A very chill wind was about to blow along the corridors of power.
An intake of breath came from Berbier mere, but her son showed no reaction other than mild irritation.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Don’t you?’ Rocco wanted to punch him. ‘You don’t recognise your own daughter being groped over by one of your official ‘friends’? You don’t recognise a room in one of your own properties — a place you use for your pals to meet up and treat as a convenient whorehouse?’ He glanced at the old woman, who seemed to be trying to hoist herself into another dimension by sheer willpower.
Berbier said nothing.
‘I have to inform you,’ continued Rocco, ‘that a dossier is currently being placed before the Interior Minister, with photos like these,’ he nodded at the desk, ‘and a reel of film, showing activities at this property involving men of substance and position — that’s my description but I’m being sarcastic only because I actually feel like throwing up — who were there at your invitation and with your connivance.’ He paused while that sank in. ‘Actually, let’s cut the bullshit: you used the place so your buddies could have fun while you filmed them for blackmail purposes to further your business dealings. You also had your own daughter there to entertain these men and play the whore.’
Berbier’s mother flinched at that and closed her eyes. It seemed to be the first honest emotion he’d seen from either of them.
‘I also have the testimony of one Didier Marthe, also known as Tomas Broute, that while working as an SOE officer in 1944, you accompanied a supply drop near Poitiers and conspired to steal money from the Allies… money destined for use by the Resistance. Then, in collusion with Marthe, you informed the Germans of the whereabouts of the Resistance group, to prevent them informing London of your crime. The group was captured and taken to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, where they were executed. That money set you up nicely after the war, didn’t it? Nice going.’
‘That’s outrageous.’ Berbier looked stricken, but his voice was surprisingly quiet and calm. ‘I know nothing of these events.’
Bleriot, in the background, was frowning at Rocco as if uncertain of his ground.
‘Really? So we won’t find a record of your mission to Poitiers during nineteen forty-four, accompanying operating funds which were reported “lost”?’
‘No. That’s a complete fabrication. It must have been another officer.’
Rocco felt his disgust for the man reach new heights. Not content with a life of deceit and betrayal, he was clearly willing to pass off the blame onto someone else, no doubt counting on official secrecy to protect him.
‘You could be right, of course.’ He watched as Berbier’s face registered a momentary relief, then added, ‘Except that the officer accompanying those funds went under a unique code name… and we happen to know what that was from someone who was there at the time. Funny things, code names: they protect the identity of the user, which is good. But they tend not to be used more than once.’
Nobody spoke.
‘The code name was Cormorant.’
‘No… there’s a mistake!’
The words burst in a whisper from the old woman’s lips, too instinctively to be anything but recognition. She would have heard the name over the years, knew it instantly for what it was.
Rocco looked at her. ‘Did you know about this?’ A hint was all he needed for the structure Berbier had built to collapse. She could be the weak link.
But the old woman had recovered quickly and was staring at him with contempt, her jaw muscles working furiously as she tried not to look at her son.
‘Never mind. After the war, Marthe remained in contact with your son who paid him to look after the property in this photograph, to fix it up for weekend parties. Co-conspirators all those years. Mostly it was to keep Marthe from going to the authorities and revealing what he knew.’ He looked at Berbier. ‘You didn’t know what proof he had squirreled away, so you had to keep him sweet… and keep him where you could watch what he did. What you didn’t know was that he was keeping a record of who came and went over the years. It seems he didn’t trust you further than he could throw a bus.’
Berbier said nothing.
‘Very well.’ Rocco took out another photo. It was time for the big guns. Instead of dropping this one on the desk, he handed it directly to the old woman. If his instincts were right, she might turn out to be Berbier’s undoing. All he had to do was shake her foundations to the point where she couldn’t deny her knowledge any longer. The photo showed another man having sex with Nathalie. She looked unconscious, brutalised, mascara streaked across her cheek, her eyes swollen. She was wearing the uniform of a Gestapo officer. The same uniform she had been wearing when she died. The dark mark he had seen for himself on the body showed on the side of her neck, where she had been bitten.
The old woman uttered a noise midway between a whine and a cry of protest. Rocco stared at her.
‘That’s what your granddaughter was subjected to. You saying you didn’t know?’
‘ I didn’t! ’ She flung the photo away as if it was burning her fingers.
‘You sure?’ Rocco was relentless. ‘You saying you didn’t know she was doing this to earn money? That she had no option because she couldn’t get any from her father for the operation?’
‘Operation?’ She looked at him, then Bleriot, then at her son in evident confusion. ‘Why would she need money for an operation? What was wrong with her — was she ill?’
Berbier said nothing. But a vein in the side of his neck was pulsing heavily and his breathing had become laboured.
‘What?’ the woman repeated, grasping Rocco’s arm, her nails digging into his skin through his coat. ‘Tell me.’
‘Your granddaughter was pregnant,’ he said softly, this time without malice. ‘Probably by one of the men your son was going to blackmail. She needed the money to go into a clinic and this was the only way she could get it. I have the testimony of a friend of hers to the effect. Your son, it seems, had a reputation to preserve.’
Berbier’s mother seemed to sag, her face in torment. Then she turned on her son, lashing out with a spindly hand and scratching him deeply across one cheek. The score mark raised blood, a bead of which ran unchecked down his face. ‘You filth! You promised me… you said she was safe… that she was at a friend’s party that night when the… the accident happened. And you knew? ’
‘This is all unsubstantiated rubbish,’ Berbier said, his voice shaking. He stared at Rocco with glittering menace. ‘I will be making a protest to the minister immediately and you, my friend, will end up in prison for this.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ Rocco reached into his pocket and looked at Berbier’s mother. ‘When I examined your granddaughter’s body, she was wearing a single earring.’ He pointed at the photo, where the earring in the shape of a marguerite was plainly visible. ‘The other was missing.’
She stared at the photo, then nodded slowly, her voice a whisper. ‘Yes. One was missing when she… when her body came home. I gave them to her when she graduated. She looked so pretty in them… such a pretty girl.’ A sob broke loose from her chest and shook her thin frame, and she looked about to collapse.
Rocco opened his hand, capturing the moment. Nestling in his palm was the other earring, the one he’d found in the lodge.
The old woman gave a small cry. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes fastened on the jewel in recognition. She looked as if she was about to be sick.
‘It was no accident, nor was it at a friend’s house,’ continued Rocco. ‘Nathalie was running away from a man who was raping her. A man known to your son. She ran into the surrounding marais in panic, hid there for some hours. She was drowned in a pool of fresh water close to the lodge where these pictures were taken.’