Death in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  He got up and made a pot of coffee. Last night the news service had admitted that the Government had left Paris. All France was on the run. Bordeaux was filling up with refugees, would soon be swamped by them. They flocked south as if in flight from the plague.

  Who was responsible? The question brought him up, hard, against his policeman’s creed. There was always someone responsible for a crime, whatever mitigating circumstances might be found; there was always one finger on the trigger, even though the gun might have been supplied, and the gunman primed, by another. If you dug long enough, you came up with an answer, what they liked to call a solution. You could then tie a red ribbon round the dossier and hand it over to the examining magistrate. Your job was done, case solved, what happened next no concern of yours. But responsibility for a national disaster? Could that ever be determined?

  He went outside. At the end of the street there was a black Citröen, one of the new ones with ‘traction avant’, and it was full of people, asleep: father, mother, three children and a wire-haired fox terrier, an English breed lately fashionable among the rich. The car had Paris plates. They must have arrived during the night, too late, or unable, to find a hotel or other lodging. The man’s mouth was open; the sound of his snores would be unbearable in the confined space, but, apparently, all were too exhausted to be disturbed.

  They were erecting stalls at the Marché des Capucins, and the little cafés were opening, their windows steamed up. There was a smell of coffee, and blue-overalled market porters and some of the stall-keepers were having their morning wake-up ‘invigorator’ – a black coffee with a shot of rum or marc. It might have been any morning in peace-time, people going about their work without anxiety. The sun was beginning to dispel the mist that had crept in from the river and Lannes was touched by the normality of the scene. He entered a bar, ordered a coffee and marc, lit a cigarette, and listened to the conversation swirling around him. That too was normal, concerned with everyday matters, and he even heard a couple of jokes cracked. Nobody spoke of the war. Yet every one must be conscious of it, and some would have sons or brothers in the Army. Was it tact or fear? – surely not indifference – that held them from speaking of the catastrophe engulfing France?

  He looked at his watch. It wasn’t too early to call the house in the rue d’Aviau. Marthe would surely be up, padding about in her carpet slippers. There was a public telephone in the corner of the bar. He got a token from the woman behind the counter and asked the operator to put him through. The bell rang a long time, and then the old woman answered.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing a-miss with young Maurice, is there?’

  ‘Nothing at all, he’s fine and we’re happy to have him with us. I’m told that Jean-Christophe has tried to kill himself.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense. He’s had his stomach pumped, that’s all, and now he’s at home again, in the study with his bottle.’

  ‘Is he making sense?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Listen, Marthe, you’ll have heard the news.’

  ‘Much heed I pay to that.’

  ‘Nevertheless you must know that people are fleeing Paris, and it’s likely that Edmond will soon be in Bordeaux. Will you find a means of letting me know when he comes to the house, and also, which is more important, if there is any sign of Sigi. Will you do that?’

  The receiver was replaced without a word. All the same he thought she would do as he asked. He had come to trust the old woman.

  Moncerre was already in the office. He lay back in a chair and explored his teeth with a matchstick. There was a cup of coffee on the table by his side. When he saw Lannes, he removed the matchstick and said, ‘It’s my opinion, chief, that the world is badly arranged. It’s the women who should be sent to war, not men. Sorry, forgot about Dominique, but my wife’s three sisters all landed on us yesterday with their brats – that makes eight altogether. Running away from the Boches, though if they’d stood their ground it’s the Boches would have turned tail. I was told I’d to sleep on the couch, and then they all went on yattering, yattering until eventually I gave up and came here to try to sleep on the bench in the waiting-room. I’m thinking of heading north myself and finding a German to surrender to.’

  Lannes smiled. Moncerre’s bursts of bad-tempered gloom usually cheered him up.’

  ‘You look terrible,’ he said.

  ‘I feel worse.’

  ‘Well I’ve something for you. That precious pair, the Brunes . . . ’

  ‘Hey, are we on the case again?’

  ‘Officially no. Otherwise yes. I had a row with Rougerie yesterday. He put my back up.’

