by Brian Moore
He watched them both. The Angelus bell. The prayer at noon. The Commissaire expects me to ring him around now. But not from here. I’ll call from the town.
Five minutes later, the père hospitalier, sitting in his office under the porte cochère of the mansion, saw the little Peugeot come up the drive, approaching the main gates. He pressed the electric gate opener and the heavy iron gates swung wide. When the Peugeot reached the Corniche road outside it stopped, although no traffic was passing by.
Fifty yards up the road, a vista point. Three tourist cars were parked there. Half a dozen tourists, armed with cameras, were taking pictures of each other against the panorama below. It looked harmless but he took care to identify the makes of all three cars, before driving off in the direction of Villefranche.
You cannot deceive God. Why did he say that, Joseph? Because he has always been on the other side, a Jew lover. I might have known it. In all the times I’ve come here over the years, he’s never wanted to talk about our early days. Now, I know why. You cannot deceive God. I’m not trying to deceive God! Jesus, my Saviour, I pray to You, I worship You, I could never deceive You. I didn’t deceive anyone, not Monsignor Le Moyne, not Abbé Feren, I confessed my faults and was given absolution. He’s wrong. Joseph, he’ll never understand. Contrition for what I did in the milice? What I did in the milice was right for the time, right for the war we were fighting. Why do I let him upset me, I feel faint, I feel my heart. I’ve got to talk to the Commissaire. Things are bad now, worse than ever. Maybe it’s the moment to ask the Commissaire if he can get me out. Bolivia, he said. But that was years ago. Still he always wanted me to leave France.
Villefranche was like a second home. The old town behind the seafront, with its narrow streets and alleys, was the dark heart of the port, a brothel quarter in the years when the American fleet called here, hidden away from the tourists who strolled along the marine promenade and ate in the waterfront restaurants. He had been a guest in the priory so many times in the past twenty years that he knew every street in the old town. He had his regular café in the Rue Obscure, a place where he was known, but not known, a place where he had often picked up his envelope. There was a closed telephone kiosk in the rear of the café.
Now, as he came down on to the lower Corniche road above Villefranche, he looked again and again in his rear-view mirror, just to be sure. The third time he looked he saw a green Renault Clio. One of the cars at the Vista Point had been a green Renault Clio. Could be coincidence. He turned into the upper reaches of Villefranche and drove down towards the seafront. Suddenly, he swung into the kerb and parked. The green Clio went past, headed for the yacht basin. He drove on. In the underground parking at Place St Michel he locked the Peugeot and walked down a steep narrow street, leading to the dark alley known as the Rue Obscure. He still felt faint. His mouth was dry and he was hungry. After I call the Commissaire, I’ll have a beer and some food.
But what about the call to the Commissaire: will I say it? Will I, at last, get my Vatican passport? Will I end my days in some bugridden, half-black country, sitting in a stinking café surrounded by greasy métèques? What choice do I have? Even with the Chevaliers helping me, there are only a few places that will take me now. And most of them are ‘intégriste’ with mealtime readings and prayer vigils and no television. At least, in another country I could relax, live in an apartment, eat what I want when I want it. What should I do, should I test the waters and ask about a passport? Will that make him angry?
He was passing familiar shops, bars, vegetable stalls, coming into the darkness of the Rue Obscure. Halfway up the street was the Bar Les Antilles with its beaded front curtain, its little-used outdoor tables and, inside, a row of banquettes, an old-fashioned football machine and a little zinc bar adjoining the kitchen. He pushed aside the curtain and went into the gloom. There were only four customers, two old men playing draughts, and, in one of the banquettes, an alcoholic couple, man and wife, silent over tumblers of Ricard. At the zinc counter, Max Pellan, the proprietor, was reading the sports pages of Nice Matin. He looked up, his reading glasses slipping to the tip of his empurpled nose. ‘Ah, Monsieur Pierre. How’s it going? Back for a visit?’
‘Just a short one, this time.’
They shook hands. ‘What can I offer you, Monsieur Pierre?’
