by Colin Smith
He had been given his file, but he didn’t know how many others were in existence that might, at any moment, fall into the wrong hands. The Gestapo, for instance, must have had one on him and he had no idea how many of their records they had managed to destroy before they fled Paris. As far as he knew the Comte was the only member of the Milice aware of his existence, but he could not be certain that somebody else had not seen his file or that the Comte had not spoken about him among his colleagues. Some of the miliciens who had survived summary execution were still being interrogated and others were being flushed out of their hiding-places. There were new arrests every day. He lived in terror that, even if all the documentary evidence had been destroyed, he might be betrayed by some wretched milicien trying to save his own skin.
As soon as he decently could he left his job in the bar and found work in a French officers’ mess, where his status as a refugee from one of the few bits of Europe still under German occupation won him a certain sympathy. It also gave him the idea to bury himself even deeper into the Allied cause by enlisting in the reconstituted French Army as an artilleryman.
During a skirmish against the Nazi rear-guard in the Black Forest a mortar splinter wounded him in the leg. When he had recovered the European war was over and, after a few months’ occupation duty in Berlin, his regiment was re-fitted and sent to Indo-China. It was here, in 1947, that he met the Comte again in a bar in Saigon. He was in the uniform of a sergeant in the Legion and drinking with a bunch of German-speaking Legionnaires. Artillerymen and Legionnaires were not normally on speaking terms. Especially, added Le Poidevin, who had now decided that his best chance with Koller lay in self-denigration, an overweight gunner who had secured himself a cushy number serving drinks in a rear-echelon mess.
His immediate reaction had been to beat a hasty retreat, but Fouche-Larimand recognized him at once, called him over, and introduced him as ‘an old comrade’. The Comte said that it was good to see they were still fighting ‘the real enemy’. By this he meant International Communism, currently in the uniform of the Viet Minh, and from his brief conversation with the other gentlemen seated around the bar Le Poidevin gathered that most of them had been engaged in this worthy struggle since Guernica. After a couple of beers Le Poidevin had pleaded that he had to return to the mess. He was sent back to France shortly afterwards and his army discharge papers made his French citizenship automatic.
His past did not catch up with him again for almost thirty years, although on a couple of occasions he had noticed the Comte’s name in the newspapers. The first time, he said, was in 1959 when he was one of several Legion officers court-martialled for their role in the mutiny over de Gaulle’s Algerian policy. Subsequent press stories indicated he had somehow escaped prison, become involved with the OAS and gone underground. Then in 1967the waiter had noticed his name among a list of people, including de Gaulle’s old Resistance chief Georges Bidault, who had been amnestied.
For the next decade he had heard nothing of him and indeed had almost forgotten his existence until, about a year ago, he had been taking an order at the cafe when he had found himself staring down at a familiar face. At least, said Le Poidevin, it was what was left of a familiar face.
He wore a black leather patch over his left eye and on the same side the skin from cheekbone to jaw was a shiny, beardless yellow. They had greeted each other like old friends - although the waiter said that inside he felt as if he had just come across a walking corpse. A couple of nights later the Comte had taken him out to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. At the time it had seemed to Le Poidevin that their conversation was almost exclusively about ‘the old days’. Later he realised that the aristocrat had soon established that he lived alone and was without close friends.
After that he called at the cafe at least once a week, usually in the tired hours of the afternoon before the evening rush started. But it was another nine months before he asked the waiter if he would mind doing him a favour, a small job of work. He would not discuss the matter in the cafe. Another dinner was arranged at the Vietnamese restaurant. Le Poidevin remembered that, throughout the meal, Fouche-Larimand was very excited. He spoke of a group of old comrades getting together and ‘trying to do something for this damn Continent of ours’. To Le Poidevin’s amazement he even sang a verse from a sentimental German song popular towards the end of the war.
‘Es geht alles voriiber, Es geht alles vorbei.’ (Everything passes, One day it’ll be over.)
