Death in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly. A cloud passed over the sun and the room was darkened. Silence prolonged itself. Lannes wondered where this was leading, whether it could possibly concern him in any way. And yet he was concerned, aware of the old man’s distress and perplexity, which awakened in him the same sense of pity that he now so often felt for Marguerite and was ashamed of feeling because it seemed that her unhappiness was a reflection of his own inadequacy, and because there is always something of condescension in pity.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said, and went out and asked Joseph to have the bar send up coffee for them. He smoked a cigarette. When he returned the professor had composed himself.

  ‘To some extent,’ he said, ‘it’s my fault, or rather, to be fair to myself, a consequence of my circumstances. My late wife had a brother, now also dead. His widow has always taken an interest in the children who have, as you will understand, lived with me for most of their lives, on account of their father’s service overseas, in Algeria and Indo-China. I haven’t encouraged this interest because, to speak frankly, I dislike her and disapprove of her. She’s eaten up with pride of birth, and I should say that my late wife’s family, who belonged to the “petite noblesse”, suffered from the same affliction, as it is to my eyes. Moreover, since I consider her to be stupid, a woman of no intellectual interests and coarse sensibility, you will understand my reservations, even reluctance. However, she is the children’s aunt, if only by marriage, and this, as you will agree, entitles her to take, as I say, an interest in them. I should perhaps add that Henri tells me you have yourself had dealings with her family, which is one of the factors that has emboldened me to trouble you with what must otherwise seem to be purely personal matters, no concern of yours as a policeman.’

  ‘Perhaps you had better tell me who you are speaking of.’

  ‘I don’t wish to indulge in slander, but to my mind they’re a disreputable family. The children’s aunt, who is also of course my sister-in-law, is Madame Thibault de Polmont, and her father was the Comte de Grimaud who died recently.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lannes said. ‘I understand your concern. It’s a nest of vipers, that house.’

  The professor smiled for the first time at this allusion to the title of a novel by Bordeaux’s greatest man-of-letters, François Mauriac.

  ‘I won’t dispute your judgment,’ he said.

  There was a knock at the door and without waiting for a reply the boy from the bar came in with a pot of coffee and two cups. The professor stirred two lumps into his and continued, ‘I wouldn’t call my sister-in-law a viper. I might even, in a generous moment, say she was well-meaning, but her late father, yes indeed, a viper. Now, to come to the point, there are other members of the family who also merit that description. Have you, I wonder, encountered a young man who goes by the name of Sigi and who is some sort of disreputable connection, one of the old count’s by-blows, I believe? Michel is dazzled by him. I don’t think there is anything vicious in their relationship, but it is still an undesirable one. The whole family is pro-German – I should say that my late wife had German cousins, who were perfectly respectable, though I never found them sympathetic. Of course, in present circumstances, there’s no danger in holding such views – quite the reverse indeed. Nevertheless, as one who doesn’t despair of France – Henri tells me I may safely confess this to you – I can’t believe that things will remain as they are. For which reason, if no other – and there are others – I find this association – the boy’s hero-worship for this fellow – not only deplorable, but dangerous. He is quite capable of becoming deeply and foolishly engaged, and led into all sorts of folly. Do you know this man Sigi?’

  ‘I know enough of him to be sure your fears for your grandson are justified.’

  ‘I see. There’s worse, I’m afraid. Do you know the present Comte de Grimaud?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then you will also know that he has a certain reputation, in short that he’s a degenerate. Michel has introduced his sister to him and . . . it’s difficult to go on.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I don’t believe anything untoward has happened, but . . . he buys her little presents. She says he amuses her and is good fun. I’ve tried to warn her off but she just laughs and gives me a kiss and tells me not to be so silly.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Jean-Christophe himself?’

  The old man’s hands trembled.

  ‘He laughed at me. I didn’t . . . couldn’t go on. I suppose I’m a coward. But, as I say, I’m afraid, Anne-Marie’s so innocent.’

