TimeLocke

by Jack Barnao

  CHAPTER 16

  I left my car at the gas station and walked cross-country to Constance’s place, passing a hundred yards from the burned-out shell of the car. A crowd of locals had gathered, and I saw a scattering of uniformed men among them. I didn’t stop. I’ve seen enough burned-out cars in Belfast and more than my share of dead men.

  There were still gendarmes around La Fongeline, coming and going with the investigation of the morning’s disaster and now of the crash. They recognized me, and I broke out a bottle of Constance’s cognac and gave one of them a drink. From him I got the information I needed to lock all the pieces into place. Someone had driven over the cliff. He had been going too fast. It was suicide to do such a thing on such a road. To crown it, I learned that it had been a police car, Labrosse’s car, the one Wainwright had been driving. The cops were concerned that the captain had been killed, but one of them told me that the captain was too good a driver. It must have been some new driver. The body was too charred to be identifiable.

  Amy arrived an hour later with Hélène. I sat them down and gave them the news, and they both wept. Hélène invited us back to her house, but Amy refused, and eventually Hélène went home to see how her father was progressing. She shook hands with me in a businesslike manner as she left. I guessed that Orsini’s death had canceled all bets so far as our romance was concerned. It didn’t sadden me unduly. Women like Hélène take too much living up to.

  Eventually, the police left, and Amy and I sat in the twilight, not speaking. We had not eaten all day, but I wasn’t hungry, and neither, it seemed, was Amy. She went out on Constance’s patio, and I poured us glasses of wine and took them out to where she sat with her hands clasped around her knees. “Did I cause all of this?” she asked in a whisper.

  “No.” I didn’t act hearty, the way you would with a child. She was far too bright for games like that. “This is something that’s festered here for almost fifty years. Eric told me about it this afternoon. He was picked up by the Germans and tortured. Orsini was in the same outfit, but he got away. Eric ended up in Buchenwald. He had buried the memories of it all, but it was going to spring out sometime. And then Orsini killed Pierre, and the whole house of cards fell down.”

  “But so much happened,” she said. “Twice you were attacked by people trying to kill you. Why was that?”

  “Orsini,” I said, happy to be telling the truth at last. “He was angry about the arrest of his men. He thought I’d been sent here to kill him. Armand’s chauffeur must have told him that we were having an affair. That’s why they raided your bedroom. And when that didn’t work, he sent men to grab you or Hélène so I would come out in the open, where he could get at me. He wanted me out of the way. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

  She sobbed suddenly, and I came over to crouch beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “He was charming to you; he was exciting. You were attracted. That happens. But he was bad. He would have been bad to you at some point. You would have annoyed him, and he would have stuck you in one of his brothels without a second thought.” All good, truthful stuff. It made her shudder, and then she set down her glass and said, “Hold me tight, please.”

  I am nothing if not obliging.

  Next morning I went home. There was nothing else to do. Amy didn’t need me any longer. She was going to take a room in Vaison and continue with her research. Also, she planned to be around if and when the French police released Wainwright’s body. She was firm about that one, and she made one other point that endeared her to me more than anything else that had happened so far.

  “I want you to know something,” she said as I got into my car.

  Her face was serious, so I didn’t joke. “Sounds heavy.”

  Now she allowed her face to relax a little. “Light, I suppose, rather than heavy. I guess you know that Eric and I were very close.”

  “I guessed as much, but you don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “I think I do. I hope we’re going to meet again, often, when I get back home.”

  “I hope so, too.” I squeezed her hand but stayed in the car; she seemed to need a little distance.

  “Well, we were.” She had a touch of her old truculence back now, and I decided it suited her. Her life was her own, not for me to pass judgment on. “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” I remembered from Bartlett.

  “The thing is, if he had been my real uncle, it would have been wrong,” she said.

  I guess I looked as if I was going to say something, because she held her hand up. “No, don’t say anything. I know about the table of affinities, even if I’m not a churchgoer.”

  “Look, this is your business.”

  She looked at me levelly. “It might be yours, in some measure,” she said.

  It was as close as I have ever gotten to being proposed to, and I pulled on her hand until she brought her face down to be kissed.

  She drew back afterward and said, “I’m adopted, John. I am not a blood relation to the man I called my uncle.”

  I felt as if someone had lifted a ton of lead off my back. I didn’t know what to say, so I winged it, meaning every word. “Listen to me. I don’t care what’s happened in the past. I’m going now because you asked me to. When you come home, we can get together and see what happens.”

  She gave me a tight little smile. “I want that. Right now I need some space—a lot’s been happening.”

  “See you next month. Good luck with the research.” I winked at her and backed out, spurting the gravel, then drove off to Lyons to start the trek home.

  I stayed over in London that night and made a call to a friend of mine, a captain in the Guards, currently serving in the War Office. I figured his information might make a useful little gift for Amy when she got back to Canada.

  We went through the usual chat, and then I asked him to dig into his files and find out if there was anything in the records of the Second World War about a Maquis man known as Le Loup.

  He made some jokes about my turning into a scholar in my old age, and we hung up. Next morning I flew out of Heathrow and was back in Toronto around dinnertime.

  There was nobody home in either of the two apartments below me. The architects on the ground floor were designing wonderfulness at their office downtown, I guessed, and Janet Frobisher had herself a date, maybe. Good for her. I hoped he was a good guy. I was feeling generous. She deserved it.

  Jet lag had worn me down enough that I sat around in my apartment most of the evening, taking a little time out to head down to the basement to catch up on laundry.

  As I got back to my place with the basket of clean clothes, the phone rang. It was Captain Ffolkes from London. “Been here all night, old chap,” he said. I guessed he was calling from his office. “Struck oil. Your friend Monsieur Le Loup caused a lot of distress to the Hun. Killed sixteen men, all with a knife.”

