She was distraught but best ignored for the moment. ‘And you, Professor?’ asked the Sûreté as she was thrust into a chair by two of the Sonderkommando and held down. ‘What have you to say now?’
‘I didn’t kill anyone. It’s preposterous of you to even think such a thing. I’m a professor of prehistory, a holder of the.…’
‘Professor, please,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Had I a free hand with which to caution you, I would. Two killings …?’
‘Each so vastly different, Louis.’
‘Ah yes, Hermann. Auger’s skull is crushed. There are no signs of the demented slashings, the experimental cuts, the disembowelling, but for a time there was the possibility of two assailants. The one to stalk, chase and make the kill, the other to leap out at the last minute so as to distract the quarry.’
‘Fillioux,’ hissed Danielle. ‘He did it!’
‘But he’s been dead for years, hasn’t he, Louis?’ said Kohler, straining at his handcuffs. ‘Toto Lemieux offered a faint possibility but.…’
‘There were last-minute touches, Hermann. Suggestions of daring, of defiance too, an attitude of catch-me-if-you-can.’
They were all looking at her now and through the tears she could not stop, their images were blurred. ‘What touches, please?’ managed Danielle.
Things must fall as they would, sighed St-Cyr inwardly. ‘The Professor is another suspect, yes, but he had no reason to kill the sous-facteur, mademoiselle. He did not even know Madame Fillioux had sent you the 10,000 francs her husband would need to make the final visit. But you knew. You could not let Monsieur Auger live and the Baron made certain you understood this.’
‘You did it all by your little lonesome,’ said Kohler, breathing in deeply, ‘and afterwards, on impulse perhaps and still high on cocaine, you cut the fishing-line and freed the worms from their prison.’
‘But had, beforehand, found only enough cocaine for one or two hits,’ said Louis. ‘Admit it, Baron. You had Mademoiselle Arthaud dancing on the end of your string.’
It was time for a sip of wine, for a cigar and the careful study of these two from Paris Central who were from so vastly different backgrounds yet got along so well. ‘What of that infernal nuisance, Inspectors? Our Madame Fillioux? Please don’t stint yourselves. Is our Danielle correct or did she commit that killing too?’
‘She was at the cave, Louis.’
‘Yes, but not, I think, in on the killing. You see, Professor, your former student had no fear of Henri-Georges Fillioux. As creator of the illusion, she could by then only wait to see what you would do. Certainly she had originally intended to kill Madame Fillioux — there was no other choice, was there, mademoiselle?’
‘He hated my father,’ spat Danielle. ‘He gloated over that trunk. He had everything now. It was all his at last!’
‘A grant of 5,000,000 francs, Professor,’ sighed Louis, ‘for which Herr Eisner, ever mindful of Herr Himmler’s desires, exacted but one thing in return.’
‘A film,’ breathed Kohler. ‘A swastika at the very start of prehistory even though it was perhaps most professionally doubtful. Cave paintings like no others.’
‘Madame Fillioux did not run,’ said Louis. ‘She knew you from your former visit and from the past, Professor. Admit it, you were afraid to deal with her but once you had the trunk, you took a chance. She paused, she realized that Henri-Georges was not coming, and then she strode out into that little glade to tell you exactly what she was going to do.’
‘Destroy you,’ said Kohler. ‘Admit it.’
Moisture filled Courtet’s eyes. Perhaps the Baron would intervene. ‘For years the location of that cave eluded me. The Dordogne is full of caves and that woman would never tell anyone exactiy where it was. There were the casual visitors she objected to, but never once did she disclose the location. We at the Museum of Culture and the University all thought the cave was near this village and she let us think that until she got what she wanted from us. I … I couldn’t believe Henri-Georges had missed seeing such things yet … yet I was certain he had.’
‘You were a fool!’ hissed Danielle, struggling to lean forward. ‘Even after all those years you were still so eager to get the better of him. I saw it in your lousy lectures, in your conceit. I had no trouble sucking you in. None. Just like a prostitute with her client, Professor, I finished you off in about ten seconds!’
‘Ah damn you,’ swore Courtet. ‘Damn you for doing this to me.’
