We both looked along the road in the direction of Georges and Tante Marie’s house whose ashes lay just beyond a last gentle rise. ‘Poland,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken thirty-six hostages from the surrounding villages and towns, Madame Lily. One is to be shot tomorrow, then two on the following day, then three, and so on until all are gone unless someone comes forward to tell them who the robbers were and where they’ve hidden what they stole.’
Eight days, then.
‘This war, Madame Lily, it’s never going to end.’
I had my children to think of, he his family and little farm, so the lie came readily and I gave it to him with the gentle touch of a caring hand. ‘They’re sending you to Russia.’
‘Me?’ he managed, stricken.
I nodded grimly, even gave him a quick hug, for he’d been a friend. ‘Please, I’m sorry you should hear this from me, but I thought you should know ahead of time. Obersturmführer Schiller is insisting that Oberst Neumann get rid of you.’
There were tears. He was devastated but would he run, be shot in an attempt to desert, or simply wait for what he believed would be his orders?
It was all a gamble. Everything. ‘You’ve been such a good friend, Rudi. We’ll all miss you terribly but when this war is over, you’re to come and see us. Please, I must insist. Your wife as well.’
Liar, cheat, fraud, coward, I silently cursed myself, for he was the one good thing in all the slime.
‘I knew this could never last,’ he said, indicating the woods, the pasture, the house, and the cushiest job he could ever have asked for had he had any choice in the matter. ‘Russia. I won’t come back from there, Madame Lily. This I know.’
‘Come in and get warm by the stove and have some soup. Perhaps if you eat a little, things won’t seem so bad. I’ll try to speak to Neumann. I know it’s not to be for a few days, well one or two. I can’t be sure.’
Ashes … there were ashes all around me, the remains of Georges and Tante Marie’s house. Bundled in overcoat, scarf, fedora, and gloves, Dupuis was standing where the front door used to be, while Schiller’s jackboots waded in the rest.
It was the inspector who picked up the twisted remains of a wine bottle, but the lieutenant who said, ‘What have we here?’
He was behind me and I didn’t yet turn, for beyond the farmyard, along the edge of the forest, German soldiers with rifles had formed a line, each three metres from the other, and the lightly falling snow had made their grey-green uniforms greyer still. It was freezing.
‘Well?’ shrilled the lieutenant.
‘Well, what, please?’ I asked.
The scar tugged at his chin. ‘Silver. Where did they get it?’
The thing in that black-gloved hand had bubbled with the heat and was the size of a small pancake and about as thick, and as our eyes met, I told him as calmly as I could, ‘How on earth should I know? They didn’t exactly like my living in my husband’s family home.’
‘You were afraid they’d talk.’
‘Me? Why?’
‘Madame, this fire was deliberately set,’ said Dupuis. He was still holding that wine bottle.
‘Deliberately set? You’re crazy, Inspector. Who would wish to do such a terrible thing, especially since they had no enemies? Not that I knew of.’
‘Is any silver missing from your husband’s house?’ asked Schiller. They’d got me right between them.
‘Silver? I’ll have to check, but with so many visitors …’
‘A list of the contents, I think, Herr Obersturmführer,’ said Dupuis. ‘Have her prepare one. We can get the husband to check it over.’
He thought of everything. ‘Just why are you so certain the fire was not an accident?’
‘Because, madame, there are melted bottles where the front and back doors were, and also at one side of the house. That one.’
Where I had found a window I could easily open. ‘Georges loved his wine, Inspector. He made it, borrowed it, and stole it from time to time. If you look closely, you’ll find bottles all over the place. That shed is full of those he had been gathering for sale.’
On the marché noir, but Dupuis didn’t say this, because it was then Schiller’s turn to go at me.
‘And these?’ said that one. He was very pleased with what he’d found, and as the wind teased the ashes from that black-gloved hand, he took on the air of a triumphant archaeologist confronting a competitive colleague with the remains of a pair of gold cufflinks.
Instinctively, I shrugged. His hand lashed out. Knocked almost off my feet, I found my lip was bleeding and my jaw hurt like hell, but it was Dupuis who fetched the dog. Grousing up to me, that poor creature with the beaten eyes found the will to wag its tail and lick my fingers, and I heard the inspector saying, ‘So, madame, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what has happened here.’
In panic, I fought for composure and stiffly said, ‘I’ll make the lists as you have requested and my husband will, I’m sure, thoroughly check them, but should anything be missing, I can’t vouch for any of the guests he’s had, nor for these two old people who knew that house and its contents far better than myself. They were always taking things, even in the time of my husband’s father, or so I’m sure my husband will inform you he told me when he first brought me here to meet them.’
‘And this dog?’ asks Dupuis. ‘It knows you and wouldn’t have barked.’
‘That dog has always been fed by me and my children. If you will release it, I’ll tell it to go to my kitchen.’
They watched as that creature made a beeline for its supper, and I realized suddenly that I’d just condemned myself, for it was Dupuis who says, ‘Ah, bon.’
The noise from the dining room was almost more than I could bear-laughter, hooting, jeering. They’d rounded up most of those who escaped from the cattle trucks, had shot a few and had a bit of fun, were still breaking dishes and glasses when the moment struck them. Jackboots graced the dining room table. Brandy, cognac, and wine had been looted from my husband’s cave, and I’d had to do the cooking and feed them all.
The sculpture was in the storeroom. Schiller rested his fingers on the head I’d done of Michèle Chevalier. She had such a fine young body, and I’d been true to it in every detail, but a general in Paris seemed likely to caress the real one, not himself. ‘Herr Obersturmführer, I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, I had nothing to do with that robbery or that fire.’
He fingered Michèle’s buttocks and thighs, didn’t care for the feel of the wax and turned the piece to gaze at her front again, for she was leaning back and the three figures were holding hands in a circle.
‘Yet you take the train on the evening of that outrage and end up but a few kilometres from it?’
‘Chance, that’s all. Ah, mon Dieu, Lieutenant, I’ve a commission to do, an order, damn it, from the Reichsmarschall Göring. It’s not easy for me to find the time. It’s taking a lot longer than I had thought.’
Now it was Katyana’s body that he fingered, and I knew he was going to tell me that I had earlier denied knowing anything of her, but instead, he said, ‘The piece looks finished enough.’
‘Not if you keep pawing it! Besides, there is still the base to make. Something very French and of the Fontainebleau Forest. Leaves, vines, rocks, birds …’
‘We’ll have a little surprise for you tomorrow.’
I stood before one of the dining room windows, looking out through the icy rain across the emptiness to where Rudi was again on guard and marching back and forth with that Mauser appropriately over his shoulder.
I waited. Cigarettes wouldn’t help, but those bastards from the ratissage had left packages and butts all over the house, and there were plenty for me to pick up. It was now nearly noon of the following day, and they hadn’t yet come for me. Has Schiller forgotten his little surprise, or is the delay simply more torture?