  “Sixteen? I had a feeling it was seventeen.”

  “There was another victim, a Feldwebel Schmitt, but he survived. He was the only person to give a good description of his assailant.” Ffolkes paused and cleared his throat, “Well, a good description may be overstating the case a little. It was dark, but he did say that the chap was short and had dark hair.”

  “Did he?” My eyebrows had risen an inch. That wasn’t a picture of Wainwright; it was a picture of Orsini. The man had earned his place in the Maquis, after all.

  “That’s very interesting. I’m sure my friend here will be thrilled to get the information. Can I put her in touch with you when she gets back?”

  “Oh, don’t wait until then, old chap. Have her come and see me at the Warworks. I’ll buy her a splendid dinner. Unless, of course, she’s a particularly good friend of yours.”

  “Lord, you haven’t changed.” I laughed. “Where’s your own better half these days?”

  “Gone,” he said. “Gone, alas, like my youth, too soon. Found a rich Yank who could buy her yachts and things that don’t come easily on a captain’s pittance.
I still see her, of course, when he’s off buying up companies, or whatever he does. In fact, we get on a lot better now than we used to when we were in harness. And she does pay the bills for our trysts. First-class arrangement. I recommend it.”

  We chatted for another minute or so, and I hung up. My door was still open, and I heard people on the lower stairs. It was Janet, coming back in, and she had a man with her.

  Good for her, I thought. It was time somebody realized what a catch she was. I hoped he was a keeper.

  I went over to shut my door and then stopped as if I’d run into an electrified fence. I recognized the man’s voice.

  I went out and down the short flight of stairs to her door. She was about to close it but stopped when she saw me. She was wearing what I recognized as her best dress, a green silk number.

  Apparently she didn’t think her date would be jealous. She bounced out the door and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She looked happier than I’d ever seen her looking.

  “John, you’re back. How lovely. How was France?”

  I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Interesting. Met some remarkable people.”

  She stood back, surprised. “What’s the matter?”

  “Is that our old friend Eric Wainwright in your place?”

  “Yes.” She was anxious now. “He’s going away, John. He asked me to go with him. As his wife.”

  “He’s going away,” I said grimly. “But not someplace he can take a wife.”

  “What are you saying?” She was trying to come between me and the door, but I moved her aside and pushed past into the room.

  Wainwright was standing in the middle of the room. Neither of us spoke for a moment; then Janet came in and demanded, “Look, just what the hell’s going on? Would one of you explain it to me?”

  “Who was in that car?” I asked him. “Was it some hitchhiker?”

  “It was only a German,” he said. “An arrogant little Boche.”

  Janet stood at the door, her face drained. “What do you mean?”

  “He killed a man,” I explained. “I thought he was dead. A suicide, in Provence. He drove over a cliff into a vineyard, two hundred feet straight down. Only it wasn’t him. It was some poor, harmless German kid he picked up on the road.”

  Wainwright tottered, and Janet jumped to take his arm and help him to a seat. “What’s all this about?” she whispered.

  “Where was he going to take you? South America somewhere?”

  “How did you know?” She stood up to face me, tears in her eyes. “Eric’s a good man, John. He wants me to marry him.”

  “He’s killed an old woman in France, and now some stranger, a hitchhiker.” I reached out to hold her, but she shook my hands off angrily.

  “This is nonsense. Why don’t you leave?”

  “Don’t go with him,” I said. “However much you care for him, he’s bad news.”

  “Get out.” She almost screamed it. “Get out. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get out. Get out!”

  I went to the door, then paused to speak to Wainwright. “You’re gutless. You led your own men into an ambush to save your skin. You abandoned Amy in France, even though you thought she was wanted for murder. Now you’re trying to take Janet with you. You’re a quavering selfish old bastard and a murderer.”

  Janet went for me then, flailing at me with her fists. I made no attempt to prevent it. If she thought she could be happy with this old man, it was her business. She was right to be angry at me.

  I stepped back, and she shoved the door closed on me. I stood there, listening to her sobbing on the other side of it. Then I went upstairs and phoned my friend Inspector Cahill of the Mounties.

  The police came for Wainwright within two minutes. I heard the voices down on the landing, and Janet’s anger. She was over her tears now. Finally, I heard one of the cops say, “Okay, you stay here with him. I’ll go and have a word with this Locke guy upstairs, see what’s going on.”

  Then the other one shouted, and there was a confused clatter of voices for a minute or so and then a wail from Janet.

  The ambulance arrived soon after, and I joined the neighbors downstairs as the paramedics left Janet’s apartment with a stretcher.

  “What happened?” somebody asked, but the guys just went on moving the stretcher, working on Wainwright as they moved. When they had gone, I went back in and climbed up to my place.

  Janet’s door was open, and I glanced in. She was standing in front of the shelves where she keeps her tapes displayed like books. She turned and saw me but said nothing. I watched as she selected a tape and put it into her machine. It began to play, and she sat down, staring at the tape machine.

  “Mozart’s Requiem Mass,” I said.

  “He’s had a heart attack,” she said coldly. “If he dies, you killed him.”

  “He’s already dead inside,” I said. “But it happened forty-five years ago. He’s been sleepwalking ever since.”

  “Go home,” she said, and then added, “Please, John. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry.” I went over and stooped to kiss her forehead. She suddenly turned her face up to me and kissed me gently on the lips. “Thank you, I guess,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, I guess,” I answered and left, trying to work out how many days remained before Amy Roger would return from France.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1991 by Ted Wood

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4976-0761-3

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  345 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com