Death in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  Lannes lit a cigarette and sat fingering the sheet of paper.

  But you weren’t such a coward, my poor Gaston, since you withstood torture and went to your death without telling Sigi what he had been sent to find out.

  ‘What I know and what I guess’.

  How much was knowledge, how much guesswork?

  He passed the paper to Moncerre who read it and said, ‘The poor sod, the poor bloody sod. Was he on to something or is it fantasy?’

  ‘Whatever it was it brought him to his death. You can’t get away from that.’

  René returned, saying, ‘He uses some words that I don’t know, but I think this is the gist of it.’

  Lannes took the paper from him.

  ‘Monsieur, I have to say first that, though I myself knew nothing but good of your esteemed sister-in-law, I have since learned that she was, or became, an object of suspicion to many in the Republican movement and among its supporters in Paris, and it was perhaps for this reason that she met her unhappy fate. (I attach a copy of the official record of her execution. Please do not ask me how I came by it – I’ve no wish to follow the same path.) This was because she entered into a liaison in Paris with a notorious French Fascist. Some say she was acting on orders and that the intention was to introduce her in this manner as a spy acting on behalf of the Republic, but others regarded her as untrustworthy and a potential traitor, if not an actual one. It was also reported that she had dealings with the French authorities, that is, with the body responsible for counterespionage. (I don’t know its title.) So, when she returned to Spain, it was natural that questions should be asked, all the more so because she had also unsuitable family connections there – her father, I believe, among them, and also a cousin in the inner councils of the Falange. So she was arrested by the Communist militia, acting on high authority, interrogated and her baggage searched. A letter addressed to her cousin was discovered sewn into the lining of her case. Its contents have never been divulged, but it was regarded as sufficient evidence to justify her immediate execution.

  ‘All this must be painful to you and to your brother, her husband. But, alas, there is more grief to follow, for my informant insists that, far from being a traitor, she was a true patriot and servant of the Republican cause, and that the incriminating letter found in her luggage was a forgery, not in her hand, though it purported to be. Furthermore, the Communist militia who arrested her knew in advance when she would cross the Border into Spain, and you will see that there are two dates on the document recording her execution, that of the signatory who commanded it being dated a full three weeks before she crossed over into Spain, the other that of the officer in command of the firing party or execution squad being correctly dated the day of her death. So it is clear that all was prepared in advance, that she was betrayed and doomed even before she left Paris, and denied any trial at which she might protest her innocence and seek to clear her name.’

  ‘I’m afraid my translation’s pretty clumsy,’ René said

  ‘Not at all. It’s admirable.’

  ‘Why didn’t Cortazar come out with any of this when we had him in?’ Moncerre said.

  ‘He didn’t trust us. I’m ashamed to say he didn’t trust us. A pity. I liked him.’

  He passed the death notice to the others.

  ‘This seems clear enough anyway. There can be no real doubt Pilar is indeed dead.’

  That was so, but really nothing here was satisfactory. It was all speculation, without hard evidence. Even the disparity of dates proved nothing. For all Lannes knew, the Communist judges might have been in the habit of signing blank death warrants; it wasn’t impossible, not even improbable. And what Gaston wrote about Pilar’s affair with Edmond was no more than rumour – Cortazar didn’t name the notorious French Fascist and Lannes had no idea whether Edmond was indeed a member of any of the various French Fascist parties. Weren’t they a bit petit-bourgeois for him?

  He said: ‘What we have here might be motive for murder, might just be motive for Gaston’s murder. It doesn’t explain why he was tortured or why Cortazar was, and their apartments searched. So there must be something more. Some paper that actually incriminates Edmond.’

  ‘Or Sigi?’

  ‘No. It must be Edmond. For all Sigi’s bravado he’s a tool, only a tool. I’m sure of that.’

  ‘What about the old lady, Madame Robartet?’ René said. ‘Is she safe? I mean, do you think Sigi – I’m assuming it was Sigi who called on her – believed her when she said she had no letter?’

