The thing weighed a tonne. The ladder lurched, slipped, then questionably held.
Up at roof level, he had to throw his left shoulder into the wind just to get a grip on the frozen tiles. As he heaved the stone up and slid it along, another of the tiles disappeared. ‘Higher!’ shouted the man. ‘A good sixty centimetres.’
The bastard was right behind him on the ladder!
Another boulder was awkwardly passed up and then another. Again he heard, ‘A moment, please.’
The ladder flexed, then did so again and again as two more boulders were carried up – how had he done it?
At last the tiles seemed fitfully content and Kohler was able to climb down. Blood ran freely from the ham of his thumb and he cursed himself for being such a fool. ‘The abbe, monsieur,’ he managed. ‘I’m looking for him and for Dedou Fratani.’
The lantern revealed an instant of suspicion and swift alarm, then careful reassessment. ‘The Cafe de Bonne Chance, monsieur. Please … please allow me to show you. Here, we will both carry the lanterns, yes? So that each of us will have one.’
‘Your name?’ asked Kohler.
‘Ludo Borel. I am the herbalist, at your service.’
‘Got anything for a human bite?’
‘A bite?’ Ah no, had this one really been bitten? ‘But … but of course, monsieur, although we can do what is necessary at the cafe, I think.’ Nom de Dieu, what had possessed him to say a thing like that? Ten sugar cubes dissolved in a litre of wine was good for washing such wounds, afterwards the sprinkling of crushed sugar and the bandage, but sugar was almost impossible to get these days unless one dealt on the black market and there was sugar at the cafe. Also it was well after curfew and this one had said he was from the Gestapo.
‘Forget it,’ said Kohler. ‘I’m on holiday.’
Head down, St-Cyr hurried on. The road was tortuous and when, at last, he reached the outskirts of the village, the deeper darkness of its newer houses lay against the lesser of the night sky.
He had to pause, had to catch a breath. Too many late nights, the years of too much tobacco and running around – would the war not help with the tobacco fatigue? Ah merde, Hermann, use your head. Don’t be tricked by these people. They have their ways. The one from Bayonne, he will know of this and try to use it against you.
The one from Bayonne … Was it possible? A pawn ticket – some treasured item, a painting perhaps … What, what had that woman pawned and why had she had that ticket in her hand?
Anxiously feeling for it, he dug deeply into his overcoat pocket and when he had the thing, heaved an inward sigh. Had she held it out to her murderer? Had she threatened him with it?
‘St-Cyr …’ – he heard that voice as if it was not far ahead, heard the challenge of it; then again, from later, the Directeur-General of the Deuxieme Bureau’s – ‘You are very wrong, Louis. That one, he could not possibly have done it.’
But someone had, back then on 9 January 1934, and someone had done so now almost nine years later.
Bayonne … must history always repeat itself? he asked and answered, It never does, not in exactly the same way.
Always these mountain villages had their careless spills of newer houses. Expansion in good times, contraction in bad – first the olive groves, then the vines, the cork oaks and the silkworms, the garance, too, from which a red dye was made for soldiers’ uniforms. But then the silkworm disease, ah yes, the winter that froze the olive trees; the artificial dye to replace the natural and, yes, the phylloxera to kill off the vines and the industrialization which swept the population of France into cities and towns. And always the wars, as if the rest were not enough.
In his mind’s eye St-Cyr could see the inner village clearly, the gaping shells of houses too ruined to repair, the narrow streets where vacant houses often stood because there was no one to fill them. The public bath, the fountain in the square, and the toilets, ah yes.
The wind stung his eyes when he reached the southern gate. It made him wish the tears were of gladness, but there could be none of this, not yet. Hermann … what could he say except that their partnership, never easy, had welded friend and foe in a common bond, and through this, each of them had become more than conscious of the other.
It was not nice walking through the darkness of these little streets. It made him feel a presence other than his own.
When he came to the church which, like all that had come before, was on a steep slope, he found the door locked and wondered why … why had the old woman feared that man who had come from Bayonne? What had he done to upset her? Had he said something to that girl? Is that why the fit had been of such intensity?
And why had he called Paris to bring them down here if not to seek revenge?
There were perhaps two dozen men crowded into the Cafe de Bonne Chance and when Kohler entered, the shouting and the gesticulating abruptly ceased. Mein Gott, but the cat had got their tongues. Not a move out of them. The arch of deceit and suspicion growing as the fear of discovery became absolute.
He set the lantern down on a nearby table which was barren of all but a spill of red wine, an empty sardine tin that served as an ashtray, four cheap glass tumblers with dregs, the chairs pushed back.
It was the same everywhere except around the brand-new sawdust burner, the converted oil drum of steel that was but the latest of the Occupation’s inventions. Made in Cannes, of all places. Heat from damp sawdust packed tightly into the drum so as to lessen the speed of combustion and keep the smoke down. Very little draught. Ah yes, the French, they were so good at making do. Sabots on some, scruffy boots on others – not a one of the men under the age of fifty-five and several well over seventy. Dull razors or none at all. Blue denim jackets or coarse, heavy black wool, brown corduroy trousers … shabby … Jesus, was the village that poor?
‘Monsieur, why have you come at this late hour?’ asked the priest, the Abbe Roussel.
‘I’ll come when I want,’ said Kohler quietly.
‘But, monsieur …?’
‘In a minute, Father.’ Motioning to Ludo Borel, he had the herbalist stand in front of the door with his lantern to prevent escape. As he walked about the room, Kohler noted how barren it was. A few tables and chairs, brown linoleum on the counter that served as bar and cash desk or belote table. A handful of pale green bottles, red dregs in all of them. No pastis out – ‘Hey, it’s not a day for alcohol, is it?’ he said loudly. ‘So why the wine, my fines?’
The wine …‘Monsieur …’
‘Well, what is it, Father? No doubt the curfew will be broken, or do they all intend to spend the night cooped up in here? Then the vin ordinaire on a day for water. That’s two violations of the law. Maybe I’ll see something else.’
‘Monsieur, these are but simple villagers. They know nothing of such things. Until the body was found, they were content to think the war, it would pass them by.’
‘So now they’re worried, eh, and have to know what the murder means for their village?’
The priest nodded. The Abbe Roussel did not look like much – thin and gangly in sackcloth, a rake-handle with caved-in chin, hard dark brown eyes that were full of concern among other things. Ah yes.
‘The murder means the Gestapo and the SS will have to come and take over this place. Look, I’m sorry but that’s the way it is,’ said Kohler.
A collective gasp was quickly stifled by an impatient hand from the priest who expected more from the Gestapo’s agent.
Kohler let him have it. ‘Of course, if I could have honest answers to a few simple questions, we might be able to make allowances for … for the remoteness of the village.’
There were whispers, nods, tossed heads. Roussel drew up a chair and indicated that the Gestapo’s Bavarian detective should avail himself of the same. Another sardine tin was hastily fetched but hazardously offered – ah, what was this? Black-market sardines? Nom de Dieu!