by Allan Massie
‘There’s still that priest. I’d really like to haul him in, have a go. If he doesn’t know something, then I’ve not been a cop these twenty years.’
The priest? Perhaps? But he would have to ask Alain to identify him, and that wasn’t on.
‘Decorated by fat-arse Franco,’ he said. ‘I bet Edmond had a hand in that.’
Edmond was in it up to his neck. He was sure of that. But, even more than Sigi, Edmond was an Untouchable. For now anyway.
XV
Lannes woke with a foul taste in his mouth and a throbbing head. The marc certainly, for he and Moncerre had finished the bottle after letting the Spaniard go. It was something they hadn’t done for a long time, not since the early days of the war when they were all anxiously waiting for action. He felt ashamed. Fortunately Marguerite had been asleep when he returned and had done no more that turn over in bed with a muttered ‘What time is it?’, and had gone back to sleep before he answered.
He went through to the kitchen and made himself a pot of coffee. It was still dark and the city was silent. Coffee was already rationed and much that was available was adulterated. Lucky that he and Alain were the only members of the family who drank it regularly. Dominique too, but who knew what sort of thin ersatz muck he might get in his camp, wherever it was? He cut himself a slice of cheese and nibbled it: good Cantal. How long would that be on the market?
Though he had tried to persuade Moncerre otherwise – himself too, if it came to that – he had failed with the Spaniard. That was the cause of his wretched state, every bit as much as the marc. There had never – he went over the interrogation in his mind – been a moment when he had truly sensed they were on the point of a breakthrough. He was almost sorry he hadn’t yielded to Moncerre and allowed him to give Sombra that ‘going-over’ he had suggested. Eagerly suggested, for Moncerre would have enjoyed roughing him up. But of course he had been right to say no. They might already be in trouble, in line for a reprimand at least. He couldn’t doubt that Sigi would be complaining to Edmond in Vichy, just as soon as he had debriefed Sombra.
Pilar? What made sense? Assuming she had indeed been murdered by the Communists in Spain. Why should that agitate Edmond, lead him to loose his dogs? Because she had learned something of the activities of certain Frenchmen, Edmond among them, engaged in selling arms to Franco – which was illegal? And because they believed she had left a record of their activities, entrusting it, as they supposed, either to Gaston or Javier Cortazar? Something like this was the only plausible explanation for torturing them and searching their apartments? But why betray her to the Communists? Why not deal with her themselves? Or had they indeed done so, committed a crime on French soil, the victim a French citizen by reason of her marriage to Henri? There was another puzzle here. Why had they left Henri alone? Why were they so sure she hadn’t confided her secret to him, her husband, rather than to Gaston or Cortazar? He could think of no answer to that question.
And why, he thought again, has there been no second attempt on my life? Here at least there was an answer: Vichy. He was no longer deemed dangerous because of Edmond’s position in the new regime; he had been tamed, emasculated. It was possible, admittedly, that Sigi and the Spaniard had been acting on their own initiative then. Unlikely, however: Edmond was the only person who knew that he was going to be in the Hotel Splendide. He must have arranged the shooting.
He took a couple of aspirin, poured another cup of coffee and lit his first cigarette of the day. Always the best one. He drew smoke deep into his lungs, expelled it, and felt better. Perhaps he had been right when he told Moncerre that the interrogation of the Spaniard hadn’t been a complete failure. Even if it had yielded nothing concrete, it served to let Sigi – and Edmond – know that he hadn’t given up, was still on the case. Might this alarm Edmond, lead him to do something rash?
One thing was clear. Despite what he had said to Moncerre, it would be wise to report to Schnyder. He might not be able to get him on his side. Though he had formed a liking for him and believed this was reciprocated, it was clear that Schnyder was determined first of all to protect his own position; he wasn’t going to stick his neck out for Lannes or for anyone else. But since it was likely that a complaint about Lannes’ behaviour would descend from on high, it was better that he learned of it from Lannes himself.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Schnyder said.
Lannes shrugged.
