by Evelyn James
“That is awful,” for all that Clara had heard about the Devereauxs, she would not wish such misery upon them.
Lars was more pragmatic.
“Many people die during the winter months here. Many children. It is not a place to raise a family. It is one reason I never married,” Lars sighed, this time it was a sigh of great sadness. “I made a decision not to inflict this life on anyone else. Children do not thrive here. It is better I live and die alone.”
Lars had lost some of the feral aggression that had first flickered over his face when they met him. He seemed more human all of a sudden. Clara was actually growing to like him. She wished she could do more for him.
“What of the boy, Ramon?” She asked.
“I see him from time to time,” Lars nodded. “He seems healthy enough, surprising in a way.”
“No one ever comes to see him?” Clara asked.
Lars looked confused.
“Who would?”
That was a good point, the Devereauxs had come here to hide away from the world. Very few knew they lived here.
“Does Madame Devereaux ever talk about a priest called Father Lound?”
“Never,” Lars said firmly. “She hates religion. We have a church service here once a month. A vicar travels in. She once spat horrible abuse at him. Madame Devereaux hates God. Maybe she blames him for her own misfortunes? Most of us prefer to think of him as a saviour, as the last resource of hope for us penniless folks. One day I dream of going to Heaven and being free.”
Lars closed his eyes and trembled with obvious longing for that moment. When there was no escape from the hellish existence you lived in beyond death, no wonder the thought of an afterlife was so attractive.
“I am not ready to go yet, though,” Lars opened his eyes again.
“What does Ramon make of religion?” Clara asked.
Lars gave her an odd look.
“What does any child of five years make of religion?” He said. “I doubt he knows God exists, his mother won’t tell him.”
“Wait, child?” It was Clara’s turn to look confused. “I am talking about Madame Devereaux’s son.”
“What son?” Lars looked astonished.
“Madame Devereaux had an adult son named Ramon,” Clara explained.
Lars shook his head.
“No, she came here only with her daughters and the eldest gave birth to a boy who she named Ramon.”
Clara hesitated for a moment, then she came close to smiling. Now it was obvious who was buried in the woods, well, she thought it was pretty obvious. There was always that outside chance that Ramon was alive somewhere but had opted not to live with his family. It seemed more likely, however, that he had never left the town. Someone had killed him and buried him in a grave near the shrine.
Could it be?
Ramon had Father Lound’s belongings, what if the priest had been there and given them to him? What if Father Lound’s disappearance was not because he had been murdered, but because he was a murderer?
The revelation was terrible, but it made sense of the circumstances. Ramon had disappeared at the same time as Father Lound and then his family had runaway to this hellish place. Clara had always felt it was a strange coincidence. Surely there was a link between these two events?
Clara placed the rest of the money on the table and pushed it towards Lars.
“Thank you for speaking to us,” she said.
She and Annie returned to the town in Hermann’s trap. It was a relief to leave behind the grey bones of Lugrule, its residents seemingly a hair’s breadth away from utter destitution. Clara thought that only the worst of situations could drive a person to choose to live there. Surely the worst of situations might include the murder of your son?
Yet there were still too many questions. Why would Father Lound kill Ramon Devereaux? Unless he suspected Ramon of being the traitor and felt it was his duty to his country, to the townsfolk, to dispatch the troublemaker? Clara found that a difficult thought, why would Father Lound take justice into his own hands? But who else could have killed Ramon? Who else would have had reason? The men Ramon was feeding information to? Would they have risked murdering an informant?
Clara was growing frustrated. There was a pattern forming, but not clearly enough to explain all this. And so many of the people she needed to speak to were long gone or would not talk to her, leaving her guessing, maybe making wrong assumptions.
It was uncomfortable to imagine Father Lound as a murderer, but that might just explain why he disappeared without a trace. Why he could not tell anyone where he was going. It would explain why he took his hastily packed luggage, forgetting personal items in his haste. It would explain why Ramon had the rosary and crucifix. The rosary was in his hand, as if he had been praying as he died. A last gesture of kindness from Lound? Better he deal with the traitor than the military, who would make the situation very public and shame the entire family.
What had Father Dobson said about a priest’s morals not necessarily being the same as that of a secular person’s? He had implied that Lound might have committed treason if he had a good reason for it, a reason that made sense from a religious and moral perspective. What about murder?
Clara was confused. There was still something not quite right with the whole picture. She almost felt as if she was looking at things reversed in a mirror. Bits seemed right, but other bits were clearly wrong. Somewhere in this mess was the key to solving this mystery.
What if she could not find it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Captain Mercier lived in a sprawling farmhouse a few miles from the town. Tommy and Colonel Brandt had rented horses to reach it. The farm had been in the Mercier family for several generations and the Captain lived there with his wife, children, parents and grandparents. They raised beef cattle.
The two Englishmen rode down a road with a drainage ditch running either side, that divided two large areas of pasture. A number of young bullocks watched them idly, swishing big black tails at the summer flies. At the end of the road there was a yard lined on three sides by buildings. On the left a feed store, on the right a barn and straight ahead the house. An old tractor was stood in the middle of the yard and three men were hovering around it, deep in discussion. They all turned as Tommy and Brandt approached.
