Kaleidoscope (32 page)

‘Oh for sure, that means nothing. Nothing! I've been a friend of hers for years. I knew her father well. One of the old school. A great man at boules.'

How nice. ‘Visits to this villa, Inspector? Conveniently it has a back entrance.'

‘Most of them do,' said Delphane blandly. ‘It is so that the help can come and go.'

It was Munk who reminded them of the pilot's body and the need for cash.

Kohler let him have it. ‘First, she had to dispose of the body in Bayonne and no doubt that is why she gave the 35,000 francs she had received for the kaleidoscope to the daughter of the mountain guide. Then five days later she found she had to redeem her pledge, and thus needed yet another 35,000 francs.'

‘The … the kaleidoscope has the combination to the safe hidden in it,' confessed Viviane Darnot. ‘Anne-Marie said she had an engraver in Marseille cut letters on some of the chips. The letters can be transcribed into the numbers of the combination. It … it was her way of ensuring that if anything should happen to her, I … I could eventually get at the money. At least, that is what she said before … before she died.'

‘And the money?' asked Gestapo Munk. ‘The bundles of francs?'

She would not open her eyes to the lamp though they would make her do so. She would kiss the back of her hand and wipe her lips one last time.

‘Louis knows the answers,' said Kohler. ‘Louis has the cash.' Wolfishly he grinned at Delphane. ‘My partner opened that safe, my old one. Now what are you going to do about it? Mess with him again?'

‘I already have,' snorted Delphane.

Kohler looked down at the old Lebel six-shooter that had been a devil's gun in the right hands. Cases and cases flashed across the screen of memory. Vouvray, the carousel …‘Louis?' he gasped. ‘Not Louis.' He leaped at Delphane. He was clubbed and kicked and forced to his knees.

‘The village, I think,' said Munk. ‘Bring them both.'

*

‘A pastis, please. Make it a double, then get me another.'

‘Shove off. There is no alcohol today.'

‘Then make it one or you will feel the weight of my boots, monsieur. The Sûreté, eh? And impatient.'

St-Cyr dragged out his badge and ID. ‘Look, I'm on a case and on the run. A patriot's life is in danger. A village will be razed to the ground if my partner and I do not stop it.'

‘Then why sit here asking for drinks that cannot be served under the laws and ordinances you obey?'

A wise one. ‘I obey them because I have to. That doesn't mean I agree.
Ah Nom de J
é
sus-Christ
, don't be so difficult! I've had nothing substantial to eat for far too long and must fortify my constitution for the terrible task that lies ahead.'

He had meant it too. ‘Can you pay?'

‘Pardon? Ah, the cash. Yes, yes, certainly.' St-Cyr dug deeply into the sack at his feet, and dragged out a bundle. ‘Thirty thousand, I think, if you will hire me the taxi with a motor that runs on gasoline.'

Ah no. ‘But … but the Boches …'

‘Hey, listen, idiot. Did you think I would come to a place like this for a pastis? I need transport and I need it immediately.'

Raoul Santoni threw a razor-look over the few customers who already knew enough to keep to themselves. ‘The warehouse,' he said quietly. ‘It's just across the tracks. Meet me there in five minutes.'

‘Don't be silly. You would only telephone the Hotel Montfleury. Neither of us need those jokers breathing down our necks.'

A mouse-eared little Corsican, the proprietor wiped the zinc and reached beneath it for a green bottle. ‘The bike's not mine. Some idiot left it there two weeks ago and hasn't come back. It's trouble. Maybe you can help me out.'

Oh-oh. ‘A bike?' hazarded the Sûreté, watching as his glass was half filled.

‘Water?'

‘Ah, no. No. Straight.
Merci. A
bike …?'

This one had the squawk of a chicken in heat! ‘Can't you handle one?'

The pastis was good. Pre-war stuff and 90 proof. ‘Of course. The Sûreté can handle anything. Me, I only wondered whose bike it was.'

The glass was refilled. ‘And me, I thought such things, they would not matter, monsieur, since you are in a hurry?'

Ah Nom de Dieu
, the Corsicans were a breed apart! ‘Proceed. The warehouse, eh? You first and then myself so as to cover you with my revolver.'

‘What revolver? I see no revolver?'

