Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  2 KILOMETRES.

  Where was this place? With sharp stones, old bricks and other debris making the Volvo’s chassis heave, I realised there’d be no room for me to mend a puncture or make a quick getaway if necessary. This track hadn’t changed since the days of horse-drawn travel and, as I drove, keeping a wary eye on my rear-view mirror, I tried to imagine that last trip made by Maurits Ryjkel and his two grown-up sons. How both had been excused conscription to the Service D’Ordre Légionnaire on the grounds of producing wine for France and its occupiers further north. How some locals had been jealous of this exemption. Could this have been enough of a motive to remove them for ever? If so, little had that threesome known ...

  *

  With my window wound down, I picked out the sound of dogs barking. A multitude of them, it seemed, as I negotiated a steep slope in second gear where at the bottom, the track became knee-high grass littered with the rusted skeletons of old machinery and the added hazard of half-sawn logs.

  The hovel appeared in front of some wrecked old cabane and a heap of decades-dead vine roots. That same chimney smoke faltering. No telegraph wires either, I noticed, and I’d just engaged reverse gear to turn the car round when suddenly, as if from nowhere, three ginger-coloured hounds tore towards me. One butted my thighs with giant, muddy paws, while the others snarled yellow, hungry teeth.

  “Aie, aie!” Came a high, grating voice. “Aie, aie!”

  The animals duly slunk away and as I was brushing my even more stained jeans, an elderly couple who moved like the undead, took their place, drawing closer. Their skin crinkled as walnut shells. Their rheumy eyes flickering with suspicion. Both, like that cyclist seen earlier, were dressed in black. Both wore thin, old wedding rings. The man in particular, seemed worn out.

  “Monsieur’dame Pastado?” I held out my right hand. They nodded, but neither took it, instead waved their walking sticks after their disappearing hounds. “I’m Geoffrey Lake, from London, Royaume Uni...” I continued. “My wife and I spotted your place from up there while we were out walking.” I pointed to the land behind. Sun and wind hitting my face.

  “And?” barked the woman, sharp as an awl. Her grey hair caught in a bun on top of her head, while thin, greasy strands fell across her face.

  “I know this sounds forward of me, but…”

  Damn. That recent gunshot had seared into my brain. I was waiting for another.

  “But?” She repeated, eyes narrowing.

  “I’ve a passion for history - of this area especially. Would you by any chance

  be willing to sell?” Again, I surveyed the scene. “It seems there’s an awful lot to do here.”

  “Allez!” The man in an over-sized beret, waved that same stick at me. “Before he blows your brains out.”

  His wife nodded.

  That spring wind grew cold again.

  “Who’s ‘he?’”

  In unison, two bony hands scythed an arc under each of their chins, then man and wife glanced at each other. I realised what bound them together wasn’t only fear, but stubbornness. This was their territory, whatever the dangers.

  “Francke Boussioux,” answered the woman.

  “Why? Has he a problem with foreigners?”

  “No. Since his son was found shot in both eyes in the river over there, he’s hated everyone.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Soon after the wine harvest back in 1942, so we’ve been told. And that’s not all. Jeanne Tremblant, who lived between the Boussioux’s farm and here, had also been killed. Crammed into her well along with her terrier, poor woman.”

  “In pieces, wife.” He corrected her. “Let’s not forget.”

  I also thought of Herman…

  “You’re right. One of the two Dutch brothers living here had reported it to the gendarmerie who assumed both victims had been killed by the same person. They gave up on making an arrest far too quickly. Plus ça change…” She shrugged her bony shoulders before pulling a threadbare shawl tight around them. “But why should they have cared? Too busy in Pétain’s pockets, getting fat as maggots. So Boussioux is free to behave as he likes. No-one stops him.”

  I could barely take all this in, but to get out my notebook might have blown my cover.

  “Where were you at this time?” I ventured.