  ‘She might not be,’ Lannes thought. He remembered what Miriam had said, about the perverse or corrupt desire of a young girl to be the plaything of an older man.

  ‘And you would like me to intervene?’

  ‘Is that too much to ask? Is it, as they say, “out of line”? It’s not a police matter perhaps. Nevertheless I’m at my wits’end.’

  ‘It will be a pleasure,’ Lannes said. ‘I’ve had words before with Jean-Christophe on other matters. He won’t laugh at me.’

  He may suppose, he thought, that he too is one of the ‘untouchables’. I’ll show him how wrong he is.

  XII

  Lannes sat smoking at his desk. It’s like a maze, he said to himself. I go round and round in circles. I lay down markers for myself and pass them again and again. I don’t know what lies at the centre, can’t even be sure there is a centre. So, try to establish a chronology.

  It begins with Pilar. I’m sure of that. Wish I had known her better. Wish I could be sure anyone really knew her. Gaston thought the Communists betrayed her to the Fascists who killed her. Why would they do that? When that would be collusion between enemies? If Gaston was right, why was he killed? What did his killers think he knew? Who were they protecting?

  I’m no nearer to knowing the answer to these questions.

  He took a sheet of paper and wrote.

  1 Pilar murdered. That’s an assumption. When? Why? By whom?

  2 Sigi returns to Bordeaux? Winter 1939–40. Why?

  3 Gaston murdered. February 1940. By Sigi and the Spaniard, Sombra – I’ve no doubt about that. But why was his body mutilated? To suggest a sex-crime? Or just for fun? He was tortured in a attempt to extract information and the apartment searched. Unsuccessfully (assumption).

  4 The Comte de Grimaud asks me to investigate the authorship of anonymous letters. (His daughter – ghastly woman – says he wrote them himself). Motive? To draw my attention to his house and family? But why? In any case Marthe says Jean-Christophe was their author.

  5 The Catalan, Javier Cortazar, is tortured and dies of a heart attack. Murder in all but name. Perpetrators: almost certainly Sigi and Sombra. What information could he have had which connected him to Pilar? Did they find what they were looking for? Presumption negative.

  6 The old count dies, falling downstairs. Marthe is sure that Sigi, his bastard son, pushed him. Impossible to prove. But, again, why?

  7 Edmond de Grimaud warns me off; this following Rougerie’s determination to have the investigation of Gaston’s murder closed down. Later Edmond is happy his son Maurice should lodge with us (why?), until suddenly he summons him to Vichy.

  8 Leaving the Hotel Splendide in company with Edmond, I am shot. Edmond pretends the bullet was intended for him. Improbable.

  9 The shot was fired from a car belonging to a city employee, Jules Cortin, who reported it stolen. There were stubs of Virginian cigarttes in the car. Sigi smokes English cigarettes called Goldflake. We learn later that Cortin and Sigi were brought up together and that Cortin’s father is Marthe’s cousin.

  10 It’s made clear to me again – by Schnyder too – that the investigation can’t be pursued. Untouchables.

  11 Cortin is fished dead out of the Garonne. Strangled or garrotted. His wife admits he had gone to a meeting, pretends she knew nothing more. Lying probably.

  12 The mayor’s office complains we are stalli
ng on Cortin’s case. When I tell Rougerie of its connections, he makes it clear he will turn the complaint aside. Running scared?

  13 Professor (he picked up the card the old man had given him) Lazaire asks my help. His grandchildren (Michel and Anne-Marie) are in bad company: Sigi, to whom the boy has attached himself – hero-worship? – and Jean-Christophe who has a record of interfering with little girls. Anne-Marie is fourteen.

  It all comes back to that house in the rue d’Aviau where German officers are now billeted.

  (And what of the young lieutenant in his own building who had spoken to Cothilde and Alain, and whom Clothilde, he feared, found attractive?)

  He read over his notes. What or whom had he left out?