The nearest man, who was only in his late twenties, stepped forward and greeted them.
“Can I help you?”
“Might you be Captain Mercier?” Tommy asked, dropping from the horse.
The man nodded.
“I am, though no one has called me Captain Mercier since the war.”
“Captain Thomas Fitzgerald,” Tommy introduced himself formally, partly to demonstrate his shared past with Mercier and partly to explain his business there. “This is Colonel Brandt. We wondered if we could speak to you on a military matter.”
Captain Mercier looked more than a little surprised. The war had been over for several years and clearly he had put it firmly in his past. However, after a moment to take in what had been said to him, he nodded.
“We can go inside, I just need to tell my father what is happening.”
Mercier walked back towards the tractor where the two other men stood. Tommy and Brandt followed at a distance, bringing the horses closer. They could overhear Mercier explaining to an older man that he needed to speak to the military gentlemen who had just arrived. The third man, stood behind the tractor, pulled a face and there was a brief moment of discord before he accepted the inevitable.
Mercier walked back to Tommy and Brandt.
“You can tie up your horses over here,” he showed them to the barn, where the horses could be left with some hay out of the sun.
“Buying a tractor?” Brandt asked Mercier as they headed to the farmhouse.
“Maybe,” Mercier looked unconvinced about everything. “Its old, but it would do the job. In the winter we have so much feed to move to the fields for the bullocks and cows. We currently use a hor
se and cart, but the cart gets stuck in the mud and our horse is old. We thought a tractor might be a better investment.”
“But you are not sure?” Brandt guessed.
“Tractors come with their own problems. They need fuel and we can only afford a very old one. What if it goes wrong?”
“Same could be said for the horse,” Brandt pointed out.
“True,” Mercier smiled and shrugged. “Maybe I am clinging too much to the past and how we have always done things. My father is very keen we move with the times.”
He showed them indoors and straight to a formal parlour. It was prettily decorated in shades of pale green and white. There were a lot of wooden items dotted about and a sheepskin rug on the floor. In one corner was a circular wood-burning stove, the sort Tommy had noticed in a lot of Belgium homes. It was unlit as the parlour was warmed by the summer sun.
“I never thought I would be consulted on a military matter,” Captain Mercier said, taking a box from a shelf and offering his guests thin cigarettes wrapped in black paper. Tommy declined. Colonel Brandt gladly accepted. “I was only in the army for the duration of the war. I am a civilian now. It was very odd hearing my rank said once again.”
Mercier produced a lighter in the form of a wooden bear. When the bear’s head was flipped back it revealed the flame. He lit Colonel Brandt’s cigarette and then his own.
“Why would the British military be interested in me? You are British?”
“We are,” Tommy confirmed. “The accents give us away, don’t they?”
“Just a little,” Mercier grinned. “Why are you here?”
Tommy looked to Colonel Brandt to give the answer. It seemed better that he speak; he was technically superior to Tommy, even though they had never served together and were now both civilians. He was also their connection with Colonel Matthews.
“We are investigating an incident that took place during the war,” Brandt said. “I believe you became involved.”
“What incident?” Mercier was looking worried now. “There were quite a few dramatic situations around here, as there were across Belgium. There was the sabotage of the dykes, for instance, which flooded miles of farmland and homes. We believed that was a deliberate German ploy, though some thought it was sheer bad luck that they shelled the dykes, causing the sides to cave in and the water to overflow.”
“This is not about the dykes,” Brandt told him. “My colleague, Colonel Matthews, came to this town looking for a traitor who he thought was selling information on allied military movements to the Germans.”
Mercier’s eyes darkened and he became sombre.
“I remember that,” he said, his tone hard and slightly bitter. “We failed to find the culprit. That makes me angry.”
“Matthews gave me a very brief outline of the situation,” Brandt continued. “I know you were more heavily involved, could you tell me a little more about what was going on back then, from your perspective?”
Mercier sighed.
“I was summoned by your Colonel Matthews and informed of his suspicion that someone was selling information to the Germans. The town was one of the areas popular with British, French and Belgium soldiers when they were not at the Front. There was Albion Hope, the religious house, have you heard of it?”
“Yes,” Brandt nodded. “It was thought the traitor was linked to that house?”
“Indeed,” Mercier grimaced. “Nothing major had been leaked, not as yet. But the Germans seemed to have been more alert to recent manoeuvres and even things like the transfer of certain officers. There was something more going on than sheer bad luck. Colonel Matthews wanted to test his theory that Albion Hope was harbouring a spy. He ended up setting a trap. The only person who fell into it was a priest by the name of Father Christian Lound. That was quite a surprise.”
“Did you think Lound was a potential traitor?” Tommy asked.
Mercier took a long time to reply. He seemed to find it hard to talk about the whole thing.
