The Lavender Keeper

by Fiona McIntosh

  Luc twisted into a doorway, leaping into the shadows beneath a flight of stairs, and ripped off the cassock. It was too obvious – what had he been thinking? It was prayer time and no monk from Senanque would be in the square at Vespers. He emerged, allowed himself to be hurried along and made sure he was at the back of the crowd, bending his knees and almost crouching against the castle wall to detract from his height. He could see Lisette, immersed in a group of women.

  Luc’s attention was caught by the first prisoner being led out. He’d seen it before – the victims needed no shackles. They walked bravely to their place of death, usually defiant, never anything but proudly French.

  Luc’s eyes widened. It was not Laurent, but Fougasse! The man wore a placard around his neck proclaiming him a traitor, a criminal, a murderer. His hands were bleeding and Luc saw that several of his fingers were missing. But the baker of Saignon wore a brave smirk with such triumph that Luc felt his heart pound with pride. And impossibly, Fougasse glimpsed him in the crowd. Their eyes connected for a second, then Fougasse seemed to stumble; Luc was sure it was deliberate.

  Proceedings were to be supervised by the Germans, not the milice; Luc recognised the hated grey uniform of the Gestapo as two of its officers strolled out into the fading light of the afternoon. But Luc despised the milice more; Frenchmen, for whatever reason – work, pay, rations, vengeance – had donned the blue coat, brown shirt and dark-blue beret that proclaimed them one of Petain’s special force. They acted above the law, with a creed to crush all forms of resistance.

  Luc’s moment of anger passed swiftly, replaced by despair as his dear old friend, Laurent, suddenly appeared from behind three milice. He had been beaten so badly that both eyes were closed and his face was bruised and bleeding. His shirt was stained with blood; Luc could barely breathe for the impotent rage he felt. His mind desperately sought a reason to create a disturbance. But they were Maquis. If any of them were caught, their pact forbade others from risking their lives to rescue them.

  And yet, faced with reality, the temptation was overwhelming. Luc didn’t bother to read the sign hanging from Laurent’s neck. He saw Fougasse whisper something to his younger compatriot that earned the older man a pistol butt smashed viciously into his face. A collective gasp from the crowd followed. Fougasse dropped but made no sound; his wrists were tied behind him so he couldn’t reach for his face as blood poured down it. Luc’s fists balled with fresh fury as he squinted at the pistol bearer, not quite believing it. Yes, it was Pierre Landry, dishing out the violence – no longer in the uniform of a gendarme but now a strutting Vichy milicien.

  Seeing Landry again brought back all the old emotion, surging from the place where Luc had kept it locked. The blood pounded in his head as rage filled him. He knew it – he was going to do something very unwise.

  Be still! the voice of reason urged. It was like Fougasse and Roger yelling at him at once. If Luc survived, escaped and carried on, he could make his friends’ deaths count for something. He blinked and his gaze shot over to Lisette; she looked pale. Looking at her now was a timely reminder of the task that Roger had expressly charged him with.

  ‘Little things,’ that’s what Roger often told him. ‘It’s the little things we all do, every day, that can change the course of this war.’ Lisette could be one of those little things, the rational half of his mind argued. He would do nothing, which is just how Fougasse would want it.

  While the four-man firing squad was lining up, Luc’s notice was caught by a head of reddish hair glowing in the dying afternoon. A familiar woman was standing not far from where the SS officers loitered, laughing quietly, talking to some of the milice who’d gathered.

  It couldn’t be. He held his breath. Catherine? He hadn’t seen her since that terrible day when his family had been ripped away from Saignon. He hadn’t asked after her, and Laurent had never mentioned her again. Luc stared coldly as the realisation began to sink in: this woman was not only a collaborator, but had likely tipped off Landry to Laurent and Fougasse.

  And if she was handing over Laurent, then she surely was keeping her eyes peeled for Luc. Luc ducked as she turned in his direction, her red-painted lips still smiling, looking like a gash of blood.

