Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  The meagre fire and smell of smoke had gone, and on the table’s waxed cloth stood a half-full tumbler of water, bearing no lip or finger prints. Further along lay a damp, buckled wartime knitting pattern for a teenage girl’s cable-stitch cardigan.

  “Madame?” I called out in the hallway, despite the fact she’d not worn a wedding ring. “It’s me. John Lyon.”

  No reply, just the wind’s moan, and no way was I going upstairs. The ominous hint of Boss aftershave put paid to that idea. I’d surely be more use to her alive than dead. End of story. Before leaving, I found that same little marquetry box on the mantle piece. The girl’s photograph had gone.

  Damn. Damn...

  *

  Outside, so much white dust slammed into my face, I almost bumped into a youthful post woman wheeling her laden bike along the dirt track.

  “Pardon,” I began,” but have you seen the lady who lives at number 20?”

  “You mean Alize Saporo? No, not today. She’s hardly here at all, and when she is, normally gets to her door before me. Just to say ‘bonjour.’ As for post,” she shrugged. “Rien.”

  “That’s odd. Something may be wrong.” I then described both my last visit and the letterbox fire.

  “I’m afraid we can’t interfere, Monsieur.”

  My borrowed ski jacket felt too sweaty, too heavy.

  “Look, please call the police, because I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She wouldn’t have understood my answer anyway, so I turned away, guilt devouring my conscience. Then I remembered Eva Ryjkel’s last letter.

  I called out, just as the post woman was re-mounting her bike.

  “Has a railway ever come through here?”

  “Not recently, why?”

  “I’m a railways researcher.”

  She seemed to believe me.

  “Only the feldspar track to Padaillac. All torn up years ago, before I was born.”

  *

  I crossed the main street to follow another dirt track, this time, punctuated by pools of opaque water. It led away from the village towards the Bayrou river, still high, still noisy, at least a kilometre from where Martine and I had retrieved Herman’s head.

  Crawling through thick, brown reeds, I found heaps of discarded aggregate and household junk. Brittle, black vine roots culled to make way for the new, and various items of underwear. I glanced up to see Mas Camp’s dull, red roof and smokeless chimney showing above an untamed hedge. If Eva Ryjkel really had witnessed a small train passing by, it probably wasn’t far off.

  I then discovered coins, pottery fragments, spent rifle cartridges from boar hunts, beer bottles, crisp packets filled with water like Herman’s trousers. Just then, something hard, rock-solid struck against my nails. A bolt, rusty, heavy, certainly not part of a toy. This was industrial, attached to a small section of equally rusted metal. Next, a rivet in similar condition.

  Part of some long-ago railway carriage, maybe?

  Suddenly, a noise.

  A short-legged guy almost swallowed up by his waders, was advancing towards me, carrying a fishing rod. He raised a free, gloved hand in greeting as if the sight of a late middle-aged man grubbing around on all fours was normal.

  “I’m a naturalist,” I explained. “Anglais.”

  “Well, you wait, once the bloody dam’s been built, all this’ll be under water. And why? For the domaines. Greedy cons...” His French sounded local. He was definitely worth an ask.

  “Do you fish all along the Bayrou?”

  “Depends on the weather. Yesterday near Le Boulou, the water was a bit thin, but I caught a decent-sized merlin.”

  I indicted the surrounding junk. “Not like this, then?”

  He shook his head. “Mind you, I saw some pretty weird stuff go by on the

  other side. Can’t say for sure, but looked like...” He paused. I waited. “Could have been bits of some poor kid. Who knows?”

  Jesus…

  Bad news, but I had to know if these ‘bits’ also involved blue trousers.

  No…

  “Did you tell anyone? The police or…”

  “Me? C’mon. Not long out of Fresnes.”

  France’s biggest prison.

  I was also tempted to mention Paul Suzman, but here was another ex-con who probably had a worm knife as well. And there we both were, in the middle of bloody nowhere. That thought propelled me to my feet, leaving my rusted finds on the ground, hoping they’d escaped his notice. However, I had to test him on what Eva Ryjkel’s letter and the post woman had said.

