Downfall

by Sally Spedding

  “Before her job with the hotel, she ran a brothel. Made some serious dough.”

  Delphine stopped walking, and not just because of the hailstones attacking her ears but also the imagery that accompanied his news. She also thought of Nadia Lecroix.

  “I can’t believe it. Where?”

  “Saint-Denis, in Paris.”

  “Good God.” She then noticed her host had stopped to listen, as several lights came on in the nearby caravans.

  “Could the Spaniard who jumped under that train have belonged to her past? Been her ex-husband?”

  “Christ knows. The flics can’t yet confirm whether he’d even been in her house. And, wait for it, there’s a whisper you were seen hanging around.”

  ‘Hanging’ hardly the best word.

  “So what?” Aware of Gauffroi keen to keep moving. “She was my boss. I was worried about my upcoming assessment. Look, I’ll call you back later. It’s too bloody cold…”

  “No worries. By the way, where are you?”

  “Home,” she lied again too easily, flattered that he might actually care. “Helping Papa.”

  Martin seemed to believe her. “Be interesting to hear what Miko has to say to the flics,” he said, his line breaking up. “You take care.”

  Silence followed, and total exposure to the icy blast on that bare brow of land. Gauffroi still waited, watching her slip occasionally on the sodden, winter grass.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, catching up, thinking brothels, Basma’s weirdly blue tongue and the rest. Thinking too, how too many cans of worms were being opened, and where would it all end? Also, the sneaking feeling that this stocky farmer’s son with the black gloves, had heard every word of her conversation. “Tell me,” she said, having to place her feet sideways down the slope. “Did your parents ever mention a missing teenager from round here, back in 1968?”

  Gauffroi held out a hand to help her over a line of loose rocks, then withdrew it. She almost fell. “Yes. It broke my father, if you must know,” he said, turning away. “Messed up his head.”

  “What did?” She was thinking dead crows and eviscerated sheep. Could smell the woodsmoke from the caravans. Normally bringing homely, comforting associations, but not now.

  “You mean who did? This fucking flic. Wouldn’t leave it alone. Thought he had something to do with it. Why still I hate the bastards. Why I…”

  He twisted round to face her. His angry face glistening with wetness.

  “Which cop?”

  “Confrère. Nicolas. Lieutenant Colonel, no less.”

  Nicolas 88…

  She stared at him.

  “And guess what? His kid’s taken it up as well. Lise. Named after Odette Stimson’s code name, if you please. How fucking insulting is that? She was one heroic woman.”

  Delphine saw him wipe spit from the sides of his mouth. So, Bertrand du Feu had been right.

  “You wait,” Patrick Gauffroi went on, “if she ever comes near here for whatever reason, it’ll be…” His black hand drew a line across his throat. “My dead father would expect nothing less.”

  *

  The huge sky had morphed into a dark, grey shroud with only the pricking lights from the caravans to relieve the gloom. She didn’t want to be down there with such a volatile stranger, but Julie came first. She was her friend for too long, not to persevere. And then it occurred to her that Patrick Gauffroi didn’t have to be going to all this trouble. She briefly thought of Martin. The smooth operator. The people-pleaser with the neat butt and gelled hair. Whatever else, this guy had passion. But was it dangerous?

  For some nagging reason, she must find out more about that missing teenager from thirty-five years ago, but not out here. Definitely not here.

  “This is the Adamski’s place,” he explained once they’d reached the first caravan, adorned, like others nearby with a hand-made Christmas wreath. Delphine thought it beautiful, doubting that Bellevue would be showing any such symbols of the approaching festive season, especially without Julie.

  “Karolina’s a widow,” explained Patrick before knocking on the door. “After her husband was killed back home by a jealous neighbour. So how could I let them keep being chased around France like animals? How?”

  “You couldn’t,” said Delphine, noticing the embroidered curtains covering the main window, beginning to move. Also, the arrangement of earthenware pots full of dark soil at either side of the wooden steps to the door. Waiting for spring, she assumed

  “Anyway, she’s trying to make a living out of sewing,” her companion continued. “And if that works out, I’ll have done something useful.”

