Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “That who she is? Well, he calls her his Angel. What she writes in our Visitors’ Book.”

  Angel...

  Opération Anges?

  I’d take a look.

  “Could you describe her?”

  “Why?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Curious, that’s all.”

  “I might need to speak to my Supervisor.”

  She must have seen my face drop. Heard my disappointed sigh then relented.

  “About my height, thin, twice my age, always in black.”

  “Eye colour?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Hair?”

  “Up. Greyish usually. Not the last time, though.”

  “Well, Father Diderot does seem a different man since my earlier visit,” I said to disguise my leaping heart. “No stick, no Zimmer frame...”

  “Wouldn’t you be different, Monsieur, knowing you didn’t need to come back here?” A brief glance at her watch, then a nervous one at her employer who’d popped out of a door further down the corridor. “He’s been so excited, we couldn’t keep him down. A miracle really.” She lowered her voice. “As you can imagine, there’s not many who leave this place alive.”

  The Supervisor disappeared into a corridor, and the nurse’s shoulders visibly relaxed.

  “Father Diderot told me to keep in touch,” I said. “I’m really sorry to have missed him. It’s odd he never mentioned any of this to me.”

  “Did he leave a forwarding address?”

  “No. We were too busy talking. You don’t happen to have it?”

  “I’ll check for you in the Register.”

  We stood, heads almost touching as she leafed through the already familiar residents’ list inside the black-bound tome until her short, reddened fingers stopped as they’d done before, on Léon Diderot.

  “Voilà.”

  But this time, most of his previously empty boxes had been filIed. Only two were empty. My heartbeat quickened as I scanned from line to line, box to box, ending with Lieu de Naissance - Rotterdam. Pays Bas. Previous home - 44, Rue des Coquelicots, Villedieu.

  I steadied myself against the shiny mahogany table, as my suddenly dry throat closed up. Just then, the sun’s rays on the floor tiles were too bright. Too mean.

  I thought of Karen who could die at any moment.

  “Are you alright,” asked the nurse.

  “I am, thank you, but I know someone who isn’t.”

  I’d also noted his ‘Angel’s’ repeated visits and her name next to that of Father Jérôme. The most recent being yesterday evening at 18:00 hours.

  Chapter 53. Karen.

  “I love you...”

  According to Joop, today, Friday October 9th is the Jewish Yom Kippur, meaning most Jews don’t eat or leave their beds for the whole day. When their fast is over, they’ll devour kosher meat – poor animals whose throats have been cut to bleed to death. I can’t think of anything more horrible, except I’ve still got a patch of bare scalp showing behind my left ear where he pulled out my hair.

  Only Moeder has noticed this, and I lied that I’d done it to myself to make my poppetje - doll - look like me. So there’d be two Liesbets, not just one. A lie that could easily be true.

  Now, it’s the last but one day of our harvest. Windy, as it’s been all week, shaking off the beautiful pinky-brown vine leaves that have managed to cling on. If neither of my brothers complain about me, and I work hard, she’s promised to make me a dress in those very same colours. She then gives me her special, folding knife and her old leather gloves, so I can help properly and not get my fingers stained by the grape juice. The gloves are far too large, but I keep quiet. Instead, I try not be ‘a useless mouth,’ as Joop called me yesterday.

  For some reason, his rifle is strapped to his back. That ‘pop-pop’ noise he made in my bedroom still fills my ears and Christian asks if I’m feeling alright.

  But how can I tell him?

  “Bien, merci,” I say, because Vader wants us all to improve our French as a mark of respect to a country that’s given us shelter and put food on our table. But no German. Oh no, even though Jeanne Tremblant had been making an effort to learn it in case the enemy, about to arrive, stayed for ever.

  Christian isn’t always a saint, but while Joop is ordering the one gipsy boy about, telling him where to start cutting, he takes time showing me how to sever the ripe bunches from their main stem. Soon they’re dropping regularly into my bucket. When it’s almost full, he gives me a liquorice dropje - a sweet that turns tongues purple-black. Does he think I’m a liar too?

  “Don’t speak to that young Roma,” he says, before leaving me. “He’s

  nervous.”