  “Has there ever been a railway here?” .

  “Thought you were a naturalist?”

  “I am. Looks like a track has been laid down at some point. You can tell by the way the wild flowers and weeds have grown.”

  “Seem to remember the feldspar works bringing stuff along here, but then I‘ve been out of the loop twelve years.” He checked his watch. Waved again and with his rod perched on his shoulder, disappeared between the bamboos.

  If those remains he’d seen had belonged to Herman, they might either be trapped further along or be in the Mediterranean borne back and fore on its tide. I could follow the river along, to find out, but Joel had disappeared, with Karen and Martine on their own. The morning passing too quickly.

  *

  With both pieces of ironwork threatening to split my ski jacket’s pockets, I reached my car and wrapped them in its old, tartan rug well clear of my camera. As I did so, sunlight caught the raised letters on the rivet’s underside. V. RUISSOL (IGF.) Those three initials could only represent one thing. The German industrial giant I.G. Farben, purveyor of the lethal Zyklon B. Hardly surprising those relics were also from the war years, since this Free Zone’s occupiers re-named it the Zone Sud. But were my finds connected with a railway?

  I was no engineer, and as that sharp, April breeze had suddenly cooled my blood, I scraped mud from my boots and jeans, then drove back to Dansac to call Les Pins from a filthy booth next to a line of overflowing poubelles.

  Karen picked up straight away, with too many questions.

  “Look, I can’t stop,” I said, “but has Joel appeared yet?”

  “No. So that’s two of my guns on the loose.”

  “Just you and Martine sstay vigilant”

  All the while, that German manufacturer’s name repeated like a drumbeat in my brain, together with the overpowering feeling that her handsome cook might by now, have become surplus to someone’s requirements.

  Chapter 24. Karen.

  More than ever, without John around, I was just a useless piece of meat ready for the cleaver. I’d got used to him being here - the way he cocked his head and looked at me when I spoke. How he made me feel as if I was the only woman in the world. Simple as that. Without him, what then? He and Martine both knew I’d four weeks to sort this mess out. I owed it to them. And myself if that didn’t sound too selfish. There’s only so much stress one can take.

  Last night, I’d dreamt of severed fingers and heads floating by. Mine included, lipstick intact. At least a nagging nerve pain in my vertebrae eased after one of Martine’s massages. Good, because bringing Dr.Baerck over from Holland would have to be a last resort. And too risky.

  Neither was I hungry. John could have my croissants and brioche when he arrived. As for Joel, and whatever mischief he might have got up to, how could he come back here? He knew my alarm codes, and for any deserter, that was enough for me. Time, then, to re-set them.

  *

  All done. Then, like that helpful expert Robert Taillot had shown me, I entered quite different sets of numbers, already feeling better, until recalling what Martine said about seeing Joel in conversation with that priest.

  The phone rang again. Another bad line from Antwerp. Thea Oudekerk’s voice high and tight as that pig wire we’d stretch around our hectares at Mas Camps. Outside my window, the sun hovered too bright, too distracting.

  “I must speak to him, Doctor Fürst,” she pl
eaded.

  Quick… Think…

  “Herman’s gone to Perpignan to collect some medicines. He’s sure to call you if he has time.”

  “If he has time?” Her voice rose an octave.” He’s always had time for me. Every day, before he left home.”

  “I know that, and it’s my fault he’s so busy. But I did warn you that this wouldn’t be a holiday camp. I pay him a top rate for one hundred percent commitment, which so far, he’s shown. You can be very proud of him, and of course, I’ll tell him you phoned.”

  Pause.

  “He was really close to his uncle Pieter. I mean, really close,” she then sniffed. “I’ve already told you how he passed away last night.”

  “You did. And I’m very sorry.”

  “Is that all you can say? You, having been a doctor?”

  Only Doctor Baerck had known that.