‘YOU DID IT!’ she shouted. ‘YOU KILLED HER!’
Not a flicker of emotion registered in the faces of Oelmann and the others. ‘You got caught up in the butchering,’ sighed Kohler. ‘You believed Fillioux was alive and that he and his wife had tricked you. You couldn’t let her expose you to ridicule and failure, Professor. Not with the Occupier so keen on the film and Herr Himmler and Dr Goebbels lurking in the background.’
‘You experimented,’ said St-Cyr sadly. ‘You tried to show Fillioux that you, too, could butcher an animal and you knew that others would believe he had betrayed his wife and that the couple must have fought.’
‘The flask, Louis.’
‘Another touch of daring you left for us, Mademoiselle Arthaud. You planned to kill her if the Professor didn’t but … ah but he did. The illusion you had created had taken the turn you wanted most and there, suddenly, it was done. Why, she did not even scream or try to run away.’
‘Why, please, the illusion?’ asked Danielle, defiantly throwing back her shoulders.
‘Why, indeed.’
‘The houses in Paris and in Monfort-l’Amaury, Louis.’
‘And their furnishings. Your grandparents, mademoiselle, they had disinherited you long ago but did they not perhaps make out a new will or say they were going to? Please, for such an illusion, such careful planning, artistry and skill, there has to be a deeper reason than merely your hatred of the Professor or desire to further your film career.’
‘I have nothing further to say.’
‘And the Baroness?’ asked von Strade, raising his glass in a farewell toast perhaps.
‘Very well, Baron,’ said the Sûreté. ‘Please ask her to join us.’
‘That’s not possible. We must finish the shooting here. She’s distracted enough as it is.’
‘And lonely, Baron,’ he asked. ‘A lover lost is always a distraction particularly if he posed the threat of saying too much and had to be removed. They made love in that second chamber but afterwards I am very afraid the Baroness did something for you she must now regret. I did not hear him fall down one of those shafts in the floor, Baron, since I had left the cave after her last orgasm.’
‘How dare you?’
‘Ah, please don’t look so offended. We’re both men of the world. No doubt her Toto was putting on his shorts or tying a shoelace. An accident … I’m sure your wife will tell that convincingly enough to the magistrate, and when you are both safely back in the Reich with your film, perhaps then you will treat her more kindly.’
‘A deal?’
‘Freedom and safety for Madame Jouvet — she has had to suffer far too much. My partner and I to return to Paris to file our reports after first conducting Professor Courtet to Vichy to face justice and the guillotine.’
It was a good attempt. ‘And Danielle?’ asked von Strade.
The Sûreté let him have it. ‘Will, unfortunately, have to stand trial for murder, conspiracy to murder, and for forgery also.’
‘Then it’s no deal.’
‘No deal at all, Baron,’ said St-Cyr. ‘The Sûreté and the Kripo of this flying squad never cut deals with anyone, particularly criminals such as yourself.’
‘Ah merde, Louis.…’
‘Hermann, for once, just for once, please let me have the last word. My pride demands it.’
‘And your life?’ asked sous-préfet Deveaux only to be silenced.
* * *
A week had passed and it had not been pleasant because Paris Central had refused absolutely to say anyt
hing on their behalf. Sturmbannführer Walter Boemelburg, an old acquaintance from before the war, an associate from the IKPK, the international police organization, had maintained an icy silence.
‘Perhaps your boss wants to teach us a lesson, Hermann.’
The filming was over, the scaffolding had been removed. Everything in the little valley was as it had been on that first day. Even the honey buzzard soared high above them.
Kohler dropped his eyes to the darkened mouth of the cave and swallowed hard. What the hell were they going to do now? Juliette and Odilon Deveaux had been taken in there some time ago.
The charges were in place, the delays had been set. An hour … a half hour … the bastards of the Sonderkommando were going to blow the cave. ‘They’ll blame it on the terrorists, Louis, on a Resistance that has yet to find its members. Himmler will be incensed, Goebbels will have a field day — a major prehistoric site wantonly destroyed by French partisans. The Führer will scream for the total occupation of the country.’
