Close to our secret.
*
In his spare time, Papa had been something of an amateur historian, and discovered from a single, badly-faded account in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, that an underground passage had been dug from here to Aucentrelle just before the purge of the Knights Templar in 1317. To be spared incarceration at Chinon castle by Philippe le Bon. many frightened Templars and Cathar priests stayed hidden inside it, only emerging from the one opening for food and fresh water.
Some were betrayed by those wanting only to save their own skins, but the few who survived, denounced their callings and fled from France as common vagrants.
This hideaway wasn’t recorded on our Cadastre - Land Registry, nor in any local museum or archive, and Papa was convinced very few others, if any, knew of its existence.
That hot July day, we’d crawled along its dry, dusty floor to discover if any bones, even treasure of any sort remained. But I’d seen too many spectres, heard too many heartbreaking sounds, just as in La Cathédrale after Christine died, that he’d refused to bring me again. Nor Jacques, who shortly before his last breath, had found Elisabeth lying on her stomach where I now stood. The entrance hole’s heavy, round lid pulled back and her reciting what he’d later realised were verses from Dante’s Divine Comedy, about the Pit of Cocytus. She never realised she’d been seen. The incident never discussed. And although Christine remained in ignorance, that special underground secret was no longer ours.
Mathieu?
I got down on my creaky knees and took hold of this lid’s iron ring. Its sheer weight made all my metatarsal bones creak. But I didn’t care. There was only one thing I had to do to save my tarnished soul. But the lid slammed back into place with a force that almost took me with it.
“Mon Dieu. Aidez-moi…”
But God was busy. I was quite alone, frightened. Feeling every ragged year of my too-long life.
*
Merde. What was that?
A single gunshot. Then shouts. Men crashing through foliage, drawing closer.
A flock of pigeons heaved themselves from the firs into the leaden sky, and above my thudding heart, came the Angelus bell from the nearby church. Normally a calming sound, but not this time.
With some difficuIty, I got to my feet and slithered away to gauge the source of this commotion. To use my wartime training which allied weather conditions with other factors such as physical obstacles and the intrusion of noise from both hidden aircraft, traffic and the natural world itself. Whoever was responsible for this disturbance was certainly to the north and less than a kilometer away.
Running and risking a fall, I reached Les Tourels’ northernmost boundary, more thinly hedged than the rest, and in urgent need of proper fencing. From here, a huge, cream-coloured water tower reared up beyond a line of poplars. The farthest edge of what, despite Elisabeth’s manoeuvrings, was still my territory.
*
The snowfall was steady, persistent. My feet seemed to have solidified inside their boots. That unreliable heart threatening to abandon me as what appeared to be a small army was encircling Eduard Gallas and the Welshman. But the bigger man was already down on the white ground, groaning in pain, clutching his chest. A heart attack, perhaps? Or had the shorter man turned on him? For a moment, some of the armed police in combat uniform turned my way, but I’d ducked down behind a small brick unit that housed the spring water tap. I too, was a wanted woman.
God help me…
Suddenly, without warning, a woollen hand was clamped over my mouth. Hot, sour breath met my skin. The faintest trace of blood.
“No turning round, you cruel old meddler,” barked a voice, hard as glass. “No sound either. You’re in enough shit as it is.”
A female voice for sure.
“Elisabeth?”
“Who else?”
A knee caught the small of my back, and something cold and sharp was slipped over my head and tightened around my neck. A special collar Jacques used to restrain bulls during mating. Was this nightmare real?
“Hurry, damn you,” snarled my captor. “Half the fucking world’s just turned up.”
Half the world…
How I wished it.
Another kick. But the steel neck collar kept me from pitching forwards, digging into the flesh under my chin. Instead of screaming, fighting back, I should at least listen to that raging, raspy breath as she pushed me towards the copse. My canvas holdall still hooked over my right arm.