  My lungs seemed airless as I replaced the receiver and Martine entered, carrying a jug of fresh coffee. Having refilled my cup, she picked up the uneaten brioche and took a bite. Too greedy to notice my strained face.

  “We can’t keep this up for a whole month,” I said. “Perhaps John Lyon’s right. I should tell Herman’s mother the truth.”

  She stopped chewing.

  “Then what? Remember what you’ve said all along. No cops, no interference? Giving in now could mean the end of everything.”

  I’d never done that. Moeder had said the same.

  Martine eyed me in a way I resented. Suddenly, my chair became a prison, just like my useless body. “You try this!” I slapped its padded arms in disgust. “You change places with me for just one day and see how it feels to be so powerless.”

  She wiped her mouth with my linen napkin, as if she had something to add.

  “When you fell off your horse - and I’ve often thought about this - were you expecting it? I mean, did her jumping just feel wrong? Was she nervous?”

  “No. Maja was jumping perfectly. In the lead after the dressage section for God’s sake... until...”

  Somehow, the vivid sunlight recaptured that June morning in Louth, Lincolnshire, where the going for the Wolds’ Gold Cup had been good and visibility excellent. I’d felt her power beneath me, galloping towards fence number six, ‘The Jungle,’ where the crowd around it and beyond, yelled their support...

  “Until what?”

  “A blinding flash, coming from my right...”

  “Some idiot using a mirror? Fixing their make-up?”

  “Stronger than that. It never wavered.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded, dizzily recalling Maja crashing through the fence, my feet leaving the stirrups and everything turning upside down, spinning, spinning. Her on top of me screaming not neighing…

  “It’s OK. I’m still here.” Martine held my shoulders, calming me with steady hands, as I realised for the first time, someone had wanted me dead.

  Chapter 25. John.

  Who’d take a tramp like me seriously? I asked myself, before following signs for Villedieu and doing my best with spit plus a rub to clean more mud off the ski jacket’s cuffs. Even though pine forests and limestone outcrops reared up sky high on either side of the road, they didn’t stop the freaky sun from glaring through the windscreen just below my visor’s edge. The Bayrou river to my left almost out of sight.

  At first glance, this village seemed quite different to Dansac’s ghost settlement. No sign of that silver Merc either as I pulled in alongside a branch of Crédit Agricole whose window boxes bustled with purple and yellow pansies - Carol’s favourite spring flower. I imagined her villa’s tubs overflowing with their colours and felt a shameful twinge of jealousy.

  From here, with a clutch of new bank notes in my wallet, to a boulangerie and, having bought a still-warm baguette and a small strawberry tart, I asked how to get to the church of Saint-Luc.

  The flushed assistant shook her head.

  “It’s closed. No money. No more communions, baptisms and confirmations. A big loss to us all.”

  “No funerals, either?”

  She shook her head. “Some of the bereaved in the village have taken to burying their dead on their own land.”

  Not only the bereaved…

  “I’d still like to see this church.”

  “I’ll fetch a piece of paper.”

  *

  Her directions proved precise, and soon I was facing what must have once been a fine example of late Mediaeval architecture. Everything, from the deep cracks between its stones to empty windows, a broken roof and even the intricate carvings inside the porch, had been pummelled by God’s chief vandal, the weather.

  A notice almost cancelling out the church’s own sign, said DANGER DE MORT. ENTRÉE INTERDIT accompanied by a graphic silhouette of a man being crushed by a falling rock. Beneath this, however, in the bottom right-hand corner was the name of its last priest. Father Léon Diderot. Hardly recent, judging by its faded blue lettering. I looked round for any sign of a rectory or nearby dwelling but this church was clearly king of its surroundings, including a cemetery where even newer tombs and graves were already weathered.

  I also searched for the names of any youngsters from the early 1940s, but there were none. No Jewish names either or, it seemed, anyone from Dansac after 1942.

  “Oui?” Came a woman’s voice behind me. “Can I help you?” Her white poodle sniffed my damp knees.