  He slid down the wall, pressing the heel of his palm to his eyes. Think! He could hear the accusations levelled at his friends as they resisted under torture. He could smell his own sorrow – not for himself, but for Laurent. Laurent, who still talked about the good days and who believed they’d come again, when both of them would have their lavender fields and honey back.

  Luc heard the milice cock their rifles. They took aim. Just a second or two now. He couldn’t bear to watch; let his memory of Laurent be of the ever-optimistic, smiling young man by his side for as long as he could remember.

  ‘You can kill me, but you can’t kill us all!’ he heard Laurent yell.

  Landry gave the order to fire with a bored air of detachment.

  A burst of gunfire sounded. A woman shrieked nearby, stifling herself with her hand; men ground their jaws, threw down cigarettes and stubbed them out in disgust. As he heard the thump of bodies crumpling to the ground, Luc straightened, forced himself to be sure.

  Landry was standing over Laurent, who groaned. Luc refused to close his eyes as the brute collaborator delivered the coup de grâce with a bullet into the back of Laurent’s head. His friend’s body jerked once and lay as still as Fougasse’s. Landry gave loud orders for the corpses to be strung up in the town.

  People began to disperse, but Luc couldn’t move. He wanted to run and tear Landry’s black heart out. Instead he watched the milice drag away his friends by their feet. Their brutal deaths demanded that Luc avenge them in the only way any resister would. He simply had to hurt the Germans and those who supported them.

  He looked over to find Lisette and saw that she was drifting away with the crowd. When he caught up with her, she glanced at him, her eyes still wet with tears. ‘We have to get out of here,’ she warned.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said and grabbed her arm, pulling her back to the wall.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go down this cobbled alley to the café. You’ve got a book?’

  She nodded dumbly.

  ‘Order a coffee. Wait for me.’

  ‘People will—’

  ‘They won’t! I won’t be long.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What I must. Wait for me. One hour.’

  She ripped her elbow from his grip and stomped away down the alley. Luc melted into the people moving like a river away from the square … and went in search of his prey.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Catherine was easy to follow. She suspected nothing, cocooned in safety by her alliance with Landry and his cronies.

  Luc knew Gordes. He was sure she didn’t. Before last year Catherine had barely travelled beyond the boundaries of Apt, but her life had clearly changed drastically.

  He was certain now that Catherine had fingered Laurent and Fougasse. No doubt she had told them about him too. He racked his mind. Would she have a photo? No, or it would have been published by now. After Luc’s family had been taken away, Fougasse had stolen back into the Bonet family home to collect every photo he could find of Luc. Burn them, he’d advised. They can incriminate you. Luc had refused. They were all he had left of his family. Instead he’d buried them in the mountains.

  Luc blinked as he watched Catherine walking so carefree and confidently in her nice new coat – where did she get the money for it? He hated her with such intensity it shocked him; he had never contemplated killing a woman. But Catherine was no different to any other collaborator. In fact, she was worse, for she had no reason to support the Germans – no children to protect, no STO, and she lived in a quiet village off the German radar. If she had kept her red head down, she could have very likely got through the war without suffering. And yet here she was, working with the enemy, promoting the death of loyal French people; people she knew and h
ad shared laughter and conversation with.

  She deserved no mercy. This was war. She’d chosen her side. Once upon a time she had plaited his little sister’s hair – and yet she had watched that same child being thrown into a truck, screaming for mercy without saying a word. Catherine must have known Laurent had always loved her; callously handing him over to Landry made her treachery seem even more evil. This woman had no heart … and a soul that feared no god.

  From a safe distance Luc watched her enter a bar and settle at a large table, her curls bouncing. She gave the waiter her order, then moved deeper into the bar, towards what was surely the bathroom at the back. She climbed a small flight of stairs. This was it. His chance. He checked the time. Lisette had been waiting nearly fifteen minutes.

  Before Luc could make a move, Landry arrived to divert his focus. Luc sucked in a breath and moved into the shadows of a doorway. The waiter welcomed Landry and pointed him to Catherine’s table. Luc watched her emerge from the bathroom, and then place three kisses on his fat cheek. She slid into the seat next to him and giggled when he touched her.

