‘Madame, she …’
‘Madame Buemondi?’
‘Yes … yes.’ Fratani tore his gaze away to search the hill-slope and the mas, the farmhouse then the village and lastly the ruins of the citadel on high.
No one was in sight but that could well mean they were being watched and the Gestapo, he … he knew of this, had seen it all before and was grinning like a wolf!
‘Madame Buemondi owns this land and leases it to both the Perettis and the Borels but only lets the Perettis draw water from her pond when needed.’
‘In return for looking after the daughter?’
‘Yes. That and the cottage she … she uses when she and …’ Again the village cop was forced to swallow tightly. ‘Pardon,’ he said. ‘The catch in the throat. The influenza perhaps.’
Kohler wasn’t impressed.
‘She used to come to visit us,’ confessed Fratani.
‘When she came to barter for a little of what you bastards were flogging on the black markets of Nice and Grasse, eh, and Cannes?’
Among other places – this was all too clear in the Gestapo’s expression.
‘What else are we to do, monsieur, given that our village is so remote and we lack for many things?’
‘How many times a week do you run the hearse to market and how many caskets do yoù fill?’
‘In summer, two; in winter, one or none. It all depends on each harvest, on the time they change the controls, on so many little things. Too many bodies, too many funerals … Always there are questions.’
Kohler got the picture. It was fair enough and Fratani knew only too well that to even barter an old bicycle inner tube for a chunk of bread these days was illegal and subject not just to a fine and imprisonment, but to transport into forced labour or worse.
‘When did the victim catch on to things?’
‘Right from the start, right from when the shortages first began in Cannes. The grey bread, the sudden absence of asparagus, monsieur, a thing we used to grow in quantity in the valleys. Four, five, six crops sometimes. Ah, nothing like some others but … It was her idea that we do this, monsieur. Madame Buemondi, she was the mastermind of our little business.’
She probably was, thought Kohler, but let it pass. ‘Tell me why she would deny the Borels the right to water but give it to the Perettis?’
Nom de Dieu, this one had the eyes of a priest! ‘Alain Borel, he …’
‘The herbalist’s son?’
‘Yes, yes, damn you! He …’
‘Is in the hills,’ sighed Kohler. ‘Was he the one who left this for the girl, and was it really left for her?’
Fratani stared at the carving. Startled, he asked where the Gestapo had found it and when told, gripped his stubbled cheeks, deep in thought and despair. The others would never forgive him if he told the truth.
‘Ludo Borel’s eldest son gathers the herbs for his father in the mountains, monsieur, and dries them there.’
‘I asked you who left this little carving and for whom? Don’t shrug, my fine, or I’ll make you carry her corpse all by yourself, right to Cannes.’
‘The grandmother, Madame Mélanie Peretti, the mother of Georges.’
‘The blind woman?’
Was it so impossible for the Gestapo to comprehend? ‘She sees with the innermost eye, monsieur, and she carves most beautifully.’
‘Don’t dump on me. For her to have done this, the herbalist would have had to let her put her hands all over his face.’
‘But of course.’
‘But I thought you told us the Perettis and the Borels were not on speaking terms?’
‘They’re not. That is why she has left it on the hillside for the herbalist. The Abbé Roussel, he has acted as the transmitter of their words.’
The transmitter? Why not the relay, or the go-between? Why use a wireless term?
Kohler looked away to the ruins of the citadel and from there, let his eye run to the line of the nearest mountains. Da, dit, dit, da … Merde! An enemy transmitter in the mountains. The sap. Had he let it slip on purpose?
‘Is the herbalist’s son, Alain Borel, in love with the girl?’
‘Very much so.’
‘And did the mother not agree?’
‘Did she forbid such a thing, monsieur? Is that what you mean?’
‘You know it is.’
Fratani sighed contentedly. ‘Then you are absolutely correct, Inspector. There could be no wedding, no possibility of a union and of offspring. On this, Madame was positive.’
‘Or else she’d cut off their water?’
‘She had already done that long ago, from the Borels, as I have said.’
