Carousel (51 page)

Caught among the reflections were the window and then … why, yes, the door and the coat.

And in between, a small throw rug and a rush-backed rocking chair. The rug reminded him of the villa near Chamonix, and he took to staring at the shawl he wore and to fussing with it. Could the weaver have been the same?
Ah Mon Dieu
, this case. Old wounds that had never closed; new ones rapidly coming on.

When he eased open one of the top drawers of the bureau, he let out a little cry. Facing him on the neatly folded lingerie of silk and lace, pale blues and creams, pinks and whites, were two masks, the faces done with water-colours. Over the white plaster mould, the artist or artists had placed a pale wash of flesh and then had dabbed or touched in the accents. The eyebrows, the lips – the expressions, ah damn it!

The twins, he asked, but as young adults? Thin of face but not so thin as Josianne-Michèle, who would have known
absolutely
that he would have searched and found them.

That girl … what was she hiding? If she had lied about her relationship to her sister then why, if these were they, had she left them here for him to find?

Beautifully done. First the object of the artist's eye, the touch, the Vaseline and afterwards, the carefully applied layers of gauze and thin plaster. The fingers delicately tracing each feature – straws in the nostrils to allow the patient –
patient
? why had he said that? – the subject to breathe.

In orange, in yellow, in red, blue, black and shadings of green from deep to pale, the expression of the one was so stark and filled with dark thoughts, the soul found them difficult to probe. Lust, hatred, vengeance, jealousy – ah, so many tortured emotions.

The mask on the right was open and kind – vivacious, intelligent, quick-witted, high-spirited, warm and outgoing. No secrets there, the kind heart exposed for all to see and yet … and yet …

Both of them would have been no more than what? Twenty or twenty-two at the time of the mask-making? Or twenty-four?

On a shelf beside the bed, among a litter of yet more pottery shards and bits of Roman glass, he found the espadrille of a child of ten or twelve, the left foot, and with it, a small, cheap porcelain figure of the Christ at Galilee and a cross that had been fashioned by the village blacksmith out of horseshoe nails.

Determined, he went over to the suitcases and opened them but found only that they were empty.

Kohler stared at the flat box of dead rats that had been built into the floor of the hearse. The copper pipe from the wood-gas tank on the roof passed down and through the box before reaching the engine in front of the driver's seat.

‘It is a good invention, is it not?' asked Dédou Fratani, his look so full of doubt and fear that the Gestapo's detective had to laugh.

‘I like it,' breathed Kohler. Always the ingenuity of the French tickled his fancy. The rats gave the smell when the back door was opened for the inspections. ‘How do you find the Italians?' he asked, still looking at those fuzzy little bodies with their maggots.

‘Lazy. Timid and sticking together. You have seen it yourself, monsieur, at the last control, only the other day. Eight Greaseballs armed to the teeth and, on this side of the Zone Coastal, two German corporals with the single carbine.'

‘We shoot better. Besides, it's less mouths to feed and we tend to ask fewer and far better questions.' Oh-oh, eh? Is that it, my fine? he asked himself.

Mist had collected in Fratani's dark eyes behind the rimless specs. The
garde champêtre
, who had not exactly been doing his duty, swallowed tightly. ‘Of course, Inspector, the questions, they are much better. That is why the Germans, they have let us pass so easily.'

‘Not because of my badge?' snorted Kohler. ‘My Gestapo shield that I thrust into their Würtemberg mugs though the bastards swore they were Austrians?'

When no answer came, Kohler grinned and let him have it. ‘They were in on the fiddle, right?'

Who could have known the detectives would
sleep
in the hearse and question the smell? ‘Yes … yes, the German corporals are in on it. Aren't all your countrymen this way? The good ones, monsieur? The normal ones who are so far from home?'

‘Two rounds of goat cheese, a metre and a half of that sausage and three bottles of your best rosé for my partner.'

The shit! ‘Done.' They shook hands. The Gestapo had been bought but for how long?

‘Now start talking, my fine and keep it coming steadily, eh? First the water rights.'

‘The water …?' Ah no!

