The Burying Ground

by David Mark

  ‘Dingwall said you were hard to scare,’ said Christopher, and twitched a smile as he walked to the front of the sofa and stood with his back to the fire. ‘But I’m scarier than Dingwall.’

  Cordelia looked at him with insolence written all over her face. She flicked her hair behind her ear and looked at his cigarette. ‘Got a spare?’

  Christopher seemed delighted with her. He lit her cigarette and passed it over. She took a drag. I’d never seen her smoke but she didn’t cough as she breathed out. Just looked at him like she could do this for as long as he wanted.

  ‘I should be cross,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve had to drive a long way for you. I’ve had to look at things I didn’t want to look at again. I’m fairly agog with nostalgia.’ He made the word ‘agog’ sound like he was gasping. Then he smiled. ‘I’d made my peace with not coming back. But you’ve made it very difficult for me to stay away.’

  ‘Your dad,’ I said, and it hurt my insides to say it. ‘Are you back for Fairfax?’

  ‘A sadness,’ he said. ‘But I’d been dead to him for a long time. It would seem wrong to grieve.’

  ‘You can choose that, can you?’ asked Cordelia scornfully. ‘Whether to be upset?’

  ‘I learned to control my emotions a long time ago,’ he said, neutrally. ‘It’s a shame what happened to Father and I can’t help but feel a little responsible. But in truth, I’m several rungs down the ladder on that one. People like you are a lot closer to the top in terms of who should be feeling guilty.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ I protested, and he shushed me with a wave.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, and his cheek twitched. ‘I’m never sure when I’m being myself and when I’m being the job.’

  ‘The job?’ I asked.

  Christopher nodded, staring straight at Cordelia as he answered my question.

  ‘They found I had certain abilities not long after I signed up,’ he said, and there was no smugness to him. ‘Apparently I had a way of seeing things that was useful to some of the less celebrated combatants.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘The intelligence services,’ said Cordy without turning her head. ‘You’re a spy?’

  He shrugged at that. ‘We all serve our country in different ways. I had a gift for finding things out. I could plant false trails and keep the enemy so confused they would twist themselves into the ground trying to untangle the wisdom from the lies. They don’t give you many medals for it but it wins wars. It was just a pity I had to die.’

  For a second I thought he was about to admit to being a ghost. I fair feared he was about to put his hand through his own chest.

  ‘Operational decision,’ he explained. ‘My section commander needed men who did not exist on paper. He needed men willing to become deniable assets if caught by the enemy. And I was happy to oblige.’

  ‘But Fairfax,’ I said.

  ‘He was a kind man,’ said Christopher. ‘A good father. But I had a chance to be more than a weak lad from Gilsland and if I had to make Mam and Dad cry to do so I was willing to do it.’

  ‘And?’ asked Cordelia coolly.

  ‘And we arranged it. A telegram home, a notice in the paper, a death certificate. And then I was a ghost. I could operate where I was needed. And after the landings I was needed a lot of places.’

  ‘France,’ said Cordelia. ‘Corrèze.’

  He looked at her like she was a child. ‘You’re going to ask about the massacre,’ he said. ‘About Jean Favre. Le Tanneur.’

  ‘Was he the man in the mausoleum?’ asked Cordy, straight out.

  Christopher pinched the bridge of his nose and then looked at Mr Parker. I followed his gaze. Parker gave a tiny nod and Christopher sighed.

  ‘Favre was the person the Maquisards feared,’ he said, eyes closed. ‘The Resistance hated the Germans, don’t misunderstand me. They knew the Nazis to be evil of a kind. But the Milice were something else. They were Frenchmen who had chosen to side with the enemy. They spoke the language. They blended in. They had a capacity for horror that eclipsed anything the SS could imagine. Their weapon was terror. When they caught Maquisards they made sure they made examples. And Le Tanneur was the best at that. Favre could cut a man’s skin off from the neck to the ankles without letting him die. The SS loved him. He was a weapon. He’d been a leather-worker before the war. They say that he gave a handbag made of Maquisard skin to the wife of one of his commanders. He saw it as a gift.’

