Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  Again, Tommy asked what happened, but my head was bowed, and I couldn’t find the words to tell him that most of all there was rage against him and rage against them.

  That to tell is to fear. That I mustn’t say a thing because I’d been warned not to.

  Putting his fingers under my chin, he gently lifted it, gasped, drew in a breath, and held it, then stepped aside to let the light shine better on me.

  Flickering shadows couldn’t hide the angry scabs of a scraped cheek where the ice and snow had torn the skin, nor the blackened eye whose purplish bruise had turned to yellow.

  My lips were still split and painful.

  ‘Ah, bon, monsieur, now you see what my husband had them do to me. Are you pleased? That tiara we took to England was never a fake. You knew it was the real one, Tommy, but you let me think otherwise because my husband had told me it was. I should have guessed. I should have had more sense. I was just too stupid.’

  ‘Only an expert could have seen the difference.’

  ‘Vuitton was such a one.’

  ‘We didn’t know how closely your husband was involved. We had to find out.’

  ‘So, having recovered the real one from me, you substituted the fake, and let me hang out the bait for the wolves.’

  ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘How could I after what we’ve shared?’

  ‘I still love you.’

  ‘Ah, no, monsieur, you love only your job. You’re a hunter, just like Marie has said.’

  He left me then. As I watched, Tommy put on his shoes and coat, closed the firebox door, and turned to face me one last time. ‘We honestly didn’t think your husband would hurt you like that, Lily, but then I found that his friends tried to kill me in Paris. Two nights ago, I came back to my hotel room, and they were waiting. I don’t carry a gun. That’s not my sort of thing. I ran down the corridor and made it to the stairs and the street, heard three or four shots well behind me, but now the Sûreté are claiming I shot and killed a man. It may have been an accident; it might have been intentional. I’ve never trusted some of the Sûreté’s rank and file. But they’ve got a body—some poor bastard who was staying two rooms down from mine. The newspapers are full of it. My mug’s been plastered all over the place, and that can only mean they don’t want me finding out who stole Nicki’s things and where they ended up.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Antwerp, if I can, and over to London as quickly as possible. If not, Lyons, Marseille, North Africa, and London. I don’t relish spending time in a French jail where they can get at me. Not with the connections those friends of that husband of yours must have.’

  The Action française. ‘The frontiers will be watched. The Nazis will help them find you—the one called Schiller, the lieutenant who’s in the SS. Jules had them to the house while we were in England. Marcel thinks they must have slipped into France from Switzerland after first having been in Poland.’

  He was in the orchard when I called out, ‘Tommy, wait! I’m sorry I had to tell them your last name and who you worked for and what you did. I tried not to, but they …’

  The bricks of the courtyard were like ice against my bare feet. ‘Please come back. Let me hide you for a little, and we’ll work something out. I’ll drive you south. I don’t know but …’

  I fed him as I was to feed so many in the years to come. Full of soup, bread, and cheese, he sat there with his feet ankle deep in a basin of hot water, he to tell me that two of Nicki’s paintings had turned up at an auction house in Brussels, me to tell him what I knew of the Vuittons, the things from the Louvre, and the Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionnaire. ‘Their “Action” gangs. They’ll destroy the Third Republic if they can.’

  The Royalists and the Action française didn’t agree on everything, but Tommy knew France had a fairly strong fifth column that was just itching for the Germans to invade, the old order being replaced by the new, which was really somewhat older: kings and queens and all that rubbish, or dictators who could tell everyone what to do.

  Reaching out to me, he said, ‘Somehow we’ve got to get you and the children out of France. The States would be best, Lily, a visit that’s at least long enough for the worst here to have happened. No one would send you back, not then. You’d like Montana. Jean-Guy and Marie certainly would. Promise me you’ll come if I can find a way.’

  For me, the healing had begun, but it was much more than this—though I wasn’t to have known it at the time—it was a change in our relationship from that of lovers to comrades-in-arms.

  * * *

  ‘Madame de St-Germain, je m’appelle l’Inspecteur Gaétan Dupuis, Paris Sûreté. Vous permettez?’

