TimeLocke

by Jack Barnao

  The Germans had shot down a British bomber, and one of the crew was in the local military hospital with a couple of broken legs. A British undercover officer had been parachuted in to the Maquis. Boulanger himself did not know it, but she had found out after the war that the airman was not a regular RAF man. He was a radar scientist, what the Brits call a boffin. The object of the exercise was to kill him before the Germans realized what he knew and went to work on him. In peacetime that thought is chilling, but in fact it was humane. An organization that produced people like Heinrich Himmler would have had no compunction about twisting his broken legs until he’d told them everything he knew. Then they would have shot him themselves, using the excuse that he was a spy.

  On that August night, the young Boulanger had gone on the raid along with a score of other men, armed with the little Mickey Mouse Sten guns the British provided. The Sten cost about five bucks apiece to stamp out. It was inaccurate and unreliable, but it had the virtue of being able to use captured German ammunition.

  The Germans were expecting Boulanger’s group. Only two of the attackers survived. One was the British officer, who was taken to a concentration camp, where he eventually was shot. The other was Orsini.

  At this point the old woman paused in her narrative, back in her stride now, telling the story the way she had obviously told it before. She refilled our coffee cups and waited for the question, which I put, in my own halting French: In what way had Orsini been responsible for her husband’s death?

  It was obvious, she explained. He had been the last recruit of the band of Resistance men her husband belonged to. Obviously, sadly, he had been a German plant. She shrugged. After all, had he not been the only survivor? All the locals and the British officer had been shot by the Germans.

  Still in French, I persisted. Orsini had gone on to kill other Germans. Hostages had been shot because of his activities.

  Madame shook her head, angry now. “The Germans said their men had been killed. No Frenchman had seen these dead Germans. It was an excuse for wiping out the prominent citizens of certain towns. The Germans had shot mayors and priests and other men. They had done it because they were Germans, for no other reason. Sales Boches! They needed no reason.”

  It didn’t sound like the kind of soldiering I’d been taught to do. It wasn’t even classic Clausewitz, but Madame had been here, on the ground, and my father hadn’t even met my mother at that point, so what did I know? I nodded and fell silent. It still didn’t ring true to me. The French had been hard on their collaborators after the war, when there were no Germans around to protect them. They had shaved the heads of any girls who had gone out with a German. They had shot or hanged known male collaborators. Surely some Maquisard would have taken revenge on Orsini after the war, before he grew big enough to have his own organization. I kept the thought to myself while Amy went back to work.

  She was interested in the story, but she had her own priorities, and she took over again. First she followed up on the hospital affair until all the details were on her tape and all the proper sympathies expressed. Then she steered Madame down the paths she wanted to explore, digging out names and places and details until the old woman began to flag.

  As soon as she saw the weariness begin, Amy brought the interview to a close. She invited Madame to join us for lunch, and when the old lady smilingly refused, telling us how difficult it was for her to negotiate the stairs to the street, Amy first offered to shop for food and cook lunch for her, then, when that failed, gracefully made her a present of some cash.

  We left her beaming at the door and headed down to the street. “How does she manage if she can’t come downstairs?” I wondered, and Amy explained that her daughter- in-law did the shopping for her.

  “What a life. Sitting up there with sad memories, waiting for the cure to bring communion once a week,” I said.

  “She’s part of the life of the town,” Amy said. “She lives at the window.”

  We got to the car and looked back up at the building. Madame was indeed back at her window, looking down at the comings and goings in the square. “Isn’t she better off here than in some seniors’ residence, watching soap operas while the TV picture rolls because nobody in charge can bother to fix it?” Amy said. She waved up to the old woman, who waved back and blew her a kiss.

  It was noon, and the stores around the square were closing for the lunch hour. The restaurants on the east side were beginning to fill, but we found a table under the awning at a place a couple of doors up from Le Siècle.

  “I ate here once last year. The food is nowhere near as good as it is at Le Siecle,” Amy said.