  In the armchair, Mrs Parker dropped her head. She shook herself, not wanting to hear.

  ‘He was requisitioned by the 2nd SS Panzer Division. Das Reich. It was an elite unit, the pride of the eastern front, and it had a very specific set of orders. It was given the task of wiping out the Maquis. Obliterating the Resistance. And after the Normandy landings they had only one goal. They were to maintain order, no matter what the cost. So they made examples. Villages that sheltered members of the Maquis were viewed as one entity. Be you man, woman or child, you were a Maquis sympathizer. And therefore you were liable for the consequences.’

  I realized Cordy’s hand was tightening around mine. I didn’t really feel as though I was in the room any longer. I was in a brightly lit square in a French village, listening to the rumble of tanks.

  ‘They wiped out whole communities. They mowed villagers down for sport from the backs of their vehicles. As they passed through rural France they left nothing but misery and grief and at the centre of it all, standing by the sides of the SS commanders, was this local man who had discovered a talent for brutality. Favre. He liked them to watch. Enjoyed nothing more than the screams as he slowly went about his work in full view of villagers whose only crime was to offer bread and beer to the men and women fighting for their country.’

  ‘You sound like he sickens you,’ said Cordelia, and there was surprise in her voice.

  ‘Of course it sickens me,’ he said, and he displayed a touch of annoyance at her doubting him. ‘They were acts of evil. But his crimes were small beside the atrocities committed by Das Reich. June 7. A place called Tulle. One hundred men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were hanged in the main square in retaliation for the actions of some Resistance members. Favre hurt people for the sport of it. A sharp curved blade and a furnace full of coins.’

  Cordelia said nothing. Just stared.

  ‘June 10, 1944,’ said Christopher, looking at nothing. ‘Das Reich pressed on into Limousin. They rounded up the inhabitants of a small village. 650 people. They were herded into the square and separated into groups. The women were taken to the church and the men to the barns. The order was given for the soldiers to open fire. The church was set alight. There were only a handful of survivors. The entire place was destroyed.’

  ‘The gold,’ said Mr Parker softly from his armchair. ‘It dripped like candle wax.’

  We turned as one. He was stroking the head of the dead bird. He was all folded into himself – tucking in his elbows like they were wings.

  ‘You were there,’ said Cordelia, and her voice was so quiet it would not have disturbed a candle flame held to her lips. ‘You’re the man …’

  ‘Mr Parker used to be called Abel,’ said Christopher, smartly. ‘He was one of the first men into the village in Limousin after the reports started coming back about the massacre. He saw what was inside the church. He found the bodies. Hundreds of bodies. Human shapes made of ash. Gold and lead, mingled together into great shapes of twisted liquid. The heat in the church had been so ferocious it had melted the bell. Melted the tabernacle and candlesticks. Melted the chalices in the strong box. Turned that whole place into something no man should see.’

  We looked at the little man in his chair. He grew smaller under our gaze. He was staring into the fire. There were shadows upon his face.

  ‘After the war it was important that justice be found for the victims of these atrocities,’ explained Christopher. ‘Our allies in France needed men to testify against the Nazi soldiers who perpe
trated the massacre. Abel was one of the men brave enough to do that. But to do so nearly cost him his life. Members of the Milice were now responsible in part for running the country. Some had fled abroad but others were now powerful members of the government and they did not want the past being raked over. My network heard that an assassin had been sent to deal with any witness thinking of testifying at Nuremberg. We needed to get Abel out. By this time, Abel was working for a fertilizer company in Alsace. He was doing well in his life. But he knew what he had to do. My unit relocated him. He gave his testimony and started a new life. Favre was arrested and imprisoned. Abel did the right thing. He should have been left alone.’

  Cordelia narrowed her eyes, shaking her head.

  ‘That doesn’t add up,’ she said. ‘Why Gilsland? Why Mrs Parker? Why here?’

