‘Uncle Jean-Paul, he has not been able to take it from me this time, Josette. Me, I have made certain of this.’
‘Good. He had a photograph taken of me in Paris, Josianne. This I could not understand but now fear he has given it to the Gestapo.’
‘Yes, yes, he will have done such a thing. Didn’t Viviane tell you what he had asked of her?’
Chamonix … had it been in the villa near there?
‘Viv has not written to me for some time. Not since she became so very afraid of what was happening. Are there really maquis in the hills, Josianne? Please, the Inspector St-Cyr, he will want to know of this. It is very important to him.’
‘Alain says the hills, they are empty, that it is now too cold in the mountains.’
‘Are you in love with him?’
‘Josette, I’ve longed to tell you about it. Josette, I’ve lain in his arms beneath the stars and he has filled my soul and my body with rapture.’
There was a pause and then, ‘Me, I wish I had such a lover. Someone to banish the terrible loneliness of the big city, but now I am afraid I will never experience such a thing. Paris, it was not good for me, Josianne. I failed miserably at everything I tried so hard to do.’
‘You should have come home. Mother should have let you.’
‘Yes, yes, she should have let me.’
Chamonix … the weaver …? puzzled St-Cyr, desperately trying to clutch at the windblown chaff of a fragmented memory.
‘Were you very jealous of me?’ asked Josianne-Michele coyly.
‘At your having such a lover? Ah no, my sister. Envious, perhaps, and happy for you who have suffered so much.’
Ah damn, were the sisters at each other’s throats?
‘Josette, our father forced himself upon me time and again. Please, it is so very difficult for me to tell you this, but the Inspector, he should hear it from myself.’
‘And Alain … what does Alain say about it?’ asked Josette suspiciously.
Pride entered. ‘Alain, he says that it does not make any difference to him, but me, I was so ashamed and so afraid, it took forever for me to let him touch me.’
Now bitterness and jealousy intruded. ‘You were always Alain’s favourite, Josianne. Me, I could never get him to do the things I asked of him. He must be very kind to you, petite. He must still be the very gentle and sensitive person I knew.’
The epileptic betrayed anger. ‘Ludo wants us to get married; Madame Anne-Marie would not allow it. She refused absolutely to give us her blessing.’
There had been tears in that last little bit. Ah Nom de Dieu …
‘Are you with child – is it Alain’s?’ hazarded the sister.
‘Yes.’
St-Cyr found the place where the two of them had stood among a cluster of statuary beside the ruins of a broken wall. Crouching, he ran his hands lightly over the frozen clods of earth that lay beneath their dusting of snow.
Josianne-Michele Buemondi had been in Chamonix with Viviane Darnot. Jean-Paul Delphane had gone to the clinic to find the weaver after the shot had been fired.
But the weaver had been in the villa just before the financier had been killed. St-Cyr knew he had seen her in that mirror. He had looked up suddenly to the floor above them, had been momentarily distracted …
‘Viviane …? Viviane, are you there? Mother, why won’t you answer me? Mother, please! I think I’m going to kill myself.’
The girl had been suicidal, and Viviane Darnot had intervened and taken her to Chamonix for treatment. But the voice he had heard just before being hit on the back of the head had not been that of Josianne-Michele. It had been Josette-Louise who had called out, ‘Mother, please! I think I’m going to kill myself.’
The screech of tyres and throb of engines pelted them out of the heart of the city and up the boulevard Carnot towards Le Cannet and the villa. Jammed into a back seat and held at gunpoint, Kohler managed to touch the weaver’s hand. He felt her fingers close about his own and wanted to tell her he’d do everything he could to save her.
Forbidden to talk, she watched through tear-filled eyes as they raced past darkened streets, and he held her fingers a little tighter and tried to tell her again.
She could not stop herself from trembling. In image after image, Kohler knew she would see herself being thrown to the floor. Dazed and bleeding, she would try to get up, try to speak out but Jean-Paul Delphane, that bastard would have her by the hair. He would drag her up and rip the dress from her. Shivering uncontrollably, she would clutch her bare shoulders. The brassiere would be torn from her and then the underpants. Reeling from a blow, she would stumble and fall and try to get away. Blood would burst from her battered lips, a breast would be savagely kicked. No breath, no breath … In agony, her mouth would keep opening and closing until she had passed out. ‘Answers! he shrieked. ‘We must have answers, Viviane! It is necessary for you to give them.’
Kohler shook his head to clear it. The bastard hadn’t shrieked. He’d said it quietly, was arrogant and cock-sure of himself because that was the only way he could bluff it out.
Viviane Darnot saw that Jean-Paul had turned to look at her. The streets flashed past. The headlamps flung their beams across a row of empty shops. They caught puzzled onlookers frozen in their tracks, gaping and too stunned by panic to move.
‘I will not give them the answers you want, Jean-Paul. Josette means everything to me.’
The one from Bayonne leaned over the back of the seat to trace a finger under her chin. In revulsion, she jerked her head away and swore, ‘Don’t touch me! Don’t you ever touch me again.’
‘Just give them the answers they must hear.’
‘I have nothing to say.’
‘Then I will let them have Josette, Viviane. Josette was in on it too. There is proof enough.’
‘Your daughter? Your own flesh and blood? Have you become so heartless, you would sacrifice her to save yourself?’
Lunging over the seat, he struck her twice and then again. She shrieked and tried to get away. Kohler struggled to help her.
Lights were flung over the Villa of the Golden Oracle as they raced up to it and slammed on the brakes. ‘Out!’ shrieked Delphane. ‘Get out and see what becomes of you.’
‘Je … Je …’ She tried to say his name.
Leaning forward, Kohler breathed, ‘You’ve forgotten something, my fine. St-Cyr has it in for you and so have I.’
Delphane tossed an indifferent hand. ‘Pah! What are you both to me? Nothing but vermin that need to be stamped on!’
‘But rats in trouble always go around in circles inside the bottom of the barrel, my friend, and two of them will eat a third if left alone long enough. The Abwehr had your number, right? So you went over to Gestapo Cannes, but Munk’s no fool. He wants us to sort you out.’
‘Then me, I will drop the tom-cat into the barrel and let them see what happens!’
‘You do that, but remember the barrel gets filled with water, and cats can’t swim as well as rats.’
They were hustled into the villa and up the stairs at a run. Viviane Darnot saw the doors to the bedrooms flashing past, some open, others not … A porcelain vase was accidentally knocked over, then some glassware …
Spinning, stumbling, falling drunkenly, she was thrown into Anne-Marie’s bedroom and left to claw herself upright. Retreated hesitantly from them in horror of what they were going to do to her. Held the back of a hand to her broken lips.
‘Now talk,’ said Munk quietly. ‘You were helping your lover to get escaped prisoners of war out of France, mademoiselle. You are a British citizen and have a bank account in England on which you wrote numerous cheques. In return, money was handed over to you and you gave this to Madame Buemondi to finance your activities. Behind that painting is a wall safe. You are to open it.’
There was nothing in his eyes, no thought of compassion, and she knew then that he would let Jean-Paul beat her to death, knew the others would all stand around and watch.