  “Nervous? Why?”

  “Sssh. Just do as I say.”

  But the Roma boy keeps staring at me with his big, brown eyes, from over the tops of the vines. I make sure to keep out of his way in case I get into trouble. But just as I’m about to take my bucket over to the big collecting basket, I realise he’s right beside me. His smell is sweat and sweetness. He’s been devouring our crop, I can tell by the stains on his collarless shirt, on his baggy trousers. He speaks differently to us; so softly I can barely hear him above the noise of the truck come to collect the baskets for the cuvier where grapes will be weighed, and all the domaine owners paid.

  “Three crows have just passed over you just now,” he says. “Didn’t you see them?”

  “Stupid, greedy birds. So what?”

  “A warning to you, young one. Three spells death.”

  “Where?”

  “Within their territory, that is all I know. I’ve come south from Limoges where the cattle trucks took thousands of our kind away to the east. People who didn’t fit in. Were different. I kept seeing three crows wherever I went, and everybody died.”

  I shiver.

  “Where do you live now?”

  “Villedieu, with others of my race. Most of my kin are gone. At least I have a roof over my head and your family have given me work. Given me a chance.”

  Christian’s watching. I drag my bucket to the truck, and when I look back, the grape-eater has gone. Then Moeder appears, carrying a big jug of water and tin mugs for everyone. Daniel Boussioux isn’t here today, and where is Jeanne Tremblant? One of our best pickers.

  I notice how Joop has worked differently from Vader and Christian, ever since Wednesday, often staring at the ground, then at me, just like that gipsy. He kicks the soil with the heels of his boots, and often crawls under the vines’ lowest branches. If he’s looking for that parcel, he won’t find it this way. He’s wasting his time, and yesterday Vader asked him what he was up to. Why couldn’t he simply do his job like Christian and the Roma?

  I take my empty mug back to Moeder, whose hair has come loose in the wind, wrapping itself around her neck.

  “What’s the name of that Roma boy who always wears a green scarf?” I ask her.

  “Brishen Petsha, Why?”

  “Nothing.” Another lie.

  Now whenever I look up and see three crows overhead, I wonder if he’s right.

  *

  At midday, when all the morning’s baskets have been taken away, Daniel Boussioux pushes his skinny body through a gap in Jeanne Tremblant’s hedge. His pepper-red face and the beard begun on September 1st make him look like one of those wild tziganes who hide out in the hills.

  “Shalom!” he yells with laughter, hauling up his breeches in need of a belt. It’s a word I’ve not heard before. Joop spits on the ground in disgust.

  “Allez!” shouts Vader at our neighbour. “You’re not welcome here after the liberties you’ve taken.”

  “At least I’m not a murderer.” Those fearsome eyes roam from one to the other of us, and I hold Moeder’s hand, disappointed at the way she expects Vader to make everything better.

  “And one of us is?”

  “It’s possible. Jeanne Tremblant’s dead. In her well. Chopped up in little bits like dog meat.”

&n
bsp; Dog meat...

  I have to sit down on the sharp vine stalks, while in the silence, Joop pockets his knife and unfastens his rifle. His foxy face is tight, angry.

  “Why?” I say. “She’s never hurt anyone. If it’s true, it’s terrible.”

  Vader signals me to shut up. “Joop, I’ll go over there with your brother. You and Liesbet rake up the leftover grapes.” He looks at Moeder. “You too, then we might still finish tomorrow.”

  But once they’re gone, with the peasant leading the way, she collects the tray and goes indoors, pale. In shock. Joop then pulls me up by the ear to walk me three rows further away, out of sight of our farmhouse. “What did that filthy pup say to you?”

  “What pup?”

  “Brishen Petsha.”

  “Nothing.”

  He pinches my ear lobe so hard, it stings like a scorpion’s bite. I feel faint.

  “Did he ask about the package?”

  I shake my head. Shivering in the mad wind.

  “Unless you show me where it is, you’ll go the same way as Jeanne Tremblant. Is that what you want?” He knocks Moeder’s knife from my hand. His teeth on show. Teeth that can draw blood. “Is it? Dog meat, all cut up. Cut, cut, cut... ”

  *

  I’m breatless from running away along the rough track behind our farmhouse, up the slope, high enough to see the top of our roof. Vader and Christian are running too. But not for their lives...

