Bewildered, Kohler threw up a hand before bolting round a corner and out of sight. ‘Go left, idiot!’
The Bavarian reappeared, doubling back. ‘Now left again.’
‘Klaus, he’s getting away!’
‘Work to the left as he’s been told, Helmut!’
The two men were now so close to Hermann, it was only a matter of seconds until they caught him.
Gabrielle Arcuri put her hands on the Surete’s shoulders and stood on tiptoe to look out over him. ‘Right – your friend must first take the right aisle, Inspector, but not go into the tower. He’d never find its secret door. Then he must run to the left and back into the cedars.’
As Ackermann’s men bolted into the central clearing around the little tower, Hermann did as he was told. Harried, winded – terrified and in a sweat.
‘Now another right,’ she said, gripping the shoulders.
St-Cyr yelled it, and then … ah, Mon Dieu … ‘Hermann, duck!’
Kohler threw himself down. Shots ripped over him. He returned fire, just to let the bastards know he was carrying. He didn’t want to hit them. Not the SS, not his buddies, his confreres. They’d garrotte him, that’s what they’d do.
As he got up to run, Mademoiselle Arcuri said breathlessly, ‘Now a right, and another and another. He must not go left no matter how much he desires it.’ One could feel the tension in her.
Kohler started to make his way towards the front entrance along an aisle that seemed to lead him there, but the left… the left… this place. Should he not go left?
St-Cyr shouted the orders and the Bavarian went right at the next doorway but Ackermann’s men were swift. Firing as they ran, they came to the doorway and turned to the right. Ah damn!
‘Now a left, Jean-Louis. A left!’
St-Cyr yelled as never before. Still clinging to him, she said, ‘Now round the maze and into the woods. He must lead them away. He must give us time.’
Ah, what was this?
Kohler found his legs but so did the other two. No thoughts of shooting him now, only those of stopping him.
Zigzagging among the topiary in his bare feet, he headed for the stone wall at the back. Too many cigarettes … too many late nights … Ah, Gott in Himmel, was he to die like this?
The gargoyles frowned from atop the stone wall. Tearing his fingers on the rough stonework, tripping, falling flat and losing his gun, his precious gun, he dragged himself up and pitched through the opening.
The other two followed, and the grounds soon fell to silence while the woods gave up an occasional yell.
Satisfied, the chanteuse breathed in deeply, and when St-Cyr turned to face her, there was still the ghost of a momentary excitement in her eyes.
‘So, we make a kind of team, eh, Inspector? You and me, we fit pretty good after all.’
He hated to spoil things. ‘Madame …’
The excitement disappeared. ‘Yes … Yes, I know, Inspector. I’m a married woman. Me, I have not forgotten that you wish to meet my husband.’
The wind sighed through the embrasures. As before, the central stairwell was surrounded by a landing off which four gaps gave out to embrasures. Heavily studded doors with ancient locks led to rooms. It was the sort of place they used to put erring daughters or sons who’d lose their heads.
When they reached the top floor, she watched him as his eyes settled on each of the doors.
Again he heard the sighing of the wind. To have no heat, to always be cold … Surely the husband …
Stepping away from her, he went to look out over the maze to the woods beyond. Hopefully Hermann would lose them. They’d have to meet at the mill after dark. ‘Mademoiselle Arcuri …’
Would he arrest her after all? ‘There you go again, Inspector. Mademoiselle this, and Mademoiselle that.’
‘Your husband, madame?’
‘Which room do you think he’s in?’ she asked. ‘Let’s see how sharp you are, Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale.’
How bitter she was about it. ‘The key … we’ll need the key,’ he said.
‘The key,’ she echoed. ‘Me, I am sorry, Monsieur the Inspector, but I’ve forgotten to bring it.’
Deliberately she’d made him feel stupid. ‘He’s not a prisoner, is he?’
‘Yes … Yes, in a manner of speaking he is.’
The forest-green sweater, the bright red ribbon in her hair, the skirt and shoes made her appear innocent – the adventuress, perhaps, but a murderess …? Ah, Mon Dieu, it was so hard to tell.
She knew he still had his doubts about her. It was to be of no use then, that bit of fun, that chance to forget things for a moment as his partner had escaped from the maze. Now this. A final confrontation. A time of decision for him, a last sad song for her.
‘The key’s hanging up there,’ she confessed, and reaching beyond him into shadow, took the thing down. ‘It opens all of them, but he’s in the room directly across from us.’
As he took the ancient key from her, St-Cyr said humbly, ‘What happened to him?’
‘Just open the door, will you? We really don’t have all that much time.’
She was angry with him – disheartened, perhaps, but definitely disappointed.
The lock was stiff, the door even stiffer and heavy … so heavy. ‘Our ancestors …’ he began, heaving on the thing.
The room was empty except for a plain oak casket that lay in the centre of the floor where it could catch a bit of sun from the only window. She remained on the landing, framed by the ancient doorway, caught as it were by what he’d found.
‘When … When did he die?’ Damn, he felt a fool! That voice on the telephone to Yvette. He’d been so sure …
‘In August, the twenty-third to be precise. Two days before his thirty-eighth birthday. We hid him, yes – since the defeat of 1940 – but he didn’t run away from the fighting, if that’s what you’re thinking. Two of his men stole a staff car and drove him half-way across France to be with his mother because, Inspector, when a man is in great pain all he can do is cry out for his mother.’
Not his wife, not his lover. ‘Madame, please forgive me.’
‘Jerome found out. Hans Ackermann suspected – they leave no stones unturned, the SS and their Gestapo.’
‘Yet you helped my partner just now?’
‘Only because I had to. If Hans should find this, he’ll do exactly as you’ve said. Jeanne will be sent into forced labour and Rene Yvon-Paul to a reformatory. Me, I don’t care much about this place. Perhaps Hans secretly has it in mind to confiscate it. I wouldn’t really know. But I could not stand to see my son sent away.’
‘Did you murder Yvette? Please, I must have the truth.’
‘Would you send me to the guillotine if I told you that I had?’
Dear God, must she make it so hard for him? ‘Yes … yes, though I would hate myself ever afterwards, I would have to do so.’
‘Even in a time of war? Yvette couldn’t be allowed to live, Inspector. You do understand? She knew far too much. Hans … Hans was getting too close. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think straight. The Resistance … those little black coffins, I …’
At last she stepped into the room. The slender fingers sought the casket, she crouching to give it a last goodbye. ‘Jeanne bought this in le Mans, well out of the district. We squirrelled it away after dark. No questions. Only the doctor knew about Charles and he’d been sworn to silence – she’s very good at things like that. Have you noticed?’
St-Cyr said nothing – so it was to be the silent treatment after all. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it, Inspector, if a Frenchman is alive or dead, so long as you’ve hidden him and the German authorities want him?’
‘Mademoiselle Arcuri…’
There you go again. It’s Gabrielle. Not Natasha, never Natasha. Not any more.’
‘We have no time. They’ve caught my partner.’
The stables were not far but when they got there, Hermann had already been tied by the wrists to the stall boards on either side of the central corridor. His feet were bleeding. One trouser leg was torn. There was a cut above the right eye. He’d lost his hat and had for company two of the Chateau Theriault’s more curious brood mares and one of Ackermann’s men.