‘Whatever the hell it is you’re doing,’ he said, ‘I’ll help you.’
‘Thank you. I am grateful for the lift.’
‘I don’t mean the stupid lift.’
‘Léon, I meant what I said before. I am not a child anymore. I don’t need to be hoisted up to the next branch of the tree.’
‘I know.’
She paused. The ghost of a barn owl swooped low in front of the car, startling them both. ‘Do you recall,’ she asked, ‘the day our little band of wildlings built the hut out by the étang?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you recall the snake?’
‘Yes.’
He recalled it all right. An asp viper. A nine-year-old skinny girl made to stand by their campfire with a forty-centimetre venomous viper held by a grip behind its flat triangular head. It was trying to escape and had coiled its sinuous body around her bony wrist, its dark zigzag pattern looking as if someone had run a charcoal stick down its back. Its jowls were open. The girl was muddy and scratched by brambles, her eyes on fire, her hand steady.
Yes, he recalled the snake.
‘Do you know why André made me hold that snake?’
Léon sighed with annoyance. ‘To test you. To forge you through fear. That was what he believed he could do with all of us. Make us stronger.’
‘No, Léon, you’ve got it wrong. That day he was proving my courage. Not to me. To the rest of you, you older boys who thought I was a weed because I was younger and a girl.’
‘Eloïse, not for one second did we ever think you a weed.’
‘That day I earned the respect of all of you.’
‘You always had my respect.’
‘At the time I didn’t understand why he did it, but I do now. What if he is doing it again? Making me hold a snake, even though I don’t understand why.’
Léon stamped on the brake pedal and hauled the car over to the side of the road on the edge of an olive grove. The moon threw shadows of the tree branches at them like pointing fingers. He rolled down his window, deaf to the hum of mosquitoes, and spat his anger out on the black soil.
‘Are you angry with me, Léon?’
‘Yes. André is your brother, but he is not Superman. He is just like the rest of us. He makes mistakes, he gets things wrong, he has regrets, and yes, he lies at times. When he’s cornered.’
Eloïse made a strange little sound and slid her feet to the floor of the car. ‘I know that. I know he’s not infallible, but he works tirelessly for the good of our country. Just as you do. I tried to help but . . . failed.’
She rolled down her window and the faintest of breezes off the wide-open fields blew warm sticky air through the car as if it would carry away her words.
‘You haven’t failed, Eloïse. But how can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s going on? Is it connected with the nuclear weapons on the air base?’
Her head whipped round to face him.
‘And,’ Léon continued, ‘who was the other man in the American car? Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. It’s your choice. Not André’s.’
She pushed down on the door handle and climbed out of the car, but she left the door open, a narrow bridge between them. Léon knew very well the power of silence. He had used it many times in interrogations and though he wanted to go out there after her, he made himself sit and wait.
Five minutes passed.
‘Léon.’
He couldn’t see her. She was leaning back against the car, staring out at the moonlight rippling over furrows in a field, leaving a film of silver over the earth.
‘Léon, why were you in the street in Arles tonight?’
‘I was looking for a man called Gilles Bertin. I believe he was the man in the car with André.’
‘Why were you searching for him?’
‘He’s been drifting around the bars and cafés of Serriac asking questions. He doesn’t realise what kind of community we have here, where everybody knows everybody. A stranger sticks in our craw like a thistle.’
‘What questions?’
‘Questions about you.’
Her head ducked down to peer inside the car. With the moon behind her it was too dark to see her expression, but he could hear her breath as harsh as one of her beloved bulls.
‘Tell me.’
‘Sit down,’ he said quietly.
She sat on the passenger seat, with her feet on the ground outside, her back to him. Through the open door, the chirring of the crickets sounded like a dentist’s drill.
‘Word spreads fast in Serriac, a town so bored it thinks watching toenails grow is entertaining. Its tom-tom drums are second to none and as police chief I make certain I am always tuned into them. Often it means I can stop trouble before it begins. That’s why I warned you to be careful if you ventured into town. Because of your father’s land-sale.’