Kohler helped himself to the last of Fratani's cigarettes and tucked the empty packet back into the bastard's pocket. ‘We wouldn't want to litter the hillside with rubbish, would we?'

‘Madame, she …'

‘Madame Buemondi?'

‘Yes … yes.' Fratani tore his gaze away to search the hill-slope and the
mas
, the farmhouse then the village and lastly the ruins of the citadel on high.

No one was in sight but that could well mean they were being watched and the Gestapo, he … he knew of this, had seen it all before and was grinning like a wolf!

‘Madame Buemondi owns this land and leases it to both the Perettis and the Borels but only lets the Perettis draw water from her pond when needed.'

‘In return for looking after the daughter?'

‘Yes. That and the cottage she … she uses when she and …' Again the village cop was forced to swallow tightly. ‘Pardon,' he said. ‘The catch in the throat. The influenza perhaps.'

Kohler wasn't impressed.

‘She used to come to visit us,' confessed Fratani.

‘When she came to barter for a little of what you bastards were flogging on the black markets of Nice and Grasse, eh, and Cannes?'

Among other places – this was all too clear in the Gestapo's expression.

‘What else are we to do, monsieur, given that our village is so remote and we lack for many things?'

‘How many times a week do you run the hearse to market and how many caskets do yoù fill?'

‘In summer, two; in winter, one or none. It all depends on each harvest, on the time they change the controls, on so many little things. Too many bodies, too many funerals … Always there are questions.'

Kohler got the picture. It was fair enough and Fratani knew only too well that to even barter an old bicycle inner tube for a chunk of bread these days was illegal and subject not just to a fine and imprisonment, but to transport into forced labour or worse.

‘When did the victim catch on to things?'

‘Right from the start, right from when the shortages first began in Cannes. The grey bread, the sudden absence of asparagus, monsieur, a thing we used to grow in quantity in the valleys. Four, five, six crops sometimes. Ah, nothing like some others but … It was her idea that we do this, monsieur. Madame Buemondi, she was the mastermind of our little business.'

She probably was, thought Kohler, but let it pass. ‘Tell me why she would deny the Borels the right to water but give it to the Perettis?'

Nom de Dieu
, this one had the eyes of a priest! ‘Alain Borel, he …'

‘The herbalist's son?'

‘Yes, yes, damn you! He …'

‘Is in the hills,' sighed Kohler. ‘Was he the one who left this for the girl, and was it really left for her?'

Fratani stared at the carving. Startled, he asked where the Gestapo had found it and when told, gripped his stubbled cheeks, deep in thought and despair. The others would never forgive him if he told the truth.

‘Ludo Borel's eldest son gathers the herbs for his father in the mountains, monsieur, and dries them there.'

‘I asked you who left this little carving and for whom? Don't shrug, my fine, or I'll make you carry her corpse all by yourself, right to Cannes.'

‘The grandmother, Madame Mélanie Peretti, the mother of Georges.'

‘The blind woman?'

Was it so impossible for the Gestapo to comprehend? ‘She sees with the innermost eye, monsieur, and she carves most beautifully.'

‘Don't dump on me. For her to have done this, the herbalist would have had to let her put her hands all over his face.'

‘But of course.'

‘But I thought you told us the Perettis and the Borels were not on speaking terms?'

‘They're not. That is why she has left it on the hillside for the herbalist. The Abbé Roussel, he has acted as the transmitter of their words.'

The transmitter? Why not the relay, or the go-between? Why use a wireless term?

Kohler looked away to the ruins of the citadel and from there, let his eye run to the line of the nearest mountains. Da, dit, dit, da …
Merde
! An enemy transmitter in the mountains. The sap. Had he let it slip on purpose?

‘Is the herbalist's son, Alain Borel, in love with the girl?'

‘Very much so.'

‘And did the mother not agree?'

‘Did she forbid such a thing, monsieur? Is that what you mean?'

‘You know it is.'

Fratani sighed contentedly. ‘Then you are absolutely correct, Inspector. There could be no wedding, no possibility of a union and of offspring. On this, Madame was positive.'

‘Or else she'd cut off their water?'