  “It’s harder to hit a moving target,” I told her. “If you get into routines, like always eating at the same restaurant, it won’t take people long to ambush you.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I came here for your sake.”

  “Then this place is fine for me. But you should have something. You must eat. Believe me.”

  She looked at me soberly but didn’t argue, and I ordered a glass of wine and an omelet for both of us and asked her, “What’re you planning to do this afternoon?”

  She twirled her wineglass in her fingers. “I want to talk to Jacques Beaubien. He’s the next one on my list. But he has to be close to eighty. He probably rests during the heat of the day.”

  “You should do the same thing. How about we find a hotel and check in right away? Then you can get a couple of hours’ sleep.”

  She shook her head, and before I could speak again, I saw a car slam to a stop on the street opposite our table.

  I put down my wineglass and slid my right hand under my coat, where I could reach my gun. I braced my legs under me, ready to stand and bat Amy down on the deck and return fire if I had to.

  The door opened, and a man got out, tall and elderly, distinguished looking. I didn’t relax completely. Orsini might have brought in the guy for a custom killing, and it was likely that I, not Amy, was to be the target. They would hit me and whisk her away before the echo of her screams had stopped bouncing off the walls of the square. “Do you know this guy?” I asked her.

  She turned anxiously and then stood up and almost ran to him, speaking to him in rapid French. I saw that she was weeping again and caught the name: “M’sieur Armand.” He was well dressed, in his seventies. I stood and waited as Amy kissed him on both cheeks and held both his hands in hers. He replied gravely, but too fast for my French to keep up. Then Amy turned to me.

  “May I present Mr. Locke. John, this is M’sieur Armand, Pierre’s father.”

  He held out his hand. It was soft but strong. “Enchanté, M’sieur Locke.”

  “How do you do, sir. May I offer my sincere condolences on your loss.”

  He nodded without speaking, and Amy asked him something in French, but he said, “Should we not speak English, Amy, or does M’sieur Locke also speak French?”

  “Very poorly, I’m ashamed to say.”

  “In that case …” His English was good, accented charmingly, like Maurice Chevalier but grammatical. “To answer your question, yes, Hélène is with me. She is in the car.”

  “Can she join us?” Amy was looking around, and Armand pointed across the road to his car, a classic Bentley.

  “Please continue your lunch. I will bring her over.”

  He nodded again and walked away, up to the car. We stood and watched him, as he opened the back door. A chic blond woman got out. She was about thirty, slim in that lissome way that shouts “money!” She was wearing one of those simple-looking linen suits you can pick up in Paris for a couple of thousand dollars, and a straw boater, what the French call a Maurice.

  She turned, and even from thirty yards away I could see she was a knockout, her face a classic oval, her hair pertly short in a way that almost mocked her beauty.

  “Daughter or wife?” I asked Amy without turning my head.

  Amy’s voice had the first hint of lightness I’d heard since the disco
very of the murder. “Daughter, but don’t waste your charm,” she said with a touch of her old nastiness. “She’ll chew you up.”

  Frenchmen are more blasé about beautiful women than the rest of us. They spend their lives among them. Every woman in the country makes the utmost of her appearance, in simple ways that only rich women in North America ever manage to duplicate, but Hélène turned every head on the street. She came toward us, her face unmoving. It could have been sorrow at her brother’s death or, given Amy’s caution, her normal hauteur.

  She and Amy exchanged ritual kisses, bussing the air close to both sides of one another’s cheeks, and Amy said something sympathetic in French. Hélène responded, and Amy introduced me.

  Hélène nodded at me, appraising me. “Mister Locke.”

  “Ma’amselle.” I inclined my head a couple of inches. “May I say how sorry I am at what has happened.”

  “Thank you.” She sat down at our table, and her father pulled a chair over from the next table and sat next to her. Amy and I sat, and the waiter bustled over, coming to the table opposite Hélène, where he could fill his eyes with her.

