Malediction

by Sally Spedding

  But Colette was staring at her son’s bedroom door.

  Until I have news of Bertrand, I’m not leaving. This is his place and I’ll be here for him, always. Besides, this is where Robert would expect to find me...

  “I can’t thank you and Lise enough, but...”

  “But what?” Nelly impatiently rinsed her cup.

  “I need to wait for my son.”

  For the first time, Nelly sighed impatience. And Baralet noticed.

  For God’s sake, Colette. For everyone’s sake, just tell him you gave Vidal’s key to Bertrand. This is hideous.

  “We’ve all had a bellyful of this, I know,” Nelly went on, “but worrying every twenty-four hours of every bloody day that you’re the Bull’s Eye is fucking unbearable. Sorry.” She turned to the woman whose resolve was now so unnerving. “I’ve got no choice. And thank you, Monsieur. I’d like to take you up on that if I may. I’ve had enough.”

  The managing director looked bemused. This wasn’t going to plan.

  But if she goes, maybe Colette will follow...

  “Look, I can fix you up with your old job, or part-time even,” he said to Colette. Just a few hours of your help is worth a hundred of Mademoiselle Hiron’s, your replacement.”

  “Thank you.”

  But why, oh why, couldn’t you have done that for Bertrand? Lord knows he asked for work enough times.

  “Is she still there?”

  “No. She just upped and left this morning. No note, no forwarding address. Even the agency couldn’t trace her.”

  “That’s odd.” Colette frowned.

  “Anyhow, I missed you what with all the Natolyn brouhaha. Not proven, thank God, but the good news is Medoxin’s on target and were getting ready for its launch.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “We could still do New York. It’s up to you.”

  “Go on,” Nelly almost shouted. “I’ve never even had a bloody job. Let alone the luxury of turning one down.”

  Baralet put a finger to his lips. Colette was interested.

  There’s my desk, the way I like to do things. Even my jar of déca, and...

  She suddenly turned to Baralet.

  “My Diary? Is it still there?”

  Nelly saw him turn an instant grey.

  “Yes, of course. Don’t worry.”

  Oh, Hélas.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why? What’s it got in it? All your lovers’ names?” Nelly quipped, but Colette wasn’t smiling.

  “How could your desk diary be of interest to anyone else?” Baralet asked as casually as he could. Then remembered with a jolt that he’d once caught the temp, Mademoiselle Hiron, looking at it.

  “Exactly.” Nelly had pulled out a Nike holdall and was cramming it with her few possessions.

  “So there’s no persuading you?” Guy Baralet looked suddenly older, the lines of concern deeper around his eyes.

  “No. It’s better this way. I’m not afraid,” she lied. “Besides, Eberswïhr have put two more guards on here.”

  And someone else I’m waiting for.

  “I know to my cost. They quizzed me long enough. I’ve never been frisked before, either.” He managed a small smile.

  “I just want to say I’m grateful for all you’ve done,” she said. “And I’m flattered you want me back, but just think if your daughter had vanished and you’d been told she was dead, with no evidence, nothing to show, what would you and Lise do? Go away on holiday? Visit relations, or would you stay, just in case?”

  “I understand. But you take every care now. Ring if there’s anything you need, however small.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll get your shopping. Just phone me your list,” Nelly said, zipping up her bag with finality. They kissed goodbye with Nelly’s hot new tears burning her cheek. “You’ve got to understand, Colette, I’ve had no shut-eye at all since we got back, and I feel so bloody scared, so half-alive especially since Didi and Sedan got killed. That was it, really. But I don’t want to leave you...”

  “You mustn’t feel guilty. I’ll be alright.” Colette touched her still anarchic hair. “You’ve been the best friend I could have had, and I’ll never forget what you did, coming down to Libourne. Just let me know if you hear any news of Victorine and her sisters, or if the Doumiez family manage to trace you.”

  “I will. Oh, and by the way, next week I’ll try Le Canard enchainé for any freelancing work, then I’m going to Cologne to meet up with other chômeurs, you know, from I. G. Metall and D.G.B. You never know, I might even see Ber...”