  “Over in Prades,” answered the tired ex-farmer. “We’d both been in the Resistance - the SOE’s Stationner circuit - since 1940, doing what we could. I’d wanted to join de Gaulle in your country, to fight with the Free French, but the wife said no. At least our consciences are clear. But we know some whose aren’t.”

  “Who?”

  “The Ryjkels. Selfish lot.”

  I showed no sign of recognition of that name. Instead, shaded my eyes “So they didn’t help out at all?”

  Again, the veteran couple looked at each other and shrugged. It was Madame

  Pastado who replied. “Not to our knowledge. We only met the mother and the

  daughter when they were selling up. But we had heard rumours...”

  “Rumours?”

  A flock of gulls followed the hidden river Bayrou upstream. Their wings bright silver in the sun until that same sound of gunshot broke the formation before one of them plummeted to earth.

  “Boussioux again.” She said, before spitting on the ground. “The old madman. Let’s hope he shoots himself by mistake.” A toothless smile followed, and suddenly my lowly pad in Nottingham seemed a far more appealing prospect than this southern backwater with its surreal blue skies and useful, fast-flowing rivers.

  “You were saying about the Ryjkels...”

  “Yes, before the three men of the family went missing, they’d become rich. You’re not telling me it was because of their vineyard.”

  “Look at it.” Her husband said, indicating a hectare or two of twisted, spent vine roots jutting from the dry, grey soil. “Good reason to get out before the Krauts took over, some said.”

  “And leave a little girl and her mother behind? Surely not?” I noticed another black smile.

  “Who knows what had been stitched up?”

  “Wasn’t anything reported in the local paper at the time?” I ventured, whereupon the husband lowered his battered, old beret over his wild eyebrows. “A lot. Especially in L’Indépendent.”

  “Do you have any cuttings?”

  “Non, Monsieur. We’ve never been hoarders.”

  Perhaps they were confused, I thought. After all, 1942 wasn’t exactly yesterday... I took a deep breath in readiness for my next prod. Off limits, I knew.

  “When you say ‘rich’ like that, are you implying wrong-doing? Black market dealings?”

  Another shrug.

  “Who knows? Folks also said the mother and daughter were threatened while living here together and received anonymous letters. Why they sold it cheap to us.”

  Something else Karen Fürst hadn’t mentioned.

  “And strangers searching on their land?”

  “Another rumour.”

  “You’ve never experienced the same?”

  “They’d have had a bullet in their arse.”

  I told myself to concentrate.

  “You’ve said you were both were in the Resistance, but surely this area was the Free Zone, unoccupied by the Germans?”

  “They were around, but it was still safer to operate from here. At least until

  von Rundstedt rolled in. And ours wasn’t the only active resistance organisation. Plenty of smaller ones called ‘le réseaux.’ You claim to love history, Monsieur, so look up L’Enfer de Dansac,’ but I doubt you’ll find much. Shame and guilt are still too strong there.”

  L’Enfer de Dansac?

  The Pastados then linked arms and began to walk away, until I called out after them.

  “Does the name Herman Oudekerk mean anything to you? Short, blond, friendly?” I almost added that he might have been armed.

  “Belge?” The husband obliged with a note of distaste.r />
  “Yes. But not friendly. Pushy.”

  “What did he want from you?”

  “Monsieur, just tell your wife you’ll be looking for somewhere else to live.”

  Chapter 12. Karen.

  Despite hearing Martine finish off her shower, accompanied by a too-loud version of ‘YMCA’ on her tape recorder, and the hum of water passing through hidden pipes, Les Pins felt too empty. John Lyon was still out there somewhere and hadn’t yet got in touch, nor Joel who’d left for Roche-les-Bains an hour ago and should have arrived.

  My desk looked odd without its computer, as if a special friend had left, but at least Martine had agreed to sit with me, even though too many overgrown weeds were waiting outside.

  This wasn’t the first time my cook had gone against my better instincts. On Monday to be precise, was a visit to the open market in Cressignes, in the next valley. He’d said the lobster there was fresher than any from this area. But to me, one boiled lobster tasted much like another.