  ‘Bloody lawyers.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He handed Moncerre one of the photographs of Sigi old Marthe had looked out for him.

  ‘See if they recognize him. Be as tough as you like.’

  ‘This is our man then?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. But we need identification from a witness and we’ve never believed, have we, that they didn’t see anyone that night.’

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ Moncerre said. ‘I’ll put them through the wringer. I’ll treat them like they were my wife’s sisters.’

  He began to whistle, then turned at the door and said, ‘Hey, know what? Who do you think I saw the Alsatian with last night? You’ll never guess. That actress, you know the one who’s the comte de St-Hilaire’s fancy piece. What do you make of that? Quick worker, our Alsatian. Nice to find someone whose mind isn’t on this bloody war.’

  XXV

  June 17, 1940. Noon.

  Lannes had come home for lunch, early. It was bizarre. Bordeaux was bursting at the seams, packed with more refugees than you could number, more perhaps than the total of its usual population, but at the PJ all was tranquil. The department seemed in a state of suspended animation. Moncerre said, ‘I don’t know about you, chief, but I’d like to get stinking rotten drunk. What else is there to do?’

  At twelve o’clock it was announced that Marshal Pétain would speak to the nation.

  ‘Why Petain?’ Maurice said, ‘why not Reynaud?’

  ‘There must have been a change of government,’ Alain said. ‘What do you think it means, Papa?’

  ‘We’ll soon know.’

  The Marshal’s voice was firm, the tone mournful.

  ‘At the request of the President of the Republic I am from today assuming the leadership of the Government of France. Certain of the affection of our admirable army, which has fought with a heroism worthy of its long military traditions against an enemy superior in numbers and arms; certain that it has through its magnificent resistance fulfilled our duties towards our allies; certain of the support of the war veterans whom I had the honour to command; certain of the confidence of the entire French people, it is yet with a heavy heart that I say to you today that it is necessary to cease fighting. I have this last evening approached the enemy to see if he is ready to try to find, between soldiers, with the struggle over and in honour, the means to put an end to hostilities.’

  The old man’s voice died away.

  ‘This talk of honour . . . ’ Alain said.

  ‘It’s a word,’ Lannes said, ‘a mere word, nothing more, to put our conscience at ease.’

  ‘Does this mean it’s over, Papa?’ Clothilde said.

  ‘Very nearly. For now anyway.’

  ‘Thank God,’ Marguerite said, ‘So Dominique is safe.’

  She made the sign of the Cross. Seeing Alain about to speak, sure that he was going to point out that the Germans might not agree to the Marshal’s proposal or might – this was Lannes’ own thought – impose terms that would be found intolerable – Lannes said, ‘We must hope so,’ and gestured to Alain to keep quiet.

  ‘What will happen now?’ Clothilde said.

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see. It depends on the Germans.’

  Marguerite got to her feet. ‘He spoke very well, didn’t he? You wouldn’t think he was eight
y-four. Come, Clothilde darling, help me prepare lunch. You can make the salad. It’s only charcuterie, I’m afraid.’

  When they had left the room, Alain said, ‘It’s humiliation.’

  ‘Certainly not an occasion to open a bottle of champagne. But, if your brother’s safe, then we’ve something to be thankful for, as a family.’

  ‘What sort of terms do you think they will demand?’ Maurice said.

  ‘Heavy ones. No doubt about that. Even Hitler can’t have thought it would be so easy.’

  1870, he thought again, only worse, because this time there’s no Gambetta to inspire and organize resistance, and the Nazis are worse than Bismarck’s Prussians. Alain is right: humiliation, and this is only the beginning.

  But in the streets that afternoon there was no sense of that. The sun still shone, the cafés were busier than ever. He overheard a well-dressed woman say to her husband, ‘Well, I suppose we can return to Paris now. I always said there was no need to run away, but you insisted. Don’t you feel rather stupid now? We must hope that the Reds haven’t plundered our apartment.’

  Schnyder arrived in the office and found Lannes at his desk smoking, the ashtray already half-full of stubs.

  ‘What’ll you do if there’s a shortage of tobacco?’

