Mayhem (16 page)

No hint of warning of Marianne's abdication? wondered Kohler but said only, ‘You're the expert, my friend. I'm merely the chauffeur.'

‘Osier beds for the baskets, Hermann. So, a working château, I think. Vines, yes. Caves for raising mushrooms and racking wine. Fishing on a Sunday afternoon if one is lucky – there are some punts drawn up among the reeds near the osier beds. No doubt there are ospreys on the river, and the boy is very fond of spying on them.'

He'd built such a mental picture of the place, Kohler hoped he wouldn't be disappointed.

‘Vouvray, Hermann. Yes, I think we shall find our château near there. It is at once one of the most strikingly beautiful parts of the Loire Valley and yet one of the most poignantly haunting. Tufa cliffs lie to the north. Valleys funnel down to the Cisse and its confluence with the Loire.'

The last light of day gave them a view of the river flats and, in a distant backwater along the other shore, someone in a large felt hat poling a punt among the reeds.

There was a boy of six or seven years of age sitting in the bow; behind the two of them, on the hill beyond the woods, the rising slate-grey towers and grey-white stone of the château.

An osprey floated over everything just as the boy had sketched it.

‘Me, I'm humbled, Hermann. There is the mother, there the son.'

‘Do you think they've seen us?' The air seemed to shimmer.

St-Cyr shrugged. ‘Would they realize who we were?'

‘The woman might?'

‘Dawn will see, Hermann. For now, let us leave them in peace, eh?'

There were tears in Louis's eyes. Mush! for Christ's sake!

‘Philippe would have loved it here. Me, I never took the time I should have with the boy.'

‘A life of crime, eh?' snorted Kohler. ‘Listen, my friend, don't let sentiment interfere. That woman's in danger for her life and so are we. She may also be a killer for all we know.'

St-Cyr merely nodded. ‘And now, a bottle of Vouvray, Hermann, creamed leeks and mushrooms, eh? And then …' He paused. ‘The trout Vouvray for me, or the whiting.'

At dawn, fog rose off the river. Moisture dripped from the barren branches. Rooks cawed and, in the distance above the far bank, they drifted eerily through the gossamer.

‘Louis, you'd better take this, just in case.'

Kohler dragged their weapons out from under the driver's seat and handed the Lebel to him in its shoulder holster. ‘If you continue to keep our guns lying around like that, Hermann, someone's bound to notice.'

The Bavarian grinned. ‘The glorious Gestapo of the Third Reich bends the rules of the Armistice to save your bushy pink tail, my friend. Don't shoot anyone, eh?'

‘Me, I'll try not to.'

‘You still convinced this is the way to do things?'

‘The river, the woods, grounds, maze and walls afford too obvious a hasty route of exit, Hermann. Gabrielle Arcuri will only pull the disappearing act on us if we both go in through the front entrance. So, we will do the unexpected, eh? You flush the bird and me, I will take it on the wing.'

Kohler held the flat-bottomed punt for him. St-Cyr sat between the oars. ‘Once I've crossed the river, give me an hour or so, Hermann. Perhaps a little more. Distances are deceiving. That hill may also be steeper than I've anticipated.'

‘You might get lost,' snorted the Bavarian, shoving him out. ‘So long, chum.'

‘Remember you're working alone. No hint of an accomplice, eh?'

Must he always go on about it? Kohler lifted a tired hand. ‘Don't be a pain in the ass. I'm not stupid.'

‘Just wanting to be sure.'

The sailor drifted out into the current and began to row in earnest. Water gurgled off the prow. There were several sand-and-gravel bars, a few low islands and one, a little downstream of these, that held a smattering of willows and the ruined walls of a Norman keep.

Kohler knew Louis would be enjoying himself like a kid on an adventure, but he also knew the Frenchman was absolutely right. They couldn't afford to lose Gabrielle Arcuri, not now.

The fog soon closed about the oarsman. The rooks departed, and the river returned to itself. In the hush, Kohler could hear the current as it trickled over the gravel. Hands in his overcoat pockets, he stood on the bank. Louis had said Norse raiders had come up the Loire in search of booty, and he could certainly imagine them doing so on a morning like this, but somewhere further back in time, Caesar had been here too.