  Just then, a young woman’s pale face peered out from the side of her curtain. Wariness in her blue eyes until she recognised Gauffroi and beckoned them both in. Slim and pretty in a blue jumper, blue jeans and moccasins, accompanied by a faint, musky perfume. Delphine paused. Roma had been branded as dirty, yet here were vases of ivy, orderliness, peace, and dare she say it, joy. Halfway along, a pot-bellied stove glowed with more vigour that ever her parent’s wood burner, giving off a welcome warmth.

  “Karolina, this is Delphine Rougier. She’s a friend of mine,” added Gauffroi, before explaining in half-French-half-Romanian why she was there.

  When he’d finished, Karolina invited them to sit down on a nearby banquette, covered by a vivid, hand-knitted throw. They removed their footwear and outer clothes, leaving them by the door. She then called for her daughter.

  “Roza, tell the Monsieur and Mademoiselle what happened here earlier today,” she said when her child, probably no more than eleven, appeared. The youngster, although dressed in bright green dungarees with a silver clip in her short hair, had the look of someone older, with skin the colour of raw pastry, and eyes replicating her mother’s but wary. Why Delphine gave her an encouraging smile. “You were out picking ivy, weren’t you, Roza?” said Karolina. “Up by the farm gate. On your own as well, because your friend Maya had to stay indoors. If I’d known at the time, you’d have been kept in as well…”

  “I just wanted to make our caravan look nice.”

  “And it does,” added Delphine. “So, what then?”

  Roza began plucking at the sleeve of her mother’s jumper as she began her story which contained enough French to be understandable.

  “It was around midday. I’d almost finished tying up all my ivy into bundles and laying them in my basket when a big, green car stopped behind me. I turned around and the driver asked if I had any twine to spare.” Here she stopped as if dredging her memory, while Delphine prayed inwardly that she could. “Yes, I said. Plenty.” She then pointed left, towards the lane to the main road. “He asked for two pieces, and afterwards, drove off that way, really quickly. He gave me five whole euros.”

  Delphine kept up her encouraging expression, despite feeling sick.

  “Can you describe him? And what did he sound like?”

  The wind outside had dropped, but still the dregs of hail pattered against the caravan’s two windows.

  “Greyish hair with darker bits above his ears. Like someone on TV who’s at a big table asking people questions.”

  “A presenter?” said Gauffroi. “Or a quiz show host?”

  Roza nodded. “He looked quite nice.”

  Delphine recycled yesterday’s image of the man on the 3rd floor of the hotel. Of his fleeing the building. “And the make of his car?” She added.

  “Nissan.” Roza’s face relaxed into a smile. “I like that word. I can imagine a snake saying it like this. Nissss… Nissss…”

  LUCIUS

  5 p.m.

  The lying traitor. From the moment he’d used his trademark word ‘Schnell!’ I knew it was him. But why treat me like that? Why whisper to his sister that I must immediately be put to work? What kind of work, can I do while handcuffed? And for the first time in my life, dressed in someone else’s horrible clothes, I just want to die.

  *

  I hear his Jaguar leave, and with
it, part of me too. But there’s no time to think of stuff like that, because my Aunt Estelle is pushing me towards a door next to the kitchen at the back of the house. The moment it’s unlocked, I realise this is no ordinary room, and it’s not just the smell or the sight of three young girls handcuffed like me, sitting on their narrow beds. But their fear. Their silent pleading for help.

  “They’ll be ready for you tomorrow,” says my aunt, now with a new, ridiculous name. “So, you’d better get yourself ready. A nourishing meal, high in iron and vitamins, then a good night’s sleep. But no playing with yourself. Understood?”

  Her thick, blonde hair falls free of its clasp as she bends to kiss my cheek and lets her left hand slip down inside my borrowed trousers. “Yes, if you leave yourself alone, you’ll be just perfect. Our numero uno…”

  “Number one what?”

