Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  My mind kept repeating ‘Joel Dutroux,’ even though his VW was still at Les Pins. He’d been a regular flyer here since last summer and, according to Karen, had never suffered so much as a scratch.

  Now he too, was missing. His little finger in a Champion bag in my car boot. As rain slid down my neck, I banged on the door of the nearest corrugated shed, and the next one where a large, mesh waste paper bin stood stuffed with damp rubbish. Yes, I could snoop around on the off-chance of finding something relating to Joel, but my watch showed 17:55 hours, and darkness wasn’t far off.

  ACCENTS DU VENT read the only sign, followed by tariff details and a Narbonne landline number that I memorised. Closed Mondays. Odd that, unless whoever had hit the rock was from somewhere else entirely, with special permission to fly, or had nicked the machine. If Joel, how had he got here or any other runway in the area?

  *

  Chased by the downpour and a sudden, enveloping mist, I reached my Volvo and drove back to Saint-Antoine’s’s deserted main square by where its four public phones stood empty. I dialled the gendarmerie in the Rue Émile Zola, still in shock from that explosive, sky-borne impact. Of a life ending in a sudden, fiery death.

  The receptionist who answered, demanded to know my name and address, but once I’d begun my account, passed me on to Capitaine Serrado who, when briefed about the accident, complained of lax procedures at too many microlight bases and the high risks of such flying to eager young men with little or no experience.

  As I was so near the gendarmerie, he suggested I call in, in person. No way. Bad enough thinking of Karen’s reaction, should she dicover I’d made even this minimal contact. Bad enough too, that like Taillot, he could trace this phone call’s exact location. Besides, in that all-too familiar environment of a cop shop, I’d have soon filled them in about Herman, and Joel Dutroux’s left-over finger, never mind my Friday evening romp in the grounds of Les Pins, and the Pamiers trip.

  That had been my job. To share information and leads. Not piss around in this long-winded and yes, criminal situation. All I finally said was that if Joel Dutroux had been in that microlight, he might also have been carrying a loaded Glock.

  “Best you come in and write this down,” he suggested.

  “I will.” But knew I wouldn’t.

  *

  I didn’t hang about but was starving and needing a coffee. I stopped in the two-car bay outside the Café Columbine, where several aluminium chairs had tipped over on to the pavement, adding to its air of neglect. I made most of them upright before

  venturing into the dimly-lit main room, home to a deserted bar and a dozen or so tables in need of a good wipe. A larger one strewn with racing papers, was occupied by a tiny woman I guessed was in her mid-sixties, whose long, white hair reached to her waist. According to the sign outside, Violette Arbrus was the sole proprietor.

  “Oui?” She looked up at me like an eager, winter bird. “I take bets here, in case you didn’t know. Fancy a flutter? There’s three meetings on today...”

  “I’d prefer a large black coffee and...” I searched for any sign of a menu, “A steak?”

  “No hot food, sorry Monsieur. But I could make a sandwich. What sort?”

  “Cheese?” Deliberately filling and calorific.

  She nodded and clattered away on black, high heels to the bar where the coffee machine almost drowned my words. I knew better than to mention the microlight disaster, instead gave her the usual WWII historian spiel.

  “So?” she passed my coffee over and began slicing what looked and smelt like a fresh baguette. “Why here?”

  “I’ve recently heard things about Dansac and the children who perished there. October 1942, so I was told.”

  She pushed a heel of Gruyère up and down through the grater. “Dansac is cursed. Always has been, always will be.” A glance in my direction. “You seen it?”

  “Not yet,” I lied, just in case.

  “Don’t.” Another glance. “Twelve francs, thirty. Merci.”

  The snack looked so appetising, she could keep the change.

  “Who’d have thought it?” I mused aloud.” A quiet place like that?”

  “Plenty of folk. But they keep their lips sealed. Not me though. The more who know the better. Could happen again, the way things are going. Did you realise once those kids had been shot, the skin was peeled off their faces? Their teeth smashed in and hands removed, so they couldn’t be identified?”

