by Mark Hebden
Heutelet smiled. ‘They got Jochen Peiper, didn’t they?’
‘Who did?’
Heutelet smiled again and Pel suspected that, if nothing else, he was a party to knowledge that the police didn’t possess.
‘I don’t know who did it,’ Heutelet said. ‘But I bet it wasn’t for racing debts or because he was after somebody’s wife.’ He frowned. ‘The arrogance of the bastards beats me. They came here in the war and sent people to concentration camps or shoved them up against a wall. Now it’s all been over a few years they think they’ve paid their debts and come back as tourists – even to live, because it’s cheaper. Not the ordinary Germans – I’ve nothing against them. The Nazis. The bastards who were responsible for it all. The Americans and the British and the International courts might agree to it, but Frenchmen never will. Nor will the Dutch or the Norwegians or anybody else whose country was occupied. Nor will the Jews – and, despite the efforts of the Germans, there are still a few about.’
‘If Geistardt came back,’ Pel repeated, ‘would you try to kill him?’
Heutelet answered frankly. ‘Yes.’
‘You yourself?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was blunt and unequivocal.
‘Did he harm you?’
‘They harmed everybody somehow. I’d shoot him with pleasure.’
‘You didn’t, did you?’
Heutelet smiled. ‘Why? Is he back here?’
‘He might have been.’
‘The body at the calvary?’
‘It could be.’
Heutelet shrugged. ‘If it was him, then I only hope whoever did it made the bastard suffer a bit first.’
‘It’s thirty-four years since,’ Pel pointed out.
‘It’s not too long,’ Heutelet insisted. ‘You can’t understand unless you were there. My brother was shot. Down in Roches. His wife’s spent thirty-four years without a husband, his children thirty-four years without a father. It’s never too long. The Jews didn’t think it too long to capture and kill Eichmann. The people who got Peiper didn’t think it too long either. Neither would I.’
‘Geistardt was probably tortured. Why?’
Heutelet smiled. ‘Perhaps they were trying to get out of him what happened to the de Mougy silver. They went through the place you know. They took all the silver, even the old Baronne’s jewels, everything they could carry. I bet the Baron wouldn’t mind getting his hands on him.’
It was a thought.
‘What happened to the silver?’
‘They say it’s buried in the woods up here somewhere.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Germans were in the woods a lot just before they all bolted back to Germany.’
‘Who were?’
‘Geistardt for one. They came up in one of those Kubelwaggons they had – little cars like American jeeps. They had spades in the back. I heard later that senior SS officers were making enquiries about the looting of the de Mougy place. Perhaps they wanted it for themselves. But they never found it.’
‘How do you know they came to the woods?’
‘We were waiting for them. Not to get the swag. To get Geistardt. But we waited in the wrong place. He got away. And as far as I know the swag was never found.’
‘So if he came back, he’d probably come back for that, would he?’
‘Probably.’ Heutelet shrugged. ‘It’s a long time, but you never know. The bastard probably thought like Peiper that all was forgiven and that he could come and spend his German marks here to take advantage of the difference in currency. The bastards are everywhere these days, aren’t they?’
As Heutelet finished speaking, Darcy pulled out the copy of the map of Bussy-la-Fontaine he’d obtained from Danielle Delaporte.
‘Ever seen one of these before?’ he asked.
Heutelet’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Where did you get that?’ he asked.
‘It came from Piot’s factory in Dôle. His secretary said it was in a book that came from Baron de Mougy’s place.’
Heutelet smiled. ‘Well, yes, it would be.’
‘Know it?’
‘Yes. It’s one I put out.’
‘You?’ They stared at him, startled.
‘Yes. We got up to all sorts of things.’
‘What are the crosses?’
‘Hiding places.’
‘For loot?’
‘No. For guns.’
Darcy began to smile. ‘Piot thinks they’re for loot,’ he said.
Heutelet’s handsome old face broke into a grin. ‘He won’t get much loot out of that map,’ he said.
‘Did you hide guns?’