  Lannes smiled, ‘I hope it won’t come to that. If it does, then I hope there’s a flourishing black market.’

  ‘I was at the bar of the Splendide. It was crowded. You’d have thought the old man had announced a victory.’

  ‘Cracking open the champagne, were they?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘No surprise,’ Lannes said ‘Whoever suffers, it won’t be the rich.’ ‘Edmond de Grimaud was there. He asked after you, hoped you were fully recovered.’

  ‘Kind of him. Perhaps. I suppose he’s one of the winners.’

  ‘Are there any French winners?’

  ‘Must be.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right. Fuck them all.’

  ‘Good,’ Lannes said. ‘We think alike. What of us now?’

  Schnyder crossed to the window, looked out on the square.

  ‘Everything’s so normal, so damned normal. What of us? We’ve no choice, have we? We’re servants of the Republic. Besides, how things turn out will depend on what sort of terms the Boches impose.’

  Lannes thought, he speaks of them as the Boches, but he was born and reared a subject of the Kaiser. Odd position he finds himself in.

  As if reading his mind, Schnyder said: ‘One thing’s certain. They’ll annex Alsace again, and Lorraine of course, and thousands of young men there will be drafted into the Wehrmacht, poor buggers.’

  ‘Have you still family there?’

  ‘Cousins. Not close. At least your boy should be all right now. That’s one thing to be thankful for.’

  He sat down, heavily, in the chair where Lannes usually placed those summoned for questioning. He hunched his shoulders, lowered his chin, and frowned.

  ‘One thing though, and it gives me no pleasure to say it. If my judgment as to what’s to come is right – and I rather think it’s the same as yours – then we might as well wrap up these investigations. Cases closed. I hate to say it, but there’s no use pretending things will go on as before, even as far as the PJ’s work is concerned. You understand me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lannes said. ‘It’s not only the war we’ve lost.’

  ‘By the way, Edmond de Grimaud said he would like a word with you.’

  ‘Not just about my health, I assume. Well, it’s up to him, but I’d have thought he might be fully occupied. I shan’t seek him out.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Schnyder paused. ‘But don’t antagonize him. We may need his good will, whether we want it or not. And remember: what’s now unfinished business may one day be re-open.

  XXVI

  June 22–28, 1940

  It was four days before the Armistice terms were made known. In that time, believing the war to be already over, almost a million French soldiers allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. One of them was Dominique, though there was nothing voluntary about his surrender. He was wounded, a bullet in the knee, on June 18, and taken a few days later from a field hospital to a POW camp in Germany. It would be another month before his parents learned of this. In that time hopes of his early return flared up, and died away.

  ‘So,’ Henri said when Lannes called on him in the rue des Remparts, ‘we’re to be occupied.’

  ‘So it appears.’

  Bordeaux, like the whole Atlantic coast of France was included in the Occupied Zone, the department of the Gironde being cut in half by the demarcation line which separated that part of France which was to receive German garrisons from Unoccupied France where there were to be no German troops.

  ‘Where does that leave you, Jean?’

  ‘Strangely enough my position is unaffected, technically anyway. The police, like the rest of the administration, remain under the authority of the Republic, in our case, that is, of the Ministry of the Interior. But we are requested – or, I should say, required – to cooperate with the Occupying Power. We have, it seems, no choice but to obey. At least I can’t see what would be gained by refusing. How it will work out, well, who can say? Things may be different later. Meanwhile, I’ve come to apologize.’

  ‘For what? I can’t suppose, my dear Jean, that you have anything to apologize to me for.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do. I spoke to Edmond de Grimaud this morning.’ He paused. ‘I think I will take that whisky you offered.’

  De Grimaud had come to the office which surprised Lannes who had expected a summons. He looked relaxed, confident, at ease with himself and the world. He wore a dark blue suit, double-breasted, a pale blue shirt, red tie, dark red carnation in his buttonhole, and smelled of an expensive scent.

