‘Albert …’ muttered St-Cyr to himself. ‘Ah merde, Hermann,’ he yelled. ‘Keep your light on them!’
Spreadeagled next to the lower edge of the roof, the groundskeeper’s son clung by one gloved hand to Henri-Claude who, in turn, clung bare-handed to one of the flagpoles.
‘I didn’t tell them anything! what vans?’ shrieked Albert. ‘I’m not hearing you?’
‘You keep that mouth of yours shut or else!’ cried Ferbrave.
‘Can’t shut what isn’t open!’
‘Who used that knife and then dropped it?’
‘Vipère! serpent! I’m not listening!’
‘Then fly, asshole. fly!’
Ah no … No! The roof was slippery, the rope loose, but was it long enough or too long? wondered St-Cyr.
Careering down over the ridges and hollows, he tried to slow himself by turning sideways, wasn’t going to reach them, was going to shoot right past …
Snatching at Albert’s ankles, he grabbed one and hung on as the rope tightened. Ferbrave winced at the strain. A moment passed and then another. ‘Hermann, take up the slack!’
‘Now pray, messieurs. You, Henri-Claude, that he doesn’t fall to his death and walk you to the guillotine; and you, Albert, because we need you.’
‘I don’t know who dropped that knife in the shit. I don’t know anything about the vans. I thought I did but can’t remember.’
Inès blinked and blinked hard but still couldn’t see a thing. The door St-Cyr and Kohler had broken in was almost closed, but a wedge of light flooded out from an office of some kind, precious light that lifted her spirits and made her feel whole again.
Deschambeault and his son were in there – she knew this for she’d heard them arguing, their voices always muffled. But now they, like her, had to listen as, with agonizing slowness, Herr Kohler pulled his partner and Albert back up the roof.
Ferbrave had been left for the moment – he must have been, but where, exactly, he was located she couldn’t tell and that, she warned herself, was a worry.
Pressing a cheek against the wall, she strained to hear the sousdirecteur and his son above the noises from the roof.
‘Jean-Guy, it’s got to stop. Things are getting far too close,’ said the elder Deschambeault.
‘Stop, mon père?’
‘Merde, imbécile, must you taunt me at a time like this? One van and no one was the wiser, but then another and another and what am I to do now, eh? Go to the Maréchal and beg forgiveness when there are assassins about? Assassins, Jean-Guy!’
‘Résistants?’
‘It’s possible. Those people from Paris also. Doriot or Déat may have sent in the Intervention-Referat or the Bickler Unit to teach us a little lesson.’
The son took a moment to consider this, felt Inès, then she heard him asking suspiciously, ‘Did you inform Secrétaire Général Bousquet of your concern?’
‘Pah! Don’t be a fool. He’s the one who suggested it and knows far more about them than I do!’
Again the son took his time to reply but now there was sarcasm. ‘You worry too much, Papa.’
‘Will you never learn?’ demanded the sous-directeur. ‘Lucie’s dead. It’s over. Will that not satisfy you and that … that mother of yours?’
That bitch of a mother? she could hear the son thinking.
‘Maman hasn’t yet heard of your loss, and neither have Thérèse or Martine. Was it a boy or a girl that putain of yours dropped?’
Ah merde!
‘Bâtard, how can you speak to me like that? I who brought you here from Paris and saw that you were given the position you have? You were always the lanterne rouge of the class, Jean-Guy.’ The rear light. ‘Failure at mathematics, at chemistry, at everything else. This job, that job. Gambling, losing, cheating, lying. Mon Dieu, the number of times I’ve had to cover for you, yet you treat me like this? Ah! I admit you’re good at what you do here. One of the best. And perhaps in time, when this Occupation is over and things settle down, these stables will be yours.’
Sugar there. Some sugar, thought Inès.
‘What is it, then, that you want, Papa, the olive branch?’
‘You know very well. Quit visiting that brothel Ferbrave knows you visit because it’s his also. Leave it and stop all use of the vans. Tell the drivers they’ll continue to receive their extra wages for the long runs but are to keep silent or face immediate dismissal. Enough is enough, Jean-Guy. Good while it lasted. Oh bien sûr, but finished for now because it has to be.’
‘And Lucie?’
‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Admit it, she was trouble.’
‘Trouble? Tell your mother I’ll visit her soon. All right, tell her I’ll even sleep with her if that will satisfy her.’
Again the son took his time before saying, ‘Broken fences are never easy to mend.’
‘And that doctor of hers? That quack who claims to calm her at my expense?’ hissed the father. ‘What part has he had in breaking those same fences, eh?’
‘Has he been fucking her – is that what you think?’
‘You know it isn’t, but why should I care, eh?’
‘She’s very ill,’ said Jean-Guy. ‘Why can’t you realize she’s psychotic? Torn by delusions, lives in hell because of you and your mistresses! Not just Lucie. The others before her!’
Still they hadn’t raised their voices. ‘How self-righteous you are,’ said the elder Deschambeault. ‘You who prefer the tenderest.’
Girls of fourteen and fifteen, said Inès to herself.
‘Ménétrel knows that “quack” as you call him, father. Everything Maman has ever said to Dr Normand has been repeated to Ménétrel.’
The father must have been taken aback, for he hesitated and then asked suspiciously, ‘Have you seen him there when you visited her?’
Perhaps the son smiled. ‘Of course. Thérèse and Martine have also seen him at the clinic with Dr Normand, discussing Mother’s progress.’
‘And Lucie?’
‘Most certainly.’
‘At Chez Crusoe and the parties at the chateau?’ asked the sous-directeur.
‘Just as he makes a point of knowing everything else, Ménétrel knows, Papa.’
‘Because you told him? Or was it Thérèse or Martine?’ shot the elder Deschambeault.
‘I didn’t!’ retorted the son. ‘I can’t, of course, vouch for my sisters whose eyebrows are always raised when they speak of their father having sex with his latest, but in any case, since none of us ever attended any of those “sessions” at the chateau, how could we possibly have known of what went on?’
‘Sessions? Meetings of the board, idiot! Nom de Dieu, you must hate me.’
‘Not at all. I simply know you.’
Again the father paused. ‘Then tell Ferbrave he’d better find out everything he can from Albert before taking care of him. We can’t have the rat-catcher coughing up our blood to those two from Paris.’
‘And Henri-Claude?’
‘Must be told that it has to end, Jean-Guy, that I won’t submit to blackmail from him or anyone, and that if he doesn’t stop, I will go straight to Herr Gessler with things our Garde Mobile would rather not have the Gestapo hear.’
Inès nudged the door open a little farther. Both were standing, the father and son facing each other across the latter’s desk, but the sous-directeur’s back was to her and this partly blocked Jean-Guy from catching sight of her.
Silver trophies and ribbons adorned the shelves beyond them. Paintings of famous racehorses hung on the walls, a map of the course and grounds, one of the town of Vichy too.
Jean-Guy Deschambeault wore the buttoned-up, burnt-umber, single-breasted jacket she’d been told he would. Beneath it there was the charcoal turtleneck pullover he often favoured and yes, the whipcord breeches were of a soft shade of olive, and yes, the tan riding boots were well greased and polished.
No spurs, not now. No sand-coloured, tweed go
lf cap either.
Thirty years old, he was unmarried because he chose to be, but never lacked girlfriends who were willing enough, though none had been able to give him what that maison de tolérance could and did. Blue-eyed and handsome, of more than medium height, he was well built, masculine, ah yes, a polo player too, with thick, wavy, curly dark chestnut hair and the bluish four-o’clock shadow of one who often shaves but can never quite dispel that mildly dissipated playboy image. Cold, too, Inès reminded herself, but utterly charming in his own right when he wanted to be.
The two had stopped talking. The noise from the roof had ceased. Now there was only that of the flags.
‘Mademoiselle, what did you overhear?’ came a whisper.
Someone had switched on the corridor lights. Ah merde, it was St-Cyr, standing so close to her she could feel the icy breath of him and see the suppurating, black-stitched, throbbing bulge above his half-closed left eye. Behind him at a distance was Albert Grenier, behind that one, Henri-Claude Ferbrave and lastly Herr Kohler. ‘Nothing. I … I was looking for you. Albert,’ she tried. ‘Albert, are you all right?’
