The Guardian of Lies

by Kate Furnivall

  Nothing.

  Oh so careful, Gilles Bertin.

  That was when I put my fingers in his jacket pocket. The tips of two were neatly slit open. Yet when I searched the rest of the suit, it had nothing to hide. A nasty trick, Gilles Bertin.

  The house was pleasant enough, two storeys, tiled floors, plain unobtrusive furniture. But the wardrobe scared me because alongside the jacket with its secret weapon hung four Galeries Lafayette shirts, two black, two white, identical size and style, all normal enough so far. And then one navy-blue shirt. Cheap cotton. Two sizes larger.

  It belonged to someone else. And I could only think of one someone else. A man with pale skin and spiky black eyebrows in a straight line above a large nose. Eyes cold as stone. A man whose name was Maurice Piquet, the bastard who’d wanted to rip my cheek off in the hospital. I slammed shut the wardrobe door.

  Hurry.

  I raced through the rest of my search. Under the mattress, inside the pillowcase. Behind two boring pictures on the wall. A quick check on the underside of seats and tables. In the oven. The bathroom cabinet. Inside the high lavatory cistern and at full stretch I managed to squeeze a hand behind it.

  An envelope slid into my hand.

  Dislodged from its hiding place behind the cistern. For a second I stared at it, stupefied. Caught by surprise. Like I was caught by surprise by a grey van one night in Paris. I had a bright red flashback of memory to the strings of blood smacking me in the face as I spun upside down in my car. I blinked hard and wished that just for once my memory would tell me lies.

  I slumped down on the closed toilet seat and with no warning my body suddenly ached for Léon. To have him here. Beside me. His grey eyes calm. I murmured his name, like honey on my tongue, and then I removed the contents of the envelope.

  A bunch of photographs fell on to my lap. Images of aircraft. Landing. Taking off. Taxiing. Fighters parked on the apron. All at Dumoulin Air Base and I had to stifle a whoop of success. On the back of each was written the date and the name of the aircraft: Boeing B-50, F-84 Thunderjet, C-47 Skytrain. Singly and in formation. All taken in the last week with a long lens. I scooped out my Minox camera from my bag and as I set about photographing each one I had a sense of a suffocating fog starting to lift. A light flickered ahead for the first time because in my hand I was cradling proof that Gilles Bertin was gathering Intelligence information for his Soviet masters.

  I would go to Léon with it. He would know who to contact. Gilles Bertin would go to prison, where he would be guillotined as a traitor. André would be safe. It would be the end.

  My mind clutched on tight to that thought and a bubble of relief began to rise in my chest. I thrust the photographs back in their hiding place and took one last look in each room to see if I’d missed anything.

  Afterwards, I wished I hadn’t.

  His bed was not flat against the wall. I’d not noticed it before. The wooden bedhead was at a slight angle as though someone had reached behind it. I could have walked out. I should have walked out. Bertin – or, worse, Piquet – might return at any moment and I needed to get away from there fast.

  But it was too tempting. I hurried over and yanked the bed away from the wall to see behind it. Taped to the back of the bedhead was a black leather-zipped pouch. A voice in my head told me to back off, to leave it there. Walk away. Don’t touch.

  Don’t jump that fence.

  Don’t climb that roof.

  Don’t take that risk.

  Don’t break into a mayor’s desk.

  Since when had I listened to that voice?

  I snatched the pouch from its position and unzipped it. I felt a twinge of disappointment. Inside lay more photographs and I lifted them out. At least fifty. But these were not of bombers and fighters or anti-aircraft guns.

  These were all of me.

  *

  I stared at myself spread out on the floor. Fifty of me. Time took an odd lurch and I wanted to rewind it, to put it back where it belonged. I couldn’t tell whether it was fear or anger that curdled in my stomach.

  There were pictures of me going about my life unawares. Images of me entering the police station with a basket of eggs for Léon, of me perched on the fountain watching the protest march in Serriac, of me striding out of the church with a keen sense of purpose. Me with a scarf over the lower half of my face shovelling the burnt remains of the stables. Me walking Cosette across the yard. And worst of all: me kneeling with blood on my hands and a face twisted by grief beside the body of Mickey in the street.