  I had to sit down fast. I pushed the baguette to one side. Suffer the little children, I thought. A sick, sick joke.

  “And then?”

  “Who knows. Mind you, it’s not for want of trying on my part.”

  I stared at her, thinking how life continued to be full of surprises.

  “You’re a brave woman.”

  “You’d do the same. By the way, who’ve you been speaking to?”

  “A guy called Pablo Lopez. One of the six who apparently attempted a rescue.”

  “That his real name?”

  “I assumed so.”

  “In Dansac?”

  My lie lingered.

  “Unless I was sleepwalking somewhere else.”

  She threw me a crooked smile. “There was some Spaniard involved, but I heard he ran off soon afterwards.”

  Everybody leaves...

  “He told me the Milice came into the tunnel before the children could escape. Finished things off.”

  “News to me. Their nearest unit was over in Limoux.”

  “Any Children’s Homes they might have come from?

  A shrug. Maybe meaning she needed her livelihood. I tried again.

  “Alize Saporo?”

  “Who?”

  My baguette still untouched.

  “Do you recognise the name Sophie Blumenthal? The one Jewish girl - the one child - who survived the slaughter but went missing?”

  The woman who could have stepped from JRR Tolkien’s pages, wrapped the rest of the leftover cheese and returned to her table in silence. I’d taken a chance. A big chance. But she was speaking.

  “She never got over her only kid marrying that Suzman thug.” Her wary eyes checked out the doorway behind me. “And then look what happened. Everyone knows he didn’t want some gabby little half-Jewess like Yvette stirring things up.” She focused on me with intensely wise eyes. “You don’t want to go the same way, Monsieur. But after she died in mysterious circumstances, her mother had her buried in the small Jewish cemetery outside Villedieu. Just to make a point.”

  Silence.

  “And Yvette’s father?”

  “Now you’re asking. Sophie was quite a beauty. I’m not sure.”

  “Any idea where she lives?”

  Violette Arbrus drew her pen back and fore across her teeth. A death rattle if ever there was...

  “Banyuls.” she said at last. “That’s it...”

  “Near Ricard Suzman?”

  “That old crook? God, why hadn’t I made the connection? Too busy trying to

  pick a winner to keep the fucking landlord off my back.”

  “Who is?”

  A pause. I knew a ‘none of your business’ look when I saw it.

  “Michel Suzman of course. Who else? He owns most of this place.”

  “How enterprising.”

  “But Sophie will never have peace. Not after he’d sworn blind to the flics that her daughter had slipped then drowned in the bath, and the matter never investigated.”

  The woman lit a hand-rolled cigarette and pulled on it. “Poor cow.”

  “Three kids, right?”

  She nodded.

  “There was one before they got married. Mind you, not many saw him. Folks said he’d gone to a special unit in Montpellier. I never clapped eyes on him growing up here.”

  Smoke momentarily hid her face.

  “Then came two boys and the girl. Now there’s a trio. Our lovely, gay priest is really making his mark, while Paul...” She paused to push a length of white hair behin
d her ear. “He’s been away too. Five years in Toulouse, courtesy of the Department of Justice. Grievous bodily harm on one of Marie’s lovers. I mean,” she eyed me, “cutting off his cock after a fight.”

  My snack remained uneaten as sudden rain sliced against the bar’s main window. Several pedestrians rushed by, heads bowed. A slight shiver of the interior lights was followed by thunder.

  “Why?”

  “Something and nothing.”

  I stalled at this point, but not for long.

  “OK. The Ryjkels?”

  She pressed her ballpoint deep into the newspaper’s page. Kept it there.

  “Which one? The overbearing father? Timid mother? Or their gorgeous sons.” Her tone of voice could have bleached a hundred pissoirs.

  “Wasn’t there a little sister. too? Called Liesbet?”

  “Never saw her in real life.” Her pen began to move. Big, crossings out. The tearing of newsprint. “Mind you, there were photos of her in the local rag at the time. Cute little thing, pretending to cut a bunch of grapes.”