“I considered it a possibility. You can never rule anyone out. Before Matthews set his trap, I was sent into town to see if I could pick up on anything. I was confident that Albion Hope was where the information was leaking from. The men who visited the house perceived it as a place they could talk freely, a little too freely. I suggested to Matthews that the troops be reminded to be more careful about their talk on military matters. He was upset by this as the men with the most vital information were always officers,” Mercier looked apologetic as he explained this. “The officers were talking too freely, not the ordinary soldiers who rarely had anything important to reveal, anyway. I came across a sergeant major and a captain at Albion Hope, who were keenly talking about proposed military plans in the library. There were other men present and civilians.”
Colonel Brandt wriggled his moustache, a sure sign that he was upset.
“It beggars belief, but I am hardly surprised. Met enough officers in my time to know they can be the worst for keeping secrets.”
“Colonel Matthews was appalled. Honestly, I think if there had just been a crackdown on loose talk then the whole treachery business would have evaporated. It was opportunistic rather than anything especially organised. Colonel Matthews seemed to think it would be easier to catch the traitor then it would be to stop officers gossiping,” Mercier started to roll his eyes at this declaration, then caught himself. “The trap was arranged, and it was far from subtle. Though, having seen how the officers had been behaving, it did not seem so odd. Secret papers were put in the pocket of an officer’s tunic and then the tunic was left lying about. I was loitering around as part of the operation. I checked the tunic periodically and, eventually, the papers were missing.
“I informed Colonel Matthews at once. He had stationed himself in a nearby empty house. As soon as I alerted him he flew back to Albion Hope and locked the doors, before instigating a search of everyone there.”
“The papers could have been long gone,” Tommy pointed out. “The traitor should have taken them and run.”
“Yes, but Colonel Matthews was banking on two things. First, that the traitor worked at Albion Hope and it would appear odd if they suddenly left. Second, that they had grown cocky and would not fear pocketing the papers and keeping at the house,” Mercier shrugged. “Both suppositions were logical. It was not likely to be a visiting soldier, because they came and went regularly and the treachery could be traced back over several months. It had to be someone who would not look out of place inside the house, and who would not attract attention, therefore it would be someone who worked there, or at least who spent a lot of time there.
“Equally, I could offer a time frame of an hour between the last time I checked on the papers and when they went missing. If we could not find the papers, we should be able to narrow down a list of potential suspects by working out who was at the house during that period. If one of the staff or casual workers at the house had departed within that hour, they would come under instant suspicion.”
“The search, however, revealed the papers,” Colonel Brandt added gloomily.
“It did,” Mercier was frowning, even now it was plain he found it hard to believe what they had discovered. “Colonel Matthews had all the doors locked and the staff brought inside to be searched. The priests protested, they thought it was an invasion of their privacy and disrespectful to the character of Albion Hope as a sanctuary for soldiers. Matthews was not interested.”
“Hardly surprising, considering the circumstances,” Tommy said.
“Colonel Matthews had everyone searched and then went through the rooms one-by-one. I remember Father Stevens being especially upset and demanding to know what right the colonel had to do this,” Mercier’s look implied that had been a thankless exercise. “Eventually they searched the office where Father Lound worked and the papers were on his desk. That stunned everyone. Even Father Stevens fell silent. Matthews had not revealed a lot about what he was doing, certainly not to the house staff, but the priests we
re stubborn and insisted on being told what his search was all about. They were indignant when he explained. Father Stevens seemed heartbroken when the papers were on Father Lound’s desk.
“Even Colonel Matthews was shocked. He asked Father Lound how they had arrived on his desk and the priest just said that he couldn’t say. Not ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I didn’t put them there’, he just said ‘I couldn’t say how they got on my desk’ and that seemed all the more suspect. Colonel Matthews was so surprised that he failed to arrest the priest at once. I think he needed to get away and consider what had just happened. So we all left. Later we learned that Father Lound had vanished. That confirmed in all our minds that he was the traitor.”
“You believe Father Lound was stealing intelligence to give to the Germans?” Tommy pressed him. It did all seem very obvious. The papers on Lound’s desk, his refusal to explain them, then his sudden disappearance. If Tommy had not read in the police files about Lound’s behaviour during the course of the afternoon – how he had seemed in no hurry to depart – he probably would have thought he was the traitor too. There was still that possibility. No one had offered any evidence to prove otherwise, except for hunches and instincts and firm denials that Father Lound would do any such thing.
“I saw the evidence for myself,” Captain Mercier replied. “There was no room for doubt. If Father Lound had protested I might have said otherwise, even if he had stayed to face judgement, but he did neither of those things.”
Mercier paused and he was lost in thought for a while.
“War is a funny time,” he said at last. “Everyone is so stressed and things that you would take time to think about long and hard normally, you rush at recklessly. We all make bad decisions in the heat of the moment. Maybe that was how it was with Father Lound?”
“What if he was protecting someone?” Tommy suggested.
“Why would he protect such a person?” Mercier looked genuinely amazed. “A traitor is a traitor, putting the lives of the soldiers and the people they protect in danger. I cannot see how protecting such a person makes what Father Lound did any better. In fact, I look down upon him just as much for doing such a thing. He was not helping anyone that way.”
