by Manda Scott
Later, he is older, more lined, wearier of the world and all that’s in it, sitting in an office chair. In the third, he is flanked by two other men: one smaller, dark-haired, with an intense stare; the other taller, freckled, fair-haired, with a wide, strong smile and good teeth. According to the caption, they are Lieutenant Toni Gaspari and Major Paul Rey.
‘Rey was a good-looking man,’ says Picaut. ‘They all were.’
McKinney regards her warmly, as if she has complimented his children. ‘I thought you’d like them.’
She says, ‘Who’s Toni Gaspari?’
‘He was Italian, I think. They don’t talk about him much.’
The things people don’t talk about are piling up. Picaut adds his to her list of names to check. McKinney says, ‘The video isn’t finished, but it’ll give you an idea of where we are heading.’
The moving sequences are shot in the low-saturation colours beloved of period dramas where the past is another country, the grass was never fully green, the sky never fully blue, and the people all quirkily mannered. Laurence is played by a blond young man with a long face and a habit of waving a pipe stem to emphasize his points. He is surrounded by startlingly attractive young women in uniform.
McKinney tilts his head at her, questioning. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s good,’ Picaut says, which is true. ‘The actor looks the part.’
McKinney pulls a wry face. ‘The auditions took half a year. We narrowed it down to three for each of the surviving Maquisards and then had them spend a week in the company of the people they were representing. At the end, we let the veterans have the final say on who would play them.’
This has the feeling of a story destined to be told often, and at length. Picaut guides him elsewhere. ‘And the locations? Did you shoot these in England?’
‘For the early sections, yes. Several of the old mansions have been demolished and others are closed to us, but we’ve been able to find enough to improvise and we were given full access to Beaulieu in Hampshire, which is an SOE museum now. The Scottish shoots are all on location in Arisaig. It’s wild up there, but very beautiful.’
Martha taps on the door with news that other police officers are here: Rollo, coming from the conference, catches Picaut’s eye and shakes his head. She wants to know more, but she sees his gaze flicker to Martin Gillard, and so is witness to the infinitesimal moment when each gauges the other and yes, she was right: for all that Rollo may be a gun-crazy psychopath, he is her psychopath and there is nobody she would rather have at her side when the shooting starts. But Martin Gillard is better: he is Foreign Legion and BlueSkies; he has been to the places Rollo dreams of.
Which leaves a question: Why did Elodie Duval need a man of his calibre (and, Picaut has to assume, his cost) to advise on the stunts for her forthcoming action film? He remains at the top of her sparse list of suspects and Picaut doesn’t know why.
Sylvie catches her eye and nods her over to the side. ‘Nothing at Sophie Destivelle’s apartment. It’s clean.’
‘Clean as in no useful leads?’
‘Clean – as in, it looks like a five-star hotel after a team of maids spent an hour on it half a year ago and nobody’s touched it since. There’s a couple of hairs on the back of a sofa that we’ve sent to Eric for matching, but the rest doesn’t look like it’s been inhabited for months.’
‘Her clothes were all from the US. She could have been living over there. Her passport had no stamps in it, so she must have used another identity. Get the CCTV from the airport for the past two months. We might be able to get some facial recognition software from the Americans if we play our cards right. What else?’
‘Pierre Fayette is home now. Someone needs to talk to him.’
Picaut makes some quick calculations, starting with her own need to be out and active. ‘I’ll go. I want to meet him. You stay here. We need names, addresses, locations of all the staff last night and fingerprints from everyone in the building: get the tech team to do that. Plus, we need full ballistics on Martin Gillard’s gun.’
‘The grunt who thinks he owns the room?’
‘The very one. Get Rollo to take it off him; he’ll enjoy it. And be kind to the boss. He may be an arse, but he’s more hurt than he looks.’
The house of Monsieur Pierre Fayette, owner of an aged Citroën BX, is a late twentieth-century brick box painted cream with a red pantiled roof and shutters stained an unfortunate shade of fake-wood orange. The front garden is mostly laid to paving, with some over-tended perennials in a border. A glisten of oil on the drive marks where a car lately stood.
