Cold Winter in Bordeaux (16 page)

Félix made no reply. He looked at ease, a smile on his face, one that gave a sense of superiority, security anyway, confidence that there was nothing to alarm or even disquiet him in Lannes’ words. He didn’t touch the glass of St-Emilion that Jacques had poured him, but dug his fork into the mushrooms à la Grecque. Lannes was content to wait. Silence was always a weapon, but one each was employing now against the other. The blanquette de veau arrived; it was as good as ever. They both ate without speaking, like chess players plotting the next move.

At last: ‘Gabrielle was a bitch,’ Félix said, ‘but useful. Her death was a nuisance, believe me.’

A knight’s move, leaping over other pieces on the board?

‘It suits me, however, that you don’t find her killer. Least said about the case the better. That’s why I sent old Peniel to warn you off. I’m sorry you didn’t take the message, continued to pursue the case. You’ve got me wrong, you know.’

‘Have I? Tell me how then.’

‘You think I’m a bastard, don’t you?’

‘You’re not going to tell me I’m wrong there?’

‘I don’t give a damn. But you’re a fool, Lannes. You pursue cases as if there was no war. It’s crazy. Like you said, I’m a patriot. What I do is in the service of France. But you? What are you?’

‘I’m a cop,’ Lannes said. ‘Raping boys – that’s in the service of France, is it? Or just your private pleasure?’

‘They’re not important except for what they can do for me. My job is to compromise German officers – in the interest of France. Then they can be useful to us, sources of information. It’s necessary. For France.’

‘Oh yes, you found Schussmann useful?’

‘I got him wrong. I admit that. I didn’t think he’d be such a fool as to top himself. A pity. Your little Jew boy did well, but do you suppose he’d have done the job if I hadn’t scared him shitless? As for the Arab rat, he’s already selling his arse. For money. All I want is that he sells it for France. So there’s this German officer I happen to know fancies brown boys. I supply him with one. Then he’s mine. He belongs to me – and to France. As you said, I’m a patriot.’

But what do you mean by that, Lannes thought. He remembered Madame Roland about to die under the blade of the guillotine and saying, ‘Liberty! – what crimes are committed in your name!’ It was the same with patriotism. He distrusted, was repelled by, the big abstract nouns, justification for so much that was wicked. He had suggested to Bracal that Félix was mad, but perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps he was sane, horribly sane; accommodating himself to the reality of the world they were all condemned to live in. Perhaps he was mad himself to believe that things need not be what they were. Félix’s next words seemed to confirm his fear.

‘Nobody wants you to find out who killed Gabrielle. Not me, not the Germans, not Vichy, not the Resistance, not your superiors either. Only you, blundering foolishly in a dark wood where you are lost. You’re pathetic, Lannes. Who do you think will win the war?’

The second time in two days that question had been put, but he had no wish to commit himself this time.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea’, he said.

‘Everything I do is intended to ensure that France is among the victors,’ Félix said. ‘Remember that.’

‘So you say.’

Félix pushed his plate aside, emptied his glass, lit a cigarette, and said, ‘It’s not only that you don’t understand, Lannes, it’s that you don’t want to. Vichy was necessary, is necessary even now because without it we would be powerless against the Germans. If they win the war, which is still probable, then we need a government here in France, we need Vichy. And meanwhile we need to have whatever influence over Germany and Germans that we can acquire. That’s part of my job, information is power, and I collect information. But if Germany loses which, I admit, since the American invasion of North Africa and in view of what looks like stalemate on the Eastern front, is possible, more possible than before, what then?’

‘What indeed?’

Lannes wondered how far Félix would go, to what extent he would expose himself. He was conceited enough to be rash.

‘What then?’ he said again.

‘Well, it’s more complicated.’ Félix smiled. ‘More complicated and more dangerous. There’s the Resistance, first. How much do you know about it?’

Lannes made no reply.

‘You know nothing. Let me tell you then. The heart and brains of the Resistance are to be found in the Communist Party, and the Reds take their orders from Moscow. That’s why there was no Resistance, no real Resistance, till Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. You know that much, surely.’

Lannes looked around. The brasserie was empty now, and there was no risk of their being overheard.