  I warned myself to curtail him. Especially his trips to that microlight centre near the Col des Pèlerins. He’d become too big for his boots and even Martine who’d already taken her own liberties, had hinted - not unjustly - that I favoured him. If I wasn’t careful, she’d be alienated, and just then, I realised I’d neither the time nor courage to replace her, should she decide to jump ship. As for personal matters. they weren’t her thing at all. She was happiest out of doors, cutting and clearing. Being with trees that left you alone.

  “I like Monsieur Lyon,” she said, coming into my room, damp-haired, smelling fresh, and combing my hair clear of my suit collar before re-setting my silver clasp in place. “What you see is what you get.”

  “I most certainly hope so.” I toyed with my various files, all containing promising leads that actually led nowhere. In my experience as a medical consultant, nothing is more complex than the human mind. Do we really know who we are? And is memory of our earliest days formed by others’ accounts and photographs? Or else buried too deep to be excavated by any means? Perhaps in self-preservation?

  I’d often come across retrieval-induced forgetting, where patients falsely reported semantically related words, but in my case, my brother Joop’s undying words, were true...

  “Those questions Monsieur Lyon was asking about your family,” Martine interrupted my thoughts, “was like treading new ground. The more you tried to answer him...” Here she paused to pick stray hairs from the comb’s teeth and drop them in my waste paper basket.

  “Yes?”

  “The picture seemed to change.”

  Be careful...

  “In what way?”

  She set down the comb and brought over my Chanel nail varnish. Red as fresh blood, deliberately matching the wheelchair’s handles.

  “How your Papa was more a mother to your brothers than their real mother. How Joop and Christian were inseparable one minute, enemies the next.”

  “It’s true.”

  She unscrewed the varnish top and dipped in the brush.

  “I’ve shut out a lot from when I was a kid. Had to or wouldn’t have moved on. Anyway, if Monsieur Lyon is intent on finding out who killed Herman, and feels his murder is somehow connected to your mission, then, forgive me saying so, Doctor, but he’ll want to know more. And if that Capitaine Serrado’s coming round here snooping as well…”

  My thoughts exactly...

  “Not until next Friday,”

  “Soon enough.”

  She was right, of course, always hard to take. Time then for a diversion.

  “So, what did you shut out?” I reminded her, spreading my fingers wide for her to apply a fresh coat of varnish to each nail.

  “Father stuff. From the age of six. Why I discovered girls were safer.”

  Was she lying for sympathy? I didn’t think so. And when next alone again, I’d re-check my assessment tests she’d passed with flying colours. Information never shredded.

  My nails looked perfect. Martine returned the varnish bottle to my cosmetics’ basket.

  “Is that why you’ve never asked permission to go home?” I said.

  She nodded again.

  “Because he’s not paid for what he did?”

  “What do you think?” She snorted, then asked if I wanted my coffee cup refilled. I was tempted to make an anonymous call to Girard Mannion, but he’d most likely accuse his daughter of slander. Take her and myself to court, if he found out I’d phoned. The last thing we needed...

  “I’ll just go and check around the place,” she said, as if to change the subject. “But not outside. Your weeds can wait.”

  “Good.”

  Martine closed my door behind her and once her footsteps had faded, I pulled out her file. In just a year I’d forgotten too much. How well connected was her father who’d apparently stolen her youth. How his 1990 CV that Herman had accessed from the Directory of Schools and Colleges in the local library, showed him affiliated to all manner of charities and institutions. Some I’d heard of, some not. Liber-Loup - an anti-fascist outfit in Narbonne; AEJ - a Jewish child welfare organisation based in Paris, active during the darkest days of the last War. But not since, surely? Unless the occasional synagogue burnings and graveyard violations were keeping it alive. Until the next time...

  The word ‘welfare’ stuck in my throat. Without involving Martine, I had to check out this information. Girard Mannion, born and bred in the Montaignes Noires north-east of Carcassonne, had no apparent Jewish connection. Odder and odder. He was clearly a man of many parts, risen to the top of the Continuing Education tree.