He felt her shudder.
‘Did anything happen?’ he asked quietly.
She shook her head. He didn’t believe her.
‘When I heard that someone was making enquiries about you, I was concerned.’
Concerned. More like shit-scared she would be on the receiving end of the same treatment as Goliath.
‘So I found out a name – Gilles Bertin – and I checked it against every hotel and rental room in the area, which is how I ended up outside that house after I finished my work-shift. But I didn’t expect to see you turn up.’
‘Léon.’ Just his name. Nothing more.
He reached out and rested the palm of his hand on the curve of her back. The tremor inside her was still there.
‘Thank you, Léon.’ Abruptly she straightened her spine, swung her feet back into the car and pulled the door closed. ‘Let’s drive.’
He started the Citroën, slid into gear and they continued on the road to Serriac.
‘André told me about Gilles Bertin. He said he works for Soviet Intelligence, the MGB.’ She was calm now, factual and precise. ‘I saw him in Paris just after the crash, but I don’t think he recognises me. I was a mess back then.’
He imagined the mess. The blood. The flesh torn off her face.
‘I traced the car’s owner through its plates,’ he told her. ‘It’s registered to an address in Paris.’
‘It seemed at first that he had come to finish the job he started,’ she said. ‘But now I am not so sure.’
‘By job, you mean André?’
‘Yes.’
Cool and unemotional.
‘And now?’
‘Now, after tonight, I think he has come for me.’
‘Merde, Eloïse, why would you think that? According to you, this Bertin man from Paris doesn’t even know you.’
‘That’s true.’ She sat very still as the road unwound ahead of them. ‘You tell me he has been asking about me in Serriac and . . .’ she exhaled slowly, as if it hurt, ‘I received a death-threat note when I was in town.’
‘What?’
‘It was a note tucked under my car wiper.’
‘Why didn’t you bring it to me at once?’
But she offered no explanation, and when he looked across at her he could see even in the darkness that her eyes were closed.
‘What did it say?’ The policeman in him was taking control.
‘That I would be killed if I didn’t go back to Paris.’
‘Do you still have it?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s at home. I’ll bring it to you in Serriac tomorrow.’
She talked as if they were discussing a book he wanted to borrow.
‘André warned me,’ she said, her dark eyes flicking open and flying to his, ‘that this man is dangerous.’
Léon took one hand off the wheel and wrapped it tight around hers. ‘The question is, can we believe what André says?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I lay in bed. I couldn’t unclench my teeth. I couldn’t close my ears. The sound of the crutches marching back and forth across t
he wooden floor of André’s room was relentless.
I couldn’t confront him, not yet. If I burst in there now I might tear his lying tongue out. I turned everything over in my mind all night and I asked myself the same questions again and again. They raged and gnawed at me and curdled in the pit of my stomach.
Why is André spending time with a Soviet MGB agent in secret?
Why did he warn me off Gilles Bertin, saying he was too dangerous to approach?
Why did he say he didn’t know where Bertin was?
If the MGB were still trying to finish off the job of killing my brother, why didn’t Bertin do so? André was in no state to defend himself.
Was he still in danger?
Was I in danger?
Or Papa?
I stood at the window and wanted to rip my skin off. It was too tight. Too hot. The stink of the burned stables still hung in my nostrils after I’d checked on Cosette’s wound. We’d make a good pair, the two of us, with our matching scars. I stared up at the moon, bloated in the grave-black night, and I was frightened for Léon. I was fearful that while investigating the stable fire he would run slap into the brute fist of the MGB.
Thak, thak thak.
The sound of the crutches ate into my mind.
*
Silence.
After two solid hours the noise of the crutches finally ceased. It was three-thirty in the morning, still another three hours till sunrise, but I gave André no respite. I wanted him exhausted. I wanted his defences low, his ability to lie to me at its weakest ebb.
