Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “I’ve told you, no.”

  No... no... no...

  “Besides, this is different. If outside agencies come in, and the Press get wind of what I’m doing, it all goes down the pan. Just supposing Joop for example, is alive, with a new life. Unwanted exposure might drive him away. Then where would I be? And you?”

  His hands gripped the wheel. He glanced at me again.

  “That suggests he’s something to hide. That you might know he has something to hide.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “There’s no other logic to your attitude. Besides, why wouldn’t he be

  overjoyed to see his little sister after so long?”

  I shot him a glance.

  “He’s had his chances.”

  “Too right he has.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Like your unlucky, dead Herman apparently said to Martine, I need more proof.”

  “Fuck you. John Lyon.”

  A self-defensive laugh followed. I was outside his wall, just as I’d been with

  my brothers for the first eight years of my life. The unwanted extra. The makeweight. Who did this relative stranger think he was? I could only stay calm for so long.

  “Stop the car,” I said.

  “No way. Not here.”

  A dual carriageway, but so what? He just kept his foot down. A hundred kilometres per hour, when eighty was the limit. All I could manage with my right hand, was to tug at the steering wheel. The deep blast of a lorry’s horn filled the car as we swerved over the central line.

  Good...

  “You want to kill us?” He yelled.

  “Why not? You bring in the law, it’ll happen anyway.”

  Silence as that angry lorry overtook and we got the middle finger sign. My driver was speaking again. He’d calmed down. Weirdly so.

  “If and when we find Sophie Blumenthal, you’re to focus on her every move. Every expression, however slight. Got it? I saw a photo of her aged fourteen.Very striking.”

  “People change.”

  “No, they just reveal themselves.”

  The road climbed upwards into a hanging mist, before the drop down into Banyuls.

  “No flics.” I reminded him again. Agreed?”

  A small shake of his head. Then, without warning, “tell me, Karen. why was Joop so jealous of you? I mean, enough to threaten to kill you?”

  The cluttered bay below curved away towards Port-Vendres, lit by pretty Art Deco style street lamps. All normal, from the two young women with a dog in tow, to an ageing Goth in black leathers, perched on his Yamaha. Except this.

  “If you ever ask me that again, I’ll... I’ll...”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Chapter 40. John.

  No point in dwelling on Karen’s moment of madness on that dual carriageway, or her panicky, unspoken threat. We got through it. As for my question about Joop, why had that made her so defensive? Brought a livid rash to her face? Had my recent chat to Violette Arbrus about his violence, opened a door to be kept shut? But to any cop with a pulse, that café owner’s information - if true - was a very useful pointer indeed.

  If Joop could treat her in that way, what about others equally close to home? Christian had been the clear favourite. Perhaps the Ryjkel’s fate had been down to a planned revenge. Perhaps...

  Banyuls. At last.

  I drove through the trendy, small fishing town’s night life where yet more dog-walkers outnumbered anyone else, past a colony of enormous yachts blocking the sea view. Where kiosks and bric-à brac displays were packing up for the night.

  “We’ll try your vendor first,” I said. “68, Avenue Voltaire. Any ideas where that is?”

  “We’re on it. I told you, we used to visit here.”

  “So you did.”

  Karen turned her covered head to the right. “See, it’s next to that palm tree.”

  Sure enough, number 68 was a narrow, four-storey town house whose dull, pink, stucco finish seemed designed to blend with others along the busy street.

  “He mustn’t see me,” she said as I performed a nifty U turn and parked further along by another useful palm tree. “Promise?”

  “I’ll lock you in. Just lie low.”

  “I’m not dumb.”

  “You can say that again.”

  A small smile appeared above the edge of her coat collar. I’d already kissed the back of her neck, but then wasn’t the time for another. Instead, I got out and crossed the busy road, soon realising there was no rear access to the property. Neither garage nor garden, shed or courtyard. What you saw on the street was what you got. Presumably, if the central heating was oil-fired, tank refills went through the house. Everything about the place, I concluded, was public and a big risk if indeed Herman’s head and that trunk of children’s clothes had ended up here.

