Dark Summer in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  He moved forward to embrace Jérôme.

  ‘Let yourself out,’ he said. ‘Don’t trouble to disturb Jean-Pierre.’

  Jérôme went dancing down the street. He wanted to sing at the top of his voice, but the dull stupor of the forbidding house-fronts deterred him.

  XXXI

  Lannes entered the apartment and heard his brother-in-law Albert holding forth. He could have done without that. The old woman, his mother-in-law, was bad enough, but Albert was intolerable. He had hoped he wouldn’t be there. It was worse when Albert got to his feet to shake his hand, saying, ‘I’ve been explaining to the boys why whole-hearted collaboration is in our national interest. And it’s working smoothly. I’m sure you have found yourself that relations between the Germans and our police are excellent. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘We get along because we have to,’ Lannes said.

  He turned away to give his mother-in-law the obligatory peck on the cheek, and told her she was looking very well, happy in the thought that this observation would displease her.

  ‘If you only knew how I suffer,’ she said. ‘But at least we have our Dominique safely home.’

  ‘I was happy to do what I could to make that possible,’ Albert said.

  ‘And we’re grateful to you,’ Marguerite said. ‘Aren’t we, Jean?’

  He gave a nod in reply. It was pointless to say that Albert had had nothing to do with Dominique’s release from the prisoner-of-war camp. But he couldn’t trust himself to say anything. Certainly he wasn’t going to support the lie.

  Madame Panard said, ‘If only these wretched English would see sense, then the Germans would go home and things could be again as they were.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Albert said, ‘Churchill is an obstinate drunkard blind to reality. And of course one must admit that the English have always been our enemies. Do you know why? It’s because they are jealous of our superior civilisation and culture. They’re a nation of shopkeepers, as Napoleon said, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That’s why they ran away from Dunkirk and left us in the lurch. Fortunately we have the Marshal to protect us and give us this golden opportunity for national renewal.’

  So it went on. Albert dominated the table when they went through to eat, talking with the authority he had assumed since the débâcle of the previous May.

  ‘For instance,’ he said, ‘we are at last in a position to solve the Jewish problem.’

  Alain made to speak, caught his father’s eye, and, lowering his eyes, said nothing.

  Lannes felt ashamed. Why should he tolerate this talk at his own table? Why should he feel obliged to urge his son to restrain himself? Undoubtedly Alain had been about to say, ‘What problem is that, uncle?,’ perhaps even to speak of his friendship with Léon and Miriam.

  But what was the point of provoking an argument which would only distress Marguerite?

  Madame Panard told them how she couldn’t sleep at night, how she suffered from headaches and how her liver troubled her, even as she stuffed food into her mouth, and complained about the poor quality of wartime bread and the shortage of butter and sugar, both of which she needed for her health.

  Lannes abstracted himself. Sometime the evening would come to an end. He wondered what Yvette was doing, and whether Moncerre had picked up the Spaniard, given him a going-over, and lodged him in a cell. Had Yvette invited young René Martin to her room and had he refused with an embarrassed blush? Picturing the girl lying back on her bed and smiling to him, he lost the thread of the conversation. He slipped his hand into his inside breast pocket and fingered the envelope which he was now almost sure he wasn’t going to open. Not at least till he had heard what the Spaniard had to say, and perhaps not even then.

  Alain’s voice broke into his reverie.

  ‘If the Marshal is our shield, uncle, who is our sword?’

  ‘Sword, boy? We have no need of a sword. Things will arrange themselves without such nonsense. The war is over, you must understand that. It is now a question of using the opportunity we have been granted – by Providence, I dare to say – yes, by Providence, for unhappy beginnings may have happy outcomes – the opportunity to rid ourselves of the Jewish incubus and to suppress the Communists.’

  ‘So you have no opinion of de Gaulle?’ Alain said.