‘I’ve been thinking about pan bagnat. Do you have it today?’
Max looked into the little kitchen behind the bar where his wife was chopping onions.
‘Clotilde? Pan bagnat, is it possible?’
‘Yes.’
Max turned back, pushing his glasses up on his nose. ‘And to drink, Monsieur Pierre?’
‘A beer. But first I must make a phone call. Can you let me have a jeton?’
Max reached into a tin box and handed him two phone counters. ‘Go ahead.’
Just beyond the zinc bar, a corridor led to the phone kiosk which faced the door of the toilet. At the end of the corridor was a locked and barred back entrance. He entered the phone kiosk and, pulling its folding glass partition shut behind him, stood, trying to get up his courage. The passport, yes, or no? What will he say?
He dialled Avignon.
‘Hello, yes?’
‘Monsieur Pierre here, Madame. Is your husband at home?’
‘One moment, please.’
As he waited, he glanced through the glass panel in the direction of the bar. No one coming through. Take it easy. Why should I be afraid of him?
‘Hello?’
The Commissaire’s voice. And at once it was as though the years had fallen away like leaves from a tree and he again faced someone he was afraid of, someone like Commandant Lecussan in the days of the milice. Men like this had the gift of giving fear. And he who could charm abbots and monsignors had never had a chance with the Commissaire who had always treated him as someone whose silence had been bought, who could be destroyed at will. And now he must ask a great favour of this man.
‘It’s me, sir. I promised to telephone you when I arrived in Villefranche.’
‘You’re there already?’
‘Yes, sir. But I’m afraid there’s a problem. The priory will only accept me for one night.’
‘What?’ The Commissaire’s voice was suddenly loud.
‘There’s a laymen’s religious retreat starting there in two days’ time. Besides, I think they’re afraid. The Cardinal’s men have been talking to them.’
‘But you’ll be staying there tonight?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And then?’
‘Tomorrow I’ll move to Nice. I don’t see any problem in Nice. Dom Olivier is Prior General and a great friend of the Chevaliers.’
As he spoke, he heard footsteps behind him in the corridor. He turned and saw a kid in a blue anorak and an American baseball cap go into the toilet and close the door. He did not see the kid’s face.
‘Yes, I know Dom Olivier,’ the Commissaire said. ‘You should be safe there. Phone me tomorrow as soon as you arrive.’
He hesitated, cradling the receiver between his shoulder and his ear, as he turned to look back at the shut toilet door. Who’s that kid? This is what I’m up against. I can’t turn my back, day or night. I’ve got to get away.
‘Sir, there is a problem. I can’t stay in Nice for long. Even in those circles, word could get out. I’ll have to move on very soon. Sir, I think it’s time for a change of plan. I’d like to go abroad.’
There was silence in Avignon. He tried again.
‘Some time ago, sir, you urged me to take this step. Do you remember?’
‘That was years ago.’
‘But is it still possible, sir? I think it would be best for all concerned, don’t you?’
‘I have no opinion on that,’ the Commissaire said. He did not sound angry, which was a blessing. ‘I’ll have to think about it. In the meantime, remember, we’re paying you, we’re protecting you. You do your part and we’ll do ours. Relax. We’ll work something out.’
&n
bsp; ‘But, to be honest, sir, I can’t relax, not for a moment, sir. After all, they’ve tried to kill me twice, first in Salon and then in Aix. My life’s in danger as never before.’
‘If I were you I’d stop worrying,’ the Commissaire said. ‘You gave that second one the slip, didn’t you? Listen to me. I haven’t told you yet, but the police now know who these people are. They’re working on it. I don’t think you’ll have to worry much longer.’
Could he believe him? Were they just trying to keep him from losing his nerve? ‘If you’re right, sir, that’s very good news.’
