‘No, there’s another number, a disposable phone I bought.’ He gave the number. ‘So long as you’re not calling to tell me to interrogate Gilles about Fabiola.’
She laughed, a sound he loved to hear, and it made him hope things were better between them again.
His calls to the Jewish Scouts and to the Shoah Foundation brought no new details, but gave him the names of some of Halévy’s friends in Paris to whom he might have confided something. He got voicemails, secretaries, but finally Halévy’s sometime partner in a medical practice came on the line, happy to talk about his old friend.
‘You’ll never guess what he told me once,’ Bruno heard. ‘He said that he was never healthier than in the war. He never ate too much, no sugar, only water and milk to drink, and everything fresh from the garden and the farm.’
‘So he lived on a farm? Not in a town.’
‘He was briefly in a town, in an attic belonging to an old lady who brought them bread and hot milk for breakfast. But mostly he was on a farm, with a couple, and he always called the man Monsieur. He called the wife Tante Sylvie. Apparently they were very devout Christians, and the man wore a porcelain mask. David spoke of it when that musical was popular, the one about the phantom living under the Paris Opera. He said the Monsieur had been like that, a gueule cassée.’
Bruno almost jumped from his chair. This was a vital clue. A gueule cassée, literally ‘broken face’, was one of the many who had suffered severe facial injuries from the Great War, usually a victim of artillery fire. Some were so disfigured that they were given ceramic masks, along with a small pension, which meant there should be an official record somewhere of all those in the region with these facial mutilations. Where might the records be kept? He called the Préfecture in Périgueux and was put through to the archives, only to be told the relevant records had been lost or perhaps destroyed. He tried the military archives at Les Invalides in Paris, and was transferred to the archives of the anciens combattants in Caen.
He reached a woman who tried to be helpful when he explained his search. The archives were filed by name, and he had no name, and only a rough idea of the region. But there were more than a hundred thousand gueules cassées, he was told. Did they all have porcelain masks? No, only about a third of them. Would it be possible to track down those fitted with such masks in the Dordogne? That’s not how the archives are organized, he was told. And there was no centre for fitting the masks in the département of the Dordogne.
Bruno then called Jo, his predecessor as the town policeman, and asked him for any memories of a gueule cassée in the region during the Occupation. Jo could recall two: one, named Barrachon, had lived in St Denis and worked in an insurance office; the other had been an Inspecteur de Tabac in Ste Alvère. Bruno took their names, but neither one was a farmer. Jo promised to ask around.
Bruno knew someone in the town with the name of Barrachon, who would probably be a relative. He called the house and an elderly woman answered. It was her son that Bruno knew, also an insurance agent. He explained his search and asked if an ancestor had been a gueule cassée and found he was on the right track. The woman’s grandfather had been fitted with a mask in Limoges, and had been secretary of the local branch of the Anciens Combattants. She still had his papers up in the attic. Would Bruno like to come and look through them?
Two dusty hours later, Bruno had a long list of names of the local mutilés de guerre, organized by the nature of their wounds. It sobered him. He knew from the town war memorial that almost two hundred sons of St Denis had fallen in the Great War, around one in eight of the commune’s male population in 1914. And there were two hundred and seventy names of the mutilés. There were the blind, those who had lost one or both legs, those missing one or both arms, as well as the victims of poison gas.
Bruno had known intellectually of the appalling toll of that war, and as a veteran soldier he could guess that for each one who died in action, two or three would be wounded. He understood from his own experience how that simple word ‘wounded’ could not begin to describe the pain and frustrations of hospital and operations, the endless tedium and discomforts of convalescence.
His own recovery had been complete. Yet now he felt weighed down by the presence of hundreds of thousands of men whose lives had been permanently transformed and diminished by wounds and disfigurements that lasted for the rest of their days. Blinded, legless, deafened, barely able to breathe for the gas that had scoured their lungs, the costs of war endured for whole lifetimes, condemning the victims and their wives and families to but a fraction of the lives they had expected. And it was not only Frenchmen, but Germans, Russians, British, Austrians, Americans, Turks, Italians, a polyglot host of smashed bodies and broken minds that spread around the globe. What a gross and terrible madness that war had been.
