‘A house in Monfort-I’Amaury,’ she said stonily.
‘About forty-five kilometres to the west of Paris,’ acknowledged the one called St-Cyr. There was no hint in his voice of the wealth involved.
‘A villa in Paris, in Neuilly on the boulevard Richard Wallace overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. Mother always had the address, since she and my father had sent the trunk there in the late fall of 1912.’
A trunk that would then reappear in an antique shop in Paris thirty years later to spawn a film. A trunk that had since come back to the Dordogne and would soon be opened in the very house where the abbé had left it so long ago.
‘Madame, could your father have come back?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘To kill my mother? Why … why, please, would he do such a thing if … if he was alive? He’s dead. He died on the Marne.’
‘Then why, please, was his flask discovered lying in the bushes near the stream?’
‘I … I don’t know. How could I?’ She blanched.
‘And the cave paintings, madame?’ asked Kohler.
‘The lumps of pyrolusite. Pigments.…’
‘Please, I.…’
‘A film?’ demanded Kohler. ‘Cave art like no other?’
‘You are afraid, madame. Is it that you have done something you now regret or is it that you fear for your life at the hands of another?’
What the hell had she been up to? wondered Kohler. Ah damn, why would she not answer?
‘Messieurs, she has had enough. She needs to rest,’ urged Pialat who had come silently into the room. ‘Please, until tomorrow, yes? It is not much to ask. Rooms have been provided at the hotel where her mother used to stay. She’ll go there with the children. You will each be on one side or the other of her.’
‘Good,’ said St-Cyr testily. ‘That’s perfect.’
‘Louis, we can’t watch her all the time.’
‘Of course not, but at least the word will get out that we are doing so.’
‘Did the champagne come from one of the family’s cellars?’
‘Perhaps, but then was Henri-Georges Fillioux only listed as missing in action and presumed dead? Did he return to Paris but never tell our victim of it?’
‘The poisonous mushrooms,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Madame Fillioux found out he had lied to her. She was about to pay him back for all those years of loneliness and privation.’
‘But why, please, did it take her four years of constant harassment to obtain the marriage in extremis après décès?’
‘Maybe the family didn’t want her demanding her rightful share? Maybe there were others he hadn’t told her about? A son, a daughter, a wife who, accepting his death, had then remarried and didn’t want a fuss.’
There were always so many questions and always there was so little time. ‘Monfort-l’Amaury is extremely pleasant, Hermann, because money makes it so. The house in Paris must be worth a tidy fortune even if it has been requisitioned for the Duration.’
‘Von Strade said there were cave paintings far better than at Lascaux. An international shrine.’
‘Yet the daughter is sent to retrieve a mortar and some lumps of pigment? Was the telephone call the first she knew of those things?’
‘Was our victim a cave-painter, Louis? A forger?’
‘Ah merde, I wish I knew. The Baroness visits the cave with her Toto on the Thursday afternoon. The daughter, who has always held that little valley in respectful awe, hears a woman cry out in ecstasy.’
‘And cannot help but think of her mother and father.’
‘Was Madame Fillioux aware of the plans to make a film of the discovery?’
‘Did she object and the film people not want her interfering?’
‘An amulet, Hermann. Incisions — scratches on a bit of deer-horn. A thong-hole, the first such one in history.’
‘Two primitive figurines in stone. An Adam and an Eve.’
‘Goebbels invests 50,000 marks.’
‘The film is a matter of great urgency. There’s a very tight schedule.’
‘Moment of Discovery is crucial to the war effort.’
‘Why would the daughter bathe in the buff without first having thoroughly checked that valley?’
‘You’re improving. Working with me is good for you.’
‘Did she see him leave, Louis? Is this what she’s afraid to tell us?’
‘Or is it simply what her mother really intended to do with the mushrooms?’
‘Poison the daughter’s husband and poison her own.’
‘Only to be killed herself.’
