Murder is a Long Time Coming

by Anthony Masters

  ‘You realise you are trespassing?’

  Jean-Pierre looked up, purposely vague. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’re trespassing.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘You know now.’

  Jean-Pierre got slowly to his feet. ‘I was having a look at the house. The old man was killed this morning.’

  ‘Leave them alone.’

  ‘Who do you think did it?’

  ‘Just get off my land.’ Alain advanced threateningly on him but Jean-Pierre stood his ground.

  ‘They killed him for what they thought he did, didn’t they? All those rumours – they got him in the end.’

  ‘If you don’t go I shall call the police.’

  ‘You were friends, weren’t you? You and him?’

  Alain turned on his heel. ‘I’ll go and ring them now. Give them your description.’

  ‘No need. I’m going.’

  ‘And don’t let me ever see you here again.’

  Jean-Pierre winked at him and began to walk away.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘She’s got herself in a state.’ Estelle was standing in the darkened bedroom by the window. His mother lay on the bed. There was a curious smell in the room – part human sweat, part perfume. Then he realised something. Estelle had been splashing on his mother’s eau-de-Cologne.

  ‘Mother?’

  She was bathed in sweat, lying on the counterpane, rocking herself slowly to and fro.

  Marius took her shoulders and tried to comfort her by holding them down with both his hands. Her eyes were closed and her lips were scaly. She had been beautiful once, he reminded himself. Beautiful and intelligent. And brave. His friend. Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  ‘Marius.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That girl. Why do we keep her? She’s such a slut. But she’s kind to me.’

  ‘No one else will come,’ he said woodenly, realising that she had arrived at one of her rare calm, clear moods when the clouds had temporarily lifted. How long did they have, he wondered.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, her genuine innocence momentarily appealing.

  ‘They won’t come because of Father. Because of – what they say about him.’

  ‘He never collaborated. I should know that. To be honest, he would never have taken that risk. Your father was not a man for taking risks.’

  A wave of hope and of something else that he couldn’t immediately identify swept over Marius. Was it reassurance, he wondered.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘His heart?’ Her voice was gentle and soft, not rasping as it so often was nowadays.

  ‘No.’ He took her hands and kissed them. ‘Someone – someone killed him.’

  ‘Who?’ She didn’t seem shocked.

  ‘I don’t know. The police are on to it.’

  ‘Gabriel?’ She laughed. ‘Him?’ The laugh rang hollowly in Marius’s ears.

  ‘There’s someone else –’

  ‘And Henri? Did he suffer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good. It was bound to happen. Poor Henri.’ Her eyes clouded and he knew he was beginning to lose her again.

  ‘Mother, do you know who did it?’

  ‘The Boche.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t.’

  ‘Then who?’ She moved her head restlessly from side to side.

  ‘Can you think who would have done it?’

  ‘The rumours made him enemies.’

  ‘But do you know who – who was his worst enemy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mother –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Tell me who –’ The tension was unbearable. Suddenly he was convinced that she did know.

  ‘It’s always been on the cards.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘But once they arrived –’

  ‘Who arrived?’

  ‘The Boche.’ She began to rock again. ‘He was a brave man. A good man. He wouldn’t give in to them. So they killed him. Poor Henri.’ The rocking became a little faster. ‘Henri –’

  ‘Mother, we’re talking about one person. Not the Germans. Someone now. They called him away this morning. He went with them, or met them. By arrangement, or something. Someone he knew.’

  ‘They came in here. Looking.’

  ‘Mother –’

  ‘They took me away. They hurt me. Hurt me badly. Henri –’

  ‘It’s Marius.’

  ‘Henri. Stay close. Touch me.’

  ‘It’s Marius, Mother.’

  ‘Come in beside me.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Marius glanced up. Dr Lucas stood on the threshold. Immediately behind him was Gabriel.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ said Marius, getting off the bed and walking towards him. ‘She’s been clear for a little while. Now she’s babbling again.’

  The doctor nodded. ‘That will happen.’

  ‘Did she say anything of note?’ asked Gabriel urgently.

  ‘She says she knows who killed him,’ said Marius drily.

  ‘Who?’ Gabriel’s voice was sharp.

  ‘The Boche. The Germans,’ he replied wearily.

  ‘She’ll rest now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Dr Lucas paused. ‘I’m putting her on stronger sedatives. It would be as well – to administer the dose yourself.’ He was a little man, hesitant and anxious to cover himself.

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Good – very good. Call me if you need me again.’ He scuttled past like a frightened rabbit.

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’ said Gabriel.

  Marius looked at his watch. It was nearly five. ‘I don’t know what to do next,’ he confessed.

  ‘Do nothing. Have a drink.’

  ‘I’m uneasy about –’

  ‘Go on. Have one.’

  Once again they stood in Henri’s cramped and dusty study. This time he poured them whisky.

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’ he asked.

  ‘Proceeding.’

  ‘You don’t know anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is Lebatre good?’

  ‘Solid. Very solid. Deeply conscientious.’