  “L’Indépendant?”

  “Most probably. Although there were others, like Le Temps...”

  So why had Karen denied that? She must have seen them. Meanwhile, I had to stay on track. “But you knew these boys?”

  “Yes. The one called Joop - slightly older with teeth like - I’m trying to think - like a wolf. Bit of a religious nut too, so I heard.”

  Here we go...

  “Did he ever mention a sister?”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  The way she said it, made me pause. I told myself to get a grip. He was probably dead.

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Threatened to cut me into bits if I didn’t open my legs.”

  Cut into bits... Herman’s head. His curled-up hands…

  “Where was this?”

  A pause. Someone sheltering in the café’s porch area blocked out what little light there was. “Behind the Salle de Concert after its Friday dance in the middle of July. The year they vanished. Got pregnant. Got rid. Couldn’t have another one after that, not that I’m the broody sort.”

  “Did you ever see him after the disappearances?”

  “No. But I bet St. Peter welcomed him in. After all, he’d planned a complete change of direction.”

  “You mean the church?”

  Another nod, then, without my having asked if she’d spotted Herman at all, it was time to go.

  *

  I left my uneaten snack where it was, also Saint-Antoine itself, with every intention of reaching Carcassonne to meet the Mannions by mid-afternoon. However, a few miles into the journey, accompanied by lingering bursts of thunder, my conscience kicked in. Karen had been on her own too long. Why not wait and see what else the helpful Robert Taillot might come up with? As for Martine with her stolen rifle, she was probably with her girlfriend. Tomorrow would do just as well.

  I pulled into the inappropriately named Aire des Fleuris and called Karen from a booth smelling of pee. “Fancy a trip to the seaside?” I said, holding my nose. “Kill two birds with one stone?”

  “At this time of day, with a mist coming down? Have you been drinking?”

  “No. Just need some company.”

  “I don’t like that expression about killing birds you used. It reminds me of something...”

  Joop perhaps? But then wasn’t the right moment to mention her brother who, if Violette was to be believed, had been a real charmer.

  “Banyuls,” I said. “Know it?”

  “Of course. Aristide Maillol, one of my favourite artists had a studio there, and doesn’t one of his huge sculptures of a naked woman rest on his tomb?”

  “You’re right. I’d already seen photographs of his rounded, bronze-cast Amazons. Every red-blooded male’s dream of the Mediterranean muse. I even copied one in miniature for my Art exam. Years ago, now.”

  “Clever you. Banyuls was our Sunday outing when my parents weren’t catching up on paperwork. Anyway, why there? Is it Ricard Suzman?”

  “And Sophie Blumenthal. Look, you’ve had your gates done, and your CCTV. Les Pins will be fine.”

  “You’ve persuaded me. Just. But as you well know. this wheelchair’s a real bind to collapse.”

  “I’ll take my chance. Give me ten minutes.”

  And just then, that ten minutes felt like the longest year of my life.

  Chapter 39. Karen.

  Sophie Blumenthal... Sophie Blumenthal...

  The name rolled around in my mind like one of those steel balls we used to ping around our Dutch bagatelle board on winter evenings, but instead of finding an eventual place of rest, this one kept on, like my panic as my gates closed behind us.

  John Lyon, still inhabiting Joel’s stained ski jacket, slotted a Cabaret Night in Paris tape into his car’s tape deck, bringing back another memory of the wireless in our kitchen at Mas Camps, where Aznavour, Trenet and Piaf were a relief from the interminable propaganda and news broadcasts. They made me feel more French than Dutch. Not so, Joop who’d said their lyrics were crass, given the fear and suffering in their homeland. A homeland he’d tried to serve.

  All at once, the Volvo slowed on the wet tarmac, and John pointed up to his right where the mist had broken to revel the Col des Chèvres’ jagged edge.

  “See up there,” he began. “I couldn’t mention it to you over the phone...”

  “Mention what?”