  May I. ‘What?’ I asked as if I didn’t already know.

  ‘Come in.’

  Wet snowflakes had settled on the olive brown fedora and shabby overcoat whose top button had come undone and was hanging by a thread.

  ‘Please, madame, much valuable heat is being lost through this open door of your husband’s.’ Digging a hand into a pocket, he hunched his shoulders forward as if to butt me out of the way. ‘My card and badge will confirm what I’ve stated. One can, of course, appreciate your nervousness, since the house it is quite isolated.’

  Patently ignoring the obvious threat, I stood my ground. ‘A policeman … but why?’

  His was the shrug of a flic. ‘Merely a few questions. You have a friend, an American.’

  There was a black Citroën parked out front, but he had chosen to come to the kitchen door, hoping perhaps that I had not seen that he hadn’t come alone. Short, rotund, seemingly looking diffident but far from it, the warm brown eyes flicked over everything, noted the children still behind me, grinned and ducked his head, the happy father figure in an instant.

  About forty-five, he had bags under the eyes, warts on the left side of the rather fleshy nose that had been broken at least twice, I felt, and a small brown mole to the left of a chin, which had caused him trouble shaving that morning.

  With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I took the fedora from him and waited for the overcoat, which was heavier in one pocket than in the other, an observation of mine he quickly noted, for he said, ‘Put it over a chair. That one will do well enough.’

  Kicking off his rubbers, he ran a hand over his thinning hair before patting the pockets of a suit jacket that must have been with him for years, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch. He smelled of wet, coarse wool, garlic, onions, and peppermint-flavoured anise bonbons, which, I assumed, he took for his ulcers—he had that look about him.

  An upper front tooth, to the left, was capped with gold, the crowns of the others stained with nicotine and too much coffee.

  No tribunal would ever doubt my word. He wasn’t as tall as myself, so when he looked at me, he had a way of slowly lifting his eyes as if they, too, were heavy and he perpetually tired.

  Packing the tobacco down and lighting the pipe, he looked at me and said, ‘Ah, bon, madame. This friend of yours … Apparently, your neighbours …’

  ‘Georges and Tante Marie.’

  Dupuis nodded. I turned to tell the children to go up to their rooms, but he stopped me. ‘Children are often overlooked in matters such as this. Please allow them to remain.’

  I remember that he liked my kitchen, its spaciousness and warmth. He made a great thing of the view out over the vegetable gardens and into the orchard. He even asked for coffee, when I’d offered wine.

  There were biscuits for the children, and I remember that Marie lifted an extra one for her dolls and that Dupuis noticed this as he did everything else. ‘You’ve seen the newspapers?’ he asked me.

  In the wood box there were several ready for lighting the fire. One, however, was much thinner than the others, and I knew I shouldn’t have saved that scrap.

  Unraveling it, he said, ‘All but two pages from yesterday’s Le Matin. Children, have a look at what remains of this torn photograph.’

  ‘It’s Monsieu
r Tommy,’ said my son.

  ‘Wanted for murder,’ whispered Marie, before asking if she might be excused.

  ‘She wants to play with her dolls,’ I blurted.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. So, Jean-Guy, is Monsieur Carrington here in the house?’

  There wasn’t a waver. ‘No, monsieur. Bad people hurt my mother, but it wasn’t him, and he isn’t here. We haven’t seen him since our visit to England.’

  I was shocked. I hadn’t known my son could lie with such a straight face. Dupuis tussled the boy’s hair and laughed as he gestured with his pipe. ‘Of course. Now go and keep an eye on your sister so that your mother won’t be worried about her.’

  He listened as Jean-Guy fled. Mapping out the very room, he retrieved his gun from that overcoat pocket and said, ‘Madame, where is he?’

  Though I couldn’t have told you then, that weapon was a Lebel Modèle d’ordonnance, one of the old 1873s with the 11-mm black-powder cartridges that would often misfire due to dampness after having been stored for so long. Since the French never throw anything out, the police, the military and Sûreté were accustomed to saying ‘two shots are always better than one.’