  *

  All its metal shutters were open, revealing dark interiors behind scallop-edged net curtains. A strange choice for an elderly man, unless they’d belonged to the previous owners. Even stranger for a former company director and Notaire who’d once lived in the seclusion of Les Pins. But not if he needed to see who was approaching his front door. Like me.

  No ID by the bell. No external letterbox either. Just a typed message saying ‘Pas de pub.’ Three knocks, and a wait. And was that a top window’s curtains shifting slightly in a non-existent breeze? I knocked again. Stepped back, convinced it was a woman’s face staring down at me through a net-curtained veil. A face that had I not been so tense, I might have recognised.

  Meanwhile, Karen was vulnerable in the car. This was a waste of time I didn’t have. I swore under my breath, trying to work out when I could pay another visit, aware that Sophie Blumenthal was right now, probably getting ready for bed.

  *

  “So where does she live?” Karen was getting cold.

  “In the hills somewhere. We can ask.”

  “You mean, you can ask.”

  A middle-aged couple were approaching us arm in arm. I let my window down, breathing in that same sea air laced with diesel. “I’m looking for a Sophie Blumenthal,” I began. “I know she lives out of town from here...”

  “Blumenthal?” They looked at each other and then in at Karen. “Have you tried Pages Blanches?”

  “Yes. And incidentally, she’s Jewish.”

  “I thought so,” said the man. “There’s a colony of them up in the Quartier Balzac. Of course, most of those of a certain age, have changed their names. Some moved on, mainly to Israel.”

  “That’s so sad,” added the woman. “Surely things have improved for the better now?”

  Meanwhile, the man was pointing down the street.

  “Turn right at the next roundabout, and it’ll be signed. Nice place if you don’t mind being out of the loop...”

  Having thanked them, I put the car into first gear while other questions still flapped in my mind. The intriguing woman sitting next to me, staring out of her window, was still too much of a mystery with too many gaps in her story.

  “Just out of interest, who inherits Les Pins if...?”

  “If what?” She broke in. “I drop dead?”

  I left the main promenade and duly followed the stranger’s directions. The atmosphere inside my Volvo was again tricky, verging on toxic.

  “Just curious, that’s all.”

  “You want Les Pins, then?”

  Shit...

  “Is this how you conducted interviews with your suspects? Firing random questions to catch them out?”

  “You’re not a suspect.”

  “How bloody kind of you to say so.”

  *

  The sign for the Quartier Balzac meant a left turn in silence, along a newly-surfaced road lined by identical, neat single-storey villas, which then became more spaced apart, half-hidden by poplars, protected by high-wire fencing. Despite a thickening mist descending from the Albères, my headlights picked out the wild eyes of guarding d
ogs, and I wondered if that sixty-year-old we were looking for, owned such a creature. If so, and despite my plan for her, Karen might have to stay in the car again.

  As we rounded yet another bend, a villa in the style of an Alpine chalet, appeared through the mist; lights on in all its windows. The drive full of shiny 4X4s but no Range Rover.

  Karen shivered, pulled her fur gloves further up her fingers. “Why not ask here? She suggested. “There’s plenty going on.”

  Arcachon was indeed busy with partygoers whose silhouettes bobbed up and down behind closed blinds to a pulsing beat. With the house named after a seaside resort in the Gironde, I was surely wasting time. But no. For orthodox Jews, the sabbath would have ended last night.

  I rang the bell.

  The plump, sequined, young woman who answered it, eyed Karen, still in the car.

  “Wait a moment.”

  She then called out for her mother who repeated the Blumenthal surname I’d given as if it might be familiar.

  Then came recognition.

  “Where have the years gone? She pulled the inner door shut behind her to keep out the noise. “Is Sophie still alive, then? I’ve not seen her for ages...”

  So much for neighbourliness, I thought.

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  “And you are?” Her dense, brown eyes searched my face.

  “Nick Cameron, college lecturer from Carlisle.”