‘Of course I’m right! Phone me tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
He heard the Commissaire hang up. He stood for a moment, trying to fix the exact words of the conversation. Nowadays, unbelievably, he often forgot what had been said, he who in the old days was known as the Recording Angel of the Second Section. The Commissaire didn’t say no. He had not been angry. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’ That’s what he said. He’ll have to do more than think about it. I can’t go on like this. Never mind about them finding those Jews, it’s the gendarmerie who’s on my tail now, there’s no stopping those army bastards, or that juge d’instruction, that Jewess looking for revenge. Bolivia, somewhere, anywhere, would be better than this.
He came out of the kiosk and went back to the zinc bar. A tall cool glass of beer had been placed at the end of the counter and, beside it, a paper napkin and a knife and fork. Max, marking his selection on the racing page, moistened the tip of his pencil with his tongue and said, as if to himself, ‘Athos.’
He sat down at the counter and said to Max, ‘Athos?’
‘Three o’clock at Auteuil,’ Max said. ‘I have a feeling about that horse. Clotilde?’
‘Coming.’
Madame Pellan, thin and stooped, came from the small kitchen carrying the pan bagnat sandwich on a plate surrounded by black olives.
‘I’ve been dreaming of that,’ he told her. ‘Yours is the best pan bagnat in all of Provence.’
‘Thank you. Bon appetit, Monsieur Pierre.’
He took a bite of the sandwich. Tuna, olive oil, tomatoes, in a hollowed-out roll. Easy on his dentures. I won’t get any pan bagnat if I move to some métèque country. Knab’s in Argentina now, under the name of Heller. Vatican passport. But that was in the days of Pius XII. This Pope’s a Polack, going around the world like a salesman, celebrating mass with bare-arsed savages and making cardinals out of niggers. Still, even if the Vatican can’t help now, Commissaire Vionnet has influence. He works for the Prefect. Ex-Prefect now. It’s all influence, who you are, who you were. They talk about justice but the charges against me and Monsieur le Préfet are exactly the same, crime against humanity, yet he’s never had to run, lives in a big apartment in Paris, invited to state receptions, sees his grandchildren every week, not to worry if you’re him, with juge after juge d’instruction putting his case aside, year after year.
‘Salut!’
A new customer pushed aside the beaded front curtain and waved to Max. Middle-aged, a regular, by the sound of him. He watched him sit in the banquette next to the alcoholics. Max, without being asked, took up a bottle of Ricard, poured a measure, then brought the glass and a carafe of water to the man’s table.
‘What’s new, Max? Got something for today?’ the man said.
‘Athos. Three o’clock. Auteuil.’
The customer shrugged. ‘Boh!’
‘Well, you asked,’ Max said. He went back behind the bar.
The pan bagnat was eaten and he was spitting out the stone of the last olive when he thought of the toilet. That kid never came out. All at once, he felt the hackle of danger. He asked Max.
‘Listen, is it possible to go out through the back way?’
Max shook his head.
‘You sure?’
‘Of course. If there was a way out, I’d be robbed blind. They’d go down to the toilet and disappear.’
It must be fifteen minutes or more since the kid went in. Too long. He turned and looked back down the corridor. What he saw there made him get off his bar stool. The toilet door was ajar. If it’s him, is he watching me now? Making sure I haven’t left? If it’s him, he lost me in Aix. He’ll be worried about that.
Relax, the Commissaire said. But how does he expect me to relax? He didn’t say they’d caught these Jews. Be sensible. There’s a kid in the toilet, maybe he’s taking a hit. But the door was closed when I came out of the kiosk. Why is it not closed now?
He knew what he must do. He said to Max, loud enough to be heard back there, ‘Give me a jeton, will you? I have to make another phone call.’
He put his hand into his blouse as he walked down the corridor towards the telephone booth. He looked, not at the booth, but at the toilet door lying slightly ajar. When he reached the booth he hesitated, then, as if changing his mind, turned and pushed open the toilet door. The toilet was old-fashioned, tiled, filthy, dating from fifty years ago, a hole in the ground, with no toilet seat. Standing with his back to him, pretending to piss into the hole, was the kid in the American baseball cap. He could not see the kid’s face.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t shut the door.’
‘No problem,’ the kid said. He did not turn around.