  ‘Any theories yourself?’

  ‘Yes. It seems possible that your father was killed to prevent him telling something he knew – something incriminating.’

  ‘So you’re saying the motive wasn’t necessarily revenge.’

  ‘I’m saying we mustn’t be blinkered.’

  Marius drank more whisky. Then he made a decision. ‘Could I ask a few questions?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Gabriel – your mother was killed – you have every reason to hate.’

  ‘You are regarding me as a suspect?’ Gabriel gave him a mocking, almost querulous smile.

  ‘Don’t be a fool –’

  ‘But you should. Lebatre must question me. I do have a very good motive.’

  ‘How have you stayed so open-minded all this time?’

  ‘Perhaps because I never loved my mother. She was a domineering, interfering woman and she made my father’s life hell.’

  Marius looked at Gabriel intently. ‘I didn’t –’

  ‘No. I haven’t said any of this before. But that is why I have been so even-handed – in case you hadn’t noticed.’ He laughed. ‘I was seventeen when she was killed, yet her death filled me with relief. All the way through my adolescence she had tormented and bullied me. Now I understand that she wanted me to stand up to her. And when I wouldn’t, I think she loathed me – had such enormous contempt for me.’ He paused. ‘As you know my father was gentle. He and I spent years of happiness after her death. I thanked the Germans for it. Of course I made a show of grief – even at that age I was conscious of the need for self-dramatisation. But really I was glad. I was in the Maquis – I knew she did a brave
thing. But I had nothing to do with those young men or their execution.’ His voice was very firm.

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He had nothing to do with the Resistance; he was too busy with his work as a country doctor. Mother’s death – and the nature of it – was not something we discussed.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  Gabriel frowned. ‘I’m not saying she wasn’t a brave woman,’ he repeated. ‘She would have died defending us. Instead she died defending them.’

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. But let me tell you something else first.’ He drank more whisky. Outside a bird called. A dog was barking in the distance. ‘As I said, we mustn’t be blinkered and there could be another motive for your father’s murder, but frankly I have a gut-feeling that if we want to find out who killed your father we have to go back to that day in early May when they took those boys out to the field and killed them.’

  ‘You mean their relations – their parents –’

  ‘We would need to eliminate them from our enquiries.’

  ‘Lebatre –’

  ‘He’s already checking them.’

  ‘I see. You were going to say –’

  ‘Mother? She had a close friend – Chantal Relais. One of the Relais sons was taken. Mother hurried to the spot and remonstrated. Naturally they didn’t listen to her. But she persisted – even to the point of standing in the firing line.’

  Marius gasped, staring at Gabriel in amazement.

  ‘Yes. She was an exceptionally brave woman. And as I said – an exceptionally domineering one. She nagged the German soldiers like she nagged us. I believe they tried to turn her away.’ He paused. ‘Then Mother stood in the firing line – so they shot her as they shot the others. She’s buried in the churchyard. Down there. Near where they’ll bury your father.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me all this.’ Marius stared out at the dusk outside. The cicadas were beginning. It was a sound that usually comforted him. Now he was finding it oppressive.

  ‘You are owed the explanation.’

  ‘I think I’ll take a walk.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the field.’

  ‘Do you want company?’

  ‘No. Do you mind?’

  Gabriel shook his head. ‘Of course not. But I shall mind if you involve yourself professionally.’

  ‘I won’t do that.’

  ‘No?’

  For the first time Marius could feel Gabriel’s hostility. ‘No.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back to Lyon?’

  ‘Are you mad? What about my mother?’ Marius was more bewildered than indignant.

  ‘Isn’t this the time to have her put away – for her own good?’

  ‘I think that’s for me to decide.’ Marius was angry now. ‘And there are the funeral arrangements.’

  ‘They’ll take a few days,’ he agreed. ‘Those and the arrangements about your mother. Then you should go. You can do no good here. Leave it to us.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Are you angry?’

  But the anger had gone. Marius just felt punch-drunk.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m trying to think of her own good – and yours.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’d better go.’ Gabriel drained his whisky. He was looking anxious now and Marius felt an urgent need to reassure him.

  ‘Don’t worry. You may be right. But I have to think.’

  ‘Is Estelle still here?’

  ‘Yes. She’s good with Mother in her rough way.

  ‘She’s a slut.’

  ‘A useful one.’ There was an awkward silence. ‘I suppose I should phone the undertaker,’ said Marius suddenly.

  ‘Not until the coroner releases the body.’ Gabriel stood up. He touched Marius’s shoulder. ‘Take care.’ He withdrew, a grey shadow in the evening glow.

  5

  The light was fading fast as Marius made his way down the overgrown track that had originally been the formal drive to the Château Letoric. The sense of loss was growing in him – an empty ache in the pit of his stomach. Maybe Gabriel was right in his domineering way. Domineering? He laughed out loud and stopped, surprised at the sound. He was like his mother then. Just the same, perhaps. How ironic. But even so, it was a temptation to go back to Monique. He should have phoned her. To go back to Monique would be in the nature of a great escape. Evading the repercussions of his father’s death, his mother’s plight and, of course, Jean-Pierre Claude.