Fayette meets her at the front door. A man readily lost in a crowd of two, he is of medium build, with mousy, unremarkable hair, thinning on top; well-worn, unmemorable features; fussily neat in a polyester suit with a dark-blue tie marked with a small silver Cross of Lorraine in a repeating pattern. He wears reading glasses on a cord around his neck.
‘Captain.’ He offers a small stiff-necked bow. ‘Your fame precedes you.’
She smiles. It pulls at her jaw line. He says, ‘You are recovered now, from the … excitement of the fire? Good. Excellent, in fact. We need more of you in Orléans, not less. How can I help? You have found my car, perhaps?’
And again, this, the breaking of news. Her face aches. ‘Can I come inside?’
‘Ah.’ Wary now, he leads her through to the living room and yes, the inside is as uninspiring as the outside; everything is clean. On the walls are photographs of family members, no art. The furniture is aged, but not antique. Most of it looks as if it was bought when francs were the unit of currency and mobile phones were the size of bricks; nothing has any value beyond the utilitarian and there is no sense of style or taste.
The television is at least flat screen. Pierre Fayette mutes the sound, leaving the rolling news to roll in silence. He folds his arms across his chest. ‘An officer of your stature would not come to report the discovery of a stolen car. You have news you are unwilling to convey on the doorstep. Both my parents are dead, as is my wife, so that leaves—’ His smile freezes. ‘Not Elodie?’
She says, ‘Not Elodie. And yes, we have found your car. Can we sit down, perhaps?’
‘Of course.’ The sofa is covered in dark-green velvet that can only have been chosen by a colour-blind individual who didn’t think to ask for help. The contrasting cushions are laid at precise angles. Pierre Fayette is not only dull; he is also ferociously neat. Everything is in alignment – squared edges or perfect perpendiculars. On a sideboard of cherry veneer rests an elegantly carved music box that is by far the most interesting feature of the room. It stands with its lid up, the hollow filled with dried lavender so ancient it barely scents the room.
Baldly, he says, ‘Who has died, Captain?’
On Picaut’s phone is the life-like image of the victim created by Eric’s software. She lays it flat on the table. ‘A woman was shot in the early hours of this morning. She was using the name Sophie Destivelle. We believe she may have been known to you?’
He blinks, slowly, and turns. Old photographs line the sideboard, most of them black and white: various poses of proud parents with their children. One image stands out: an action shot that has the patina of age. Here, it is high summer. In the background, a mountain shrugs snow from its shoulders. In the foreground, beneath leafy trees, a group of men – and two women – jump a low stone wall, cradling machine guns, firing, it seems, at the camera. They are united in their savagery, in the hate, the anger – and the joy that drives them. The names are strung along the footer in a strong, cursive hand: Céline, Paul, Daniel, René, JJ, Laurence, Sophie.
‘Is this the Maquis de Morez?’
‘That McKinney is calling his “band of brothers”?’ He pulls a wry face. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’
‘Afraid?’
He shrugs. ‘It is not fashionable these days to be proud of one’s parents, particularly not if they fought in the war. We are too aware of the ambiguities of the t
ime.’ He picks up her phone between thumb and forefinger, and holds it next to the image. ‘Third along from the left. Does this look like your victim?’
The woman is small, neat, dark-haired – and ferocious. She holds her weapon as if, alone, she might kill the whole world. It is possible that, seventy-odd years on, she is currently lying on Eric’s pathology trolley.
‘Is this an original?’
‘Shot in September 1944.’
Picaut retrieves her phone from Fayette and takes three pictures, varying the distance and the light. ‘How well did you know her – Sophie?’
