Ferbrave had been left for the moment — he must have been, but where, exactly, he was located she couldn’t tell and that, she warned herself, was a worry.
Pressing a cheek against the wall, she strained to hear the sousdirecteur and his son above the noises from the roof.
‘Jean-Guy, it’s got to stop. Things are getting far too close,’ said the elder Deschambeault.
‘Stop, mon pere?’
‘Merde, imbecile, must you taunt me at a time like this? One van and no one was the wiser, but then another and another and what am I to do now, eh? Go to the Marechal and beg forgiveness when there are assassins about? Assassins, Jean-Guy!’
‘Resistants?’
‘It’s possible. Those people from Paris also. Doriot or Deat may have sent in the Intervention-Referat or the Bickler Unit to teach us a little lesson.’
The son took a moment to consider this, felt Ines, then she heard him asking suspiciously, ‘Did you inform Secretaire General Bousquet of your concern?’
‘Pah! Don’t be a fool. He’s the one who suggested it and knows far more about them than I do!’
Again the son took his time to reply but now there was sarcasm. ‘You worry too much, Papa.’
‘Will you never learn?’ demanded the sous-directeur. ‘Lucie’s dead. It’s over. Will that not satisfy you and that … that mother of yours?’
That bitch of a mother? she could hear the son thinking.
‘Maman hasn’t yet heard of your loss, and neither have Therese or Martine. Was it a boy or a girl that putain of yours dropped?’
Ah merde!
‘Batard, how can you speak to me like that? I who brought you here from Paris and saw that you were given the position you have? You were always the lanterne rouge of the class, Jean-Guy.’ The rear light. ‘Failure at mathematics, at chemistry, at everything else. This job, that job. Gambling, losing, cheating, lying. Mon Dieu, the number of times I’ve had to cover for you, yet you treat me like this? Ah! I admit you’re good at what you do here. One of the best. And perhaps in time, when this Occupation is over and things settle down, these stables will be yours.’
Sugar there. Some sugar, thought Ines.
‘What is it, then, that you want, Papa, the olive branch?’
‘You know very well. Quit visiting that brothel Ferbrave knows you visit because it’s his also. Leave it and stop all use of the vans. Tell the drivers they’ll continue to receive their extra wages for the long runs but are to keep silent or face immediate dismissal. Enough is enough, Jean-Guy. Good while it lasted. Oh bien sur, but finished for now because it has to be.’
‘And Lucie?’
‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Admit it, she was trouble.’
‘Trouble? Tell your mother I’ll visit her soon. All right, tell her I’ll even sleep with her if that will satisfy her.’
Again the son took his time before saying, ‘Broken fences are never easy to mend.’
‘And that doctor of hers? That quack who claims to calm her at my expense?’ hissed the father. ‘What part has he had in breaking those same fences, eh?’
‘Has he been fucking her — is that what you think?’
‘You know it isn’t, but why should I care, eh?’
‘She’s very ill,’ said Jean-Guy. ‘Why can’t you realize she’s psychotic? Torn by delusions, lives in hell because of you and your mistresses! Not just Lucie. The others before her!’
Still they hadn’t raised their voices. ‘How self-righteous you are,’ said the elder Deschambeault. ‘You who prefer the tenderest.’
Girls of fourteen and fifteen, said Ines to herself.
‘Menetrel knows that “quack” as you call him, father. Everything Maman has ever said to Dr Normand has been repeated to Menetrel.’
The father must have been taken aback, for he hesitated and then asked suspiciously, ‘Have you seen him there when you visited her?’
Perhaps the son smiled. ‘Of course. Therese and Martine have also seen him at the clinic with Dr Normand, discussing Mother’s progress.’
‘And Lucie?’
‘Most certainly.’
‘At Chez Crusoe and the parties at the chateau?’ asked the sous-directeur.
‘Just as he makes a point of knowing everything else, Menetrel knows, Papa.’
‘Because you told him? Or was it Therese or Martine?’ shot the elder Deschambeault.
‘I didn’t!’ retorted the son. ‘I can’t, of course, vouch for my sisters whose eyebrows are always raised when they speak of their father having sex with his latest, but in any case, since none of us ever attended any of those “sessions” at the chateau, how could we possibly have known of what went on?’
‘Sessions? Meetings of the board, idiot! Nom de Dieu, you must hate me.’
‘Not at all. I simply know you.’
Again the father paused. ‘Then tell Ferbrave he’d better find out everything he can from Albert before taking care of him. We can’t have the rat-catcher coughing up our blood to those two from Paris.’
‘And Henri-Claude?’
‘Must be told that it has to end, Jean-Guy, that I won’t submit to blackmail from him or anyone, and that if he doesn’t stop, I will go straight to Herr Gessler with things our Garde Mobile would rather not have the Gestapo hear.’
Ines nudged the door open a little farther. Both were standing, the father and son facing each other across the latter’s desk, but the sous-directeur’s back was to her and this partly blocked Jean-Guy from catching sight of her.
Silver trophies and ribbons adorned the shelves beyond them. Paintings of famous racehorses hung on the walls, a map of the course and grounds, one of the town of Vichy too.
Jean-Guy Deschambeault wore the buttoned-up, burnt-umber, single-breasted jacket she’d been told he would. Beneath it there was the charcoal turtleneck pullover he often favoured and yes, the whipcord breeches were of a soft shade of olive, and yes, the tan riding boots were well greased and polished.
No spurs, not now. No sand-coloured, tweed golf cap either.
Thirty years old, he was unmarried because he chose to be, but never lacked girlfriends who were willing enough, though none had been able to give him what that maison de tolerance could and did. Blue-eyed and handsome, of more than medium height, he was well built, masculine, ah yes, a polo player too, with thick, wavy, curly dark chestnut hair and the bluish four-o’clock shadow of one who often shaves but can never quite dispel that mildly dissipated playboy image. Cold, too, Ines reminded herself, but utterly charming in his own right when he wanted to be.
The two had stopped talking. The noise from the roof had ceased. Now there was only that of the flags.
‘Mademoiselle, what did you overhear?’ came a whisper.
Someone had switched on the corridor lights. Ah merde, it was St-Cyr, standing so close to her she could feel the icy breath of him and see the suppurating, black-stitched, throbbing bulge above his half-closed left eye. Behind him at a distance was Albert Grenier, behind that one, Henri-Claude Ferbrave and lastly Herr Kohler. ‘Nothing. I … I was looking for you. Albert,’ she tried. ‘Albert, are you all right?’
‘Inside, I think. Take a seat while we warm ourselves at the stove. Compose yourself, Mademoiselle Charpentier. You’ve had a terrible fright and are perhaps still in shock, but please prepare your answers better.’
The nineteenth-century, cast-iron stove in the office was decorated with a pair of turtledoves that drank from a birdbath above its little door, and through the mica windows Ines could see the flames. Herr Kohler had sat right next to her on the leather sofa but Albert hadn’t wanted to sit anywhere else and had tried to ask him to move over. He’d refused, of course, and had deliberately driven poor Albert to tears, causing him to abruptly turn his back to them and sit down anyway, squeezing himself between them and satisfying Herr Kohler as to exactly how close a relationship she had managed to establish with the groundskeeper’s son.