  ‘I’m so glad to have caught you,’ he said. ‘Everything’s confusion. The Government’s on the move – you know I’m a minister now, admittedly only a junior one at present. We don’t even know where we’re headed for. Some say Clermont-Ferrand, but that won’t do, it’s a ridiculous idea. So I don’t have long. You’ve been listening to old Marthe, I understand, and speaking to my poor brother – I do wish you would leave him alone, he’s a sick man as you must realize. But Marthe’s been talking, I gather, talking wildly. The old thing’s obsessed. I hope you didn’t take her ramblings seriously. The idea that my poor father was murdered, you must see that’s sheer fantasy.’

  ‘Really?’ Lannes said, ‘and your half-brother Sigi, whom your brother denies all knowledge of, is he fantasy too?’

  Edmond smiled.

  ‘Poor Sigi, part of the old woman’s obsession. She adored him once, and then – I don’t know why – turned violently against the poor boy. He’s been unfortunate, gone wrong, I admit, more than once, but the suggestion that he murdered my father, it’s absurd, utterly absurd. Moreover you are mistaken – another of Marthe’s delusions, I’m afraid. Sigi is my nephew – illegitimate, certainly, it’s a sad story – but not my half-brother. You must realize, my dear chap, that old Marthe . . . ’

  He broke off, tapped the side of his head, and smiled again.

  Lannes waited. The temptation to tell de Grimaud that his unfortunate Sigi was in the frame for two other murders was powerful, but, mindful of what Schnyder had said, he held off. In any case he was sure that Edmond hadn’t come merely to tell him to leave his family alone and forget what old Marthe had said. He must know that the collapse of France had altered everything.

  ‘I’m grateful to you, superintendent, for having taken Maurice into your home. The boy’s a puzzle to me, I don’t know what to do with him, and now that I’m a minister, I have even less time than before to be the father to him that I suppose I should be. You don’t find him troublesome, I hope, not a burden?’

  ‘Not at all. My wife also is pleased to have him and my younger son and daughter seem to have struck up a warm friendship with him. He’s an intelligent boy, an
d well-mannered.’

  ‘And your other son? In the army. Any word?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘With luck you will soon have him back with you. This defeat has that compensation at least. But if there are difficulties, be sure to let me know. I am not going to be without influence in the new regime.’

  A promise? Or a warning? Or both?

  ‘That’s good of you,’ Lannes said.

  ‘There are times,’ Edmond said, ‘when even a conscientious and punctilious officer may find it useful to have a friend at court. I’ve developed a respect for you, superintendent. That’s why I should be sorry to see you go astray. This Chambolley case you have been pursuing so doggedly, despite official requests, even, as I understand it, orders, to the contrary – well, I admire a man of spirit and independent mind. But now, you must see that it’s finished. Everything has changed. Chambolley was an innocent, a blunderer, quite out of his depth. That was his misfortune – and his folly. The woman, his sister-in-law, was engaged, I can tell you now, in activities prejudicial to the interests, indeed the security, of the French state. So it may be that she was eliminated, or her elimination was arranged. I don’t know. Unfortunate, sad, but that’s the way things are.’

  He paused, crooked his hand, and examined his well-manicured nails.

  ‘It’s water under the bridge,’ he said. ‘The past is being swept away. We must look to the future, to our part in the great task of regenerating the Republic. It’s to be a National Revolution. I should wish you to be involved. You understand me?’

  Lannes had made no reply. The temptation had been there, of course it had, the temptation to say he wanted nothing to do with it, that he was a policeman responsible for the investigation of serious crime, nothing more; national revolutions were none of his business; he would just get on with his job to the best of his ability. In which connection, monsieur de Grimaud, would you now please explain to me why you denied all knowledge of this man Marcel or Sigi, since he is, as you admit, your nephew, and also, despite your denial, your half-brother? Tell me that, sir. Explain why you chose to conceal information relevant to the commission of a crime from the police, which is itself, as I surely need not remind you, a criminal act. But he had said none of this. Perhaps he had even smiled some sort of acknowledgement. Because of course de Grimaud had won. They both knew that. Schnyder was right. There was nothing they could do. Not now, perhaps not for a long time to come, perhaps never.