‘Then Stalin said “jump” and they began shooting Germans who naturally took reprisals. Doesn’t worry the Reds of course. Not even if some of their own are shot. They want martyrs and they want a Revolution. So Vichy bears down on them. Fine by me. I need all the information about the Resistance I can get. Gabrielle was useful there too. Whoever killed her did me no service, I assure you. But then there’s de Gaulle, Churchill’s puppet. And the Americans who want to dismember the French Empire which Vichy defends and which only Vichy can defend. It’s a narrow ledge we walk on, but everything – yes everything – indicates that we need Vichy if France is going to emerge from this war an independent State and neither a Russian nor Anglo-American satellite.’

He leant back in his chair. Everything in his words and attitude spoke of his self-belief and self-importance, perhaps also, Lannes thought again, of his derangement. He remembered what his first chief had once said: ‘You can make a deal with villainy, but never with vanity. Villains are capable of seeing reason, the vain never.’ But what if a man was both vain and villainous? Part of a policeman’s craft lay in the ability to put yourself in the other man’s shoes, read his mind, guess at his next move. But Félix baffled him. Did he believe the tripe he was talking, or was it all an act? It might be both. He had written himself a part and was speaking the lines he had given the character he was playing and which perhaps, as can happen, he had become. Whatever the truth this interview was futile. He signalled to Jacques to bring the bill.

‘All that’s beyond me,’ he said. ‘I’m a cop. My interest is in getting Gabrielle’s murderer. I don’t dabble in politics. Meanwhile you’ll leave the boy Karim alone, and, if you’re not out of Bordeaux by this time tomorrow, I’ll arrest you on suspicion of involvement in Gabrielle’s murder. There would be no limit to the time I could hold you. You were wrong in saying that my superiors don’t care who killed her. I assure you they do. Indeed they want an arrest. They don’t much mind who it is, but someone more substantial than poor Peniel. You’ll do.’

He was taking a risk. He knew that. There were still the compromising photographs. Too bad. He suddenly didn’t care. He had thought he might make a deal with Félix, but his old boss was right. It would be pointless to try.

XXIV

All the same he had mishandled things. He didn’t know how, but he thought he should have taken a different line with Félix, even a sympathetic one, and shouldn’t have let him see he disliked and distrusted him. But there it was. The man’s arrogance offended him, did more than offend really; the relish with which he used people as pawns in his game was disgusting. He hoped Moncerre had managed to put a tail on him. It would be a pleasure to fulfil his threat and arrest the blighter if he didn’t obey his order to leave Bordeaux.

He was reluctant to return to the office, equally reluctant to go home. There was nothing he wanted to do, nobody he wanted to see. Nobody? He pictured Yvette lazy on her bed, stretched out half naked, her legs open and inviting. Desire gripped him. He turned away towards the river, limping heavily, his hip painful. Mist was rising from the water. It began to rain. He leant on the parapet. Somewhere someone was playing an accordion, a dance tune. But there were no dancers. Gulls shrieked. Darkness closed around him.

When, hours later, he opened the door of their apartment, he was dismayed to hear his brother-in-law Albert’s voice. I might have been spared that, he thought. It was months since he had visited them. The last time Albert, who still worked in the Mayor’s office and had indeed recently been promoted, had questioned him, searchingly, about Alain. Where was he? Why had he left Bordeaux? What was he doing? Lannes had watched Marguerite refusing to meet her brother’s eye. She picked up her knitting and said she had dropped a stitch. When she looked at Lannes, her face seemed etched with anxiety.

Now Lannes steeled himself to greet Albert in friendly fashion, said he was pleased to see him. A lie of course, but appearances have to be kept up within families. He was sure Albert didn’t realise how deeply he disliked him.

Albert said, ‘Naturally you’ve heard the news?’

‘What news?’

‘You haven’t? It’s terrible. The Admiral has been assassinated.’

Terrible news? Or good news? He didn’t know. He had no time for Darlan, but …

‘Fortunately,’ Albert said, ‘the assassin has been arrested. A young man, a student. That’s all I know about it. The situation’s confused. It seems that the Americans had accepted the Admiral as Head of a Provisional Government in Algiers, and that the Marshal had delegated all authority in North Africa to him. But the assassin’s motive is unknown as is whoever put him up to it. We’re all at a loss, and as for France, well, it’s a disaster surely.’