He stood, watching the kid’s back. There was no urine going into the hole in the floor. There was no sign of a needle. He slipped his revolver half out of his blouse.
‘Will you be long?’ he asked.
He saw the kid stiffen and pretend to shake his prick dry. He saw the kid’s right arm go up, not to zip his fly, but into the anorak. That was it. He knew, although he’d not seen the kid’s face. At the moment the kid reached into the anorak for his gun, he shot him twice in the back. He watched him fall on his knees on the urine-soaked tiles. The kid’s gun made a clatter as it dropped beside the toilet hole. He went closer, pulled up the head and saw the dying face. It was the one from Aix.
The noise of two shots had been loud in the bar. Max’s footsteps, coming, running. He stuffed his own gun back in his blouse and went to the toilet door.
‘I was in the phone booth,’ he told Max. ‘I think it’s a suicide.’
Max, shaken, went into the toilet. Within seconds Max would know the truth.
He ran down the corridor, through the café, and into the Rue Obscure. His heart hammering in his chest, he ran down the street, then down the flight of steps that led to the waterfront, coming out into an anonymity of strolling tourists, out to the sunlight, the silver glitter of the sea.
26
It was an official jeep, unmistakably gendarmerie: its driver, Sergeant Picot, armed with an automatic weapon, as was the corporal who sat beside him. In the rear, alone, his impeccable uniform clearly showing his rank as lieutenant-colonel, Roux sat, a briefcase on his knees, his overnight bag at his feet. He had arranged to be picked up directly at Nice airport and driven straight to Villefranche. Now, as they rounded the last bend on the Haute Corniche road, he could see the heavy gates of the priory of St Michel des Monts ahead, its rusted iron cross slightly askew to the right of the entrance. Where was the stakeout?
And then he saw a gendarmerie jeep parked in the little circle of the Vista point. In its front seats a sergeant and a corporal, both in uniform.
‘Those our men?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dammit, I asked for a stakeout, not a roadblock!’
‘Sir?’
‘Uniforms! Army vehicle! If the suspect saw that when he drove up here, he’s long gone by now.’
‘Sir.’
‘Call them. Bring them here.’
When the stakeout jeep drove alongside, he leaned out. ‘When did you men arrive?’
‘Fourteen-ten hours, sir.’
‘All right. Follow us in.’
The père hospitalier answered the gate telephone. ‘Priory. Yes?’
‘Gendarmerie. Will you open, please?’
As the two ve
hicles drove up to the porte cochère, the père hospitalier telephoned Father Joseph in his office.
‘The police, Father. Two jeeps.’
‘Where is our friend?’
‘He went out a few hours ago. He hasn’t come back yet. What will I say to them, Father?’
‘Wait. I’ll be down in a moment.’
The père hospitalier, Father Francis, went out on to the drive. ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’
‘Is there a rear entrance, Father?’
‘Yes. At the other end of the grounds, past the chapel.’
‘Sergeant, get down there. Corporal, you come with us.’
The stakeout jeep, accelerating, drove off in the direction of the stables. Roux, followed by Sergeant Picot and the two corporals, entered the main hallway of the mansion.
‘Who’s in charge here, Father?’
‘Father Joseph. He’s just coming.’
Descending the pink marble staircase was an elderly monk. He nodded politely in greeting as he crossed the ornate chequerboard tiles of the hall. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’
‘I am Colonel Roux. This is a search warrant for these premises.’
Father Joseph took the typewritten sheet of paper and read it slowly. ‘Pierre Brossard?’ he said, at last.
‘Yes. Is he here?’
‘No, he is not.’
‘But you know him?’
‘Indeed, I do. We were boys at school together.’
‘Then you know that he’s wanted on the charge of a crime against humanity.’
‘Yes.’
‘He has stayed here in the past?’
‘Our Prior, Dom Henri, is in Rome at the moment. I am acting for him in his absence, but because I am not the Prior, I don’t feel it’s within my competence to answer your question. As you know, Colonel, the Church’s law of asylum supersedes, in the minds of my superiors, the laws of the civil authority.’