‘From the Perettis, you idiot!’ Ah Nom de Dieu, this one understood the hills far better than most.
‘Louis, I have to tell you something.’ Kohler drew him round to the leeward side of the hearse while Fratani waited behind the steering-wheel. ‘The Perettis were supposed to keep the girl away from Ludo Borel’s eldest son. Madame Buemondi threatened one of them in no uncertain terms. Georges, the old woman’s son, shot her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she would have cut off their water, and in these hills that is life.’
‘Hermann, what is it? What’s really troubling you?’
‘The maquis, Louis. Your friend Delphane is using us against them.’
St-Cyr reached out to him. The gesture was so automatic, the barriers of war were instantly set aside. ‘Quietly, Hermann. Quietly, my old one. You’re forgetting the pawn ticket and letting your innermost fears get the better of you.’
‘Am I? You saw the girl’s clothes. You saw the looks she gave us.’
‘Shall we go up to the village to question the abbé?’
There were tears in Hermann’s eyes. ‘Ask Fratani where we can find Georges Peretti, Louis.’
‘In time, my old one. Let us first go to Cannes and tuck her safely on ice. I have something I must do. The rest will keep.’
Kohler wouldn’t let go. ‘You’ve been my friend, Louis, but if there are maquis in those hills, I’m going to have to let the Army know. Boemelburg has forced my hand.’
‘Or Pharand, my own, Hermann. And Jean-Paul Delphane.’
They were up to their necks in shit and both knew it. One last glance through the open curtains revealed the victim still stiff with rigor. She seemed to be trying to tell them something but could not possibly have done so.
3
Two bodies lay sprawled on the tram-car tracks in Cannes. Perhaps five metres separated them, and when the sub-lieutenant walked up to the nearer of them, he drew his pistol and gave the poor bastard the coup de grâce.
Fratani shuddered. Jammed between the two detectives in the cab of the hearse, he saw only blood and brains splashing the stones, not the fashionable shops and hotels of the route d’Antibes. Not the half-frozen crowd of stragglers who were bundled in black or grey with scattered colours and fur coats between who made no move, remained only mute and poised in shock and indecision. Poor and rich alike; alien and resident; one dowager in black with a pair of white poodles who sniffed uneasily at her escort’s heels and cocked their heads as if for more.
A second shot followed, though there’d been no need for it.
The sub-lieutenant then walked slowly back to the woman who raised an arm, outstretched a hand, the fingers spread and bloody. She cried out to that bastard with the gun and he let her cry out to him, let her beg for mercy. One high-heeled shoe had caught in a track and now lay broken behind her just ahead of the tram-car which remained as if hammered against the background of the street and the faces.
Furiously Kohler rolled down his side window and started to stick his head out. ‘Hermann, no! No, my friend.’
‘Louis …? Louis …?’
The shot rang out. The face was smashed. The body crumpled. The hand clawed at the pavement.
Not a person moved. Where once there had always been gaiety, the hubbub of traffic, the lights, the fun,
the eccentric and the beautiful, now there was only terror. St-Cyr quickly let his eyes sweep the pavements on either side, alarmed by the sudden thought that others might decide to bolt for it. But no, the couple had been alone in this on the tram-car. A random check of papers. They could not have known their little gamble was bound to fail. An informer? he asked, again searching the faces of the crowd. A collaborator?
It seemed likely, but he could not decide on any one face. With the toe of his jackboot, the sub-lieutenant flipped the woman’s body over. Then he put away his pistol and stripped her of her valuables.
Kohler started to get out of the hearse. Louis hissed at him, ‘Hermann, don’t! It’s finished, eh? What’s done cannot be undone.’
‘The people will hate us, Louis.’
‘They were Jews,’ said Fratani. ‘When the Germans moved in to occupy the south, the Jews and a lot of others fled here to the Italian sector, thinking things would be easier for them. But then the French Fleet scuttled their ships in Toulon and overnight the Italians were kicked out and now control only what is left of the coast from east of here to the frontier and a slice of the lowest hills.’
