Madame Noel, a plumpish woman in her early fifties, was weeping buckets but did she weep not only for her lost children but also because she’d been the one to tell Jerome who his real father had been? At fifty some women do get twinges of conscience about such things, especially if a son is about to give himself to God and so must have the truth.
The face of the father, a man in his early sixties, was impassive; that of the abbot the same. Grim, taciturn and unforgiving. Angry too.
If only Yvette could tell him what had really happened. If only the girl would sit up suddenly and shout it out.
Her hands were clasped. Three lilies and her rosary had been placed in them. Even from a distance of perhaps twenty-five metres, St-Cyr could tell the funeral parlour had worked miracles and touched her up like a chef with a fallen cake. There was no sign of the bullet that had killed her. The eyes were closed and she slept. The wedding dress was white and of lace, her mother’s perhaps? Ah no, the grandmother’s. The end of the family. No need to save such things any more.
Gone … gone to ashes and to dust.
With Jerome they’d not been so successful or perhaps they hadn’t cared so much. One could still detect the place where the boulder had struck him.
Although there were other possibilities – Charles Maurice Theriault in particular – St-Cyr felt certain that somewhere below him was the murderer of Jerome Noel.
But not that of his sister? he asked. Was her killer absent?
Kohler cursed their luck as the Daimler turned into the graveyard and drove slowly to the church. Ackermann had brought his driver and adjutant with him, and one other man – his second perhaps. Heaps of cut flowers: three white wicker baskets for a couple of kids he didn’t even know – or did he? – and three large wreaths. A classic National Socialist barf? Flowers and concern for those you’d bumped off?
All were SS and in uniform. The son-of-a-bitch had duel written all over him and so did the other two. Now what the hell was he going to do? Leave Louis to it and scram?
Ackermann took one frozen look his way before marching swiftly to the door and whipping off his cap.
In under the left arm with it. Ja … Ja, that is correct, Herr General!
The adjutant yanked the church door open and snapped to attention. Stiff as a pecker at dawn and beautifully done.
The other one took a little longer to survey him. No smiles, just an emptiness that was unsettling.
They followed the general into the church. The flowers and the wreaths were stuffed in after them by willing assistants and no doubt passed from hand to hand and up to the front to announce their late arrival.
So good of Ackermann. Some guys had what it took.
‘Ah, Mon Dieu, Brigitte, that’s the one I saw Jerome with. Me, I am certain of it,’ whispered the shopgirl nearest him.
‘Are you sure?’ whispered her friend. Both of the girls were in their mid-teens and had obviously got time off from work.
Brown Eyes said, ‘Positive! Jerome got into his car – me, I recognize it – but they were alone, Brigitte. At dusk.’
‘When?’ Kohler heard himself ask like a voice from another planet.
‘When?’ blurted Brown Eyes, glancing apprehensively up at him. Ah no, a cop!
Kohler nodded. The girl flicked her eyes at her friend and then back again. ‘Last summer – in June … the middle of June. Yes … yes, I am certain. They … they drove down to the river.’
Oh, did they now? ‘At dusk?’
‘Yes … Yes, it was at dusk.’
‘And you followed them? You were on your bicycle?’
The brown eyes fled to the church. She’d just known today would be a disaster. First her period and now … now this. ‘Are you from the police?’ she asked, summoning a courage beyond her years.
‘I’m from Marseilles. I came up because I’m a distant relative of the Noels. We heard about things and wanted to see if there was anything we could do.’
The girl tossed her wavy hair and stared straight ahead. From Marseilles, eh? More like Munich! ‘Me, I did not have my bicycle with me, monsieur. I did not follow them to the river.’
Oh yeah? Kohler gripped the two of them firmly by the arm and hustled them out of the crowd. When they reached the open graves, he let go of them. ‘Now start talking. I’m from the Gestapo. Everything your little hearts can cough up unless you want to find yourselves in one of these.’
They both began to cry. At fifteen or sixteen years of age what else would one have done? ‘Look, I’ve been a lousy father but I need to know a few things, eh? A life may well be in danger. Real danger. Another murder perhaps.’
Brown Eyes broke. ‘Yvette … Yvette, she met me on the road just above the river and she stopped me. I was only going to watch. I wasn’t going to say anything!’
‘Yes, yes. Now calm down and let me have the rest of it.’
‘She … she has said I was to mind my own business, that I was trespassing on the Domaine Theriault. Me who has always gone there to swim! And now she’s dead! Murdered!’
Kohler held the girl by the shoulders and tried to comfort her. He knew he was all clumsiness at this sort of thing.
‘What else did she say? Hey, come on now. I’m not going to hurt you. Me, I was just kidding about the graves.’
The kid sniffed in. ‘That … that the general, he was a very powerful man and that he’d … he’d send me to Germany as forced labour if I didn’t do as she said. Me, I was to keep my mouth shut and I have, monsieur. I have! Until this day.’
There was more blubbering, more shaking, the face buried in the hands and the forehead pressed against him with the other girl looking on like death.
Kohler dragged out his handkerchief. ‘Blow,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s clean, even if it is German. Dry your eyes.’
The girl did as she was told. ‘Thanks … thanks. That is very kind of you, monsieur.’ Kind of the Gestapo!
‘So, okay, now listen, eh? Can you remember anything else about that evening?’
The girl sucked in a ragged breath and shook her head.
‘Think hard.’
‘No, nothing, monsieur. I swear it. I …’
‘Well?’
‘Me, I have passed one of the brothers on the way home. He … he was heading for the river and in a great hurry. He didn’t look up at me.’
A coldness came to Kohler. ‘Which of the brothers?’
‘Michael … the one who makes the wine.’
So Brother Michael had gone after Jerome as had Yvette. ‘Were they lovers?’ he asked. God help him. ‘The general and Jerome?’
The girls stiffened in alarm. Lovers …? Jerome who had such a slender body? Jerome who swam in the nude and brushed the water from his body while standing in the shallows.
Neither of them could take their eyes from the graves. Lovers … Jerome who would lie naked on the sand …
The one called Brigitte hastily crossed herself and whispered, ‘Perhaps.’
Brown Eyes emptily said, ‘It can’t be so.’
*
Ackermann’s entry into the church fulfilled a detective’s dream. Miraculously three places were made for him and his associates at the front, next to the aisle, the abbot and the brothers shifting over.
In one glance from the balcony St-Cyr could sweep the lot of them into focus, both the dead and the living. Ah, Mon Dieu, to have the camera rolling at such a moment. It was almost too good to be true.
But why had Ackermann done it? To allay suspicion? To cover up? Or out of courtesy to a distant cousin?
His presence could only tar the countess with the label of a collaborator. Had that been what he’d had in mind? It was a thought St-Cyr was certain he shared with the countess.
The eulogy droned up to him. Two young people taken in the flower of life. A brother and his sister, et cetera, et cetera.
St-Cyr shut the priest out and concentrated on the mourners. The abbot was nervous – understandably so. To sit next to the SS, to have had to move aside for them, could not have been easy. But had Ackermann wanted to warn him? Was that it?