‘No. That’s the point.’
They had left the maps where the Germans could find them, because they liked looking for caches of arms and were always certain there was one on every farm in the district.
‘They were so certain they were hated, you understand,’ Heutelet smiled. ‘And the reckoning was coming.’
The Resistance had merely obliged them and kept their nerves on edge by allowing them to find the maps, which were left in briefcases on buses or pushed through letter boxes as if they’d been posted by an informer. It had never failed to work. There had been a map for every farm in the district, one for Matajcek’s, one for Vaucheretard, one for Bussy-la-Fontaine.
‘They never failed,’ Heutelet said. ‘They’d come storming up and set to work. We loved to see them sweat.’
‘Didn’t they react? With shooting?’
‘They liked to pretend they were very legal and they could never pin them on anybody. It was a bit nerve-wracking at times if there’d been some trouble somewhere and they were in a bad temper. They pushed you around a bit. But it was always worth it.’
‘What happened when they didn’t find anything? Weren’t they suspicious?’
Heutelet shrugged. ‘We always had excuses. The crosses were where we’d set rabbit snares. “You’ve called in all our guns,” we said, “and there’s no food, so we have to use snares.” “After all,” we said, “we don’t want to spring them ourselves and we mark them so that everybody in the family knows.”’
‘Didn’t they ever suspect you were having them on?’
‘Probably. But they didn’t dare take chances. And they were such humourless bastards. Sometimes, we said it was where we’d found mushrooms – trompettes de mort or chantrelles d’automne. Or snails. Food was scarce under the Occupation and we were all at that game. We told them that it was usual, if you found a place, to mark it on a map for the following year. Because they didn’t know what it was like to go hungry, they believed us. Sometimes we said it was because we’d seen partridges. We always had an excuse and they never found any guns. They must have dug up half of Burgundy. On D-Day there’d have been a lot more resistance to the invasion but for the fact that the Germans had a couple of divisions digging up the French countryside.’ Heutelet grinned. ‘They never seemed to catch on. Not even to where the bars hung the pictures of Hitler. They had to show them – Hitler and Pétain. It was the law, so they hung them on the lavatory door. When they had the round-ups in the streets in the hope of catching people with arms, all the women wrapped up everything they could think of and went out and let themselves be stopped. It kept the bastards busy while the others hid what they didn’t want finding.’
Pel listened silently. Heutelet was smiling but when he’d finished, his smile died abruptly. ‘It seems funny now,’ he ended. ‘It wasn’t funny then. Sometimes they shot people.’
There was a long awkward silence that was full of half-forgotten horrors. Pel finished his drink.
‘The shootings that took place at Bussy-la-Fontaine,’ he said. ‘Did you know any of them?’
Heutelet frowned. ‘I knew them all.’
‘Tell me about them.’
‘They were ordinary people. They believed in France. Most people didn’t know whether to lay low or be active and most people live all their lives at half-throttle anywa
y. There were a few, though, who felt something had to be done, if we were to hold up our heads after the war.’
‘And you were one?’
‘Yes. So were these others. Some of us got away with it. Some didn’t. They were caught.’
‘What about Vallois-Dot? What was he?’
‘Civil Servant. Worked for the post office, like his son.’
Grandcamp had had a smithy, Duval had helped at the bar. Cirois and Hugo were labourers, Poupon a garde-champêtre from the other side of Orgny. Evangeliste had been a cowman and Sanz had had an old lorry which he used to carry wood. Since he delivered it to the Germans, they had even let him have petrol.
‘What about the woman – Madame Louhalle?’
‘She wasn’t a “madame”. She wasn’t married.’
‘She wasn’t?’ Pel was confused and looked to Massu for confirmation. ‘I thought there was a child.’