  ‘There’s no need for that revolver,’ I heard myself saying. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘Then where?’

  I shrugged. Even then I waited for the blow, but it did not come, only later in Paris, in the Prison du Cherche-Midi, where I hit the wall and felt blood rushing from my nose. ‘Look, how should I know where he is? He wouldn’t risk coming here, knowing he was wanted for murder. He’s not like that. He’d have been far too worried about us.’

  ‘And a repeat of your accident in the woods—is that what you’re implying? Ah, yes, an unpleasantness, madame. I was sorry to hear that such a thing had happened.’

  ‘Then you’ll do something about it?’

  ‘But, of course.’

  Like Vuitton, there was only that unfeelingness in his gaze. I took the coffeepot from the stove and refilled his cup. ‘He’s not a murderer, Inspector. Those people tried to frame him so as to stop him from getting too close.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d tell me, then, exactly what he was involved in but first, madame, how is it that he even knew of your accident in the woods?’

  ‘I never said he did, Inspector. You assumed I had told him.’

  I added milk to his coffee, then one, two, and three little spoons of sugar, he shaking his head at a fourth.

  He took a biscuit and dunked it. I sat down and told him what little I could, but he had the habit of always wanting more and of fleshing out the details for himself so much so that in the end, I realized that he knew far more about it than myself.

  ‘So, madame, a word of caution. Don’t harbour this man a moment longer. Give him up, and I will personally see that no further harm comes to you.’

  He still hadn’t put the gun away. Big, ugly, scarred, and looking as if accustomed to banging criminal heads, he left that six-shot revolver on the table close to his right hand so that I would be tempted to repeatedly glance at it.

  ‘He really isn’t here, Inspector.’ But was there something of Tommy’s behind me? I wondered.

  Dupuis read my thoughts. ‘Those woollen socks,’ he said.

  ‘Which?’ I asked, not turning to look towards the stove where they had been hung last night. Instead, I reached for my cup, hoping my nerves wouldn’t betray me.

  ‘You’d better look,’ he said.

  There were no socks or anything else of Tommy’s, but my response was still not good enough. ‘I can have this place searched,’ he said. ‘Your husband has already given the authorization.’

  ‘And has the district magistrate, Inspector?’ I snapped my fingers for the piece of paper he would have to produce. In those days, one could still demand such a thing. Later, of course, the police didn’t even bother with permission.

  It didn’t ruffle him in the slightest. Instead, he cocked that revolver and said, ‘Such a reaction in one who was once so attractive, only suggests that you’re hiding him.’

  ‘Then search and find out for yourself. He left here three days ago.’

  ‘Ah, bon, and this newspaper, madame? Where was he heading, if he really has left? Provence, was it?’

  Even then he knew of my mother’s having always spent her winters there. ‘Spain, I think.’

  ‘And not near Barbizon at her farm, eh? He could have walked there easily from here.’

  ‘He said he had clients in Barcelona who would help him.’

  It was then that his associate rapped on one of the French windows. Dupuis got up and went to open it, they to talk of tracks in the snow that had fortunately all but been covered. ‘Those of a man, Inspector, leading here.’

  ‘And none leaving?’

  ‘Two sets to her car. The man’s and the woman’s. Hers return from where the car’s now parked.’

  ‘Then it’s as she says, and he’s gone from here.’

  ‘Shall we leave you and go to Avon to check out the trains?’

  That ‘we’ meant there must be two subordinates, the other still tramping about or already upstairs and waiting.

  But Dupuis answered, ‘No. It’s perhaps just as well to leave him on the run. Yes … yes, that would be best. A man in such a position can only look back and wonder if we’re following, and he might well be stopped at the frontier in any case.’

  Even now, I have to wonder what Dupuis must have wanted from me, but I knew that he wasn’t going to push things. Maybe they would watch the house from a distance, maybe simply depend on Georges and Tante Marie to inform.

  Tommy had got into that car of mine, and I had driven him out to the main road and back, he to walk on his hands into the house and me to then walk in those tracks and obliterate them.

