‘Herr Oelmann,’ said Juliette, colouring rapidly. ‘I think you mean him.’
Ah! the schoolteacher’s expression was fiercely accusing. ‘Franz, yes. Did he make you tell him things?’
‘Such as?’ she demanded hotly.
It would be best to give a little shrug. ‘Such as, did you know where your mother hid the postcards I sent her?’
There was a sense of daring, of recklessness and yet of confidence in the look the actress gave. The flint blade was unconsciously fingered as if in its touch there was guilt.
When no answer was forthcoming, Danielle said, ‘Your father’s parents, Juliette. They are old friends of my family. Since your mother refused to answer them, they asked if I would write to her on their behalf and I did. They.…’ Abruptly the flint blade was put down as if best left alone. ‘They are reduced, poor things, to living in two rooms of their former villa which has been requisitioned by the Germans. A General Hans-Johann von Juenger currently resides there in splendour while they must come and go through a back door so as never to be seen. Always they must search for food. They are old.… They are not well.’
‘Mother … mother could not have known of this. She … she was not an unkind woman. Yes, she refused all their requests for help. She had her reasons but then, suddenly, she decided to send things.’
‘But why?’
‘I … I do not know. How could I? She never told me.’
‘But did you tell Franz where the postcards were hidden?’
Postcards … postcards … ‘I … He.…’
‘Tell me, damn you!’
‘No! No, I did not tell him! They … they were stolen. Oh for sure, how would I know who took them?’
‘Stolen …? Ah no.’
The transformation was so sudden one was taken aback. From daring to despair, from complete self-assurance to tears. The glass was drained, the bottle seized and petulantly flung aside as if the actress couldn’t believe it dared to be empty.
‘Why did you have to tell me that? Me, for God’s sake? Two murders. A few postcards — ah! those détectives of yours, they will suspect me. Me, damn you. Me!’
Realizing she had said too much, the actress got up to pace irritably back and forth. She touched a figurine, a vase, a button, picked up things and put them down, demanded a cigarette and when she had it, threw it down and said, ‘Some wine. I must have a little more.’
Abruptly she left the room, left the doors wide open but once in the corridor, encountered a couple, kissed each of them, brushed a cheek and, her voice echoing gaily after them, said, ‘It’s early yet. Ah! you’re so anxious, Marie. Go and enjoy each other’s bodies, then come back to us refreshed.’
Alone, uncertain and not liking things, Juliette began hesitantly to take from an armoire a clean, simple dress of soft white cotton. Belted at the waist, its skirt was flared a little, its collar high, and with the half-sleeves and pockets, it fitted perfectly. So perfectly she felt ashamed that, unbidden, a little surge of pleasure had crept into her life. Paris … in spite of the severe shortages and the rationing, the dress was a Schiaparelli.
Looking for something to hide her bruises, she found the dressing table in chaos. Things were open. No cap or lid had been replaced. Tissues were everywhere. Some stained with lipstick, some simply used to wipe a nose that ran — ’An allergy to moulds,’ the actress had said.
Uncovered, the skin pouch and leather thong lay in a drawer amongst deep blue glass beads and pearls, rings, bracelets and ear-rings.
Taking it out of the drawer, she set the pouch on the dressing table only to see herself in the mirror, suddenly so afraid.
Almond-shaped and chunky, the handaxe was Mousterian — Neanderthal and of the Middle Palaeolithic. Much older than the paintings at Lascaux and Discovery. Perhaps seventy thousand or more years old and from the lower layers of the gisement. It was pointed at one end, and had been flaked by coarsely chipping away the flint, but opposing edges had been sharpened with smaller, denticulate spalls. It came to raised centres on both sides and from these, the larger spalls appeared to radiate. Bare, unflaked surfaces fit into the hand.
In tears she blurted softly, ‘Maman, is this what killed you?’ A sickness came, a memory, the flesh discoloured and bloated, the stench terrible, the flies … the flies.…
Shutting her eyes to stop herself, she managed to put the handaxe down.
