by Carla McKay
Philippe bent down with difficulty to examine some of the bottles. Tim handed him a powerful torch so that he could read the labels. He looked at bottles from several cases before commenting – an agonising amount of time for Tim, who was pacing round the cave unable to stand the tension. At last he straightened up. ‘You were right, my friend,’ he said to Tim. ‘This is stolen wine from several great wine estates – and not just from round here. Some of it is exceptional Bordeaux.’
‘So what do you think happened?’ asked Tim, unable to contain himself.
‘I know what happened’, said Philippe. ‘Let us go outside into the air and we can discuss it.’ They stumbled out, blinking in the sunshine and Tim found a flattish rock for Philippe to sit on. He sat slowly, and once again wiped his brow. Alarmingly, he looked as though he might cry. ‘This is a serious find,’ he began. Undoubtedly, this is German loot. They stole huge quantities from all the very best wine estates. Most of it got back to Germany but there was much resistance activity round here too and sometimes the wine was hijacked on its journey by train or lorry, and returned to the estates. Many people died in the attempt. Sometimes, there would be a traitor who knew of the hijacking plans and often they were paid for their services with wine. After the war, we mostly knew who those people were. Some disappeared, some thrived. It was a bad part of France’s history and most people do not like to talk about it, even now. This man, Roland, who you have told me about – perhaps he too was paid with wine. Tell me what you know of him. Is he an old man?
‘No,’ chipped in Alan. ‘He’s only about my age. He must have been born after the war.’
‘Yes,’ said Tim excitedly. ‘But, it was his father – Jean-Baptiste who was involved. I’ve done all the research on it.’
‘You had better tell us what you know’, said Philippe.
Tim told them the story about Jean-Baptiste and the derailed train. Philippe nodded his head. ‘Now I remember something of this’, he said gravely. ‘Perhaps Jean-Baptiste was not the resistance hero he claims to be. And now, his son, Roland, is living off the profits of his treachery. It is possible, I’m afraid.’
‘But what are we going to do about it?’ asked Alan. ‘It’s an extremely difficult situation – and so long after the war too.’
Tim hadn’t really thought about anything except the banner headlines. It was then that they heard a shot.
34
It was impossible to sleep. Finally Judith gave up and padded upstairs to her terrace. Even the tiles were warm beneath her feet but at least out here there was a faint breeze stirring. She lay on her swing seat from where she could see the village clock tower illuminated. It was 2.40 am. In the distance she could hear a dog barking but for once her noisy Spanish neighbours had shut up early and moved all their chairs from the pavement inside. Sometimes they were still shouting the odds at each other at this time outside, their voices rising indignantly as if in argument, then breaking out in shrill laughter. God knows what they found to talk about night after night. There was a group of six or seven of them, sometimes with small children who ran around shrieking. One of the men had lost his voice – perhaps to cancer – and spoke in what she assumed was a machine-generated growl. When she had first heard it, it had given her a start – he sounded like a fictional serial killer about to strike. The voice was produced with evident effort and yet he seemed to be the dominant one in the group – the one the others deferred to, the one who appeared to have the last word. And often he had a small child on his knee so they clearly didn’t think him a monster on account of it.
Tonight she might have welcomed their ceaseless chatter. In the silence she had more time to concentrate on her own thoughts and these span round in her head uselessly. What to do, what to do. Oh Christ. She wished she didn’t know anything about Lance.
Jean’s latest visit and revelations had filled her with apprehension. And she hadn’t been able to get hold of her since then either. For three days she had telephoned at intervals, making sure she dialled a number first so that she could put the phone down if Lance answered and he wouldn’t be able to trace the call. Twice this had happened; the rest of the calls were intercepted by a message machine. Several times she had driven past the house to see if she could see her, but there was no sign of her. Sometimes Lance’s car was there, but never hers. She must have gone away for a while. Or else, Lance had murdered her. At this time of night, that seemed a distinct possibility.