  Our chimney’s sour, black smoke goes straight up my nose. Old vine roots become flakes of ash.

  Remember, remember...

  I’d tried lots of different hiding places, but none seemed safe enough. When I’d opened the parcel’s rubber casing decorated by a bright, white angel with outspread wings, and seen what had lain inside, my pulse had become a loud drum beat as I wondered why my brother could possibly need that fortune. Why not for everyone? But there was something so enormously secret and dangerous about it, that Moeder came to mind. She could at last have nice clothes and money in her purse that Vader never gave her. That’s what God and all His other angels knew. I was keeping His holy will and commandments and would walk in the same all the days of my life. The same as I promised in catechism class last Sunday. Just my brother and me together in the deadly cold Lady Chapel.

  *

  “I’m right behind you!” Joop jabs his rifle in my back as I finally reach the cabane we never use any more. “So no more tricks.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “Move, for Christ’s sake. Or else.” He’s never blasphemed before. At least, not in front of me. “Dog meat, all cut up. Remember? Remember?” He makes vile noises to match as the wind rocks the old cabane’s walls, moaning through the cracks between its stones. I’m staring at the filthy floor. Bird feathers, bird bones, faded magazines and a bent olive fork. I’m digging as fast as I can. My hands boiling hot inside Moeder’s big gloves. He’s next to me. We’re like two hounds. Spit dangling from our mouths.

  “I found a hundred franc note under your bed yesterday,” he says. His voice as dark as that soil now up to his wrists. “That’s when I knew. And if,” he leans back to pull his own knife from his pocket, “you so much as breathe a word about this to anyone now or in future, imagine your hands with no fingers. Your toes off your feet, legs and arms from your body. Your head from your neck. Imagine...”

  Chapter 54. John.

  Forgoing my trip to the small Jewish cemetery outside Villedieu, I rejoined the valley road south to Perpignan and bought a bunch of yellow tulips from a roadside vendor. With my head full of the shifty Father Diderot and his regular visitor to Les Platanes, I left a message for either Capitaine Serrado or Lieutenant Vollard to check the ex-priest’s phone calls from his room there and to chase up Madame Ricard Suzman number two.

  I soon reached the Clinique Sablon and as before, parked in the shade of one of its mature palm trees. Even with two guards on overlapping shifts, Karen was vulnerable. Being in the CID for most of my adult life, taught me how people can create as many personae for themselves as there are grains of sand. The problem for detectives and forensic psychologists was deciding who was for real or not. I’d followed hunches, especially with murder suspects, and often it was the outwardly benign who’d wreaked the most terror. Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t got rich for nothing...

  Had nervous Mireille Petsha been none other than someone sent to sidle up to me? And Violette Arbrus an informer for the Suzmans who, along with Father Diderot, still hadn’t been traced? And what about Karen herself? How much about her did I really know?

  *

  Having alarmed my Volvo and brushed the clinging dust from Les Chanterelles from George’s cast-off coat, I stepped into the Clinic’s cool vestibule fitted with discreet cameras. Under the scrutiny of a black receptionist whom I’d not seen before, I signed in. Time was short, but being here in person was better than a phone call. Just in case…

  The Visitors’ Book showed that Thea Oudekerk had checked out just after we’d met, giving the Hôtel d’Or in the city as her base. Perhaps planning another trip here later in the day.

  “Has anyone shown any interest in this?” I pointed to her details.

  “Couldn’t say. Only just got here.”

  “Right.” Then I added, “given the security around Dr.Karen Fürst in your Intensive Care Unit, shouldn’t this be less public? Could visitors give you their details verbally, and you write them down out of sight?”

  She rolled her eyes. “OK. I’ll ask my boss.”

  But the fact that anyone could have seen where that desperate mother was located,

  still bothered me as I took the empty lift upwards, de-creasing the gift-wrap

  around the tulips.

