Murder is a Long Time Coming

by Anthony Masters

  ‘I lied.’

  Marius gazed at her in silence, stunned by her frankness.

  ‘You’re doing something very stupid,’ he shouted, but then, remembering his mother, lowered his voice to a bitter, steely note. ‘You’re a –’

  ‘Before you begin to abuse me, monsieur, I have something to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘You should. It affects you.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I was a fool to go. Not because of the money – I needed it and I’d do it again. However, it’s unlikely I’ll get the chance.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’m trying to say the old lady was more crazy than I thought – and the shock has made her crazier. She made a scene in the foyer of the newspaper – and an even bigger one in Valier’s office.’

  ‘What kind of scene?’

  ‘Shouting. Making accusations.’

  ‘What kind of accusations?’

  ‘They were about you.’ She looked at him wildly. ‘Saying you’d murdered her son.’

  ‘I see.’ A wave of appalling fatigue hit Marius. ‘And what did Valier say?’

  ‘Not a lot. He could see how unbalanced she was – and there was nothing he could print.’

  ‘He must have been disappointed.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘He told me to take her away. So I did – to the police. She told me Lebatre wanted to see her this morning. He must have phoned her. So we came back here by taxi – at my expense.’

  Marius stared at her. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘You should know.’ She turned away. ‘And believe it or not, I was ashamed. I’m not often ashamed. I felt dirty – playing into his hands, accepting his money. I’d rather screw him. Any time. And now I suppose you’ll sack me.’

  ‘How can I?’ asked Marius with sudden, ironic humour. ‘I need you too much – and you damn well know it. Don’t you?’

  Estelle nodded, but without triumph.

  10

  ‘You’re a fool, Marie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Leger sisters sat outside their house on the terrace that they both considered was the only good thing about their small home. The tiny garden was entirely enclosed by a mellow stone wall, high enough to prevent them from being overlooked but not so high that it made them feel claustrophobic. The air was pungent with the scent of late wallflowers from Mireille’s tubs and the herbs that Marie had allowed to grow between the paving stones.

  It was lunchtime. Mireille had just returned from the shop and they were eating an oiled salad with cheese and fresh bread.

  ‘At least you admit it.’

  ‘I’m grateful to Valier,’ said Marie. ‘Grateful that he made me angry enough to see what I was doing.’

  Mireille looked at her sister curiously. ‘I really think you’ve changed,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it needed – all this stupidity.’

  ‘Perhaps it did. Mariola tells me there’s a man who knows things – who the police don’t know about. Someone called Didier. Jean-Pierre was seeing him.’ Marie calculated the effect of what she had just said on her sister.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He’s in an asylum – a psychiatric hospital.’

  ‘He’s mad then?’

  ‘He’s meant to be.’

  ‘And the police don’t know about him?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Then they should.’

  ‘Yes …’ Marie paused indecisively.

  ‘Is Mariola going to tell them? And why was Jean-Pierre seeing him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Mariola is a cunning old woman. You should never have got mixed up with her in the first place,’ said Mireille severely. ‘If she’s told you something – you have a duty to tell the police.’

  ‘I don’t want to do that.’ She hesitated.

  ‘Marie, what’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She cut her cheese into tiny methodical squares.

  ‘I know that look,’ insisted Mireille. ‘You’re hiding something from me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Then Marie blurted out: ‘She doesn’t know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mariola – she doesn’t know I went to see Didier too.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I went with Jean-Pierre.’ Now at least some of it was coming out. Marie felt an elation she had never experienced before. But the question was – would she eventually tell everything? Could she? Her visits to Didier were merely the tip of an iceberg.

  ‘What in God’s name for?’

  Marie’s voice shook. ‘We had this plan.’

  Mireille had stood up. She was trembling. ‘What have you done?’ she whispered. Her face was grey. ‘What kind of plan could you have had with the likes of him?’