‘She had already done that long ago, from the Borels, as I have said.'

‘From the Perettis, you idiot!'
Ah Nom de Dieu
, this one understood the hills far better than most.

‘Louis, I have to tell you something.' Kohler drew him round to the leeward side of the hearse while Fratani waited behind the steering-wheel. ‘The Perettis were supposed to keep the girl away from Ludo Borel's eldest son. Madame Buemondi threatened one of them in no uncertain terms. Georges, the old woman's son, shot her.'

‘Why?'

‘Because she would have cut off their water, and in these hills that is life.'

‘Hermann, what is it? What's really troubling you?'

‘The maquis, Louis. Your friend Delphane is using us against them.'

St-Cyr reached out to him. The gesture was so automatic, the barriers of war were instantly set aside. ‘Quietly, Hermann. Quietly, my old one. You're forgetting the pawn ticket and letting your innermost fears get the better of you.'

‘Am I? You saw the girl's clothes. You saw the looks she gave us.'

‘Shall we go up to the village to question the abbé?'

There were tears in Hermann's eyes. ‘Ask Fratani where we can find Georges Peretti, Louis.'

‘In time, my old one. Let us first go to Cannes and tuck her safely on ice. I have something I must do. The rest will keep.'

Kohler wouldn't let go. ‘You've been my friend, Louis, but if there are maquis in those hills, I'm going to have to let the Army know. Boemelburg has forced my hand.'

‘Or Pharand, my own, Hermann. And Jean-Paul Delphane.'

They were up to their necks in shit and both knew it. One last glance through the open curtains revealed the victim still stiff with rigor. She seemed to be trying to tell them something but could not possibly have done so.

3

Two bodies lay sprawled on the tram-car tracks in Cannes. Perhaps five metres separated them, and when the sub-lieutenant walked up to the nearer of them, he drew his pistol and gave the poor bastard the
coup de grâce
.

Fratani shuddered. Jammed between the two detectives in the cab of the hearse, he saw only blood and brains splashing the stones, not the fashionable shops and hotels of the route d'Antibes. Not the half-frozen crowd of stragglers who were bundled in black or grey with scattered colours and fur coats between who made no move, remained only mute and poised in shock and indecision. Poor and rich alike; alien and resident; one dowager in black with a pair of white poodles who sniffed uneasily at her escort's heels and cocked their heads as if for more.

A second shot followed, though there'd been no need for it.

The sub-lieutenant then walked slowly back to the woman who raised an arm, outstretched a hand, the fingers spread and bloody. She cried out to that bastard with the gun and he let her cry out to him, let her beg for mercy. One high-heeled shoe had caught in a track and now lay broken behind her just ahead of the tram-car which remained as if hammered against the background of the street and the faces.

Furiously Kohler rolled down his side window and started to stick his head out. ‘
Hermann, no
! No, my friend.'

‘Louis …? Louis …?'

The shot rang out. The face was smashed. The body crumpled. The hand clawed at the pavement.

Not a person moved. Where once there had always been gaiety, the hubbub of traffic, the lights, the fun, the eccentric and the beautiful, now there was only terror. St-Cyr quickly let his eyes sweep the pavements on either side, alarmed by the sudden thought that others might decide to bolt for it. But no, the couple had been alone in this on the tram-car. A random check of papers. They could not have known their little gamble was bound to fail. An informer? he asked, again searching the faces of the crowd. A collaborator?

It seemed likely, but he could not decide on any one face. With the toe of his jackboot, the sub-lieutenant flipped the woman's body over. Then he put away his pistol and stripped her of her valuables.

Kohler started to get out of the hearse. Louis hissed at him, ‘Hermann,
don't
! It's finished, eh? What's done cannot be undone.'

‘The people will hate us, Louis.'

‘They were Jews,' said Fratani. ‘When the Germans moved in to occupy the south, the Jews and a lot of others fled here to the Italian sector, thinking things would be easier for them. But then the French Fleet scuttled their ships in Toulon and overnight the Italians were kicked out and now control only what is left of the coast from east of here to the frontier and a slice of the lowest hills.'