Koller finished it: ‘Nach jedem Dezember,’ he sang softly. ‘Gibts wieder ein Mai.’ (After every December, There’s always a May.)
‘My father used to sing it,’ the terrorist said.
‘Go on.’
Fouche-Larimand had outlined the details of his organisation. Their Grand Jules, he said, was called Roland-Grand Jules, explained Le Poidevin, was the Milice’s nickname for Hitler - and Roland had asked Fouche-Larimand if he would find out if their old comrade from Guernsey would be willing to act as Mercury - ‘that was the expression he used’ - between the inner circle and certain field agents.
‘But how does he know about me?’ the waiter had asked. ‘Oh, he knows everything,’ said the Comte casually. He made it sound as if a request from this Roland was a great honour and it would be churlish to refuse. Frankly, said Le Poidevin, the whole idea made him quite sick. He had assumed all this sort of thing was a long way behind him. And the Comte frightened him. It was true there had been no overt attempt at blackmail, but he detected menace in that ‘he knows everything’. Everything? Had there been more than one file on him? Had that Major in the Milice about to embark for a Waffen SS training camp thirty years ago had the foresight to squirrel away other copies of his agents’ files somewhere? He was too afraid to ask these questions. Afraid to provoke Fouche-Larimand’s wrath with doubts that would suggest his fidelity sprang from fear and not from the respectful admiration he seemed to take for granted. So he had agreed. ‘And it seems,’ said Le Poidevin, ‘that I made a bad mistake.’
When he had finished Koller sat quietly for a few seconds and then asked if he had heard of a man called Siegfried? Le Poidevin said he had not, and after more silent examination Koller concluded that he was probably telling the truth.
‘Siegfried,’ said Koller, ‘was a comrade of mine. He disappeared about the time, or perhaps a few days before, this Fouche-Larimand asked you to become the cut-out. When the police fished his body out of the Seine they discovered that, among other things, most of his toenails had been pulled out.
‘I didn’t really understand that at the time,’ Koller continued in his neutral voice. ‘Such an old-fashioned method. Now it begins to make sense. Does it make sense to you?’
Le Poidevin’s great dome of a forehead became noticeably moist, and he attended to it with the right sleeve of his dress shirt. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it does now. I remember the case, remember reading about it. But I didn’t connect it at the time. Honestly I didn’t.’
‘Do you understand what’s been happening?’ He might have been talking to a delinquent child.
‘It’s the same as the Gaullist, isn’t it? You don’t work for them at all. You work for somebody else, but I came along with the right words, the right password and ... I’m sorry. But how did you receive your messages before? Why didn’t your people, your organisation whoever they are, get in touch with you? How could it go on for almost three months?’
‘The same way it happened to the Gaullist, I suppose. I received a message in one of my mail-boxes to make contact with you, and when we met the first message you gave me contained the right code to break off all old contacts immediately. It’s designed for our protection, you see, in case one part of the network has become vulnerable, come under surveillance.’ He could have been explaining how a new gadget worked to someone who was not very technically-minded. Suddenly he snapped: ‘But you know all this, don’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t. You must believe me. I didn’t know. Why did you suspect someth
ing was wrong?’ Le Poidevin was playing for time now, but it was two in the morning and he lived alone. The brandy courage had vaporized and he was barely in control of his limbs. The Siamese, smelling his fear, got off the couch and stalked around the room in worried circles.
Koller appeared to have calmed. ‘Two reasons,’ he said. ‘First there was a bomb in Holland that I suspected had been placed by some comrades of mine, but their choice of target surprised me. Then your last message ordered me to kill somebody with a bomb when it would have been much easier to shoot them. The orders were very specific on that point; even the type of bomb I must use. Of course, like a good German I did what I was told. The result was that an innocent person was killed and we were made to look like incompetent amateurs. After this I began to ask myself questions and the more questions I asked myself the more it occurred to me that you had most of the answers.’