‘Inside, I think. Take a seat while we warm ourselves at the stove. Compose yourself, Mademoiselle Charpentier. You’ve had a terrible fright and are perhaps still in shock, but please prepare your answers better.’
The nineteenth-century, cast-iron stove in the office was decorated with a pair of turtledoves that drank from a birdbath above its little door, and through the mica windows Inès could see the flames. Herr Kohler had sat right next to her on the leather sofa but Albert hadn’t wanted to sit anywhere else and had tried to ask him to move over. He’d refused, of course, and had deliberately driven poor Albert to tears, causing him to abruptly turn his back to them and sit down anyway, squeezing himself between them and satisfying Herr Kohler as to exactly how close a relationship she had managed to establish with the groundskeeper’s son.
These days such friendships were often automatic, the old and the young enjoying each other’s company as if their differences in age were of no consequence. Sculptresses of twenty-eight and boys, young men of what? she asked herself. With Albert it was so hard to tell. Thirteen perhaps, or six or seven, but sometimes a young man. And yes, both Kohler and St-Cyr thought she’d deliberately formed the friendship. And yes, she had to remind herself, Albert can be difficult. I must be careful.
St-Cyr had remained standing halfway between the desk and stove. He had helped himself to the container of pipe tobacco, even filling both pouch and pipe, and had offered his partner a cigar from the humidor, a Choix Supreme no doubt, which had yet to be lit. Hadn’t offered one to the father who now sat stonily in one of the club chairs, the son tense and watchful behind that desk of his.
A bottle of the local marc had been found but this had been rejected by St-Cyr. ‘The Louis XIII,’ he had insisted. ‘The 1925.’
It hadn’t been available.
‘Inspector …’ hazarded the elder Deschambeault.
St-Cyr turned on him.
‘It’s Chief Inspector, Sous-directeur. Let’s observe the formalities since this is an official inquiry and you are now under suspicion also of trafficking.’
‘Jésus, merde alors, what the hell is the matter with you? A few cigars, a couple of bottles of champagne – gifts I’d managed to find in Paris for an old and very dear friend?’
‘The 1925 Bollinger Cuvée Spéciale? Need I remind you that Mademoiselle Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux had been drinking that when found in the bath she shared with your colleague, Alain Andre Richard, Minister of Supplies and Rationing?’
‘Look, I … I know nothing of this. Bousquet would never have told me what was in her stomach. Mon Dieu, why would he?’
‘Inspector Kohler, please record what has just been said and get him to sign and date it,’ said St-Cyr.
‘Now listen, you …’
‘No, you listen, monsieur. Last year in the Department of the Seine alone there were over four hundred thousand arrests for violations of the food regulations—that is, for illegally buying and selling on the marché noir. The courts and jails are clogged with lampistes. Never the big fish, always the small fry, eh, Hermann, but now we’ve landed one of the biggest!’
In the silence that followed, St-Cyr yanked the cork from the bottle of marc and, finding four cut-glass tumblers, poured goodly measures into all but the last. ‘Albert,’ Inès heard him saying. ‘Albert, mon ami, would you care to join us? It’ll warm you up a little.’
And there’s much that you can tell us, thought Inès.
The big, raw hands, with their thick and stumpy fingers, were suddenly stilled atop the coarse, dark grey woollen gloves in his lap. Dirt lay beneath the cracked nails.
‘He’s trying to bribe me,’ whispered Albert into her right ear. ‘I knew he would!’ The breath of him was warm with the anise he must have been chewing. Anise and garlic.
‘He’d like to join us,’ Inès heard herself saying too loudly, too awkwardly, she felt.
Abruptly a glass was handed to her and another to Albert. ‘This friend?’ went on St-Cyr, sucking on that pipe of his and causing the elder Deschambeault to curse under his breath and look to his son for help that was not forthcoming.
‘The custodian of Herr Abetz’s château,’ said the sous-directeur flatly.
‘His name, please?’
‘Inspector … Chief Inspector, is this really necessary? He can’t have had anything to …’
Kohler knew Louis would tell him that everything was of interest, and smiled when he did.
‘Charles-Frédéric Hébert,’ muttered Deschambeault.