  Luc looked down, feeling sick. Catherine wasn’t just a collaborator; she was Landry’s woman. And it seemed the milicien was in a hurry – he knocked back his Pernod in two gulps. Her drink was largely untouched when Landry stood. She smiled and followed him. So did Luc, all the way to a guesthouse on the rim of town. It was quiet here, overlooking the valley. The couple walked in, oblivious to his presence, and he waited, checking his watch; twenty-seven minutes gone.

  Should he do this? Was it wise? Roger would say no on both counts. His common sense echoed the same. But his heart – that most unreliable of judges – contradicted wisdom. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t try.

  Luc sidled around the property, arriving at the backyard. He had no plan. There was an oldish woman bringing in linens from the line. It was late for her to be out, but he should have been more cautious. Now he’d been seen.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘We have no spare food.’

  ‘Pardon, madame,’ he said, and pulled his jacket collar up to shield his face as though against the cold. He turned to leave as fast as he could.

  ‘Come back later,’ she offered. ‘After we’ve fed the guests; there may be some bread left, perhaps some soup.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Many staying?’

  She regarded him with hard eyes, then shook her head as she folded a pillow slip. ‘Just the milicien pig and his whore,’ she said and spat at her feet.

  His luck was holding. ‘Which room, madame?’ he asked softly, moving back into the shadows.

  Now she fixed him with a baleful stare, regarding him for so long that his pounding heart nearly made him take flight and run. ‘Four,’ she finally replied, even more softly than he. ‘First floor. Wait until they finish. He’s drunk, no more than five minutes.’ She looked up to the laundry roof, and then further up to a window from where the faintest light bled. Then she turned away as though he wasn’t there.

  He waited ten minutes before stealing quietly from the laundry roof through the open window and onto the narrow landing within. He waited, listened. Nothing. He tiptoed down the hall and stood outside room four. He thought he could hear a tap; had imagined he’d encounter laughter, perhaps the springs of a bed.

  Against all his better judgement he touched the flick knife in his pocket, hard, unyielding … and sharp. This was madness. Then he fingered the pouch of lavender strung around his neck and he remembered his grandmother; how Landry had viciously assaulted her. The screams of his little sister pierced the tense silence of his mind. He thought of Catherine’s red smile, Laurent’s head exploding from Landry’s bullet … the two smears of blood on the ground where his friends had lain after their execution.

  And he turned the knob on the door. He fully expected it to be locked. Perhaps he even hoped it would be, but the door opened silently. Inside it was dark and he could hear snoring: Landry’s. From behind another door he could hear a tap running; Catherine was drawing a bath.

  He crouched by the side of the bed and studied the face of the man he hated more than any. He could smell his fetid breath – a mixture of garlic and fish with aniseed from the Pernod. Luc grimaced, wondering what Catherine could see in this repulsive man. This is for you, Saba, he said to himself. For you, Fougasse … and for you, Laurent.

  Landry’s eyes flew open with pain but Luc already had a hand clamped over the meaty flesh of his mouth. Landry fought briefly but Luc was too strong.

  ‘Listen to me, Landry,’ Luc whispered, as the milicien’s eyes grew wider with panic. ‘It’s no use struggling. I’ve already punctured your heart … you have only seconds. The Bonets and the Martins and Fougasse of Saignon wish you adieu … all the way to hell.’ With a savage satisfaction Luc watched the light die in Landry’s eyes.

  It was not the first time he had seen death close at hand. Of course he had seen a number of Nazi soldiers killed as a result of the Maquis bombs. Lighting a fuse or watching one of his fellow rebels pressing a detonator somehow removed him from the responsibility of slaughter. But once he’d been required to kill at close range – an older German soldier, fatally wounded but determined to take a French resister with him. He had felt sick after shooting the soldier, and Fougasse had sensed his disquiet. ‘You’re blooded now; the next will be easier.’