  ‘But of course I have an opinion of de Gaulle, the same opinion that any man of sense and any patriotic Frenchman must have. He is a rebel and a traitor, properly condemned to death. That is my opinion of de Gaulle. Remember this, Alain: that in collusion with the English, he attacked the French Empire at Dakar where, I’m happy and proud to say, he was soundly defeated by loyal troops. Moreover he expressed his approval of the English destruction of our fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, where more than a thousand French sailors were killed.’

  ‘I see,’ Alain said. ‘You make it all very clear, uncle.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say so,’ Albert said, deaf to Alain’s irony.

  It was a dreadful evening, but at last it was over. Albert and the old woman departed. Marguerite retired to bed. So, with some muttering, did the children. Lannes said he would sit up for a while; he had some thinking to do. He went through to the kitchen to smoke and drink marc. There were no good thoughts and even the marc offered little consolation. The ashtray was full and the bottle lowered by a couple of inches when the door opened and Dominique, wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas, joined him.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep either, Papa,’ he said. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You don’t much like Uncle Albert, do you?’

  ‘Is it so obvious?’

  ‘It’s strange,’ Dominique said, ‘I agree with a lot of what he says, we do need a national renewal, I’m sure of that, but when he speaks of what I believe in, he makes it sound repulsive. Does that make sense, Papa?’

  ‘Oh yes, it makes sense. Your uncle is a fool. You’re not.’

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment.’

  And you think this is it? Lannes didn’t speak the words that came to mind. I’m not going to like it, he thought, and I’m too tired.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve had a letter from my friend Maurice. Maurice de Grimaud. He asks to be remembered to you, by the way. He says you were very kind and helpful to him last year when his grandfather died. And in other ways too, he says, though he doesn’t elaborate on them, whatever they were. Anyhow he has suggested I should come to Vichy where he says he can find me a position as a leader in the League of French Youth. That’s where he is working himself. It’s a great opportunity, he says, and rewarding work. What do you think, Papa?’

  ‘Have you spoken of this to your mother?’

  ‘Yes, naturally.’

  Yes naturally, he would have spoken to Marguerite first. He was her boy. Lannes loved him, loved him dearly, but knew himself to be closer to the twins than to his eldest child. He couldn’t say why. It wasn’t because they thought differently about so much – the war itself, Vichy, religion. It was perhaps simply that both were aware that the connection between them was loose. In certain respects Dominique was the best of the three: the gentlest, a boy who had always shrunk from giving pain, from saying things which would distress those he was with. He was their eldest who sometimes seemed younger, because more trusting and innocent, than the twins.

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She wasn’t immediately happy, I have to admit that. But she said I must do what I thought was right. You must always do what you think right, she said.’

  ‘So you’ve decided?’

  ‘Not absolutely. I wanted your opinion too.’

  Lannes lit a cigarette and picked up the bottle.

  ‘Have a drink,’ he said, ‘get yourself a glass.’

  ‘I won’t, thank you. I don’t really like alcohol, only the occasional glass of wine, and I had one at supper.’

  ‘As you like
,’ Lannes said, and poured himself one. He held his glass in both hands, with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘The war’s not over,’ he said, ‘I’m sure of that. Suppose Hitler attacks the Soviet Union, which I think he may, what then? Will Vichy last? As for the national revolution they speak of, I agree that there was much that was rotten in France, which is perhaps why we lost last year. But are the men in Vichy the people to put it right? I don’t know. I’m an old Radical, remember, inasmuch as I am anything, and I believe in tolerance and the principles of the Revolution, our real revolution, especially equality and fraternity. There’s much in Vichy that I detest – the persecution, which is not too strong a word, of the Jews, which your Uncle Albert approves of, for instance. So I don’t know. You must make up your own mind.’

  ‘I have really.’

  ‘I thought so. You’re an idealist, Dominique, as I’m not. Perhaps that’s because I’m a policeman. It’s not a trade that encourages one to think well of our fellow men.’

  He drank his marc.

  ‘But your mother’s right, as she usually is. You must do what you think right. We must always try to do that.’

