Ghosts from the Past
Page 4
“But, Doctor Fürst, like Joel said, his head’s in Freezer 2. I’ll take you down there if you like.”
I had to give her top marks for persistence.
“People do have doubles, Martine. In this life, anything’s possible. I should know.”
Chapter 7. John.
I felt hamstrung. In limbo. Just how long would it take Karen Fürst to confide in me about her obviously troubled past? Who she really was. And why such mistrust of those who might help her cause? These questions hung in my brain like a pieces of washing flapping in a breeze. If there were possible connections between her missing family and her nurse’s death, finding them would be like a trek up the north face of the Eiger in bedroom slippers. A near-impossible task.
I told myself tomorrow was another day, but without knowing the tower’s alarm’s code, there was no way I could access the Saab’s boot this side of morning. Nor could I stop Martine - if she had anything to hide - from getting to it first. Unless she was a bloody good actress, she’d seemed genuinely traumatised down by that river and in the freezer room. I recalled what she’d said to her employer before ushering me to my temporary quarters.
“I’ve surely worked here long enough for you to realise that because of your mission, I’ve put your life before mine…”
Resentment with a capital R, if ever there was, and the suddenness of it had caught me by surprise.
I hung around outside Karen Fürst’s door, waiting for Martine to finish what would normally have been the dead nurse’s tasks, when the silence was broken first by yelps of pain and apologies. Then the slow pulse of a Bach fugue. Eventually, the door opened.
“All done.” Said the stand-in, peeling off her latex gloves and stuffing them in her jeans’ pocket. “But I have to stay with her until she’s asleep. That’s what Herman did. And more. Dr. Fürst called him ‘my terrier.’” She turned away, suppressing a sob. “I bet he put up one helluva fight. He was only little.”
“And like I said, possibly cut up while still alive...”
“Where’s Joel now?” I asked.
“By the main door. Armed, like me.”
“Was Herman tooled up too?”
“Yes. A Glock semi-automatic. Brand new it was. Joel tried to swap it for his. Dr. Fürst will be even more paranoid now that’s gone.”
“How do you know it’s gone?”
“Herman never went anywhere unarmed.”
I suddenly felt as if a cold hand was stroking my skin under my clothes.
“I want to help solve this terrible crime.” I said. “We need to search his room. Find out for certain if he’d taken it with him today. If he had enemies.”
She shook her head.
“Tomorrow, hein? And as for enemies, everyone loved him.” With that, she returned to her employer and I was left alone on that strange, circular landing, nerves on full alert as the thrashing wind continued to punish the tower’s outer walls.
*
Having opened my door by tapping a three-digit code into a neat little key pad, I made straight for the phone on the bedside table.
“Please press 8 before dialing. This hides the number,” said a recorded voice in rapid French. “All calls are momitored. Merci.”
After just two rings, my sister was first off the blocks.
“John? We’ve been worried sick. Have you any idea…”
“Yes, of course.” And after my apology I then lied about being caught up in local celebrations mark the end of the hunting season and was in no fit state to drive. That I’d find a bed for the night and call her again tomorrow.
“John Edward Lyon,” she tutted. “I worry about you sometimes.”
“You mustn’t. I’m fine.”
She then hung up and, with a pang of loneliness and not a little envy, I imagined her making her way to bed with George. They’d lasted a long time, unlike most couples, and I thought about how different our lives had been. Hers, teaching, bringing out the best in people, unlike me, drowning in the worst of humankind.
*
I took in my surroundings, feeling oddly detached. The single bed bore a white, hand-embroidered bedspread, matching the rest of its linen. All clean and creaseless, like real life should be. The few pieces of plain, functional furniture could have come from any commercial hotel chain, while halfway along the table lay a plug for an absent TV.
I draped my cagoule over the back of the one chair and paused before trying out the en suite bathroom glistening invitingly through another doorway, all the while wondering about the function of the other tower. Was that living accommodation too? And why, I wondered yet again, given the precariousness of Dr. Fürst’s situation, were there no guard dogs? In retrospect, Martine Mannion’s reply to that same question had been rather too off-pat. God knew I’d passed enough crazies on my way down here. Small villas morphed into fortresses with snarling Dobermanns and the like. Sniffing human blood...