Heutelet smiled. ‘It’s happened before, hasn’t it? Call it one of war’s tragedies. The father was called up in 1939, I heard, and killed at Sedan in 1940, just before it was born. She’d expected him to come on leave just before the Germans broke through, but, of course, he never did. For a long time she was heart-broken, then she got herself organised. She sent the child – it was a boy, I believe – to relatives in the south somewhere and became an active member of the Resistance. I didn’t know her well, but the woman who kept the hotel where she worked is still alive. She’d tell you more about her. Name of Foing. Kept the Hostellerie des Trois Mousquetaires.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She has an antique shop on the road to Dijon just outside St Seine l’Abbaye. It’s a bit of a tip, because she’s ancient now. But she’d know about Louhalle. If she’s still compos mentis, that is.’
‘Massu can run me there,’ Pel said.
Massu looked up, his dark face surprised. ‘I thought Sergeant Darcy –’
‘Sergeant Darcy has to go to Savoie St Juste.’
Massu gestured. ‘Well, my van’s due for servicing, sir. And I’ve arranged for them to fix the lamp.’
‘When?’
‘I was on my way.’
‘You could leave it.’
Massu shifted in his seat. ‘I made the arrangements, sir.’
‘Arrangements can be altered.’
‘Sir, I –’
Massu frowned, worried, but Darcy jumped in. ‘It doesn’t matter, Patron,’ he said. ‘I can leave Savoie St Juste until tomorrow. It might be interesting to learn something about this Louhalle woman, in fact.’ He thought of Joséphine-Heloïse Aymé. The last time he’d telephoned, there’d been faint signs of a thaw. ‘I might even find a little something to buy for a friend of mine.’
They dropped quickly down into Orgny, rounding the corners at speed, the tyres whining. The clouds made the day dark and the woods looked black beyond the trees.
Pel stared at them thoughtfully, wondering just what it must have been like to live in them through all the winters of the war, as some people had. He gave a little shudder, deciding that, with his frail health it was something he could never have done.
‘Stop in Orgny,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see this Duval woman and Vallois-Dot’s widow.’
The village was empty except for a few women moving in and out of the baker’s and a group of men outside the bar. Madame Duval lived near the post office at the back of the Mairie. She was a thin bitter woman whose life had obviously not been easy. She was a withered little creature with a long nose, a tight, stitched mouth and work-worn hands.
‘Of course I hated the Germans,’ she said. ‘They killed my husband. But it was his own fault, wasn’t it? Patriotism? Pride? I got nothing out of those. The pension they gave me never kept me and I had to bring up three children. And now they’ve all left home and never come to see me.’
‘Do you ever go up to put flowers on the shrine?’ Darcy asked. She gave him a dark flickering glance. ‘Why should I? I did for a bit on his grave in the churchyard. But not for long. I told him not to join the Resistance, anyway. The Germans were swarming all over the place. They hadn’t a chance.’
The post office was being run by a new postmaster – a young man with a mandarin moustache and dark glasses that made him look like a mafioso. Madame Vallois-Dot was also busy behind the counter with the switchboard.
She greeted Pel, almost smiling. ‘They’ve said I could stay on,’ she said. ‘I’ll be looking after the telephones. They’ve decided it’s too much for one person and they’ve made it official.’ Her face changed. ‘After all those years of my husband trying to do it on his own, too. He ought to have insisted before – before –’ her voice trailed away, then she shrugged. ‘He was never one to push himself, though.’
‘Did he ever go up to Bussy-la-Fontaine?’ Pel asked.
Her expression was startled. ‘Why would he go up there?’
‘To see Monsieur Piot, for instance. You said they were friends.’ She shrugged. Only in the bar, she said. He had never gone to the shrine, to her knowledge, since she had known him, in spite of his father’s name being on it. He might have done before their marriage, but she had always thought he’d forgotten the whole business.
Pel paused. ‘What did he think of the Germans? Did he hate them?’
Her hand fluttered. ‘Sometimes he said things. But nobody in France has much time for the Germans, anyway, do they? He was only a boy when his father was killed, though, so he was too young to worry much.’