It was a land of castles where beauty leapt to meet the eye in towering cliffs whose ancient ramparts hugged a treed and placid river, warm yet cool in the early morning light. Franz Oelmann knew the road well and was an excellent driver. Hermann, seemingly content to play the man on holiday, lounged affably on the seat beside him making idle chatter or pointing out some feature far more worthy of the Rhine!
In the back seat of the big touring car, Madame Jouvet had shrunk into a far corner to stare blankly at the front seat. Knees primly together, hands in the lap of a pale blue dress, her fingers were tightly knitted. Now a sudden, nervous twisting of her wedding ring, now the gripping of a clenched fist.
St-Cyr sat opposite her across the barren no man’s land of leather that gave her no comfort. She knew she was trapped. He knew that if she got through the day, she might well try to kill herself.
What has she done? he demanded harshly of himself. Helped that mother of hers to paint the inner recesses of that cave? Helped to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes?
The repercussions of such a fraud would cause heads to roll. His own, his partner’s, others too. Ah merde.
She dreaded what they would discover in the house of her mother. She hated every kilometre of this magnificent route, the ancient traverse of traders and pilgrims, monks and their abbots, Cro-Magnon, too, and Neanderthal. As the crow flies, it was not far. Perhaps some fifty-five kilometres to the east-north-east. By road, perhaps eighty or ninety. And Franz Oelmann, who knows all the short cuts, has been looking at you, hasn’t he, madame? he asked himself, seeing her turn swiftly away to stare bleakly at a stone farmhouse and seek its every detail as if she, too, was aware of his thoughts.
He sees you as a threat he cannot tolerate, madame. Of all the heads to roll, his must surely be the first. He won’t let you do that to him.
A Nazi, a jackbooted boy out of one of the Ordensburgen, the Order Castles, and now a man specializing in propaganda and covert operations, Herr Oelmann had marked her down but she was not yet completely aware of this.
You poor thing, said St-Cyr to himself. We must not let it happen no matter how guilty you are.
At Souillac they left the river. Frightened by its absence, she tried to ignore the wooded hills and plateaus. And when a valley appeared, incised and cradling an ancient village, she shuddered as distance collapsed and the house drew nearer.
A narrow side road forced Oelmann to slow down. A cart, pulled by an old woman in sabots and black sackcloth, caused them to pause. The woman took her time and when the cart, with its load of sticks and manure, drew alongside she set the shafts down and paused to wipe a runny nose on a tattered sleeve. ‘Juliette … is it true?’
Deep wrinkles screwed that ancient face into the ripe olives of dark eyes that missed nothing. ‘Attend to me, my dear. It’s your Aunt Liline who is speaking, is it not? The same whose name you took for your very own daughter.’
‘It’s true.’
The woman pinched her nose and flung the rheum aside. ‘Then we must prepare for the burial and that fine husband of yours can kiss the blade before the guillotine falls.’
‘Must you?’ cried the daughter. ‘You know how hard this is for me. Can you not give me a moment’s peace? Always you are criticizing maman. She wanted me to marry André. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t!’
‘It’s as I’ve always said. He was no good and the marks you bear on that pret
ty face your father’s family gave you are proof enough.’
‘Madame, please explain yourself,’ said St-Cyr. ‘We’re détectives from Paris.’
She stooped to take up the shafts. For one split second she gave him the benefit of a scathing glance and the finality of a curt nod. ‘Ernestine was a good woman whose only fault sits beside you, the result of her attempt to find a better life and lift herself from among us. The vin paille de Beaulieu, eh, messieurs? The sweet wine of the virgin sun-dried on a bed of straw.’ She clucked her tongue and tossed her head in salute. ‘The legs must never be spread to the moment of hope’s foolish passion nor should the years ever be given to its fleeting memory and futile prayers for its return. Now I will leave you to your murder and to this Paris you speak of.’
Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu, the walnut had shed its husk. Now only the hard dark shell remained.
For as long as she dared, Juliette Jouvet looked tearfully at the cloud of yellowish dust that enveloped her aunt. At last the niece faced the back of the front seat again to knit and unknit her fingers, captive to the car. And all who saw it pass, paused in their labours to stare at her.