  I was about to jot down the AEJ acronym when a sudden scream curdled up the stairwell. His daughter.

  “Dr. Fürst! It’s Herman. His head’s gone. That freezer’s empty. Oh Jésus, Jésus...”

  Chapter 13. John.

  Under that same blue sky, with the wind behind me, I turned the Volvo round and drove away from Mas Camps quicker than I’d come. There’d been something menacing about that army of black cypresses around the farmhouse and the deranged, unseen neighbour. What the Pastados had said and not said...

  Shame and guilt? Guilt and shame?

  As I travelled back over the Bayrou river past the gates to Les Pins, I felt blood rush from my head to my right boot already hard down on the accelerator and reached the Place des Étoiles in ten minutes flat. The Café’s bar was half full. Dutch bikers mostly, colonising the tables, reeking sweat from inside their leather gear, while other drinkers whom I guessed were more local, ranged along the well-worn counter, reading the day’s L’Indépendant, nursing espressos or milky, ice-cold pastis. One or two customers looked settled for the day, bleary-eyed already, while from two speakers above the bar, Johnny Halliday was belting out a twenty-year-old hit.

  My entrance attracted too much attention. Not a good feeling, but one I was used to. I made sure not to stray too far from the door.

  “Rosbif,” muttered a swarthy young guy, staring at me as if I’d two heads. “Con,” said another. At which the barman raised a hand in warning.

  “I’m looking to buy a Mercedes,” I addressed him, once my espresso and a salami-filled baguette was on its way. “Not fussed about its age, but silver seems to keep its value longer.”

  “You French?” He frowned.

  I was flattered.

  “No, but I might be staying on. Find somewhere to live...”

  “You’ve come to the wrong place, Monsieur. There’s no work here, unless you suck the Maire’s cock.”

  Laughter and bad teeth followed. To hide my surprise, I looked out of the steamed-up window where the wind was spinning litter into the air.

  “I’ll be near Perpignan for a while,” I added. “In case you hear of any for sale.”

  “There is one I’ve seen,” said a biker expelling a beery burp. “Real eye candy.”

  “That’s Paul’s. Shit, man, he won’t be parting with that.” The barman slapped down a tumbler he’d been drying.


  “Specially not to a rosbif,” said that same swarthy guy without turning round.

  “Paul?” I repeated the name as casually as I could.

  “Paul Suzman,” said the barman. “Brother’s a cross-dresser, if you get my meaning.”

  “He means a fucking priest.”

  “The sister might open her legs for you, if you’re not that way inclined. She likes old, does Marie.”

  Another collective laugh. Not quite so hearty this time.

  “So where can I reach this Paul?” I persevered. “Always worth a try.”

  Silence. That Johnny Halliday tape had finished. Dark glances passed between one and the other. A shifting of positions on the bar stools. I knew the signs.

  “Six, Rue de L’Église,” announced the barman eventually. “Very handy for the Confessional, not that he’d ever use it. He’s not the kind of shit I’d allow in here.” He turned his head and pointed to a thin, white scar extending from his ear to his chin. “This is what I got for my trouble.”

  “Was he prosecuted?”

  The loudest laugh of all filled the Café des Étoiles. A laugh I’d never forget.

  “Come on, Anglais. Get real. This is Saint-Antoine...”

  “Parents?”

  “Père only. Two doors up. Number ten. All very cosy.”

  I finished my coffee and the baguette that took too long to chew and then felt too heavy in my gut. I also added a generous tip.

  “One other thing,” I said. “When’s Jordi Barre due here?”

  “Was. Yesterday afternoon. Full house, too. Mind you, the Salle de Concert takes trade from me every time they put on a bloody show.”

  “Damn. I was supposed to be meeting a friend there. A Belgian. He needed cheering up. Shortish, fair-haired...”

  The barman grinned. “Try our priest up at Saint-Jean le Martyr. I’ve heard he prefers blonds...”