Disturbing the Dark

by Wendy Hornsby

  “You will give me a number where you can be reached at all times,” he said.

  “I would,” I answered. “But you have my phone.”

  “Madame Martin,” he said to Grand-mère. “The loan of your telephone, please.” And to me, he said as he handed me her phone, “You will surrender your passport to me, Madame MacGowen, before you go anywhere.”

  9

  Grand-mère was right. The mauve dress traveled well. I was clueless about what the French etiquette was for visiting a lover’s mother for the first time, so I simply did my best to follow my grandmother’s cues. If I had been a very young woman setting out to beard a future mother-in-law in her den, I would have been fraught with nerves as I headed toward this tea party. But as I was neither very young nor engaged to the beloved son, and in context with the events of the rest of the day, this meeting didn’t amount to very much. I chose to interpret Mme Bernard’s invitation as a gracious gesture born out of curiosity about the woman who was spending so much time with her son and heir. Heir of what, I had no clue, except for good brains, good looks, and good manners. And that was legacy enough for me.

  I would have been happier if Jean-Paul were joining us, not ­because I needed hand-holding, as welcome as that would have been just then, but because he was so lovely to have around. He was, however, unable to get away from whatever it was that he was involved with in Lille until Sunday. He was still officially the French consul general to Los Angeles until the first of September. He was using his holiday month to explore possibilities for his next thing, and tying up the ends of his obligations to the appointment.

  My own professional future was just as uncertain as his. When Guido and I finished the film we were working on, we would also finish our contract with the television network that had been our professional home for the last decade. And after that? I had no clue.

  The drive to Villerville would have been a good time for me to ponder things, both current and future, but as I drove along the highway in Freddy’s freshly washed Jaguar, trying to stay out of the way of the usual French speed demons took about all the concentration I could muster. Just the same, the drive was a welcome diversion after the grim events of the morning.

  It was a beautiful summer day. The countryside I drove through, farms and ancient villages, looked like photos from a travel brochure. After about an hour, I left the main highway and its lush green farmland to wend my way through picturesque fishing villages along the Route du Littoral, the coast road that runs along high chalk bluffs overlooking the English Channel, or as it is called in France, La Manche.

  All along the road, there were signs for turn-offs to the D-Day landing beaches. The week before, I had taken Casey for her first visit to the beaches and the American military cemetery at Colville-sur-Mer. She had been very moved by the experience, and remarked that the gauntlet of shops offering authentic battlefield souvenirs we passed through along the access roads to the battle sites was tacky. They were junk shops, with yards in front littered with burned-out jeeps and parts of downed aircraft and promising uniforms, patches, and other bits of war detritus inside. The surprise to both of us had been the number of cars parked in front of those shops.

  So far, I had made good time. As I was so close, I decided that I might spend a few minutes having a look at one of those stores, hoping to get some idea what might be valuable enough for someone to pillage a grave to acquire. Or, possibly, to kill a young woman over.

  I pulled into the rutted dirt parking area in front of a shop offering best price, best selection and went inside. There were only a few shoppers. One corner of the store was filled with racks of old uniforms from various Allied nations; they were generally moth-eaten and low-priced. Glass display cases held insignia, buttons, medals, and other small items. Nothing I saw was German.

  A young man with gold eyebrow studs and tattoos vining up his neck over his bald head, came in through a door behind the glass cases carrying a large piece of olive-drab-colored metal, a scrap off some sort of machinery.

  “Here it is, Harry, the flange I told you about.” His accent was British.

  “Let’s have a shufti, then.” A man who had been squatting to look at the bottom shelves of a display of camouflage nets stood with much creaking of joints and walked over to the counter. He wore typical summer tourist togs, a Hawaiian-print shirt, shorts and flip-flops, a camouflage of another sort. But I recognized him. On Thursday, he had been among the crowd hoping to see something more than blue police tape when word got out that Freddy’s excavator dug up a skull.