  ‘There’s so much that needs to be done,’ Dominique said. ‘For the Youth of France, and the future of the country. Maurice is enthusiastic about the work. You liked him, didn’t you, Papa?’

  ‘Yes, I liked him. He reminded me of you.’

  ‘So you see.’

  ‘I see. Wait a few days, that’s all I ask. Turn it over in your mind, take account of my warning, and then do what you think is right.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Papa. I really have, and I’ve decided.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He fingered the envelope in his pocket. He too had almost come to a decision.

  ‘I may have to go to Vichy myself,’ he said. ‘To see Maurice’s father. We might travel together.’

  Marguerite was asleep when he joined her in bed. He laid his hand on her leg, but she didn’t stir. He lay on his back, his mind racing. He should have spoken more firmly to Dominique, spelled out the fear with which the boy Maurice’s invitation filled him. He should have said, bluntly, things are going to get worse in France before they get better . . . if they ever get better – and some day there may be a reckoning. It was that ‘if’, as much as his own weakness which had held him back. You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side. For there was indeed the other ‘if’: if Vichy survived, then Dominique might be right in choosing to engage in this enterprise. If good people held back, didn’t that leave everything to people like Albert?

  Sleep still evaded him. Marguerite was breathing easily. She shifted away from him and emitted a little sigh. He pictured Yvette lying back with her legs open. There was so much which you didn’t control.

  XXXII

  ‘You can take the cuffs off him,’ Lannes said.

  Sombra’s face was unmarked, but, when Lannes told him to sit down, he placed his hand on his kidneys and moved gingerly. The arrogance had left him. Moncerre had evidently done a thorough job on him, and would have enjoyed it.

  ‘I don’t like men who beat up women,’ Lannes said. ‘So you’ve nothing to complain of. You got what was coming to you.’

  Sombra shook his head and gulped.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he said.

  ‘That’s my question, not yours,’ Lannes said. ‘Let’s start from the beginning. Aristide Labiche. What did you want from him?’

  Sombra made no reply.

  ‘Come on,’ Lannes said. ‘You knew I was going to ask that question. You’ve had time to think of an answer. You called on him in the Pension Bernadotte, went down to the bar for a drink. Then a day or two later you visited the office of his brother, the advocate, and then Aristide was found murdered in the public garden. So you’ve some explaining to do.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. You can’t pin that on me.’

  ‘Is that so? All right, perhaps you didn’t kill him, though I’ve an open mind on the subject, but, believe me, I can pin it on you if I choose. I need his killer. You’ll do as well as anyone.’

  Sombra twisted the gold signet ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand.

  ‘We were old acquaintances,’ he said. ‘I knew him in Spain. So when I learned he was in Bordeaux it was natural to have a drink with him. That’s all. I know nothing about his death.’

  ‘So you say, but you’re the only suspect I have.’

  Lannes took the brown envelope from his pocket and laid it on the desk.

  ‘This is what you were looking for,’ he said. ‘It’s what he left with Yvette. I haven’t opened it, as you see. I don’t know what it contains or who might be interested in that. Except you, of course. Look at it from my side, Sombra. You seek out Aristide, talk with him, and he gets frightened, so frightened that he entrusts the envelope to Yvette, for safe keeping. Then he’s dead, and you return to search for it, and beat up young Yvette when she tells you she gave it to me. So it’s important to you, or to whoever put you up to it. Is Sigi back in Bordeaux?’

  Sombra shook his head again.

  ‘Or perhaps it was your German friends who want the information. If the envelope contains what I think it does – evidence relating to Edmond de Grimaud’s relationship to the girl Pilar – then I can see why they would want it, in order to put the squeeze on him. Perhaps you are playing a double game, Sombra? I don’t think your friend Sigi would approve of that. Edmond’s his protector, after all. Still nothing to say? Lost your tongue? You were talkative enough last time we had you in here. Claimed diplomatic immunity, didn’t you, which was absurd.’

