‘Then what about her, eh?’ shouted Kohler in panic, a last defiant act. Ah Nom de Jesus-Christ, why hadn’t Louis poked his head up out of the ruins?
‘Josette-Louise will take care of herself by jumping to her death exactly from the place her sister fell. For me, I will use the money Louis took from the villa to make my way to Spain and then to Britain. I will vanish, my friend, into the hills, leaving only fear among the minds of the Waffen-SS and your Gestapo. Then I will return with the Forces of the Free French to wipe you people off the face of the earth!’
He really believed it too. Kohler wanted to ask him why he’d changed sides, but couldn’t take his eyes from the muzzle of the gun. He thought of home, of the boys in their winter’s hell, of Gerda’s warm embrace, her stern no-nonsense nature, and of Giselle, his little pigeon in Paris. Giselle would be waiting for him. Naked on her back, or on her hands and knees with that gorgeous rump of hers bare for all the world to see but only himself. And Oona? he asked. Gott im Himmel, the muzzle was black! It was like a hole or a well down which he was about to fall … Oona would have the flat ready for the holiday. Nothing expensive – Gott im Himmel, there wasn’t much available unless he could get back to Paris and the black market. Oona who washed his socks but refused to do Giselle’s laundry. Oona who had such fantastic blue eyes and long legs, and who would argue with herself like lessons in catechism, then roll over on to her back for a bit of gentle loving. Two women … Never had he had it so good and now this … this poisson of the bottom muds, this carpe from the aristocracy was going to put a bullet in him!
‘Don’t, Jean-Paul. It is myself you need dead, not Hermann. Hermann must be with you and alive so that you can both drag my body down the hill to Herr Munk. Otherwise, there is no leader of the maquis.’
‘Louis …? L … o … u … i … s!’ Kohler threw himself at Delphane. Pieces of glass began to fly everywhere. Giselle … Giselle … He saw her reflected in the mirrors, her bottom round and firm, her breasts uptilted for waiting hands that strained to hold them, the nipples taut and flushed with heat. Her supple back and slender waist, her hips, her seat … everywhere there were mirrors in the Room of Looking-Glasses at Madame Chabot’s little place, and everywhere he saw the many views of Giselle le Roy, age twenty-two but no virgin … wet, so wet between the legs, she was climbing on to him and he was lifting her up … up … her lips hot and feverish against his own … his own …
The mirrors flew apart in one final burst of shattering as he hit the ground. All over the ruins, the sound of the shot resounded. It was like cannon. It raked up history and brought the battle cries of old. Hauntingly it echoed among the hills and threw itself back and forth between the village and the fortress.
Then for a long time there was no sound.
The girl was softly crying. Sunlight poured down an ancient stairwell into a large room whose broken walls were stained with rust. She was sitting, slumped against the far wall in fullest sunlight, with the crossbow in her lap and he had not come by the stairs but through a doorway. St-Cyr noted the quiver of iron-tipped bolts in the open rucksack, the handles for turning the windlass that would draw the bowstring taut. He brushed the tears from his own eyes. He did not know where Jean-Paul was, knew only that Hermann … Hermann had been hit and now lay face down in the snow, blood seemingly everywhere.
The room was dark in shadow except for the pool of sunlight, and under the stairs it was darker still. She said so clearly, ‘Mother, I think I’m going to kill myself.’ Time suddenly meant nothing. It vanished, and in that instant he was carried right back to Chamonix. He smelled the wool of the weaver’s hangings and her cloaks, her shawls, her vibrant rugs, drew in the scent of her perfume – found it was now so strongly in his nostrils, he had to turn, had to look for her face, her eyes in the mirror. But she was not there, and with a start he realized Josette-Louise’s voice alone had transported him.
Yet the fear remained. That tenseness that did not creep up the back to stiffen the spine or prickle the hairs, but was at once everywhere.
He felt the muzzle of the gun – his own revolver – pressed against his temple and could not help but think things had repeated themselves.
And he realized then that it had been that sense of hopelessness in the girl’s voice that had most distracted him. That and the look in the weaver’s eyes. The look of a mother who must save her child, even if it meant banishing all other things and stooping to murder.
‘Well, Louis, it comes to pass that we find ourselves in a similar situation, and once again Josette, she has not failed me. You’re too sensitive to be a detective, my old one. You need to harden the heart.’
Jean-Paul was to his right – gripping him by the elbow but keeping a little distance.
‘You should not have killed Hermann, Jean-Paul. Given the right sort of conditions, my partner would have let you go free. Hermann, he … he was the realist, yes? A cop to his last breath but a saint from the barn of his boyhood. He dragged the truth out of you in that little theatre, and you gave it to him.’
‘Walk gently, my fine. Do not move more than the necessary muscle.’
The girl waited. Judas to him though she was, St-Cyr said, ‘Josette … Josette, I am sorry my partner and I could not find a way to help you.’
‘The one from Bayonne, he … he has promised to see that my mother goes free, monsieur. Me, I could not do otherwise.’
‘The steps, Louis. You first, then myself, then Josette. We will go up on the ramparts so that Herr Munk and the others can see us. That will stop the executions and allow us a moment.’
The steps were worn, the stone bleached a yellowish-white but darker where the snow had reached and had begun to melt.
‘What made you change sides, Jean-Paul? You were always among the Far Right, loyal to the descendants of the throne and among the Cagoule. You welcomed the Nazis but now have chosen to switch sides. Please, at least allow me the generosity of knowing. By herself, Viviane Darnot would have kept out of it – ah yes, don’t deny you forced this girl’s mother into taking a terrible, terrible risk. A gamble, eh? The hiding of escapers first in her house and then in the villa of her former lover.’
Louis was only trying to excite Josette-Louise and turn the girl against him.
‘Well?’ shouted the Surete as they came up on to a broken rampart some ten metres above the main level of the ruins. Now there was sunshine everywhere and only the expansive blue of the sky above.
Two black eagles soared as they circled on an eddy and it was as if only the wind made a sound as it slipped over their wings so high above them.
‘It would take too long to tell you, Louis, so let us forget it, eh?’
They walked gingerly in single file along the rampart, picking their way past the gaps and over scattered blocks from once higher walls. When they came out into full view of those gathered below the village, they went up and up until they stood more than sixty metres above the base of the cliff.
Munk was now watching them through the binoculars of the SS major. Already two of the villagers had been executed. Hands tied behind their backs, the herbalist had stood against the wall and had fallen there; Dedou Fratani must have panicked at the last and run toward the guns.
The weaver, her hands also tied behind her back, stood where he had fallen and she, too, looked up towards them as did all the others.
‘The Boches will leave someday, Louis, but for now will only be satisfied with death. Yours, hers, Kohler’s …’
‘But not yours, eh? Is that how it is to be, Jean-Paul? Josette to pitch herself over the edge where her sister fell, while you, her father, go free?’