  “No. Don’t say it. Here, have this.” Colette instead, handed her a square of folded bank notes specially withdrawn from her account with Crédit Agricole.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can, and you must.” She smiled. “For new glasses.”

  And then, very quickly, she was alone. Just as she had been a lifetime ago on that hot August day. Alone with her hospital appointment looming and the beautiful flowers that gave no happiness. Just fears and memories distilling into pure terror. So that when one of the replacement guards turned up with the latest edition of France Est, he thought she looked on the point of collapse.

  “Come on, it might never happen,” Jean Guillon had tried to make light of it. “But it has for these poor buggers.”

  She couldn’t begin to alter his perception of things and didn’t try, but when she saw the latest headline, she felt the blood drain from her face:

  TRAGÉDIE AU REFUGE DES PAUVRES SOEURS DES SOUFFRANCES.

  Her heart stopped, for underneath the main photo of the Abbé de Lagrange Vivray taken at his Paris desk and captioned, ‘The Founder,’ were others. Quickly, she hid them under her hand. No way was she ever going to look into those cruel eyes again. But one face persisted between her spread fingers. More male than female, Leisel Falco. Driver/instructor, and former Olympic clay pigeon shot. Colette noticed her shirt. The same as listed on the invoice. Panic thudded in her chest as she propped herself up against the kitchen wall to study the Refuge’s ground plan and, having folded the row of faces out of sight, checked the smaller print for any more clues. But the reportage was predictably elegiac, with no hint of the horrors she’d experienced. No mention either of Falco’s youthful involvement with the Aryan Nations, or the training schedule for National Socialism’s secret infiltrators.

  She felt cheated and betrayed, and if she hadn’t been so vulnerable, would have contacted the editor immediately to put things right. The report stated that the mass gassing had centred around the altar, marked with an X, and collective suicide seemed to have been the prima facie motive.

  Colette stared in amazement.

  Suicide? That’s crazy. They loved themselves too much for that. Thought they were the saviours of the bloody world. Besides, who in the name of God could have organised it? Got everyone to agree to die. No, it just doesn’t ring true, but the Press would prefer it, of course, as it would make them all martyrs.. And there’s nothing like a martyr in times of trouble.

  She thought of the heroic Victorine and her identical sisters as she turned up the sound on both radio and TV. Solemn music on TV2 with stills of the poplars, the new bell tower, the statuary along the drive. All frighteningly familiar but now deserted. A place of tragic ghosts.

  Forgetting for a moment her own predicament, Colette prayed for the innocents there, that their souls might find permanent communion with the saints. Then she removed her wig, cut it into pieces, and buried it in the waste bin.

  Now, after Désespoir’s death together with that of Madame Gamme, she increasingly believed his verdict on Bertrand to be a fabrication. The utterances of a senile misogynist who’d gorged on her suffering like a dawn hyena.

  We’ll show him, won’t we? Please, dear Bertrand, let it be a lie...

  Then the phone rang, and her hand hovered trembling over it like a water diviner trying to gauge its whereabouts.

  “Madame Bataille?”

  “Who are
you?”

  ”Lieutenant-Colonel Yannick Wintzer. Eberswïhr. Your car’s ready. We’ve garaged it for you, would you like to come down?” His accent more German than Lorraine.

  “How come you’ve got a garage key?”

  “Monsieur Saulx was most kind. ”

  “Mmm.” She’d never seen her landlord. All her affairs were arranged through a solicitor in Bouillon. “OK. And by the way?”

  ”Yes?”

  “I don’t think the Pauvres Soeurs would ever have killed themselves in a million years. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Sorry, Madame, but I’m not able to say anything further at the moment. There are several factors being taken into account, and we’ll keep you informed as appropriate.”