St-Cyr gathered up the sack and the bundle. ‘Ah, don't worry about it, monsieur. The revolver is always kept hidden until needed. Rest assured I would not lug around a few million francs and seek the life of danger without it.'

The warehouse was a garage suitable in size for one car and little else. The BMW R75 with side-car and under filthy canvas was in mint condition. ‘Fresh camouflage paint,' muttered St-Cyr, aghast at what he'd stumbled on to. ‘Straight from the factory in Germany and one hell of a problem for you, monsieur, if caught with it. Ah yes.'

Santoni acknowledged this with a slight, sidewards toss of his head. ‘The 750 cc engine drives …'

‘Yes, yes,' said the Sûreté. ‘It drives the bike's rear wheel and that of the side-car.'

‘There's a spare tyre …'

‘Yes, yes, and an extra pair of gauntlets and goggles. Better still, unless I am very mistaken, my partner has never driven one of these. Keep the thirty thousand and say nothing. Perhaps I can sell it to a certain hearse-driver.'

‘A hearse-driver …? Ah no, monsieur. But how did you …?'

‘Let's just say Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi had a list of telephone numbers. Yours was among them.'

‘The eggs … and … and the cheese, and the wine. The rosé.'

‘Never mind the groceries, my friend. You were one of her middlemen and marked with an asterisk. Don't breathe a word of it and I'll do you all a favour and burn the list.'

St-Cyr mounted the bike. Immediately there was that tremendous sense of power, that sudden surge of adrenalin. Kicking it to life, he pulled the goggles down and heaved the sack into the side-car.

The open road beckoned. Moonlight was everywhere. Within forty-five minutes he was walking up to the village, having parked the bike where Hermann would not fail to see it.

Right where the woman had died, right out there on that hillside beneath the moon.

A beautiful bike. A beautiful thing but had God not mocked His little detective by providing such a benediction?

Only the ruins of the citadel, ghosting whitely on high, gave answer and suddenly all the exhilaration, the momentary reliving of his youth, then the Great War and the roads of Flanders, vanished, and he saw it all for what it was: a disaster, a tragedy so in keeping with the history of Provence. All God had done was to speed him on his miserable way.

Three half-tracks with 88 millimetre guns brought up the rear of the convoy. Six medium-sized Opel lorries were crammed with troops of the Waffen-SS fresh from the Reich and on their way to wet their trousers in North Africa. MG42s, Schmeissers, Bergmanns, stick grenades and mortars. Kohler had to laugh at that God of Louis's. ‘These bastards will chew the hell out of that village, mademoiselle. You see, they have to prove themselves in battle.'

There were four armoured cars ahead of the lorries and then; right in front, eighteen motorcycles with side-cars on which had been mounted machine-guns. ‘It isn't going to be nice,' he said. ‘Look, I'm sorry you'll have to witness it.'

She did not know what to make of him. Crying over the loss of his partner and friend; now being sarcastic over the might of his own countrymen.

The snow fell lightly, and it was so beautiful even in the stabbing lights, but then there was the frozen breath of the enemy who ran this way and that alongside the convoy shouting orders and checking things. And the harsh angularity of their helmets matched the bleak brutality of their weapons.

‘Look, if it means anything, Mademoiselle Viviane, I don't think you were involved with the Resistance and neither was Madame Buemondi. She worked her butter and eggs business and fought off her husband's attempts to sell the villa. You did your weaving and when someone came along who wanted to leave a few francs with you in exchange for a cheque on a London bank, you obliged.'

Was it all so simple? Could anyone even begin to understand the hell she'd been through?

Shackled tightly to him by wrist and ankle, and guarded by three Alsatians, they could only watch the convoy assemble and dared not move.

‘That business nearly drove me crazy. You see, Herr Kohler, I was terrified the fraud would be uncovered. Every day I asked myself how could I possibly pay those poor, deluded people back? How could I, whose father had suffered so much from fraud, now perpetrate a similar thing on others? There wasn't any more than a hundred pounds in that account. My father died penniless, remember?'

One of the dogs rose up on its hind legs to get her scent. She cringed. Kohler hissed, ‘Don't move!' and the dog took its time.
Ah merde
! She'd urinated.