The house was not in the centre of the village but down by the river in the midst of a cluster of Renaissance buildings whose tiled roofs rippled orange-brown in the sunlight. There were three arched double doors at street level — former entrances to what had once been stables and pens for livestock. A simple set of wooden stairs led up to a door at the side — the shop entrance. Above the shop and post office, a covered balcony ran the width of the house with timbered, stuccoed walls behind. One french window was to the far left, a solid oak door off-centre to the right. Posters of some sort clung to the walls — the auberge was on this floor. Above it, the steeply-pitched roof rose to two garret dormers, one wide open to the elements and without the benefit of even a shutter, the other with its broken shutters closed.
There was a square tower to the right, set awkwardly into the corner of the roof, making the place look lop-sided. Here small shutters all but closed off a meagre window. Stucco and lath were being constandy shed from the tower’s base.
Madame Fillioux had left her son-in-law and family a costly bill for repairs.
Signs targeted the place. A drunken telegraph and telephone pole, barren of the ivy that sought to climb it, stood nakedly just off the front right corner. Grapevines did climb the walls but only to the balcony railing for ease of harvesting. Not a tree stood nearby to give the place a modicum of shade or grace. Not a flowerpot of geraniums. Madame Fillioux had had no time for such things. It would be cold in winter and insufferably damp.
‘Messieurs, could I … could I have a moment in there to be alone with my thoughts. It’s a very difficult time for me.’
Oelmann grinned. Kohler said nothing. Louis had to tell her. ‘It’s impossible, madame. I’m sorry but we have to see everything.’
‘And you do not trust me, do you?’
Had it been clever of her to ask, a last desperate attempt to find out exactiy where she stood?
‘Please, as soon as we can, my partner and I will leave you with your memories for as long as you wish.’
She could only try. That was all she could do, she said to herself, and hope they wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes on her all the time.
Light from the double doors filtered into the shop where worm-eaten beams were festooned with hanging pots, straw hats, brushes, coils of wire, coal scuttles no one would buy these days because there was so little coal, laundry baskets, coat hangers, ah so many things. Row on row of them above a long counter, cash desk and weighing scale where space was at a premium and glass display cases competed with a few dried beans and lentils, a little brown rice, split peas, cracked wheat and rolled oats. Toilet water, bleach — bleach for the hair also — pins, needles and ribbons, thread, bunting and buttonhooks, Madame Fillioux had carried the centuries. Poverty and isolation had combined to allow much of the pre-war stock to remain. Suspenders, eyeglasses, corsets and lisle stockings, ladies’ shoes with long laces. Lye and camphor. Spices … spices such as were no longer seen in the zone occupée. Cloves in tall glass jars, cinnamon sticks and whole black peppers. She must have kept a rigid control over those.
Beyond the produce shelving, a wide doorway led to the post office and it was from there, most likely, that the stench of rotting meat and rancid butter came.
‘Madame,’ hazarded St-Cyr, not realizing the four of them were in a cluster. ‘How is it that for almost a week now the village has gone without service?’
‘Monsieur Auger usually fills in when mother is away. He delivers the mail throughout the commune. He’s very good, very reliable — she would not have employed him otherwise — but.…’
‘But he has not filled in.’
‘Louis, I’ll check upstairs.’
The stench was everywhere. ‘Hermann, you know I’m better at it. Madame, does the sous-facteur live alone?’
‘Alone …? Why, yes. Yes, he lives on his farm and … and comes in each day.’
‘And the garde champêtre?’ The village constable.
‘There … there isn’t one.’
Ah merde, no flic and two murders, was that it then? St-Cyr looked questioningly up at the ceiling but could see no stains. Could they leave it for a little? A half-hour, an hour, would it matter?
Franz Oelmann’s clipped voice broke the thoughts. ‘I’ll go. Madame, please accompany me.’
The Sûreté threw out a hand. ‘Not if he’s lying up there. No.… No, she will stay with us,’ he said sharply. ‘We’ll leave the upstairs until later. We will take things as they come and that is final.’