  Léon of course, who had been Gaston’s boy-friend and who had seen Gaston afraid when Sigi came into the Café des Arts. Léon who had scarcely thought of himself as a Jew till the Occupation. Léon whom Lannes had been accused of protecting by an anonymous letter-writer who had called him ‘a Jewish rent-boy’. Nasty, and who had written it?

  That too was a question to be solved, but there wasn’t going to be any mention of Léon in this memo which he would pass to Moncerre and young René for comment.

  Was this reticence for the boy’s sake or his own?

  Any other questions?

  He stubbed out his cigarette, lit another, and wrote: Why has there been no second attempt on my life?

  Because Edmond has called them off? Which only moves the ‘why?’ one step back.

  He added: Why did Jean-Christophe meet advocate Labiche chez Fernand? Is that significant? Is there any connection?

  Sigi had issued that delicate hint of blackmail. He didn’t record this either. Instead he wrote: In normal circumstances none of these ‘whys’ would matter. We have enough evidence to charge Sigi and probably the Spaniard. But neither the times nor the circumstances are normal. I want to know the answers all the same. I suspect Sigi is not a free agent – despite his rhetoric, but acts under orders. Whose? Edmond’s surely. And precisely why have we been called off the case? It must turn on Pilar’s activities and death. That’s the starting-point of it all, with only one exception: the old count’s summons and his murder, if it was murder.

  He got up and looked out of the window. A pale sun made the damp branches of the planes trees glisten. What did Sigi want of the boy Michel? As, for me, he thought, I’m a hunter by trade, but I’m being stalked myself. The jungle and the village gates.

  XIII

  Léon was dusting books which he was sure nobody would buy, handsome leather-bound editions of eighteenth century sermons, when Alain came into the shop, and he liked the look of him at first sight. He replaced the volume he was holding, laid aside the duster, lit a cigarette, and, good bookshop assistant, said, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Well, you could give me a cigarette, if you can spare one, that is.’

  ‘Willingly.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes, even though they are coming to be in short supply. I’m fortunate because my aunt who now runs the tabac that used to belong to my grandfather sees that I don’t run short. She thinks it helps to keep me out of mischief.’

  ‘Thanks. Why should she think you would get into mischief?’

  ‘Don’t you find that the older generation are always afraid of that? Or perhaps yours are different?’

  ‘Not that different,’ Alain said. ‘You’re new here, aren’t you? What happened to old Bloch?’

  ‘You knew him, did you? He got away. North Africa, Algeria or Tunis, I don’t know which.’

  ‘Lucky man.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s quite interesting being here just now.’

  He smiled, to hold Alain’s attention and knowing that he had said this to make himself appear interesting too.

  ‘Was there anything in particular you were looking for?’

  ‘Not really,’ Alain said. ‘I just like old bookshops, and anyway Monsieur Chambolley’s a friend of the family, well of my father really.’

  ‘Would you like some coffee? I could make some while you browse.’

  ‘That would be nice. Are you sure? Can you be bothered?’

  ‘I was just going to make some for myself.’

  Léon went through to the back-room where there was a paraffin-stove, prepared the coffee-pot and set it on the flame. While he waited for the water to boil, he shot glances at Alain reading, and liked the way his hair lay on his neck.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  Before closing his book, Alain said, ‘This is good, isn’t it? “Moments of crisis produce a redoubling of life in man.” Or don’t you think so?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have to think about that.’

  He handed Alain a cup.

  ‘Henri still has real coffee,’ he said.

  ‘Good of you to share it then.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure. Who said that, anyway?’

  ‘Said what? Oh, what I read. Chateaubriand in his memoirs. He’d reason to know after all. He lived through the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Do you think it’s true of our situation now? We’re certainly living through a crisis.’

  ‘Which is redoubling our life? It hadn’t occurred to me.’

  ‘No?’ Alain said, ‘but don’t you feel that, however circumscribed our daily life is now, we are nevertheless living more intensely, and will remember this time as such, assuming we survive it of course.’