The place was dotted with monasteries and steeped in money. Everyone knew the wealthy of France had bolted to their châteaux on the Loire or fled farther south to sit out the war in relative comfort. For the most part, they mingled freely with their conquerors, socializing and accepting them but with that aloofness so characteristic of the French élite.

He had it in mind what the château would hold. A matriarch – the grandmother – then the mother and father, perhaps a son bought free of the war or from some prisoner-of-war camp in the Reich – Maxim's and payment of 150,000 francs into the hands of the right waiter who would feed it to his contact and,
voilà
, some lucky bastard found himself standing outside the barbed wire with his bundle of rags under one arm.

Corruption was rife both in Paris and in the countryside. He had no illusions about it. Germans could be, and were being bought, all the time. He, himself, might well have kept the diamonds. Yes, he might have.

The son would, of course, be Gabrielle Arcuri's husband but the family'd prefer to keep him out of sight. Ah yes, but of course. No sense in rubbing salt into local wounds, eh?

These things were not too difficult to figure out, but why would she take up living in Paris, why consort with a German general – especially one whose features had been so buggered up?

And why be an accessory to a murder no one ought to have taken the slightest interest in?

Perhaps the boy, as yet unidentified, had been the younger son of the owners? Perhaps Gabrielle Arcuri had tried to look out for him?

Perhaps … perhaps, but then …
Mais alors
!

Damn! He'd begun to say it himself!

A lone duck broke through the fog out over the river only to veer sharply away and bank high as it spotted him. Kohler listened for the flat report of a shotgun but there was none. Hunting was forbidden, of course, as was the possession of guns of any kind.

Yet one could hide all sorts of stuff like that in a place like this and, if given the chance, no doubt lifting the roof off that château would yield all manner of secrets.

Even a few tidbits about that little maid of hers? he asked.

Lost in the fog, the towers of the château remained hidden from him and, as two more ducks came swiftly across the water, he had the thought Louis wasn't being as careful as he should have been.

If one could see the ducks take wing, so, too, could another.

St-Cyr stepped cautiously out of the punt. Mud welled up around his boots but the mat of dead and fallen reeds was thick enough to hold him. Those damned ducks! He'd almost been upon the boy when first the one had cruised out into the lead, only to see the punt and take off.

Then those two others.
Merde
! He'd been so close. The boy had been crouched among some reeds, spying on the ducks. For a second, the two of them had looked at each other. Like a wraith, the boy had disappeared, leaving only a memory of haunted dark brown eyes and a hank of straight brown hair over the brow.

The kid would sound a warning.

Fed up with himself, St-Cyr drew the punt up on the bank, then made his way through the reeds to where the boy had been hiding.

A blue woollen toque and a pair of knitted gloves were lying on the ground. He picked them up and followed the boy, hoping against hope that the early hour and the lost warm clothing – not so easily come by these days – might keep the boy silent for a while.

A trail led through the reeds to the first of three punts and he saw the one the boy and his mother had used the previous evening. The oars were still in it and not leaning against a tree as were the others.

The trail became a footpath, wide enough for two to walk side by side. Railings of peeled poles had been nailed to tree trunks where necessary. There were even log steps, though these were badly in need of replacement.

The woods opened into a clearing – stacks of firewood here – then the path wound upwards beside a small stream. There was a footbridge, none too sound by the look, more steps, a turning off to the right, a bend, a rise and … he caught his breath.

The boy was at the other side of a clearing, standing beside the ruins of some beehives.

Was that guilt in the look he gave, or fear? Even from a distance of perhaps forty metres, the resemblances to Gabrielle Arcuri were noticeable but these were all in the finely boned face, the high and studious brow, the height and slimness, not in the colour of the eyes or that of the hair.

‘A moment …' began St-Cyr, only to see the wraith disappear.