On the list in his hands were fourteen gueules cassées. Five of them were listed as receiving pensions for being one hundred per cent disabled, so he presumed they would not be able to continue working their farms. Of the remainder, five were farmers. Three of them were in the commune of St Denis, one was in St Chamassy and one in Audrix.
Bruno noted the names and addresses, and went to the Mairie to find exactly where the farmers from St Denis had lived and the names of the current owners of the farms. The cadastre, the vast map of the commune on which every lot of land was marked, was cross-referenced to the taxation records. Two of the names he crossed off his list, since the men had died before 1942. He called the other mairies and found that the gueule cassée in St Chamassy had died in 1941. That left him two names. The farmer in St Denis had land adjoining the road to Les Eyzies, which did not seem sufficiently remote a secret shelter.
So he drove to the tiny mairie of Audrix and asked the Mayor if he could consult the cadastre. He found that the farm had been abandoned and had paid no taxes since 1944. The farmer’s name was Michel Desbordes and his wife was Sylvie. The Mayor rang the oldest inhabitant of the village and asked if he remembered the couple. He did, so Bruno and the Mayor walked through the small square flanked by the medieval inn on whose terrace Bruno had often dined to the modest house where the old man lived with his daughter, a widow and retired in her turn.
‘I’ll be eighty-four next month, but there’s nothing wrong with my memory,’ said the old man, pouring a glass of his home-made vin de noix that he insisted his guests taste. It was indeed good, although a little sweeter than Bruno’s own version. ‘Monsieur Desbordes, our local bogey man. We were all frightened of him, all the children. My grandma would say she’d get him to come round if we were naughty. We hardly ever saw him and his wife was usually the one who went to market. They had a little cart and a donkey.’
The Desbordes had no children and had kept to themselves, since they had been the only Protestants in the commune, the old man recalled. Theirs had been a small farm of no more than ten hectares, raising goats, chickens, rabbits and a couple of scrawny cows. The land had been too poor for tobacco, so the Desbordes had been little more than self-sufficient. But he had some kind of pension as a mutilé, enough to keep himself and his wife in salt and soap and an occasional pair of shoes.
‘Are you sure there were no children, perhaps relatives who came to stay?’ Bruno asked.
The old man shook his head; not that he had ever seen. He remembered one thing. There had been a time when Desbordes had fallen and broken his mask. For weeks he had worn a cloth that his wife had sewn to cover his face until he went to Limoges for a new mask. But yes, there had been relatives, a man who wore a white collar like a priest, but he was accompanied by a woman whom he had introduced as his wife.
‘It was the first I knew that Protestants let their priests marry,’ the old man said. ‘But I never saw any children and I never saw Desbordes or his wife after the liberation.’
Bruno drove out to the farm, at first along a single-lane tarmac road. But then at a junction it became a dirt track and after another junction it was no more than an overgrown space betwee
n two tangled hedgerows. Bruno stopped his Land Rover, climbed out and pushed his way through the jungle of vegetation. Nobody had been this way in years. The going eased as the track led through a small patch of woodland that had grown dense and dark through lack of management. As he emerged from the trees, he saw that he was in a small bowl of gently sloping land, perhaps two hundred metres wide and a little longer where the land fell away to a small stream lined with overgrown willows and the remains of a wooden fence.
The farmhouse lay to his left. It had been built just below the crest of a ridge, to be sheltered from the winds, which could be fierce up here on the plateau. Its front faced the rising sun and at the rear and southern side there was a terrace. Like the walls, it was made of local stone and was still in good repair; only a scattering of weeds had found purchase in the cracks. The roof was almost gone, just a few rafters and a handful of tiles remained. The wooden door was cracked but still firm and locked.
Bruno cleared some of the bracken that had grown around the walls and clambered through a gap that had once been a window. He found himself in what could have been the kitchen, with a stone sink and a broken-off chimney pipe hanging above the spot where a stove would have stood. A small hallway, with the remains of a ladder going into the attic, led to two empty rooms, most of their ceilings gone and open to the skies. Presumably Desbordes and his wife had one and the Halévy children used the other.