  And it had been. Killing Landry hadn’t just been easy, it had been satisfying. What had Luc become? A man who relished the death of another. Could he blame the war? This was about survival. Even here in Provence, removed from the blood and terror of battle, every day was still about surviving the next twenty-four hours without losing someone you knew, or loved … or losing your own life. It made you angry, defensive, territorial, suspicious, secretive … and above all, vengeful. Even the most generous soul could learn how to hate during wartime. Even the most peace-loving could kill if it meant making a choice between their own or the enemy.

  And Catherine had chosen the side of the enemy.

  With the smell of blood fresh in his nostrils, moving as though in a trance, Luc opened the bathroom door. There was a small lamp on. Catherine lay in the bath, her hair pulled up into a towel to keep it dry. She’d laid a damp flannel across her eyes. Steam rose from the water, scented with lavender. It was the lavender that caught him off guard. It made him remember how they’d lain together in the fields. He looked at her creamy skin and recalled those freckles on her shoulders. He’d kissed them often enough.

  And with that thought erupted a squirm of panic. He couldn’t do it. As much as he loathed the air Catherine breathed, he knew he could not kill her. No. He would let God punish her as he saw fit. Luc knew he had to get away fast – now. He was done for if she took off that flannel and saw him.

  But she didn’t. Instead Catherine smiled lazily. ‘You were done so very quickly I didn’t think you’d want more, especially with your Gestapo friends expecting you downstairs.’

  Gestapo!

  Luc took a deep breath. With his instincts screaming at him, he stepped back into the bedroom and closed the bathroom door softly. He didn’t even look back at Landry’s corpse but dimly registered the traitor’s blood splattered darkly on his shirt. Landry’s shirt lay discarded nearby, and Luc grabbed it and quickly undressed. The blood on his own shirt would make him a target. Suddenly he heard the bathroom door open. Catherine had come to see why her lover had not replied. For a second or so, naked in the bathroom doorway, she stared in disbelief at Luc.

  The spell of silence was broken when her gaze shot to the bed, and in the couple of heartbeats it took for realisation to sink in, Luc was upon her. In two rapid strides he was across the room, and as she took a breath to scream, his hand whipped through the air brutally to backhand her. It was the first time he’d ever hit a woman; he hoped it was the last. The scream died in her throat.

  And then it all seemed to happen so fast. In shock and in sudden pain, Catherine staggered backward
s. Her arms flailed as she slipped on the wet floor and fell awkwardly, banging her head with an almighty crack on the edge of the iron tub.

  She lay still, eyes closed, legs splayed, her fiery hair spread out around her like a halo. Luc was frozen in the doorway, listening for any sound that indicated they’d been heard. He took a breath and calmed himself, running a hand through his hair and buttoning up the shirt. Outside a car pulled up and he tiptoed over to the window. Gestapo. Catherine hadn’t moved; he wanted to see if she was breathing but didn’t dare waste another second. Instead he made sure he had his knife and the key to the room.

  He emerged from the room silently and locked the door before climbing back through the window at the end of the hall. He crept across the roof and was already running surefooted down the hillside before the first knock at the room. It would be several more minutes before a spare key was found and the alarm raised, by which time Luc had already made his circuitous route back into the town.

  Luc was sure he would return to Lisette within the hour, taking only a couple of minutes to hide the key in a crevice, which he covered with rocks. His only nagging worry was whether Catherine would recover sufficiently to name him. He should have killed her. In her unconscious state it would have been easy to let her drown. Luc could see Fougasse in his mind’s eye, shaking his head at leaving such a dangerous loose end.

  Speed would protect Luc. If he could get them into Cavaillon and Lisette onto a train before the authorities began looking beyond Gordes, then he had a fighting chance of dispersing into the Luberon, where they would never find him.

  Lisette had read the same line of her book six or seven times already. All she could hear was the sound of the gun shots as Laurent was killed. Even now, nearly an hour since, she was still trembling. The execution had been so vicious; no amount of training could have prepared her for the horror of the premeditated, deliberate and cold murder she’d witnessed today.