‘She was a friend of my parents. She came to my wedding. She sent a card expressing her regrets on the occasion of my wife’s death. She spoke at the funerals of both of my parents. Beyond that—’ He spreads his hands. ‘Mother and Father spoke of her often. They were in awe of her, or afraid: it can be hard to differentiate between those two when one is young. There was a betrayal in the Maquis, and she was involved, that much I know. And they believed she could kill. If you had found one of the others dead today, I might have suggested that you seek her out as the likely culprit. But if she is the victim … It wasn’t me, I can tell you that.’
‘And yet she died in your car.’
‘What?’ He spins, eyes bright. Is he angry? Certainly he is shocked. ‘That is not possible.’
‘She was found in your car in the car park of the Gare des Aubrais at five fifteen this morning. She had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head.’
It’s there, a flicker: he knows this pattern. He looks at her and for the first time she sees the true speed of his mind. Thoughtful, he says, ‘So this was not a passing drug addict.’
They are in a new place; he looks the same, but he feels different, sharper. She says, ‘We have reason to believe Sophie Destivelle was a cover name. Did your parents ever call her anything else?’
‘Not in my hearing.’
That sounds true. Picaut asks, ‘Did she have enemies that you know of?’
‘Of course.’ Pierre Fayette laughs, tightly. ‘She fought in the war. If the stories are right, she killed people, a lot of people, and they will have had brothers, sisters, parents, cousins. The past is not just another country, Captain, it is another universe, a parallel reality that we enter at our peril. Some things are best left undisturbed.’
‘Did you say that much to Elodie? We heard you were … estranged.’
He pinches his lip, pulls at his nose, all of the things a man would do to show he is thinking. ‘My sister changed her name, you will have noticed?’
‘We assumed she married a Monsieur Duval?’
‘As one does. But no. If she has married, I have not been told of it.’
‘Why, then, did she change her name?’
Pierre Fayette’s shrug is far more eloquent than Clinton McKinney’s. ‘All I can tell you is that she did it the day after our mother’s funeral. And that Sophie Destivelle was instrumental in her decision.’
Something in his voice … ‘You didn’t like Madame Destivelle?’
He smiles. It is not a kind smile. ‘She was a hero. I respected her.’
‘And yet you lent her your car.’
‘No, Captain Picaut, I did not.’
‘She took it?’
‘She must have done.’
‘Why?’
‘I truly have no idea, but the real question we should ask ourselves is “How?” Because I did not help her.’ He is brisk now, commanding, almost. ‘Come with me.’
He leads her through to a kitchen whose cleanliness is on a par with the rest of the house. Above the cooker is a key board shaped like a house, with labels beneath the hooks: Front Door, Back Door, Cellar, Loft, Car, Shed.
A set of keys with a Citroën fob dangles from the hook above the Car label.
Fayette says, ‘These ones, as you see, are in place. There is a second set in the garden shed.’ He lifts the shed key from the final hook. ‘If you will follow me?’
The back garden comprises two square metres of perfectly flat lawn framed at the far end by three cherry trees just coming in to bloom, and on the left-hand side by a small wooden shed stained in the same unfortunate orange-tan as the window shutters.
The substantial shed door is closed with a hasp, which is in turn secured with a padlock, which Fayette unlocks. Swinging the door open, he reveals an interior that is as neat as the house: a lawnmower, a ladder, three cans of the orange wood stain, a closed carpentry toolbox – all in perfect perpendicular order. Picaut can smell a trace of gun oil, but cannot see any weapon. There is no panel of key hooks.
‘The keys were in here.’ Fayette lifts a chisel from a row of five in the toolbox and slides it under one of the floorboards, which looks perfectly secure but is, in fact, not fixed down.
Levered up, it reveals a cavity, within which rests a small cash box with a combination padlock. She watches as he spins the wheels. The combination is 6644: 6 June 1944.
‘Was this your father’s lock?’
‘Thank you. Yes.’ He is pleased. These days, not everyone remembers this date. For those who fought in the war, the day the first landing craft touched French soil is engraved on their livers in letters ten centimetres tall.