A crudely worked auger had a point with which holes could be drilled in bone and wood by twisting the tool rapidly back and forth while pressing. There were knives and scrapers and one long knife with a serrated blade — blades to cut a breast in half and scrape the flesh from the skin? Blades to hack at her throat, her.…
‘Those are from the film.’
‘Ah! I … I was looking for something to hide my bruises.’
‘Then these are what you want!’ A jar of face cream and one of powder were snatched up and slammed down in front of her.
‘Please, I did not mean to pry.’
‘You did! So search. Go on, look. See if I care that the friend I open my heart to suspects me!’
Trembling, Danielle Arthaud turned away to find a glass and fill it to the brim. With difficulty the tools were returned to the pouch and the drawstring tightened but one had to say something after such an outburst. ‘Those tools aren’t correct if your part in the film has anything to do with the date of the paintings. The tools are Neanderthal and those people, they did not make the paintings at either Lascaux or the cave of my father.’
‘You think they’re fakes, don’t you?’ said Danielle emptily.
‘The tools? Ah no, they are very real.’
‘The paintings, idiot!’
It was almost a scream. The actress was shaking and in tears again. So beautiful, so self-assured and now so … so shattered she didn’t realize her nose was deluging.
Caution was necessary. ‘I do not know about the authenticity of those paintings Professor Courtet claims he discovered. I am not certain either of the amulet I saw today. It’s the one from the trunk, yes, of course, but me, I have to ask, has it been tampered with.’
The fists were clenched, the face tightened. You little fool. How dare you say such a thing in a place like this? Everyone’s future depends on Moment of Discovery. Their lives!’
‘I … I didn’t know,’ Juliette said and blanched.
The eyebrows arched, the nose was hurriedly wiped. ‘You didn’t know. Even after Franz had played with you in the woods at that farm? He took me to that place, madame. He showed it to me. We walked all over it.’
‘Ah no.…’
‘We saw your mother’s house too. He knows the roads. He drove you straight there, didn’t he, and only at the last did you become lost because he let you lie to him.’
Herr Oelmann knew, said Juliette desperately to herself. He knew where Monsieur Auger lived but never once let on.
7
IT WAS STRANGE TO HEAR THE RIVER UNDER moonlight. Beneath the sound of cicadas and crickets, it gave to the village of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne a sense of peace, a hush like no other.
Perched precariously on the tiled roof in the shadow of its tower room, St-Cyr waited apprehensively. For some time now Herr Oelmann and André Jouvet had said nothing.
Each was known to the other. Both were used to things like this. Both knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he had left the door open and that he would not have done so unless still within the house.
Oelmann had a pistol. Jouvet had one too, a Luger. By easing the carpet-bag towards the crown of the roof, St-Cyr could pull himself up a little. The tiles were hard and warped. The nearest dormer was shuttered and not two metres from him. The heavy tiles were loose and uncooperative. One broke away and he had to lunge for it, had to pray to God and strain for it all in one breath.
God didn’t care about such things. God had the universe to tend. By an act of sheer desperation, he managed to stop the tile and to lift it back. An honest, hard-working détective
, he cried out inwardly to the heavens. Two brutal, savage murders and a massive case of fraud — is it that? he demanded. Everything was heading that way like a shooting star. Ah yes.
When the shutters opened, he was astride the dormer with knees tucked up, hugging his precious bag containing the things Hen Oelmann desperately wanted. Two torches shone out over the tiles to probe the recesses where moon-shadow hid so little.
‘Try the other side,’ said Oelmann, his voice a whisper. ‘He has to be here.’
‘Maybe he’s above us. Maybe he’s up on the crown of the roof.’
The shutters on the opposite side of the roof opened. There, too, lights played, and from the crown, its tiles loose, St-Cyr desperately watched the circus of those beams. They would find him. They would try to take the carpet-bag so as to have all the answers while he and Hermann … Hermann.…
The telephone jangled. Its sound was soft and distant, yet the cicadas stopped their mating chorus while the torches went out.
Again and again the sound came. Incessantly demanding, painfully stubborn as only a certain Bavarian could be until at last the switchboard operator in Argentat, ignoring the caller’s pleas, disconnected the line.
