Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  Meanwhile, Mireille Petsha, the young escapee who’d innocently believed White Light to be what it said on the tin, would be keeping in touch with me. Just in case.

  Just then, the line seemed to go dead.

  “Capitaine Vollard?” I almost shouted. “You still there?”

  “Yes. We’ve just taken a call from Perpignan. Eye witnesses have seen André Besson driving like a maniac near Barcarès. He seemed to have a passenger. With no family and no other known residence, have you any idea who might have been with him and where he’d been heading?”

  “None.” That was the truth. “Perhaps he had enemies too.”

  Metaphorical shutters again came down hard and fast. So much for ends tying up and Karen’s planned month to find closure, shortening by the hour.

  *

  “Pork cutlets for lunch,” announced Carol when I rejoined her outside in the

  warm sunshine. “Lean ones, not like Grandma’s. Remember their thick, fatty rinds?”

  I did, and was still grateful. She’d been the difference between a bed in a room and a box on the street. Carol was on yet another diet which encouraged meat and more meat. I gave her a squeeze - part thanks, part regret I’d seen so little of her since she and George had moved there. But how could I blame them both for not rushing over to my crowded corner of the Midlands?

  “Sorry, sis,” I said, fighting a surge of guilt. “Got too much on. And please don’t either of you wait up for me.”

  “You’re seeing that German woman? Again?”

  “She’s Dutch.”

  Carol sighed. “I really can’t keep up with all this.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you? I could tell when her consultant phoned.” Always the direct question and the next one I’d been spared so far. “Have you a photo?”

  “She wouldn’t let me take any. At least, not until she’s out of the wheelchair.

  My sister’s eyes narrowed.

  “I thought you liked that blonde one back in Nottinghaam?”

  So had young, dead Ben Rogers.

  “What was her name again?”

  “Alison McConnell.”

  “Look, John, I’m not happy about any of this. And to be frank,” she then squinted at me in a way unchanged for forty-plus years, “there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  A yacht moved across the blue Mediterranean leaving a thin, white trail in its wake, before vanishing, just like everything else.

  “I want justice,” was all I said, pulling out my car keys; feeling my eyes begin to sting.

  “This Dutch woman’s almost cost you your life, don’t forget.” Carol reached up to touch the graze on my cheek that hadn’t yet healed. The dark marks on my lips. “You didn’t leave the Force to get embroiled in someone’s past to this extent. I mean, you hardly know her.”

  “It’s nothing to what she and other innocent people have endured. Besides,” I looked out to sea again, “it’s weird. I feel as if I have known her for ever. She’s brave and proud.” But as I spoke, I was again thinking God help us both should Martine Mannion squealed about Herman, or if Michel Suzman were to wave my notebook around to deflect from his problems. For a start, he could afford a better libel lawyer than me.

  *

  On my way to the Clinique Sablon, I bought yet another Get Well card for Karen together with the day’s L’Indépendant from a nearby kiosk. The banner headline stopped my heart.

  RECLUSE STILL IN COMA

  FORMER UK DETECTIVE INSPECTOR QUESTIONED AND RELEASED.

  Following his release after three hours of questioning into the fatal microlight crash of Joel Dutroux, 32, the murder of Robert Taillot and recent disappearance of Antwerp-born Herman Oudekerk aged 27, both employed by coma victim Dr..Karen Fürst, fifty-four year-old former Detective Inspector John Lyon, from Nottingham, England, continues to be a regular visitor to the Clinique Sablon’s Intensive Care Unit. Examining magistrate Philippe Dressier, is satisfied that M. Lyon, who helped in Tuesday night’s Search and Rescue efforts for the disabled victim abandoned on Mount Canigou, and has close relatives in the area, is at liberty to remain in the country and complete his holiday.

  “Holiday?” Sick joke, and I almost laughed until seeing my full colour mug shot taken from one I’d sent Carol last year. How else would the News Desk have got hold of it? But what good would phoning and complaining to both parties do? All the same, my sister might have mentioned it.