I pulled the round window’s blind open and immediately the wet night outside was bathed in a sickly yellow security light. No use supposing what might have triggered it or fretting about the Volvo with my suitcase still inside its boot. Like Dr. Fürst, I was up amongst the pine tops in another world, and for a heart-stopping moment, my sudden vertigo seemed to dissolve the muscles in my legs. The blinds snapped shut.
That was better. Time to sluice the day from my shoulders.
*
Smelling of jasmine, I reclaimed my travelling clothes. Jeans which needed a clean, lumberjack shirt and a fisherman’s knit jumper with leather elbows that Carol had made at least two decades ago.
Herman’s room…
Could I risk a look? Or would I end up being bundled out into the kind of surroundings that had always freaked me out as a kid?
Nothing to lose…
So, bootless, I crept along past Dr. Fürst’s door where all seemed quiet, and stopped outside the next one. No need to guess the code, it was already slightly ajar. My pulse again too loud, too fast. One false move and there could be a gun in my back. Maybe worse. His door opened silently, and I switched on the light.
I later remembered blinking at the contrast between this room that could already have been raked over, and my own Spartan quarters along the corridor. Here were posters covering every inch of wall space. Macho images of bullfighting in Béziers, boar hunting in the nearby Fenouillèdes; Jordi Barre singing by the sea. I realised that what else I’d seen of Karen Fürst’s tower, bore no posters, art work or photographs of any kind.
But most intriguing of all and wrapped in faded gift-wrap paper inside a map of the region, was what I guessed to be a Torah scroll replica on card, bearing a decorative gold-coloured border around a drawing of a hand. On either side lay a list of Jewish holy names, while on the reverse was something even more puzzling. The Ben Porat poem in Yiddish, which, according to an explanatory note in French, was also designed to ward off the evil eye.
idgu Yin li porat ben Yosef porat ben
arch raa mikol oti hagod hamalach
schi bahem vyikare han’arim et
v Yitzchak Avraham avotai vshem
ha’aretz b’keren larov v’yidgu
So, was Herman a blond Jew or someone with an interest in that faith’s more arcane aspects? The Kabbalah for example? And whose evil eye was this verse meant to deflect? If someone else had got here first, they’d either not been very thorough, or felt these artefacts didn’t matter. Unless they’d been planted for a reason...
I eased open the doors of a fitted, double wardrobe to find below the sweat-shirts and shorts, an assortment of jogging bottoms and jeans. Proving as Martine had said, their wearer had been no more than 4’ 8” tall. As for Herman’s possible weight, two white nursing jackets and blue trousers, identical to those in the river, would fit a plump male. Still in uniform, he’d clearly planned to return.
With bile building up at the back of my throat, I thought of that dead face, the limbless torso floating by. Small, curled-up hands...
My mind was like a mesh of electric wires, sparking each other off. The kind of sensation I’d immediately experienced at crime scenes, unsure where to start. But here surely wasn’t a crime scene. Just background to a twenty-seven-year-old life savagely taken. I recalled a similar case of dismemberment that had made headlines, involving an unlucky Nigerian kid discovered in Manchester’s River Irwell. According to the uncle who’d killed him, he’d been possessed by the Devil and this was the final exorcism. But Herman? What had he done to suffer the same fate? To have had his tongue removed?
I remember thinking that in the morning, if Dr. Fürst was more recovered, perhaps she might supply some answers.
I sat on the edge of his single bed that was cocooned in a colourful knitted throw - perhaps something from his childhood, obviously treasured. I let my fingers trail over its knitted squares and, without thinking, peeled back the cover’s top corner to reveal neatly folded sleepwear. Shorts and tee shirt in matching grey, both with a Champion label inside, like most of his other gear. From a small pocket in the shorts’ left side, I extracted a scrap of paper, part of an out-of-date prescription. The front bore a doctor’s typical scrawl and the name of a popular sleeping pill, while on the back, in capital letters, was the following.