  Christopher showed his irritation. ‘I am already breaking the Official Secrets Act just telling you this much. But you would not leave things alone, would you? Can’t you just accept it is as I say?’

  I could see Cordelia was battling with something. A light had come on in her eyes when Christopher mentioned the Official Secrets Act. She screwed up her face as if something didn’t fit.

  ‘This is all a bit cosy, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘How did Mrs Parker here end up as Mrs Parker? How did Abel end up in your own little village? That’s asking for trouble …’

  My mind was on fire. I was jerking my head like a horse plagued by flies. Taking it all in, trying to make sense of it: my eyes flicking this way and that, taking in the pictures, the horse brasses, the ornaments … the photograph above the dresser. A young boy with sad eyes and a gap where the bottom half of his left arm should have been.

  Cordelia was about to speak but I beat her to it. I blurted it out before I even realized the sense of staying quiet.

  ‘Your brother,’ I said, turning my gaze on Mrs Parker.

  ‘Was he a part of your little unit?’ asked Cordelia, catching up and pointing at Christopher. ‘Your old friend from Gilsland? What was his name?’

  ‘Loveday,’ I said. ‘Suffered for it, too.’

  Cordelia glared at Mrs Parker and I don’t know where her fury was coming from. All I had heard was convincing me that the people in the room were decent people. She seemed to be listening to a different version of events.

  ‘I can’t talk about that …’ began Christopher.

  Mrs Parker shifted herself. Her posture changed as she looked up at the old photograph on the wall.

  ‘He’d been through so much,’ she said.

  ‘Your brother?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Abel. My husband. He was so fragile. Broken.’ She gave a warm glance at the small, goblin-like man. ‘And we’ve been good, haven’t we, my love? I never wanted any of the things I now have but we’ve found a happiness. A happiness we deserve. Loveday gave us that. Loveday and Christopher – two dead men.’

  I found myself thinking of the slight, hobbling figure of Audrey Parker’s brother. He’d lost half an arm in an accident with a harvester but his father had pulled some strings and found him a role where he could serve his country. That was the story everybody knew. He never came back from the war. I suddenly realized what that role had been. Intelligence Services. He had recruited an old friend from Gilsland and persuaded him they would both be better off dead.

  ‘We were approved, you see,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Because of what we’d done in the war. The authorities knew he would be safe here. No questions would be asked. And I’d done my bit.’

  Cordelia rubbed a hand across her nose and glanced at Christopher.

  ‘The prisoners of war,’ she said, flatly. ‘The care packages. The letters from home. You’re one of his spies, aren’t you, Mrs Parker.’

  ‘Don’t speak,’ said Christopher, sharply.

  ‘Is that it?’ I asked. ‘The men who worked the land here. All those soldiers who you sent your food hampers to and who you write letters to. You use them, don’t you? You gather up titbits of information to pass onto your brother and his spies.’

  ‘We all serve in our own way,’ she said.

  Christopher lit himself a cigarette. Wordlessly he lit a second one for Cordelia. He passed it to her and she smoked in short, angry puffs.

  ‘Favre,’ she said. ‘The killer. The sadist. He’d tracked you down.’ She looked at the tip of her cigarette, putting the pieces together. ‘You knew, Mrs Parker. You knew he was coming …’

  Mrs Parker smoothed down the front of her skirt. ‘I received information that the man we once knew as Jean Favre was travelling under a passport belonging to a Marcel Defouloy. He’d applied for the paperwork to come to England. One of the families I wrote to in Alsace – they told me. We told Christopher. We’d tried to put that life behind us and now it was walking up to our door.’

  ‘He was coming here to kill me,’ said Mr Parker, pulling his arms in tighter. ‘To skin me. To burn me with coins … He saw me. Out in the woods as I took my walk. I ran. Came home. Hid, like a child. But he went to Fairfax.’

  I understood, then. Fairfax was the man in whom the Parkers had chosen to confide.

