‘Why indeed? To signal to Danielle that our victim knew only too well what was going on or thought she did and that she had the sous-facteur Auger to call on if needed. That she was not alone.’
Juliette began to put her clothes on. First the leather thong with its amulet, as she looked towards them. Then the trousers she had borrowed from Courtet’s room, the shirt also, and finally, having tucked the shirt in, the espadrilles.
They watched her walk towards them. Condemned, she didn’t avoid their gaze but made straight for them with strides so strong they each could not help but envisage her naked as a savage of old.
‘Messieurs, what … what is it, please? The postcards of my father, have they. …’
‘Named you, madame?’ asked Louis. Sleep had cleared the blue eyes Fillioux had given her. Tears had misted them – yes, yes, but she was indeed ‘lovely.’
‘Please let me see them,’ she said.
Though cruel and harsh, he had to say it. ‘Later, madame. For now we must leave this place before your father returns.’
Ah damn him, why could he not understand that she had to see those cards, that she had to put an end to her agony? My father, she cried out inwardly. My father … a handaxe, a stonekiller. ‘It is not right of you to think such things of me! I loved my mother dearly.’
‘But she brought you up to worship your father, madame. Your father.’
They were on the road to Sarlat now and she knew they would leave her at the prefecture and that there was nothing she could do about it unless she could somehow get away from them. Instead of that carefree happiness, there was silence. Instead of racing each other down the hill, they rode with her between them, unsmiling, having again relegated her to the position of a suspect.
The next hill was steep but not so high. She would try to lag behind a little. She would let them reach the crown and perhaps start over it before she turned to escape. The woods … she must run into the woods.
Her heart sank as an ugly black car came over the hill to abruptly stop. A door was flung open at the sound of brakes. The sous-prefet Deveaux clambered out. Wiping sweat from his brow and wheezing painfully, he started downhill towards them. ‘Jean-Louis … ah mon Dieu, where the hell have you three been? I’ve been searching everywhere!’
‘sous-prefet …?’ began Louis.
‘It’s Odilon, my friend. Odilon and you had better listen to me. Madame,’ he said, dragging in a tortured breath. ‘Madame, a moment, please. Your husband.… First the Chief Inspector, yes, also Herr Kohler since I may yet be able to save their lives.’
‘Ah merde, Louis …,’ began Hermann only to hear his partner say, ‘Herr Oelmann, I think.’
‘Then think again,’ wheezed Deveaux, hauling out his cigarettes and lighter and pausing to fill his lungs with smoke. ‘Try the Sonderkommando of the Perigord, eh?’ He winced and coughed. ‘Try all eventualities and try to think what they might do because, my friends, I have it on the best authority – ah yes, I have my sources – that the Sonderkommando has been activated as of early this morning.’
‘Activated …,’ began Kohler.
‘Please don’t look so ill, Inspector. Vomiting on the roads is frowned on during the tourist season. The accusations of a forgery, you idiots. Herr Goebbels, Herr Himmler, Herr Hitler.… What the hell did you expect them to do?’
‘But … but we haven’t said the paintings are a forgery?’ tried Louis. ‘In fact, I said the opposite to the men who were checking things over at the cave.’
‘Perhaps, but perhaps not. Ah, it does not matter. It’s enough for them to fear such a thing.’
‘And Hen Oelmann?’ hazarded Louis.
Deveaux stabbed the air with his cigarette. ‘Found that one’s husband in his car and called in the troops.’
‘Louis, you should have asked me before you.…’
‘Hermann, be quiet!’
‘It’s all your fault. Verdammt! a fucking Sonderkommando. Oelmann must know the paintings are a forgery.’
Sparks flew as Hermann’s chest was stabbed. ‘He’s just not taking any chances, my friend. A stonekiller on the loose? The prehistorian Henri-Georges Fillioux? The Professor Courtet, he keeps a loaded revolver in his room – why … why, please, does he do such a thing unless … ah, unless he also knows the paintings are a forgery and that his former colleague and sworn enemy has suddenly decided to come back from the dead without his wings and feathers.’
Deveaux sucked in a breath and tore the top two buttons of his shirt open so as to allow his chest more room to expand. ‘Madame, my condolences. It appears that your father has used a handaxe to rip out the throat of your husband and save the world a whole lot of trouble. One could have wished for something a little more refined but …,’ he shrugged, ‘the result, it would be the same. Dead for at least …’ he counted the hours off on stumpy fingers, ‘for at least ten or perhaps twelve hours. My men are, of course, out in full force sweeping the countryside at the request of the Baron whose wife, it appears, is missing; the bit-player Toto Lemieux also. Filming is to begin in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne late this afternoon, so you can understand the urgency of things.’
Kohler thought of the swimming pool at the chateau. Had the Baroness gone for another deep dive and taken her Toto with her, or had the stonekiller got to them?
‘No one has seen either of them since you three left the chateau last night but I am certain the Baroness found the body in Herr Oelmann’s car. Bloodied fingerprints were smeared on the leather upholstery of the passenger seat next the corpse. Her handkerchief was found on the floor. Blood on it also.’
‘Good,’ said Louis with that curt little nod Kohler knew so well, that shaking of the head too. Shh, idiot! Don’t tell him I killed Jouvet. Not yet.
‘Good?’ exclaimed Deveaux. ‘What’s so good about it?’
Odilon was really upset but not without due cause. ‘The Baroness will have gone to the cave with her Toto to have another look at the paintings.’
‘Ah merde, Louis … Fillioux may be there.’
‘I will drive you,’ said Deveaux. ‘It will be faster, yes? and together we can take him. Leave the bicycles. Someone will steal them, of course, but …,’ he shrugged, ‘there is nothing we can do about it.’
‘The bicycles, Louis.…’
‘Madame Jouvet, Hermann.’
‘The carpet-bag. She’s got it in her carrier basket’
‘Ah no, madame,’ began Deveaux. ‘The chest … the breath. Please, I cannot run after you.’
She reached the top of the next hill to leap off the bicycle and leave it lying in the road as she caught up the carpet-bag and raced for the cover of the nearby woods. ‘Gone,’ swore Kohler. ‘Ah nom de Jesus-Christ! Louis, she’s vanished.’
St-Cyr let go of him and calmed his voice. ‘Follow her. You will see where her trail is. Find her, Hermann, and bring her back for her sake as much as for our own. Odilon will return to meet you here.’
‘And you?’ asked Kohler, worrying about him.
‘The cave, I think. The Baroness and her dog.’
An hour … two hours … Had it taken so long? wondered Kohler apprehensively. Downslope of him, moss-covered rectangular slabs and blocks of damp, grey limestone lay among oak and chestnut trees whose trunks were dark in the leafy shade.
There was still no sight of Juliette but he felt he had at last run her to ground. A twisted ankle – an espadrille had lain on a boulder – then the other one had been found and then the impressions of her bare feet in the moss. Limping … really limping.
She would have to hole up. Fillioux? he asked anxiously. Had she been heading for a rendezvous only the two of them knew?