  Harry, who also had a British accent, examined the piece of scrap and said, “Aye, B-17 all right. I’ll take this, then. I have a bloke always looking for B-17 parts. Vincent, you hiding any more bits back there, letting them go a few at a time, trying to get a good price from me?”

  Before the clerk, or maybe owner of the establishment, could defend himself, a tiny woman with sunflower yellow hair came out from behind the uniform racks.

  “Don’t pay Harry any mind, Vincent,” she said. “Someone once told him he was funny and he’s believed it ever since.”

  I must have chuckled loudly enough for her to hear me, because she turned toward me. She stared for a moment, and then came toward me.

  “Look, Harry,” she said, eyeing me from top to bottom. “She’s that American film star was pointed out to us at that farm yesterday. You remember.”

  “I am American,” I said. “But I’m not a film star.”

  “So you say, but that’s what everyone was gossiping about, pointing you out where you stood with that old lady.” She wagged a finger at me. “Mind, I don’t recognize you, but that’s what everyone was saying.”

  Enough of that, I decided, and turned to Harry. “I recognize you. You were trampling my grandmother’s carrots.”

  He guffawed. “Big farm like that, what’s a few carrots more or less? No need to call the coppers.”

  “It wasn’t that you trampled the carrots,” I said. “It’s that you weren’t wearing EU-approved footwear when you did it.”

  He roared with laughter and she wagged that finger at me again.

  “Now that’s clever,” she said. “Takes talent to come up with wit that quick, doesn’t it Harry?”

  “Why were you out there yesterday?” I asked Harry. “Did you hope to find something?”

  “Me and Ruthie were over here junking in the shops, looking for this and that, when we got a Google alert, snaps of the skull and all that. You never know what the farmers in Normandy might turn up, so we went over to that village to have a look.”

  “Are you a dealer?” I asked.

  With a shrug, he said, “I keep my eye out for a few collectors, sure. But I wouldn’t say I’m a dealer. Not like Vincent here.”

  “I understand that it’s illegal to sell or display Nazi artifacts anywhere in Continental Europe.” I was looking at Vincent. “But is there a market for it?”

  “Not much of one in Europe,” he said. “But there are collectors, sure. Most of the blokes looking for Jerry artifacts are abroad.”

  “Skinheads?” I asked. “White supremacists or neo-Nazis?”

  “Not that lot,” Harry said. “They want new shit, you know? All custom made, spit and polish, that’s what they want. No, the collectors are historians. Hobby historians, I call them. They want the authen­tic stuff, put it up on your shelf in the lounge for the neighbors to see and for the missus to dust.”

  “How do they get it if it’s illegal to buy or sell?”

  The two men exchanged a glance, but it was Ruthie who spoke. “In England it’s legal to sell Nazi artifacts online. Not on this side of the Channel, mind you, and not in shops. But online is all right.”

  Out of curiosity, I asked, “What are buyers looking for?”

  “Bits and bobs,” Harry said again, apparently as specific an ­answer as he wanted to give.

  “Curios, oddities,” Vincent added. “Now weapons, that’s a different matter. You f
ind something in good condition and you’ll get a nice payday out of it. Feller we know recently sold a Mauser, pristine condition, for what, Harry? Thirty-five, forty thousand quid I think Artie got for that, didn’t he, Harry?”

  Harry held up his hands, didn’t know or wouldn’t say. He turned his attention to a shoebox full of old photos on the counter.

  “You know good and well what Artie got for it, Harry.” Ruthie nudged his shoulder. “The sale was all over the Net, so it’s no secret.”

  “Interesting,” I said, because it was.

  “Tell the truth now.” I had Harry’s attention again. He took a step closer to me, all smiles gone. “You found something in the ground out there, didn’t you? Something more than just an old skull. You’ve come here wanting to know how you can unload it and how much you can get for it, haven’t you?”