Fifteen
They found the antique shop on the hill as the road curved out of St Seine l’Abbaye. It lay against the rising ground, a whitewashed building with a long sloping roof that seemed on the point of falling in. Outside there were old cartwheels, rusting ploughshares, a sedan chair in a state of complete disrepair, prams and ancient barrows.
‘It has everything,’ Darcy said, ‘but technicolour.’
As Pel pushed his way nervously inside the dark interior he found himself surrounded by Second Empire vases, ancient Norman cupboards and bedheads far too vast for any modern house, acres of statuettes, chairs, settees with the springs bursting out of them, heroic pictures of men and women, and statues of Napoleon by the thousand.
The old woman who appeared from the middle of the debris looked like a witch. She had on the remains of a dress which had once been good, but was now threadbare and faded. She peered through a pair of spectacles whose lenses had so many thumb marks on them they were virtually opaque and would have presented a problem to any fingerprint department.
‘You don’t look well,’ she said at once to Pel.
Pel recoiled. It was always one of his horrors that he was about to drop dead, and to be told he didn’t look well was enough to put him off his stroke immediately.
‘I’ll have to give you something for it,’ she said. ‘What are you after? A cheap bed because your son’s got to get married and can’t afford to furnish his flat? A chair? A table? Perhaps you’ve bought a place in the country and need to furnish it cheaply?’ She peered again at Pel. ‘Yes, you need something,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got just the thing to put you right.’
Pel was clearly in retreat and Darcy joined in hurriedly. ‘You used to keep the Hostellerie des Trois Mousquetaires near Orgny,’ he said.
She peered at them over her spectacles – doubtless, Pel thought, because she couldn’t see through them. ‘Yes, I did,’ she said. ‘And I kept it well, too. I was younger in those days, of course. I gave it up after the war.’
‘Do you remember a woman called Dominique Louhalle?’ Pel asked.
The old woman stared at him, her eyebrows lifting, as if he’d conjured up a ghost.
‘I’ve not heard that name for thirty years,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘We have reason to suspect that the body found at Bussy-la-Fontaine is somehow connected with the names on the calvary,’ he said. ‘We’re checking up on them.’
‘I see.’ She nodded. ‘I know the calvary. I was
there when they dedicated it. Because of Dominique.’ She leaned towards Darcy. ‘Are you sure your friend’s quite well?’
‘Tough as old boots,’ Darcy said cheerfully. ‘They’d pass him for jet fighters.’
‘Oh!’ The old woman took another look at Pel, obviously unconvinced.
‘We’ve contacted everybody still alive who’s related to the victims or remembers them,’ Darcy went on. ‘But Dominique Louhalle didn’t have any relatives from round here.’
‘No.’ Madame Foing tore her eyes from Pel’s face. ‘She was from Marseilles way. And she looked it too. Not beautiful, but there was something about her vitality, je ne sais quoi. Dark and sturdy with jet-black eyes and thick dark hair. Strong back and a quick temper. There was nothing she was afraid of. Not even me. She wasn’t always easy to handle.’
‘Why not?’ Pel asked.
‘She answered back. But she was so good at her job I accepted it. She cooked for me. She was really only a child but she’d been well taught. She just had strong feelings about things and didn’t hesitate to make them clear. She kept the kitchen staff in good order too.’
‘How?’
‘She hit them.’
‘What with?’
‘Her hands. They were big hands.’
‘What about the war?’
The old woman gave them an arch look. ‘She was rather a naughty girl,’ she said.
‘In what way?’
‘She liked men. That girl’s eyes turned a few heads in her time, believe me.’ There was a wheezy cackle. ‘But never as many as her behind. She got herself in the family way. I told her she could stay where she was until her man came home to marry her. Perhaps he never intended to, but anyway he never did.’
‘So I heard,’ Pel said. ‘What happened then?’
‘She was heartbroken for a while, then she took the child to relatives in the south somewhere, and came back to work for me. Because she wanted to hit back at the Germans. They hadn’t occupied the southern half of the country at that time and she wanted her revenge. And that’s what she got. She went to war.’
‘She was brave, I understand.’