  Me. Again and again.

  A darkness spread across the back of my mind. How dare he? How dare Gilles Bertin invade ever y moment of my life?

  The close-ups were the worst. My eyes. My scar. My hair. My mouth. I wanted to tear them into a thousand pieces. Too intimate. Too private. Too intense.

  Why? Why all these images of me?

  Time abruptly clicked back into place and I bundled up all the photographs into a neat pile, hands jittering. I swore long and loud, then put ever ything back the way I’d found it and left the house with a sense of relief. Like coming up for air.

  Outside, the sky loomed huge and spectacularly blue over the town of Arles, but in my head lay a darkness I couldn’t shift.

  *

  ‘Eloïse.’

  The voice stunned me. I whipped round.

  ‘Clarisse!’

  My boss was sitting, legs elegantly crossed, at a pavement café I had just passed, wearing a st ylish lilac dress and ver y dark sunglasses. Cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, she looked like an exotic bird of paradise in a chicken coop. She was beaming at me, looking pleased with herself.

  ‘Clarisse, what on earth are you doing in Arles?’

  ‘I’ve been worried about you, so I popped down. God, you look grim, chérie, and what is that gruesome peasant attire you are wearing?’

  I laughed and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘It’s so good to see you, boss.’

  She swept me on to a chair next to hers and demanded an immediate coffee and cognac from an overawed waiter.

  ‘What the devil have you been doing down here, chérie? You look as if you haven’t slept since you left Paris.’

  ‘That’s because I’m missing being bossed around by you.’

  She chuckled and a corner of it trickled into me, slowing my pulse.

  ‘You, on the other hand,’ I said, ‘are a treat to look at and I hope you aren’t rushing back to Paris. You can stay at the farm if you like.’

  She pulled a horrified face, the kind of face that showed her age. ‘Eloïse, I would rather tear out my eyelashes than sleep with bulls.’ She fanned her cheeks with diva distress. ‘No, my sweet, I am booked into the Hôtel Jules César on Boulevard des Lices, so that I don’t have to step over cowpats at breakfast.’

  My drink arrived. I skipped the coffee and went straight for the cognac. Clarisse watched me. When I replaced the empty glass, she nodded.

  ‘You needed that.’

  ‘I did.’

  The heat inside helped. It steadied my hand. The amber liquid was melting the frozen image of the photographs spread out on the floor. My eyes scoured the street for a camera, but I saw none. That meant nothing.

  ‘A bit jumpy, chérie?’

  ‘What have you found out, Clarisse, that brings you scuttling down to the land of bulls and mosquitoes the size of a hand-grenade?’

  She gave a mock shudder and drew hard on her cigarette. ‘I came to help you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said softly. ‘I’m grateful.’ I squeezed her hand because I knew she wouldn’t welcome the bear hug I was tempted to give her.

  I rose to my feet as she stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Not here in the street,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to your hotel.’

  *

  ‘I’ve done more digging,’ Clarisse announced.

  ‘By the look of that grin on your face, you hit paydirt.’

  ‘I don’t grin, chérie. I smile graciously.’

&nb
sp; ‘Tell me what you found.’

  Clarisse ran a satisfied hand over her light-brown hair that was twisted into a sleek coil at her nape. Her green eyes were fierce in a way that belied her indolent manner and I wondered what was coming.

  ‘It’s your mayor,’ she said. ‘Cousin to Gilles Bertin.’

  ‘Charles Durand?’

  ‘Yes. He’s not what he seems.’

  ‘A smooth-talking money-maker who stands for election on a moderate Socialist ticket.’ I didn’t mention the word ‘blackmailer’.

  ‘Exactly.’ She sipped her coffee and glanced approvingly around the elegant room with its handsome scrollwork and polished mahogany. ‘Nice hotel. What’s its history?’