She had tried calling Gerald to talk it over with him – the one person she felt she could trust, but he had sounded strange and offhand on the phone and told her he couldn’t talk to her right then. ‘Shall I still see you on Thursday night?’ she asked anxiously. There had been an ominous pause. ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said leadenly. ‘Come here as planned at 7.00pm’. Judith had replaced the phone feeling sick wondering what the matter with him was. She was more shattered than she liked to think.
Gerald was beginning to mean a lot to her and it was intolerable to think of their friendship ending when it had hardly begun. What on earth could she have done to make him sound so… not unpleasant exactly, but unhappy – and cold with her. With a slight pang, she wondered if he had a woman with him – a lover perhaps. After all, why shouldn’t he? She realised she knew very little about his life but somehow she had got the impression that he didn’t have anybody around – and also, and here maybe she was getting her wires crossed – that he liked seeing her. All at once she felt desperately sad. But, then, she reasoned, perhaps it’s nothing like that, perhaps something’s gone wrong at the shop. It was going to be very difficult waiting until Thursday to find out, but she knew she mustn’t call again before then.
After a while, she crept downstairs again and fell into a deep sleep in which one nightmare pursued the next. She woke up late feeling groggy and had to drink a couple of strong coffees to galvanise her into action. Damn, it was already 11.00 am and she had to go to the supermarket to get some provisions – irritatingly in this part of France they too closed down for lunch at 12.30 and you had to wait until the middle of the afternoon to get anything done. She simply couldn’t face another meal of tinned tuna or boiled egg so she must get going. Distractedly, she glanced at her message machine as she unlocked the door – it was blinking. Hell, she must have slept right through the telephone ringing. Pressing play, hoping it was Gerald, she held her breath as she heard Jean’s voice telling her that she was in London in case she was worried. ‘I’m here to find Sarah,’ she said. ‘Talking with you has finally clinched it. I’m going to do the right thing now. Thank you, Judith, for listening – and… I’m sorry to involve you in all this. I’ll call again.’
Judith let out a sigh of relief. Thank God she was OK. That perhaps was one less thing to worry about. But meantime, Lance was still at large. She wondered whether he knew that Jean had gone.
Fifteen minutes later, she was in Intermarché hurriedly dumping fresh fruit, bread and salad in her trolley when she caught sight of Camilla Stanhope at the fish counter. Her first instinct was to wheel the trolley round and leave but at that moment Camilla saw her too and waved. ‘Hi’, she said. ‘How are you? We only got down here yesterday.’ They exchanged news and pleasantries for a few minutes then Judith plucked up the courage to ask after Sophie. ‘Oh, we couldn’t get her to come with us this time,’ she said. ‘For some reason she absolutely refused. Said she wanted just to chill out at home and see friends. Usually she loves it out here and can’t wait to work on her tan. Such a nuisance because we’re going to stay with friends next week who are giving a teenage party that she’s invited to, but still, it’s quite relaxing for me and Rex not to have any of the children around.’
Well, this was her cue, thought Judith. It’s now or never. ‘Do you think her not wanting to come has anything to do with Lance?’
‘Lance?’ Camilla smiled in a puzzled way. ‘Why ever should it?’
So, Sophie hadn’t said anything. ‘It’s just… it’s just that I heard som
ething worrying about him,’ mumbled Judith. ‘Something about him preferring young girls and trying it on with Sophie.’ There, it was out. But Camilla laughed. ‘Oh nonsense,’ she said. ‘Sophie adores Lance. He’s like an uncle to her.’
‘I think it’s more than that,’ Judith managed to say. ‘I think Sophie may have been… hurt… by him.’ Camilla’s smile faded. ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re trying to say Judith, ‘but I think I would know if my own daughter was hurt.’ Then seeing Judith’s abject expression, she changed tack. ‘Look, maybe there’s been a misunderstanding but Rex and I have known Lance for years and so has Sophie. What’s bugging Sophie at the moment is school. She got a really bad report for the first time this term and she’s sulking. Apart from that, she’s fine. Anyway, I must go – we’ve got the Knights coming for lunch.’ She started walking away saying over her shoulder, ‘see you at the next barbeque no doubt!’
