by Nell Goddin
Someone was knocking on the door, and she threw on some clothes and went to answer it.
“Bonjour, Pierre! Come on in. You don’t mind if I make some coffee?”
“Not at all, Molly. I just dropped by on my way to another job to see if the roof repair has held up?”
“Well,” said Molly, thinking. “The pigeonnier is rented at the moment so I haven’t been inside in nearly a week. But I’ve heard no complaints from the guests, so that’s good.”
“Indeed,” said Pierre. “I’m happy to hear it.”
“Although it hasn’t rained, has it? I can’t really remember. But it may be that the roof hasn’t been tested with any wet weather.”
“We’ve had a few light showers, but you’re right, it’s been lovely out recently, hasn’t it? My wife is a devoted gardener like you and she was out dawn to dusk all weekend.”
Molly smiled. She’d never met Madame Gault but knew she worked at the cantine at the primaire in the village, cooking excellent food for the young students. One night at Chez Papa, Lawrence had told her about how French children are served four course meals at lunchtime and taught table manners as well.
Impatiently she stared at her French press, willing the life-giving liquid to drip through faster.
“Hey,” she said, suddenly struck by a thought. “You do all sorts of stone-work, right Pierre?”
“Yes. As you know, the buildings in this area tend to be made from stone, at least the older ones are. I have no lack of work repairing these old buildings, along with stone walls.”
“Do you ever do other sorts of building? Do you ever make anything from scratch or is it all repair?”
“Oh yes, I’ve made new buildings when a customer wants it. There’s another gîte business on the far side of Salliac, have you met Madame Picard? She hired me to build a series of bungalows around a small lake on her property. They turned out rather well, I believe. Are you looking for something like that?”
“Possibly,” said Molly, thinking hard. “Okay, this is going to sound like an odd question, but I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Resistance, and talking to Madame Gervais about the war. And I’m wondering if there are any…any buildings, structures, anything you can think of…where either Jews or Resistance fighters might have been hidden. I’d like to have a look, if anything like that remains.”
Pierre stroked his chin. “I’m not sure I know of anything like that,” he said. “As far as I know, from the stories I’ve heard—people were hidden in barns and attics for the most part. During the war, people most likely didn’t have the resources for building something new—it was a very difficult time, economically, as you know. And on top of that, a new building would attract attention, which of course was the opposite of what they would want.”
“Right,” said Molly. “Okay, let’s say just for the sake of argument that you were hiding someone and for whatever reason your attic wasn’t suitable. Maybe you had no attic or barn. And you decide to build something to keep this person in, safe from prying eyes. You have to build the hiding-place with materials that weren’t that hard to come by. What would you do? What would it look like?”
“May I have a coffee?”
“Oh, of course! Sorry, I’m just barely awake.” Molly got out a cup and poured Pierre come coffee.
“Just black,” he said, and then took a long sip. “Well, what I’m thinking—your imaginary person lives in the country, I take it?—I’m thinking I would build a sort of half-underground room, make it look like a root cellar. Dig out enough space from a hillside, bolster the ceiling with some good sturdy beams. The advantage of that is you’ve got evenness of temperature. Because it’s dug into the earth, it won’t get too cold or hot in there. Here in the Dordogne, it would stay above freezing all the time. And of course you don’t need materials for walls, because the walls are dirt.
“You planning to hide away one of your guests?” he added with a chuckle.
“Ha,” she said, thinking of Wesley Addison. “Not exactly. Though I did have the sweetest little boy here for awhile. Oscar. He’s back in Australia now and I’m afraid he took part of my heart with him.”
“I suppose that’s the downside of your business, eh? Though sometimes I too meet a young child and feel a pang that my wife and I never had any children.”
“Oh!” said Molly. “I hope I haven’t—”
“No, no, you haven’t said anything wrong. Iris and I tried when we were young, but it didn’t happen. All feels like a long time ago now. And of course she is with children every day at work, at the cantine. She loves that about her job.”
“I bet,” said Molly, understanding perfectly, and also knowing that most likely her love for the job was bittersweet.
“So, back to my purpose in coming—are the guests at home now? Could I take a quick look at the roof just to make sure all is well?”
“They barely leave the pigeonnier,” laughed Molly. “Newlyweds, you know. Why don’t you drop by after the next hard rain, and we’ll give it a look?”
Pierre finished his coffee and took off.
Molly called Bobo and wandered around outside, happily finding some tulips blooming around the side of a falling-down outbuilding she hadn’t been able to figure out a use for. But maybe Pierre could give her some ideas, she thought. He had certainly given her plenty to think about this morning: a root cellar would be the perfect place for Valerie.
But oh, thought Molly, how dark it would be in there. Dark and damp. She shivered, her imagination making the dank hole in the earth feel all too real.
* * *
On Monday morning Perrault took the call and ran straight from the gendarmerie to the location in an alley off rue Saterne. It was early morning and a group of people stood in the street, peering into the alley at the body of Erwan Caradec.
She kneeled beside him, putting two fingers on his carotid artery just for form’s sake—no one seeing his gray face (or whose nose was working) had any doubt that he was dead.