  ‘Fairfax knew Abel’s story,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘We told him everything, even though we knew it was wrong. He was a good man, always wanting to learn about the people around him. Always asking questions. We told him who Abel was on the promise his story was not told during our lifetime. It seemed right, somehow. He was Christopher’s father, after all. And then this monster, this terror whom we had spoken of – he walked up to Fairfax’s door. When he realized who he was talking to he contacted us.’

  ‘And?’ asked Cordelia, staring at the side of Mr Parker’s head.

  ‘I took care of it,’ said Christopher, from across the room.

  There was silence for a time. Cordelia was thinking. Mr Parker was playing with his dead bird.

  ‘How did he die?’ I asked, and I was shocked as anybody to hear me ask.

  ‘As well as could be expected,’ said Christopher, and I think he might even have given me a little smile.

  ‘Why the crypt?’ asked Cordelia. ‘Outside your own father’s front door?’

  Christopher had the grace to look reproachful. ‘It was only meant to be temporary. Opportunity would arise to remove him properly. He seemed safe where he was. Then the tree came down.’

  ‘And Fairfax knew?’ I asked. ‘That he was in the crypt?’

  ‘He saw Favre die,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘When it happened. When he died. Things got difficult. Pike might have seen. Fairfax understood. He said that Favre was an evil man and that he deserved to lie, unmourned, somewhere that nobody would ever find him. The day Fairfax died he was coming to tell us that the crypt had been compromised. He needed us to know that the body had been discovered. That must have been what killed him – the shock of it. He crashed without ever telling us what had happened.’

  Cordelia was looking at Mr Parker.

  ‘Why did you tell him your story?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head at her and his wig slid a half inch to the right. He was a pitiful figure. He’d been broken by what he had endured.

  ‘He tortured you?’ I asked. ‘Favre?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Why did he burn your story?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘Was that after Favre was killed? And why did Favre leave him the recordings? What did he mean when he called him his comrade?’

  Christopher waved a hand: his patience fraying. He’d heard enough. I turned to Cordelia and she had her fingers wrapped tight around the hem of her skirt. She looked white.

  There was silence in the room. The clock ticked. Steam rose from our damp clothes and the hot coals clicked in the hearth.

  ‘He got what he deserved,’ said Cordelia at last. It seemed like a hard thing for her to say.

  I saw a delighted smile ripple across Christopher’s face.

  ‘Your father,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘He acted the right way. Did nothing but good. And nobody’s m
ourning this butcher from France. Nobody here has done anything wrong, have they? And we’re all good at keeping secrets.’

  I suddenly realized what she was saying. This was over. We had our answers. We knew the identity of the man in the grave and he was exactly where he was supposed to be. I was about to ask what had happened to the body after Fairfax retrieved it but then realized I didn’t want to know.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ I asked. ‘We just forget?’

  Christopher looked from Cordelia to me and back again. ‘You thought I was dead half an hour ago. Can you do so again?’

  I nodded, knowing that I truly intended to try.

  ‘You can forget what we know, can you?’ asked Cordelia. ‘Just pretend we never met?’

  ‘That’s how my world works,’ said Christopher. ‘It’s all secrets and lies and pretence. I spin the plates and juggle the balls and try to keep friends from falling out and enemies from making up until it can be made to serve the interests of Her Majesty. This little incident? Nobody even cares. A bad man is dead. A good man got caught up in it. And two women from Gilsland know nothing that can cause embarrassment. My department brought a brave soldier to England and he has made a life here. And when an old enemy came knocking, we dealt with that as well. So I will not do anything as demeaning as request a handshake, but could we all, in good faith, agree to draw a curtain around this week’s strange events? I fear the alternative would be to nobody’s liking.’

  I looked to Cordelia. It was she who would have to decide whether this could be left alone. After a moment, she gave a slight nod.

  ‘I will remember you, but for different reasons,’ said Christopher, as we stood up. He was talking to Cordelia and she shot him a puzzled look. ‘We are always eager to find new recruits. I sense you would be an asset.’

  He held out a business card. It was a square of white. It did not even display a name. There was merely a PO Box stamped upon it in black ink.

  ‘In case you wish to maximize yourself,’ he said.