‘We’re policemen,’ he said.
‘Oh, my dear chap, don’t suppose I’ve forgotten that. A case is never closed, till, like the fucking Canadian Mounties, we’ve got our man. Absolutely and very admirable. But, by your own account, Jean, you got nothing from this Spaniard that you didn’t know already, and all you’ve done is stir up a hornet’s next. A fine night’s work – I don’t think! Moreover you are guilty of disobedience, insubordination. I could throw the book at you. Can you give me one reason – one good reason – why I shouldn’t?’
‘That depends,’ Lannes said, ‘on where you stand.’
‘Where I stand? I’ll tell you where I stand. This town’s full of fucking Germans and I have to work with them. At the same time I take my orders from Vichy and I’ve no choice in the matter. Oh yes, I could resign of course, toss away my career for high-minded reasons, but, no matter what you think of me, I can tell you this: you would find my replacement worse and a damned sight less sympathetic. I don’t like this mess we’re in any more than you do, but at least I’ve got my eyes open and can see the mess for what it is. That’s where I stand.’
Lannes took the newspaper cutting from his pocket and placed it on Schnyder’s desk.
‘That’s our man,’ he said, putting his finger on the photograph of the Spaniard. ‘I don’t suppose you were introduced to him at the races, were you?’
‘What did he say to that?’ Moncerre asked.
They were lunching chez Fernand, liver with onions and fried potatoes, and a bottle of Médoc.
‘Very little. Had been introduced, hadn’t caught his name, made no particular impression on him.’
‘Eyes only for La Jauzion, I expect. So what do we do now, chief ?’
Lannes took hold of the bottle and poured them each a glass. The curious thing was that, though Schnyder had blustered and reproved him for disobedience, he had stopped short of action. It was as if he had given Lannes a wink, as much as to say, ‘Just keep me out of it, I don’t want to know.’
‘Cortin,’ he said. ‘Have you had any success, René, in tracing his movements the night he was killed?’
René blushed, as he always did when confessing failure.
‘Right,’ Lannes said. ‘Let’s get the sorrowing widow in again. Six o’clock. You’d better both go since she’s insensible to your charms, little one. We’ll show her the photograph of Sombra.’
‘What good will it do?’ Moncerre asked. ‘Not that I mind wasting time, since as I’ve said, there’s nothing else to do with it.’
‘No good immediately, I agree with you there of course. But I want to build up a dossier, for the day when we can use it.’
The advocate Labiche was again lunching at the corner table across the room, again studying a brief. He raised his head, looked at Lannes, and, when Lannes out-stared him, returned to his papers.
‘Meanwhile,’ Lannes said, ‘I’m going to have another word with Jean-Christophe.’
There wasn’t in fact anything he hoped to discover from the Count whose involvement in the case was marginal. But Professor Lazaire was on his conscience. The old man had come to him seeking help and he had done nothing about it. So he now presented himself again at the house in the rue d’Aviau. Two German officers were leaving it as he approached. Was it his imagination that led him to think they scrutinized him closely?
Old Marthe admitted him less grudgingly than before.
‘Oh it’s you again. If it’s Jean-Christophe you want, you’re in luck. He’s sober, or near sober, for once. If it’s me, you should have come
to the kitchen door. Not that I’ve anything more to tell you. You know it all anyway, don’t you?’
‘I wish I did,’ Lannes thought, as he followed the old woman whose black laced boots rang on the polished floor.
‘It’s that policeman again. What have you been up to now?’
Jean-Christophe was sitting in his father’s chair with the canaries twittering in the cage behind him. He was smartly dressed in a checked tweed suit – English tweed, Lannes thought – cream-coloured silk shirt and green yellow-spotted bow-tie. He made no move to rise or extend his hand.
‘I thought I’d seen the end of you,’ he said. ‘What do you want? Edmond told me you’d had orders to leave me alone.’
‘Did he now?’
This time Lannes didn’t bother to remove his overcoat or sit down.