  *

  With my heart on a roll, I once again walked into the Intensive Care Unit and introduced myself to an armed, youngish ex- Lieutenant Louis Cordier who’d just replaced Jacques Anniot.

  Having studied my ID card and learnt of my relationship to the vulnerable patient, news of a significant development buzzed in the air. Karen’s nurse was bending over her, listening closely.

  “She’s definitely trying to say something,” while a series of small grunts escaped those unpainted lips. “And there seems to be feeling in both her ankles...”

  Perhaps at last, a buried clue might emerge. Enough to reel in the callous perps; get a result. But, please God, not about me. Perjury’s shadow still lurked too damned close.

  “That’s great news,” I replied to the nurse’s back. “And I wish I could stop here a while, but if Dr. Fürst does say anything about her family or the Suzmans or whoever might have tried to kill her, please ask Lieutenant Cordier here to record it Also, Capitaine Anniot later on.”

  “Sure.”

  I then arranged the tulips in a nearby vase, Sunshine turned their petals pale gold like part of a stained-glass window. I wanted to stay, but had places to go, and tomorrow, a plane to catch.

  A risk I must take.

  I then joined Lieutenant Cordier as he watched the nearby corridor.

  “Just to warn you that a Father Léon Diderot - former priest at Villedieu, may try and pay Dr. Fürst a visit,” I began. “Sixty-seven, thin, balding, rust-brown hair, veined skin and new acrylic teeth.”

  Cordier made a note. “Sounds a bit special.”

  “Seems he’s been mixed up with the Suzmans since the Occupation. Could be lethal. Lieutenant Vollard at Saint-Antoine will fill you in.”

  “Got it.” He slotted his pad and pen into an inside pocket. A discreet gun belt housing his Browning came into view. “Why’s she so important to this Father Diderot?”

  I hesitated. Still paranoid.

  “He’s possibly Joop Maurits Ryjkel, her long-lost older brother. An even longer story.”

  Cordier whistled between his teeth. Stepped back to allow another full trolley

  to roll by. The poor old guy strapped to it, looked dead already.

  “Bad blood, hein?”

  “I�
�ll phone here around 18:00 hours.”

  “Jacques will be back on then. And Sister Sichel. She’s new.”

  “Good. I’ll also look in again tomorrow morning.” I almost added ‘before my flight,’ but thought better of it.

  “No problem. By the way, another card came for your friend about half an hour ago. It was left at Reception then went to Haematology by mistake.

  Hand-delivered?

  “I’ve got it.”

  He reached into a slimline, canvas holdall and, taking care not to add his own prints, produced a large, pink envelope bearing Liesbet Ryjkel’s name. Inside lay an obviously expensive greeting card showing a print of three red poppies .

  NOUS VOUS VOULONS TOUS UNE REPRISE COMPLÊTE.

  The message wished her a full recovery. But who were the ‘we?’ And the longer I sared at those poppies, they grew in significance until nstinct told me to visit a certain house in Villedieu, while it was still empty.

  “Why doesn’t Dr. Fürst use her Dutch name?” Queried the lieutenant.

  “Would you, if someone wanted to kill you?”

  *

  Away from Villedieu’s attractive main square, its streets grew meaner. Pot-holed tarmac, dog shit a-plenty, and rubbish bound up with old leaves clogged the drains. 44, Rue des Coquelicots with its four closed sun-bleached shutters was modest and anonymous. If owned by the Church, it would hardly have broken their bank. Perhaps the incumbent had refused a vicarage on principle. Dutch Protestantism lingering. Whatever. Too many threads remained unconnected, and from a coven of liars, a frightening picture was emerging.

  *

  Rather than linger by its front door, I walked on until the terrace ended with a wired-off plot, home to a dusty palm tree and several skinny hounds sprawled in the sun, barely blinking. I finally reached the rear of the house, wondering if that little funeral party had been intercepted. Also, how that slippery, old priest could possibly be connected to Karen, thirty kilometres away, hovering between life and death.

  Only one person might know, but she’d no landline phone, and there wasn’t time to visit her again. However, I could use the Poste Restante in Banyuls as she’d suggested. Also call in again on the useful Violette Arbrus at the Café Columbine.