  ‘Assuming?’ Léon said. ‘I’m a Jew. Things being as they are, I think I should tell you that.’

  Alain flushed.

  ‘And you think I should care about that? It’s almost an insult. No, in fact it really is an insult.’

  ‘Drink your coffee,’ Léon said, and handed him another cigarette. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just we’ve got off to such a good start that I thought I should tell you. If we’re going to be friends, as I hope we may be. I’m glad you think it’s an insult though.’

  He removed a pile of books from the chair to the right of the desk and sat down on the other one, indicating to Alain that he should take the one he had cleared. Alain removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair before sitting.

  ‘This must be one of the few warm rooms in Bordeaux,’ he said, ‘you’re lucky. How did you get the job?’

  ‘I just came in and asked if there was by any chance one going.’

  He hesitated. Alain had rolled his sleeves up. Léon reached out and touched his bare arm just above the elbow.

  ‘Actually, that’s not quite true. It’s what I would tell most people who asked, but the truth is I used to know Henri’s brother Gaston.’

  He looked Alain in the eye, with some apprehension lest he knew about Gaston and guessed what their relationship had been and was offended or disgusted. He read neither response there, and emboldened, even hopeful, added, ‘I suppose I can say we were friends.’

  ‘And then he was murdered.’

  ‘Yes. It was horrible, I don’t like to speak about it.’

  ‘Nor does my father. Oh, I should tell you he’s a policeman, a superintendent, and in charge of investigating the case. He never talks about his cases at home, my mother doesn’t like him to, but I know he has specially hated this one because Gaston was a friend when they were young.’

  Léon wondered how much he dared say.

  ‘I’ve met your father, and not only because of Henri, but . . . because of being a friend of Gaston too. I think he’s a good man.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he is. Despite being a policeman, you mean?’

  Léon laughed for the first time.

  ‘Exactly, despite him being a policeman, just as, if we are to be friends, it’s despite me being a Jew.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned that’s irrelevant, means nothing. I think these anti-Jewish laws are monstrous.’

  ‘It won’t surprise you to know that I agree with you.’


  This time they both laughed. Then Alain, serious, said, ‘It almost makes me ashamed of being French.’

  ‘Only “almost”.’

  ‘More than “almost”.’

  Léon took a newspaper cutting from the drawer of the desk and handed it to Alain.

  ‘Did you see this?’

  It was the account Lannes had shown him of the death sentence imposed on the Polish Jew, Israel Karp, and carried out the following morning.

  ‘Yes, I read it. It’s disgusting, utterly vile.’

  ‘Your father gave it to me. As a warning.’

  ‘Why did he think you needed a warning.’

  ‘Because of something I’d said.’

  ‘Oh, you feel like that too? Good. And not just because you’re Jewish?’

  ‘Certainly not just because I’m Jewish.’

  ‘What can we do? There must be something.’

  ‘There’s nothing at the moment, nothing I can think of, but . . . ’

  ‘Some day, you mean.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘My mother’s afraid for me,’ Alain said, frowning. ‘She keeps saying I mustn’t speak out of turn. “Out of turn” – silly expression, isn’t it. What makes it worse, or more frightening, from her point of view, is that my elder brother’s a prisoner of war somewhere in Germany.’

  ‘I know. Henri told me. Or my aunt. I forget which.’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘The one who keeps the tabac. She’s a friend of your father too.’

  ‘Do you ever think of getting out?’ Alain said. ‘Like old Bloch.’

  ‘My aunt would like me to, but . . . ’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Why should I? I’m French. That’s what she says herself. Besides, there’s my mother. I can’t leave her and she certainly won’t go.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘He’s dead. He wasn’t a Jew by the way. Actually it’s only since the war started that I’ve thought of myself as a Jew. Silly time to choose, wouldn’t you say? I mean, we’re not religious. I wouldn’t know what to do or how to behave in a synagogue. Did you know Gaston?’