by Robert Rigby
The Spaniard was a familiar figure in Lavelanet. His name was Inigo, but few people knew that, and if they did, they rarely used it. To most he was simply the Spaniard, or just Spaniard. He was a small man in his mid-thirties, dark-haired, unshaven and dressed in a shirt that looked two sizes too big, and loose-fitting, baggy trousers held up by a rope belt. Inigo looked much older than his years, but his bright, darting eyes and inquisitive look hinted that he was no fool.
Inigo lived alone in a small, dilapidated cottage not far from Odile’s house close by the river. He earned his living by repairing and restoring bicycles. The tiny backyard was stacked with bits of bike: wheels, frames, handlebars, saddles, chains. Inigo was expert in mixing and matching items from unwanted bikes to make a perfectly serviceable machine.
Bits of bike somehow found their way into most rooms in the cottage. Inigo was often at work indoors, so as well as the dominant smell of garlic, there was a background aroma of old leather and grease.
“So, Inigo,” Odile said, as the Spaniard deftly balanced the sliver of sausage on the blade of his razor-sharp knife, “will you help us? I’m sure our friend would be safe with you.”
Inigo offered the sausage to the elderly woman, who smiled and shook her head. “Too strong for me.”
The glinting blade was turned in Josette’s direction, but she also quickly declined.
The small man shrugged and popped the meat into his own mouth, chewing slowly and savouring the taste as he considered Odile’s question. “Well, Madame Mazet,” he said after swallowing, “since I came to Lavelanet you have always been a friend to me. And you’ve always called me by my name.”
“What else would I call you?” Odile said.
“Spaniard,” Inigo said, “or the Spaniard. Do you know, I’m not even Spanish – or not what my people would call Spanish.”
“You’re a Basque,” Odile said.
“Correct!” Inigo was delighted that his visitor remembered that he came from the region in the north of Spain where the inhabitants considered themselves a separate nation. The Spanish government believed differently. “But few bother to find out my name,” Inigo continued, “and if they do, they still can’t be bothered to use it. So I respect you, and I also admire you. Many people in Lavelanet admire you.”
Odile was well liked in the town, but she was immune to flattery and, like her granddaughter, famed for her straight talking. “But you haven’t answered my question,” she said, looking Inigo in the eyes.
“I keep myself to myself these days,” he said, “and I’m not looking for trouble. I’ve had enough of that in the past. And hiding someone from the authorities sounds like trouble to me.”
“I decided to ask you partly because you keep yourself to yourself. And because I believe I can trust you.”
“Thank you, Madame Mazet, that means a great deal to me, but even so, I don’t think I can help.”
“And what if I were to tell you that the person who needs our help says that the men who took away his wife were not gendarmes at all, but German soldiers in disguise?”
Inigo had been toying with the knife, but now his fingers tightened on the grip, his knuckles whitening. “Germans? Nazis?”
“Our friend thinks so, and we believe he’s right. They are certainly not police officers from around these parts; my son has already checked.”
The Spaniard turned to Josette. “I hate Nazis, do you know that?”
“My grandmother told me,” Josette answered quietly, startled by the sudden fury in Inigo’s eyes.
“And did she tell you why?”
Josette shook her head.
“They killed my family in the Spanish Civil War, the fascists of General Franco and his Nazi supporters. We lived in a town called Guernica, have you heard of Guernica?”
“I’m sorry, no, I haven’t.”
“One day, everyone will know of Guernica. My brother and I were away fighting when the German Luftwaffe and the Italians, all Franco’s allies, they came and bombed the town. No warning. They killed hundreds of defenceless civilians. Children, old people, blown to pieces. My parents, and my sister too.”
He stared down at the knife clenched tightly in his hand.
Josette started to say something, but saw her grandmother give a slight shake of her head.
In the silence that followed, Josette’s thoughts turned to Paul. His father had died at the hands of the Nazis, and Josette knew that Paul’s constant fear was that his imprisoned mother had also been put to death.
An image of her brother, Venant, came into Josette’s mind. He had been killed fighting Nazi oppression. As she glanced across at her grandmother, Josette saw Odile wipe away a tear and knew that she too had been thinking of Venant.
Eventually Inigo lifted his eyes. “Then my brother was killed in the fighting. He was just a boy. When Franco’s soldiers closed in, many of us escaped across the Pyrenees into France.”
This time Josette felt she could speak. “And now people are escaping the same way, but going in the opposite direction, from France into Spain.”
“Escaping the Nazis,” Inigo said quietly. He sighed. “You know the camp at Rivel?”
“Yes, of course,” Josette said. She knew the internment camp only too well. It was the grim prison in which Jean-Pierre Dilhat had been incarcerated the previous year before escaping with the help of her father and Paul. But Jean-Pierre’s freedom was fleeting. The following day he sacrificed his own life to save his friends during the failed bid to cross the mountains.
“They built that camp for us,” Inigo said.