DON’T TRUST JOEL IST APRIL ‘86
Then without warning, came noises from the room next door. Martine was taking Dr. Fürst downstairs. I soon guessed why.
Chapter 8. Karen.
Instead of that dead horror inhabiting the cold, brightly-lit still-room, my mind brought me dear Herman as I remembered him. A kind, eager face - the way his eyes lit up when making me laugh. My gratitude for his discreet efforts in my search for the truth about my missing family.
Joel and Martine stood close by my chair to support me. Both upset all over again and beyond comforting. Of course, I’d straightaway noticed that Herman’s tongue was missing, but why no mention of it? My poor little ‘mannetje,’ I thought. ‘What had you been saying?’ And then there was his mother, back in Antwerp. If she realised what had happened to her only child, what then? Everything here would be finished. I might as well pack up and go.
*
Ouch! That damned catheter stung my bladder like sharp glass. Herman had been so expert, unlike Martine with her big, nail-bitten fingers, who’d have to re-adjust it. I closed my eyes while she did so, reminding myself I was just a piece of meat. Dead meat, a persistent voice in my head kept repeating…
“Buzz me if you need anything,” she said afterwards, back in my room. “Don’t suffer in silence.” And then slipped away to her own quarters on the second floor, while I resolved to explain everything to the Englishman, but at the same time, not a whisper for one whole month to Herman’s mother, Thea Oudekerk. Time enough for things to be resolved, besides, I was under the impression that since last February, when she’d taken up with some building contractor, she and Herman hadn’t been so close.
Then, suddenly, as my eyelids drooped and my heartbeat became regular again, I told myself that if, by May 9th, I’d not unearthed what had befallen my father and my two brothers, and who’d killed Herman, that would be the moment to stop breathing. I’d have done my best.
*
No pillows. Even Herman wouldn’t budge on that luxury. Nor the removal of my ankle straps and the rest. And as for these damned oxygen tubes and the drips... Why couldn’t I take a chance with my own body stabilizing itself? Ride another beautiful horse again and be carried far, far away from this haunted place?
Merde...
Something hit the window. A bird perhaps, thrown off course by the night wind, or a stray branch loaded with pine cones. But until those gates and the CCTV were fixed, there’d be no relaxing, even with an ex-detective on the premises. Although Martine seemed happy enough in his company, Joel hardly kissed his hand in joy. Another worry I didn’t need.
*
The edge of sleep gradually brought the land surrounding Mas Camps and its farmhouse into view. It was Autumn, after our successful vendage in 1942 when I’d worn short socks and clothes made from my brothers’ cast-offs. The prickly, woollen tops and skirts made my skin itch, but then ‘accidents’ such as me after two fine sons, couldn’t be choosers. Nevertheless, I’d probably have been no different, but never to a child.
I could see our vineyards rising up around Mas Camps, so it sat in a fertile, sheltered hollow, encircled by thin, black cypresses and depleted vines battered by a combination of our harvesting and the relentless Tramontane wind, while above, a huge moon hovered over the aftermath of the cull. In that same moonlight, I also saw human figures - or were they wild boars out there? On all fours, as if grubbing deep for something. But what?
“Moeder!” I cried, because Vader and my brothers had already left in the pony and trap to raise a glass at the Café des Étoiles. “Come and see. Those spooks are outside again.”
“Spooks? Don’t be ridiculous!”
Her slap stung my bare legs. She was more than tense, but I was duty bound to tell her what I’d seen. I wasn’t one of those kids who made up stories to get attention. I always preferred playing on my own. Even at school. But whoever these creatures were, I knew they shouldn’t be there. They might have come into the farmhouse to harm us.
I’ve revisited this scene in my mind so many times, it’s in danger of distortion, but have told myself to cling to it, because what I’d witnessed was real. That slap from Moeder, just one slap too many.