  *

  The morning shift nurse asked me to wait with the guard until Karen was ready. Capitaine Jacques Anniot who’d served in the Foreign Legion, eyed me up and down, giving a brief smile before returning to his well-worn notepad.

  Karen’s cubicle lay drenched in sunlight filtered through the blinds, but without her usual make-up and hair hidden under a protective cap, this radiance seemed so cruel. So wrong.

  I changed into a sterile suit and immediately felt sweat bubbling under its

  jacket and trousers. Hot, frightened sweat, while seeing yet more tubes for hydration and feeding, with fluid sacs drip-dripping away the day into her veins while that same nurse set the sphygnanomometer to automatic - inflating and deflating against that pale, translucent skin, accompanied by its rubbery sighs in time with Karen’s breathing.

  I had the sudden urge to tear the thing away, lift her from her bed and run with her in my arms towards the sunlit, lapping sea. Swim alongside her, waiting for the warmth and water to wake her from sleep.

  “She’s more stable now,” the nurse interrupted my fantasy. “But may have to lose three toes on her left foot. That’s the worst scenario.”

  “Please, just do all you can.”

  “We will.”

  “Any more news on the nerve activity in her spine?”

  “Some progress, which is good news.”

  I took Karen’s hands in mine. Latex against skin. Her nails bare of varnish. Two still badly chipped.

  “By the way, as you’re her only visitor, I should tell you, someone else is keen to see her. Very insistent, so Reception says.”

  “Who?” I let go of Karen’s hands.

  “A Belgian woman. Thea Oudekerk. Do you know her?”

  Bugger. One day early...

  “Dr. Fürst’s already mentioned her.” And, in a moment of recklessness added, “I’ll try and calm her down.”

  “Thanks. Or she could be asked to leave.”

  I dug in my breast pocket for the Get Well card depicting two parrots sharing a saucy joke, adding it to four from the general public. I checked their senders’ names, but recogmised none. All could have been faked.

  “Have any others been kept back?” I asked.

  “You mean from nutters? No.”

  I kissed Karen’s forehead.

  “Non, Monsieur!” the nurse called out. “Kissing’s strictly forbidden.”

  “Love you,” I whispered to Karen. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jacques Anniot smiled again even though his eyes were half-buried by fatigue.

  “Please take care of her,” I said, “and if she wakes before I next see her tomorrow, please also tell her it wasn’t betrayal.”

  Anniot looked mor than puzzled.

  “Will do., Monsieur. Whatever you say.”

  *

  The lift to the ground floor was too swift for me to prepare for what would surely be a bad encounter. God knew I was used to dealing with the bereaved and traumatised, but not those from whom I was still withholding vital information. I’d no idea what, if anything, the Belgian woman knew about her son’s disappearance. Serrado had let slip she’d been away when the Antwerp police had tried making contact. But I’d soon be finding out.

  The lift doors opened on to raised voices. Flemish and French. She stood by the reception desk. Short, black-clad, middle-aged with a severely cut blonde bob. A fighter, breaking rules.

  “I have to see Dr. Fürst,” she was saying. “You can’t stop me. No-one can
. I told the police I’d be here tomorrow, but like any worried mother, I couldn’t wait.”

  “I must first speak to her consultant and nurse,” said the receptionist. “And check your identity card.”

  This officious bureaucrat hadn’t made things easy for me either. Surely time to

  step in?

  “I’ll sort this out,” I began. “She’s the mother of the missing Herman Oudekerk. And, if I were you, I’d consider her feelings.”

  In the silence that followed, the Belgian visitor turned to me and smiled, but her blue-green eyes bruised by grief, told a different story as they scanned my visitor badge.

  “Thank you, John Lyon.” She held out a hand in greeting. No nail varnish, no ring, just neat, small fingers. Like those of her dead son.

  Her good English made a welcome change from speaking French to monoglot natives. But right then, I’d rather have been anywhere else.

  “Would you like a coffee?” I asked.