“Where’s that special document?” She spat. “The one you stole from me when all I wanted to do was die? Come on, where is it? In Les Tourels somewhere? Your stinky retirement home? Or in there?”
Document? Think…
At first, I didn’t realise what she meant, and then remembered rushing from my ‘prison’ that morning. Grabbing only my holdall and my coat… How I’d planned to wear Christine’s special, beige cardigan for my graveside visit tomorrow.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, stumbling forward into that darker, wooded place I should never have left. “Let me go, then I can help you before…”
“What?” She barked. “Before she comes? As she will. Your car’s gone, and I reckon she’s lifted it. I also reckon she’ll be back.”
Mon Dieu…
Then came that ancient secret from the past. Gaping open in the ground, as it had all those years ago. Black against the whitened, scuffed snow around it. The heavy lid already pulled back, allowing the stench of foul water into the air.
It was then I turned. That wretched steel collar digging in even more, bringing blood. I saw a sick smile. Her father’s same, oddly-flecked eyes.
Laure. Poor, mad Laure.
‘Said she had no soul. She could tell by her eyes she was empty.’
“I knew what you’d gone through that September,” I began, trying to reach her. “I’ve been a mother myself…”
“Shut the fuck up! You haven’t a clue. And I haven’t time to tell you now. So, here we go… Bon voyage, Mamie.”
Say it.
“Mathieu’s in there, isn’t he? Oh, all the saints forgive me!”
“Don’t bank on it,” she laughed. “Just remember that suction cap. The fucking prayers, and the rest.” With that, she struck my head down hard against the raised rim of the hole. Bone on iron. Everything blurred. That steel collar chiming with my cries as she tore my holdall from my arm and proceeded to kick my legs sideways until I tilted, trying to grab the edge of the hole and losing my balance…
There were no spectres, no other visions, just a sudden blindness. An enveloping, reeking blackness…
42. John.
Tuesday 15th March. 2p.m.
Laure had distinctly said “Les Tourels,” and that’s what I’d passed on to Philippe Aubouchon the moment I’d lost her. She’d charged off down the narrow, shopping street away from the café, and into the busy C&A department store where neither I nor its helpful staff found any trace of her.
Not for the first time, I’d been made to look incompetent. But this, like neglecting to chase up the Sea Breeze Hotel and that overnight delay in getting the right men tooled up and ready for action, was serious. At least Philippe Aubouchon, dressed as the military chief he was, would be driving me to the former farmhouse, and had the grace to admit that having left me in sole charge of someone so volatile and in such a high state of paranoia, was more than a tough call. With hindsight, an impossible one. At least I’d fought her off in that cafe, just managing to dodge the sharp little knife before it caused any more damage.
*
As far as the University Hospital was concerned, yes, there’d been plenty of newspaper and TV reporters, but Laure Deschamps definitely hadn’t visited her father. Laure whose web of lies was growing with every hour.
I’d told him during a brief, tense visit I could foresee a final, possibly deadly reckoning between her and her aunt. Two women damaged by life, by men and ultimately, each other. Fault li
nes that were everyone else’s fault…
However, he’d been unable to speak, and I’d soon been ushered away, feeling anger at his cruel plight, also intense frustration.
“News just in,” announced Aubouchon, negotiating yet another roundabout taking us south of one of the city’s industrial zones and signs for the newly-built Futuroscope. His wipers at full speed, batting away the snow, but not its solid mass collecting at the base of the windscreen.
“Some good, some bad. By bad, I mean, still nothing on the boy.” He shot me a worried glance. “What’s your gut feeling?”
I wasn’t about to remind him how he’d professed to distrust hunches. Instead, simply said, “given what we know, he’s clearly the pawn. I’m no chess player, but they’re usually expendable.”
“So, I’ll go down as a failed Chef d’Escadron, hein?”
“We have to reach him first, before…”
“They do?”