*
On Sunday morning after Vader and my brothers had vanished, the Chef d’Escadron who’d sat at our table grooming his moustache, declared I was ‘a troublemaker, with too much imagination.’ And why hadn’t my mother, often described as ‘an intelligent woman,’ also noticed anything? But that wasn’t the last time we’d had intruders on our land. Last Friday, after our old neighbour Jeanne Tremblant had been found hacked to pieces at the bottom of her well, the police paid us their second visit. This time with dogs rootling, turning over our dry, grey soil. I made Moeder watch from my bedroom window, but I noticed how her vision was blurred by tears...
*
I resolved to trawl my memory from the very beginning. To that windy October morning in 1942 with Vader and Joop discussing the threatened German
occupation of the Free Zone looming ever closer.
“Bad enough they’ve foisted their summertime on to us.” Said my elder brother. We’d then wondered what might come next. Little had we known.
However, years later, I knew who currently owned Mas Camps. That same greedy couple who’d begged Moeder to sell to them before she and I left for Rotterdam in 1946. Herman had commented the last time he’d gone by their place, that my former home was a disgrace. But it could still hold the key to this mystery and prove the research I’ve done since coming here, has been way off the beam.
Something else too, while rain lashed my tower cell and the wind shrieked through the plantation. Herman had considered converting to Judaism. A move I’d opposed, given the graveyard desecrations still happening throughout France. Given its history...
Sleep at last, but I doubted it would bring me any answers...
Chapter 9. John
An indecently bright, blue morning powering through my window, prodded my eyes to open. For a moment, I imagined I was by the Mediterranean in Carol’s spare room overlooking several tennis courts and pétanque areas, but soon realised my mistake.
Raised voices were coming from the room next door. I guessed Martine was struggling to get Karen Fürst out of bed and into her wheelchair. She sounded nervous, anxious to please. I knew the feeling, and a small panic gripped my own gut. The legacy of non-stop conflict. The precariousness of life.
Should I offer to help, or stand back? I wasn’t sure, and decided to be up
and dressed pronto, ready to move things on if that’s what her boss wanted.
A knock on my door.
“Yes?”
“Breakfast, Monsieur,” said Joel. “May I come in?”
“Of course.”
He then appeared wearing starched white top and trousers similar to Herman’s outfit. With efficiency and courtesy, he wheeled in his trolley.
DON’T TRUST JOEL IST APRIL ‘86
“This is very welcome.” I smiled at him, all the while aware of that strange memo and little poem tucked inside my wallet. Before assuming they did belong to the dead nurse, I’d need another example of his hand writing. But where to start?
I observed the cook’s every move, from the pouring of the grapefruit juice from jug to glass, to the arrangement of a still-warm croissant and brioche on a plain, white plate.
“Coffee?” He looked up at me, a half smile on his wide mouth. I almost snatched the large cup from his hand. “At 08:00 hours each Friday, we have our weekly alarm drill,” he informed me, passing over my cup. “Do not use the lift and do not cause obstructions. We rendez-vous as usual by the rear door.”
“Even Dr. Fürst?”
“Especially Dr. Fürst.”
*
I really needed to change my jeans, but with the promised alarm drill about to happen, there wasn’t the time to fetch my suitcase from the Volvo. Besides, at the back of my mind lurked the possibility that breakfast had been a send-off ploy, and I’d soon be on my way. Yet what Karen Fürst had revealed about her earlier life, and the fact that Herman Oudekerk’s severed, tongueless head was still in the freezer, had not only hi-jacked my plans but also revived my guilt about young Constable Ben Rogers having seen no future for himself. Karen Fürst was no different, and duty called.
*
At 08:00 hours I was ready, but the alarm bell’s repeated din batted my brain to such an extent, I slipped on the first four steps of the spiral staircase, and only regained my footing on the next landing. I glanced back to see Martine loading her boss and her wheelchair into the lift. Soon, all four of us were converging on the open rear door and into a pool of sunlight. Joel leading the way.