  She replies by removing her hand and pushing me into the corridor. I could kick out, make her fall, then run for it, but those six fearful eyes have already scarred my mind.

  ‘Soon,’ I tell myself, and then from somewhere, hear a dog’s loud barking.

  17.

  16.15 hrs.

  Patrick Gauffroi had waved Delphine away from Le Fin du Monde, having offered to look out for a replacement for Julie. He knew of a breeder of border collies in Mamers, whose bitch was expecting puppies any day.

  “That’s kind of you,” she’d said, although still dwelling on young Roza’s disturbing story. “But it could take a while to bond with another one. She was pretty special.”

  He’d understood, and also offered her a beer, even suggesting a plate of crudités, but again, she’d declined. His earlier, harsh threat concerning Lise Confrère still lingered and although the wind had dropped, the road back home might be treacherous.

  As she drove towards Bellevue with the wind and hail still staying away, but ice beginning to form, she tried piecing together everything that had happened so far. Hoping too, young Roza who’d spoken to that mystery driver of the green Nissan X-Trail would stay safe. So, had he enticed Julie out of her barn, tied her up so quickly before carrying her away to run over her? Or had that been for an accomplice to do? Either way, Julie would have barked her head off.

  Had he or someone else known no-one was at home? Muzzled her at the last moment, even injected her, or had a special way with dogs?

  Perhaps she’d been buried too soon. Perhaps this, perhaps that…

  Stop it.

  *

  Her father was waiting for her by the front door. He must have seen her headlights from within the farmhouse as she’d turned into the crowded yard. Instead of feeling pleasure at this attention, Delphine was annoyed. She’d planned to immediately update Lieutenant Confrère and find out if there’d been any more news of Basma.

  She advanced towards the hallway’s dull light. “Is everything OK?”

  He reached out and stroked her cheek. A rare affectionate gesture he’d used for as long as she could remember. “Where’ve you been? You’re cold. We’ve been worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll tell you later. I just need to get in and sort myself out.”

  His gaze took in the noticeable stains on her coat down to her muddy boots. “Any more news of that dead baby?”

  “Papa, please…”

  Meanwhile, fishy smells filtered from the farmhouse into to the late afternoon’s gloom. Bouillabaisse. Normally appetising, but not now. He let her in, cognac on his breath.

  “I also need to get a new coat tomorrow,” she said, shaking both arms free of the yellow one, impossible to be dry-cleaned. Not that she could have afforded it. Once her lucky coat when she’d landed her first job at the hotel. However, she’d keep it, just in case those bloodstains she’d tried to erase might, after all, be useful. “You did say you’d put some money aside,” she reminded him, suddenly resenting her monthly contribution to the parental pot.

  “For me, girl, not a bloody coat. Especially now.”

  Great.

  “He means we need to be careful,” said her mother, emerging from the kitchen, wiping her red hands on her apron, bringing with them the smell of a thick, stale sea. “He might need some extra care, you know the sort of thing. But you can look at mine if you like. Not worn for years, They’re in my small wardrobe.”

  “Thanks.”

  Delphine tried to hide her disappointment as she climbed the wooden stairs, leaving both parents staring up at her until she’d pushed open their bedroom door. All the while wondering how to retain more of her pay from the hotel if or when it re-opened. Even Pauline Fillol kept her disability payments, while each month, her mother also transferred her carer’s allowance into her daughter’s account.

  *

  The lock in this smaller wardrobe’s door was stiff. The ornate key slightly bent. She turned it this way and that, anger bubbling up at her pathetic situation in this place of shadows. They took her meagre money, so in exchange, she’d keep her secrets. That would be the deal from now on, until she could somehow find an affordable place of her own.

  The key finally obliged, and the door swung open on to the reek of mothballs and a fox stole plus two coats hung in line, in length order, from four wire hangers. Three silent strangers.

  Never would she wear the fox stole slung around the first hanger’s mean shoulders. Its glass eyes shining; black leather jaws snapped shut. So that left two items to choose from. A smooth, brown knee-length coat complete with matching astrakhan collar and cuffs, or the slightly longer, least dated specimen in black with a neat, raised collar and a discreetly angled pocket on each side. The three covered buttons added to its understated feel, but the main attraction was that it seemed unworn.