“All right, who found him?” she asked as she stood up.
“I did, Officer Perrault,” said a boy of about nine, stepping forward. “I live here,” he said, jerking his head at the house next door. “I was taking out the trash, that’s my job every morning before school. And so that’s when I saw him.” The boy’s eyes went to Erwan again, widening as though surprised to see him still lying there.
Perrault called Maron and then Florian Nagrand, the coroner. She asked the onlookers to step back, reminding them that until she determined otherwise, the area was considered a crime scene. Though she spoke with little force, since she expected, as did the others, that Erwan had died of some alcohol-related problem.
“Poor man,” said Madame Tessier, the village’s most dedicated busybody who happened to live on rue Saterne. Her eyes were bright and she gestured down the block. “I saw him over there, by the bench in front of the Villar’s house, just day before yesterday. In a state of advanced inebriation, of course. But we did exchange pleasantries about the weather before his chin sank to his chest and he slid off the bench onto the sidewalk.”
“How did his health seem otherwise?” asked Perrault. “Did he complain of feeling unwell, anything like that?”
Mme Tessier shook her head. “He did not. Monsieur Caradec never complained about anything, actually, unless he had nothing to drink. Then he would complain about everything.”
The group tittered.
“Come on now, François, you’ll be late for school!” shouted a man out the back door of a house.
The boy who had found the body looked at Perrault. “Can I go? Will I need to come to court or anything?” he asked hopefully.
“Sorry, you’re out of luck on that score,” said Perrault, though she had great sympathy for his desire to get out of school on any pretext, and especially one as exciting as discovering a dead body in the alley behind your house. “I’ll be in touch if I need you.”
“It’s sort of amazing Erw
an lasted as long as he did,” said a woman with her hair in a kerchief.
“He loved roast duck,” said an older man, shaking his head.
And that was the extent of the eulogy given to Erwan Caradec on that Monday morning in May, in the village of Castillac in southwest France.
31
While Perrault waited for the coroner to arrive on rue Saterne, Achille Labiche, newly-minted murderer, was riding his tractor to the Salliac market, intent on seeing Aimée and making some further progress with her. It was another beautiful day, sparkling and green, and he was pretty sure anyone who could be outside on such a day would be, so he was not anxious she would not be there. Anyone would be tempted to skip school on a day this nice.
As always he timed his arrival for just before lunch. He parked his tractor at the edge of the village as he always did. He was wearing the same pair of bib overalls he had worn the day before, and he tucked his hands up under the bib as he had then, pleased to have discovered this new place to put them. All his life, Achille’s hands had felt awkward when he was around other people, making him self-conscious. His hands were large and dangled off his arms and fluttered sometimes and attracted attention. Safely under the bib was much better, and it was comforting to lace and unlace his fingers.
He reached the Place and looked around for the girl, making sure not to be obvious about it. He felt some pressure, from deep inside, the dead center of his body, to hurry everything along. It had been forever since he had someone to talk to, and his loneliness had reached such a painful point that he began to fear for his sanity. At least now that he had proven to himself he could kill not only livestock but a human, he believed his next try with Valerie would succeed.
With no Valerie to confuse things, no Valerie with her tuneless singing and lying on the bed refusing to speak any sense—with Valerie gone, the way was clear. As soon as the girl was ready, she could move to his farm with him. Maybe she would even live in the house with him, and he could bring her meals on a tray. He wondered if she would like to eat the same things that Valerie did, or whether he would need to expand his repertoire. He looked forward to getting to know all of the girl’s quirks and preferences, to doing his best to keep her happy.
The cannelé-seller was in her usual place, and Achille did not have to work up his courage to speak to her as he usually did, but walked confidently over to her table and bought half a dozen, then changed his mind and asked for a full dozen. He felt so expansive, so optimistic after yesterday’s “bit of work,” as he was calling it to himself.
Biting into the fresh cannelé and smiling at the flood of memories it brought back, he turned and scanned the crowd again. And as though she were waiting for him, there stood the girl stood beside a bicycle, right in front of him, her hair in a ponytail, once again talking on her cell phone.
With a smile he started towards her, one hand under the bib and the other holding the bag of cannelés. When he was a mere twenty yards away, to his horror, he saw Molly Sutton coming from the other direction, heading straight for him.
Achille quickly turned and walked away. Thankfully she had been rummaging in her handbag and he was fairly sure she hadn’t seen him. But the Salliac market was so small there was no crowd to get lost in. He ducked around behind a truck, his heart racing, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw began to ache.
What was that woman doing here? She was going to ruin everything!
He peered around the side of the truck. Sutton was talking to the vegetable seller, laughing as usual. Did she think the whole world was a joke, Achille wondered bitterly. He decided to walk away from the Place to try to calm himself. If Sutton was there looking for him, and he thought the likelihood of that was high, wouldn’t she check behind the trucks right off? He had better find someplace else to hide.