‘Then get on with it. We haven’t all day. The Baroness and the others will soon be here with the trunk.’
‘Ah yes, the trunk.’
Juliette felt Herr Oelmann brush against her left arm. She knew he wanted to be alone with her. The one called Kohler grinned and said, ‘Will we need a key to the cage?’ He missed nothing, even to seeing how flustered she was.
‘It … it will be in the drawer under the counter. Please, I will get it for you.’
She moved away but when she went to pull out the drawer, Herr Oelmann’s hand closed over hers. ‘Let me,’ he said.
Kohler saw her wince. Oelmann held her that way a moment. The drawer came open. She could not take her eyes from its contents. Old ledgers, tidy bundles of receipts bound with elastic bands or bits of string.… A tin of dress pins, another of drawing pins … a stamp pad, ink, pens and pencils, a carving knife.…
‘Mother … mother always kept that handy in case of robbers. The key is there, at the back, on its little hook.’
Herr Oelmann nodded, forcing her to awkwardly bend down while he stood over her so closely his left leg was pressed against her hip. Kohler watched from the other side of the counter — she knew this. And when he rained a handful of beans onto the wood, this startled her and she found him grinning like a small boy who knew there was mischief afoot. ‘The key,’ she said, colouring rapidly as she thrust it into his hand.
Behind the cramped cage, whose wire mesh would have withstood a battering ram, the parcels in stained brown paper wrappings, string and cancelled postage stamps filled one narrow set of shelves to the ceiling. Big, small, what did it matter? Most oozed rancid butter, dribbled maggots, leaked and stank to high heaven.
She didn’t know what to do.
‘Parcels for the zone occupée, Hermann. Food, warm clothing, thread, black pepper, salt, sugar perhaps and potatoes.’
‘Hams and geese, foie gras, two chickens by their look, a roast of lamb, a side of bacon — verdammt, three trout! Their tail fins have broken through.’
‘Walnuts and walnut oil. Some sweet cherries that should have been dried and would have been mouldy on arrival even if the service had been excellent!’
‘The French,’ said Oelmann sarcastically.
‘The shortages, including that of the railway rolling stock that has g
one to the Reich,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Not all are for Paris, but like them, Paris has no milk, no cheese for Louis’s little boy, no flour, sugar, meat and bread or too little of them. Potatoes also.’
‘And it’s all our fault, is it?’ shot Oelmann.
St-Cyr knew he had best intercede. ‘Hermann, please check the postmistress’s parcel book. All parcels are listed with their destinations, weights and postage paid. See if one of the family’s addresses crops up. It’s just a thought.’
A thought … Le numéro 26 boulevard Richard Wallace, messieurs? she cried inwardly. Again the one from the Sûreté looked questioningly up at the ceiling. Again she shuddered inwardly at what they might find.
Herr Oelmann examined the malleted rubber stamp with which her mother had cancelled the postage stamps. He fingered the little silver lever of the telephone and she saw maman firmly thrusting it in to ring a distant operator and urgendy call into the speaker. But now the crowd was no longer present. Now, but for the probings of the detectives and Herr Oelmann, the place could give up its ghosts and she could hear the hubbub of each girlhood day, the exhortations, the complaints about the long line-ups, the pleas for credit justly refused.
Bang, bang — she heard the stamps being furiously cancelled. Maman had been at the very centre of village life. The one called St-Cyr would be only too aware of this. He would know her mother had kept a secret drawer, a hidden cache that, like so many others in her position, was for a rainy day or for memory’s sake.
A handful of louis d’or, the little diamond pin father had given maman, the thin silver necklace whose links were so delicately interwoven they were like a spider’s web.
The letters from the battlefields… letters she had later used as proof of his undying love. Had the things been stolen? Had the murderer found them? Had he killed Monsieur Auger who could not possibly have known of that little hiding-place?
Blank identity cards were purchasable from each PTT but still Herr Oelmann fingered these.
When he found a bundle of postcards — the ones with the printed messages whose blanks were to be filled in that were no longer in use — her heart stopped.
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