Le Poidevin heard all this with mounting horror. He had deliberately schooled himself to be incurious about the activities of the Comte and his friends. He found this quite easy, as sensitive parts of his brain were long neglected and the feeblest smoke-screen enough to hide their weak distress signals. He had drawn comfort from the idea that if he behaved like a machine he could not be held accountable for his actions. Somebody else was pressing the buttons. Now he was confronted by this horrible young gunman who spoke of murder and being made to appear amateur with such matter-of-factness that it amply confirmed his conviction that his own life was about to be disposed of like an empty bottle. He mumbled something in the direction of the carpet, but Koller was unable to make out what the words were.
‘What?’
‘I said you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?’ he said pitifully.
‘No. No, I’m not. I’ve thought about it, but I think you’re basically telling the truth. It is true you are a disgusting old queen who once betrayed people to the Nazis, but you can’t help what you are. More important, I believe they didn’t tell you the games they were playing with me because you would have shit yourself every time we met.’
Koller began to enjoy his God-like role. ‘Not only will I not kill you,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to free you from these elderly gentlemen who have such a hold on you.’
Even in his growing relief Le Poidevin thought, ‘So you can control me,’ but he remained staring at the carpet. He would not consider himself safe until his visitor had left the apartment.
Koller continued by spelling out the terms for his largess. He was to give him Fouche-Larimand’s address; he would not tell the aristocrat or anybody else about their little chat. He also pointed out that, compared with that bunch of geriatrics Le Poidevin had been mixing with, his own people were like a machine-gun at Waterloo.
All these threats were quite unnecessary. At that moment Le Poidevin loved Koller as the condemned man on the jammed trap-door loved the carpenter.
‘Do you live alone?’ asked the terrorist.
‘Only Napoleon.’ It had been this way for a long time now. Nowadays, if he wanted sex, he usually had to pay one of the loathsome transvestites who frequented the Pigalle.
‘Who?’
‘The cat.’
The Siamese was perched on the open window ledge, its tail to the 130-feet drop, looking in at the room. The animal, with its accusing blue eyes and style imperious as his own, suddenly irritated Koller. He threw a glass at the wall below the window. The sound of the broken glass persuaded Napoleon to beat a dignified retreat to the outside ledge where he sat with his back on the proceedings, looking down on to the street.
Before he left Koller decided to search the flat. He pulled out drawers and scattered their contents about the floor before examining them with a disdainful foot. He went through Le Poidevin’s wardrobe, sneering at his more extravagant outfits and an ancient frogman’s suit that looked as if it had seen very little time under water. The statues of the golden youths were dismembered against the edge of a heavy sideboard so that the white carpet was strewn with tiny alabaster buttocks and thighs. The few books in the apartment, including an old English-language family bible, had their covers removed to see if there were secrets stuffed down the spines. He made the Guernseyman accompany him from room to room where he stood among the detritus weakly protesting, ‘There’s nothing to find.’ It was as if, having granted life, the terrorist was determined to provoke Le Poidevin into some blind fury which would provide an excuse to kill him.
In fact, Koller had almost forgotten his presence. His mind seethed with the implications of the waiter’s story. It seemed that the Front, or at least his section of it, had been infiltrated by a bunch of romantic old fascists who had cleverly used him to discredit his own cause with a stupid bombing. They had also ensured the continuation of a hot war between Palestinians by selecting as their target the publisher, a prominent Realist. Apart from causing fratricidal strife, presumably the Circle’s other motive was to stir a general backlash which could engender rightist revivals. No doubt they had also taken over the Dutch cell - hence the explosion at the NATO rally. All classic agent provocateur stuff; all easily understood.
But why didn’t they plant the bombs themselves and claim afterwards that the Front was responsible? Why this delight in complicated manipulation? Was the Circle being controlled by somebody else, the brainchild of an Israeli or American dirty tricks department? Who was this Grand Jules? Did he exist? Was Fouche-Larimand the top man? Had he made Jules up to cover himself with Le Poidevin? Or was Le Poidevin lying after all?