  ‘I’ve put a guard on her apartment. That’s only temporary. I’m going to have a word with Sigi myself. René, would you please have copies made of these papers, several copies. I intend to give one to Sigi and to tell him we got it from the old lady.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I’m going to fix a trip to Vichy. It’s time I spoke to Edmond himself.’

  XXII

  ‘Did you see this?’

  Alain passed a copy of the Sud-Ouest to Léon, pointing to a short paragraph which announced that a retired wine-broker, Pierre Mourgues, had been sentenced to death for an act of violence against members of the German army, and had accordingly been shot.

  ‘I asked Papa about him. He was sixty-nine. Think of that. So old and still able to care, to feel the dishonour of our condition. It’s tremendous.’

  ‘What had he done?’

  ‘Well, it seems that a few days ago a couple of German plainclothes policemen called at his apartment, cours de la Somme, in search of a young woman who lodged there and who, they said – listen to this – had “contaminated” – their word exactly – contaminated some German officers.’

  ‘Given them VD you mean. Good for her!’

  ‘Then the old boy said he didn’t know anything about the girl, but in any case it was impossible to contaminate swine. They went away then, only to return with two or three Boche soldiers and the old man went for them with an axe. He was soon overpowered of course, and, well, you know the rest. What do you think of it?’

  ‘What does your father say?’

  ‘He sighs deeply, and says it’s all foolishness, horrible foolishness.’

  ‘I suppose he’s right,’ Léon said. ‘You can’t help admiring the old man though. Such spirit.’

  ‘Of course he’s right,’ Miriam said, bringing a tray with coffee and cups and a plate of biscuits into the back-room of the tabac. ‘It horrifies me to hear you boys even dreaming of any form of Resistance. You’ve your whole lives before you. It’s madness to throw them away for an empty gesture which does no good to anyone.’

  ‘But what sort of lives?’ Léon said.

  Miriam poured coffee and handed a cup to each boy. She had lost weight since the summer and her black dress hung loosely on her. Now she settled herself in her chair and crossed her legs, giving Alain a brief glimpse of thigh. It was the second time Léon had brought him to the tabac and he had decided to set himself a test: he would come on his own, one day soon, and then . . . Miriam had laughed when he bent over to kiss her hand, but happily, he thought, not in mockery; and then she had allowed him to hold it a moment longer than – he was sure – convention regarded as proper. He had asked Léon how old his aunt was, but got an unsatisfactory reply. ‘Oh I don’t know, forty maybe.’ That was nonsense, surely; she certainly wasn’t that old. His own mother was forty, and there was no comparison. Perhaps Miriam was thirty-two, he thought. But would she laugh at him if . . . When? It was unfortunate if she thought of him simply as Léon’s friend, since she evidently regarded Léon as a child.

  ‘What sort of lives?’ Miriam repeated Léon’s question. ‘Lives that are too short and too precious to be cut off by a German bullet, that’s what.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alain said, and frowned, to show he was to be taken seriously. ‘My father says the time for resistance will come, but we have to be patient. Even to speak of it now is premature.’

  ‘Your father’s a sensible man.’

  �
��Besides, I don’t see the point of shooting a solitary German soldier, as that boy in the park attempted. What good can that do? Or of going for a couple of them with an axe like that old man. Moreover, as we agreed, Léon, collectively the Boches are our enemies, but individually one of them may be a decent sort, not even a Nazi. Take that chap you sold the book to, for instance. He seems all right. Or again, there’s a young lieutenant billeted on the family who live in the apartment above ours. I’ve talked to him. So has my sister. I don’t think he even wants to be in the army, let alone occupying France. We’d quite a long conversation the other day, the three of us. He misses his home and his little sisters and his dogs, a couple of English spaniels, he showed me their photograph. In different circumstances – say, if we met each other at university or on holiday somewhere – we might even be friends. I couldn’t shoot him, though it would be easy to do so, if I had a gun, since he evidently trusts me and takes no precautions. In any case I’m against killing for the sake of killing. It’s an empty gesture and a cruel one. Theatrical really in my opinion. Indeed it’s no better than murder when you come to think of it. But sabotage, that’s a different thing altogether. There’s some point in that, for it must hinder or disrupt the German war effort. So some day, when the time is ripe, as my father says.’