  “Just one other thing.” She could tell he was busy and trying to stay civil, but at work she’d been good at pushing things just that little bit further, to say what she wanted. Particularly with men. And now she expressed her sorrow at the murder of agent Sedan who’d risked his life on her behalf, leaving a widow with a teenage son. A man of rare kindness, she said, feeling the start of fresh tears.

  “I agree. One of our best. He’ll be hard to replace.” She could hear him shuffle papers. “But with Guillon and Trignac you have excellent protection. However, like most things, our resources are finite.”

  “What do you mean?” Panic crept through her body.

  “I would urge you to reconsider Monsieur Baralet’s kind offer.” The words sunk like stones in her heart. “We gather Mademoiselle Augot has already gone with him.”

  “She hasn’t a son to wait for. Besides, his bed’s here. All his things.”

  “I have to be honest, Madame, we can only guarantee 24-hour surveillance for a further six days. Our men are needed in so many places, we have a growing problem as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “Of course I’m aware.” The Beast... OPÉRATION JUDAS... l’Armée Contre Juifs... Yes, I do know, but not until Bertrand is home. “But what’s more important than keeping a mother safe for her child? I pay my taxes, I’ve not claimed any benefits. He needs me here.”

  “Look, you’ve been through enough, I know, but we do have a ‘safe house’ available now. Three rooms, etcetera. It’s actually in our Headquarters. I’d give it serious thought. Oh, and Guillon will drop your keys through in three minutes.”

  Then he was gone.

  Just before she replaced the receiver, she heard the faintest sound, like a cherry stone dropped into water. Someone else had been listening.

  Merde.

  Colette felt that familiar trap tightening around her. That cellar again, the dark stench of death, and without Nelly, without anyone, she knew only loneliness would be her future. The flowers looked obscene in their abundance. All her possessions cheap and worthless.

  And why should Bertrand come back to this? How can I expect it? I still haven’t bought him his birthday present.

  The Peugeot key duly clattered into the newly installed letter cage. Its Futuroscope key ring missing. She fixed a scarf round her head then let herself out, past the ochre stains where all three men had died, past Madame Neufour from Number 10, who’d tried complaining about all the commotion. Down to where two more men were rebuilding the communal gardens’ walls. They looked up briefly, took in her good legs and her out-of-place sunglasses, following her every move to the lock-ups and the only door with a hurriedly-cleaned swastika.

  Salauds.

  The boot first, almost jamming the key, then she raised it slowly, peering in, little by little. A void. Nothing. Like the rest of her life, the blanket had gone.

  So is Bertrand I know it now. Not even an echo or a shadow. What kind of God have we got?

  Her trembling hands trawled the empty space as though by some miracle their need would be answered, but her prayers were worn thin with despair. She slammed the boot shut. Its hollow finality still echoing in her head as she opened the driver’s door.

  The interior smelt different, newly valeted, with all the seats shrouded in white polythene. Depersonalised, not hers any more. She could pretend it was a hire job, that neither her son or her lover had ever sat alongside her. Even the glove-box sweets had vanished as the eye of Science had scoured every crevice for clues.

  ***

  She reversed too fast. The ouvriers stared and Trignac checked his watch. Her sunglasses bounced to the floor.

  11.52 hours, and the beginnings of rain as she veered past the locked church, through the town and alongside Medex, its show piece, disfigured by slogans as far as the top floor. Over the Meuse and over the speed limit, short-cutting along the Forêt des Woëvres, towards the left fork in the road signed Eberswïhr.

  In the town’s back streets she stopped to ask the way, but the woman shielding two baguettes was too alarmed to speak.

  Centre Ville. Voilà. Merci, whoever you are.

  The Préfecture de Police was a grimy, gothic block fronted by a large notice board filled with posters. She parked in the only free space reserved for disabled then ran towards the entrance, sunglasses forgotten.

  Suddenly she stopped, her breath on hold. One of the clerks was busy securing the Public Information case with a screwdriver. It was full of photographs, edge to edge, a monochrome gallery of the wanted.

  Recherché par la Police.