I nodded, and as soon as the outgoing traffic thinned, he switched on his screamer and, for the next twenty kilometres into the snow-covered countryside, with blue lights flashing, exceeded the speed limit.
“And the good news?” I nudged him, badly in need of some.
“Aimée Lecroix has just owned up to stealing almost a kilogram of Noctran for Elisabeth Jourdain. Apparently, she was paid a thousand francs for her thieving. Scrutiny of her benefactor’s bank account has proved fascinating. Such largesse. Such desperation leaving her almost penniless. My brother at Crédit Agricole was able to breach red-tape and organize a search.”
Contacts indeed…
“We still need a ‘why?” I said, before we rumbled over a level crossing and cruised effortlessly up a hill between brown, ploughed farmland. Aubuchon was clearly pre-occupied. He speeded up towards Mazerolles where perhaps, given the road conditions, he should have been more cautious.
“There will be war,” I added. “You do know that?”
“Our most senior psychologist is more than puzzled over possible motivations.”
I wasn’t. I’d begun to see the light in the café once Alison had relayed her one-sided conversation with the bitter Gemma Lennox. How lies and cover-ups over what, to more liberal families, wouldn’t have been such a big deal, had bloomed into a tumerous, festering growth. After all, a successful trainer’s livelihood had perhaps depended upon secrecy and the collusion of one man in particular. Someone in the medical profession with considerable influence, who could have bent the rules. After all, most things can be bought, so why not a fabricated birth certificate? But the time wasn’t right to say so. Something about my driver still kept me wary.
*
Neither of us spoke as the nondescript village of Soulebec came and went - its few shops closed for lunch - while Les Saules Pleureurs, the imposing repository of so much horror, stood cradled by police cordons and guarded by two armed gendarmes.
I then asked if Odette Jourdain had arrived at her safe house earlier that morning.
“More bad news. I meant to tell you. I confess - entre nous, Monsieur - she’s been somewhat overlooked in all this, and Lieutenant Desoulis has just discovered her missing from the retirement home. Yet again…”
A sudden chill seemed to snake into this comfortable, heated off-roader. Definitely bad news.
“She’d left her breakfast untouched, and a laundry worker’s new bike was later found stolen. Yet Aimée Lecroix claims all was normal…”
She would.
“Why wasn’t this reported earlier?”
A frown which grew deeper.
“The Director there is obsessed with having no adverse publicity. She was hoping her wayward client would return as before.”
I agreed, yet something wasn’t quite right. Was this obviously capable cop hiding something? His driving had become less smooth. Several times he crashed the gears. “However, there is the question of her neighbour…”
Here it comes…
“Nelly Santorini?” Odette had mentioned her during our brief conversation.
Another nod. “And we have to believe her. “
“What about?” As we passed yet another large farm. This one, ivy-covered and
heaving with young stock being herded into various open-fronted barns.
“She said another woman turned up there this morning after Odette had gone, and paid her to keep quiet about her visit. This gets worse.”
“Who?”
An uncomfortable pause.
Come on…
“Elisabeth Jourdain.”
“A woman with a purpose,” I observed, wondering at his hesitation. “If true, she must have got there somehow. Must have been after something. We could check car hire firms…”
Aubouchon shifted slightly in his seat. I didn’t need to spell it out that his number one suspect who’d already escaped from custody, had neatly given everyone the slip. Again.
“Nearly there,” he said as if by way of defeat, then cursed at the wide, icy crust
at the bottom of his windscreen. “At last. Thank God.”
“There’ll not be much to thank God for, if my instinct’s correct,” I murmured as the 4X4 slowed up by Les Tourels’ familiar brown, barred gate now closed and heavily padlocked. “All roads lead to Rome,” I added bleakly, looking out for any possible car or cycle tracks, and wondering why no police cordon was yet in place after Vervain had been shot and Elisabeth Jourdain taken away. “So, both teams are here already?”