‘What I have to say won’t take long. You’re quite right in saying your brother stepped in to protect you, and so I’ve no questions for you. But there are criminal acts which have nothing to do with the cases under investigation, and I intend to see that you don’t commit them. I know your record, it’s no secret, so don’t trouble yourself to protest. Anne-Marie Lazaire. She’s a minor, the age you like them. Leave her alone. That’s an order. From me. If you disobey, if you lay a finger on her, I’ll have you in prison, banged up in a cell with a couple of hard boys. That’s a promise. You’re not to see her again. I hope you understand. I’ve a daughter of my own, older than little Anne-Marie, and I don’t like men of your sort. That’s all I have to say. Just do as you’re told and remember I have my eye on you.’
XVI
As he turned into the public garden Lannes found himself dizzy. He sat down on a bench, his hands folded on his stick, to compose himself. The sharpness of his words to Jean-Christophe had taken him by surprise. Had he merely been venting his frustration on the man? Hitting at him because he couldn’t strike Edmond, or Sigi, or even the Spaniard? Partly, he admitted to himself. But also, when he mentioned Clothilde, he had pictured the Count pawing at her, a few years back when she was still a little girl: disgusting.
It was a cold clear afternoon now, weather he liked, with the black branches of the trees glistening after the morning rain. Mothers pushed prams or walked the paths holding their little children by the hand. A small boy in a blue belted overcoat ran past rolling a hoop. Old gentlemen took their constitutional, some with a dog on a lead. All of them, except the youngest of the children, would have their worries, anxieties, fears, but for the moment in the afternoon sunshine it was as if there was no war, no occupation. Yet you couldn’t put it out of mind, avoid thinking of it and what it portended; not for long, you couldn’t. As Schnyder said, it was the central fact of their life. You had to face up to it and to its significance. For Lannes as a policeman it meant frustration; for him as a father, something worse than that: fear. Marguerite had been more alert to this reality than he had been. Alain was a boy of spirit. She was afraid he would do something rash. And he might! How, at eighteen, could you fail to find humiliation – national and personal humiliation – insupportable? He would have to do as she asked: speak to the boy, warn him he must accept what he surely found unacceptable. And Clothilde? When she spoke of that young German officer who was ‘nice’, she was torn, painfully and puzzled, between her natural inclination and her sense of what was correct behaviour. They were being cheated of their youth, just as surely as poor Dominique in his prison camp. For that was the truth – Bordeaux had become a prison. Damn these politicians!
Four o’clock. Two hours till he was due back at the office to question Madame Cortin again. Ghastly woman who would tell him another pack of lies! He would call on the old professor, who lived in a street adjoining the garden, let him know that he had spoken to Jean-Christophe, warned him off, done his good deed for the day. There was bitterness in that reflection.
A maid admitted him to the second-floor apartment, asked him to wait in the gloomy hallway with its mahogany side-table on which stood a brass dish once intended doubtless as a receptacle for visiting-cards, now empty. She returned and showed him into the professor’s study, book-lined as it should be – everything, Lannes thought – was as it should be. The old man rose to greet him and, as he did so, the shawl draped round his shoulders slipped off. Lannes retrieved it from the Turkey carpet, apologized for calling unannounced, hoped it wasn’t inconvenient – the usual meaningless words. The professor bade him sit down, offered tea, which Lannes declined, then said, ‘Ever since I made so bold as to ask for your assistance, I’ve wondered if I might have been importunate.’
Lannes made a gesture of dissent.
‘Not at all. By no means, but with things as they are. Well, you will understand that there are difficulties. Nevertheless you were quite right to approach me, and in fact I’ve come to tell you that I’ve had a word with the Comte de Grimaud. I hope an effective one. At any rate I’ve warned him off your granddaughter and I think I’ve frightened him sufficiently for him to take heed of what I said. He’s a feeble fellow really.’
‘Not much of a man,’ the professor said ‘but for that very reason disturbing. I’m sure you find that many criminals fit that description.’