Judith pushed her trolley away blinking back angry tears. What a cow Camilla was – she just didn’t want to know. Or worse, she did know, but she wasn’t going to do anything about it. Poor Sophie. She probably knew that she wouldn’t be believed if she did tell her parents. And anyway, it was too late to do anything about it now. People like that didn’t deserve children, but her attitude wasn’t uncommon. Judith had seen several parents like that at The Chase – more anxious about their next dinner party than the welfare of their children. As for her, she would butt out now. There was absolutely nothing further to be done. In future, she’d try to keep out of other people’s business. It wasn’t as if she had wanted to know it in the first place. Even Jean had to fight her own battles from now on.
35
At nine am sharp Jean was outside the internet café in Kensington High Street waiting for it to open. Once inside, the young man behind the counter was helpful. He typed in the website Jean had written on a scrap of paper and waited with her whilst Friends Reunited came up. ‘Now you just follow the instructions till you find the person you’re looking for,’ he said cheerfully, thinking that it was a strange request for a woman of her age. Surely her school must have closed down years ago.
Immediately, a quotation on the site caught her eye: ‘Thanks to Friends Reunited, I have found my son who I have not seen since he was 13 and I have discovered that I am a grandfather!’ This accompanied a photograph of a smiling old man with his arm round a younger man holding a child by the hand. Jean’s heart beat faster. That could be her soon! Surely it was an omen. She was so nervous that she found it hard to type although she had been trained as a secretary. Gingerly finding her way round the keyboard, she typed in the name of Sarah’s old London day school and tried to remember which year she wanted. Must have been 1984 that Sarah left. A list of about fifteen names came up. Some she recognised immediately – she’d got the right year group then. Heart hammering, she looked down the list, first for Sarah. Please god, she thought, please. No Sarah. But there, in the middle amongst the other M’s was Louise Mathieson. Yes!
‘I’ve found the name!’ she called to the young man. ‘Now what do I do please?’ He came over and showed her how to double click on the name. A page of information came up. ‘OK now?’ he said. She seemed mightily excited just to have found the name of some old school friend he thought.
Jean scanned the information. ‘Louise Mathieson (84) went to sixth form college and then to University College, London to read medicine’, she read. She is now a practising GP in Oxford where she lives with her husband Sean McCauley who teaches at the university. She would love to see any old school friends who are passing through Oxford.’
There was an opportunity to email Louise but it meant registering on the site and in any case Jean didn’t have a computer or an email address herself. But it didn’t matter. Lousie was a GP in Oxford – she could easily find out her surgery number by looking up an Oxford telephone directory in the library. Her spirits higher than they had been for ages, Jean paid the young man and stepped out into the brightening day. Now for the library.
Within two hours, Jean was on a train from Paddington to Oxford. She had found and phoned the number of Louise’s surgery but Louise wasn’t there. The receptionist said that she would be taking surgery that afternoon between 2pm and 4pm. Jean reckoned she would be in Oxford by l pm and that the simplest thing would be to go and speak directly to Louise. She could perhaps waylay her before or after the surgery. Of course, it may be that Louise couldn’t tell her anything about Sarah, but there again, maybe she could. They had been inseparable as children, and this time Jean was determined to leave nothing to chance.
Oxford had changed beyond all recognition. Jean had been there frequently as a young woman to stay with cousins. And once, shortly after she had met him, Lance had taken her to a May Ball at St John’s College. It was probably the most romantic evening they had ever spent together. The weather was perfect, she recalled. A golden evening. Marquees on college lawns, live bands, beautiful sophisticated people of whom Jean had been very shy, in evening dress, and later a punt on the river as dawn broke. Throughout their marriage Jean had clung to the memory trying to revive all the feelings she had then.