He looked at the waiter. He was standing there, drunken tears streaming from his brown, gun dog’s eyes. Koller studied him while he casually disembowelled some of the Louis Quinze with his flick-knife. The terrorist plunged a hand into the upholstery and emerged with its innards. ‘If you’re lying, my fat friend,’ snarled Koller, ‘this is what I’m going to do to you.’
‘I’ve told you everything,’ Le Poidevin said. Then suddenly Koller was gone and the waiter was left alone among the wreckage, still too shocked and befuddled by drink to realise that the search had primarily been intended as a punishment.
He found another bottle of Calvados and sat on the floor drinking until a timid dawn began to take the flame out of the street lights. It was then that Le Poidevin noticed that Napoleon was still sitting behind the glass on the far end of the window ledge. He called to the Siamese to come in, but the animal simply turned his head and then looked away again as if he had seen and heard too much to continue their relationship. Angrily, Le Poidevin lurched over towards the window. ‘Come here, Napoleon,’ he slurred. ‘Come here at once.’
But the cat continued to ignore him.
The room revolved. He took a deep breath and it moved more slowly. He slid the window open to its fullest extent and tried to grab the cat by its collar, first with his left and then his right arm. Napoleon remained just out of reach. ‘Come here, damn you,’ he said. The cat’s head sunk deeper into its shoulder and it made a short, dismissive gesture with its black tail.
The window had curtains made of some flimsy beige material. Le Poidevin twisted one of them into a makeshift lifeline, then hauled himself up on to the window ledge in a kneeling position. The metal slide for the window frame bit painfully into his knee-caps. In this position he was able to swing his body round so that the fingers of his outstretched right hand touched Napoleon’s collar. As he did so the curtain ran along its runners, jerking his left arm behind his head. Sober, he might have recovered his balance. As it was, he fell, right knee first, out of the window.
For a moment he survived. The heavy man clung on to the curtain, desperately trying to turn his body so that he could get his right hand to the sill. Then the material tore away from its upper hem. He dropped backwards, still clutching the torn curtain in his left fist, and with a groan hardly loud enough to start a sparrow landed on the low wall nine floors below. Napoleon miaowed treacherously and went inside.
3. Last Suspects
Since there was no recor
d of his Methodist baptism Graham Le Poidevin was buried in a Catholic cemetery on the edge of the city, in an old plot where towering marble angels camouflaged in moss guarded a bourgeoisie who had cheered the fall of the Commune.
Due to the pressure on space and the absence of protesting relatives some of these old graves were being re-opened. Apart from the priest and two municipal grave-diggers to lower the municipal coffin, five others were in attendance. They were the head waiter at the cafe, who was glad of an excuse to take the afternoon off, two detectives, and a young reporter from a news agency who represented the press’s diminishing interest in the case.
The fifth was Comte Christian Fouche-Larimand, the only genuine mourner present. He had a black, gabardine trench coat draped around the shoulders of his dark suit which made him look like a cloaked figure out of some nineteenth-century duelling scene. As soon as he arrived he spotted the unmistakable figures of the policemen; he realised he had blundered and would surely not escape their questions. He excused his error on the reasonable grounds that he was dying and the pain-killing drugs he was obliged to take sometimes clouded the thought processes. Excluding his lost eye and burned cheek he had seven other wounds in his body from both bullets and shrapnel. For the last five years it had been necessary to make an annual pilgrimage to Athens where a surgeon, who had learned his skills at Stalingrad, dug out chunks of rotting flesh and tried to pull him together again. He was to have made another of these visits in a week’s time, but the presence of the two young policemen, their suits not quite tailored for their pistols, made him decide to leave the next day. It was possible that the surgeon could give him another six months or so of life, and his new interests had renewed the will to live.