Herr Kohler wrote it down, then flipped back a page in his little black notebook. ‘The parties, Louis,’ he said, not looking up but leaning across Albert’s lap to let her see the entry, the names of Paul and Blanche Varollier, and below the first of these: A deep gouge in the right, wooden sole.
‘Parties? Informal meetings. A few nights of cards, an occasional game of backgammon or chess, Inspector,’ objected the elder Deschambeault. ‘Brief respites from the affairs of state. Chances to discuss matters in private and away from the office. Often it’s best that way.’
‘Was any help called in?’ asked Herr Kohler. Deschambeault was sweating, the son’s expression empty, thought Inès.
‘Help?’ said the father. ‘I really wouldn’t know. One is too busy talking shop. The economy has been a terrible strain, the demands for new policy papers … Surely there’s hardly time to notice the help at such functions?’
‘A translator,’ muttered Herr Kohler, his partner watching everyone’s reactions and filing them away, Inès told herself.
‘My Deutsch is more than sufficient,’ said Deschambeault.
‘Then some of my compatriots attended these little gatherings of yours?’ asked Herr Kohler.
To say, They’re not mine, would be unwise. ‘A few.’
‘Girls?’ asked Kohler.
‘Lucie sometimes accompanied me but found it rather boring.’
‘Birds?’ demanded Herr Kohler.
Salaud! the elder Deschambeault must be thinking, thought Inès, and heard him saying, ‘The custodian keeps a few, but I’ve never seen them.’
A lie for sure, she told herself, chancing a glance at Henri-Claude Ferbrave, who must have torn the skin from the palm of his left hand – frost on bare metal would have done that. He had bandaged the hand with the white scarf he’d worn but now was realizing the silk would cling to the wound …
‘Lucie Trudel,’ sighed St-Cyr, deliberately pausing to relight that pipe of his and to drop the match into the stove. ‘Lucie, Albert. She wanted a bottle of the Chomel.’
‘Her father Was sick!’ yelped Albert. ‘She was co-old.’
‘You took her down into the cellars, to your nest.’
‘She was free-zing!’
Taking him by the hand, Inès gently squeezed his fingers and then knitted her own among them. ‘You’re so very kind, Albert,’ sh
e softly confided. ‘One of the kindest men I’ve ever met. The inspectors mean no harm, so please don’t be afraid. Just try to remember what Mademoiselle Trudel said to you. They’ll want to know. It might be important.’
And why, please, are you taking such an active part in this investigation? wondered St-Cyr.
A little of the untouched marc spilled over the rim of Albert’s glass. ‘Don’t know anything. Can’t remember.’
Merde, one would have to go so carefully and be so very gentle with him, thought St-Cyr, but the presence of Henri-Claude and what had almost happened on the roof was still very much with the boy. ‘You reached up to the board for the key to the Hall des Sources, Albert. Lucie would have seen you do this.’
‘She was cry-ing. She was co-old. I hadn’t put the coffee on. Always I gets to make the …’ Oh-oh, I shouldn’t have said that, said Albert to himself, using the secret voice in his head. Henri-Claude was staring at him and so were Monsieur Jean-Guy and his father. ‘I … I found a clean rag for her and she wiped her eyes.’
Albert had gripped her fingers so tightly he was hurting her. Inès winced, but better to be hurt than to have him take his hand away.
‘You went outside to the Hall,’ continued St-Cyr. ‘You removed the padlock and chain, and opened the door. Could you see her tears then, in the torchlight? You must have had a torch.’
‘Tears?’ yelped Albert. ‘What tears? She had just dried her eyes. Do you think I don’t remember what I said?’
‘Albert, what the Chief Inspector wishes to know is did Lucie tell you anything that might be useful?’
‘Can’t say. Don’t know.’
‘You filled the bottle for her,’ tried St-Cyr.
‘She hugged it. She was free-zing. She said she’d love to have a bathe in it, but …’
‘But was too afraid to go to the établissement thermal?’ he asked.
‘My nurse was drowned there. Now I don’t have my nurse any more. It hurts.’
‘What hurts?’ asked Inès.
‘My back, my shoulders, my spi-ine!’
‘Albert, did Lucie speak to anyone else that morning?’ asked the Chief Inspector, his voice too insistent, Inès felt.
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