  “I’m Madame Weiss. We’re far more formal here in France. Privacy demands it.”

  “You were saying about the years having gone...”

  “She and my mother used to walk us girls to school.”

  “You and Yvette?”

  She nodded her obviously newly-coiffed head.

  “First, to the École Maternelle, then the Primaire... I can hear them both now, chatting away, although my mother did most of the talking.”

  “I’m surprised Sophie Blumenthal’s still in the area,” I said. “Given her history.”

  “What history?”

  I had to be careful.

  “How she was treated, here on French soil.”

  A short, surprised laugh.

  “I’m sure Sophie Blumenthal could take care of herself. Yes, it was the French she hated. Grasping betrayers, she called them. And as for the Catholic church – she’d spit on the ground whenever we passed L’Église de la Sainte Vièrge...”

  Quite a girl, then. Who’d have thought it from that photograph which Alize Saporo had kept so carefully?

  “Was she married?”

  “Not to my knowledge, and never wore a ring. Never short of cash, either. Far from it. If that sounds vulgar then sorry.”

  Someone who could have afforded to leave...

  “And Yvette’s father?”

  “Ha. Take your pick.”

  “I do need to find her. Can you recall where she lived?”

  “You’re not some private detective as well, are you?”

  “No.” I then gestured towards Karen who managed a short smile. “We’ve good news for her.”

  “If she’s still there, it’s up in the wilds. Not really the Quartier Balzac at all. I’d say three kilometres along that track leading off to the left. She once described her house as being the most un-French one she could find. Oh, that reminds me, someone else was here asking similar questions.”

  “Who?”

  “Some little Belgian man. Bright blond hair. Showed up a few weeks back. Persistent as a flea, I have to say.”

  “Why here?”

  “Same reason as you.”

  “Anyone else?” The music louder now., and Madame Weiss was momentarily distracted.

  “No. Just him.”

  In a different situation, I’d have told her of his savage death. But not with Karen so close by. I’d made her a reckless promise, hadn’t I?

  My feet felt unsteady on that brick doorstep. So, Herman Oudekerk had come this far. And how much further?

  *

  Mist again, billowing and lifting in rhythmic motion as I reached the car, Karen was shivering, so I shut my window, switched on the engine and turned up the heating.

  “We could be in business,” I said, setting the wipers to max for better visibility.

  “What business? Certainly nothing to do with mine. For God’s sake, John, let’s get real. It’s Vader and my brothers Christian and Joop that we’re looking for.”

  “So why was Hermann here, snooping around?”

  “What?” Her mouth fell open. Her gloved fists clenched. “Did that ancient slapper tell you that?”

  “She did. Apparently, he turned up on her doorstep a few times.”

  My tyres scraped against the track’s bad surface as I drove off, making the only sound until Karen spoke again.

  “Had she met Yvette?”

  “When they were kids, yes. But I kept things brief. For both our sakes.”

  “Like I used to do. Keeping people alive.”

  Her sudden, harsh tone caught me by surprise. Another awkward silence followed as she peered ahead at the steepening track.

  “Weird place, this,” she said. “More so than mine. Perhaps that party animal got the directions wrong, or just wanted us out of the way.”

  “Hang on,” I said, changing down to first gear. “This could be it.”

  *

  I’d spotted a single light glowing from one of the lower windows of what appeared to be a two-storey barn conversion. No telephone or electricity lines. They’d ended at Arcachon, and the gateless entrance was so overgrown I couldn’t squeeze the Volvo through. Whether Sophie Blumenthal’s home or not, no way could I leave Karen alone a secod time.

  Despite her coat and trouser suit, she seemed lighter still, and I soon settled her in her wheelchair, covering her knees with my tartan car rug that I was ashamed to admit, hadn’t seen a washing machine for years. I heard a faraway dog’s bark as the thickening mist filling my throat. Rarely had I felt so exposed to danger. So ill-prepared to respond to it. “Give me your old gun,” I said, rather too abruptly.

  “I’ll be ready with it behind you. Surely less obvious?”