He waited, giving her time to calm herself. ‘Madame Buemondi kept the money for later, didn't she? It was her idea and you went along with it because, being English and determined to stay, you would never know quite what the future might hold. In fact, I'd go so far as to say, she handled the business side of things and, even knowing what she was like, you let her.'

She shut her eyes. She could not look at the dogs! ‘Please don't condemn me. We needed so many things and I cannot answer for the love and loyalty I have always held for her.'

Kohler wanted to leave it but,
Gott im Himmel
, sentiment had no place in a detective's life and they'd need everything at hand if the two of them were to get out of this alive. Besides, talking about it might just keep her from moving. ‘Madame Buemondi had a friend alter the figures in your pass book. Right?
Voilà
, the one hundred pounds became
what
? Hell, no one could possibly have checked with the bank!'

‘Five hundred and seventeen thousand, four hundred and twenty-two pounds, six shillings and eight pence. There was only one page that had anything on it. I hadn't used the account in years and had simply kept the money there in case I should ever have to return to England.
Can't … can't you do something to make these dogs leave me alone
?'

He waited, and finally she continued. ‘That page was removed and the booklet carefully restitched. Several new entries led up to the invasion of 1940, then others traced my route south. But you see, I was an artist, an eccentric and a recluse – isn't that so? Money didn't mean anything to me, Inspector. My father was fabulously wealthy – oh, it all fitted and I let it all go on because, you see, I could
never
leave France!'

The dogs were worrying over her urine. They couldn't seem to leave her alone. Kohler filled his chest and let the breath out slowly. It was almost time for Munk to begin his Christmas campaign in the hills, and who in Berlin was to know if one villager or another really were maquis? Hell, they'd all been up to their stupid, stupid necks in the black market!

The dogs moved away and sat there watching them.

‘Delphane found out about things,' he said. ‘By then he was desperate for an out and seized on the two of you. He asked for the money and you tried to get it from her but she saw things differently. She didn't want to become involved with him at all. She'd have lost everything.'

One should not cry. One must be brave. ‘He went after Josette-Louise and found her in Paris. He … he said that he would use her against me if .. if I did not get him the money. That he needed it to … to finance things.'

‘What things?'

As if he didn't know! ‘The escape of himself and four others. They … they had come this way and had used the cottage, Inspector. You see, Jean-Paul knew all about that place. He knows everything there is to know about Anne-Marie and myself. He …'

‘He fathered your children who were then adopted by your lover and Carlo Buemondi.'

‘Is it so bad? I had nothing. An artist earns so little. Oh for sure, in the early days I could use my father's villa near Chamonix now and then if I pleaded with him and said it was an emergency, but he never gave me an allowance. You see, Inspector, my father despised me for what I had become. And when he lost everything to Stavisky, he blamed me and I was left with only my dearest friend and her love for me. For
me
!'

Ah Nom de Dieu
, it had been a crime of passion! Borel had had nothing to do with the killing.
Merde
! ‘What did Jean-Paul tell you after all those years, mademoiselle? That her father had hired him to silence the financier?'

Her father who had made so much money on the schemes. ‘Yes. It … it is what I feel your partner had already come to know.'

‘And now poor Louis is dead and that bastard is going to have his way.'

‘His kind always do, Inspector. It is a right they assume at birth even though it is a wet nurse who suckles them.'

The dogs were now worrying his ankles. One of them was …‘Then why'd he turn over a new leaf? Why'd a Fascist and leading member of the Cagoule change the colour of his ways?'

‘Ask him. Perhaps he'll tell you if he does not kill us first. Certainly he will not allow me to betray him, Inspector, and you … why you are powerless to prevent it.'

‘But he
cannot
kill us. He'd only expose himself. He must have others do that, mademoiselle. He must make certain of it! Everything must appear as if he is innocent and loyal to the Reich. Ah Jesus, Jesus, you bastards leave my trousers alone!' Kohler moved a foot and received a nip and then a heavy chorus of throaty barking.

When the dogs had quietened, she wanted so much to say, Jean-Paul has already thought of this. That even as they stood prisoner, he spoke urgently to the Gestapo Munk and the SS major and his lieutenants. She wanted to say, I'm sorry for you but could not bring herself to do so.