He went out to the terrace. A large stone barn, in better repair than the house, stood across a cobbled yard. At one side of the yard he found an ancient well in the yard and the rusted remains of a pump. A small pile of stones overgrown with wildflowers had presumably been the outhouse. Beyond it a low, single-storey building set into the slope of the hill could have been a pigsty or perhaps a donkey’s stable. It was too small for a horse. The place felt like a refuge, quiet and protected from the outside world, and the only sound audible was birdsong. It was a spot where people of quiet tastes could be content and where children of war like Halévy and his sister could find peace.
He climbed to the top of the ridge and knew at once where he was, at the southern end of one of the stretches of woodland that contained a long firebreak that he sometimes rode. He could get here on horseback. It must once have been a pleasant farm, and with a tractor to clear the approach lane and a lot of work would make a charming holiday home. Fix up the barn, turn it into a dormitory and it would make a fine camp for children.
Bruno paused as the idea struck him. It would make a good centre for Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. Halévy had been a Scout. Maybe that would be the right project for Halévy’s estate, turning the house where he and his sister had been sheltered into a memorial to them both that was also useful for a new generation. He used his mobile phone to take some photos. He’d ask some of the builders in St Denis to take a look and give a rough idea of what it might cost to restore the place.
Bruno looked at the sun and checked his watch. He had meant to get back to Momu at Le Pavillon with croissants in time for a late breakfast, but he’d been gone for half the day. He plucked out his disposable phone but there was no signal. They must be wondering what had become of him. And the Brigadier, who had told Bruno to stay with Sami and the family, would probably be furious. Nonetheless, Bruno reflected as he ploughed his way back along the overgrown lane to his vehicle, his time had been well spent. When he got back to Audrix he had a signal and his first call was to the Mayor, to tell him that the Halévy mystery was solved and they now needed to find out what they could of the Desbordes family. And with his croissants growing stale beside him, Bruno headed back to Le Pavillon.
10
The thought crossed Bruno’s mind that he should offer to cook for the group assembled at Le Pavillon. But he knew that Dillah, expecting the arrival of her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren and with her long-lost adopted son returned, would be outraged if anyone tried to replace her in the kitchen. Trying to think what Sami might like and also what he might need, Bruno went briefly by his own garden to fill a basket with apples, pears and blackcurrants. From the look of him, Sami had eaten little of anything in Afghanistan, let alone the fruit and vegetables that would do him good. Finally, remembering one of Sami’s favourite treats from his days at the tennis club, Bruno stopped at the supermarket and bought a large carton of vanilla ice cream.
‘All quiet in Toulouse,’ Gaston told him when Bruno drove into the courtyard where he could park out of sight. ‘Nobody’s stirring, they tell us. But the boss is on his way. Apparently there’s been a development.’
Bruno found Sami, barefoot and dressed in loose tracksuit trousers and a vest, dozing by the pool, Balzac snoozing on his chest. One of Sami’s hands was shading his eyes, the other lay on Balzac’s back. Bruno stripped off to his shorts, dived into the pool and began swimming short lengths, crawl one way, backstroke the other. The splashes woke Balzac and jerked Sami to sit upright. He saw Bruno’s basket lying close to hand and picked out a pear.
‘Have you swum yet?’ Bruno asked, pausing at his turn. Sami shook his head and then stripped and rolled into the pool. He floated on his back, arms outstretched and eyes closed as Bruno continued his lengths, wondering what news the Brigadier would bring and whether his idea of turning the Desbordes farm into a Scout camp would unlock more money from the Halévy bequest. How long would the Brigadier want to take, monitoring the phones and emails at the mosque and building intelligence before judging it was time to move in, arrest Rafiq’s killers and let Momu and his family resume a normal life?
‘Car coming,’ called Gaston. Bruno climbed out of the pool, quickly towelled down and put on some fresh shorts and sandals from the sports bag in the back of his Land Rover. He strapped on his handgun and joined Gaston at the archway. Robert had the high ground in the pigeonnier tower with a view in all directions.