Oelmann and jouvet were arguing about the possibility of one of them climbing out on to the roof for a final look. Jouvet was insistent that his leg and hand would be useless to him. As always, they spoke German.
‘When I get that bitch of a wife of mine alone, I will break her, Herr Obersturmführer. I’ll teach her to hide things from us. She prayed I would be killed in Russia. She had confessed this to me when I broke her wrist before I went away to training camp. I beat her so hard, blood ran from her nose but she doesn’t learn. She’ll never learn.’
Oelmann leaned well out of the dormer and, straining, pulled himself up until the beam of his torch touched the distant crown of the roof and began to move along it.
‘You will kill her. The film is far too critical. She might say things we can’t have.’
Fraud … was it really a case of fraud?
They recrossed the attic to repeat the process. St-Cyr tried to stay out of sight. Spread-eagled now, he clung to the crown by his fingertips just waiting for the tiles to come loose. The torch beam passed over his fingers. It went on to its limits. Old tiles, thick tiles, tiles whose boards underneath smelled of mould and age.
‘When the filming is done here, you will set fire to the house and make certain it burns to the ground. There may still be things St-Cyr has missed. We can’t have him finding them.’
A fifteenth-century house, a small, if impoverished treasure in itself. Ah merde …
‘But … but if I do that, I inherit nothing.’
‘That is not my concern. Your time will come. There will be other uses for you and your friends.’
Down on the cobbled street behind and far below St-Cyr, a cat paused in the moonlight to lick its paws while the Sûreté’ awkwardly clung to the crown of the roof.
A shooting star fell from the skies just as Hermann had said it would.
‘Her mother was going to poison me, Herr Obersturmrührer. The facteur in Domme listened in to the telephone call. He distinctly heard her saying to Juliette, “I will take care of them”.’
‘So you took care of her. You did it, didn’t you?’
A tile began its long journey, interrupting the answer. Taking its time, it scraped against others, was caught on an ancient ripple and began to slowly turn. Moonlight showed it up so clearly. It was right there not a metre from St-Cyr but now … now the cat, that damned cat, was playing with it. Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, Hermann where the hell are you when most needed?
* * *
Kohler let his gaze sift over the room where a dozen of the film’s executives were gathered for the mandatory post-rush conference. Gold was everywhere: in Meissen clocks, Sévres porcelain, in the chandeliers and the delicate rococo panelling. It was in a desk by André-Charles Boulle, in commodes by Baumhauer and Delorme and sconces by Jacques Caffiéri. It was also in the frames of wall-mirrors that, though huge, exquisitely complemented everything including the Old Masters the château’s former owners had collected.
‘This is Willi’s room,’ confided Marina von Strade. ‘He keeps it for himself.’ She touched his arm to prevent his saying anything. ‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘It’s time.’
The wireless crackled. Filling one of the Louis XIV armchairs, von Strade swirled cognac in silent contemplation, his gaze lost to its own crystal ball. Hans-Dieter Eisner, the Number One prehistorian from Hamburg, tapped cigarette ash into the jardiniére at his elbow. Professor Courtet sniffed in distaste at such crudity.
Eisner was young, Courtet middle-aged. Where the first wore dark, horn-rimmed, very manly eyeglasses, the second wore gold-rimmed spectacles that gave him the look now not of a professor but of an apothecary in distress at having inadvertently poisoned a customer.
‘This is the BBC London calling. Here is the evening news,’ and never mind tuning in to Berlin for the truth. ‘It is with deep regret that we must report Tobruk has fallen to the desert army of General Erwin Rommel. Heavy casualties have been sustained, as well as the loss of all remaining stocks of arms, ammunition and fuel. Considerable numbers of prisoners of war have been taken by the enemy.’
‘The blitzkrieg for Egypt’s on,’ said someone — Herr Richter, thought Kohler. The German half of the directing team.
Von Strade was short with him. ‘I don’t pay you to give proclamations about the war’s progress, my dear Otto. If you want to work for the Propaganda Staffel please consult our friend Oelmann. If that one has any free time left these days, he might give you an interview.’