“You? But I thought…”
“Yes, now the fascists lock up French Jews there, and anyone else they don’t like. But Rivel and others like it here in the south were built for escaping Spaniards during the Civil War. There was nowhere else to put us, and most of us stayed in the camps until the war was over.”
“But when it ended, didn’t you want to go home?”
“To what?” Inigo said. “My family dead and Franco and his fascists running the country?” He shook his head. “I can never go back. They’d hunt me down and kill me.”
“I didn’t know about this, Gra-mere,” Josette said to her grandmother.
“Well, now you do know,” Inigo said, before Odile had a chance to reply. “And perhaps now you’ll understand why I hate Nazis.” He turned to Odile. “Bring your friend. I’ll hide him, I’ll look after him like he was my brother.”
Odile nodded and got to her feet. “We’ll fetch him later, when there are fewer people on the streets.”
“And you can tell your son, Henri, that he can depend on me too,” Inigo said, leading the way to the front door. “He’s been good to me, given me work when I needed it.”
He paused by the door and turned back to Odile. “It’s been a long time, but I’m ready to fight again.”
SIXTEEN
Antoine and Rosalie Granel looked scared, and Hauptmann Kurt Lau knew, without doubt, that they were far less innocent than they made out.
Lau had a decision to make. It was clear that the elderly French couple realized now that he and his men were not regular gendarmes. But Lau hoped, and believed, that they had not guessed exactly who they were.
Since the annexation of France, many shadowy security organizations had sprung up in the Free Zone. Some were affiliated to the police, others to the Vichy government, and still more were linked directly to their German masters.
The French Deuxième Bureau had been officially dissolved the previous year, but everyone knew that many of its intelligence officers were now plying their trade on behalf of the Germans. There was the Fascist LVF, another organization cloaked in secrecy, and the Kundt Commission – German, but aided by French informers.
Just the mention of these or even more deadly organizations was enough to strike terror into the hearts of most ordinary Frenchmen and women.
Lau decided he would use fear rather than force to intimidate Antoine and Rosalie Granel
. He thought he had learned as much as he could from them. And that was precious little.
Steidle and Werner had searched the house and patch of garden at the back but found nothing, exactly as Lau had expected.
But to push the Granels any more, to interrogate rather than question, would mean taking them back to the yard and that would lead to further complications; the elderly couple would probably have to die. And Lau did not want to kill them, not unless he had to.
“Madame and Monsieur Granel,” he said, his voice heavy with menace, “you have refused to answer my questions truthfully, and you should know—”
“But Monsieur,” Rosalie said, interrupting, “let me assure you—”
“Be quiet!” Lau yelled, and the couple shrank back into their chairs.
Lau waited, allowing the tension to grow. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped in volume, but the menace was still present. “You should know that the penalty for harbouring an enemy of France is death.”
Rosalie opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again as Lau’s eyes seemed to cut into her.
“You will have gathered by now,” he said, “that we are not regular gendarmes. We are, in fact, part of a special French force; you need not know the name. But I will tell you that our primary role is to hunt down and capture enemies of France. Your neighbour, Max Bernard, is one such enemy, and you are hindering his capture.”
Antoine Granel reached across and took one of his wife’s hands in his.
“But you are extremely fortunate,” Lau continued. “We have no time to question you further, so you will be permitted to remain at liberty. For now. But make no mistake, if we return and find Max Bernard with you, or anywhere near you, or if we discover that you have discussed our visit with anyone, you will suffer the most serious consequences. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
His eyes fixed on Antoine.
“Yes.”
The steely glare switched to Rosalie.
“Oh, yes, perfectly. Sir.”
Lau nodded and gestured to his men, and without another word they left the house.
Antoine and Rosalie sat side by side, breathing deeply, allowing the seconds to tick by.
And then Rosalie turned to her husband. “They’re Germans.”
SEVENTEEN
An engine coughed into life and Didier, astride his motorbike, nodded to Paul.
“It’s them,” he said, pushing down on the bike’s kickstarter and feathering the engine as it started first time.
Paul climbed onto the pillion seat as Didier engaged first gear. He let out the clutch and rode slowly to the corner of the street, where he stopped. They were separated from the police Citroën by less than fifty metres, but hidden by a street and a row of houses.
They had been waiting anxiously and impatiently ever since their hurried departure from the Granels’ house when Rosalie and her stern-faced escorts approached.
But there was no time now to check that the Granels were all right, because Didier and Paul were going to follow the police vehicle as it left Bélesta. If Max Bernard was right, it would cross the bridge over the Hers-Vif river and head up towards the forest.
The young men planned to follow at a safe distance. With luck they would discover where Julia Bernard was being held.
Then they would think again about their next move.
They heard the Citroën drive off and Didier pulled away, nosing the bike in the direction of the bridge.
Erich Steidle was driving the police car with Kurt Lau at his side in the passenger seat. Werner was in the back. The other two soldiers had remained at the Bernards’ house, but Lau’s earlier conviction that their target would return that day was quickly fading to no more than a faint hope.
The plan that had seemed so simple was unravelling. Max Bernard had disappeared into thin air, and with only five men at his disposal Lau knew he had scant hope of finding him. He needed help.
