‘You can drive us back,’ he shouted encouragingly. ‘Hey, I’m going to let you.’
‘Be quiet. Let me think in peace. I will close the eyes, so as to shut out the infamy of darkness that has found us on the road without headlamps, or had you forgotten the Wehrmacht must have removed them for security’s sake?’
‘Verdammt, this old girl is throwing enough sparks out behind to let the whole world know!’
So she was.
Just outside the tiny hamlet of Kerhostin, on the spit of sand that joined the once-severed island of Quiberon to the mainland, they ran out of fuel and were forced to smash up several of the seats. Chilled by sweat, St-Cyr cursed the blitzkrieg pace the Germans always demanded. No time for an apéritif and simple contemplation, no time even for a piss.
‘Don’t even think of it!’ snapped the driver. ‘I’m not stopping.’
Kerjean’s evasiveness was troubling, but did it stem from guilt or worry over something else? Something between himself and the shopkeeper — the contents of that missing briefcase perhaps? Or was it something Paulette le Trocquer and/or her mother could well have overheard and might at any time reveal to others?
Victor had a son in the army. Had the boy been badly wounded and sent home, or was he in a POW camp in the Reich? If the former, Victor would want him out of France; if the latter, why, out of Germany for a fee of at least 100,000 francs, the going rate. Money would be needed. Had money been found?
What was it Madame Quévillon had said to Hermann about the fishing boats? ‘Some leave never to return.’ For centuries Bretons in the north had been sailing to England to sell onions, other produce and lace, to smuggle also. But Vannes and the Morbihan were so much farther south.
Yet from here they had sailed in their simple craft to Portugal, Morocco and Mauritania to collect langoustes, the spiny-lobsters which they then had stored in tanks at Concarneau and other places.
It was something that would have to be checked out. That blind spot on the railway spur, that shed and the bicycle tracks … the denial of these.
And a violent argument. The threat of tax assessors and a girl who heard only one name but was certain of it.
‘But if you ask me,’ the girl Paulette had said, ‘it’s a queer enough thing for a man to want to make dolls, let alone to make them of people he knows, especially if they are from around here and can be identified by others.’
By the Préfet, he asked, or by the husband of Madame Charbonneau? and knew now that this was what Paulette had meant.
‘Merde,’ he murmured sadly, ‘that girl had best be careful lest the odds of her surviving equal those of the U-boat crews.’
4
‘The house near Kerouriec …’ began St-Cyr. ‘It’s magnificent, Hermann. Grey granite block that faces the sea and softly glows in the pitch darkness while the sound of breakers is constant. All of the shutters are open but the black-out curtains pulled. Not a sliver of light escapes.’
‘Quit going on about it. Let’s get this over with. I’m hungry and tired.’
‘And impatient. A moment, please, my old one.’
They had walked up the road from the bus and now stood beside a granite pedestal on which, in addition to its bronze sundial, there were several seashells and pebbles, and the bleached remains of a gull. ‘The child,’ murmured Kohler, fingering the collection.
‘Yes. Is she the one to check for escaping light? If so, then her stepmother is willing to place great trust in her and is very astute. It is a thing most parents fail to do.’
The house rose up from the grassy moorland perhaps one hundred metres from the shore and clustered pines. It had a narrow, older, taller wing to the left, one of two storeys with tall, thin chimneys and a circular dormer in the attic in which there was a spy-hole window the child must love.
The rest of the house was much more recent — perhaps three hundred years old, thought St-Cyr. Of one storey with flanking gables and an attic dormer dead centre.
Tall French windows were set below and equally spaced on either side of the front entrance. Above this entrance, at the end of the main hall, or off the largest bedroom, there was a small porch with a Louis XIV iron railing so that the mistress of the house could open those doors in summer and stand looking out towards the sea.
That sigh Kohler thought he knew so well came, prompting him to say tartly, ‘If not a return to some lousy patch of soil your ancestors might have tilled, then retirement to a place like this, eh? We’re wasting time, Chief.’
A cinematographer at heart, St-Cyr gave another, deeper sigh. ‘Time is never wasted when atmosphere is absorbed. To understand a suspect or possible witness, understand the place and the surroundings in which he or she lives. Try to learn, Hermann, so that when this war is over you will have something tangible to take home with you.’
‘Piss off! We’re here to stay in France for ever and you know it. Stalingrad means nothing. It’s just a setback.’
The Sixth Army were surrounded and all but being annihilated. Hermann knew it only too well and was a realist but one must not argue with him now.
They pulled the bell chain in unison. From behind a black-out curtain came a shrill challenge as the door opened a little. ‘Who is it, please?’
‘Two detectives from …’ began St-Cyr.
‘Detectives? You had better come in then. She did it. She crushed his head with a rock until the blood spurted from his nose.’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ. ‘Of course. That is just as we have thought.’
The beam of a torch blinded him. Pushed from behind, he brushed the curtain aside and blinked.
Stunning, wide-set grey-blue eyes met his from under a cascade of light brown hair. The delicately chiselled face, with its lovely smooth brow and cheeks, was intensely serious.
‘She’s in the kitchen. Use the bracelets. Have you guns? She might be difficult and will need restraining.’
Merde … ‘Your stepmother?’
‘Yes!’
‘Angélique, what have you been saying? Pour l’amour duciel, child, why must you do this to me? I loved your mother as a sister. She was my dearest friend.’
‘Madame …’
The woman dried her hands on the tea towel she held then didn’t know what to do with it. inspectors … Préfet Kerjean warned me you would come, but tonight? After dark? So soon? I …’
‘There, what did I tell you?’ spat the child, stamping a foot.
The woman was tall and in her late thirties or perhaps early forties, it was hard to say. Of Paris most definitely and proud of it. Defiantly her dark hazel eyes refused to retreat from the Sûreté’s surveillance though conscious also of the Gestapo’s.
The dark, almost black hair was long and loose and thick and a little untidy for she’d been busy but she’d not trouble to tidy it in front of them. The forehead was clear and smooth and wide, the eyebrows decisive. The dark eyes were serious and unwavering, the lips exquisite, the chin smooth. A very attractive woman who would keep her looks for a very long time if allowed.
‘You had best come in then,’ she said at last, giving them a non-committal shrug. ‘Angélique, please go and watch the stew. We can’t burn it.’
‘I won’t. You can’t order me around any more!’
‘Angélique!’
The child fled. In shock, the woman fought to get a grip on herself and at last succeeded. ‘I can offer little, Inspectors. There is some cider. It’s really very good. She made it.’