‘Turning now to Russia, we report that all but one of the fortifications defending Sevastopol has been overrun. The summer offensive has begun.’
‘They’ll be in Moscow by Christmas,’ said René Bresson, the lead French cameraman. There was an uncomfortable sense of awe in his voice, as if, having backed the right horse, he still could not quite believe it was a winner and was afraid.
In the Philippines all effective resistance to the armies of Imperial Japan had ceased. Now virtually every island in the Western Pacific was under the flag of the Rising Sun, as well as Burma, Thailand, Manchuria and other mainland territories. Clearly, Australia and New Zealand were next.
Lesser statistics about fighter aircraft and bombers shot down over London were followed by the sinkings of enemy submarines along the North Atlantic convoy routes. Having heard enough, von Strade switched off the wireless but remained lost to his cognac. The RAF had destroyed much of Køln with incendiaries on the night of 30-31 May and the glow from the firestorms had been seen from more than two hundred and fifty kilometres, a fine old city in ruins. The SS-OberstgruppenFührer and Gauleiter of Bohemia-Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated by Czech partisans. The Imperial Japanese Navy had just been dealt a death blow at Midway in the greatest naval battle of the Pacific war.
‘The Americans are determined,’ said von Strade, not looking around at the others. ‘That man they have in the Pacific isn’t going to go away nor will Mr Winston Churchill. We have, my dear Kohler, no other choice but to complete Moment of Discovery on schedule and to personally deliver it in its commemorative can to the Führer. Tell us what you’ve found out about our cave. If it’s a forgery, we in this room had better know.’
‘Baron, it’s no forgery. I’d stake my.…’
‘Hans, spare me your precious prehistoric vanity. Don’t any of you leave. Well?’ he asked. ‘Two murders, Herr Kohler. Both with stones, or so I hear. The rumours fly, my friend, and I must stop them, yes? So, please, give us the benefit of your opinion. The French film industry is in the throes of a massive boom and we at Continentale would like to continue helping them.’
Ah yes, of course.
‘Never before have our people had such opportunities,’ interjected Christian Dussart, the French director. ‘The war stopped the American and Br
itish films from flooding us out of business. Now we are at last getting a chance.’
‘A chance that can’t be stopped because some stupid woman decided to fart around with us,’ said someone.
‘The film-Jews,’ said the German director. ‘They’ve all been kicked out or have fled the country. Kaput. Fini! as the French are so fond of saying, Herr Kohler. It’s been like a breath of fresh air. New and far better talent has now been allowed to come forward.’
‘How tiresome of you,’ said von Strade. ‘I thought I asked Herr Kohler to fill us in. He’s only too aware that the Reich lost virtually all of its film industry and France a good deal of its finest talent. No matter their race or whatever, let us not forget that we have a vacuum to fill and fill it we must.’
He was really worried, thought Kohler, not liking it one bit. ‘As to the authenticity of things.…’
‘Please don’t use such big words. Did that dead woman do a job on us or not?’
‘It’s too early to say. Louis might have something.’
Must Kohler be so evasive? ‘Sturmbannführer Boemelburg, your superior officer and Head of Section IV, the Gestapo in France, tells me you are difficult. A realist, yes, but not entirely unmalleable when it comes to women, money and such other necessities. Your partner, though, is a hard-line patriot who refuses to take anything for his personal comfort and seeks only the truth, as you do yourself, regardless of the consequences, and consequences there will be.’
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Distantly the start-up dialogue of the night’s screening could be heard but everyone ignored it.
‘Boemelburg?’ bleated Kohler.
‘Yes. I spoke to him not three hours ago. I felt I had to do so.’
‘Ah Gott im Himmel, then the SS of the avenue Foch will already know of it.’ Would it bring Oelmann the troops he needed?
‘That possibility did occur to me,’ said von Strade drily. ‘As in life, so in business, Kohler, one has to take chances. Herr Boemelburg has said you are to stick to crime and to leave prehistory to itself and our experts.’
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