The sub-lieutenant was now going through the man’s pockets. ID, wallet, watch and chain were taken and still no one else had moved, not even his own men. He found something worthless and tossed it away, then found a handkerchief that the wind stole and one of the poodles snapped at viciously before the dowager could yank the dog back.
Now the wedding ring was being unscrewed to join that of the wife.
Kohler eased the hearse into gear and they crept along the street. At the first intersection, he headed for the Croisette and the sea.
Not a soul was around. All along that vast and glistening arc of sand and posh hotels, only the palms threw their spiked shadows and the pines their parasols.
It was as if the world had stopped.
The three of them got out to stretch their legs. ‘Louis, we’ll have to find Gestapo HQ and …’
‘It is at the Hotel Montfleury on the avenue Beauséjour, overlooking the city,’ said Fratani, offering cigarettes from some as yet untapped source. ‘They have requisitioned the hotel for the duration.’
‘Of what?’ asked Kohler, knowing only too well Fratani had meant the Occupation. ‘Louis, let’s let this one cart the body over to the morgue. He can wait for us there and keep her company.’
‘He’ll need the papers,’ said St-Cyr drily. Always it was papers, papers with the Germans. ‘Let us agree to meet at the villa, Hermann, but give me time, first, with the weaver.’
‘What makes you so sure you’ll find her?’
‘A hunch. That’s all.’
Warily Fratani flicked his dark eyes from one to the other of them but said nothing.
The house of the weaver – what could he say about it in the silence of this place? The rear courtyard was the floor of a small, twelfth-century abbey whose grey and broken walls of stone still stood about. Arched doorways led out into the surrounding cemetery; pillars held up bits of makeshift roof upon which the tiles had been rescued, no doubt, from the very ruins of the stables.
Perhaps thirty large amphorae and storage jars of terracotta stood about, a whole collection of them. Most were of a burnt dark brown or greyish brown; some of that dusty, ochrous red so common to the hills. Roman and Greek they were and he wondered at the penchant for collecting them since, apart from a few which held lemon and orange trees – a sort of nursery perhaps – most collected only rainwater and thus would raise mosquitoes in season.
Unless … he said. And peering into one, saw the thin film of iridescence. A drop or two of oil to starve the hatching larvae of much-needed oxygen.
The courtyard held scattered clumps of mimosa and juniper taken from the hills, with thyme and rosemary and sage. Naked grapevines climbed the highest of the walls next to the rickety ladder that had been used in the harvest and simply left for the pruning.
There were potted herbs and winter beans, several squares of soil which had obviously been carted in from the surrounding cemetery in order to raise the crops so necessary to sustain life. Carrots, beets, potatoes – by their frozen, dead tops, St-Cyr named them off and wondered at the chanciness of storing such things in the ground. Brussels sprouts were grown as well, cabbages too, and leeks – good ones. He could smell the soup the leeks would make.
There were apricot and lemon trees, no figs or quince, a puzzle simply by their omission, for whoever cared for this shambles of a garden, did care for its wildness and sought not to tame it too much.
To enter the house, he went in under a makeshift arbour of grey branches wound with wisteria and trumpet vine to a small handful of storage jars in which the roots were anchored.
There was a sturdy rocking chair beside an iron-grilled window whose wall was cracked; a throw rug of earthy red upon which danced an electric design of saffron.
Sabots and espadrilles lay side by side on the rush mat beside a potted palm and two ancient rhododendrons. The door was of that same powder-blue as at the front but open a crack. Ah no, what has happened here? he asked.
Nudging the door open farther, he stepped inside to all but close it behind him. Drew in the heady scents of the hills, the sharp musk of wool that was being dyed.
Bunches of herbs hung above the disused stone fireplace of what had once been the monks’ kitchen. A straw hamper, a wide-brimmed sun-hat, a wicker basket of gardening tools, canvas apron, a pair of rubber boots – he took them all in. ‘Mademoiselle …?’ he tried. ‘Is anyone here?’