  “No.” I saw menace in his eyes but did not let my gaze falter from his florid face when what I truly wanted to do was get the hell out of there. Clearly, this whim of mine to check out a junk shop was not the best idea I’d had in a day already marked with not-so-great ideas. “All that has been found at my grandmother’s farm is a pit full of bones. Last night that pit was looted and a young girl was murdered. For the safety of my family, I want some idea who that might have been.”

  “Murdered?” Ruthie gripped Harry’s arm, but he seemed not to notice. “Did you hear that?”

  “Film business not so good, is it?” Harry said with a smirk, ­entirely disregarding what I had said. “Need to make a little quick cash, do you? You tell me what you have and we’ll talk numbers.”

  “Shut up, Harry,” Ruthie said. “No call for that.”

  It was time for me to go. I went over to the counter, wrote my mobile number on the back of one of Vincent’s cards, and handed it to him. “I would appreciate a call if you hear anything.”

  “Right you are.” He slipped the card into his cash drawer.

  Ruthie was still telling off Harry when I walked out. I had not only learned the going price for a pristine Mauser, but also something about the sleazy market for Nazi relics. The scary part of that was, some of them knew exactly where to find me and the people I hold dear.

  I needed to make up some time. Along the coast road, as I navigated my way through the traffic roundabouts the French put in at intersections instead of stop signs or signal lights, I took some pride in not slowing as I approached and not being run over by cars coming at me from all directions at haute vitesse, meaning crazy speed.

  The country roads don’t cross at tidy right angles, so turnoffs can come close together. The signage with multiple arrows can be confusing for the uninitiated, like me, to sort out at top speed. A turn or a straightaway can be missed in the blink of an eye. By about the fifth roundabout I was certain that I was lost. The GPS on the console spoke in such rapid French that I had no idea what it was telling me. Just as I hit a wall of beach traffic near Deauville and started looking for a place to pull over to ask for help, I saw the sign for Villerville and aimed the Jag in the direction I hoped the arrow was pointing.

  Jean-Paul had given me very detailed instructions for finding his mother’s beach cottage after I turned off the Route du Littoral because there were no street numbers to follow. Before I reached the village of Villerville, I was to look for a greengrocer, Lemarchand Ludovic, and turn left immediately after, heading toward the water. The street name was Chemin de Devaleux, but he didn’t remember there ever being a sign to tell me that. Another left turn, he said, and then watch for a pyramid-shaped red-tile roof peeking above the road on the water side.

  The red-tiled pyramid, I discovered, was the cap on a tall square tower at one end of a massive half-timbered confection. Though the house stood high above a beautiful white, sandy beach, this was not my idea of a beach cottage. More like a small hotel or a mini-castle. The driveway down to the house had been cut out of the sheer face of a cliff, a long, steep descent that ended in a loop with a rose garden at its center and a sheer drop-off into the water if I missed the turn.

  As I parked next to the house and got out of the car, a woman emerged from among the roses carrying a basket of freshly cut ­flowers. Wearing wide palazzo pants and a loose, sleeveless silk blouse, she seemed to float as if borne on the wind as she walked toward me. Somehow, the white hair framing her unlined face made her appear younger than I knew she had to be as the mother of a fifty-year-old man. Jean-Paul had gray at his temples and on the points of his chin in the morning before he shaved. Someday, would his hair be as white as his mother’s? Would I still be around to find out?

  Mme Bernard set her basket of roses on the front steps and pulled off her gardening gloves. “You are Jean-Paul’s Maggie,” she said, offering me her hand as she presented her cheeks for la bise. “Welcome.”

  “At last we meet,” I said, handing her the basket Grand-mère and Marie had packed for me to bring.

  She lifted the starched napkin on top for a look. “How perfect, my dear. Élodie’s preserves. And her cheese. Please thank your grandmother.” By then she had hooked her hand around my arm and steered me up the front steps into a long, cool entry hall. “I’ll write her a note. Do come through. I thought we might relax on the veranda. The view from there is so lovely.”