  Miriam was smiling, not patronisingly, but it seemed in agreement, even approval. He thought he had impressed her. Here then was one answer to Léon’s question ‘What sort of lives’. A life that had room for a woman like Miriam. He certainly wasn’t going to throw away his before . . .

  ‘It’s almost curfew time,’ she said. ‘You’d better be off home, the pair of you. Léon, I’ve made a cheese tart for your mother. Wait till I fetch it.’

  Alain turned up the collar of his overcoat. It made him look older, a bit raffish, a bit film-star. Miriam gave them each a couple of packets of cigarettes, kissed Léon and shook hands with Alain. He held hers for as long as he dared.

  ‘It’s been nice seeing you,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you’re friends. Léon needs a good friend. Give my regards to your father and follow his advice. He’s a sensible man, as I say, perhaps the most sensible in Bordeaux. But don’t tell him I said that. Now be off with you both. Go carefully, and come again when you feel like it, even if you’re not out of cigarettes.’

  ‘She really likes you, I can see that,’ Léon said as the shop door closed behind them and the iron shutters came down again.

  ‘Well, I like her too.’

  They parted at the corner of the street.

  ‘See you soon,’ Alain said.

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Like shooting Germans.’

  ‘Certainly not. I promise.’

  Léon hesitated a moment, then darted forward and kissed Alain quickly and lightly on both cheeks.

  XXIII

  A cold clear frosty morning, the sky deep-blue – ‘pre-war blue’, Lannes said to himself – and the rich odour of roasting chestnuts coming from a stove by the kiosk at the end of the avenue. Lannes waited, smoking; he had no fear that Sigi would not keep the appointment, made by way of old Marthe. His vanity would forbid him to do so. For a moment it crossed Lannes’ mind that he made a good target sitting there in the open at a rendez-vous of his own choice – a better target than that German private had offered. But that was foolishness. There was no reason to kill him now that there hadn’t been over the last months. In any case, it wouldn’t occur to Sigi that Lannes had taken no precautions, hadn’t alerted anyone, not even Moncerre, to where he would be. As for Schnyder, the less he knew at this stage the better. Meanwhile he was content to wait. It had been a bad morning at home, Marguerite in low spirits, finding fault with Alain and Clothilde over matters of no importance. He wished he could find comfort for her. Last night she had turned away from him in bed, and when he realized she was weeping and placed his hand on her shoulder, had brushed it off. Her wretched brother Albert had failed her, his promise to arrange Dominique’s return as worthless as Lannes had known it to be. When he continued to counsel patience, she sobbed more deeply. He was useless; there was nothing he could do to alleviate her misery.

  ‘Superintendent.’

  He looked up from his reverie to see Sigi standing before him, the boy Michel by his side.

  ‘Send the lad away,’ he said.

  Sigi smiled, took a wallet from his breast-pocket, gave Michel a banknote and told him to wait for him by the kiosk.

  ‘Buy yourself an orangeade or something,’ he said.

  The boy shrugged his shoulders, treated Lannes to a broad – impertinent? – smile, turned away and strolled with careless shambling gait towards the kiosk.

  ‘Why did you bring him?’

  ‘Not as a bodyguard, you may be sure of that, or even as a witness. We’re attending a meeting later, and he arrived early. He’s brimful of enthusiasm, you see. I presume you are not going to arrest me and that we shall be able to keep our appointment.’

  He settled himself on the bench beside Lannes and unbuttoned his trench-coat.

  ‘No, I’m not going to arrest you.’

  He passed the envelope to Sigi who, before opening it, said, ‘This is very conspiratorial, superintendent, as if we were playing in a movie, don’t you think?’

  He read the papers, quickly.

  ‘And this concerns me?’ He said. ‘You really think so?’