‘Most of them. It’s their very inadequacy makes them dangerous. I don’t speak of the professional ones who belong to a different category and psychological type. But the sexual deviants are usually every bit as inadequate as their actions are wicked. It’s a difficult moral question how far they are to be held responsible, which doesn’t of course mean that they should be regarded as innocents. Jean-Christophe is, as you say, not much of a man. However, as to your grandson – Michel, isn’t it? – I’m afraid that I can’t see that I can do anything there. Any warning from me that he is frequenting bad company – well, I’m afraid he would pay no attention. Moreover, though the man of whom you spoke, that he has attached himself to, is, as I said, a criminal, he’s not only protected, but his protector belongs to the side that is now in the ascendancy.’
‘That protector? You speak of Edmond de Grimaud.’
The maid who had not waited for instructions now brought in a tray with a teapot, two cups, sugar, slices of lemon and a plate of almond biscuits. She poured them both a cup. Lannes, forgetting he had declined the professor’s offer, took his from her.
‘It’s a bad time to be young,’ he said. ‘Whichever way the war goes, there are young people who are going to find they have taken the wrong path and will suffer accordingly.’
‘Poor France! We’re divided as we were at the time of Dreyfus, and those who were wrong then are now in a position to take their revenge. Indeed the divisions exposed by the Affair have never been closed, the wounds never healed. The poor Marshal! He declared recently that we are either with him or against him. He deludes himself. Many who are now with him will turn against him when the war itself turns, as I believe it will. When I say this to Michel, warning him, he flares up and calls me a traitor. Yet he’s a good boy at heart. That’s the tragedy of our time.’
Lannes experienced a desire to ask this old man if it was shameful of him to remain in the service of Vichy, compelled to collaborate with the Germans or at least not to oppose them. But he didn’t put the question. There are things you have to resolve for yourself.
The sound of singing came from the hall, a boy’s voice, a cheerful light tenor. The door was flung open and he came in.
He was tall – well, taller than Lannes who stood five foot eight inches – blond, good-looking though his mouth was large and loose-lipped and his nose had a suggestion of snub. His face was flushed, no doubt because of the cold outside. He was long-legged but moved awkwardly as he crossed the room to lean over his grandfather and kiss him on the cheek. He took no notice of Lannes but a black-and-white smooth-coated fox terrier which had followed him into the room approached Lannes and pawed at his leg.
‘How was your lecture?’ the professor asked, addressing the boy in the second person singular.
‘Inspiring.
We were told we all have a duty to forward the National Revolution as members of the Aquitaine Legion of French Youth.’
‘You’ve really joined that organization?’
‘But of course, Grandpa. Monsieur Grimaud says it’s essential that boys and young men of my privileged background are ready to take their part in creating the new order which will raise France from its ruinous condition and let her take her rightful place in the New Europe that is in the process of formation. It’s really exciting. I know that you don’t altogether approve, but, forgive me, Grandpa, that’s because you don’t understand how my generation feels.’
He stopped abruptly, as if aware for the first time of Lannes’ presence, blushed and held out his hand.
‘You must think me frightfully rude, sir.’ he said. ‘If I am, it’s because I’m so excited. But I apologize.’
‘Not at all,’ Lannes said, taking the boy’s hand which was warm and dry. ‘I was young myself once. I understand how you feel.’
The ardour of youth, he thought, how attractive it is, how often misplaced.
‘We all have to rally round the Marshal. That’s what we’re told. He needs our support. He is the symbol of renascent France, but needs the support of young people like us. It’s wonderful.’
‘I suppose he does, poor man,’ the professor said. ‘Now, Michel, I have business to finish with my guest. I shall see you at dinner and hear more about your meeting and the plans for your Legion.’
The boy blushed for a second time.
‘I apologize,’ he said again, and with the terrier at his heels, left the study. They heard him singing in the hall and then there was silence. The professor took a cigar from the box on the marble-topped little table by his side, offered one to Lannes who declined, then busied himself sniffing it, rolling it between his fingers, and then clipped the end. He struck a long match which he held for several seconds to the cigar before lighting it.