  ‘We thought Didier could confirm that Henri did it – that he presided over that court.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So – what did he say?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to think about it again. It’s of no importance.’

  Mireille came and stood over her threateningly and for a moment Marie wondered if she was going to hit her.

  ‘Marie, what have you been doing? Why did you go with Jean-Pierre?’

  ‘He said – that if I helped him to convince Didier we were trying to help him –’ Her words tumbled out in a rush.

  ‘How?’

  ‘We said we’d get him out – from the hospital. I think he believed us. He’s so – strange.’

  ‘In exchange for?’ Mireille’s voice was ice.

  ‘He should tell us what he knew.’

  ‘And then – you’d have ammunition for blackmail. Both of you. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes. But he told us nothing. Nothing in the end.’

  ‘You must go straight to the police.’

  ‘No,’ said Marie. ‘I can’t.’

  They continued to argue but Marie was adamant. Finally, sick at heart and determined to tackle her sister again in the morning, Mireille lay on her bed, trying unsuccessfully to rest. Half an hour later she rose and went back to Marie.

  ‘Did you just do it for the money you might get?’

  Suddenly Marie knew she should tell her sister everything, but was far too terrified to go any further – to confide any more.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we need it.’

  Mireille went back to bed, unable to understand but too horrified to talk any further. Meanwhile, Marie closed her eyes, knowing that she should tell her but feeling too exhausted, too weak to go into it all.

  The grounds of the château rambled away into hilly, pine-wooded countryside. The lawns were neatly mowed at front and back and a flight of wide steps led up to a glass-fronted entrance. As he rang the bell, Marius noticed how well kept everything was from the immaculate tiled floor in the entrance hall to the deep pile carpet that led away down the corridor into its interior. But there had been an emptiness to the place since Alain had lived here along with his pictures and his books and his music. It was as if he had wrapped himself in a cocoon, and although the château and its grounds were regularly cleaned and maintained, there was an atmosphere of aridity. Even now, as Alain walked towards Marius with a welcoming smile, dressed in a rather formal tweed suit and bow tie, he looked as if he was somehow preserved in a still, shut away world of his own.

  ‘Marius. Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you for inviting me.’

  ‘Georges has laid out a cold lunch in the garden. I hope it’s going to be adequate.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be.’

  ‘Would you like to wash?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As he washed his hands in the marble basin, Marius looked ou
t over the lawn. The table was laid with a snow white linen cloth and Georges was fussing over the wine. The lawn was trim and green, despite the heat, and further down Marius could see a line of sprinklers playing on the grass. There was a pair of statues on the gravel – winged horsemen – and a dazzling fountain played, its spume sparkling against the cloudless sky. Marius had always loved the fountain. Its centre-piece was a huge swan and the water dropped in an arc from its throat and under its wings with a rhythmic sound.

  When he came down, Alain was already seated at the table, a sun hat cocked over his eyes and a handkerchief protecting the back of his neck. He no longer looked vulnerable, but had returned to his more familiar distinguished air of quiet, authoritative confidence. Georges gave Marius a St Raphael and then disappeared back into the house.

  ‘Well, Marius. Are you going to stay?’

  ‘For a while.’

  ‘And you’re going to stay at home with your mother, attend the inquest on your father, battle with Estelle and keep your head low?’

  ‘She’s not such a battle now.’

  ‘But aren’t you tempted?’

  For a moment Marius wondered what the hell Alain meant. Then he realised he was not talking about Estelle.

  ‘You mean to investigate on my own? How can I? It’s not my case.’

  ‘Marius, I was going to mention this to you the other night. But – somehow I felt it would be wrong to drag up conjecture. Conjecture of my own.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘Ill-advised. But after this latest atrocity …’ Alain paused and looked abstractedly at the fountain. Then he turned back to Marius. ‘I have a great deal of time in which to think. But have you ever considered the possiblity that Suzanne Rodiet wasn’t necessarily shot for interfering – for trying to protect those young people? That she wasn’t necessarily shot by the Germans?’