  Chanel…

  Until then, just a word.

  She lifted the coat free of its hanger and slid her arms into its sleeves. It was a perfect, silk-lined fit, and in front of her mother’s long, freckled mirror, she turned this way and that, thinking about going the cinema with Martin. One day....

  “Your father bought it for me when we gave up the café,” came Irène Rougier’s voice from the doorway, making her start. “He thought then that we’d be going out more. You know, trips to Paris, even abroad…” her voice tailed away. But how could Delphine press her as to why that hadn’t happened? Why the farm had failed, even the tractor repair business? Instead she said, “I can’t believe it’s that old.”

  “Well, it’s aged better than me, that’s for sure, and certainly looks good on you,” said the donor, walking over to the window and drawing its once dark blue, velvet curtains across. “By the way, we’ve just heard more news about your hotel on the radio. Apparently, the manager’s been taken off for further questioning, and as for that poor baby…” she paused without looking round.

  “Yes?”

  “There’d been no female staying in that particular bedroom. It was a man.”

  Contradicting what Lise Confrere had said.

  “But there may still have been a woman who’d come and gone out again.”

  Her mother was right. Anything was possible and, for a moment, Delphine had the strongest urge to share what she’d seen and learnt since the morning but couldn’t.

  “Michel Salerne has a brother banged up in Fresnes,” was all she said, then added. “And did cover the reception desk for someone who’s also got interesting connections.”

  “Josette Lecroix?”

  “My God, how did you know about her?”

  “It’s everywhere. At the flick of a TV switch.”

  Delphine began removing the coat and hanging it over a nearby chair. In that chilly room on a cold early evening, she was suddenly too warm.

  “And as for your Papa, three months is a tough call,” her mother reminded her, turning away from the window. “You mustn’t take him too seriously. As for me, I have my own demons.”

  “I had noticed.”

  “Really?”

  “So, what are they?”

  “Just the one, bu
t it’s enough…”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve never told you before, but I’ve been trying my best to discover who might have betrayed everyone at Oradour-sur-Glane, almost sixty years ago. A day after brutal reprisals by the same General Heinz Bernard Lammerding at Tulle.”

  Delphine spun round, but the woman who often seemed like a stranger, was making for the door. Her slippers flap-flapping as she went.

  “Is that why I’ve never known you go to church?”

  A nod, more expressive than any words.

  “Well, I want justice too.” Delphine said.

  Her mother paused to give her a strange look, then brightened. “Supper will be ready by six. Come and join us to keep your strength up.”

  “I will. And by the way,” added Delphine while she could. “What exactly happened round here in November 1968 when Antoine Gauffroi came under suspicion?”

  Immediately, Irène Rougier’s expression changed to tough, like the pine bark in their wood store. Her mouth a stern line.

  “Your Papa has just been given a life sentence. Do you really wish to shorten it?”

  *

  Delphine waited until her mother had gone downstairs, then knelt to retrieve the battered leather-bound photograph album that lay beneath an array of discarded shoes, slippers and crumpled, defunct hot water bottles. Moving it free, brought a mix of smells, all ancient, she imagined like an old coffin being re-opened.

  Yes, she’d already peeked at its pages twice before when being on her own, but this time with added focus. Especially on the one labelled 1944 in black crayon. Here were only six photographs, beginning with Charles Rosheim, her maternal great-grandfather, originally from a village of that same name, west of Strasbourg. Middle-aged, hollow-eyed with grief, standing in front of his Café des Lilas with Irène, his orphaned baby granddaughter crying in the crook of his arm. His wife, also named Irène who died shortly afterwards, was dressed in black, holding a wreath of pale chrysanthemums. Next, their unmarried daughter Emilie alongside her latest ‘beau’ René Allain. A fine-boned young couple, leaning into each other in front of a palm tree in 1940, in the then unoccupied resort of Banyuls-sur-Mer.