  She nodded, and we walked into the Cafeteria to bag the most private table we could, festooned by a plastic vine.

  “You’ve still not said how you recognised me,” she began, once she’d sat down.

  “I was told you’d arrived here. I’m so very sorry about your son.”

  Her jaw tightened.

  “I won’t ever forgive Dr. Fürst for not telling me Herman hadn’t been seen at Les Pins. It’s criminal!”

  With that last word ringing in my ears, I approached the counter and two minutes later, deposited two espressos on our table. My hands less than steady.

  She leaned forwards.

  “You were there too. That’s what I’ve been told.”

  Shit…

  “I’d only called in to ask for directions, and never actually saw Herman. All seemed to be well. He’d been busy running errands.”

  She shook head and pressed a hand over her heart. Mine too, was swelling to breaking point. With guilt and pity.

  “Someone’s hurt him,” she said, pressing her heart.” I can feel it. Here.”

  I leant forwards to touch her arm. Beneath her black wool coat, she was

  trembling, while my lies, like a boa constrictor, had begun wrapping around my neck. Tightening... tightening... And Martine Mannion was still out there…

  “I’m his mother!” she cried, making an elderly man sitting nearby, look round. “He’s all I’ve got! Can’t you understand?”

  “Of course, and again, I’m truly sorry. But I do believe he’ll be alright. It’s only been a few days, after all. And tomorrow his picture and an appeal will be in the local papers. Both the area’s police commissariats and gendarmeries have confirmed it.”

  She laid both hands on the table. Her coffee untouched. The trembling might

  have eased, but not the anger in her eyes.

  “I still think that selfish bitch lied to me about him being on errands whenever I phoned Les Pins.”

  “I was hardly ever there, but don’t think Dr. Fürst knows what a lie is.”

  The Belgian eyed me with a frightening focus.

  “You would say that.”

  I let it go as that same old man left his table, and other visitors searching for somewhere to sit, took over, oblivious to the grim atmosphere in our small corner. Just watching them seemed to calm her down. For the moment.

  As for me, I could hardly bear to be with her. One day, I’d tell Karen. One day…

  *

  “I read about Joel Dutroux just now,” she said suddenly, finally taking the first sip from her cup. “How dreadful. I don’t know why Capitaine Serrado couldn’t tell me himself. All this secrecy...” She took another sip of her drink. “Herman liked Joel, you know. Yes, he could be odd, surly, but my boy took it in his stride.” She looked up at me again, while another nagging thought, this time about her son’s scribbled note, wouldn’t leave me alone.

  “Did Herman have any enemies back home in Antwerp? Anything in his private life that might shed some light?”

  “None.” She returned her cup to its saucer with finality. “I’ve been asked that already over the phone. Everybody thought the world of him.”

  “I’m sure. But please take your time...”

  “Well, he was planning to convert to Judaism, just after last Christmas. Perhaps that upset someone, who knows? There’s enough anti-Semitism about. Especially in this country. He asked me to look out for some weird red string to wear around his wrist. Apparently, it’s to ward off the evil eye. I mean, this wasn’t my Herman...”

  ‘Find the Evil Eye… ‘

  I flinched, hoping it wasn’t obvious.

  “How well do we really know our kids?” I then said rather too glibly.

  “Do you have any?” That fearsome gaze was on me again.

  “No.”

  But I had that strange Ben Porat poem I’d found in his room, Also a vivid memory of that cryptic instruction. All for later, I told myself.

  “But whose evil eye?” She turned her cup and saucer round and round. “I’ve

  hardly had the chance to find out, have I?”

  “Did Herman ever tell you the real reason he left Holland last year?”

  “Yes. To help Dr. Fürst discover how her father and her brothers suddenly vanished during the last war. He’d suggested she find somewhere extremely private in which to live. And get herself a new name.”

  I couldn’t disguse my surprise.

  “I’m sure she was grateful. Had you met her before?”