  Marius looked at Alain warily. ‘You say this is all conjecture?’

  ‘Purely. It’s just another possiblity. But I see no reason why she should have risked her own life by intervening and trying to save those young men’s lives, though she did know the mother of one of them. Why was she present anyway? Why should she be there?’

  ‘Tip-off? Easy enough.’

  ‘Possibly. But why should Suzanne get a tip-off and arrive just in the nick of time to start protesting? Maybe it’s something someone thought she should have done. That it explained why she was there – why she died.’

  Marius was silent, trying to analyse the implications of what Alain was suggesting.

  ‘What are you trying to say, Alain?’

  ‘I always suspected Suzanne of collaboration. She was an enigma. She seemed to have this – almost false identity. It seemed so shallow – as if she had made it up.’

  ‘Suzanne Rodiet always appeared as one of the main victims of the tribunal,’ said Marius.

  ‘I think it was she who gave away the young people in the first place.’ Alain spoke very softly. ‘She, too, was friendly with Commandant Kummel.’

  ‘Why was nothing said at the time?’ demanded Marius.

  ‘Very few people knew, and those who did believed she was seeing Kummel to take information back to the Resistance.’

  ‘Like my father?’

  ‘I’ve always suspected that, unlike Henri, Suzanne Rodiet could have been some kind of double agent. I know it sounds melodramatic. Absurd.’

  Marius looked at Alain intently. He was confident, choosing his words carefully. And none of it sounded absurd at all – even if it was conjecture.

  ‘What’s your evidence?’ Marius wanted something much more definite.

  ‘There were tip-offs about some of the Maquis raids – I’m sure they came from Suzanne.’ But Alain’s voice had lost its crispness and he seemed deflated.

  ‘But if you suspected all this,’ Marius said slowly, ‘why the hell didn’t you say anything about it when my father was alive?’

  ‘We discussed her many times, but your father was always adamant that I was wrong.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Marius curiously.

  ‘He said he knew she was innocent – but he never gave any hard facts.’

  ‘But it was official, wasn’t it? That the Germans shot her?’ persisted Marius.

  ‘That was what we were told. But there was nothing official. Only rumours. Like there were rumours about Henri.’

  Marius stared at him with sudden amazement. ‘Are we suggesting that Gabriel killed my father – and Jean-Pierre? Just to protect his mother – assuming of course that Jean-Pierre knew as well?’ Marius laughed. ‘He hated her.’

  ‘I’m not making any such suggestion.’

  They sat silently, sipping their drinks, suddenly unable to communicate.

  ‘If there was a double agent in the Maquis – that person could equally well have been my father,’ Marius said at last.

  ‘Or dozens of other people,’ replied Alain drily. ‘And Henri could never have been a Nazi agent. I knew him – he was a man of total integrity. You can rule out any doubts about him.’

  ‘Did your sisters know Suzanne Rodiet?’

  ‘Slightly.’

  ‘Have you ever discussed your theories – your conjectures – with them?’

  ‘There wasn’t much opportunity. As you know, we fell out after the war.’ His voice was sour.

  Marius nodded. ‘But I can talk to your sisters –’

  ‘It may be difficult. They are not easy people. And there is nothing I can do to help you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Alain’s voice was impatient.

  ‘I’m going to take you seriously,’ Marius replied softly. ‘I’m going to try and find out what I can about Suzanne Rodiet.’

  The trail may have gone very cold.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘I’ll give Georges a call now,’ said Alain suddenly, after a short silence. ‘We should start our lunch.’

  ‘Alain, I’m sorry to be so single-minded but are you really certain – did it never enter your head that my father could be this double agent?’

  ‘No,’ replied Alain. ‘He would have been quite incapable of ever doing that. He was genuinely pumping Kummel for the Movement and reporting back to Solange. I’m sure of it. Georges!’ He rang the bell.