Opened, the box contains two sets of small keys, as if for other padlocks. There is room for a set of car keys. An old, post-war Colt semi-automatic lies beside them: the source of the oil she smelled. A spare magazine lies beside it, full.
She looks up to find his gaze waiting for hers. ‘I have a licence,’ he says, and Picaut believes him: it would be too easy to catch him out if he were lying.
‘I’m sure you do. Who else knows the keys were here? Elodie?’
‘If Elodie knows, I didn’t tell her.’ He rocks back on his heels, thinking. ‘My father knew, of course, and it is possible he may have told his friends. The Maquis … they were very close, those who had fought side by side, even after the war. They had no secrets even then, and there are so few of them left that they have few now.’
‘How many are left?’
‘Three.’ Of course, there is a pen and paper hanging from a hook on the wall of the shed. He pulls it down and begins to write. ‘Laurence, obviously. You’ll have met him at the studio.’
‘Captain Vaughan-Thomas? I thought he was a Jedburgh, not part of the Maquis?’
‘Yes, but he was one of those who jumped the cemetery wall at Kramme’s wedding. In the eyes of those who survived, that made him Maquis. The other two were there from the beginning, though, so they knew her better. They are all that is left now: three old men, joined by bonds that only death can break. For a while, they were spread around the country, but now in their dotage, they have retired together to Orléans, where their fame is less and they can live quietly within reach of each other without constantly being stopped in the street. I can write their addresses for you.’
His pad has perforated pages, so that the line of the tear is perfectly straight.
And there’s a name she wasn’t expecting to see. Something must show on her face.
‘You know them, Captain?’
God, yes. He waits. She says, ‘Old René Vivier. His granddaughter stood for the Front National in the last mayoral elections.’
‘Before the fire. Of course. I had forgotten. Forgive me.’
‘No reason you should remember.’ She does, though: René Vivier was, in part, responsible for her coming through the fire alive. She has never been to thank him, which now looks like an unforgivable oversight.
But his was not the name that jumped at her first. That was JJ Crotteau, whom she knows rather better and in an entirely different context. Already, the complexities mount.
‘You don’t happen to know where Sophie Destivelle lived?’ she asks.
‘Saint-Cybard, I think, or the mountains just outside, where the Maquis were. I heard she had a cabin there, but I’ve never been.’ Pierre Fayette walks her out. They part at the front gate.
Pic
aut says, ‘If you remember anything else, let me know.’
He gives his small bow. It feels different now. ‘I will rack my brains on your behalf.’
Picaut hits the commuter traffic as she drives back across the river. Slowed to a standstill, she texts the image of the photograph to Eric, along with a message.
– Can you check bone structure to see?? Sophie Destivelle?
– I’ll try. Where will you be?
– Conference. Have to check the temperature.
– OK. Will call u there.
– PS: There are no fingerprints on the card in her jacket. Interesting, no?
– PPS: Don’t forget your appointment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
10.35
ALL IS QUIET as Picaut drives down the tree-lined avenue to the conference venue. The Château d’Alençon is neither large nor outwardly ostentatious, but it is famously discreet. Standing at the heart of a small estate about ten kilometres south and east of the city, its walls are impressively old, and show the scars of battles fought over centuries with battering rams and pikes, with powder and shot, with machine guns, tanks and bombs – all of which gives it an air of impregnability that the Americans liked in their preparatory explorations.
Not that the interior is outdated, far from it: if there is anywhere in the world where the intelligence agents of the major powers might feel at home, it is here. Most of the details of the defences fall outside Picaut’s security clearance, but she has been informed about the high-frequency shielding paint on the interior walls that keeps delegates safe from keystroke loggers and the sundry other tools of enemy hackers, and the ultra-fast broadband and conferencing facilities that enable whatever connectivity they might choose – or not choose; everything can be shut down at will.
All the modernization has left this place creepily quiet. Leaving her car to be driven away by a security guard, Picaut mounts the steps to electric doors that flow open without so much as a hiss of compressed air.