  ARMÉE CONTRE JUIFS

  His face came first. Robert Vidal, staring from behind the glass. His lips parted as though about to call her name. She could barely bring herself to look, but his hunted, haunted eyes still seemed to follow her as she saw the others in their priests’ black, lined up next to the late Désespoir. Mathieu the last, finally one of them. Then a man she didn’t recognise, in a different uniform. As pale as the background of some spring ceremonial in Paris. His strange nose and smirking mouth filled her with a choking nausea.

  Next, five women, all under forty years old whose expressions had hardened to hatred above their robes of the Pauvres Soeurs. Whose pseudonyms and changes in appearance had confused the police for too long. However, Colette gasped when she recognised the name of Marie-Claude Huron who’d cunningly infiltrated Medex. Cried out upon seeing Patrice Sassoule, the now darker-haired nurse who’d so intimately viewed her. This native of Reims had also been known as Giselle Subradière and Simone Haubrey.

  And weren’t Claude Lefêbvre and Romy Kirchner the ones Nelly had shot at in Libourne? They were next to Michèle Bauer-Lutyens… Where on earth could they all be?

  She left the clerk giving the glass a final wipe over, as her heels jarred on the steps.

  “Yes Madame?” An attractive brunette in civilian clothes, called out from the switchboard.

  “I must see Lieutenant-Colonel Wintzer. It’s urgent.”

  “Name please?” She then wrote it down, pointed towards the stairs. “Number 8. First on the right.” She then rang to warn him.

  Wintzer gulped down the rest of his coffee and wiped his mouth with his hand. Every day brought new surprises, and this was one he could have done without.

  “Good to see you’ve changed your mind, Madame.” He pulled out a regulation chair, trying to avoid her eyes.

  “I haven’t.”

  “Oh?”

  She declined the seat. “I need to tell you something.”

  The forty-three-year-old, freshly transferred by personal request from the Lanvière Gendarmerie, leant forwards. The first edition proof of France Est with Romy Kirchner’s story inside, lay hidden in his lap.

  “I’m without a priest, as you know,” Colette began. “Everything’s been transferred to St. Marc and the Apostles at Monzeppe. It’s too far. There’s only you.”

  “What do you mean exactly?” Wintzer seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “You must hear my confession.”

  The air in the office grew cold. He shivered as he silently switched on the tape. “Do you mind?” he asked, but she wasn’t listening.

  The moment was drawing closer, as inevitably as the tidal surge down the Canal
de l’Est – permanent umbilical of the Meuse – and, like that lunar tide, the dates and times of her latest witness hurtled along too quickly for him to intercept until her final words had ended.

  ***

  “So you see, Inspector. My Bertrand should never have been born. What kind of mother knowingly risks her son’s life? Tell me.”

  She swayed unsteadily, back in that hall again with the Percheron, Sister Agnès and the Sister Superior. But this was no interrogation. And at the end, she had nothing left to say.

  “Sit down, Madame Bataille.” He fidgeted with his watch. “I’m only sorry Mireille Bech isn’t here to assist.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Part of our Community Policing Programme. A retired officer, but very good at giving comfort and support”.

  “Comfort and support? What for? What’s going on?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve bad news.” He finally extended a hand to reach hers, but she desisted.

  “Just get on with it, please.”

  Again, a glance at his watch. Then a small cough.

  “At eleven o’clock exactly, just after I’d called you, we received a message from the River Police at the Port de la Bourdonnais...” He paused, unable to look her in the eye. “Your son’s body was found together with one of the Roquette’s security staff very close to the boat’s remains.”

  ***

  Wintzer took advantage of her frozen silence to continue. “I tried to call, but obviously you were on your way here. I’m afraid, Madame, you will have to go to the Hôpital St. Camillus, in the eighth...” He extracted the tape and got up as Kirchner’s revenge slipped to the floor under his desk. “It appears your son was followed to Paris in the first place, then the St. Anne’s hostel tipped off our so-called men of God... I’m so very sorry.”

  This time she let him take her hand, but in her numbness hardly felt it. “Are you ready?” he said.