  As Georges emerged from the house, bearing a tray of food, Marius felt a curiously heady mixture of soaring anticipation and raw fear. But at least he had something to do.

  Although Jean-Pierre’s body had been removed, there were still police around the Claude cottage at four in the afternoon. Marius skirted the activity and headed for the other side of the lavender field. He had drunk a considerable amount of good claret at lunchtime, rounded off by several armagnacs. His head swam as he walked and once he reached the other side of the field, he flopped down, staring up at the rocky foothills and the Alps beyond.

  Marius dozed, and as he drifted into sleep the image of the mountains stayed in his mind. He saw a mountain path, then in the hot afternoon sun he saw his father and Jean-Pierre, blindfolded, manacled together, ascending the steeply rising ground, walking slowly, sometimes stumbling. Behind them came a priest, but when Marius could see more clearly he realised the priest was Gabriel Rodiet. Behind him walked a motley procession, all with candles, despite the clarity of the light. His mother and Mariola Claude walked hand in hand followed by Lebatre, on his own and carrying a chalice. Red wine splashed over the top and dribbled down its silver sides, staining the rocks a dull crimson. The Leger sisters walked side by side, followed by André and Annette Valier in single file. Then came Isobelle Rodiet, strangely holding the hand of Natasha. Then, lastly, some considerable distance behind them, was Alain. His head was thrown back and his hands were clasped behind him. They walked on and on, climbing towards the summit. And there, on the summit, was Estelle, but then she became someone else – a dark cloak of a woman, faceless and without shape. Marius knew that this was Suzanne Rodiet. She looked down and pointed
at his father and Jean-Pierre, and as she did so they withered and died until they became two gnarled olive trees. The others gathered around the trees and began to pick their crop of olives. Alain produced a bottle of claret. The picnic began.

  Marius awoke, with a dry mouth and a blinding headache. Monique swam into his thoughts, overriding the dream images. Suddenly he knew that he never wanted to come back to Letoric again, that he would marry Monique and maybe they would have children – and maybe live happily ever after in Lyon. His resolution had already dissolved, drifted into confusion during the night. Marius closed his eyes miserably against his indecision and then opened them again. There was a heat haze over the lavender field and for a fraction of a second he thought he saw Jean-Pierre striding through it, ‘whacking thighed and piping hot’. His mind searched for the source of the quotation but it didn’t come. Instead Jean-Pierre strode on until he became like a living Seurat – a mass of dots, transfusing in colour. Then he wasn’t there.

  Marius lay on his face, pressing it on to the warm earth, smelling the lavender-scented mould – that Jean-Pierre would soon become. That his father would become. He began to sob but no tears came. A light wind blew over the field, mercifully caressing his hair; suddenly it dropped and immediately the dead heat came back. Marius sat up. He knew of only one thing he could do: to find out who killed them, to find out who sat at the tribunal, to find out who had betrayed the Maquis to the Germans, the Germans to the Maquis.

  He got up quickly, putting in abeyance his decision over Letoric and with that his mother, Estelle, Monique, the future – the whole damned clutter of decision-making. He would attempt to block it all out by taking up the investigation professionally.

  As Marius walked slowly back to Letoric, his head cleared. He had always respected Alain – for his intelligence and his discernment. But now that he was sober, Alain’s theory became more and more unsatisfying. A long-dead woman, the vague idea of a double agent based on incidents and interventions in the Maquis that could have been caused by anyone or anything, by coincidence, by chance, by … Then he realised he had never talked deeply with Alain Leger. And now he was propounding theories, reaching out to him, forming a friendship based on present sympathy and past mysteries. Indecision began to erode his new sense of resolution. Without hard evidence, Marius knew that any private investigation of his own would be almost impossible. For a moment he was tempted to ring Gabriel and share with him what Alain had told him, but some instinct prevented him – at least for the moment.