  “Is Father Diderot still alive?” I asked, dodging its nose. The woman’s smile became one of remembrance. Her eyes softened.

  “Oh indeed, and such a wonderful shepherd he was. But unwell for some time, so I’ve heard. We don’t see him around as much as we used to. And as for this beautiful church - it’s a disgrace to let it go to rack and ruin. We did write to the Bishop two years’ ago, but,” she shrugged,” he just mentoned demographics. I ask you... It’s people my age who need to feel the Saviour’s breath as we near the end, not the young ones.”

  I nodded, then asked where this living saint might be found.

  “In a Maison de Retraite,” she pointed up the road and to the left. “Les Platanes.”

  Just in time she pulled her poodle away from my leg and, having thanked her, I soon reached the plane tree- lined drive where last year’s leaves lay trapped against its edging slabs in brown, brittle clusters,.All the while, I was shaping my questions.

  *

  The house itself, unlike the church, was of newish-build whose beige façade seemed too full of windows, all closed, some revealing aged faces, pale and hollowed looking out. Remnants of that treadmill called life.

  “Father Diderot, please.” I smiled at the green-uniformed receptionist whose moustache darkened her upper lip. Her desk embellished by a fake lily in a glass of water.

  “I’ll call him once I’ve checked your details,” she said. “He’s fussy who he sees. More than most, I’d say. Perhaps it’s the headaches...”

  I showed her my passport issued since I’d retired from the Force. No way did I want any more strangers knowing y previous job. I glanced at the open register and saw

  this priest’s age - untypical, surely, for an old folks’ home? The space for his place of birth left blank. Also, any previous, private address.

  But his wasn’t the only incomplete entry. I knew all too well how defensive people could be with form-filling. Even the saints of this world.

  After a long delay, the uniform finally returned.

  “It’s room 14, second floor. He’s not a well man, Monsieur Lyon. Half an hour will be quite enough.”

  That seemed obvious from first impressions, but in my experience, the grey brigade - myself included - seem to possess a ferocious will to live. You see it in their eyes; out shopping, butting your ankles with their trolleys. I wasn’t ageist, just observant.

  Father Diderot appeared to be little more than a cadaver inside his smart but loose-fitting clothes, while an ornate crucifix around his neck glittered in the sunlight against his brown jacket. It seemed that
every vein and artery in his face, neck and hands was visible. What remained of his reddish-brown hair lay in tufts above each ear, and a pair of rimless bifocals distorted those keen, blue eyes almost buried under untrimmed brows. He must have been handsome once, I thought. But what had so remorselessly stolen away his years? Caused those headaches?

  He sat, lower legs crossed, in a reclining chair, angled so he could both look out over the drive and at me by the door.

  “I saw you coming,” he said. “And from the way you walked, you weren’t French. I wouldn’t be seeing you otherwise.” His fluent English bore little trace of any accent.

  “But they’re your compatriots,” I ventured. “And surely all men equal in the eyes of God?”

  He closed his eyes, revealing yet more blue veins decorating both eyelids, while a tight smile stretched his dry lips.

  “Some are more equal than others. Now, Mr. Lyon, answer me this. Why sacrifice your time for one whom time has forgotten? “

  “Alize Saporo,” I said evenly, despite his strange use of ‘sacrifice.’ “I met her yesterday. She spoke very highly of you. But when I called round again earlier today...”

  That smile had died.

  “She’d gone, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “To be expected. Given we still live in terrible times.”

  “Where to?”

  He raised his hands a little, spreading his fingers wide. Age spots, yes, but these fingers were more a labourer’s tools than those of a priest.

  “No idea. Alize has many friends, although I confess to neglecting her of late. Yes, a brave woman. Never betrothed, I might add, except to her cause...”

  “Which is?”

  “Was. Beginning a tunnel from beneath her house towards the River Bayrou. I helped her dig it with my bare hands.” He turned his palms upwards.

  Was this the meaning of ‘operations?’

  At mention of that river, it was Herman’s upturned face, his white eyes that came to mind. I also felt a tremor of excitement.