  He then relayed what he’d witnessed just hours ago; how no-one could have survived that kind of impact and fire. That the microlight’s pilot could well have been Joel Dutroux, turned spy, on reconnaissance around Les Pins. Joel with the beautiful eyes but a divided heart and like myself, different identities.

  A cold, deep spasm passed through my body, as if I was suddenly swimming alone, exposed, in a shoreless sea. I thought of his crème caramels, those other divine inventions he’d made for my pleasure. All a hoax? A scam?

  “Would he really have been done something so terrible as that?” I said, still shaking.

  “Who knows? I found him unfathomable.”

  John was right. So much for my tests, my judgement. The same for Martine...

  “I need to see him,” I said. “Wherever he is.”

  “One step at a time. It’s still possible someone was else was the pilot. And talking about Joel, whoever his invented friend Max Heimlat was, he’d phoned you from Saint-Antoine. By the supermarket.”

  Nee…

  “Are you serious?”

  He didn’t need to answer.

  *

  Still thinking about Joel, we followed the road south towards the sea, through Dansac and Villedieu where John again slowed down by an immaculate Maison de Retraite to stare up at its many windows.

  “Who lives there?” I asked. “What’s the fascination?”

  “Father Diderot. I went to see him, remember? Part of that failed rescue operation in Dansac. A man now questioning his faith. Who can’t forgive himself…”

  “You’ve never told me exactly what happened to those children?” I interrupted. “Why? Don’t you think I can handle such awful things? Me, after all I’ve been through?”

  He threw me one of his glances.

  “Just use your imagination.”

  I did, also realising how in just four days, so much here had changed. From

  feeling relatively secure with my small team around me, to someone too frightened to look out of the window. Even to fall asleep. Hence my sunglasses and high-collared coat, over my navy-blue trouser suit, making me look like Barbara Stanwyck. Or so John said, jokingly, lifting me from my chair and carrying me to the passenger seat. But these props wouldn’t keep Thea Oudekerk at bay, nor the Suzmans who’ve ruled Saint-Antoine for too long with their vendettas, threats and criminal behaviour.

  *

  8 p.m and the views on either side grew clearer as night fell. Scattered villa lights shimmered against the backdrop of the Albèes mountains.

 
Before reaching Elne, and curious to see the one remnant of his family, I suggested to John we call in on his sister and brother-in-law, but no. Ricard Suzman, my dodgy vendor, and survivor Sophie Blumenthal had priority.

  “If she can help us get more info on the Suzmans, then I’m tempted to bring Serrado in,” he said, negotiating a roundabout near Argelès. “They’ve probably kept Herman’s remains and who knows, if it was Joel - their first son - in that doomed microlight, perhaps they’d tampered with his altimeter. Even his fuel or shot him before he crashed. With your very own Glock, maybe?”

  “Serrado? Never!”

  I wasn’t thinking of kissing him any more. Hitting, yes. “You don’t know them

  them here. All in the Maire’s pocket. Think parcel tape, your poor, bloody face. And me.”

  And goodies from my hard drive...

  He drove on as if on a race track, and the few nerves I had left, screamed for mercy. Here was a man used to getting his own way.

  “I’m hurting,” I said. “Please slow down.”

  “Old Suzman and Sophie Blumenthal may both go to bed early. I’ve brought your Solpadol if it’ll help.”

  “Respecting my opinion might help,” as the nearby Mediterranean glistened darkly on my left, dotted by fluorescent, orange buoys.

  “OK. We don’t have to use the local gendarmerie. Instead, why not try Perpignan on the way back?” He turned to me. “Karen, I can’t do this on my own any more.”

  Silence.

  “You’re not listening. As you so clearly reminded me, this is my mission, my project to find what became of the three men in my family.”

  He didn’t like that at all.

  “Did you ever advertise nationally for them to get in touch? Most people would have.”

  Stay calm. Let him feel he’s the matador, me the wounded bull.

  “I’m not most people.”

  “I’d agree with that. But you must have known that news of your missing family was probably well covered in 1942. Do you remember any of that? Did your mother?”