“We must bring in that oaf, Forêt,” Lau said to Steidle. “He told us that Bernard never left Bélesta. But he has left, and Forêt had better come up with some ideas as to where he’s gone.”
Dropping a gear, Steidle eased the Citroën around a tight bend in the road that led up through the forest and waited for his commander to continue.
“Change into civilian clothes when we get back to the yard,” Lau said. “The police cover is no good any more. Then go with the twins to pick up Forêt from Lavelanet. Get Forêt to come back in his car; we may need it.”
Steidle’s eyes remained on the road as he spoke. “Are we sure we can trust Forêt, sir?”
“Trust him? From the records I saw, he seems as genuine as collaborators ever are. He was recruited very early by our control working out of Perpignan. Didn’t need convincing, only too willing to offer his services. The Bernard lead was his first useful information.”
“Nothing else, sir, before that?”
“There was something last year about a possible Resistance cell in the area, but it came to nothing when the man he suspected of leading the group was killed. A gendarme officer.”
Steidle nodded and glanced into the rear view mirror. “There’s a motorbike behind us, sir.”
Neither Lau nor Werner turned to look back.
“And?”
“It’s keeping its distance. Just about the same distance it’s been since we left Bélesta.”
Lau thought for a moment. “After we turn the next bend, pull over to the side of the road. We’ll let him go by.”
Didier was riding at a steady speed, keeping his distance, not too close and not too far behind the police vehicle.
The strategy seemed to be working.
But then, when Didier and Paul straightened the bike as they emerged from another tight bend, they saw the Citroën stopped at the roadside less than fifty metres ahead.
“You’ll have to go by,” Paul said into Didier’s ear.
“I know,” Didier replied. “Don’t look at them as we pass.”
But Paul did look as the motorbike passed the police vehicle, telling himself that it would be unnatural for anyone not to.
Three faces stared out at him, and the man in the front passenger seat briefly made eye contact. It wasn’t a friendly look.
“I’ll have to keep going,” Didier said, dropping a gear as the uphill climb got steeper.
He opened the throttle and the engine whined as the bike picked up speed.
EIGHTEEN
“Now what do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“We should have hidden somewhere and waited for the police car to go by again,” Didier said, staring back towards the forest.
“And then what? Follow them so they could stop and wait for us to pass them for a second time? Don’t you think that might have given the game away?”
“But now we’ve lost them completely.”
They had ridden all the way up through the forest road until it emerged onto the Plateau de Sault, finally stopping by a flat expanse of open land with a good view back to the treeline.
When they pulled over to the roadside, Didier told Paul that they would ride on quickly towards Espezel if the Citroën came into view. But it hadn’t, and they had been waiting for at least fifteen minutes.
Paul turned towards the distant mountains. Heavy clouds were moving in quickly, threatening rain. “First time I’ve been up here. Didn’t realize it was so bleak.”
“You should see it in winter.”
“I don’t think I’ll bother,” Paul said, managing a smile as he looked back to the forest. “We haven’t lost them completely. We know they’re somewhere in there.”
“Paul, the road through the forest is over ten kilometres long, and there are dozens of tracks running off it. We could be searching for weeks.”
“Have you got a better idea?”
Didier shook his head. “They might even have gone back to Bélesta. Or somewhere else.”
“No, they’re in the forest.”
&n
bsp; “Probably,” Didier agreed. “And if they’re who we think they are, they’re professionals, not amateurs like us. They’ll be on their guard.”
“They’ve got Max’s wife! We have to help her.”
“But not by blundering in there and getting ourselves shot. We’d better go back to Lavelanet; see what Henri suggests.”
“But…”
Didier was already climbing onto his motorbike. “Come on, Paul, we can’t do it all ourselves.”
He was about to kick the machine into life when they heard the sound of a vehicle coming from Espezel. Looking back, they saw an old blue van approaching, smoke belching from its exhaust.
“Alain Noury,” Didier said. “I know the van.”
“What’s he doing up here?”
“He’s got a house in Espezel, belonged to his parents. He stays there sometimes even though he’s got a place in Lavelanet too.”
Paul laughed. “Do you know absolutely everything about everyone who lives in Lavelanet?”
“It’s a small town,” Didier answered, smiling. “And Alain used to work at the factory.”
“Our factory?”
“Before your time, and not for very long. He can be trouble. Got a big mouth and big ideas. But he’s all talk.”
“And Henri sacked him?”
“No, Alain quit. There was a row over some money that went missing. No one actually accused Alain, but he walked out anyway. That’s the way he was then, and he’s not changed much. I saw Victor Forêt throw him out of his place yesterday.”
The van was slowing.
“What does he do now?” Paul asked.
Didier shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Deals: trades, buys and sells stuff, some of it illegal, probably. I think he hoards a lot of stuff in the house at Espezel. He never seems particularly short of money.”
The van came to a standstill, and Alain Noury stared out from the open window, his face hard and openly hostile. “What are you doing up here?” he said to Didier.