I opened the door to his room.
I was carrying a glass of wine in my hand. The light was on and the two wooden crutches lay discarded on the floor. My brother was sprawled on the bed face-down, arms spread, legs trailing to the floor. He was lying just the way he’d fallen, too weary to move a muscle, and his shirt was clinging to his back with sweat. I wanted to go to him, to rip the sweat-stained shirt from his back and make him comfortable on the bed, but I didn’t allow either of us that luxury.
I placed the wine beside his bed and touched his shoulder. He spun over on to his back, his hand sweeping a gun from under his pillow, its muzzle directed at me.
‘Put it down, please, André.’
‘I’m sorry. I was asleep. I didn’t know it was you.’
I took the gun from his hand and placed it on his bedside table beside the wine. I dropped down into the chair and waited while he arranged himself on the bed, half-sitting, his pale hair as dark as sand when the tide has come in.
‘What is it you want, Eloïse? It’s the middle of the blasted night. Can’t it wait?’
‘No, I’m sorry, it can’t.’
His face looked grey and haunted by pain, but I didn’t let myself look away.
‘I saw you with Gilles Bertin last night,’ I stated.
His eyes widened. My words had punched a hole in the air between us, so big I could put my fist through it, but he was quick to recover.
‘You couldn’t have.’
‘Believe me, I did.’
‘Where?’
‘In Arles. What were you doing with an MGB agent?’
‘Oh, my little sister, I should have known better than to underestimate you.’
He smiled, the warm big-brother smile I remembered from our childhood. I loved that smile but I wasn’t a child now.
‘Make me understand,’ I said quietly.
‘It isn’t easy. Because you have to accept that in the world of Intelligence nothing is as it seems. It is all smoke and mirrors, and layers behind layers, secrets hiding secrets.’
‘Tell me clearly, André. Why were you in the Chevrolet with Gilles Bertin last night? It can’t be hard.’
I heard his sigh. ‘I was in the car with Gilles because when I worked at the Ministry of Defence in Paris before the crash, Gilles was my colleague. He worked on the floor below me. At Hôtel de Brienne under General Charles Léchères. He is down here to conduct military business with Major Dirke at the USAF air base. He came to see me after you left for the dance while Papa was out on his rounds on the farm. He asked me to join their meeting. To discuss the arrival of the next shipment of B-50 planes from Boeing in America.’
He paused, studying my stunned expression. ‘You see, my dear sister,’ his tone was soothing, ‘nothing is as simple or straightforward as it seems.’
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know which of the questions crowding on my tongue to choose.
‘Everything you told me about Gilles Bertin before . . .’ I started.
‘Is true.’
‘He is a spy for the MGB in Russia.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know this, yet he is still employed at the Ministry of Defence?’
‘He is employed at a low-grade level with no access to top-secret information. We use him to feed misinformation back to his Soviet masters.’
‘Throwing in a few snippets of juicy truth to keep them believing it, I presume.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Are there many like him?’
‘Not all have his talent for violence. But yes, you have to realise that every government department in France is infiltrated by Russian agents. Riddled with them. Not only in government, but in industry too. Every factory and every laboratory is subject to industrial espionage on a huge scale as the Russians struggle to compete with our developments in the West.’
I could hear the anger, like a rising tide in his voice.
‘The Cold War is a war conducted on many fronts, Eloïse, unseen and unheard, but it is a war nonetheless. People are dying in it every day. Quietly and discreetly. Buried in cold earth. With no battle honours. So do not for one second think there is no danger because you cannot see bloodied uniforms or hear the boom of artillery guns. It is there. Right under your nose.’
‘Oh, André, why didn’t you tell me all this about Gilles Bertin before? Why keep me in the dark?’
‘My clever little sister, why do you think? You are my sister. I didn’t want you involved. I didn’t want you hurt again. That’s why I kept pushing you back to Paris. Don’t you know that?’