‘It’s the doc’s car,’ he called down, and Bruno recognized Fabiola’s old Twingo as it rounded the bend. Far off in the distance and barely louder than the buzzing of a bee he could hear the beat of a helicopter.
‘I got the lab to expedite the blood tests. They’d never seen anything like it,’ Fabiola explained. ‘He’s had hepatitis, amoebic dysentery and jaundice which is still not cleared up, and he’s still got anaemia, hookworms, trichuriasis and they’re still checking for tuberculosis. It’s amazing what a human body can put up with. I’ve brought him enough antibiotics to cure a regiment, but you have to make sure he takes them, Bruno. How has he been today?’
‘He slept in and had a big breakfast, eggs and yogurt and that flat bread Dillah makes,’ said Gaston. ‘He spent the rest of the morning stroking your horse. Then he sat by the pool with Momu and your dog. He’s got a thing about animals; they like him, the way he touches them.’
‘Touch seems very important to him as a way to communicate,’ Fabiola said. ‘He doesn’t seem to trust speech much, as if he hasn’t had much practice in speaking. Anyway, since I’m here, let’s go and see how he is.’
Sami must have heard her voice and came loping round the corner, Balzac in his arms, still dripping water from the pool and his face beaming a wide smile at the sight of Fabiola.
‘Fab’ola,’ he said, in a voice that creaked like a rusty door. He stroked her forearm as if he were petting a dog.
Fabiola’s hair was piled up atop her head and she wore no make-up. The old mountaineering scar on her cheek stood out plainly and Sami drew close to look at it. He touched it gently with the back of his hand as if to feel its texture. Fabiola smiled and then turned him to examine the scars on his back. He was still wet from the pool.
‘Brigadier will be here in twenty minutes,’ Gaston interrupted, his head cocked as he listened to the voice in his earpiece. ‘The chopper put him down by the big quarry. He wanted to be sure we were all here.’
‘Why not land here?’ Fabiola asked.
‘It would draw attention,’ said Bruno. ‘Not many holiday rentals come with helicopter service.’
Fab
iola took Sami’s hand to lead him indoors and asked Bruno to bring her medical bag. Once in the kitchen and beginning her examination, with Dillah again standing beside Sami, Fabiola said she had something important to tell them.
‘These worms Sami has are highly infectious. You need to wash your hands very thoroughly after you touch him, every time. And wash him with this special soap first thing in the morning, whenever he goes to the bathroom, before meals and when he goes to bed.’ She put a large white plastic bottle on the kitchen table and then turned to Bruno.
‘Dogs are very vulnerable and they are also carriers to humans, so I’m giving Balzac a de-worming course.’
‘What about horses?’ Bruno asked. ‘Sami spends a lot of time stroking Hector.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll check and get back to you. And make sure those two security men are brought into the picture, because all this applies to them. Dillah, every time Sami uses the bathroom, please wash everything with bleach – shower, hand-basin and toilet bowl. Here, I’ve brought you a big pack of rubber gloves. Use them once only.’
Dillah’s eyes widened in alarm but she nodded firmly.
‘One more thing,’ Fabiola went on. ‘No babies and no lactating mothers may visit until I say so. I’ll do more tests in a few days. The antibiotics and other treatments should have killed the worms and eggs by then. But babies are very vulnerable and breast milk from an infected mother can be lethal.’
She turned to Bruno, who was thinking that there would now be no visit by Rashida and her children. ‘You might want to remind them of the legal situation on quarantine,’ she added as she climbed into her car. She drove off.
Bruno nodded as he waved farewell, recalling one of his lectures at the police academy and a section of the legal code that he had not studied for years. But he remembered the extraordinary powers that French doctors could assume to impose strict quarantine to prevent public health risks. Briefly, he explained that Fabiola could have them all kept here behind barbed wire and watched by armed sentries, if she thought it necessary.
Children of War: A Bruno Courrèges Investigation (Bruno Chief of Police 8) Page 9