Stonekiller (12 page)

He sees you as a threat he cannot tolerate, madame. Of all the heads to roll, his must surely be the first. He
won't
let you do that to him.

A Nazi, a jackbooted boy out of one of the Ordensburgen, the Order Castles, and now a man specializing in propaganda and covert operations, Herr Oelmann had marked her down but she was not yet completely aware of this.

You poor thing, said St-Cyr to himself. We must not let it happen no matter how guilty you are.

At Souillac they left the river. Frightened by its absence, she tried to ignore the wooded hills and plateaus. And when a valley appeared, incised and cradling an ancient village, she shuddered as distance collapsed and the house drew nearer.

A narrow side road forced Oelmann to slow down. A cart, pulled by an old woman in sabots and black sackcloth, caused them to pause. The woman took her time and when the cart, with its load of sticks and manure, drew alongside she set the shafts down and paused to wipe a runny nose on a tattered sleeve. ‘Juliette … is it true?'

Deep wrinkles screwed that ancient face into the ripe olives of dark eyes that missed nothing. ‘Attend to me, my dear. It's your Aunt Liline who is speaking, is it not? The same whose name you took for your very own daughter.'

‘It's true.'

The woman pinched her nose and flung the rheum aside. ‘Then we must prepare for the burial and that fine husband of yours can kiss the blade before the guillotine falls.'

‘Must you?' cried the daughter. ‘You know how hard this is for me. Can you not give me a moment's peace? Always you are criticizing
maman.
She
wanted
me to marry André. I couldn't say no. I
couldn't!
'

‘It's as I've always said. He was no good and the marks you bear on that pretty face your father's family gave you are proof enough.'

‘Madame, please explain yourself,' said St-Cyr. ‘We're détectives from Paris.'

She stooped to take up the shafts. For one split second she gave him the benefit of a scathing glance and the finality of a curt nod. ‘Ernestine was a good woman whose only fault sits beside you, the result of her attempt to find a better life and lift herself from among us. The
vin paille de Beaulieu
, eh, messieurs? The sweet wine of the virgin sun-dried on a bed of straw.' She clucked her tongue and tossed her head in salute. ‘The legs must never be spread to the moment of hope's foolish passion nor should the years ever be given to its fleeting memory and futile prayers for its return. Now I will leave you to your murder and to this Paris you speak of.'

Ah
nom de Dieu, de Dieu
, the walnut had shed its husk. Now only the hard dark shell remained.

For as long as she dared, Juliette Jouvet looked tearfully at the cloud of yellowish dust that enveloped her aunt. At last the niece faced the back of the front seat again to knit and unknit her fingers, captive to the car. And all who saw it pass, paused in their labours to stare at her.

The house was not in the centre of the village but down by the river in the midst of a cluster of Renaissance buildings whose tiled roofs rippled orange-brown in the sunlight. There were three arched double doors at street level — former entrances to what had once been stables and pens for livestock. A simple set of wooden stairs led up to a door at the side — the shop entrance. Above the shop and post office, a covered balcony ran the width of the house with timbered, stuccoed walls behind. One french window was to the far left, a solid oak door off-centre to the right. Posters of some sort clung to the walls — the
auberge
was on this floor. Above it, the steeply-pitched roof rose to two garret dormers, one wide open to the elements and without the benefit of even a shutter, the other with its broken shutters closed.

There was a square tower to the right, set awkwardly into the corner of the roof, making the place look lop-sided. Here small shutters all but closed off a meagre window. Stucco and lath were being constandy shed from the tower's base.

Madame Fillioux had left her son-in-law and family a costly bill for repairs.

Signs targeted the place. A drunken telegraph and telephone pole, barren of the ivy that sought to climb it, stood nakedly just off the front right corner. Grapevines did climb the walls but only to the balcony railing for ease of harvesting. Not a tree stood nearby to give the place a modicum of shade or grace. Not a flowerpot of geraniums. Madame Fillioux had had no time for such things. It would be cold in winter and insufferably damp.

‘Messieurs, could I … could I have a moment in there to be alone with my thoughts. It's a very difficult time for me.'