Salliac was a small village with only four streets: two wide streets ran from north to south, and two narrow streets, barely wider than alleys, connected the other two. The houses ranged from stately to ramshackle, all made of stone, all built in other centuries. The green neon cross of a pharmacy blinked farther down the street. He passed a shoe store with dusty shoes in the window, a boulangerie with stacks of rolls on the counter along with baskets of baguettes, and a tiny café with two tables on the sidewalk and a bored waiter in an apron leaning against the doorway.
No one else was on the street and that was good. He could breathe.
But if he stayed away too long, what would happen to the girl? She might already have jumped on that bicycle and ridden away, and he had to see her that day, had to talk to her.
Had to give her the cannelé she was waiting for.
Abruptly Achille turned and trotted back to the Place. He wasn’t going to let that Sutton woman wreck what he had planned and dreamed about for so long. He would find a way to deal with her, all right. Hadn’t he had proved that he could do difficult things?
The girl was what mattered. Maybe he could get close to her, out of Sutton’s sight, and call to her. She would look up and grin and come to him, right under that woman’s nose, and wouldn’t that be thrilling?
He slowed as he reached the Place, easing his head around to see where the girl was, and Sutton as well. They were both exactly where he had left them, the girl standing next to her bicycle, and the redhead chattering to the vegetable seller.
Sutton’s not looking for me, he thought. Or if she is, she’s being awfully crafty about it. And I think she is crafty. My mother used to—well, never mind about her. I’m not thinking about her right now.
He took a deep breath, settling his eyes on the girl. She moved around while she talked on the phone, putting her hand in her back pocket and taking it out again, brushing hair back from her face, hopping on one foot.
He thought the hopping on one foot was so sweet. She was young—he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, and had spent untold hours criticizing himself for choosing Valerie when she was already a young adult. A young teenager will be so much more adaptable, thought Achille. She’ll get used to her new circumstances. She’ll be happy at the farm, happy with me.
Nervously he looked over at Sutton. Her back was to them; he could stroll right over to Aimée and Sutton wouldn’t see a thing. But she could always turn around. She might be just waiting for him to make a move and then she’d pounce.
A small van was parked not far from Aimée, and Achille edged up alongside it, using it for cover. It wasn’t ideal. He couldn’t get as close as he wanted to. But at least he was out of sight of Sutton for the moment.
“Bonjour, Aimée,” he said, his voice light and friendly. It amazed him, the tones that came out of him when he had the courage to reach out to someone like this. He sounded normal. Like anybody. Not like who he really was—and he was grateful for it.
“Hey,” said the girl, flashing a smile. Then she stepped back a step, then two.
Achille was crestfallen. But he knew not to follow. “You know I can’t miss a Salliac market,” he said, not looking directly at her. “Can’t get cannelés like this in Castillac, oh no.” He drew one out of the bag and the sun caught it, making it look like a golden trinket a royal might carry.
The girl’s eye was on the cannelé. Achille extended it just a few inches, a few inches of invitation.
Aimée made another quick smile and took the cannelé from his hand.
Mon Dieu, I thank you.
Achille had a sudden fear run through him and he needed to know where Sutton was—but the van was in the way. He moved up to the front of the vehicle and tried to look through the windows but couldn’t see Sutton or the vegetable seller. His hands slipped under his bib and he stroked his fingers quickly, biting his lip.
“Okay then, thanks again,” Aimée said as she flung a leg over the bike.
“Wait,” said Achille, his voice calm and paternal. She stopped and cocked her head, waiting to hear what he had to say.
32
He had to go quickly. This was his chance.
&
nbsp; After he came home from school, Maman had driven to a sick friend’s house with a jug of soup. She was so rarely away from the farm that Gilbert knew he had better go now even though if she ever found out he had ridden his bike into the village by himself, the punishment would be unforgettably severe. His plan was to ride into Castillac, tape a new note to the door of the station—this time telling where Valerie was—and be back home long before Maman. She would doubtless talk for a long time with the sick friend, and he should have plenty of time; he wasn’t even going to allow himself to go the épicerie for candy.
Straight there and back, that was all. And then—if the gendarmes did their jobs—Valerie would finally be saved. It wouldn’t take them more than a half hour to check out Labiche’s farm, and if they knew she was there, they would find her. Wouldn’t they?
Gilbert watched as Maman’s car disappeared around the curve in the road and then ran to his room. Carefully he pulled the note from his desk drawer where he had hidden it under some school papers. Once again he had used letters cut from a newspaper, so again it looked like a ransom note from a movie:
VaLerie B at LABiche faRm
HURry
He opened his math book and slid the note in and closed it, then put the book and a roll of tape into his backpack, and ran outside. It was cloudy and a little chillier than it had been, but Gilbert did not notice the weather or the the roosters crowing or the sound of birds twittering as they made their spring nests. All his focus was on getting to Castillac as fast as possible, and taping the new note to the door.
He felt a little like Superman as he rode his bike—never had he pedaled so quickly and felt the wind in his face as forcefully. It was a slow Monday and there was no traffic. The road wasn’t hilly and it was only six kilometers into town. In no time at all Gilbert was in Castillac and almost at the station—