  Still the Spaniard said nothing. Lannes looked him in the eyes. Sombra’s were dark, liquid. He couldn’t hold Lannes’ gaze for long. He licked his lips.

  ‘Can I have a glass of water?’ he said. ‘I think your bastard of an inspector has broken one of my ribs.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Lannes said. ‘You broke one of Yvette’s teeth.’

  ‘I don’t know who killed Aristide. Maybe his brother ordered it. I really don’t know. It had nothing to do with me.’

  ‘So you say,’ Lannes said again. ‘Tell me about the brother, the advocate. How well do you know him?’

  ‘Not well. Why should I? Superintendent, please believe me, I know nothing, really nothing.’

  ‘You’re not a man it’s easy to believe,’ Lannes said.

  He got up and crossed the room to look out of the window. He could sense Sombra shifting in his chair. To ease his bodily discomfort? Or his mental? Then he took a bottle of Armagnac and two glasses from the cupboard, poured out two drinks and passed one across the desk to the Spaniard, who hesitated before stretching out for the glass which, however, he downed in one swallow.

  ‘You’re small fry, Sombra,’ Lannes said. ‘Among other things you’re a pimp. Is that your connection with the advocate? Have you procured little girls for him?’

  ‘You accuse me of this now?’

  ‘I can accuse you of several things. I don’t like you, Sombra. I don’t like your type. I have several different stories and you’re in the centre of all of them. That’s why I would advise you to speak. Because if you don’t, if you choose to stay silent, then, believe me, you will be back in the cells and you won’t be out for a long time.

  Of course that might be best for you. You may be safer there, even if I let Moncerre have another go at you. Think about it.’

  ‘I know nothing about Aristide’s death, I assure you. You must believe me.’

  ‘Must I? Why should I?’

  Lannes sighed. He had a sour taste in his mouth. He loathed this sort of thing. Sombra was a miserable rag of humanity, but he was nevertheless human. He was a murderer. Lannes had no doubt about that. Sombra and his mentor Sigi had killed Gaston Chambolley and Sombra had also killed that wretched clerk – what was his name? – Sigi’s foster-brother who had tried to blackmail them after they had borrowed his car from which one of
them – Sombra, he believed – had tried to shoot Lannes himself. Lannes had been forced to abandon that investigation, but not before he had frightened Sombra with the threat of the guillotine. But, rat though Sombra was, Lannes knew he had initiated nothing. He was an underling, a hitman, who merely carried out orders. The question was: whose orders?

  ‘Tell you another story,’ he said. He picked up the envelope and waved it in front of Sombra. ‘There’s an agent of one of the French Security Services who wants to have something on Edmond, wants to be in a position to damage him. He knows there are compromising papers relating either to his relationship with Pilar, a Spanish anarchist and spy, or to still more damaging connections with the Germans whom, despite the Armistice, the spook still regards as the enemy, and he believes that these are now in Aristide’s possession. He knows about your reputation, which is not exactly a savoury one, and he commissions you to get in touch with Aristide and obtain the papers. You make his acquaintance and he promises to meet you again in a public place – for his safety, as he thinks – and enter into negotiations with you. I suppose he wants some sort of promise of safe conduct when he hands them over. But he has second thoughts, gets suspicious perhaps about your intentions, and you lose your temper and hit him on the head with your stick. Perhaps you hit him harder than you intended. No matter. He’s dead. You pull his body into the bushes and make off in a panic. But you still have to get hold of the papers. I ruled you out, first, I don’t mind admitting, because I said that this sort of killing wasn’t your style. You prefer the garotte, don’t you, Sombra. But I’ve changed my mind, you see, on account of your attack on Yvette. You lose your temper easily, and when you lose your temper, you lose your head. And now you don’t know whether you should be more frightened of me or of the man who commissioned you, or even of Sigi and Edmond whom you have double-crossed. So you are playing dumb. How do you like that?’