Rocco waited until Didier’s footsteps faded away down the steps, then stepped inside the house. The shotgun was lying on the kitchen table. He picked it up and placed it out of sight behind a chair, then slid off his shoes and followed Didier down into the dark.
He was at the bottom of the steps before he saw a dim light at one end of the cellar, through a narrow doorway. He stopped to allow his eyes to adjust and checked the floor for obstacles. The atmosphere down here was surprisingly dry, and smelt faintly of nothing more noxious than machine oil. He moved away from the steps and edged towards the light.
Didier had his back to him. He was kneeling in front of a large metal cabinet, with a leather bag by his side. He was dropping items into it in rapid succession, using his one good arm.
Rocco took in the room at a glance. The doorway where he was standing was a cheap plywood partition to section off this end of the cellar from the rest. Apart from the metal cabinet, there was a table, an armchair and a wardrobe. Along one wall was a wine rack filled with dust-covered bottles. A radio stood on a shelf on the opposite wall, with a line of thin paperback books below it. Cheap novels and ageing wine, Rocco noted. Didier’s attempt at a higher form of life than the one he presented to the outside world.
Something must have changed in the atmosphere to alert the scrap man, because he uttered a shrill sound and spun round, dropping something on the floor.
It was a thick wad of money bound together with a rubber band. Alongside it lay a film reel.
Rocco leant against the wall and made sure Didier could see the gun in his hand.
‘Come back for vital supplies?’ he murmured. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the confined space. He gestured for Didier to stand up.
Didier did as he was told, his eyes hot, black holes in a yellowed face. If he was alarmed by Rocco’s sudden appearance, he wasn’t showing it. The stump of his arm was sheathed in a filthy bandage and covered with a plastic bag, and dried blood the colour of a milky chocolate drink showed where it had seeped through the gauze. He hadn’t shaved and looked even gaunter than Rocco remembered. And sick. He was amazed the man was still standing.
‘What do you want?’ Didier demanded. ‘Money?’ He nodded at the wad of notes on the floor. ‘Take it, it’s yours. If you let me go.’
‘No chance.’ Rocco stared at him with disgust. ‘You think you can just buy yourself out of this?’
‘Why not? It’s what you people do, isn’t it — take money to look the other way?’
Rocco stepped forward. He resisted the impulse to lash out, instead nudging Didier into the armchair. He bent and flicked open the bag. It contained a few items of clothing and more cash in rubber bands. And something wrapped in greaseproof paper.
‘You taking a holiday?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘They came to kill you, didn’t they? The men in the woods. What was that about — thieves falling out?’
Didier said nothing, simply sat hunched in the chair with a brooding menace.
‘Of course, you know he’ll get away with it.’ Rocco hitched one hip onto the corner of the table, his gun resting on his thigh. Didier stared fixedly at it, but said nothing. ‘People like him always do. They’re like greaseproof paper — nothing sticks to those ex-SOE types.’
At the mention of the SOE, Didier’s eyes shifted. A bright light was shining there, and Rocco shrugged elaborately, feigning indifference. ‘Still, what’s new, eh? Shit always sinks, you know that. He must have had his life planned since that night in forty-four. Lose the money, come back for it later when nobody was about and sail off into the sunset. He was on his own out there, with nobody to watch him. So what could go wrong?’ Rocco snapped his fingers. ‘Ah, silly me. You were there, weren’t you? Threw a bit of a spanner in the works I expect. But he was adaptable — the SOE had taught him that. He tipped some of the money your way and off you went like two honeymooners, set up for life.’
‘ Bastard! ’ Didier was breathing heavily, his jaw working. A dribble of saliva oozed down his chin and his good hand was shaking as if he’d been holding a road drill for too long.
‘What was that?’ Rocco leant forward. ‘Didn’t quite catch it.’
‘I should have had more!’ Didier spat out, pushing himself forward in the chair. ‘He cheated me… kept me under his foot all these years and treated me like filth! If it wasn’t for me, he’d have been under the guillotine a long time ago!’ He kicked suddenly, catching the corner of the metal cabinet with his boot. ‘But what I’ve got in there, he’ll live to regret it.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
It began to ease out, like pus from a gangrenous wound, and Rocco listened, rhythmically swinging his leg. The regular movement seemed to calm Didier, keeping him talking as if hypnotised, a metronomic inducer of all his innermost secrets.
‘I knew he was up to something. He spent too much time out on his own at night, walking in the fields near the drop zone. Why would he risk that unless he was looking for something? One night I followed him. I saw him with an oilskin package — like they used for wrapping stuff. He took it out of a ditch, in a drop canister.’
‘Money?’
‘Yes. I watched him counting it.’
‘How much?’
‘I forget.’ Didier shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. Back then, anything was worth having.’
‘Go on.’
‘I said I wanted a cut. He refused at first, then agreed. Knew I’d tell, otherwise. He gave me a wad, said he was heading south to get the escape pipeline out. But the others found out what he’d done and threatened to tell London. He agreed to meet them, to give the money back. But he got in touch with the Nazis instead and told them where the meeting was taking place. He didn’t turn up, of course.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Because they were waiting, weren’t they? The Germans. At the quarry.’ His eyes glittered sharply. Sly. ‘It could only have been him.’
‘Or you.’
‘Me?’ Didier shifted his arm, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’
‘Because you argued with one of the men over Elise.’
‘ Elise? ’ Didier looked surprised by the mention of the name. Then a shadow of understanding crossed his face. ‘Christ, is that what that daft bitch Francine told you? She’s not right, that one. Follows me here and then tries to kill me, can you believe that?’
‘You knew?’ Rocco thought back to his talk with Francine. She had clearly thought otherwise.
‘Of course I did — I knew as soon as I first saw her. She looks a lot like her sister. She’s cracked, you know that? I stayed out of her way. Can’t be doing with people like that.’
‘You didn’t feel threatened by her turning up here after all those years?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘Because it’s impossible to believe, that’s why!’ Rocco felt annoyed by the man’s play-acting. ‘The whole of France to choose from and you two pitch up in the same small village?’
Didier gave a sign of agreement. ‘OK. It was spooky, I grant you. But stranger things have happened. As far as I could tell she didn’t recognise me… never gave a hint. I thought it best to leave it that way.’
‘But you can see how she might have seen things — about her sister and you. And you were the only other survivor.’
‘Yeah, all right. I had a thing for Elise… but I wasn’t that put out just because she wouldn’t play. And it wasn’t me who told the Germans. I turned up early but I smelt them before I got there. You think I wanted to be hunted down by every Resistance gunman in France for betraying the group? No way. The kid’s got it in her twisted mind that it was my fault. Well, it wasn’t — it was Berbier’s.’