Oelmann grinned. Kohler said nothing. Louis had to tell her. ‘It's impossible, madame. I'm sorry but we have to see everything.'

‘And you do not trust me, do you?'

Had it been clever of her to ask, a last desperate attempt to find out exactiy where she stood?

‘Please, as soon as we can, my partner and I will leave you with your memories for as long as you wish.'

She could only try. That was all she could do, she said to herself, and hope they wouldn't be able to keep their eyes on her all the time.

Light from the double doors filtered into the shop where worm-eaten beams were festooned with hanging pots, straw hats, brushes, coils of wire, coal scuttles no one would buy these days because there was so little coal, laundry baskets, coat hangers, ah so many things. Row on row of them above a long counter, cash desk and weighing scale where space was at a premium and glass display cases competed with a few dried beans and lentils, a little brown rice, split peas, cracked wheat and rolled oats. Toilet water, bleach — bleach for the hair also — pins, needles and ribbons, thread, bunting and buttonhooks, Madame Fillioux had carried the centuries. Poverty and isolation had combined to allow much of the pre-war stock to remain. Suspenders, eyeglasses, corsets and lisle stockings, ladies' shoes with long laces. Lye and camphor. Spices … spices such as were no longer seen in the
zone occupée.
Cloves in tall glass jars, cinnamon sticks and whole black peppers. She must have kept a rigid control over those.

Beyond the produce shelving, a wide doorway led to the post office and it was from there, most likely, that the stench of rotting meat and rancid butter came.

‘Madame,' hazarded St-Cyr, not realizing the four of them were in a cluster. ‘How is it that for almost a week now the village has gone without service?'

‘Monsieur Auger usually fills in when mother is away. He delivers the mail throughout the
commune.
He's very good, very reliable — she would not have employed him otherwise — but.…'

‘But he has not filled in.'

‘Louis, I'll check upstairs.'

The stench was everywhere. ‘Hermann, you know I'm better at it. Madame, does the sous-facteur live alone?'

‘Alone …? Why, yes. Yes, he lives on his farm and … and comes in each day.'

‘And the
garde champêtre?
' The village constable.

‘There … there isn't one.'

Ah
merde
, no
flic
and two murders, was that it then? St-Cyr looked questioningly up at the ceiling but could see no stains. Could they leave it for a little? A half-hour, an hour, would it matter?

Franz Oelmann's clipped voice broke the thoughts. ‘I'll go. Madame, please accompany me.'

The Sûreté threw out a hand. ‘Not if he's lying up there. No.… No, she will stay with us,' he said sharply. ‘We'll leave the upstairs until later. We will take things as they come and that is final.'

‘Then get on with it. We haven't all day. The Baroness and the others will soon be here with the trunk.'

‘Ah yes, the trunk.'

Juliette felt Herr Oelmann brush against her left arm. She knew he wanted to be alone with her. The one called Kohler grinned and said, ‘Will we need a key to the cage?' He missed nothing, even to seeing how flustered she was.

‘It … it will be in the drawer under the counter. Please, I will get it for you.'

She moved away but when she went to pull out the drawer, Herr Oelmann's hand closed over hers. ‘Let me,' he said.

Kohler saw her wince. Oelmann held her that way a moment. The drawer came open. She could not take her eyes from its contents. Old ledgers, tidy bundles of receipts bound with elastic bands or bits of string.… A tin of dress pins, another of drawing pins … a stamp pad, ink, pens and pencils, a carving knife.…

‘Mother … mother always kept that handy in case of robbers. The key is there, at the back, on its little hook.'

Herr Oelmann nodded, forcing her to awkwardly bend down while he stood over her so closely his left leg was pressed against her hip. Kohler watched from the other side of the counter — she knew this. And when he rained a handful of beans onto the wood, this startled her and she found him grinning like a small boy who knew there was mischief afoot. ‘The key,' she said, colouring rapidly as she thrust it into his hand.

Behind the cramped cage, whose wire mesh would have withstood a battering ram, the parcels in stained brown paper wrappings, string and cancelled postage stamps filled one narrow set of shelves to the ceiling. Big, small, what did it matter? Most oozed rancid butter, dribbled maggots, leaked and stank to high heaven.