  ‘It used to be a Carmelite convent.’ I shook my head at her. ‘Don’t tease. What is Charles Durand hiding?’

  ‘It seems he used to be a rabid Communist in his youth and early adulthood.’

  ‘Really? I’ve never heard that before. He keeps it very quiet.’

  Clarisse smiled slyly. ‘Clearly he had a change of heart, a Road-to-Damascus moment, and became a dedicated businessman instead.’

  ‘Who lends money to farmers at exorbitant rates and when they can’t repay, he repossesses their land and builds on it.’

  ‘Which he would never do if he were a Communist, would he?’ She paused to blow softly on her coffee. ‘Unless . . .’

  Our gazes locked on each other. ‘Unless,’ I finished, ‘he is a sleeper.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Mas Caussade never looked more welcoming.

  I’d shot home from Arles as fast as my tin-can car would go. If anyone was following me, I didn’t spot them, but I saw no point in anyone following me as it was obvious where I was heading. I had run home.

  There was a flurr y of activity around the house, with new stables going up already, hammers and saws and the clean fresh scent of new wood. My father was among the builders, banging in nails and giving orders. I stood and observed him for a few minutes. He looked happy to be making a new home for his beloved white horses, more cheerful than around me or André. Someone had trimmed his beard.

  The dogs lazed in the shade, eyes never leaving Papa, and a handful of hens and ducks scratched in the dirt, bickering with one another. A row of crows sat on the barn roof like grubby urchins on a wall, waiting for a chance to snatch at any beetles fool enough to make a run from the stable. The sight of it all stirred something in me, the part of me I’d long forgotten that was moulded out of Camarguais black earth.

  I turned my back on it and hurried into the house. I closed the door behind me with a resounding slam and in the gloomy hallway I leaned my cheek against the wall. I could hear the house breathe and gradually my own breathing slowed to its pace. I felt Mas Caussade wrap itself around me once more.

  It was my home whether I wanted it or not. It offered me security. It offered me shelter. It offered me somewhere to lick my wounds, and for a blind moment I let myself believe it.

  But I pushed myself away from the wall, brushing its touch from my cheek. It was all lies. It hadn’t saved Goliath and it hadn’t protected Cosette. So why should I believe for one second that it would save me from what was coming?

  *

  André didn’t look pleased to see me. His room was stifling hot. There was a milky sheen of sweat on his skin that made me guess he had been exercising too strenuously again. I wished he would go outdoors and let the sun and the smells and the sight of the bulls get to work on him.

  Or was I wrong? Had he been doing something he didn’t wish me to know? He’d told me he trusted me. Was he lying? One more lie shuffled unseen among all the others. How could I help my brother if he wouldn’t help me?

  ‘The drop went smoothly,’ I told him.

  ‘I was sure it would.’

  He was standing at the window, reluctant to take his eyes from it. What was he watching? My father and the gardians rebuilding the stables?

  Or something else? Someone else?

  I came forward to stand beside him. ‘I found the drop site easily,’ I said, ‘inserted the envelope and left immediately, as instructed.’ I followed his line of sight out into the courtyard and beyond into the fields. A pushy group of young bulls were shoulder-barging each other, testing their strength.

  Their strength. So effortless. Is that what he stood here and hungered for?

  ‘Thank you, Eloïse. You did well.’

  ‘When will it be picked up?’

  ‘That’s not your business.’ He softened his words with an apologetic smile, but it didn’t stretch far. ‘You’ve performed extremely professionally. Finding the plans. Photographing them. The DLD. I can rely on my “legs” to do their job.’

  ‘I am going riding with one of the airmen tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. The more we can become familiar with the air base the better. Of course, they have their own internal security but even that is compromised until we find the source of the leak.’

  ‘What are we going to do about the mayor?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment. First we find where the leak of information is coming from. Mayor Durand will be of use to us in doing that.’ André stopped speaking and studied me thoughtfully from head to toe. I suffered the scrutiny uneasily.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. It went well.’

  ‘Did anything else happen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. So you can relax.’