  “Deux cafés,” Armand said, and the waiter almost ran back to the counter.

  I waited for Amy to do the talking, enjoying my view of the fair Hélène. Up close she was even more striking. Her face looked like something off a gold coin. It was as close to perfection as I’ve ever seen, and I guess I’ve sized up every woman I’ve met since puberty.

  “When did you hear?” Amy asked.

  “A Captain Labrosse of the Gendarmerie called about an hour ago,” Armand said softly. “We have just come from the morgue.”

  The memory knocked Hélène’s English out from under her. I made out “Mom dieu!” but lost track of her next few sentences.

  Armand headed her back into English with his question for Amy.

  “What is happening?” Armand asked softly, speaking almost to himself. “My God. A scholar, working at his books. No robbery, no reason.”

  Amy didn’t answer; she just shook her head, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  Armand patted her hand. He was very much in control of himself, and so was Hélène. They must have figured it was lower-class to let your grief hang out. “Do the gendarmes say anything?”

  “The captain wonders if there is a connection with what happened yesterday,” I volunteered. “In case you didn’t hear, Amy was attacked, and Pierre came to her assistance.” It wasn’t as true as it sounded, but they deserved a little compensation for the loss of son and brother.

  Armand looked at me in surprise, but Hélène spoke before he could. “You are police, m’sieur?” Her voice had a casual arrogance to it, an assumption that I was some kind of lackey. Even had I been Amy’s fiancé rather than her bodyguard, she would have sounded the same. As my sister the shrink would have put it, women like her divide the world into “me” and “not me.” The “not me” segment doesn’t matter a damn.”

  “No. I work for Miss Roger’s uncle.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “On assignment to assist Amy during her visit.”

  “John is a bodyguard,” Amy said impatiently. “Eric insisted. He asked John to come with me in case something happened.” Hélène still did not look impressed, so she added, “John was in the British army.”

  “But you are American,” Armand said gently.

  “Canadian.” If he hadn’t been burdened with his bereavement, he might have been amused to hear my reasons for joining the British army. Canadian servicemen wear green, even our navy, and they spend most of their time in boring places like northern Saskatchewan. I’d wanted action, which the Brits provided for me. But Armand was in pain, so I didn’t make any jokes. I sat and waited, hoping to learn something that might give a hint as to why his son had died.

  He spoke to Amy. “Is there any connection, do you think?”

  Amy couldn’t answer. She wept openly.

  Hélène got to her feet and took Amy’s arm. “ Viens-toi,” she said, and led her away. I stood up and watched them go, certain that Hélène was taking her somewhere private to compose herself, but not sure where. I relaxed when I saw Hélène open the back door of the car but wave the chauffeur away. They were going to sit there awhile. In Canada they would have headed for the ladies’ room. In Provence that was impossible. In a bistro like this the john was probably unisex and consisted of a spartan booth with an intimidating hole in the floor. Not the kind of powder room where tears might be dried.

  I sat down again and looked at Armand. “This is a harrowing morning for you, M’sieur Armand. Would you like a cognac?”

  “Yes, thank you. Now my daughter is gone.” He shrugged. “The doctors.”

  I raised my hand, and the waiter came out. “Un cognac pour m’sieur, s’il vous plaȋt.” I can order drinks in a lot of languages.

  He whisked back to the bar and returned with the tiny snifter. Armand gulped it, making a face. I used his grimace to change the subject. “You deal in wine, Amy told me.”

  “One does not need to be a dealer to appreciate quality,” he said. He set down the glass and looked at me steadily. “What is happening here, Mr. Locke?”

  “I don’t know, sir.” I sipped my wine. “I was hired because Amy told her uncle she had trouble last year from a hood called Orsini. Yesterday, just after we arrived, two men attempted to abduct her outside Pierre’s house in the Haute-Ville.”

  “And what happened to these men?”

  “They were arrested.” I kept it simple.