She didn't know what to do.

‘Parcels for the
zone occupée
, Hermann. Food, warm clothing, thread, black pepper, salt, sugar perhaps and potatoes.'

‘Hams and geese,
foie gras
, two chickens by their look, a roast of lamb, a side of bacon —
verdammt
, three trout! Their tail fins have broken through.'

‘Walnuts and walnut oil. Some sweet cherries that should have been dried and would have been mouldy on arrival even
if
the service had been excellent!'

‘The French,' said Oelmann sarcastically.

‘The shortages, including that of the railway rolling stock that has gone to the Reich,' breathed Kohler. ‘Not all are for Paris, but like them, Paris has no milk, no cheese for Louis's little boy, no flour, sugar, meat and bread or too little of them. Potatoes also.'

‘And it's all our fault, is it?' shot Oelmann.

St-Cyr knew he had best intercede. ‘Hermann, please check the postmistress's parcel book. All parcels are listed with their destinations, weights and postage paid. See if one of the family's addresses crops up. It's just a thought.'

A thought …
Le numéro
26 boulevard Richard Wallace, messieurs? she cried inwardly. Again the one from the Sûreté looked questioningly up at the ceiling. Again she shuddered inwardly at what they might find.

Herr Oelmann examined the malleted rubber stamp with which her mother had cancelled the postage stamps. He fingered the little silver lever of the telephone and she saw
maman
firmly thrusting it in to ring a distant operator and urgendy call into the speaker. But now the crowd was no longer present. Now, but for the probings of the detectives and Herr Oelmann, the place could give up its ghosts and she could hear the hubbub of each girlhood day, the exhortations, the complaints about the long line-ups, the pleas for credit justly refused.

Bang, bang —
she heard the stamps being furiously cancelled.
Maman
had been at the very centre of village life. The one called St-Cyr would be only too aware of this. He would know her mother had kept a secret drawer, a hidden cache that, like so many others in her position, was for a rainy day or for memory's sake.

A handful of louis d'or, the little diamond pin father had given
maman
, the thin silver necklace whose links were so delicately interwoven they were like a spider's web.

The letters from the battlefields… letters she had later used as proof of his undying love. Had the things been stolen? Had the murderer found them? Had he killed Monsieur Auger who could not possibly have known of that little hiding-place?

Blank identity cards were purchasable from each PTT but still Herr Oelmann fingered these.

When he found a bundle of postcards — the ones with the printed messages whose blanks were to be filled in that were no longer in use — her heart stopped.

She heard the dry sound as he riffled through them. From time to time he paused as if suspicious of something and she knew he was watching her out of a corner of his eye. ‘Madame,' he began, and she heard his voice against the clamour of the past. ‘Madame, these cards.…'

A car horn sounded. Someone leaned impatiently on it. The detectives stopped their searching, Herr Oelmann swore beneath his breath, ‘Marina.…'

He left them then and she went to close the drawer only to see that the postcards did not contain those urgent pleas for help her mother had received from Paris. Pleas that had been steadfastly refused. Yes, refused!

St-Cyr noticed her furtively glance up at them. Four greasy, putrid parcels had been selected to lie waiting on the sorting table. ‘All are for the parents' address in Paris, madame. Two fat geese, a loin of pork, some butter and cheese.'

‘Ah no …'

‘Did your mother not tell you she was sending food to your father's family?' he demanded.

‘
No!
No, she didn't!'

And now there are tears and you feel betrayed, he said silently to himself, because she didn't tell you everything.

The stamps had been cancelled on Saturday, the 15th of June, two days before the murder. A last gesture of reconciliation?

The detectives were upstairs now, in the
auberge
where heavy floorboards complained even from beneath carpets that had hidden them for ages. The halls were dark, the ceilings low, the hanging iron lamps extinguished, the rooms shut in by heavy drapes
maman
had refused to replace. ‘Some day,' she would say — and Juliette could hear her mother's voice so clearly — ‘some day these things will be worth a fortune.' The heavy oak chests and massive armoires, the dressers and canopied beds whose carvings a timid girl had secretively traced when opening a room to a visitor who had looked and searched and inevitably found it wanting.