  “OK.”

  My watch already showed 21:30 hours. Late enough.

  *

  No house name, no dog. At least, not yet. Something to be grateful for. No reply either to my bare-fisted knocking, until a half-shuttered window overhead squeaked open. We both looked up at the face encased in a black, fringed shawl. Her expression first of fear then defiance. My next impression was of a woman aged beyond her sixty years. The beauty in that photograph long gone.

  “If you’ve come about my taxes?” she shouted. “You can piss off.”

  “No.” Karen then sneezed. The track to this isolated welling had taken longer and been rougher than expected, but she’d not once complained. “Are you Sophie Blumenthal by any chance?”

  “What if I am? Leave me alone.”

  “Do we look like a pair of bureaucrats? Please, do us a favour.”

  Was that a flicker of relief crossing the other woman’s face? The hovering mist blurred her next reply. I glanced at Karen who was doing fine. Back in Nottingham, it was our WPCs who’d been the best interviewers. Especially with their own sex.

  “We can’t stop long.” She crossed and re-crossed her arms over her chest to keep warm. “We’re here to give you any help you need. I’m Liesbet Ryjkel originally from Mas Camps. I lived there until 1946. And this is my friend, John Lyon, from the UK.”

  “Mas Camps?” The window slammed shut. We looked at each other.

  “My God,” muttered Karen. “So much for bienvenue.”

  “Should have kept our pseudonyms,” I whispered.

  “I can’t keep lying. Besides, my real surname might trigger the response we need.”

  “It’s certainly triggered sonmething.”

  Karen smiled for the second time that night. Her strong profile, her perfect teeth were in complete contrast to the woman who answered the door, grim-faced, gri
pping what looked like a new rifle in her right hand. In close-up, only her slightly-hooded eyes were recognisable from that lovely photograph - the one human feature that in my experience, never changes. There was, however, the same wariness. Or was it panic?

  Sophie Blumenthal’s shawl now lay over her shoulders while a long, black cardigan was buttoned up the wrong way. Her black skirt a mess. Ankle boots scuffed and wrinkled. When she saw Karen close-to, strapped in her chair, her whole demeanour changed. She leant towards her, tutting as if in sympathy.

  “What happened? You were always such an active child. Here, there and everywhere. I was so envious...”

  “Envious? How come?”

  “I was the only Jewish girl at our Home. Treated worse than any of the Spanish or Roma kids and that’s saying something. I’d send myself to sleep, pretending I was you, with a loving family and a warm, cosy bed. Did you never see me when you were out feeding the chickens? I was there. Oh yes, I was there...” Her gaze then passed expectantly to me.

  “I’m a retired Detective Inspector with Nottinghamshire’s CID,” I explained. “We’re trying to solve two tragic mysteries.”

  “So am I, Monsieur. Firstly, why my beloved daughter never had a proper Inquest after her death...”

  “Yvette?”

  Those brown eyes sharpened. “How come you know her name?”

  “I spoke to your neighbour at Arcachon.”

  “Leah Weiss? That tart?”

  Karen suppressed another smile. But I was listening hard, my pulse speeding up as our hostess continued. “And the other injustice - why Opération Anges turned out to be nothing more than a wicked hoax.”

  Chapter 41. Karen.

  The smell of damp wool, bad drains and dead mice began to turn my empty stomach. I’d tried obeying John’s orders, watching this stranger’s every move, but it was him I fixed on. Tense, wary...

  “A hoax?” He repeated.” Are you serious? How did you discover that?”

  Sophie Blumenthal seemed to have given too much away.

  “All I can tell you.”

  John slumped back into his chair. Checked his watch, then me. But no way would I chip in, even if it meant disappointing him. For a start, the dust in that place was already in my throat, my eyes, like those days with the Tramontane at full strength. and I’d be sent to the coops to feed the hens and collect their eggs. Or take Edwige her hay. To think that stranger had been spying on me all along, without a word. What else had she seen? I wondered. What else might unravel from that dry, sly mouth?