  As he walked, Marius thought of his mother – and of how she had been before the stroke. Of course he had been a mother’s boy – no doubt of that – and he had been very conscious of how desperately his father had tried to reach him. But he had resisted – and eventually Henri had gone away, defeated. After that, Marius knew that his father would no longer trespass into the special space he and his mother inhabited. It was not that Marius hated him, it was just that there was no place for him. His mother was everything. Too young to understand the full implications of the Maquis, for a long time he only dimly realised how brave she had been, especially when interrogated, as the Provençal years rolled slowly by. Even when he was older, Marius had not wanted to think about the danger in the mountains. Indeed for years he had been terrified of the rocky promontories, seeing against the pine trees and the shale the dark shadows of Nazi uniforms as they pursued his mother further and further up the boulderstrewn paths. All he wanted was the warm immediacy of his post-war mother with all her light-hearted, teasing affection and their shared walks across the fields. He had been desperately in love with her, wanting only her company, never the detached masculinity of his father.

  He remembered a picnic amongst the pine trees on the lower slopes of the mountains. Her gaze had travelled up to the scree and to a cave where she had once told him that she ‘and Uncle Alain and Gabriel had hidden all one night while the Nazis combed the slopes’. He had not wanted to know, and had deliberately looked away, down to the heat-hazed fields where a young boy worked with his bully of a father. From thence he was glad to catch sight of the boy, to watch his muscular shoulders, to see the sweat glistening on his bare back. It had been some time before he met Jean-Pierre on a solitary walk along the side of the lavender fields – some time before the boy took him in his arms in the gardens of the château.

  From where he was walking, Marius could see the church spire and some of the roofs of the town. They were hazy and insubstantial, like the mental picture of his father’s murder. He had left his mother with Estelle, still rambling, the brief clarity glimmered away. But his conversation with Estelle had been provocative, although she had volunteered what he needed very quickly.

  ‘Monsieur will need me tonight?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The old lady has had a bad shock. She shouldn’t be left.’

  ‘I shall be with her.’

  ‘It’s such a burden for you, Monsieur. I would be very willing to stay, to help. Of course I would need some small –’

  ‘Yes, of course you will. Well, perhaps you had better stay. I can’t be here all the time. I have arrangements to make.’

  ‘The funeral?’

  ‘Yes, and – er – others.’

  ‘You will be investigating the murder, monsieur?’

  Damn her blatant curiosity, he had thought. He had looked at her tarty, dirty clothes and inwardly cursed. But she was all he had. And Estelle did seem to have a way with the old lady. Swiftly he had come to a generous financial arrangement with her. But soon she was quietly repeating the question: ‘You are investigating?’

  ‘Of course not. That’s up to the local police.’

  She had lowered her eyes. ‘But you have more experience, monsieur. You are in Interpol.’

  Somehow he had shut her up. Now he was in the valley, walking towards the stile that led to the field where they died. Sunflowers nodded in the light, honeysuckle-scented evening breeze that brought bl
essed relief from the heat. He looked back at the house. At least two of the shutters were hanging loose, cracked and with paint peeling. In his childhood his father had ordered the servants to close the shutters – all twenty pairs of them – each night. To keep out prying eyes. Strangers’ eyes. There was another smell from the hill. Pine needles, he thought. Would they have smelt them, all those years ago? Lined up in the field of execution. He pictured Madame Rodiet, flinging herself between the prisoners and their executioners – and going down in a hail of bullets.

  Marius climbed the stile. The field was high with corn. Was it growing the crop then? Were they pushed into the centre, trampling the rustling stalks, their blood staining the ears of wheat rusty red? Or was it just grass and they stood starkly against the sun, waiting to be mowed down, maybe not even understanding why they were there? And were there eyes watching from the edge of the field? Parents. Relatives. Brothers. Sisters. Eyes that were recording the scene, imprinting it in their hearts for ever – until the day would come when revenge could be taken. And against his will, Marius saw his father’s figure walking stiffly into the field, very erect, very dignified, his expression inscrutable. So intense was the image that he could see him now, indistinct in his dark suit against the corn. Then the figure moved and began to limp towards him, calling his name.

  ‘Marius.’

  He froze.

  Alain. He had looked so like his father. But thank God, it was definitely Alain, looking as distinguished as ever and now embracing him.

  ‘Marius.’

  ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘I’m not intruding?’ If ever the expression grief-stricken had been used to good purpose it was now. The suffering was deeply etched on Alain’s rugged features.

  They walked along the lee of the field and then began to climb. Clumps of rock gleamed dully in the twilight while the steady beat of the cicadas seemed to increase.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Alain, panting a little.

  ‘Nor me.’

  ‘A world without Henri – it’s unbelievable.’

  ‘You were very close.’ Marius fell in with the emotion of the conversation easily. It was what he needed. A catharsis.