A young man, a student …

‘It’s rumoured that he is a Gaullist,’ Albert said. ‘Nobody knows for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me. As you know, I’ve no opinion of de Gaulle; he’s a traitor, condemned to death for desertion.’

A young man, a student, a Gaullist. Alain? Léon? Surely not, but … he lit a cigarette and found that his hands were trembling. There was that dark side to Alain, and the romantic desire to play a hero’s part. The thought was absurd, the likelihood remote; he had no reason to think that the boys were still in North Africa, he hoped that, like Jérôme, they were safe in England – nevertheless…

‘Others say the young man must be a Red,’ Albert said. ‘That’s possible, certainly. These Communist swine in the Resistance are capable of anything. It might be the best solution, would open people’s eyes to what they are really like. Yes, I hope it transpires that he’s a Red. Whoever it is, I trust they shoot him, as I’m sure they will.’

They probably would. The situation in Algiers was, it seemed, fluid, as confused as a stage farce, but one that provoked no laughter. Investigation of the crime would embarrass many. Who could tell who might be involved? Better to shoot the boy and batten down the hatches. That’s how they would think. Unless of course he was indeed a Communist? In which case they would shout his guilt and the complicity of the Party from the rooftops.

‘I expect you’re right, Albert,’ he said.

When he had shown his brother-in-law out, he found Marguerite in tears.

‘It couldn’t be Alain, could it?’ she said.

‘Of course it couldn’t. It’s a ridiculous thought.’

But it wasn’t ridiculous at all.

‘Where’s Clothilde,’ he said.

‘She went to her room to write an essay as soon as her uncle arrived. There’s something wrong, Jean. She’s unhappy. I do hope she and Michel haven’t quarrelled. Seeing them together is the one good thing that has happened this year.’

‘There’s no reason to think they have, is there?’ he said.

* * *

It was a long time since he had slept well, and he had been up, sitting in the kitchen, drinking the ersatz coffee and smoking, the ashtray already full of stubs, for more than an hour when Clothilde came into the room and kissed the top of his head.

‘I love these dark winter mornings,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why because I used to hate them when I was a child. Did you get rid of Uncle Albert easily?’

‘Not easily, but eventually.’

‘He always upsets Maman. That’s why I took refuge in my room and went to bed early. Is it wrong of me to dislike him, seeing he’s her brother?’

‘Not wrong, darling. It’s natural, I’d say. I’ve never cared for him myself. You’re old enough now for me to admit that to you.’

‘He always upsets Maman,’ she said again.

She had gone to bed early, but there were dark circles under her eyes and her face was pale.

‘Your mother thinks you’re unhappy. She’s afraid you have quarrelled with Michel. You haven’t, have you?’

She tore a piece of bread off the loaf and dipped it in his coffee.

‘You don’t mind, do you? No, Maman’s wrong. We haven’t quarrelled, not exactly. How could we? We love each other, there’s no doubt about that. You do like him, don’t you, Papa?’

‘Yes, I like him. But there’s a but, isn’t there? I see it in your face; hear it in your voice.’

She sat down, and breaking off another piece of bread, began to crumble it between her fingers.

‘Yes, there’s a but. I’m frightened. I’m afraid for him. He’s determined to join this legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism. He says it’s his duty, his patriotic duty.’

‘That’s madness. It’s ridiculous. Did you tell him you are afraid?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

She looked up meeting his eyes. Her own brimmed with tears.

‘He kissed me, and told me not to be a goose. But I’m not a goose, am I?’

‘No, darling, you’re not a goose. Would you like me to speak with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything, not really, except that I love him.’

XXV

The Alsatian had never been industrious, was content to go through the motions. He kept his desk clear, submitted the necessary reports, which would be written, Lannes guessed, in opaque, non-committal language. However things turned out, he intended to be there in his post when it was all over, acceptable to whoever emerged on top, his copy book spotless. He was the perfect model of a functionary, doing just enough to pass muster, and careful to keep his nose clean. Lannes felt a mild contempt for him, rather liked him all the same, in dark moments wondered if after all he wasn’t every bit as futile himself.