He should have rung the front bell, should have yanked on its rusty chain. Could not have used the key he’d brought, not yet, ah no. Not without the warrant and for that he would have needed the magistrate to accompany him.
One must go easily.
Committed, St-Cyr pressed on, finding the present kitchen on the other side of the fireplace, its ashes cold. Here disorder was laid above order. Agitation was in the unwashed dishes, the bits of bread and cheese that had been picked up and put down with hardly a nibble. The glass of wine that had not been touched.
The kitchen was typically Provençal. Low beams, copper pots, an all but empty screened cupboard-box to air the cheeses and the butter. Pâté in a stone crock. Vinegar and oil in pale green bottles, mixed with various herbs. Fennel in one; dill in another.
The sitting-room was large, the floor of the same brick-red tiles, the chairs of woven hemp and modern – pale gold with soft beige cushions. Light … light everywhere streaming in to touch the tapestries. ‘Ah, Mon Dieu,’ he whispered. ‘I am in the presence of a master.’ The weaving was superb. Everywhere he looked there was this presence, this uniqueness, that feeling only the true artist can engender solely by exposing his or her work to view. ‘Mademoiselle …?’ he asked again. Still there was no answer. This troubled him; this made him think he’d come upon another murder and he asked, So soon? and was afraid.
Then he heard the tiny, brittle sound of beechwood shuttles as they knocked against each other, and he followed it. Saw on the landing one of the tapestries from the villa near Chamonix. Was rocketed right back in time the nine years to the murder of Stavisky.
Felt the villa, smelled the warm aroma of a small cigar, and looked up still, could not have moved. Was transformed.
The tapestry flashed spears of colour laid upon one another as a bird’s wing-feathers are when preened. Mirrors of whites, blues, browns, greys, reds, greens and yellows blending into a pattern that was absolutely magnificent, the texture almost that of banded cornelian yet touched with fine lines and waves of purplish blue and of so many other colours and shades. Washes of the same as well.
He heard the pistol shot. He caught a breath, fought through the web of time and panic – forced himself to break away and run up the last of the stairs and along the hall.
There had been no gunshot.
She was sitting behind the upright loom with the sun over a shoulder, and he saw her first through the ver
tical threads of the warp and the design she had drawn upon it. Eyes downcast, the left hand momentarily up and pressed gently flat against the warp; the right hand out of sight behind the tapestry, holding one of the bobbins. The lashes long and dark black, the hair black and loose and spilling outwards to the shoulders, the face half obscured by the dye of the design, the head bent as if in prayer. The concentration absolute.
‘Mademoiselle …?’ he began.
‘Ah!’ she gasped and in that instant his mind flew back to Chamonix and he saw the dark grey-blue of those eyes as they had looked at him then but where? Where had he seen them? Not in the villa? Not on those stairs?
Dark and so very afraid as now.
‘What the hell do you want?’ she demanded, the accent all too clear. ‘Can’t you see that I’m working?’
It was no use. He was the same. He hadn’t changed one bit. Oh he was shabbier, a little older, yes, but some men never change. They’re born into middle age and he was exactly as she remembered and like a face out of the darkness. Why had he come?
‘Mademoiselle …?’
He didn’t remember – could that be possible? she asked herself. ‘Mademoiselle Viviane Darnot. Now how the hell did you get in here and what the hell do you want?’
He would keep the voice steady. ‘Mademoiselle Darnot, I am Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale.’
She would not move, would stare at him from behind the warp. He must not realize who she was.
‘Your friend, mademoiselle …’
‘Is dead. Yes, I know about that but can tell you nothing. Now please, Inspector, I must catch the light on the threads, yes? Otherwise it will not guide my fingers.’
And I cannot work for more than a few hours a day, as a result – was that it? wondered St-Cyr, and knew it was so. ‘Who murdered her?’ he asked.
The eyes flew up, the left hand gripped the threads, then quickly released them. ‘Murdered …? It was an accident and nothing … nothing I can do will ever bring her back to me.’
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