I laughed, not a happy laugh but the best I could find. ‘So does that mean you are not in danger? Not from Bertin. You were with him at the house last night, I saw you, but when did you get in his car?’
André nodded. ‘I saw you too at the air base with Major Dirke.’
‘How?’
‘I was riding in the back of the Chevrolet. I ducked down on the seat in the dark when I saw you standing there with him. I thought you were meant to be dancing,’ he laughed. It was no happier than mine.
‘Is the farm in danger? The killing of Goliath, the burning of the stables, was that the work of the MGB? Will the farmhouse be next?’
‘Gilles Bertin says no. He claims it was the work of angry anti-American, anti-nuclear locals.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘No.’
‘So are you in danger? Tell me the truth, André.’
I kept it low-key. I stopped myself reaching forward and shaking an answer out of him.
‘Anyone in my business is always in danger, Eloïse.’
There it was again. An answer that wasn’t an answer.
‘I thought you’d finished with that business,’ I said.
He reacted as if I’d poked a stick at him. He sat upright and, using his hands, he swung his damaged legs over the side of the bed, feet on the floor. He sat there, shirt still clinging to his muscular frame, and studied me in silence. Just the mention of his business seemed to have brought him back to life, eyes glittering and focused. His hair was drying, bushing out in thick waves around his head. Once more he was a lion on the hunt.
He picked up the glass of red wine and drank half of it in one go. He handed it to me. I drank the other half.
‘You need rest,’ I said soothingly. ‘I shouldn’t have woken you, but I wanted the truth from you.’
‘You want honesty,’ he said,
‘I’ll give you honesty. Gilles Bertin turned up here last night to put a bullet in my brain, but I convinced him I was more valuable to him alive. But he won’t give me long.’
I locked my eyes on his. All I saw was hunger.
‘Eloïse, I have work for you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LÉON ROUSSEL
In the Boulevard des Tanneurs a tractor had clouted a cart hauling hundreds of cabbages and traffic had ground to a halt in Serriac. The upturned cart and the disgorged vegetables, rolling around on the road like human heads, had resulted in chaos that it took Léon a good hour to sort out. Henri, the tractor driver, with a mouth as broad as his belly, refused to remove his brand new Latil tractor.
‘Not until that bastard turnip-head, Jean-Baptiste, admits he’s an arsehole and agrees to pay for the damage to my tractor. Look what his shit-heap has done to my radiator.’
A crowd gathered to watch the dispute. Any free-rolling cabbages were discreetly scooped into shopping bags and under shawls. With a curse Léon set one of his officers on cabbage duty and another to keep onlookers moving, while he banged the drivers’ heads together and organised the removal of the obstructing vehicles.
Overnight the weather had changed. Heavy bruised clouds had swept in on a stiff wind and threatened rain, but at least it meant the sight and sound of the aircraft patrols would be less intrusive. A sudden downpour would empty the streets and ease the oppressive heat. Léon was acutely aware of the ever-growing mountain of paperwork on his desk, crying out for attention.
But that wasn’t the reason he was in such a hurry to get back there.
*
She strolled into Léon’s office mid-morning and placed a small reed-basket of fresh eggs on top of his desk. She glanced round the obsessively neat room, then eyed the forms he was filling out and said, ‘You’re busy.’
‘Lovely-looking eggs, Eloïse. How kind of you.’
‘They are a thank you for last night,’ she said with a smile.
He noticed that a smile emphasised her scar. The skin around it puckered up and he felt the taut shiny line of it when he greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks. He liked the fact she didn’t seem to care. He also liked that she was in a simple cotton frock today, none of her Parisian chic about it, and wore her long dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her face was scrubbed clean of make-up. All he needed now was to see her astride her horse, racing through the marshes, water-spray flying in rainbows around her. Then he’d be happy.
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