  ‘You were on the right track. Gaston did indeed entrust these papers to Madame Robartet. She didn’t give them to you because her cat took a dislike to you. In any case, they’re not what you were looking for, are they?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  He made to pass them back to Lannes.

  ‘Keep them. They’re copies, as you must know.’

  ‘Mere fancies, wild fancies, I should say.’

  ‘As you like, but you’ll understand that there is nothing to be gained by troubling the old lady again. It took you a long time to get round to her, didn’t it?’

  ‘You also, it seems.’

  ‘So we are both still in search of the incriminating document,’ Lannes said. ‘Where do you try next? I imagine Edmond must be getting impatient. Worried too.’

  ‘Again, I repeat, I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You tortured Gaston and Cortazar and ransacked their apartments. It must be important. And you didn’t find it because, if you had done so, there would have been no need to visit Madame Robartet.’

  ‘This is foolishness, like your interrogation of my friend Jaime. You frightened him, you know, with your talk of the guillotine. Absurd, but I had some difficulty in putting his mind at rest. You frightened my poor uncle, Jean-Christophe, too. He was in a dreadful state after you left him.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Not that I hold that against you, superintendent. Indeed we are at one on that point. I don’t care for perversion and degeneracy myself.’

  ‘And the boy? The little girl’s brother?’

  Lannes gestured toward Michel who was watching them from the kiosk where he stood smoking and looking bored.

  ‘No, superintendent, I am not interested in that sort of thing. You really mustn’t insult me by making such a suggestion. The boy’s an enthusiast for the Cause, that’s all.’

  ‘And what cause would that be?’

  ‘The cause of the New Europe, naturally. What else?’

  ‘You expect me to believe that? That you believe in such nonsense?’

  ‘But why not? It’s the direction the prevailing wind is blowing in.’

  ‘Winds shift.’

  Sigi held up both hands, palms open, in mock-horror.

  ‘That’s rash talk, superintendent, almost seditious. You are fortunate I am not a malicious man, or . . . well, where would your career be? Superintendent, I have a certain respect for you – don’t ask me why. So also does my Uncle Edmond. Therefore I say this to you: you are pursuing a dangerous
path, not in your own interest. Moreover you have enemies – I don’t, you understand, speak of myself. You know the advocate Labiche? Very well, let me warn you. He is preparing a denunciation, accusing you of consorting with Jews – one handsome Jewess and one pretty little Jew-boy of dubious moral reputation. I tell you frankly: I don’t give a damn whether there is anything in what he affirms. But such accusations are damaging these days, damaging for anyone, but especially for a policeman. Let us make a bargain. I have the means to call advocate Labiche to heel, the means to silence him. So I do that and you forget all this . . . ’ He patted the papers which Lannes had given him, ‘ . . . all this nonsense. What do you say?’

  ‘It’s an interesting suggestion.’

  ‘Not only interesting, but in your interest. In your interest, my friend. Listen to me. You know very well that, no matter what sort of a case you concoct against me – and remember, I admit nothing – it is impossible that you should ever see it come to court. It’s as impossible as that the corpses for which, to my amusement, you hold me responsible, should come to life and walk the streets again. They are kaput, dead and buried, and the dead stay dead. Besides, they were worthless people, you can’t deny that. Perhaps this girl, this Pilar,’ – he tapped the papers again – ‘was not worthless. I don’t know, can’t say, having had no acquaintance with her, but she too is dead, and there is nothing to be gained from pursuing the matter, from trying to disentangle the web of circumstance. She engaged, it seems, in war, and war is unforgiving. She paid the price of her commitment. Let her rest in peace. It is vain to weep over spilt wine.’

  ‘Blood,’ Lannes said. ‘Blood, not wine. And you are mistaken. Actions have consequences, blood will have blood, and the dead do not always lie easy. The murdered cry out for vengeance, even for justice.’

  ‘Words, words, words, fine words doubtless, but mere sounds in the air. What do you say to my offer, my friend?’

  ‘What do I say?’ Lannes smiled. ‘It’s matter for thought. I wonder what has prompted you to make it?’