Oxford Station itself was the first surprise when Jean alighted from her train. It all looked modern. And then, across from the station itself was a building she’d never seen before with a sort of green ziggurat on top of it. Passing by the glass entrance she peered at the sign: The Wafik Said School of Business. She sighed. Well, what did she expect? John Betjeman to come cycling round the corner composing Summoned By Bells?
North Oxford, however, where Louise’s surgery was to be found, looked gratifying unchanged. The wide leafy roads flanked by huge Victorian houses which had been built for the University Dons and their families as soon as they were allowed to marry, made her nostalgic for the happy summer holidays she had passed playing with her cousins in the orchard behind a house similar to these off the Woodstock Road.
Louise’s surgery was in a road closer to the Banbury Road and the bustling little shopping area known as Summertown. Many of the little shops she remembered were still there but Marks & Spencer had opened up in the high street – a food store only catering for the large numbers of wealthy residents who she knew had flocked into that part of Oxford in recent years, anxious for their offspring to attend prestigious prep schools nearby. The Dons themselves of course could just about run to takeaway M & S sandwiches for lunch, whilst endless astonishingly scruffy looking students filled all the outside café and pub chairs, some even sprawling on the pavement with their bottles of lager – even the girls. How times had changed, she thought wistfully. She remembered coming shopping here with her aunt when it was all very sedate and everyone wore hats.
She turned into Louise’s road and found the surgery, a small modern building at the corner of a residential road. It was just before two. The receptionist asked her if she could come back to see Louise at 4pm when surgery ended as Dr Mathieson had non-stop appointments. She promised she would tell her it was urgent. It was what Jean had expected. As she turned to leave, she saw a young woman getting out of her car in the small car park at the side. Slim, business-like, neatly dressed with shoulder-length blonde hair in a neat bob, carrying a briefcase. Ah, that would be Louise. She looked at her fleetingly not wishing to embarrass her; little did she know that Louise’s future happiness depended on her.
Louise was waiting for in her office when she returned just after four. ‘Mrs Campion’, she exclaimed, when she saw Jean. ‘It is you… I wasn’t sure. Shirley said that a Mrs Campion wanted to see me but I thought it was so unlikely… how very nice to see you after all this time.’
‘Jean… please call me Jean. Oh Louise, my dear, you’re so grown up now – and a doctor! Thank you so much for seeing me. I wouldn’t have come like this but…’, she faltered, tears involuntarily springing to her eyes, ‘I’m desperate, Louise.’
‘Sit down, Jean’, said Louise gently, seeing how upset she was. ‘How can I help?’
/> ‘It’s about Sarah,’ sniffed Jean. ‘You know she left home at sixteen and then we lost touch? I looked everywhere for her… you remember?
‘Yes, of course I do,’ said Louise. ‘I lost touch with her too. She was going through a bad time and I think she just wanted to cut loose from everything and everybody that she knew. I was cut up about it because we were so close but by then I was at college and life just took over I suppose. Do you see her now?’
‘No’, cried Jean. ‘That’s just the point. I still have no idea where she is or what has become of her and… it was important then, but it’s even more important now. I think I know why she left home like that. Oh Louise, do you know how I can find her again? Has she contacted you at all over the years?’
‘I had a card from her just over a year ago,’ said Louise. She sent it to my parents’ house in Chiswick and it finally got forwarded to me. She said she was thinking of me because it was my birthday and she hoped I was all right. She sent me her new address in London and said if I was ever there, she’d like to see me again. I think I wrote it down… I’m afraid I never did go and see her. I’d just moved up here and got married and started in this practice and… well, I should have made time for her. She said she was OK again but had been having a difficult time. I got the impression she’d been in a clinic for a while for drug addiction. Oh, Jean, I’m so sorry…’, she put her arm around Jean’s shaking shoulders. I didn’t realise you still didn’t know where she was.’