Before Aubouchon could reply, his two-way crackled into life. Having snatched it from its holder with one hand and pulled up the handbrake with the other, he relayed the frantic message as it came through.
Eduard Gallas and Sion Evans had been captured by an armed unit to the north of the property. The Welshman had been shot below the collar bone while trying to do a runner. He was awaiting an ambulance, and like Gallas, fully co-operating. Odette’s name followed, then another’s and more information - all too fast for me to pick up.
“Search the house and outbuildings. Every damned corner!” My driver yelled into the receiver before slamming the phone back against his body and releasing the handbrake to begin cutting a tight circle into the snow. His windscreen filled up with the white stuff as fast as both wiper blades could clear it.
“I need to check round this gate,” I said, aware then wasn’t the best moment to be making suggestions. “There may still be useful prints.”
“You can run along behind, then,” snapped Aubouchon. “I’m off.” He pointed in the direction of a dark blur of poplars and a massive water tower we’d passed earlier. “We’ll be up near there.”
“Do you happen to have a camera?” I said, still pushing my luck. In answer, he released my door lock, and passed me a pocket-sized Canon with ten shots left. His face just then, wouldn’t have looked out of place on the USA’s formidable Mount Rushmore range.
*
I stepped down into what I’d normally describe as a gift from Heaven. What to myself and older sister as kids, had always been pure magic. How, within minutes, the world around us had been given a white innocence we ourselves were soon to lose.
But this snow was no magic, no Heavenly gift, for as I drew closer to the gate, I noticed almost faded car tyre tracks leading from the farm house, and a range of footprints, especially a trail of large ones - embedded into the right-hand verge and bearing the kind of rugged pattern found under walking boots.
I took three photographs - two in close-up - thinking of those big boots Robert Kassel had worn on Monday. Then something else that made me pull the camera out again. An almost vanished cycle’s tracks and smaller depressions leading from the gate, continuing to the other side towards the farmhouse.
Odette?
I sensed the gravest danger looming for that brave, selfless widow, who’d lived through two world wars, seen her homeland betrayed and…
“Salut!” Came a man’s voice that made me immediately think that Aubouchon had silently returned. “I think perhaps
we can help each other here, Monsieur Lyon.”
Robert Kassel himself, accompanied by the whiff of Gitanes.
He stood on the other side of the gate, taller somehow, against the whitening backdrop of Les Tourels. Black, waxed cape, gloves, plus a rifle in pristine condition, secured across his body. But was that fear tensing his lean, dark face? His scuffed, scarred boots certainly matched the shape of those prints I’d been careful to avoid. Now wasn’t the time to make a comparison.
“We meet again.” He held out a black-gloved hand for me to shake. I did. His iron strength unmistakeable.
“Have you seen Odette Jourdain around?” I asked. “A woman in her early seventies on a bicycle?”
“I know Odette. Mère de la biche…” He hissed. “Look, I’ll help you over.”
“With respect, Monsieur Kassel, this whole area is a possible crime scene. You should be on this side…”
He moved towards me, both hands outstretched this time. Not a man to tangle with, and I wasn’t going to try. “There’s no police cordon up yet,” he said, “and besides, we must stick together. I’ve lost my only child, remember? And now, after all this time, I think I understand what might have happened.”
He angled his bare head sideways at the glistening farmland. The icy lake “There’s been more shooting over there. God knows why.” Next a glance in my direction, loaded with suspicion. “Are you in the know?”
I had to lie.
“Not at all. If anything, I’m an inconvenience.”
A small smile re-shaped his mouth. “I’ll give you a leg-up. I’ve just seen something.”
“What?”
“Later. Come on.”
“You could be prosecuted and I’m a bloody foreigner.”
“Who cares? You’re the first person I’ve met since Sophie vanished, who seems to have a brain. When they assigned yet another useless flic to the case last year, that’s when I gave up. In here,” he jabbed at his prominent forehead. “The last straw.”
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