  ‘Madame, I should arrest you, but as that would leave your children without their mother’s love and care, we’ll leave the matter for now. Just don’t ever cross me again.’

  A bargain, was that it? ‘I repeat, Inspector, that he murdered no one. The others did, and I would urge you to have them identified, charged, and arrested. I’m sure that you will find that among them were some, if not all, of those who violated me.’

  Long after they had driven away, I remained staring out at the road until at last I felt it safe enough to check if all the locks were on before going slowly up the stairs while still listening for Dupuis.

  Tommy was quietly playing cards with my children.

  Swallows have lived in the attic. Plastered to the roof timbers, their nests form shallow cups that are drenched with long-dried, spattered grey. Rubbish is everywhere. Not a thing of value has been left. There are cobwebs, great nets of them, and they blow about in the draught that comes in through the broken windows. Again, there are scattered shell casings. Even so, I try to remember because it was here that so much happened.

  The crates were stacked or leaning against one another among the relics of my husband’s family, who must have believed their secrets should remain hidden and that one never threw anything out lest those same secrets be exposed.

  But Tommy was standing beside me. We were looking at the crates, and I knew we were both wondering if some of Nicki’s treasures were among them. The children were asleep in their rooms, the lantern was on a chest, and light from it was reflected in the bevelled glass of an antique cheval whose spindly stand was broken years ago.

  ‘Since Dupuis wasn’t interested in these,’ said Tommy, ‘we can only surmise that he’s not in on the whole picture.’

  The Action gangs and the robbery, Schiller and the Nazi connection. ‘Hence Jules and the Vuittons will soon arrive to see if you’ve broken into any of them, all of which means that you will have to leave.’

  There was a warmth and sincerity to his eyes that I desperately needed, but he said, ‘I have to, for your sake.’

  ‘Why not open a few of them?’

  He shook his head. ‘They’re safe enough for now. That way, we can come back. I�
�ll talk to the firm and to Nicki, and we’ll see what can be done. There must be something. Those people can’t go unpunished for what they did to you.’

  The attic was huge and cluttered with old and still very fine things. The light was soft as we threaded our way among wicker chairs, a baby carriage, a bureau, a washtub, a pile of carpets. There were boxes of china, lamps, and lanterns … The images come at me: a hat stand, a dressmaker’s dummy, spinning wheel, even a sheathed sword, but did an ancestor of my husband’s really go to war under Napoléon? Was he killed in Russia?

  It was dark, for the lantern was now far behind us, giving a horizon that was irregular but glowed as if the sun were going down, and as Tommy reached for me, I was terrified and pulled away, but the kiss was so tender, he so hesitant and conscious of what had happened to me, I let it continue. Hands were soon placed on my hips, and though I flinched, I let them stay until the spasm passed and I felt myself pressing against him.

  Dragging him back a little, I sat down on something. It was an end table. There was just room for me to wrap my legs about him, and I couldn’t think of anything else. I had to have him in me, had to forget the laughter and the shouting.

  In a rush, my legs tightened, for he had lifted me up and was softly saying my name over and over as I felt his tears mingle with my own. Perhaps Georges was out there watching us—spying—and I hoped he was because then he’d see me doing this among the relics of my husband’s family.

  Throwing back my head, I pushed myself against my lover, had to get closer and closer, had to have him in me deeper and deeper, and as I felt him coming inside me, I wanted to cry out but was silent.

  The throbbing ended, the kisses lingered, and finally I murmured, ‘Now please take me to bed downstairs.’

  Two nights later, the children and I saw him enter the forest. He wouldn’t be taking the train from the station at Avon, which was just on the other side of Fontainebleau. This much we knew for sure, and in the morning of that third day, I took the children to Paris. There were things I had to do, questions I had to ask.

  Wind tugs at a torn photograph among the litter of others that have been dumped from drawers that are no longer present. It’s one of the first of my children—Jules obviously having taken the photo, happier days back then—Jean-Guy at his birth, love in my eyes as I lift a nipple to his anxious little lips and feel the tug of them. Did I once possess such a gentleness?