Twice more the boy hesitated, making certain he was being followed. In time they reached a high stone wall. Again the boy looked back. Gargoyles surmounted the wall – stone dogs begging on their hind legs, griffins with folded wings. The boy took no notice of them but twice again he waited to make certain the stranger was following.

Then he ducked away and St-Cyr was left alone, cursing his luck until, at last, he found the opening, a portal which led across a piece of lawn through statues and ornamental shrubs to an entrance of the maze.

Again the boy waited. He was at least seven years of age, so the photograph in Gabrielle Arcuri's flat had been taken some time ago.

The boy let him start out then left him to find his own way through the maze.

Now there was only the fog, the tall and enclosing walls of the passageways, the ever-present smell of cedar, the sound of distant geese, and from somewhere distant too, that of poultry, most expressively, the harshness of guinea fowl.

When he found the rabbit, grey, fat and with very soft and floppy ears, he knew he was lost. And so was the rabbit by the look, for it led him down this passageway and that, into one dead end after another.

Now he didn't know if he was going deeper into the maze or back towards the entrance. At last he came to a T-junction and the first of a long aisle which pointed straight towards the stone tower in the centre. It was still some distance from him.

St-Cyr thought the boy was up there watching him from the highest of the embrasures but when he reached the tower, it was empty.

And the spiral of stone steps that had, echoing, led up to a leaded skylight in the dome, now looked down to the floor below yet he was certain the boy hadn't left the tower.

What have we got ourselves into? he asked but had no answer, only a sense of doubt he didn't like. Quite obviously the boy had been told to lead him astray and, quite obviously, whoever had told him to do so, hadn't wanted to be seen.

That could only mean there'd been someone else among the reeds.

*
Paris and its environs.

4

Château Thériault, Clos de l'Oiseau de la Brume lay at the end of the gigantic plane trees whose greenish-grey and pistachio-brown spatulated branches reached eerily up into the fog.

As Kohler eased the Citroën down the lane, he looked off to the right and away from the river. Vines began on the lower slopes, the fog giving but glimpses. Perhaps forty hectares in all so far.

Some people had all the luck. This was money – very old money.

Moundlike shapes of box, yew and hawthorn stood sentinel nearest the arched stone entrance which was set in the base of one of the towers. Flanking stone walls held crenellated battlements. Where once there'd been a drawbridge, there was now a stone bridge.

There were no flags that he could see – a dovecot, yes, there was one of those. Towers upon towers but hidden by their shroud. The gate had three conical roofs, with slotted embrasures below them. Ivy climbed the walls.

Immediately inside the gate there was a house. Beyond the house, the central courtyard opened up in lawns and formal gardens, mothballed fountains and statues that were shrouded in the ever-present mist.

The place was huge, a bugger to heat. The five towers stood around, and between these there were defensive walls only at the opposing gates. Otherwise the château went from tower to tower. Cut stone, beautiful slate, copper eaves and lots of tall French windows – barns and stables to his left at the back, now the garages perhaps, so self-contained but all part of the enclosing pentagon.

Five greyhounds stood in a cluster. A tall woman in a dark blue overcoat with turned-up high collar held the leashes. The help had all gathered humbly about her for the morning's instructions. Well, what the hell …

Still some distance from them, Kohler got out of the car to wait. The dogs fidgeted. She spoke quietly to them. One by one the help ducked their heads, clutching their berets in respect – clogs on some, blue denim jackets, overalls and bulky turtleneck sweaters, the fog drifting. As each man paid his respects and received his orders, she seemed to exist only for him and he left without so much as a glance towards the visitor.

Kohler knew he wasn't just witnessing a daily ritual but the iron and benevolent rule such a place as this would demand.

She let the dogs go and he stood there not knowing whether to get back into the car as they came at him. Such graceful things …

‘Sasha!' One word, that was all. The lead dog. Its name echoed from the towers as the dogs stopped.

Each one held its position, watching him, and he had the thought then that Sasha would have torn the heart out of any of them if they'd moved, and that the woman would have approved.

As she came across the courtyard, she gathered in the leashes and he saw that she wore black leather riding boots.

‘To what do I owe this visit?' she asked.