  Inside, despite its size and apparent grandeur, the house was indeed pure beach cottage. I saw comfortable furniture, raffia mats on scuffed oak floors, shelves crammed with books and old board games; a place for family to relax. A set of tall French doors on the far side of the main salon opened onto a broad lawn with a swimming pool overlooking the sea in its middle.

  It was a warm day, and the pool looked very inviting. I love to swim. Gliding through water is as close to flying as I can get without sprouting wings. But this was not the time. My hostess showed me to a table under a bright red canopy with a magnificent view of a wide sandy beach, reachable from the lawn by a long switchback staircase. We were hardly settled before a young woman I guessed to be the maid came out with tea and a plate of exquisite little pastries, a bowl of fresh berries, little rounds of toasted baguette, a crumbly, smelly cheese and fig jam. Mme Bernard gave the woman some rapid instructions that I thought had to do with the flowers she had left on the front steps when we came in.

  We sipped tea and worked our way through the conversational preliminaries, a gentle version of the third degree. My husband, Mike Flint, had died about a year and a half earlier. Jean-Paul’s wife, Marian, had been gone for over three years. I knew that the sudden loss of his wife from an aneurysm had left Jean-Paul and his teenage son, Dominic, reeling.

  “They were children together,” Mme Bernard said, watching my face for a reaction. “My son was so much unprepared to lose ­Marian. I wonder if women aren’t able to manage loss more easily than men.”

  “I couldn’t say,” I said. “But I do know this: Mike and I, and Jean-Paul and Marian were very happy. If either Mike or Marian were still alive, Jean-Paul and I could be nothing more than friends. But I also believe that if they had not died and the four of us had met, we would all be great friends.”

  She laughed softly as she poured more tea into my cup. “Jean-Paul said very much the same thing. I am delighted he has found such a friend as you. And do forgive me if I am meddling, but mothers do, you know. Our efforts may be misguided from time to time, but it is second nature for us, yes?”

  “I’m certainly guilty of it,” I said. “Or so my daughter tells me.”

  “Yes, but sometimes when we meddle on behalf of our children, we do the correct thing. Not always, but sometimes.” Her gaze shifted to a ferry in the distance, possibly crossing the Channel from England headed toward Le Havre to the east of us. After a pause, she said, “I saw a familiar name in the news last night that reminds me I was a meddling mother. Someone I believe you’ve met.”

  “Oh?” I waited for a shoe to drop.

  “Pierre Dauvin.” She sat forward in her chair and rested her chin on tented fingers. “He is, I believe, curr
ently the capitaine in charge of the gendarmerie in your grandmother’s district. Is he a Martin relation?”

  “Probably, somewhere along the way,” I said. “It seems to me that everyone in the village is a cousin to some degree. Or is married to a cousin. Was Pierre’s name in the news because of the bones that were found at my grandmother’s?”

  “A skull, yes?” The way she said “a skull” sounded dismissive, as if that discovery were incidental to having seen a familiar name.

  “How do you know Pierre?” I asked. The topic had been meddling in the lives of our children. The man was a policeman. I could think of many possibilities for where she might be headed.

  “Pierre was just a boy,” she said. “About sixteen, I think. The same age as my daughter, Karine. She was always a sensitive girl, a romantic. Over a summer holiday, she went to China with a group from our parish. This was in the mid-eighties, just as China was emerging. The group did some touring, and because it was a church-sponsored trip, they visited an orphanage run by an order of nuns. Karine had never seen such poverty; all those precious little children who needed care. By the time she came home, she had decided God was calling her to become a nun to go off and save all the little children of the world. My husband and I didn’t know quite how to handle her sudden religious fervor because it was so unlike her.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I believe you know that my late husband was a great friend of your Uncle Gérard.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It was because of my uncle that Jean-Paul and I met.”

  “Well, your uncle suggested that we put Karine in the hands of the abbess at the convent in your grandmother’s village and let Ma Mère take care of her. So we did.” She furrowed her brow. “Ma Mère, the abbess, is a Martin cousin, is she not?”