  ‘One thing did occur to me while I was driving home.’

  His teeth showed. ‘I knew there was something.’

  ‘I was running through the film negative again in my head.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I think there was someone in the street crowd that I recognise.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man from the hospital. The one with eyes of stone. Maurice Piquet.’

  I might as well have stuck the knife in him there and then. I wished I could take the words back because his already pale skin turned paper-white. His hand encircled my wrist.

  ‘How am I going to save you, Eloïse?’ he whispered.

  He released his hold and stared out of the window once more, but this time his gaze was directed towards the huge tamarisk tree with its dense mass of pink flowers that grew just beyond the courtyard. Was he expecting someone to be hiding behind its trunk?

  ‘André, do you mean that it was Piquet who was driving the van?’

  There was no need to say which van. For us there was only one.

  Without shifting his gaze he replied, ‘If Piquet is down here, you must go back to Paris.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  Slowly, thoughtfully, he turned to face me. ‘Then one of us is going to have to kill Maurice Piquet.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Major Joel Dirke rode well. He rode like a man who was born in the saddle. I watched him come alive on horseback, the military stiffness washing out of his backbone with every kilometre we rode deeper into the Camargue wetlands.

  I chose Tonnerre for him. He is one of Papa’s largest riding stallions, a fine proud animal of immense stamina, but picky about whom he likes on his back. He liked Joel Dirke. That was obvious from the start, and they made a good pairing, both handsome and intelligent and with a way of looking at you that made you think twice about cutting any corners.

  ‘I’m glad to see you ride Western-style down here,’ he said. ‘Like back home in Texas.’

  ‘It’s the only way to work livestock, using heavy-duty stirrups and both reins in one hand. Our horses,’ I patted the strong neck of my horse Achille, ‘are trained to neck-reining. He may be small but he has the heart of a lion when cutting a bull out of the herd, and can turn on a centime.’

  ‘Smart too, I can tell.’ He tapped the side of his head to emphasise the point. This was a man who valued intelligence even in his animals.<
br />
  ‘Oh yes, you don’t want to mess with these horses or they’ll have you on the ground before you can say merde.’

  He laughed and squeezed Tonnerre into a trot as we crossed a wide-open expanse of land lined with dogwood and a small waterway. Our approach sent a cloud of dragonflies and damselflies teeming up into the air, brilliant emperors and scarlet darters that shimmered brighter than jewels in the sunlight. The marshlands were wild and raw, stretching unchecked all the way to the sea where they turned into salt-flats from which salt had been harvested since Roman times. But the landscape was not the only thing round here that was wild and raw. Its bulls. Its horses. Its people.

  We may look tame. But don’t be fooled by looks.

  I didn’t question him. Didn’t pester him. I let the peace and the quiet soak into him, waited for it to blur his mental sharpness and steal all trace of wariness from this alert military man. In his denim shirt, cowboy hat and pointed cowboy boots he was putting on a show for me. But that was fine. Because I was putting on a show for him.

  After a long and exhilarating canter along a trail through the marsh, broad hooves flinging spray up over us in a kaleidoscope of rainbows, Joel Dirke gently reined in his horse and brought it to a halt. He was gazing ahead, transfixed. I experienced a quick pulse of alarm. What had caught his attention? I squinted against the sun as it dipped lower in the flat blue sky and released a laugh of relief. It was the sea lavender. Ahead of us it stretched in a great swathe of flowers, as if Van Gogh had taken his paintbrush and daubed the landscape purple.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he murmured, his Southern drawl extending the word. ‘Right now in Texas the land is yellow and parched.’ A gleaming white egret swept into view, skimming the lavender, perfecting the painting. ‘Is this why you brought me here?’

  ‘I brought you here because I thought you’d like to see the flamingos in the lagoons. It must be tough living in camp all the time.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, those Thunderjet flights setting off on patrol early morning sure blast us right out of bed every day.’

  I smiled. ‘And you said you missed your horses. I know that feeling. When I’m in Paris I miss them.’