  “The gendarmes were there when it happened?”

  “No. Pierre called them after the event.”

  “You prevented this abduction?”

  The gesture must be contagious. I never shrug at home, but I did now. “It’s why I’m along on the trip.”

  “And Pierre, he assisted you?” There was an eagerness in his voice. His son was dead; he would never have another chance to be proud of him. Had he been brave?

  I shaded the truth. “Yes.”

  He looked almost happy. “Then it was revenge, his death.”

  “That makes the most sense.”

  The waiter was hovering, and Armand picked up his cognac glass and held it out. The man nodded and was about to return to the bar, but Armand stopped him with a quick sentence. The waiter nodded and bustled away, returning with two glasses, one for each of us.

  Armand sipped his and rolled it in his mouth, then nodded to the waiter. “You will find this one better,” he said.

  I did. It was liquid sunshine, languid on the tongue. “That’s glorious. What is it?”

  Armand smiled. “I asked him for une fine plus fine— something better.” He sipped his own, savoring it as he was savoring the thought of his son’s fighting a couple of heavies to protect Amy. At last he went on. “Pierre was not young, not a fighting man, but perhaps capable of fight. That must have been why this happened.”

  It was time to do a little fishing. “I think he was also helping Amy with her new project. This time it is very different.”

  He cocked his head. “Not the Romans?”

  “No. She is writing a book on the Resistance in this region.”

  “One wonders who would be offended by such a book.” He rolled his cognac glass idly between his hands, looking down into it. He was a strong-looking man, despite his age, but the gesture made him frail.

  “There is a tie to this man Orsini,” I said. “The old woman Amy spoke to this morning mentioned his name. She said he was a traitor to the Resistance. She also said that he was known as Le Loup.”

  He looked up bleakly. “You were a soldier, Mr. Locke. Have you ever seen war?”

  “Only little ones. The Falklands, Ulster.”

  He nodded, a small rocking motion of head and shoulders together. “They are never over,” he said softly. “When the last survivor dies, after many years, even then, they do not end.”

  “You were in the war, M’sieur Armand?”


  “I was in Germany, a prisoner, captured in 1940 before I had a chance to fight. My government threw up its hands.”

  “It saved the lives of many Frenchmen.” The way I’ve heard it, there was not a whole lot of heroism in France in 1940. The railway stations of Paris had been flooded with officers in civilian clothes heading for the unoccupied zone when they should have been at the front with their men. The only safe thing to praise the French for was their prudence.

  “We should have fought to the last man,” Armand said bitterly. “We should never have collaborated in our own rape.”

  An old man’s shame is not something to share. My glass was almost empty, but I pretended to sip. And then help arrived. Labrosse strode across the square and halted the traffic with one hand, coming directly to our table. I stood up. “Captain Labrosse, M’sieur Armand, the father of Pierre.”

  Labrosse saluted crisply and spoke in French. Armand answered and Labrosse turned to me. “Where is Miss Roger?”

  “She is in that auto with M’sieur Armand’s daughter.”

  “I will talk to her there. Please come with me.” He bowed his head formally to Armand and led the way to the car.

  The Armands had a chauffeur, I discovered, a compact guy with a Mediterranean swarthiness. He was in his forties, wearing black pants, a white shirt with bow tie, and a cap. He was wiping down the hood of the car with a rag.

  Amy and Hélène were in the backseat. Hélène had her arm around Amy’s shoulder. Labrosse tapped on the window on Hélène’s side and, when she wound down the window, excused himself in rapid French. She got out, and he got in, gesturing to me to sit in the front.

  “It seems this was a robbery,” Labrosse said without preamble. “M’sieur Armand was a careful man. He had money in the house. It is gone.”

  “May I ask how you learned this, Captain?” I asked.

  “I think it was a robbery,” he said again, as if I were a backward boy. “His cleaning woman says the money was kept in a book on his desk. It is gone.”