  “No. That was the trouble. Why Herman became so secretive. He knew I was unhappy about the whole venture. It being so far away.”

  “Not unreasonable.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Although he’d already been her nurse for a few months, he’s also my son. My only child. So, don’t expect me to feel any sympathy for her.”

  “I don’t.”

  That hurt.

  “Herman idolizes her, you know. Nothing’s too much trouble. Why he’s been so excited that she’d gradually been getting better. That’s what really matters to him. Not me.” Resentment fuelled every syllable. But I was hooked.

  “Better? In what way, exactly?”

  “Moving more easily, with less pain. How she’d stood and walked a little, with his help of course. On 1st August last year it was, he phoned to tell me, she’d even considered getting a specially-adapted car.”

  … ‘And I’ve heard a whisper there’s a car tucked away somewhere, in case she recovers enough to drive again.’

  Still impossible for me to imagine it. And why no mention from Karen herself, or Martine or Joel?

  “I only saw her in her wheelchair,” I said.” But what’s interesting, is that her broken back may have only been a fracture.”

  She stared at me.

  “Who said?”

  But before I could reply, a young couple appeared, asking asked how long we’d be.

  “As long as it takes,” I said drily, and they moved away while my companion understandably, still dwelt on Herman.

  “Anyone would have been thrilled to be offered a job in such surroundings, doing a job they loved. But during the past few weeks, I sensed something was wrong. He wasn’t staying in touch.”

  *

  My watch showed 11:30 hours. I was already late, but the one scrap of my conscience that remained, wouldn’t let me leave this equally stoical woman.

  “About the war,” Thea Oudekerk said suddenly, reaching into her bag for a cigarette,

  before spotting the Défense de Fumer sign above my head. “I remember Herman being upset at the treatment of Jews, particularly in France, and how many heartless collaborators there’d been. Do you think he’s uncovered too much? Is one of them hiding him? Torturing him? It’s the not knowing, you see...”

  What could I say? The lowest of the low, hearing her use the present tense.

  “How long are you over here for?” Was the best I could do. A distracted look crossed her face, so I took the initiative. “Here’s my sister
Carol’s phone number, if

  you need to get in touch with me. She lives in Elne, not far from Perpignan. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  Thea Oudekerk got to her feet.

  “There’s just one question,” I began. “Please forgive it being rather persomal, but was Herman by any chance...?”

  “Gay?” She clutched her handbag so tight, her nails left sharp indentations in its leather. “Like some of my friends, I did sometimes wonder. But so what if he was? In most of Europe, homosexuality isn’t a problem. It’s who you are that counts. And I’m going to find where my darling boy is, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll leave no stone unturned. I’m not leaving France until I’ve seen him again, and, if he has been killed, or died of natural causes somewhere, given him a proper funeral.”

  Chapter 51. Karen.

  “I love you.”

  Those three words were still as clear as a bell, even above the din of equipment being moved around, and other voices shouting instructions. Their echo followed me back to a dark, dark place where a sweet, fermenting smell filled the air. I could almost taste the grapes’ purply, bruised juice on my tongue, feel their bumpy wetness against my legs as I passed those wide, woven caskets waiting for collection at the end of our first day’s vendage.

  *

  Moeder hadn’t noticed me hiding outside by the stable, otherwise she’d have snapped at me for not wearing a coat. I was also invisible to Vader and my brothers, too busy doing the accounts. With such a good vintage, there’d been mention of buying more land from Jeanne Tremblant and extending our vines down to the Bayrou. Moeder however, had been her usual, cautious self.

  “Who knows what this war will bring?” She’d said at breakfast the day before, wearing her special, starry braelet. “When the Occupation reaches here, we could lose everything.”

  “Only Jewish assets are being taken.” Joop had argued in an odd voice.

  “What are Jews?” I’d asked, causing an awkward silence to fill the room, and he to leave the table. When I later quizzed our old neighbour while she plucked her big, grey knickers from the washing line, she simply said “stumm.” Another word which at the time, I didn’t recognise.