Luck played such a part in things. It was luck that got me home that night and told me not to go to sleep, that the dawn would come too quickly.
It was luck that warned me I might soon have visitors and that they’d be asking a lot of questions.
Luck also brought the mayor of Fontainebleau to me first.
‘Madame, we must speak freely. We both know that not everyone goes along with the Nazis, but if things should happen …’
Picard mopped his florid brow and ran a knuckle over the handlebar moustache. ‘You’d better come in. The colonel and the lieutenant are both away. It’s safe enough.’
The mouse-brown eyes looked at me. ‘Nothing is safe, madame. Me, I have come out here with a warning for you. Last night, you returned from your mother’s very late. Questions are being asked.’
‘I had two flat tyres! Some idiot scattered broken glass all over the road!’
‘The Résistance from Melun?’ he asked, startled by what I’d said.
It was the first I’d heard of them. ‘Résistance? How should I know?’
‘The bicycle, Madame de St-Germain. Please, may I see it?’
‘Do you doubt my word?’
‘Not for a moment. I merely want to make certain. I don’t want hostages to be taken.’
‘For what, please?’ It was my turn to be startled.
Picard blew his nose then mopped his brow again. ‘For the robbery. The theft of several valuable works of art from the Reichsmarschall Göring’s lorry.’
‘Of this I know nothing, I assure you.’
He wasn’t quite satisfied. I think, looking back on it, Picard and I understood each other very well, but at the time he only nodded brusquely. ‘The bicycle, madame. It might just help if the tyres were badly slashed by the broken glass of those people from Melun.’
‘Then come and see for yourself.’ I indicated the way, and he followed me round the house with his bicycle, which had those big, heavy balloon-type tyres.
I remember that it was very hot inside the shed. Picard sucked in a breath and ran his eyes over each of the tyres. ‘Where? Madame de St-Germain, where, exactly, did you run into the glass?’
Had I learned well enough to lie even then? ‘On the road about seven kilometres from here. There’s a hill. It’s an effort to climb when you’re tired. It was a very long walk from there.’
He knew the hill. ‘Will there still be some glass?’ he asked, not of me, you understand, but more of us both. A simple man.
I took a chance. ‘There will be. I’ll see to it.’
Picard lifted his gaze to mine. I think then that he knew I was involved in things and that he had to make a choice, one way or the other.
Again, there was that brusque nod and a muttered, ‘Ah, bon.’ I asked if he would care for a glass of wine. We sat, one on either side of the picnic table Jean-Guy and I had moved earlier. Picard’s bicycle leaned against the nearest of our pear trees. ‘It’s a lovely garden, madame. You do well with it for someone who’s not used to the soil. You use your head and plant for the future. For me, I should like a few moments in my garden now and then, but the Germans … Ah, they are such sticklers for the paperwork.’
‘Let me get you some lettuce and green onions and … and some radishes. Yes, I have all those. And eggs … would you like ten?’
Ten! Such a thing was unheard of. ‘Madame, you honour me, but it isn’t necessary. With me … Ah, what can I say? Of course, we could use the eggs, a few, just a few, you understand. They’ll give me an excuse to come back to see you now and then. Yes, that’s what we’ll do, but you must register the chickens and me, I must pay you for the eggs. Otherwise …’ He gave a shrug, the universal gesture.
Our bargain settled, Picard rode off and I wondered then, how the Germans had known I’d come home so late?
It could only mean they were still having the house watched and that, in turn, most probably meant Georges and Tante Marie.
Luck made me think to cut the tyres, bien sûr, a terrible loss since replacements were next to impossible. Now luck would have to see me back on the road with several empty wine bottles to smash and kick about.
The things one had to do.
The sound of broken glass is like no other, and I heard it as he kicked it away again. I stood in the middle of the road waiting for Dupuis to say something, but he let the glass do the work. Fortunately, I chose the road from Barbizon to Fontainebleau, so for me there was the advantage that the Caves of the Brigands were just to the south of us and Chailly-en-Bière to the northwest. Barbizon was to the west some three, maybe four kilometres. Melun was between eight and ten almost due north.
It was quiet on the road, except for the sound of the broken glass. Even the birds had deserted us, and the two men who were with Dupuis when that black Citroën came to call, now leaned against the side of it, smoking cigarettes.
Both were gestapistes français. One I recognized as having been with that gang who attacked me, the Action française …
The glass was green, the sun warm, so that when Dupuis crushed a piece beneath the thick-soled shoes he wore, the sunlight broke as the sound of the glass came to me.
He wasn’t satisfied. He waded into the tall grass at the verge and looked around. He examined the gravel right at the edge of the road. He was very thorough-painstakingly so, he always was.
I heard a piece as it tinkled, heard another and another. Dupuis wore a dark brown, lightweight business suit whose threadbare jacket was open, a white shirt, and a brown tie. He reminded me of a shoe salesman. How wrong can appearances be?
‘Madame, you say this glass was here when you rode your bicycle back from your mother’s after the curfew.’
‘Not after, Inspector. I started out well before it, but the glass punctured both tyres and slowed me down so that, through no fault of my own, I arrived home well after it had started.’
‘Ah, bon, but …’ The small brown mole on this brown man’s chin moved as he tossed his head. ‘But the glass, madame. Surely, it should have been more flattened by now? A patrol passes by here several times a day. There are farm wagons loaded with manure, firewood, produce …’
‘At this time of year? Forget about the manure, Inspector. It’s very difficult to buy, and all of it has already been used on the fields. As for the firewood, the Germans don’t get the French to cut logs at this time of year. They’re too busy using up what they’ve already cut for charcoal and lumber. And the produce, you ask? What produce?’
‘Pigs, cattle, horses, chickens. The patrols, madame.’
There were up to six a day sometimes, although their number varied as did their timing, but I didn’t enlighten him. ‘The tread of those lorry tyres is heavy and deep, is it not? On a hill like this, it would tend to scatter the glass rather than to push it in. Besides, I don’t think you’re right. You’ve not been walking back and forth along the road but wandering all over it. If you were to look closely, Inspector, you’d see there are tyre marks in the glass.’
There weren’t, of course, but I wasn’t going to go down easily. Dupuis walked up the hill to stand in the middle of the road and look back at me. We were perhaps one hundred metres apart. The forest was close on either side, but there wasn’t as much underbrush as I would have liked, and those two by the car were just waiting for me to make a run for it.
‘Terroristen from Melun. Banditen, ja,’ Dupuis said using the Occupier’s terms for such, but as if he was tasting something that’s not quite right. ‘Sabotage, madame. Is this what you think? If so, hostages will have to be taken and shot.’