‘It’s perfect for them. They will have their film, their Moment of Discovery and no one will say a thing against it because we and the cave will no longer exist!’
‘Are you still certain Courtet killed Madame Fillioux?’
They had spent the week arguing. ‘Yes, for the last time.’
‘Then just remember, Danielle is an actress and she could have done both killings all by herself. You should have insisted that he sign a statement. I backed you up, but I had my doubts.’
How pious! Hermann had a thing about Danielle. Recurring nightmares in which he was assaulted with a handaxe by a naked savage who bore a striking resemblance to her. He had even started his partner dreaming of it.
A cigarette was lighted and shoved between Kohler’s lips. ‘Hey, what about my partner?’ he asked his countryman.
‘Tobacco shouldn’t be wasted on scum.’
Ah merde … could he make the cigarette last? wondered Kohler. Could he stall for time? Something … there had to be something they could do to stop things.
Brutally they were hustled up to the cave — forced to climb at a run, to fall, to hit the rocks and bruise the knees, a shoulder, an arm … hands tied behind their backs.
Already Moment of Discovery was in Berlin, in its final stages of editing. Already Herr Oelmann was back in Paris, the Baron and the Baroness having a little rest at their home in Vienna, and the château had been emptied and closed.
Herr Eisner had returned to Hamburg. Of the film’s personnel only Professor Courtet and Danielle Arthaud were to witness the final proceedings.
‘They’ll shoot them, Louis. Courtet’s and Danielle’s bodies will be found in that little glade riddled by bursts from their Schmeissers. One dead actress and one dead prehistorian in the wake of the terrorists.’
‘Danielle will have realized there is only one thing she can do.’
‘Hit you on the head with a handaxe, eh?’ snorted Kohler only to be clubbed into silence.
At the entrance, the gisement was at its thickest, exposed in benches where Fillioux and the Abbé Brûlé before him had opened the deposits to study them. Rusty sardine cans, cast-off espadrilles and worn-out work gloves — the refuse of two-legged badgers — were strewn about. A rucksack, a broken wine bottle, innumerable shards of black flint, a litter of old bones.…
‘Inspectors.…’ Pale and shivering, Danielle came out of the darkness in tears between two of the Sonderkommando. ‘The parents Fillioux were going to leave everything to that woman if she helped them. A goose, a chicken, some butter — if only she would forgive their long rejection of her, she would have it all but she did not know this and I … why I could not let it happen, may God forgive me. Now you know.’
‘But you did not kill Madame Fillioux,’ said Louis, shaking off the Sonderkommando who held him.
She flicked a glance at Hermann. ‘No, but I intended to — it would all have been blamed on my father, yes? — and I was going to if I had to, just as you have said.’
‘And the postcards, mademoiselle? The things I left in the cave?’
‘Juliette told them where to find the cache in the wall near the ventilation shaft. They … they have burned every last scrap of the drawings and the postcards, and have stolen the louis d’or and the jewellery.’
‘And Juliette?’ asked the Sûreté.
Would he condemn her right to the end? ‘We have kissed and I have held my half-sister as I should have done long ago.’
‘Then it’s finished for us, Hermann, and we had best go in and get it over with. Goodbye, mademoiselle. Bonne chance.’
‘You also.’
In the flickering light from two candles, a lunging aurochs charged, and as they sat on the floor of the second chamber, bound hand and foot, they heard, in imagination only, the sound of its hooves as it thundered over terrain long gone to join stampeding ponies.
The leader of the Sonderkommando gave them the once over and nodded curtly. ‘So now we will leave you,’ he said. ‘Enjoy yourselves.’
Six men had gloated over their predicament for the past week. Deveaux was wheezing badly and near to death simply from the loss of breath. Juliette sat next to him with her knees up and her back and hands against the wall. Then there was a shaft, the chasm in the floor Toto Lemieux had fallen down, and then Hermann and himself. Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu, why must things be so difficult for them?
‘Louis, they’re using cyclonite mixed with a plasticizer. Diesel fuel, crankcase oil and sawdust, maybe. Something to make it pliable like margarine. You can smell the bitter almonds but it’s not nearly so strong as with Nobel 808 or even straight old dynamite.’
