ashtray from her satchel.
‘Can you tell us about Pierre?’
Delphine blew a waft of smoke to her right, staring at Kate. ‘I can tell you what I know – that he was a prick but an amazing artist. He had talent running through his veins, and he knew it. Like his good looks, Pierre took these things and others for granted.’
‘It doesn’t sound like the two of you got on.’ Adam looked uncomfortable on the floor, unsure where to put his large feet.
‘On the contrary, even though he was a prick, we got on very well.’
‘Were you lovers?’ Kate had decided the direct approach would work best with Delphine.
‘We had a brief fling. That was the way it was with Pierre, everything in the moment, not to be taken seriously.’
‘He had a lot of female companions?’
‘Kate. It is Kate?’
Kate nodded.
‘This is Paris.’ She wore a wide smirk.
Adam waved his hands to clear the smoke. ‘We want to know about everyone associated with Pierre.’
‘That is a very long list.’
‘And you’re one of only two people we have so far. So, your information is important.’
She nodded, solemn now. ‘Ask me anything you want.’
‘Among his female companions, was there anyone in particular who stood out?’ Adam repositioned himself on the floor, this time leaning against the wall with his legs outstretched in front of him.
‘For Pierre? No. He could have charmed them into thinking he cared, but he was self-centred. He would say whatever a woman wanted to hear.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was a game with him, nothing more.’
‘We hear he had particular fetishes.’ Kate kept eye contact with Delphine, wondering if she was as hard and uncaring as she was trying to appear.
She laughed coldly. ‘He had many desires, yes. He was experimental. Le BDM was one of his favourite places.’
‘Le BDM?’ Kate quizzed.
‘Bar du Monde, at the rue Mazarine. It was a place many of the students went for drinks, but downstairs in the basement was for the experimenters.’
‘It was mentioned in the case files,’ Adam told Kate, then turned back to Delphine. ‘It’s a sex club?’
‘You could call it that.’
‘Is it still there?’ Adam’s voice echoed around the near-empty room.
‘No.’
‘But you went there with Pierre?’ Kate kept her tone soft.
‘Yes, of course. There was a small fee to participate or to watch, but Pierre usually slipped his friends in without too much bother.’
‘Can you describe the place for us, the kind of activity that went on?’
This time she blew the cigarette smoke directly into Kate’s face. ‘Yes.’ She took another drag before she went on, ‘There were usually fifty or sixty people in the club. It was small, so it was easily crowded, a regular dark dungeon … and it was full of desperate people.’ Again she laughed – nervously this time, Kate thought.
‘Go on.’
‘Part of the downstairs was set up like a torture chamber. The leather and wooden racks were in constant demand. You didn’t have to take part. As I said, you could be an onlooker. Depending on his mood, Pierre would be a participant or a spectator, but he liked bringing others there to watch. He enjoyed shocking people … imbécile.’ Her voice had turned bitter, but then softened: ‘I didn’t like the sound of the bodies being lashed. The cries, they were moche – ugly.’
‘What age were you, Delphine?’ Kate’s voice was gentle.
‘I was nineteen. I was old enough,’ she said sharply, staring at Kate’s plait. ‘I remember there was this fat woman at the bar all the time, dressed up like a schoolgirl. She had her hair in plaits too. She liked her bare buttocks being whipped, the harder the better. Pierre never had any interest in her. He liked his women slim.’
‘Did he have a regular partner at the club?’ Adam stood up, unable to take interviewing on the floor any longer.
‘He often went there alone. Pierre felt more at home with people who were different.’
‘Julien said you dropped out before finishing the year. Why was that?’ Adam moved a step closer to her.
She stared up at him. ‘My mother was unwell. I was needed back in Provence.’
‘And the others?’ Kate asked. ‘The students who left the college after Pierre’s death, do you know why they dropped out?’
‘No. For the most part, they all left after me, except one.’ She pressed out her cigarette butt in the tinfoil ashtray. ‘She was Irish, an exchange student, I think.’
‘Do you remember her name, or why she left?’ Adam didn’t attempt to hide his interest.