‘And the detonators, Hermann?’
‘Time pencils. Acid bulbs that are crushed by pressing a ridge on the side of the pencil. Wires of varying thickness give delays as the acid eats away at them.’
‘Until the wire inside the pencil is gone and the spring it held back is released.’
‘And the detonator is struck.’
‘The pencils are coded red, I think,’ said Juliette, squirming a little.
‘Red for ten minutes or a half-hour?’ swore Kohler. There were six satchels on niches along the length of the chamber, God alone knew what else out there and at the entrance to the cave.
Again Juliette squirmed and again. Falling over on to her side, she lay there staring across the hole in the floor at them. ‘Danielle …,’ she said. ‘Danielle has given me a flint.’
Her wrists came free. She sat up and began at once to cut the rope that bound her ankles. Hurry … they prayed. Hurry.
‘Hermann, madame. Release him first.’ Time … would there be time?
The aurochs watched, the ponies too, the cave bear and cave lion as shadows moved across the walls and roof, racing now … racing.
Must do it, shouted Kohler to himself. Have to … Have to.…
‘RED, LOUIS! RED, DAMN IT! GET OUT, MON VIEUX. KISS GISELLE FOR ME. THE RUE DANTON, EH? THE HOUSE OF MADAME CHABOT.’
His new girlfriend.
They scrambled. They got Deveaux freed at last and tried to push, drag and coax him along the narrow tunnel that led to the first chamber. ‘My lungs. It is no use, Jean-Louis. Leave me … Save yourselves.’
‘Ten minutes, Louis. Ten!’ shouted Kohler to hurry them up. A kilo of plastic to the satchel. First one and then another and another was checked and time pencils were not to be fooled with once their bulbs had been crushed. Not before either. The fucking things were always temperamental.
‘Louis, I can’t remove any of them. Those bastards will wait until the cave has been blown.’
‘Leave it then. Hurry, Hermann. Juliette says that if we try, perhaps we can make it out through the ventilation conduit’
They were lying among the scrub, sheltering themselves, when the charges went off. Debris and flame shot out over them. The ground lifted and fell, then shuddered as passages far beneath them collapsed and dust and smoke rose up into the air.
/> The sharp staccato of Schmeissers followed — two short, sharp, lonely bursts, then silence crept in as they shook the dust from themselves and checked for cuts and abrasions.
‘Odilon is dead, Hermann. The heart, the lungs, it was too much for him.’
‘Let’s go then. We’ve a job to do.’
Pardon? wondered Juliette apprehensively. ‘Messieurs …,’ she began but Hermann had taken her by the hand and was leading her away from the valley.
‘We’ll climb to the top of the escarpment and follow the stream back of the waterfall just as you did when you tried to get away from us with the carpet-bag.’
‘We need to find the road to Sarlat, madame,’ came the breathless urging of the Sûreté. ‘They will have to walk out to the railway line and then along it to their car. Hurry … please hurry.’
‘But what about Danielle and the Professor?’
‘Nothing can help them now. It’s ourselves we have to think of.’
Only then did she see the satchel in Hermann’s hands and hear him say, ‘In their haste to get the job done, one of them forgot to activate a time pencil. It happens all the time with cocky recruits. He should have had a taste of Russia.’
‘And now?’ she asked sharply.
‘Now we’re going to pay them back!’
Ah merde, these two, they were crazy. They each knew exactly what the other had in mind. They were desperate.
Boemelburg was brooding. The summers in Paris were always the shits. Hot, humid and far too often grey.
The storm would pass, the gutters would soon run dry to fill the sewers.
Well up in his sixties and close to retirement, he was as tall as Hermann and every bit as big. ‘A rock-fall,’ he said, not turning from windows streaked with the droppings of ungrateful pigeons too frightened by the shortages of food to roost anywhere other than the rue des Saussaies, the former headquarters of the Sûreté and now that of the Gestapo in France.
‘A rock-fall, Walter,’ offered Louis only to receive the cold shoulder of, ‘It’s Sturmbannführer to you.’
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